Rebirth of the Nephilim

Chapter 139: Greater Demon

Jadis could smell flesh burning. She wasn’t sure whose it was, hers or Aila’s. Probably both, she realized. The heat of the now flying greater demon was unbearable as it lifted the two of them up into the sky, its burning wings leaving trails of fire as it surged away from the ground. The wind was screaming around her ears as they flew. Or it was Aila screaming. Or it was her. Again, she couldn’t tell, and again it didn’t matter. Jadis needed to act now or they were both dead.

Aila dangled by her left arm from the demon’s hand. It was priority number one to change that. Grabbing hold of the demon’s wrist with her left hand, Dys squeezed into the burning hot flesh and tendons. She dug her thumb in as hard as she could, black blood bubbling up around the digit as she broke the skin and worked her way into the muscle. If the demon’s hand worked anything like a human’s, she knew it wouldn’t be able to function correctly as long as she was tearing into its tendons. Dys couldn’t use her right hand to help since it was occupied with holding off the demon’s left arm, so she struggled to break the blazing demon’s grasp.

On the ground, Jay and Syd were on their feet, already moving. The battle had not ceased around them, but the shield wall still held, fortunately. Above, Jadis could see that her third self and Aila were several hundred feet off the ground as the greater demon spiraled up. At the moment, it had carried them over the army of demons. If it dropped them there, they would be torn to pieces, even if they somehow survived the fall. But it looked like the demon’s flight would keep arcing and, seeing that in moments it would take them over one of the broken hills nearby, Jadis made a snap decision.

Picking Eir up in her arms, Syd ran for the hilltop with all the speed her one hundred and eighteen points in agility afforded her. Before she followed suit, Jay stopped to gather up Syd’s lance she’d spotted on the ground. Snapping it up, she looked to Kerr and Thea who had both rushed over to her.

“Stay safe,” she panted out through gritted teeth. “I’ve got to go save Aila and myself!”

“Fuck, go!” Kerr shouted, head tracking the flight of the greater demon. “We’ll catch up!”

With that, Jay sprinted off, hot on the heels of her alter self.

A gurgling sound coming from the demon caught Dys’ attention as she struggled with its arms. Looking at its hideous face, she saw flames appear around its head as a bright light glowed from within its vertically slit mouth. With both arms occupied, there was nothing she could do but watch in what felt like slow motion as burning bile rose up out of its throat to spray across her.

As the flames burst forth, they were stopped by a nearly invisible force, splashing off of it and pouring down the demon’s chest.

Aila’s force shield deflected the fire, though it couldn’t stop everything. Dys cried out in pain as some of the burning liquid spilled onto her legs where they wrapped around the demon’s arm. Still, better than being fully immolated.

The demon’s flame breath attack ended a scant second before Aila’s shield expired and by then, the demon’s arcing flight path had brought them near to the hill. Kicking out with one leg, Dys slammed her booted foot into the ugly fucker’s face, tearing the leather sole on its teeth but knocking its head back as it jerked and struggled with her. Purposefully giving it an opportunity, Dys let go of the demon’s left arm. Instantly it grabbed at her kicking leg, its long sharp talons biting into her shin-guard and flesh alike, but that was fine. At least it wasn’t grabbing Aila.

With both hands free, Dys grabbed the fingers wrapped around Aila’s arm and yanked hard, breaking and tearing them apart with sickening snaps. In that moment, Dys’ eyes met Aila’s through the holes in her helmet. She saw fear in her lover’s beautiful blue eyes. Fear for her, as her right hand reached out, trying to grasp onto Dys. But she didn’t let her. Dys pulled the demon’s hand away and let Aila fall.

Aila plummeted to the ground, over a hundred feet of gut-wrenching free fall before strong arms wrapped around her.

