The behemoth bellowed in pain, the force of its yell loud enough to force Nathan to cover his ears. Fei, Ciana, and Narime snapped their hands over their ears in pain.
The ground quaked as the behemoth fell to its knees. The flames seared its flesh. Its black eyes glowed red, shooting around like crazy.
“It’s weak,” Fei chirped.
She shot forward, flames around her arms. Then she hurled them at the monster. The blue fire latched onto the behemoth. Unlike normal demons, which melted like wax upon impact from Fei’s flames, the behemoth lit up like a huge candle. The beast tried to roar, but the attempt only allowed the fire into its lungs.
Fei continued to pump her flames into the monster. A manic grin stretched across her face. Her sapphires glowed so bright that Nathan worried they were going to explode. Nathan wondered how Fei kept this up.
Was her duogem ability that powerful? Fei now had a form of magical vampirism. She regained magic using her flames. In effect, she was eating the behemoth.
The huge monster collapsed in itself suddenly, its body failing. The heavy armor crushed what remained of it. Dust billowed up.
Fei stopped using her ability. Her flames flickered out of existence a few seconds later.
“Wow. That was easy.” The catgirl flicked her long black hair and preened for Nathan.
“Good job, Fei.” He walked up and scratched behind her ears. Her tail flicked back and forth in pleasure.
“I’m surrounded by monsters,” Nurevia said.
Astra punched her in the side, then walked forward. With a sweep of her arm, the trigem blew out the remaining flames. A gale of wind blew across the clearing.
No more demons surged through. The Twins descended and poked their arms through the gateway, as if testing that it worked.
“Are you coming with us?” Seraph asked Nathan. “Your binding stones won’t work once you go through. It’s dangerous.”
“I’ll manage,” he grunted.
Ciana stuck to him like glue as they approached the gateway. Behind them, his knights formed up. Fei and Narime peeled off to give them orders.
He paused and looked around. As much as it hurt him to think it, this might be the last time he saw some of his Champions. He burned their faces in his mind.
Fei, Sen, Ciana, Seraph, Narime, Nurevia, and Astra.
“Don’t,” Astra said, staring at him. “Weak eyes.”
“Saw right through me, huh.” He grimaced. “I regretted not saying goodbye last time.”
Sen clapped him on the back. “Then make sure you don’t need to say goodbye this time. We’re not going anywhere, Nathan. And if I’m in any danger, I’ll jump behind the idiots floating around over there.” She pointed at the Twins.
Ciana and Sen pushed him forward, but he did note that they remained close to him.
“Let’s go,” Nathan said.
He stepped through the gateway.
Chapter 37
The world on the other side of the gateway looked familiar to Nathan. Not because it was a volcanic hellscape—which it was—but because he had been before.
But not when he defended the Spires.
“I know this place,” he said, looking around in wonder.
All portals were formed of two core sections: the valley and the clearing. The clearing contained the rift that the demons invaded through, and Nathan had opened the gateway here. The valley was the long stretch that the demons charged through to reach the exit.
The role of a Bastion was to prevent the demons and any Messengers from getting from the clearing to the far end of the valley.
But this portal turned all concept of that idea on its head, at least at first glance.
There were two clearings. One stood above the other, separated by steep cliffs. Winding pathways built from marble and bone connected the two, and extended over the glowing abyss that was visible over the edges of the cliffs. Slate towers extended above the walkways and their bases sat in the bottom clearing.
Nathan stood atop a throne crafted from bone. It stood hundreds of feet tall, with winged arches that rose even higher above him. Behind him, his Champions and knights marched onto its cracked surface. They stared in warped fascination at their surroundings.
Far below him, in the bottom clearing, was a stone wall that marked the exit from the portal. A brutal battle took place around it. In fact, a battle took place everywhere.
Dark elves and countless summons filled the towers overlooking the bone walkways. They fired catapults, ballistae, and a variety of wicked siege weapons onto the demons below them. Behemoths swung their claws at the towers in return, and some could reach the towers.
