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Astrys stood by him, ready to fend off any attackers. But none had come so far. The sound of footsteps had begun echoing out from deeper in the tunnels ever since Garon had broken that crystal around his neck and all the lights turned red, but nothing else happened yet. Seemed like they weren’t quite prepared for an attack.

Zeth drew out one of the five scraps of cloth with his Hellfire Rituals painted onto them and pulled a vial of blood from his belt, taking off the cap and tipping it upside down, dousing the circle as he walked. Once it ran out, the circle glowed to life.

Garon’s eyes grew wide as he watched what Zeth did. “W-what? But you can’t…”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know,” Zeth said. “But at this point, you should at least know one thing. Your time left alive is extremely, extremely limited.”

With his weapon prepared, Zeth moved from a simple walk toward his foe to an all-out sprint, putting his newly-gained Dexterity to the test. His boots thudded against the wooden floor as he tore forth.

Garon, too, turned and began running away, apparently unwilling to do battle with Zeth. Honestly, Zeth found that a little strange; surely, with as advanced as this place was, he should’ve had plenty of countermeasures against a potential intruder? Or even just a few combat-oriented Skills of his own. Maybe he was leading Zeth into a trap, though—he reminded himself to stay cautious, no matter how excited he was.

“H-hurry…up!” Garon shouted down the hall as he ran. He was already breathing heavily, forced to take deep gulps of air after each word. “We’re…we’re under attack, dammit! Get help over here fast!”

As Zeth gained on his slower prey, some figures eventually emerged from the far end of the hallway, running quickly toward them. Five or six individuals, all holding the same simple daggers. Seemed like these people were the reinforcements Garon was calling for—maybe they were the allied Blood Mages that were the ones drawing those massive Empowerment Rituals? Zeth grinned internally—anyone willing to protect Garon was someone he was excited to fight.

But, almost unfortunately, it didn’t look like any of them would arrive in time. Zeth was mere feet away from his old boss, the man running for his life as Zeth reached for his heels. The moment he could grab the man and pin him to the floor, the battle would be over—he’d be able to touch him with a Hellfire Ritual at any time and kill him on the spot. And all of these people would take far too long to reach them if their goal was to prevent that.

However, just as Zeth almost felt like he was close enough to tackle Garon to the ground, another figure emerged in the distance. Behind the squad of knife-wielding people, someone else turned the corner, charging in to help. Down in this bunker, everything was painted red from the colored lights, but Zeth could still tell that this person’s skin would be a deep crimson even without that coloring. And from the dark horns protruding from their skull, he knew exactly what was coming for him.

A demon.

As the demon drew closer and closer, more detail became apparent. Short, dark hair, the same muscled figure, a look of determination to claim Zeth’s life—this was a truly deadly foe. And, considering Zeth’s main method of defense consisted of lighting his enemies on fire, he didn’t believe he’d have any way of beating a demon on his own. The beast tore past the few humans that were running alongside him, closing the distance between himself and Zeth, clearly under command to stop the intruder at all costs.

He turned to look at Astrys. “That’s your job. Protect me from the demon.”

She nodded and ran straight past Zeth and Garon to meet her enemy in the center of the hallway.

As he faltered in his chase after Garon, suddenly far more concerned with his own survival in this moment when faced with an unstoppable monster headed straight for him, he watched as Astrys closed in on colliding with her enemy.

He didn’t know for sure whether this woman had been lying to him about having never visited the First Realm before, but it certainly seemed like she didn’t have much experience with the place—which meant she’d likely killed very few humans in her time. Despite her dark skin and powerful aura of fear, he knew very well just how important demons considered killing humans to be—doing so regularly apparently offered them a massive amount of additional power. So he felt slightly worried about how his own summon might shape up against another, who likely would have far more human kills under their belt.

It was with those fears in mind that Zeth watched them meet in the center of the hallway. Hopefully she’d at least buy him some time.

The moment the two demons got within striking distance of each other, the opposing man took a swing at Astrys. She raised a forearm to block, deflecting the heavy strike, and a shockwave blew back as they hit each other, the force apparently so great it shook the entire complex. Astrys’s enemy threw another punch with his other fist, but this one she caught in the palm of her hand. Then, she used her grip on him to pull him closer, rearing her head back at the same time, and slammed her forehead into his nose.

