Chapter 470: Let me just stop you there

Blake was impressed. Apparently the demon lord had lain some kind of trap. All the spells and demonic projectiles now doubled or maybe tripled in intensity. The larger demons previously waiting at the back now charged into combat, often trampling the smaller insects with obvious contempt.

The orc line stopped advancing. Their heavy infantry lifted their shields and held their ground as the spearmen behind them at least jabbed and held back the creatures from overrunning them.

Halvar and his warriors had fallen back and clustered together, forming more like a circle now instead of a half circle, the demons assaulting them on nearly all sides. Blake’s constructs at least gave them some support, his Doom Donut in particular splattering and slashing a lazy circle.

Blake didn’t have much time to watch. The greater demon had also started casting in earnest, waves of power from a half dozen affinities pouring from its eyes and arms. Navi did her best.

“Arcane. A ranged blast. Moderate power!”

Blake dropped all his javelins to the ground, doing nothing now but stopping the demon’s efforts, Seul-ki filling him with mana and power full time. It was slightly terrifying, but also satisfying. And at least the demon’s presence in his mind had stopped laughing.

Now it was just a series of short, and not very nice curses. Blake swiped away a significant blast of elemental energy and shook his head as the demon compared human genitals to several grisly things.

‘Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?’ Blake ‘said’ back to the demon with Mental Influence. ‘Wait, do demons have mothers? If so, she wouldn’t be very proud of your performance thus far.’

Trash talking an angry, abyssal demon lord might have been a mistake.

The huge, insectoid creature shrieked and came forward, crushing a few attending beetles. In less than a second it had moved up to a very concerning charge speed, most of its eyes turned in the same direction. Straight towards Blake.

A perfectly natural stab of mammalian terror followed. Blake’s more rational mind was suggesting he surround himself and Seul-ki in as much constructed metal sphere as possible, or else withdraw with all possible haste. It mostly agreed with the less rational part, which basically just screamed run!

Blake grabbed Seul-ki’s hand and jumped out the back of his train, then remembered he could fly, and threw them into the air with Telekinesis. The orcs were all shouting and hopefully trying to get in the thing’s way, but Blake had no intention of putting his life in their hands.

“Nullification magic, master!” Navi shouted. “Abyssal. Moderate power, but…”

Blake’s Telekinesis power scrambled in his mind. He lost his hold on both of them, shouting in alarm as they fell and tumbled across the rocky ground. He grunted and tried to roll, but he’d fallen badly and his shield wasn’t great against the earth.

Seul-ki groaned beside him and he reached out for her trying to help her stand. The demon was coming, and they had to get away. He commanded his constructs to reach him, to get in between and at least slow the thing down.

Light blazed behind him and he had no idea why. He thought maybe Pliny had blown something up, or Navi was using some new trick to try to help. He rolled over and turned to see…a fiery, female giant with wings. An an axe.

Blake stared with incomprehension as a being bathed in fire and light leapt straight into the greater demon’s path. The huge monster finally slowed as if equally surprised, rearing up on its many hind legs to attack with its arms.

One arm sloughed off with a stroke of the giant’s axe. It was maybe ten feet tall, half the size of the demon, but it weaved and struck with speed and precision. The demon backed away in obvious concern.

“That’s Annie,” whispered Seul-ki, staring up with a hand to her face. “Should I…?”

“Give her everything, do it now!” Blake hissed, finally getting to his feet with a groan as pain lanced up from his ankle.

Also, that was Annie? How the hell was that Annie? He trusted Seul-ki and accepted what she said as true, but the reality made very little sense.

Somehow, he had to help. His mana was dangerously low, but he gripped his mana gem and grabbed for his discarded javelins, lifting them behind the demon and its duel.

He closed his fist with the effort, driving half a dozen spears into the demon’s back with as much force as he could use. It shrieked and twisted, still swatting at ‘Annie’ and trying to hold off that axe as it fell back towards its minions.

Blake could have screamed at the orcs to charge. It had taken a terrible risk and exposed itself, if they could only kill it now!

Halvar and his troops obviously got the idea. They were slashing apart their own enemies and trying to get free, the young lord screaming and pointing at the demon as he bashed forward. But they were just too surrounded.

