The three of us waited, tense, as the dog-faced Higher demon stood opposed to us, his bow up and ready.
“The only thing you’ll be eating,” Pearl began, “is the business end of my sword.” Her foot slid to the side across the rooftop as she got ready to strike.
“I tried telling Makkari that you were the one behind this,” the demon growled. “Prideful fool didn’t think you were capable. “Killing Krakki’l and banishing you must have really rustled your feathers to see you bound to a whelp of a mortal. The shame must be insurmountable.”
“On the contrary.” Pearl grinned. “I’m more powerful than ever, and my soulmate could walk you like a dog, Beera.”
The demon shook his head. “Fancy wings or not, a mortal cannot stand up to someone like me. Even you yourself are hobbled, having been removed from your station.”
“Word travels slow, then.” Pearl stood up straighter and relaxed. “Because I have been reinstated.”
I watched Beera, trying to gauge his reaction to that news. He paused as if his brain was trying to decide if that was a notable threat or not, before his own demonic pride overrode self-preservation. He grinned instead.
“Perhaps you could send your pet human to duel me then, if you hold so much faith in him?”
Thumb rubbing at the grip of my revolver, I glanced between Pearl and Wight. All on the same page, it was as if we had shared the script beforehand. Rehearsed and practiced with perfect precision. I ran my tongue across my teeth. All present, although a little sharper than I was used to.
“Sure,” I said. “Go on five.”
“Oh? Such hubris will be your undoing.” He withdrew another large arrow and put it to his flaming bow.
Personally, I felt like if hubris could have killed me, it would have done so a long time ago. I’d survived the impossible and grown in strength to a level almost unimaginable. Even now, knowing how much stronger this demon was than me, I was pretty certain I’d win.
Half of that feeling was due to the fact that we were about to cheat.
Five.
The arrow came out like a bullet. Far faster than I could move. I put all my energy into blocking it instead, sparks blooming from the front of my revolver as the two demonic energies clashed. As my vision cleared, Beera had leaped high into the air, another arrow primed to fire down at me.
I shrugged and grinned wider.
His brow furrowed at my inaction, before his eyes darted down below. A fifteen-foot wide beam of entropic energy blasted up at him.
He dropped from the air, skin patchy and smoldering, fur burned away. Leather straps fell away from his body as they were unable to withstand the damage. With fangs bared, he growled towards my pact demon - who was currently sinking through the roof, flipping him off with both clawed hands.
Beera flashed his gaze back to my position, drawing a fresh arrow - but I wasn’t there.
Wings had taken me up in the air as he had dropped. A fifteen-foot wide beam of pure divine energy from my gun cored the building at an angle. Light envelopped the demon before it faded away.
Breathing heavily, wisps of smoke rose from the bloodied areas of his face and torso. It looked like he was rather strong, to have survived such an attack from us both.
“Impressive, but all you’ve done is anger me.” With a deep growl, Beera started to grow. Muscles expanded and limbs lengthened. Fangs almost doubled in size as his snout extended. “Now I will feast on your-”
“Heel, boy.”
A flash of radiant light passed over the demon, and then his feet separated from his ankles. Pearl stopped and flourished her blade as he dropped to his knees. She stepped around his side.
“Bitch,” he growled. “This was a duel.”
“Bad language.” I tutted and shook my head as the small sphere of radiant light bore into his skull.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Idiot, you think this is… enough… to…” His eyes twitched as his face went lax.
Pearl whistled and raised her eyebrows at me. “You just stunned a Highers demon. That’s pretty fucking impressive.”
“Yeah, well…” I shrugged. “It feels like my arm is about to rupture from the rest of my body and jettison off like a firework.”
“Reasonable.” She rolled out her shoulders as Wight pooled back up through the roof and picked up his shotgun. “Best do this quick then before he uses his Domain.”
I stepped up and put my hand on his snout to use
He growled, and his eyes tried to focus on me. “You cannot stop it now. Wheels have been set in motion. The mortal plane will be ours.”
“That’s just what you believe,” I replied, and stepped back away. My ability only let them tell the truth as they knew it. He was too deep in the sauce, surely.
“For the crime of setting the world unbalanced and risking reality as we know it, I sentence your soul to return to the void. Become nothing once more.”
Pearl whispered his true name at the end of the sentence, but even now, my mind couldn’t understand it fully. Beera certainly did, as his eyes widened in panic. He tried struggling against my fading stun, but he couldn’t react in time.