Nathan watched as a behemoth took out the middle of a tower. Screams echoed across the entire battlefield, as hundreds of dark elves were crushed beneath the ruins of a collapsing tower. Far below them, a swarm of demons rushed the survivors.
The bottom clearing seethed with an uncountable red mass of beasts and dozens of behemoths. An endless light show of magic and gem abilities blew apart hundreds of demons at a time, and sometimes felled a behemoth. But more came, neverending. The Spires’ defenses slowly failed.
This was the difficulty in fighting a Messenger. They warped the portal, and a Bastion couldn’t change the terrain itself. This terrain favored the attacker and left the dark elves on the backfoot. Nathan had been fairly lucky that the Twins hadn’t done something similarly awful.
Standing around him, none of his Champions said anything. Even Nurevia was speechless, as she saw her homeland beaten back.
“Oh wow. I think I know this guy,” Maura said as she landed next to Nathan.
“He invaded Trafaumh,” Nathan said in response. “I forget his name. But his power was obscene. He gave no warning, then attacked Soreaux, the capital and destroyed it overnight. By the time we defeated him, the entire eastern half of Trafaumh had been overrun by demons.”
“Wait, Trafaumh?” Seraph hissed. “Wasn’t that one of the last nations to fall?
“Yes. We had several trigem Champions between everyone when we took him down.” Nathan took a deep breath. “This is bad.”
“I mean, we’re here,” Laura said.
“Less talk, more fight,” Astra said.
She blurred past them and leaped off the throne. Her cape fluttered in the air behind.
Then the effect was ruined as Astra snapped her arms out. Magic flared from her as she shredded the ranks of the demons below them.
“Damn it,” Nathan cursed. “Seraph, Narime, Fei, Nurevia, I need you to command the knights. We need to prevent the gateway from being overrun by demons. Ciana, Sen, you’re with me. You two.” He pointed at the Twins. “Protect the gateway.”
“Whaaaat?” the succubi whined, holding each others’ hands as they pressed themselves against Nathan. No matter how big their tits were, Nathan couldn’t feel them through his breastplate.
“Don’t play dumb. If the Messenger gets past us, he’ll be through the gateway within seconds. He’s a spatial manipulator.” Nathan pointed at both of them. “Just like the two of you. Keep him out.”
“Yeah, yeah. You better show us a good time after this,” Maura said, rolling her eyes.
The Champions split up in response to Nathan’s orders. He drew his sword and ran forward up to the edge of the platform they were on. As he expected, a ramp of pearly bone descended to the volcanic wasteland below.
In the distance, he saw the entrances to the pathways to the lower level. Demons massed around them. None of them paid attention to the hundreds of beastkin knights clattering down the ramp. Those demons who had noticed the portal closing had been blown apart several minutes ago.
Nathan saw Astra in a mass of corpses. Her enemies barely had time to turn toward her before she obliterated them. The demon’s bodies slowly disintegrated after they died, but Astra killed them faster than this happened.
At a glance, Astra’s movement looked absurd. She punched or kicked the air. Her arms swung
about wildly. Sometimes she even did flips or spun about.
But the piles of slowly vaporizing corpses told a different story. Her opals glowed. Every punch blew holes through demons. Her kicks sent heads flying into the void. When she windmilled her arms around, the demons were churned up by an invisible meat grinder. Astra ground down hundreds of the beasts with a brutal ferocity.
A behemoth lurched in her direction.
“Sen, fifth rank spell. Use a penetrating version of Ifrit’s lance,” Nathan ordered.
“Got it,” Sen said. She pointed her hand at the behemoth and a pentagon flared into existence around it.
Astra didn’t wait for support. She grabbed the behemoth’s horn with her gem ability. With a howl, the behemoth struggled against her. Slowly but surely, Astra pulled it to its knees.
Then the behemoth lashed out with its claws. At least fifty demons were ground into paste in the process, as the hulking blue beast slammed its house-sized appendages into Astra. The ground shook. Dust and dirt flew up from the ground.