Syd caught Aila midair, leaping as high as her insane strength and agility would let her as she crested the hilltop. Aila grabbed hold of her, her scream cut off as they both tumbled through the air to land further down the hill with bone-jarring force. Syd grit her teeth as she felt something in her foot snap upon landing, but her ankle didn’t matter to her in that moment. She tried to angle herself to make sure Aila wasn’t crushed by her own considerable weight as they crashed down together, but the fall was rough. The pack that was still strapped to Aila’s back was crushed by the impact, the sound of glass shattering audible as the two rolled across the slope of the hill, slipping from each other’s grasps as they came to a stop several yards separated from one another.

As Aila had fallen, something else had risen, passing by both her and Syd. The giant-sized metal lance sang as it flew through the air, having been launched by Jay’s arm up at the passing greater demon. It struck the demon’s side, catching it somewhere in the mess of tentacle-wings, burying itself deep into its burning flesh. If only Dys could get to it, she’d have a weapon. But getting to the weapon was more of a distant dream than a next step. How could she focus on the lance when her skin was melting?

Dys was burning alive. She could feel her metal armor cooking her flesh as she struggled with the demon. While she’d managed to cripple its right hand, it had her right leg in its claws and it wasn’t letting go. Further, it had changed tactics, sacrificing some of its flight tentacles to use them to wrap around her body and limbs. It could no longer fly as fast, but now Dys was caught up in its burning grasp, hopelessly entangled.

To compound her agony, Jadis’ heads throbbed with teeth-clenching pain as the demon continued to steadily fly upward. The demon’s movement was dragging her third self too far away from her other selves, stretching their connection the further it went. But their connection was still there, which was the only hope Jadis could see for her to live through the ordeal.

“Heal Aila first!” Syd shouted as a barefoot Eir rushed to her side. “Quickly! Then heal me!”

Syd’s ankle was broken, but that wasn’t the only injury she had anymore. Her flesh bubbled and tore as third-degree burns began appearing across her body. Jadis transferred the damage from Dys to her other self, making sure that the body trapped in the grasp of the demon was unhindered by physical injury.

“Jadis!” Eir cried out, her nimble fingers quick to pull Syd’s helmet off to reveal her white skin turned raw with burns. She placed her hands on her face, already beginning to heal her while ignoring her orders. “You need my healing immediately!”

“No, she’s bleeding,” Syd argued though pain-gritted teeth, shaking hand reaching towards where Aila lay knocked out and sprawled across the ground nearby, her arm so coated in blood Jadis didn’t know how there was any more of the vital fluid left in the woman. “Stabilize her first, damnit!”

As Syd struggled to push Eir away, Jay reached them and fell to her knees by Aila. When her hand went to the terribly injured arm, she recoiled at what she found. There, wrapped around the burned and lacerated flesh was the demon hatchling, its neon blue eye staring up at her.

“Fuck!” Jay cursed, heart skipping a beat at the thought of the horrid little beast taking the opportunity to possess her girlfriend.

Moving to tear the wretched thing off of Aila’s arm, the demon suddenly moved, pulling its tentacles back to reveal Aila’s cut flesh, blood immediately starting to pour out of it. A second later, the demon’s tentacles wrapped back around, applying pressure and cutting off the tide of red, but nothing more. None of its limbs tried to slip inside her skin, no sign of magic presented itself around the hatchling. It simply wrapped itself around the injury.

“Are you—are you trying to help?” Jay asked incredulously, the absolutely bizarreness of the situation almost distracting her from the ever-increasing levels of torture she was going through.

“Of course I’m trying to help—” Eir snapped, her words cut off as she looked back at what Jay was seeing. “Oh, gods!”

Eir’s hand had never left Syd’s side as soon as she had reached her. The healing light of her magic was flowing through her, regenerating Jadis’ lost health. But even as her skin and flesh healed, more wounds appeared across Syd, the greater demon damaging Dys almost as quickly as Eir could heal her. That light flickered for a moment upon seeing Aila’s condition, but it resumed a second later when Syd poorly suppressed a cry of pain.

“Quick, heal her right now!” Jay shouted as she brought Aila closer to Eir. “Never mind anything else right now, just heal her!”