Another flash of radiant light and his head was lopped off. It bounced twice on the rooftop before his very being shifted and started to fade away like ash.
[We should continue with haste.]
I gave Wight a nod. No sense getting distracted from our goal. The three of us set off across to the next rooftop. That felt almost too easy. Not that I cared to struggle at this last stretch, but we had gotten lucky against that demon.
“They won’t all sit and play dead,” Pearl said, landing beside me. “Most would have dodged that shot.”
[Hopefully they will all be as foolish as to let their pride dictate their downfall.]
Chance would be a fine thing. We were still a decent distance from the Org itself, but it had been slowly growing as we neared. Two of six out of the picture.
//Got some information in.
//Any remaining Hunter that didn’t die in the explosion and release of pact demons…
//Turned against the Org and died there.
Stood to reason that no other Hunters would be able to survive long in the Mids. Even under the duress of their pact demons trying to wiggle free and the Org itself being in disarray… their bodies couldn’t handle it.
“Information from who?” Pearl asked, as we leaped across another street.
//One of the techs, through Passage.
//They’re… dead now. Demons purged all human staff, as far as I can tell.
I clenched at my revolver a little tighter. While the whole outfit was a pit of corruption, not everyone was a guilty party. Most people there were probably deluded and without options, just like how they wanted us Hunters. A job of supposed utmost importance that they couldn’t live away from.
It soured my mood to know there was a secondary reason for the slaughter. A last ditch boost of souls for the ritual. The last words of Beera playing in the back of my mind - they’d had their intended effect, no matter how much actual truth lay behind the statement.
Whatever. They’d be getting what they deserved soon enough. If only we could-
//On you!
I felt the presence too late. As my wings carried me across the next street, a spray of something struck me.
“Eric!” Pearl called out, sliding to the edge of the roof as I dropped like a rock.
Below me, a good two dozen feet off the ground, a wide spider web had been put up. A female demon whose torso ended in the bulbous and haired body of a tarantula. Maybe twenty feet wide. Bright crimson eyes glared up at me as I fell, venom running down sharp fangs.
As I twisted and tried to free my wings, her Domain washed over me.
I struck a sticky surface immediately. Thick ropes of webbing swayed from my weight, and I looked around. An empty void of shaded purple at the horizon, but everywhere was decorated with impossibly large spider webs. Rather cliche and boring, if you asked me.
“You couldn’t come up with anything more interesting?” I shouted into nothingness. Twisting in place, I found my assailant floating above me on a distant thread. Now she was three to five times the size she was previously.
“It’s pretty effective as is,” she called down to me, her deep voice vibrating my head. “While it is simple, it makes up for it by being near impenetrable. Let’s see your demon whore come save you now.”
I wondered why everyone had to call Pearl bad names. All it did was make me more determined to put a bullet through their heads. “You have any monologues you want to go through before I think of a way out of here, then?”
Her smile widened into a grin. “Funny. You would have made a nice toy, however, I think being the demon to eat and end the Last Lantern is going to be my greatest achievement.”
“Nah.” I tried to shake my head. “I’m sure you’ve achieved plenty of things in your lifetime, although you look rather youthful, so I might be wrong.” Burned my tongue up to lavish the praise, but appealing to their pride hit their weak spot.
I needed the extra seconds, as I was cultivating.
“Oh, if only I had the time…” A sharp leg came up to rub at her cheek. “Well, we could have a quickie before the acid melts you away. Then I could add fucking the Last Lantern to my list of accolades as well.”
Not exactly what I had planned on my schedule for the day. “Just the once, though? I’m rather hardy. You wouldn’t want to waste such a prize that you so clearly deserve to savor.”
Despite laying it on pretty thick, she was buying it hook, line, and sinker. It was a good thing that Pearl couldn’t hear this conversation, otherwise she might tear reality in half and the pair of us with it.
“You certainly have a way of making a lady feel good,” she purred, starting to clamber down toward me again. “But I’m afraid you must die, otherwise Makkari would pull my head off. A crying shame, but I’m sure you won’t disappoint.”
I had a feeling I would. With a deep breath, I flexed out my hand. The shadow of the demon washed over me as she got closer. Nothing much for it. I’d have to go with what I had in the tank.
“Here,” I said, running my tongue across dry lips. “Let me change into something more comfortable.”
Power whipped around me as she paused and raised an eyebrow. Muscles tensed and relaxed. Wide smile across my face. It had been a while.