by Oliver Mayes
As Archimonde was pummeled into the air, the root of the Circle of Hell ended. Damien threw a kunai into Archimonde’s open back, then pulled. Airborne Archimonde was not a stable grounding point. Damien orbited Archimonde from underneath rather than traveling to him directly. Damien’s hour of training as he had ascended through the overlapping beams in the Dark Tower’s Path of Deceit made what to do in this situation a matter of course.
He twisted to release exactly as his momentum carried him upward and Archimonde was pulled back down to Hell. Archimonde was yet to hit the floor when Damien hurled a kunai into his enemy’s throat and pulled. His knees landed on Archimonde’s chest as his second kunai plunged through Archimonde’s forehead, then Archimonde smashed into the ground and was crushed between it and Damien.
Three noncritical strikes for 1,000 damage each. Three Enraged critical strikes for 2,500 damage each. A generous portion of impact damage from the fist behind Damien’s kunai, Damien’s knees connecting with his enemy’s chest and Archimonde hitting the ground to be crushed under his Enraged bulk. Plus whatever damage Archimonde had taken and was continuing to take from its own Corruption. Damien’s life-steal was finished, but he’d regained over 1,000 hit points and was on top of his stunned foe. Archimonde was less than a single critical strike away from death.
Which was when Archimonde played its last resort. Before Damien could land the last hit, Archimonde pointed a shaky finger at his head.
“Shedim!”
Damien lost all vision. He’d been blinded. Experiencing it was different from knowing about it in theory. Blindness in and of itself was pretty scary, but temporary in this case. Nothing Damien couldn’t handle. He’d dealt with worse. He just had to keep his cool. Everything had gone completely dark, darker than if he’d closed his eyes. Then there was color, blurred but clearing rapidly. It was irrelevant. Whatever nightmares this ability gave him, they wouldn’t be real. Damien had recomposed himself and was raising his hand for the final blow when the voice cut into his head.
“It’s not your fault. I love you very much.”
The hairs on the back of Damien’s neck stood on end. The details were starting to fill in. It was only his vision and his hearing that were affected. He could feel Archimonde lying below him. He could feel that his own hand and the heaving chest beneath it were that of his Pride form. What he was seeing and hearing told a different story.
“It’s not your fault. I love you very much.”
He was back in Central Union. In his house. Although he hadn’t lost his simulated sense of touch, his audio and visuals had been taken from him, hijacked to replay the worst seconds of his life in a loop. He could see the profile of his feeble arms stretched out in front of him. He put the palms of his hands over his eyes, but it did nothing to prevent the scene from repeating. The more details he recognized, the more of them started filling in. He was in his house. On his kitchen floor. There was a figure lying prone in front of him.
“It’s not your fault. I love you very much.”
It sharpened, starting from the most important details and then expanding outward like tissue paper set on fire. The first part that cleared was his mother’s face. She was gaunt, almost skeletal, exactly as it had been on that day. Worse still, she was smiling at him. Separate points began from which the scene gained yet more clarity. Her hand squeezing his, though he could only see it, not feel it. The broken bowl with the chicken pasta in that miserable splat on the floor.
“It’s not your fault. I love you very—”
Which is when Damien realized he was punching Archimonde in the face. He’d already struck his enemy three times before he realized what he was doing. Conscious thought streamed in afterwards, lagging behind his instincts. So this was why Lillian had become a gibbering wreck. This is what Archimonde had done to her, and what Andrew had halted before Damien could. He’d hated it even before he had understood it personally.
Damien picked up where his instincts had left off and methodically continued his assault. He still didn’t have the wherewithal to take hold of his weapons. However, Might Makes Right and his retriggered Narcissistic Rage ensured he accomplished his goal, despite having lost his mind.
“It’s not your fau—”
His closed fist descended on where his sense of touch told him Archimonde’s head was for the sixth time when the vision faded. Suddenly, Damien was deafening himself with his own roar. So he’d been screaming, as well. He hadn’t registered that either. He awakened to find his knuckles embedded across Archimonde’s face, which was little more than a bloody pulp.
It wasn’t enough.
He’d buried his fists in Archimonde’s face a dozen times more, now consciously choosing not to use his weapons to drag it out as long as possible, before Lucifer split them up and dragged Archimonde to its feet. It stood in a stupor.
“Finish him.”
Damien hadn’t put a great deal of thought into how he’d dispatch his enemy. He’d only known it would fit Lucifer’s criteria of being as brutal as he could imagine. Having been subjected to his worst fear in excruciating detail, Damien’s horizons had been broadened. Necessity is the mother of creation. Damien needed Archimonde to suffer. He held his hand out and waited for a few seconds before his nearest imp landed on top of it.
Damien wished he’d taken the ‘Shedim’ trait so he could force Archimonde through what he’d just been subjected to, if only for a few seconds. His own abilities would have to suffice. Given what he now had in mind, his genius almost frightened him. Not enough to dissuade him from seizing the imp and plunging it into Archimonde’s gaping, unresisting stomach.
