“So we finally meet, Arthur Kingsbloo—Ugh! Cursed fuck! What happened to you?”
“Demon King! I’ve come to… come to…” The [Hero] of the [Solarian Courts] vomited all over the floor.
He looked nothing like the images in her intelligence reports. The Human looked like he just swam through lava — which he probably had. His once golden armor was blackened with some panels missing entirely. His skin and hair were gone. Where there had once been flesh, all that remained beneath his armor was a craggy charred layer of burns. His eyes had survived, but the blue orbs were leaking blood and looking in slightly different directions.
The only reason he was alive was probably his constitution as a [Tier V] [Liege]. He was slowly healing, his soul reasserting the shape of his corporeal form, but it looked like as if he might still die if he didn’t receive medical attention soon. Her plan to flood the fake sewers had worked, it would seem.
Or was that what he wanted her to think?
Melpomene could have tried to kill him right then, but she was overly cautious of a counter-counter-counter-trap. Then an epiphany struck her like lightning.
“Of course,” she muttered. “‘Any wise coward can avoid an ambush, and any brave fool can fall to their opponent’s schemes... But to walk knowingly into a trap only to emerge victorious…?’ You didn’t fall into my obvious trap, nor did you use it as a distraction! You walked in knowingly, and now you’re going to enact some brilliant plan to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat!
“Genius! Truely genius! “ she went on. She looked at the [Hero] expectantly, waiting for him to reveal his stratagem. “So? What is it? What’s you’re brilliant plan?”
“I’ve come to… come to vanquish…”
The [Hero] was really dedicated to his act. He was definitely luring her into attacking him first, but she wouldn’t fall for such an obvious ploy! Instead, she would—
He vomited again.
Melpomene winced. “You ate fruit pie before a climactic battle? In the future, you really should fuel your body better.”
“Prepare to meet your…” The husk of a [Hero] trailed off, and both his eyes suddenly focused on Melpomene. “Wait, the Demon King is a woman?”
Ah! So he was going to confuse her with inane questions? Better to play along rather than call out his impossible level of ignorance.
“[Daemon Autarch], actually. I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you asked, we’re Daemons, not demons. Demons are lawless beings of chaos. Daemons are unholy personifications of nature and Evil™.”
“Why did you say ‘evil’ like that?”
“Like what? Anyway, we also prefer the term ‘autarch’ since it’s gender neutral. Not all Daemons necessarily have a gender, after all. But to answer your earlier question, yes, today I am a woman.”
“Today?”
“Yes, for today at least. I’m usually a woman because a [Priest of Sol] once told me all women are inherently Evil™, but I do sometimes take the form of a man, and other times I prefer an agender form. It’s never been my preference, but a few of my generals prefer being nonbinary. Not that gender is dependent on physical attributes or anything, but since all Daemons can shapeshift, why not take advantage?”
Arthur blinked. “Demons have more than two genders?”
“Daemons, and yes we do. Humans do too, you know?”
“What? But… What?” He paused, steadying himself and gathering his thoughts, perhaps preparing to say something profound. “What?” he asked.
Melpomene scrunched her eyebrows, cautiously playing along while waiting for the trap to spring. “Are you alright? You look like you’re having an aneurysm.”
The [Hero] nodded his head, sheets of blackened skin sloughing off as he did. “I understand. Only beings of pure evil such as you could corrupt the sanctity of gender!”
“Thanks!”
“But if you’re a woman and you’re the Demon— I mean Daemon King…” he began before trailing off. He was again feigning confusion so that Melpomene would lower her guard, but she wouldn’t fall for it!
“Autarch, but go on.”
“…I have to kill you because you’re a Daemon, but you’re a woman… So I have to kill a woman?”
“Um, yes? But what does me being a woman have to do with it?”
“I have to kill a woman?” he asked again, turning to the cracked ceiling and ignoring Melpomene entirely. “But I’m a Nice Guy™!”
“Why are you saying ‘nice guy’ like that?”
“Wait, if you’re a woman, that means I can fix you!”
Melpomene suddenly felt her skin crawl. Was this some sort of mental attack? “Um, I don’t know what sort of confusing stratagem you’re using, but I’d prefer if you stop. If it’s alright with you, can we have our epic final battle now?”
“Of course! Only through besting you in battle will you feel my sincerity!” Out of thin air, he drew a gleaming blade of holy light. “Prepare yourself!”
“Finally!” Melpomene dashed forward, drawing [Audacity] and slashing in one fluid, practiced motion. The strike was sudden and brutal, but undoubtedly the [Hero] would stop faking his injuries and parry the—
Both of Arthur Kingsblood III’s arms flew into the air, removed from his body by Melpomene’s strike. His blade of sunlight disappeared.
Melpomene hastily retreated, wary of a counterattack. She tried to blink away whatever spell her opponent used to convince her her strike had landed. The [Hero] was a tactical genius with the backing of a god. It was impossible for her to win, especially in one strike, so there was no way she had actually just lopped off his arms. This had to be a trick!
The [Hero] stared at the stumps that used to be his arms. He looked up at Melpomene, then back down to his stumps… then back to Melpomene, then back to his stumps. The part of his face that used to be lips trembled.
