Heretic Spellblade - Ch18

Chapter 18

While demons came in many shapes and forms, they never flew. Nathan had always considered this some sort of hidden compact. As difficult as defending the portals might be, they never tried flying directly over the walls.

Even flying Messengers like the Twins at least stopped to blow up the Defenders. For whatever reason. Given Laura and Maura’s mental powers, they could easily have darted past everyone, illusioned themselves as soldiers, and hidden in plain sight until the demons were “defeated.” Nathan would have been theirs so easily.

Which is why the sight of hundreds of bat-like flying monsters swarming toward Deverese, his Champions, Seraph, and Narime struck fear in Nathan’s heart. Especially as he saw the telltale magic of shamans and even the heavy armor of heavies.

The dominions came with an entire assortment of flying demons. Finally, the enemy was playing to win.

Had this been a game to them all along?

A separate army of demon superheavies appeared in the valley between the ivory staircases and the Inquisitorial vanguard. They stood easily three times the number of Trafaumh’s elites.

Even if Nathan’s own knights had been here, he worried about the losses he’d sustain trying to fend off the dominion’s own warriors. While Ciana cut through the superheavies as though they were little more than regular demons, he worried that ordinary enchanted weapons might prove ineffective.

Deverese and Seraph seemed to have the same thoughts. He saw both of them bellowing orders to the Inquisitorial Corps. Whatever the religious Bastion thought of Nathan and his Champion, he cared more about not letting his men die in vain. Seraph stood alongside him without any issues.

Or, at least, she did until Deverese and Ysabelle began backing away with the wounded amethyst. Nathan recalled her name might be Flavie.

Ester remained resolute. She gripped her longsword in both hands and braced herself beside Seraph, as if expecting the oncoming charge of demons to end both their lives. Her diamonds had finally stopped blazing, as she no longer absorbed the pain and suffering of those around her.

Seraph’s hand landed on the other Champion. Ester shook it off. Nathan saw the two exchange words, and even saw Deverese shout something. Neither Champion retreated.

Ysabelle took a step toward them. Cynically, Nathan suspected she wanted to be with them, in case some “miracle” happened and she could take credit.

Boulders rained down on the superheavies. As he had worried, even great rocks hurled with magically enhanced catapults barely fazed the beasts. Direct hits crushed demons like ants. But a bouncing rock or shards of stone seemed to do nothing. Ordinary arrows bounced off their armor like wooden practice arrows, unless the archer got lucky and hit an opening.

Yet Seraph remained unworried. She twirled her tonfas. That strengthened Nathan’s resolve, and meant he chose not to intervene himself.

Because he could easily burn some huge amount of magic and cast some immense spell, taking away precious time that he planned to use to end the dominion alongside Tarako and Sunstorm.

He reminded himself that whatever he might be capable of doing, Narime could. More than that, Seraph was now a trigem. She’d barely used that ability.

In fact, he watched as her sapphire gleamed. She pointed a tonfa at the sky above the superheavies.

The immense black object from earlier reappeared. Except above the approaching army of demonic death.

Farcically, the demons didn’t even look up. Every single one of them died instantly without even realizing what the descending shadow meant. Crushed beneath their own creator’s weight.

The flying demons fared little better. Spell frames glowed on Narime’s tails. Moments later, a vicious wind picked up around the approaching swarm. Their wings tore apart first, followed by their limbs, and then their bodies. Little more than a host of body parts hit the ground following Narime’s spell.

Nathan had worried over nothing. Ordinary demons were no threat to trigems.

In the meantime, he kept himself busy.

“Let me go!” the dominion screamed at the Twins, who held her steady.

“You know, this would be a lot easier if you’d just stop struggling and let us kill you,” Maura said.

“We’re going to win anyway. We’re at full power and you’re not,” Laura added.

Lightning rippled along the dominion’s body, but did nothing to the succubi. Likely due to the darkness shielding them.

But whatever protected the dominion from spatial attacks prevented the Twins from simply killing her. She must have some form of mental protection, too. Or else she’d be long gone by now.