Damien grasped the upper and lower lips of the mouth that had once consumed him and pulled them open wide, granting him a clear line of sight to the imp that would execute his grand design. He pointed with his index finger without releasing Archimonde’s lips:
“Ex-Im—”
He pulled the lips over each other, sealing the only exit.
“—p-losion.”
Damien knew all about the perks of good preparation. His Ex-Imp-losion was fully charged. It was dangerous enough at close range without being activated inside the object of his wrath. Archimonde’s body swelled up and air rushed from its flaccid maw on either side. Damien clenched his fists together tighter to try and prevent it, but the pressure escaping soon found new avenues from which to be expelled: the five imps that had been charged by Damien’s Imp-losions burst out of Archimonde’s body in all directions, reducing it to a gory party popper. Archimonde’s head disconnected from its mangled body and soared into the air on a fountain of blood, and the rest of its internal workings left its body via the holes the imps had torn out of it.
It wasn’t enough.
Damien released what little remained of Archimonde’s body, allowing it to topple into the sand, and flung his kunai at the exact moment the head hung in midair. Accuracy was no longer a concern. Damien hadn’t even questioned whether he could hit such a small target. He’d previously worried if he was capable of hitting Archimonde’s entire body at a comparable distance. Now he had no doubt.
He struck true, then whipped his arm downward and twisted to release. Archimonde’s head hit the compressed sand with a thud, a crack and a squelch. It was obliterated. Now Archimonde’s head was the miserable splat on the floor.
It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. But there wasn’t anything left for Damien to take his anger out on, so it would have to do. For now.
Lucifer traced his hands over his own blood-drenched body, licked Archimonde off his fingers, then grasped Damien’s hand and thrust it into the air. He was pleased.
“Fatality. Damien wins.”
33
Conqueror’s Will
Lillian had arrived at the wall with Andrew in tow, only to find everyone left alive standing among the bodies. Gormlessly staring into their menus. They’d stopped everything to watch Damien’s livestream. Lillian became equally gormless when she set
eyes on Lucifer, gathering the situation Damien was in by degrees. The rules had already been explained at that point and the preliminary stage had begun. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Lillian, but Lucifer’s referencing of his own rules as Damien fell foul of them, coupled with the oooohs and aaaahs of the players surrounding them, had given her enough information to get the gist.
Then the combat had started. This Lillian could follow. Damien didn’t have as much raw power as she did, but he had some pretty disgusting combat options with his new form and weaponry. It took him fifteen seconds to get Archimonde on the floor and at his hypothetical mercy, alone. Lillian couldn’t have been happier. Which was when Archimonde pointed into Damien’s face and spoke the magic word.
Her blood ran cold. Damien’s greatest fear was about to be displayed on a livestream. Lillian couldn’t imagine sharing what she’d been subjected to with an audience. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to show fear; she was just as entitled to be afraid of things as anyone else, especially when it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. It was the intimacy of it. It was private. So when Damien’s vision remained intact, for a brief moment Lillian was relieved. She thought he’d dodged the bullet entirely. Yet when he had stopped attacking and released his weapons, allowing them to dangle from his wrists off their chains, her perspective changed.
It took no time at all for Lillian to realize what he was seeing, because he’d already told her all about it. Damien’s worst fear was strikingly similar to her own. Now she had to watch someone else suffer what she’d gone through. So when Damien’s pained breathing was broken with a primal roar, melding seamlessly from pain to full-blown rage as his fists descended into Archimonde’s face, Lillian’s triumphant scream drowned him out entirely.
“Get him! Take him do—”
She remembered where she was and cleared her throat, catching a few bemused glances from outside the bounds of her spectating window. Not so many as she’d expected. Most of the crowd were fixated on the fight and some were shouting even louder than she was, be it in joy, amazement or horror. The joy was split between the latter two shortly afterwards, when Archimonde Ex-Imp-loded.
Lillian was neither surprised, nor fussed. When in Rome. She knew most of the viewers around her wouldn’t see it that way, but they didn’t know what she knew. She was more concerned with Damien’s well-being. While the plethora of demons in the stands were showering him with praise, Damien himself was very quiet. He was in the wrong company. She tapped out a message while Lucifer paraded him around the arena like a prizewinning dog.
Lillian: You did amazingly well. I’m sorry Archimonde did that to you. I’m logging out now, have to leave for work soon. I’d like to see you before I go if you can manage it.
She watched him open his menu and saw her own message there. Good. Then she tapped Andrew on the shoulder to get his attention.
“I’m logging out to get Damien. I’ve sent for the Empire Artisan’s Guild already, they’ll make short work of the wall but we need some players watching over them, just in case. Sort it out for me, please. Also, please send Hammertime a message, he should get the word around his own guild. I’ll wait for you for fifteen minutes; if I don’t see you by then I’ll head off alone.”
“Don’t go without me, I’ll be there.”
Not a word of complaint about sorting out her duties for her. Even more incredibly, not a word of complaint for Lillian suggesting he contact Hammertime. Maybe because dealing with Hammertime was small potatoes after handling Magnitude. Maybe because he was aware Damien’s need outstripped his own comfort. Lillian didn’t fancy pulling on either of those threads when he’d given her the time she needed.