The demon stumbled back, clutching his face as he spoke through his hands. “Ugh, you bitch. Listen, I get rewarded if I kill that man over there. Just go easy on me, and I’ll let you go kill whoever you’ve got to kill when we’re done, alright? Makes no sense to put in real effort for these slugs.”

She walked toward him, wordlessly rolling her shoulders back and preparing to continue the fight.

As Zeth watched, the opposing demon narrowed his eyes at her. “Wait, you look…Are you—”

Zeth’s attention was suddenly ripped away from their confrontation when a pink blur suddenly stopped right next to him. As he turned his head to look at the figure, something slammed into his gut, and he went flying backward.

After soaring at least ten or twenty feet through the air, Zeth tumbled to a stop, feeling an intense pain in his lower chest. Had he just broken a rib?

His eyes came into focus as he slowly sat up, seeing the person that’d hit him walking over to his prone body. Pink skin, a dissatisfied face, and long black horns curling out from her head. Another demon.

He cursed internally. They had two of these things? And it looked like this one had snuck past Astrys.

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Zeth could barely make out Garon’s infuriating laugh as he fought to get to his feet.

“Haha!” the man shouted. “Take that, you worthless little whelp! Not so cocky now, are you?!”

Zeth’s heart beat faster and faster out of rage as he heard that jackass taunting him. And, ironically enough, the pulse of invigoration sent energy through his body, allowing him to push his aching body to stand up just as the demon got to him. He wouldn’t die—not yet. Not with Garon still alive, and certainly not with him wearing a smile on his dumb fucking face.

“Astrys!” Zeth shouted, looking to his own summoned demon for help.

But she was currently exchanging quick blows with her opponent, each strike sending shockwaves through the air. Her own attacks seemed to be stronger, sending the other demon stumbling back even as he blocked them, but he was clearly more practiced in hand-to-hand combat, dodging and weaving when possible and diving in for strikes the moment she let her guard down. Even in the moment Zeth shouted for her, with her only glancing in his direction for a split second, he dove in for an attack, tackling her to the ground and pounding his fist into her face repeatedly, cracking the wooden floor beneath them with each punch.

She fought to throw him off, and it certainly seemed like if the fight went on long enough, she’d be able to beat him, but Zeth didn’t have time to wait. The demon facing him came to a stop nonchalantly in front of him, continuing with that bored look on her face.

As Zeth tried to back away from her, she suddenly spun around on one heel, lifting her other leg as she moved with absurd speed to slam her foot into his side, but he managed to leap backward, mere fractions of an inch away from getting bisected by the demon’s heel.

When the demon planted her foot on the ground once again, glancing at Zeth only to see him alive, the only look that appeared on her face was annoyance—as though Zeth’s attempts at self-preservation were merely done to inconvenience her personally.

He slowly stepped further and further away, keeping his attention solely fixated on her. The barest wrong move could easily end in death against an opponent like this one. She seemed a little weaker than most, considering her lighter pink skin—he suspected he’d only survived that initial strike because of that fact—but even then, she’d broken his ribs in a single hit. He wasn’t confident in his chances taking another full-force strike like that.

In a swift motion, she suddenly lunged forward and reached out a hand to grab at Zeth’s head. He moved to react as quickly as he could, and to his surprise, just barely managed to do so. He certainly wasn’t fast enough to dodge her attack entirely, but that wasn’t what he was trying to do. Right as the demon’s fingers closed around Zeth’s face, he lifted his own hand up, holding the ritual cloth, and pressed it against her arm.

The lines of the ritual circle lit up, sparking with electricity, and in an instant, flames burst up all across the demon. Every square inch of her skin was set ablaze with a fire hotter than physically possible.

And, of course, her hand was still pressed against Zeth’s face. So as that flame sprung up, it seared into his flesh.

Zeth screamed in pain and stumbled back at the same time that his demon opponent shouted out in surprise and stepped away from Zeth, herself. But Zeth wasn’t paying attention—nor could he, with the burns covering his face and eyes. He raised his hands up to his skin to feel the damage; thankfully he’d only been touching the demon for a split second, so it hadn’t had time to do severe harm. But, from the feel of the tender skin across his nose, cheeks, mouth, and across his right eye, the shape of a hand had been imprinted into his skin by the fire.

