Our enemies were smart enough to not wait around until we attacked. They turned tail and fled back to the ground, where their meat shields were waiting. We charged after them.

A lot of chaos and destruction followed. Lightning began to rain from the sky. Lucy and Shani teamed up and started rampaging through the enemy knights. Lily and Erin fought side by side. They opened a path towards the enemy spellcasters.

Lilith stood next to me, facing the mages. She was forming a red ball in her hand. Two of our opponents conjured shields of darkness. I threw a lightning bolt at them. Their defences held, for now. Then Lilith’s ball hit. Blood splashed over the enemy shields and began to absorb them. It almost reminded me of my devour magic, just a lot weaker.

Of course, the other mages were not idle. They completed their spells and covered the area in black smoke. It made my skin itch, so it was clearly a form of attack. Despite my ability to see at night, I had trouble inside this magic. I was not completely blind, but my sight was severely limited.

My answer was simple, I flew. Leaving the cloud was easy but it obscured our opponents. Lilith had the same idea and joined me.

“Can you see them in there?” I asked.

“Sadly, no.” Lilith replied. “But there is a simple solution.”

“Blast the entire area?” I suggested.

She smiled. “Yes.”

A big ball of fire formed in her hand.

I was contemplating how big I wanted to go. Maybe a tier 5 Lightning Sphere would be a good start. I completed my spell and threw the sphere into the darkness. Soon afterwards Lilith unleashed her own attack.

Whatever she threw, exploded. She did not believe in half measures. Debris was flung everywhere as her attack tore the ground apart. The smoke dispersed and we saw a crater, with my lightning sphere still inside. One of the enemies was on the ground, screaming, as he got electrocuted. The other four still stood and retreated out of the sphere’s reach.

Meanwhile, Lucy was attacking one of the big demons. She was just biting through one of the tentacles. Judging by her face, she regretted that move. Biting things came with the serious downside of tasting things.

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My slight distraction cost me, as the lead mage unleashed a spell. A grim reaper formed of black smoke charged me with a scythe. I made the mistake of trying to block it with my sword. The scythe passed through it and hit me in the face. Well, it hit my soul.

I gasped as I experienced immense pain. The spell had gone straight through my defences and tried to kill me. I could feel a cold darkness inside. The magic was trying to extinguish my soul. Thankfully, my aura seemed to protect me. My soul was too strong to succumb to the spell.

I screamed with rage. My eyes blazed with purple light. I used my 9th circle spell, Storm’s Judgement. A massive bolt of lightning erupted from my hand. It had streaks of purple in it and illuminated the entire area.

The enemy mage tried to conjure a shield, but he failed. He did not even have enough time to scream before he was disintegrated. Only a pile of ash remained.

But I was not done. Those fools would pay. I focused my aura on striking the foes nearby. I Used the Storm Bolts spell to reinforce my attack. The area was blasted with electricity. The thunder drowned out the screams of dying enemies.

Soon I was surrounded by corpses. Some tried to raise once more, only to be blasted again. The smell of ozone filled the air. Lucy looked in my direction, some demon part hanging from her mouth. She seemed satisfied that I was ok and returned to mauling her enemy.

Lilith landed next to me. “Good work, that should get their leader's attention.”

What happened next was unexpected. The shield protecting the palace disappeared. It did not look like it was breached, just turned off.

The fighting slowed as everyone turned their attention to the palace. Emperor Maximilian emerged. He wore a golden plate armour decorated with gems. Well, they likely held enchantments too. The golden colour made it hard to tell what material it was made of. Adamantium was black, mithril was silver and I highly doubted he used anything less than those. He probably had it painted. He held a glowing golden sword.

“ENOUGH!” He shouted. “This is the Empire! I am a descendant of Imperius himself! Demons, traitors, archfey… You will all perish!”

To his right stood Beira. She held an interesting black staff. The top was golden and held a giant sphere, looking like a miniature sun. Next to her stood other mages, while the fighters were behind the Emperor.

“Beira, show them the power of the god of light!” Maximilian screamed.

Beira smiled. Then the mages surrounding her started to scream. Runes blazed on their foreheads. The Emperor looked at them with confusion.

The flesh on the mages withered, they all died. Only skeletons remind. Skeletons, who kept standing.

“What is the meaning of this?” Maximilian shouted.

“Gods you are annoying.” Beira said. “And stupid. You don’t know how often I wanted to strangle you. But I needed the staff. I thought I could use Alexander to open your vault, sadly that failed.”

“You… you are working with the Inquisition.” Maximilian said, looking shocked.

“With them?” She snorted. “I hate them. Taking them over was delicious though.” She licked her lips.

Beira was our enemy? She was the one controlling the Inquisition? Hm… We did steal a lot of her research but I never actually looked into it. Only recently did I hand it over to Josef. And she did introduce the Inquisition to the demons…

Lilith seemed the least surprised. “Let me guess, the Inquisition was tasked with monitoring your experiments. So you infiltrated them. First you took over the watchers, then worked your way up. You pretended to be opposed to them publicly and engineered their uprising. Having the emperor backed into a corner he pulled out the artefacts you could not reach. And since you were the Inquisition's vocal opponent and his loyal follower he trusted you.” Lilith shrugged. “It’s a classic move, really.”

Beira smiled. “It is a classic tale, but mortals never learn.”