“Does that count as an opening?” Sunstorm asked Tarako.

The fox gritted her teeth. “Her protection is still up. Or else the succubi would have finished this.”

“Good point.”

The assassin vanished in a puff of darkness.

Then she appeared above the dominion’s bubble and fell on her body, descending through her protection. The Messenger’s eyes bulged.

“Don’t mind me,” Sunstorm chirped.

Her sword slammed right into the dominion’s neck. A scream burst free, even as Sunstorm began to carve. Giggles escaped the Twins as they held their fellow Messenger in place.

Even Nathan had to note this was a bit much. But he doubted it would finish things. He began casting his supercharged fourth-rank spell, preparing to end this. This had gone on long enough.

Halfway through his spell, dozens of relic blades appeared in the sky. They shot toward Sunstorm and the Twins.

An instant before they struck, the Twins let go and flew out of the way. Every blade skewered the dominion instead. She turned into a pincushion of her own accord.

Whereas Sunstorm burst into a pile of leaves. Darkness appeared next to Nathan.

“Didn’t finish the job,” she muttered.

“Allow me,” Tarako said.

A golden spell frame snapped off around one bronze tail. Then she vanished.

Only to reappear exactly where Sunstorm had been. Swords teleported into her hands and she happily finished what her comrade had started, albeit far faster. The dominion’s entire body burst into flames as she did so, causing Tarako’s form-fitting clothes to smolder.

Two of Tarako’s zoisites glowed and her entire body turned translucent. Her clothes as well, removing the smoldering of the flames. If Nathan didn’t know better, he’d swear she looked liquid.

Actually, he didn’t know better. He knew very little about her first two gem abilities.

Her blades severed the dominion’s head, to little effect, but the fox teleported away.

She reappeared next to Nathan, who had finished his spell.

Tossing it at Sunstorm’s feet, Tarako said, “Here. I understand you collect these.”

“I prefer to take them myself.”

“You gave me the idea. Just keep it. Maybe lacking a head will limit the dominion’s ability to react.”

With the way the decapitated body writhed in the air and its wings flapped around wildly, Nathan suspected that might be true. He pointed his sword at it and loosed his spell.

Only for the body to stop moving and another blast of wind to counter his instantly.

A cackle escaped the head at their feet. “Did you think that would work, you pathetic fools?”

Sunstorm put her foot on the dominion’s head, only for it to growl at her.

“This is just tedious. We’ll need to—” Nathan began to say.

Then the portal began to rumble. High above them, the tear in reality began to fluctuate.

This time, when he looked at it, his mind ached.

For a moment, he worried that this was like whatever Thanatos threatened to do. Maura had panicked back then.

Except then he looked back at Seraph and Narime and noticed they were growing closer. Second by second, the entrance to Doumahr inched toward them.

Which meant the portal itself was shrinking.

And the demons summoned up here could simply skip all the defenses.

“You could do this all along?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“It will cost me everything,” the dominion said, voice muffled by Sunstorm’s foot. “But if this is what it takes to defeat you and plunder your pathetic world with master’s footsoldiers, I will take it.”

That told him nothing. Tarako seemed lost. The Twins descended beside him.

“This is their bullshit. I told you they can modify the portal, right? Well, they can break the rules like this. Except by fucking with it too much, they’ll burn all their energy and die.” Maura snapped her fingers. “This is the boss’s world, not hers. She’s just playing pretend.”

“But an army of demons will get through anyway.” Nathan ran a hand through his hair.

He understood why the dominions worked as cleaners. They weren’t necessarily as dangerous as Messengers like the Twins or Thanatos, but they excelled as actual generals.

And, should they fail, they could simply cheat and breach anyway. They acted like cockroaches. With an automatic win ability.

High above them, the dominion’s headless corpse slowly tried to regenerate. Her bubble had reappeared and began to darken again.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he grumbled. “We need to hit her all at once.”