He looked up with his left eye, keeping his right shut tight as stinging pain stabbed across that entire side of his face, to see the demon he’d set alight standing a few feet away, her entire body continuing to serve as fuel for the roaring fire covering her. However, she hadn’t collapsed. She was hunched over, hands on her knees, grunting in pain, but not dying.

And as he stood there, watching the scene, Zeth saw as the extreme heat from the fire on her body caused yet more flames to spring up across the wooden hallway. It seemed like the magical hellfire of his Skill would stay relegated to whoever the victim was, but the heat caused from the fire was certainly able to light other things aflame. In the past, the flames had only ever lasted a second or two when he’d used them on a target before sputtering out, meaning they didn’t ever have the time to cause any massive infernos, but it also seemed like the reason Hellfire Ritual only lasted a second or two wasn’t because the Skill simply wasn’t long lasting—it was because the flames would automatically die when the target died. Now, when the target was staying alive through them, they lasted much longer. And, as such, had far more time to set their surroundings alight.

In a completely wooden hallway.

It didn’t take long before fire had spread to a gigantic swath of floor and wall. And, unlike magical flame, this fire created smoke, quickly filling the underground bunker. Zeth backed away from the roaring flames, their source of the hellfire-covered demon still standing in the center of the disaster.

“Argh!” she grunted in pain once more. “You bastard. This hurts. I’ll kill you!”

Still burning, she stepped forward to reach Zeth, looking far more determined to tear him limb from limb than she had before. But as she approached, a fist suddenly reached through the flame and smoke and slammed into her jaw, sending her flying aside and knocking her into a wall, where she smashed right through and into the dirt on the other side.

Astrys stepped through the wall of fire, holding the other demon that was her opponent in a chokehold, her muscular arm wrapped around his throat as she dragged him across the hallway.

He gargled out threats and insults as he clawed at her, but from his current position, his attacks were completely ineffectual. From there, she used her other hand to grab his horn, let go of his neck, and instantly flung him across the hallway as well, where he smashed into the other demon.

Seemed like she’d gotten the hang of hand-to-hand combat.

Astrys looked back at Zeth. “Go. I’ll handle them.”

He nodded. He still felt slightly uneasy giving a demon so much autonomy over how she fought and operated, but he simply didn’t have the ability to micromanage her right now. He hated to admit it, but he’d simply have to trust this woman to not stab him in the back.

So he turned away, facing the wall of fire that was now tearing the complex apart. Garon was on the other side of the wall, though the smoke and flames were so thick that Zeth couldn’t actually see through them to confirm such a thing. But that was where he’d left the man. And now that the two demons were busy with Astrys, he’d actually have a chance to finish him off.

With a running start, Zeth charged at the fire. It’d spread from one side of the hall to the other, but its edges near the walls seemed at least somewhat thin, so he concluded he’d simply have to go straight through it. The still-stinging flesh on his face voiced its disapproval of this plan, but Zeth had no other choice if he was going to kill Garon. And he was going to kill Garon.

He didn’t dare slow down as he came up to the wall of flame, leaping through as he felt the heat lick at his skin and sear him further. But the sensation didn’t last long; as he landed on the floor and stumbled to a stop, he found he was on the other side of the fire.

And ahead of him was his enemy.

Those reinforcements he’d called in had caught up to him by now, the five of them standing to form a barricade between him and Zeth. And behind those bodyguards he stood, staring at Zeth, who was still catching his breath and steadying himself after charging right through a bonfire.

Garon stepped forward, holding out a finger to point at Zeth. He shouted out to his bodyguards, “There he is! Kill him!”

One of the people barked out a sickening laugh. “If we disable him, can I—”

“Yes, yes,” Garon said, sounding annoyed. “You can torture him, or whatever it is you thralls enjoy doing. Just get rid of this man.”

With that, the five people charged ahead, brandishing their knives.

Zeth stepped forward, reaching into his pockets for his ritual circles, and prepared for a slaughter.