376: Party’s Over
Beatrice’s claws went into the tentacle demon’s inner flesh like butter.
An agonizing cry of a mutated whale getting torn to shreds by sharks reverberated through the mines. The open maw that was meant for enwrapping a prey for devious purposes was not designed to be pierced by weapons sharp enough to slice the demon’s tentacles.
The circular walls of flesh of the mushy opening moved to collapse on Beatrice, but she did not waste a second in cutting, slicing, and dicing the surrounding flesh until she was waist-up in the demon’s sticky purple liquid. What flesh did manage close over the succubus (instead of collapsing sideways like the other walls) Beatrice simply tore right through, continuing to exacerbate the demon’s wound.
The demon’s cries grew louder and more unpleasant. It thrashed, its body swayed, and the demon helplessly ran back and forth around the arena, woefully unprepared for the agony it was inflicted, as if a dentist started drilling into the deepest cavity all the way to the nerves and through them, into the jawbone and without anesthetic, the demon lost control of its motor functions and many of the tentacles. Bodies fell from the air, one by one. And those that the demon still held, it hurled in random directions in blind fury.
“AH!? OLIVIA!!” Beatrice screamed when she saw the ninja girl’s body fly through the air and disappear in the purple mist, hitting the ground further in the dark.
“Die!! Fucking piece of shit!” Beatrice screamed at the demon as she ripped through its flesh with both hands, practically digging for some vital organ to rip out.
The demonlings jumped on the tentacle demon’s body to get rid of the menace, but it was even harder for the demonlings to move on the trembling, thrashing body of the demon than it was for Beatrice, who held herself by digging her claws into the demon’s flesh. Each time the demon thrashed, Beatrice’s claws just ripped the demon’s flesh further, like cruel hooks.
And the demonlings were not the only ones to jump on the giant demon’s body. Number Seven followed suit—grabbing onto the base of the nearest tentacle, Number Seven just slashed at the root of the tentacle over and over until he tore it off, and swiftly moved on to the next one.
On the far side of the arena a bright, wild flame grew rapidly in Ember’s hands. With the demonlings gone to help their master, Ember was free to channel any spell she wanted.
“I’ll clear this annoying mist,” Ember said to the small party she had while spreading her arms wider and wider for the flame that was about to outgrow her body.
“With fire!?” Carl, the eunuch, screamed. “Didn’t you see!? The arena is littered with the demon’s victims it let go!”
“To those that are still alive, death would be mercy compared to what awaits them!” Ember said coldly and grew her fire further.
However, Ember’s fire attracted the attention of the demonlings that were guarding the nearest exit to Ember’s group. With the battle suddenly taking bad turn, the group of demonlings abandoned their post and rushed to kill the nearest threats.
“Fuck!” Ember cursed and raised her arms above her head. Before the demonlings could reach her, Ember compressed the fire into a tiny ball and shouted, “Duck!”
The men barely had time to react before Ember herself dropped backward and spread her arms, letting go of her control over the fire she conjured. The fireball instantly expanded and blasted in all directions as a thin ring of fire, flying just a few feet over Ember’s group.
The fire hit the nearest demonlings doing no damage to them apart from slowing them down with impact. What the ring did do was blast the purple mist with the hot wind gust it created, clearing a considerable area as well as momentarily lighting up about a fifth of the arena’s entire surface, illuminating countless bodies spread all over the arena.
After the momentary forced pause, one of the demonlings ran straight for Ember, but was impaled through its body by a five-foot iron arrow, nearly ripped in half by the sheer force and knocked back and against the ground.
Ember looked up to where the arrow came from. On one of the main platforms for viewers several dozen soldiers already took positions and set up additional mechanized arrow launchers in addition to the one that just shot the arrow, with more soldiers arriving through the giant open gateway in the wall of the mines through which Ember and Beatrice arrived earlier.
The soldiers wore their standard full-body armor with the signature cape of purple color. Among them, a skinny girl with black hair done in a ponytail and black make up across her face: eyeliner, eye shadow, black lipstick—the works. But this smallest soldier among all that arrived bore the mark of a captain on her uniform.