Eir’s face twisted in confusion and revulsion, but then calmed as she recognized her one duty. With as much speed as she could muster, she placed a hand on Aila’s other arm and pumped healing magic into her, cutting off the bleeding and stabilizing the badly injured woman. To both of their shock, as soon as the bleeding had stopped and Aila began to stir to consciousness, the demon hatching slipped off of Aila and wrapped its tentacles around Jay’s upper arm, practically turning itself into an armband as it ceased its movement and just stared unblinkingly at them all.

Whatever the fuck that was about, Jadis would have to worry about it later. She still had one of her bodies being burned and strangled alive hundreds of feet above the rest of her.

Dys struggled in the greater demon’s grasp. While she was stronger than any single individual arm or tentacle of the abomination, the extra limbs worked together to overwhelm her. She kicked and thrashed and tore at flesh with her nails but the demon was killing her. If Eir had not been pumping magic healing into her, she knew she’d have been dead already. She could see her health jumping all over the place when she checked her status sheet, hundreds of points of damage flickering up and then down and then up again. Almost as bad, Jadis could feel her mind stretching, the connection between her selves growing tenuous as the distance between them grew.

She had no idea what would happen if her selves were separated beyond the limits of their bond, nor did she want to find out. Already it felt like an ice pick had been shoved into her brain and was being stirred around.

Another gurgling sound barely caught Dys’ attention through the pain as the demon once again prepared to spew its vile burning liquid onto her. This time, though, there was no force shield to block it. The demon pulled Dys up close to its truly revolting face, its dripping maw practically pressed up against her helmet as it prepared to pour its bile directly onto her.

With a growl, Dys bucked her head forward and slammed her head into the demon, crushing several of its bulbous green eyes like grapes. The demon howled, its corkscrew screech echoing across the battlefield as its eyeball ichor dripped down its face.

“Fuck you too!” Dys shouted back in the demon’s face.

Flames poured out of the burning demon’s maw as it vomited onto Dys, searing her flesh. An instant later, just as the scorching torment began, the world exploded around her and everything turned to white-hot pandemonium.

 Jay looked up from her position with Syd, Aila, and Eir, wincing through the pain of her head and the pain of the burns appearing across her body as she continued to spread the damage across her three selves. A massive ball of fire had burst into existence where the demon and Dys had been flying hundreds of feet above them, lighting up the evening sky almost as brightly as the sun. As quickly as it flashed into existence, the explosion faded like a spent firework. Through a roiling fog of white smoke, Jay saw the demon fall, plummeting towards the ground. Seeking a source, Jay caught a glimpse of another light in the sky.

There, slowly floating downwards was the elven wizard, Lothaire. Even at that distance, Jadis could tell the man was spent, the flaming disk he rode upon dimmed as he floated downward, hands on knees. Jadis didn’t know what kind of spell the Flame Wolf mercenary had cast, but it seemed the distraction of her fight with the demon had given the slow-casting wizard enough time to finish the spell and set it off in the greater demon’s path.

Unfortunately, that meant that Dys was falling hundreds of feet out of the sky. Even more unfortunately, the demon was not yet dead, either.

Dys had slipped free of the demon’s grasp as they had both been sent chaotically spinning through the air from the force of the explosion. Now she was free falling next to the demon as it was slowly gathering itself, tentacle-wings spreading as it moved to pull itself out of its plunging dive to the ground.

“Not without me you fucking don’t!” Dys snarled, hand reaching out to grasp onto the handle of the lance still stuck in the demon’s side.

The metal was searing hot, but Dys couldn’t have cared less in that moment. With agonizing effort, Dys held firmly onto the lance in one hand while the other grabbed hold of a flapping wing and tore at it, ripping the membrane between the tentacles.