“That’s the lamest—” Maura tried to say.

Before she could finish, he pulsed a mental image of his plan into everyone’s minds over the link. The succubus grimaced. Then she nodded.

“Go,” he said.

They shot into the air.

At that same moment, Tarako and Sunstorm vanished.

Nathan began casting two spells—the wind spell, plus a new spell. Something from an element he rarely used. A fourth rank earth spell, cast around his feet.

“Nothing you do will work,” the dominion spat.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“It matters not. I am the master’s pawn and—”

“Uh huh.” He ignored her ramblings.

On the surrounding platform, Sunstorm took over from Nurevia by slashing the constantly appearing demons. This allowed the dark elf to finally pay attention elsewhere. She fired a few bolts at the floating dominion, but they did nothing still.

Tarako appeared above the Messenger again. This time, when her zoisites glowed, her body burst into flame this time. The dominion screeched as her uniform began to char and smolder.

Unlike Nathan’s spell, Tarako’s lacked the power to truly damage the Messenger’s protections. He’d guessed as much. Something seemed different about his spells and those used by regular Champions.

Slamming a sword into the dominion’s belly, Tarako channeled lightning into it. While a scream rang out from her decapitated head, little was accomplished.

The Twins appeared around them and pierced the bubble. Rather than just grab the dominion, they began to pull her toward the ground. Her wings stretched out and held her aloft. The flying abilities of the three Messengers battled in the air, yet the dominion slowly fell to the ground.

Too slowly. Nathan watched as they rapidly approached the entrance to Doumahr. Soldiers fled in panic. Even Deverese noticed what was happening.

Narime appeared next to him. “What the hell is happening?”

“No time to explain,” he said. “We need to—”

Once again, the inky bubble burst. This time, a pair of supermassive flying demons appeared above them, like great guardians intended to stop them from interfering.

Narime growled and her arms glowed with a pair of fourth-rank spells. Ordinarily, these would be far too weak against a Messenger.

Yet these were mere demons. Despite the immense size of the foes, they vanished in torrents of lava that cascaded onto the demons below the staircases.

Just in time for Nathan to use his own spell. The dominion’s head glared up at him.

Only for Nathan to rocket toward her body, as a platform of earth burst from beneath his body toward hers. Her wind counter burst uselessly in the air around him as he shot through it, then snapped his sword at her at point-blank range.

As her clothes disintegrated, Tarako leapt over him. Her zoisites glittered as her sword blurred.

“No!” the dominion screamed.

A black shield appeared between the dominion and Tarako, as well as masses of earth. The Nine Tail Slash obliterated all of it. When it fell to earth, so did almost her entire body.

Yet, somehow, she still floated.

“Not enough,” Tarako snarled before vanishing with her teleportation spell.

Little more than a torso remained, bearing that belly tattoo and great gouges carved in it. The dominion’s head was regenerating. Likely, enough of the spatial slash had been blocked to matter.

The bubble began to reappear, along with parts of the limbs. Those black bands began to reform around her chest, instead of her thighs.

Nathan strongly suspected her protections were inside those objects.

But as he summoned his own spatial slash, he knew it would take too long. Sunstorm might be enough, but if she wasn’t…

Furious, he reached for the one form of magic he knew he could use in an instant. A bolt of lightning formed in his mind. As he had against Siv in a time of desperation, and against Artemis just last night, he formed his most powerful mental magic attack.

Then he slammed it into the dominion’s mental presence.

Her body spasmed in midair. The black bands stopped reforming and crumbled. Threads of flesh collapsed into blood and gore mid-regeneration.

Sunstorm appeared an instant later and unleashed her own spatial slash.

And then a barrage of purple crossbow bolts erased all traces of the dominion. Nathan failed to get clear of the splatter zone.

Finally, the screech of thousands of desperate demons rang out. The portal world stopped shrinking. Above him, the rift snapped shut.

He’d defeated one of the “cleaners.” Even without his full assortment of Champions.

- - - - -

Commentary: Combat over, for now.