She’d have to get a move on. Damien had already finished summoning his own portal. He then made his excuses to Lucifer, who was not best pleased, but Damien brushed off the Lord of Hell and stepped away. Then he just stood in his base, doing nothing, saying nothing. He had to know he was still livestreaming, because just before Lillian logged out he cut the feed.
She was out of her own pod in seconds, only to end up waiting for Damien for minutes. It was a bizarre situation: there were occultists lying down everywhere, arranged precariously on beanbags or lying down on yoga mats. A number of them were already waiting and some of them were just waking up, but Damien’s pod remained firmly closed. Unable to stand around doing nothing any longer, Lillian went to make herself useful.
“How much for the three pods?”
“You’re Lillian? The Lillian?”
Lillian glanced at the monitor set to the side behind his desk. He was watching her stream on repeat. This wasn’t the first time Lillian’s actions in Saga had gotten her attention, but it was the first time she’d seen a stranger watching her actions through her eyes, out in the real world.
“The one and only.”
He leaned sideways to look at the line of pods, his eyes widening as he connected the dots.
“And that’s Aetherius, in the pod next to yours?”
“Yup. Damien invited us along to hype this place up. I’ll put out a message on my profile saying this is where we fought the battle, if that’s alright by you?”
“That would be amazing! Thank you!”
“Don’t thank me, thank Damien. He was very persistent about getting me here. Sorry, I want to pay up. How much?”
“Free of charge. If you’re sending business my way that’s more—”
Lillian clacked her credit card onto the desk. The idea of depriving a venue which was making do with yoga mats and beanbags of her custom was ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as the idea of going there in the first place.
“I wasn’t invited here to take advantage of you, don’t offend me. Ring me up.”
There were scattered cheers and Lillian turned to find Damien climbing out of his pod. He was wearing the fake smile Lillian was so well acquainted with from her own time in the streaming competition. Damien didn’t wear it quite so well as she or Andrew could. Practice makes perfect. His closest fans didn’t seem to notice. One of them was already thrusting out a marker pen and a headset, blathering on about how awesome Damien was without noticing he looked anything but.
Lillian left her credit card behind to extricate Damien from the rapidly forming dogpile. If he felt half as bad as she had after being targeted by Shedim, this was the last thing he needed. It was a lot harder to push her way through a crowd out here than it was in Saga. By the time she got to Damien, he was signing headsets as they were thrust under his nose, and the cafe was full of noise.
Lillian had had it with these savages. She got to the front and grasped Damien by the arm as he continued scrawling his best pass at a signature on whatever was handed to him, this time a Saga merch T-shirt. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there, at all.
“Hey, do you want to get some air with me?”
“I’ve got to do this first. Can you help me out?”
It wasn’t the way she wanted to help, but it was what Damien was asking for and she could do it. Lillian stood next to him and doubled down on his signature on everything that was passed in her direction, making everyone there happy except herself. It was only when she noticed people returning with new objects to sign that she decided enough was enough. She put on her showman’s smile.
“Thanks so much for helping today, you guys were great, enjoy the signatures. I have to go and I need Damien to escort me, so see you next time! Bye-bye now, goodbye, GGWP, bye-bye.”
She grabbed Damien firmly by the shoulders and led him past the desk, where her credit card was being held out by the store owner lest she had forgotten. She hadn’t. In fact, she had a request for him.
“When An...Aetherius gets out of the pod, can you send him...Damien, where are we going? Somewhere nearby we can talk while we wait for Andrew.”
“Noodle bar opposite.”
“Can you send Aetherius to the noodle bar over the road for me? Thanks, appreciated. Damien, say goodbye to all your f
ans. No, that’s not a threat, just give them a wave for— okay, good. Bye everybody! Thanks for everything!”
And they were outta there. Lillian frog-marched Damien over the road and into a seat at the window. It was a clever choice for the situation, almost as if he’d done this before. She ordered two chicken satay bowls for herself and Andrew and a miso for Damien, thinking something hot to drink would do him a world of good. It wasn’t much good if he wasn’t drinking it.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No. I mean, why not? We won, right? I’m guessing we won.”
“We won.”
“Oh, good. That’s good.”
“That’s not what I was asking, and you know it.”
Damien set his eyes back out the window. He was putting on the same fake smile for her that he’d been putting on for his fans. It annoyed Lillian intensely. She stared at him for a while, waiting to see exactly how uncomfortable he was. The silence got long enough for her to decide to guide the whole conversation without Damien’s help.
She’d cut right to the point. After all, a proper introduction was long overdue.
“Here’s what I saw when I got Shedimmed: my father was walking with me when an automated car veered off the road and ran him down. His final act was shielding me from harm. They failed to revive him in the hospital. I was six at the time.”
She didn’t know how Damien would take this. At least the shock factor got his attention.
“Why are you telling me that?”
“Because you were living through your worst fear when we first met and you told me all about it, even though you didn’t have to tell me the truth. You could’ve just lied. I avoid—”