Blake drained every drop from his gem, ripping out javelins to drive them in again. He wanted to reach for Seul-ki but he didn’t want to interrupt her, to leave Annie any less than the support’s full power.

He was about to shout for Pliny when something in a dark cloak raced past him with a gust of wind. Blake blinked and realized it was a goblin assassin, knives dripping as he sprinted past the orcs and demons locked in combat without a second glance.

The small figure seemed almost ridiculous next to the giant warriors. The idea that such a small thing could even matter to the titans seemed almost ridiculous. Except there he was, running at them at full speed.

Blake held the last scraps of his own mana for one more counter, focusing on his constructs and sending them to at least slow the demon’s escape. The greater demon finally turned and fled, letting Annie hack into it to try and get away.

The goblin assassin didn’t make some flying leap. It just ran down the demon’s flank slashing legs, spraying bits of carapace and ichor and vanishing from sight. A few orcs were doing the same, some painted up orc with two axes screaming wildly as he smashed into the demon’s side with a handful of followers.

In seconds the demon teetered as if imbalanced, roaring as it flailed its arms and toppled and slid. Blake held back the cheer, but only because he didn’t want attention. The goblin came popping out, somehow like a tiny green iceberg slicing open the titanic.

And now it was time for the big bastard to sink.

Halvar and his Soulguard were breaking out in twos and threes from their melee. They roared in fury, no doubt generations of demonic hate fueling the frenzied charge to reach their foe. They hurled themselves without fear, cutting and breaking carapace and more limbs on the other side even as the demons attacked them.

The greater demon twisted and fought like Caesar on the senate floor. Most of its minions were running away now, abandoning it in its greatest moment of need, fleeing back to the portal. A swirling aura of energy started, and Blake grabbed Seul-ki’s arm as he bent every scrap of their remaining mana to stop it.

Navi was shouting but Blake didn’t need to hear. There was only one thing for a creature like this to do as it died. And it wasn’t escape like those other pitiful wretches. It would know it was too late for that. No. There was only revenge.

Blake watched strands of abyssal energy spray out like ropes. The demon twisted an ichor covered head and stared straight at Blake, its terrible mind connecting to his one last time.

“I curse you, Psion. You and all your descendants. With my essence, I curse you and your line for a thousand years. I…!”

Let me just stop you there.

Blake grabbed the energy and pulled in every direction, feeling Seul-ki tremble as he yanked every last drop of mana from the both of them and his gem. The abyssal energy spasmed and flickered, going out like a puff of smoke in a wind.

The demon stared at Blake with a hundred eyes, the creepy, black insect orbs never wavering, even as the demon fell and struggled as the orcs and players hacked it to death. It just stared at Blake, and he shivered and put a hand to the collar around his neck, fighting a kind of panic to have it off.

I will see you again, Blake Nimitz, the demon whispered as it died. You should have destroyed me while you had the chance.

Blake was pretty sure they just did destroy it, though the words alarmed him. Did the son of a bitch have some kind of third phase? A self-resurrect? What?

But the huge central portal followed the same pattern as all the rest, sucking up into the sky and swallowing every demon like a vacuum. All that was left of the creature’s minions went scampering away, but still got hoovered up to their special hell in the sky.

In a growing tide the orcs roared and cheered in triumph, pounding their chests or blowing their horns as their leaders raised their arms and bellowed.

[Event: Demonic Invasion (Major) – complete. Personal reward (Major): Experience (moderate); Power Modification (Primordial Making).]

[Power modification: Primordial Making: Abyssal Arrogance. Psion doesn’t take well to personal insults. Significantly increased effect of all Primordial Constructs against abyssal creatures on the primal plane.]

[You have gained enough experience to reach level 17. Please select a new power.]

[Title gained: Demon Slayer. Increase demonic slaying aura beyond a certain threshold. Increased resistances to all demonic magic and abilities.]

Blake smiled until Seul-ki sagged and groaned with a hand to her head. He went to help her, but his own vision blurred with pain.

He was reminded he’d hadn’t slept properly in days, and that he’d existed on mana boosts and a bad diet of greasy orc food. And also that there was at least one too many greater demons who’d tried to kill him.

His limbs went weak and his gut flipped and maybe rejected something. Instead of helping Seul-ki, he collapsed into her, and felt them both go down.