“A woman beat me in a duel?”
His eyes rolled into the back of his head. He fell to the ground and moved no more.
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“I said let me out there! We’re getting slaughtered!”
“I’m sorry, Lady Morgan, but the champion’s orders were very clear. Under no circumstances are we to allow you to—“
“To what? Do my fucking job?”
“Please, Lady Morgan, this battle is just a distraction. Once the champion disrupts the ritual and kills their king, our goal will have been met and none of this will matter.”
“If none of this matters, then step aside! I won’t allow my fellow soldiers to die while I do nothing.”
“So long as the champion lives, none of us are actually dying. The infantry are merely… awaiting revival.”
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“Is that so, captain?” Morgan Dragonsbane, sole [Tier V] [Omnimancer] contracted to the [Solarian Courts], began to channel the element of earth. Her thin frame swelled with muscle, and her already tall stature stretched until she was two and a half meters tall. Her six-colored enchanted robes and witch’s hat grew with her. Her hands became covered in stone spikes as she stared down at the knight captain. “Then you wouldn’t mind if I sent you to ‘await revival’ beside them?”
The captain trembled in fear, but before he could answer, an intangible wave passed over the entirety of the Solarian forces. The feeling itself wasn’t altogether unpleasant. It felt like all their souls stepped out from under the sun and into the shade. It might have even been an enjoyable feeling, if not for the fact it meant the worst possible thing that could happen just happened.
Their [Liege], the [Champion of Sol] Arthur Kingsblood III, was dead. Now, their souls were untethered. If they died, they were dead.
The army fell into panic as everyone ran for their lives. Even the stoic [Luminous Titans] began to quit the field.
“Ahhhhhh—!”
“Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—“
“Everyone for themselves!”
“Run! Run!”
“Everyone wait!” Morgan called. “We still have to stop their god from— Ack!” Her attempt to rally the troops was cut short as a panicking horse ran straight into her flank, its head getting crushed by the impact. The now-dead animal’s knight was thrown from the saddle only to be trampled by the other scrambling knights.
Her resilience may have been empowered by the element of stone, but FUCK! Getting hit by a charging horse hurt.
Morgan took her form of air and flew a dozen feet above the mess. The Daemonic army weren’t even pursuing yet, but the Solarian troops were still fleeing in every direction as if death were right on their heels.
“Cowards!” she yelled, altering the flow of air so that her voice would carry. “We can still stop their god’s resurrection! Rally! Let us face death together and… and…” She trailed off, realizing no one was listening to her. She sighed and shook her head.
She extended her senses into the flows of magic all around her. After but a moment, her eyes locked onto the volcano. The magical waves were dampened, but it was hard to hide the resurrection of the single most powerful god to ever exist.
She took one last look at the useless army below her. “Fuck it,” she said.
She rocketed higher into the sky and flew towards the mouth of the volcano. When the Daemons saw her approaching, they fired arrows, boulders, cannonballs, and beams of magic at her, but she was too fast and too evasive to hit from so far away.
Two units of [Wyvern Riders] pulled up to either side of her. They performed screening maneuvers, trying to tie her in an aerial melee.
Morgan was forced to divert course as claws, thorn whips, and poisonous stingers came at her from every angle. Her advance was ultimately ground to a halt as she had to focus entirely on dodging. Her situation seemed grim, but there was a smirk on her face.
“You Daemons send wyverns against me? Morgan Dragonsbane?”
One of the pod leaders flying high above the rest holstered their whip and unclipped the lance from their wyvern’s side. In unison, as if coordinated by a voice only they could hear, the seven other [Wyvern Riders] flew into a particular formation and commanded their mounts to spew poison simultaneously, forcing Morgan to dodge upward and right into the path of the lance-wielding pod leader. The leader was already in a dive, coming full tilt at Morgan with their lance pointed right at her heart.
“Fools.”
Morgan dropped her form of air, but rather than take one of her other elemental enhancements, she took them all. The lance dropped right at her heart, but she flowed like water, sliding past the blow by a hairsbreadth.
The pod leader was surprised that their blow failed to connect, but they were even more surprised when Morgan grabbed onto the lance, fingers digging into its wood like roots. Anchoring herself there, she used the rider’s momentum to swing her foot into their neck. The steel toe of her boot was suddenly as sharp as a razor, and the pod leader’s head went flying. She drew a knife from her hip and plunged it into the base of the wyvern’s neck, breaking through the scales as if they were dried leaves.
“Seven left,” she muttered.
The cloud of poison breath still lingered, and she fell right into it, breathing in more of the noxious gas than she would have liked. She leapt from the wyvern’s corpse, extending her jump by pushing against the air. She couldn’t fly as she could when enhanced solely by air, but the boost to her mobility was more than enough.
She landed a kick against another rider, stunning them long enough for her to steal the sword at their side and cut away their saddle’s straps, sending them tumbling through the air and falling to their doom. She stole the wyvern’s reins, and though the beast wouldn’t listen to her, but she still managed to force it to fly into the flank of one of its companions. The two creatures flailed against each other in a wild tangle, but Morgan remained oriented enough to send a searing bolt of fire into the visor of the other confused rider. She leapt away as the two riderless beasts continued to lose altitude.