Ciana gasped, and moved in front of Nathan reflexively. She raised her sword and shield.
Sen maintained her focus, and the pentagon glowed bright red. “Now?”
“Wait for a clear shot at its head,” Nathan said.
Ciana looked at him in shock, then back at the behemoth.
When their view cleared, Astra stood perfectly still. The points of the behemoth’s claws dug into her, but no farther. All three of her opals glowed.
In response, the dark elf began to rip the claws out, one-by-one. The behemoth tried to withdraw, but found itself held in place, despite its strength.
Sen saw her chance. Her spell shot off. A massive lance, easily as large as one of the behemoth’s claws, shot into the monster’s face. It punched through its carapace in one shot. A moment later, lava streamed out from its wound.
Then the behemoth was dead, and its corpse disintegrated like any other demon.
“Killing dozens of them will take forever,” Sen said.
“They’re one of the most powerful greater demons there are,” Nathan said. “I’m glad I used this plan and didn’t let Astra come here alone. We’ve shut off reinforcements by closing the portal. If we had to fight both a Messenger and a neverending tide of behemoths, I don’t know if we could win.”
Both of his Champions stared at him in shock.
“It’s true. We don’t win by denying reality,” he said. “I know this Messenger. He’s a mean piece of work.”
They caught up to Astra, who slowed down her advance to let them catch up. Of course, once they did reach her, she charged toward the next mass of demons.
The enemies appeared to be unending.
Nathan conserved his own strength. While he had four binding stones to draw on, he was far enough from his closest one that using them was inefficient. He needed to save his best spells for the Messenger.
What was his name again? All Nathan remembered was some over-the-top speech about how he was an apostle of doom, or something ridiculous like that. It had been true, given the damage he had done. But Nathan hated to let the Messengers prattle on.
In the distance, Nathan saw his army cut into the rear of the demons. His other Champions led the attack, and prevented his knights from engaging the most dangerous demons.
The beastkin knights used magic and enchanted equipment. While they were strong enough to fight ordinary demons, letting them fight heavies or a behemoth would result in a massacre. Even an enhanced or monogem Champion had a huge edge over the knights.
Blue flames consumed an entire walkway, and Nathan heard Fei’s laughter. The catgirl danced through an entire column of demons by herself. Although she was ignoring his orders to support the knights, Nathan couldn’t deny that she was effective.
Her flames torched demons at a speed that matched even Astra’s ferocity, and she could take down Behemoth’s with focused effort. The danger was that the smaller demons quickly overran her.
Which is what was about to happen. Nathan watched as Fei concentrated on melting a behemoth, ignorant to the dozens of demons flanking her.
“Sen, over there,” he snapped, pointing at Fei.
Without another word, Sen sent meteors crashing down among the demons. When the catgirl jumped and looked over at them, Sen waved in return.
Fei had the decency to look embarrassed. She pulled back afterward and supported the knights.
On another walkway, Seraph and Nurevia joined forces to keep the demons at bay. Seraph’s magical waves made short work of the heavies, as she disintegrated their armor. Her regeneration ability allowed her to keep going against the weaker demons, and her energy waves destroyed equipment.
The behemoth armor took longer to damage, given it was magic-resistant. But as cracks built up in it, Nurevia peppered the blue giants with glowing explosive crossbow bolts. Her abilities were purely offensive, but allowed her to harm even the behemoths. The heads of heavies vanished if the dark elf so much as looked at them.
Nathan imagined Nurevia’s cackling as she swept about the battlefield in her hot pants and vest.
Narime remained behind, by contrast. Her tails flattened dozens of heavies at a time as necessary, turning the beasts into flattened piles of steel on the ground. If a behemoth got close, her gems glowed and she blew holes through their armor. Narime’s gem ability allowed her to ignore protective barriers and wards, making the anti-magic protections of the behemoths useless.
In Nathan’s old world, Narime had been his secret weapon to slaying behemoths. By combining her gem abilities, she had been able to blow behemoths apart with ease.