Together, the greater demon and the Nephilim, both began tumbling through the air, the demon’s crude wings already damaged from the explosion. As it lost more and more of its control, the abomination’s flight became erratic and unsustainable. Like a deranged spinning top that had been lit on fire, they hurtled through the sky at a downward angle until they encountered the same fate that every flying thing, living or not, always encounters in the end. The ground.

The demon took the brunt of the impact, striking the sharp angled edge of one of the broken hills as Dys’ body was tossed around, rebounding off of the demon as she somehow managed to keep hold of the lance. The metal tore free of the maggot-like torso of the demon and she was thrown along to tumble across the grassy side of the hill, landing a few yards away from her foe.

“I’m out of magic power,” Eir cried out, distracting Jadis for just a moment.

Syd was still lying on the ground, one arm wrapped around the cleric who had continued to restore her health the whole time. But now the priestess was spent, all of her magic gone as she’d used the last of it to keep Jadis from succumbing to the continuous damage she’d received. The elf collapsed then, the complete exhaustion of her magic power sapping her strength as Syd held her close.

Jay, though, was on the move. As was a newly awoken Aila.

Together they ran towards the base of the neighboring hill where Dys and the demon had landed. Jay carried Aila along, no weapon in hand as she no longer had one, but Jadis would make do. She always did.

With all lingering injuries transferred from Dys to Syd, the much-abused Nephilim got to her feet, lance in hand. There was no witty one-liner in her head at that moment. Just an overriding need to kill the fucker that had dared to lay a hand on her Aila. With a primal roar, she charged forward and skewered the greater demon on the lance while it was still righting itself. The abomination screeched terribly as the metal drove into it, but Dys didn’t stop there. She continued her charge, pushing the massive bulk along and then over the edge of the cliffside of the hill. Tentacles tried to wrap around her and carry her along with it, but Dys pulled back, the sharp tips of the whip-like limbs tearing at her but not finding purchase.

The demon fell over the side, plummeting a much shorter distance than they had before, but it had no time to stop its fall with its torn wings. The blazing beast crashed onto the ground, right on top of several snare and spike traps Aila had barely enough time to cast before it landed.

Force spikes pierced into the burning red body of the demon as ethereal chains tangled themselves with its tentacles, grasping hold of the thing as it impacted hard with the rocky terrain. As soon as it landed, the wailing greater demon began spewing more fire, huge gouts of flame spraying outward as it struggled to free itself. Jay turned with Aila in her arms, keeping the flames away from her and blocking them with her own body. But before they could even reach her, Thea was there, standing between them and the demon with her shield raised, blocking the fire as it came.

“Fucking abyss you’re insane,” Kerr shouted as she ran up beside them at the same time as Thea, bow drawn. “How the fuck have you lived this long?”

“Luck, I guess,” Jay panted as she set Aila down and turned to face the writhing mass of tentacles on the ground.

The demon was held in place, for the moment, but it wouldn’t last long. Jadis could see Aila’s force chains snapping as the demon thrashed its tentacles, already starting to break free. She had to strike while the iron was hot and finish it, once and for all.

As Kerr shot arrow after arrow into the demon, aiming for its head to keep it blinded and distracted, Jay stepped forward and called out to Thea.

“Spear!”

Without hesitation the shieldsworn tossed her held spear up into the air for Jay to snatch. Rearing the weapon back, she waited just a moment, then hurled the spear forward. Her timing was just right as the head-sized rock Dys had clawed out of the ground struck the demon, bouncing off of a few tentacles, but still delivering a blow. Less than a second later, the spear pierced into the upper chest of the greater demon, going all the way through and out the other side as the impact was boosted by Mirrored Strikes.

Tentacles went limp as the burning demon’s life bled out of it, something vital inside of it was cut by the spear’s steel tip. It feebly cried out, flames shooting up out of its disgusting mouth as it raised its ruined head towards her, still seeking to burn and destroy in its last moments. Before more devastation could be wrought by the demon, Jadis’ boot slammed into its head once, twice, then three times, pulping it into grisly smear on the rocky ground.

The greater demon slumped into stillness, its flames extinguished.