“Five.”
She lashed out with a thorn whip — stolen from her briefly commandeered mount — and wrapped it around the clawed foot of the closest wyvern. She bobbed, spun, and whipped around wildly as the monster kicked, but that wasn’t enough to break the concentration of a [Tier V] [Omnimancer].
Her skin went numb and tingly, and from her free hand, a thousand tongues of [Chain Lightning] snaked through the air and struck three of her remaining opponents. Against all laws of physics, the lightning continued to bounce and rebound amongst the three of them until they were nothing but burnt husks. A single [Tier IV] spell wouldn’t normally wouldn’t be enough to destroy three members of an elite unit of the same tier, but thanks to Morgan’s [Dragonslayer] keyword, the damage was more than enough.
“Two.”
She pulled hard against her stolen whip, sending herself upward to face one of the last riders, but in the chaos, the other remaining wyvern landed a blow, raking its claws against her back. She lost her grip on her whip, and was sent freefalling through the air.
In pain but maintaining focus, she dropped her omniform and shifted back into her form of air to stay aloft. She sent out a few quick casts of the [Tier II] spell [Air Slash]. The remaining pair of [Wyvern Riders] dodged them easily, but in the process, they were drawn closer together, which was exactly what Morgan wanted.
“[Flesh to Stone]!” The [Tier IV] spell’s area of effect struck both of her remaining enemies. One turned completely to stone, but the other — a pod leader — partially resisted and was only slowed by her spell, but that was more than enough.
“Zero.” Morgan rocketed away in the direction of the caldera. Not all of her pursuers were dead, but that didn’t matter so long as they couldn’t stop her. “Play the objective,” she told herself, dodging a fresh salvo of projectiles coming at her from the ground forces below.
Her back was still bleeding, and her eyes and lungs stung from the poison breath, so she couldn’t waste more time and resources being distracted by the Daemons’ fodder. Her mana reserves were lower than she’d like thanks to her use of her omniform and several high-tier spells, but if she made it to the ritual chamber quickly, she should be able to defeat the [Daemon Autarch] in time to prevent the revival of their ancient god.
And if the god did wake up, she’d just have to kill it.
She might not be a [Liege], but she was still a [Tier V] spellcaster. She should have enough strength left to get the job done, assuming of course that Arthur and Brandon managed to weaken their enemy before they died.
Morgan made it to the mouth of the volcano. Now, all she had to do was fly down and break through a wall, and she would be in the ritual chamber. The ground forces were now too far away to even attempt a shot, and the remaining [Wyvern Rider] and riderless wyverns wouldn’t make it in time.
It was at that very moment, when Morgan let out a sigh of relief, that the world around her twisted. The air itself grew a myriad of eyes. Bone needles came from nowhere and everywhere to pierce her flesh and sew her limbs together. Lampreys made of purple sky bit into her eyes. She screamed, and her own tongue stretched from her mouth to wrap around her neck, constricting and choking the life out of—
“[BREAK]!” she shouted, and the illusion was shattered, though every single millimeter of her body still stung with phantom pain. Before her, flying within the volcano’s column of smoke, was a two-meter tall pillar of eyes, mouths, and limbs. Six wings of purple flesh jutted unnaturally from the figure’s blue flesh.
“Eurymedon, the [Daemon of Eyes],” Morgan greeted. “I wondered when you’d show up.”
“Oh? Someone’s done their homework,” came a chorus of voices. No, not a chorus, but just one voice layered over itself dozens and dozens of times. “I’m impressed you broke out of my spell so quickly, Morgan Dragonsbane, but I cannot allow you to pass any further.”
Morgan sighed. She needed to end this fast, but it was too dangerous to take her flightless omniform while fighting over a volcano against a single, mobile opponent. She could attempt to just fly past her opponent to preserve her strength, but if her intel could be trusted, this Daemon was also too dangerous to simply ignore.
Trying to balance the trade-offs of mana consumption, speed, and power, Morgan empowered herself with the elements of air and fire, taking on her inferno form. Her eyes turned red, her hair became a mane of fire, and around her legs formed a personal tornado of flames.
“You’re a battlefield controller, and I’m a beat-stick who’s resistent to mental attacks,” Morgan said. “We might both be [Tier V], but you know just as well as I do how this ends. Move aside, and live to fight another day.”
“I can’t win against you, but I would rather die fulfilling my duty than live as a coward,” Eurymedon said, their eyes beginning to glow violet.
Morgan nodded, wishing her own allies felt the same. “Very well. Allow me to fulfill your wish.”
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Meanwhile, within the ritual chamber, Melpomene finally worked up the courage to poke the [Hero]’s corpse with her sword. Still wary of a trap, she jumped away again, but the mound of burnt flesh remained unmoving. For the first time, she wondered if Arthur Kingsblood III might not have been a tactical genius feigning incompetence.
She should have been happy to emerge victorious in her final battle, but she could only frown at how anticlimactic it felt.
“That was it? I still have four phases left!”