The problem was the sheer exhaustion it caused. Dozens of behemoths waded through the ranks of the demons. If Nathan hadn’t shut the portal, there’d be double or triple this number soon. He suspected most of the dark elf casualties came from the behemoths and the Messenger. Without Astra to tear the blue giants apart one-by-one, their other Champions needed to grind away at the horde of magic-resistant monsters.
But Nathan had things under control now.
His armies pushed down the walkways, wiping out the demons as they went. The dark elf towers closest to them cheered as they passed. Nathan saw a monogem Champion slump over a parapet in exhaustion. She waved at Astra, tears streaming down her face.
“Wow. This is going really well,” Sen said, as she hurled a lance over Astra’s head. “Should I get some practice in as a spellblade?”
“Don’t practice in real battles,” Nathan said. “And the real thing is about to come. I think he’s noticed us.”
Nathan finally spotted the Messenger.
A man walked among the demons in the bottom clearing. Mounds of earth and stone blocked his path. Barriers of light surrounded him. Boulders and fireballs rained down around him, vaporizing demons but leaving him unharmed.
The man wore a black robe in the same fashion of Narime’s homeland. It had elegant black imagery embroidered along the edges and the baggy sleeves. His slick black hair was streaked with white, and hung freely past his shoulders. In comparison to the demons, his figure was trim. Nathan towered over the man by almost a foot and could probably bench press him without magical assistance.
The most obvious sign that this man was the Messenger were the wings of bone arching out of his back. They stretched several feet in length, and flexed with each step he took. The Messenger carried a silver blade that had an eerie blue sheen.
“That him?” Astra said. Her muscles tensed.
“Do not!” Nathan snapped. He grabbed her shoulder.
“Enemy,” she said, glaring at him. But she remained still.
Nathan’s argument fell away as the Messenger looked up at them. For a moment, the eyes of the two men met.
Bastion and Messenger stared at each other.
Then the Messenger’s jaw dropped. His face twisted in a mask of open shock and amazement. He pointed at Nathan with his free hand.
“You!” the Messenger shoute
d, his voice booming across the entire battlefield.
Chapter 38
After several awkward seconds, the Messenger recovered his composure. He leveled his sword at Nathan.
Instinctively, Nathan began casting defensive spatial wards. That silver blade could lop off his head from this distance.
“Bastion!” the Messenger boomed. “Feel honored, for you are in the presence of the apostle of doom, Thanatos. Now, die.”
Thanatos twisted his arm, pulled it back, then thrust his sword forward. Nathan felt the space in front of him warp. His chest tightened.
Then something exploded against his spatial ward. It shattered like a pane of glass, and the glittering shards of magic dissipated within seconds.
Nathan flew backward from the impact. He rolled end over end. His chest bloomed with pain.
Somebody snatched him up, then set him down on his feet. He saw Astra in the distance, gesturing toward him with her arms.
“Nathan!” Ciana screamed.
She sprinted toward him.
Thanatos appeared above them, his bone wings fanned out around his body. For a moment, he looked like an undead male vision of Omria.
Then Nathan remembered that he had killed Thanatos before. Gods didn’t die.
Then again, neither did Thanatos, apparently.
Before the Messenger landed, Astra swatted him aside. He tumbled end over end down the walkway. His scream of outrage pierced Nathan’s ears.
Ciana grabbed Nathan’s arm. She yanked him over her shoulder, trying to support him as her tail swung back and forth wildly.
“I’m fine,” he grunted out, trying to prevent her from ripping his arm off. “Astra, Sen, we’re pulling back to the others.”
They sprinted toward the gateway. The Twins waved at him in the distance. Nathan ignored them, instead looking around for Fei and his other Champions.
The catgirl was closest, it turned out. She pulled her knights back and handed over command to Nurevia and Seraph. Nathan didn’t know what Narime was doing. The fox maintained her position, possibly because the knights still needed support against the behemoths. Many of the demons had turned around.
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