He’d decided that this was his chance.
“Almost...” she muttered. “Almost….”
Her cannon rested on its bipod, and she was aiming over the cliff’s edge at where the skygorger demon hovered just out of sight, no doubt charging a long-ranged spell, one that it would need a little more altitude to throw at them.
“Hey,” Dazel said. “Any chance I could get you to glamour up some cat-size ear prot—”
She fired the cannon, and a wave of sound seemed to vibrate through his entire skull as his ears smarted with pain. He began to regenerate them with his [Health] a moment later, though his head still rang with pain.
“Got ‘em!” Ashtoreth said, standing.
Around them, the others healed their ears: Kylie used her death magic, and Frost held a glowing hand out toward Hunter’s head.
But Dazel was, of course, left to regenerate his wounds alone.
Ashtoreth stood, and he rose with her, paws around her neck with his hind legs on her wings.
“I’ll suss out any traps they’ve laid and maybe pull out this Gethernel fellow, if he’s still around,” she said, standing and dispersing her gun to form her sword again. “Support me if anything goes wrong.”
She planted her sword in the ground, then sprang up onto the hilt to launch herself away.
But in the moment that he began to feel her accelerate, Dazel released his grip and used his racial flight to pull away.
“Great idea, boss!” Dazel cried after her. “I’ll stay here and strategically coordinate!”
Ashtoreth didn’t acknowledge him as she sped down into the fray, aiming for a line of devils along the rampart just below them.
Dazel climbed into the branches of a bloodleaf tree overhanging the cliff so he could see the battle. He watched Ashtoreth push her sword through the chest of an armored devil below her, causing herself to rise out of a volley of arrows in the same moment before pulling herself down to the corpse to retrieve her sword.
Beside him, Frost opened up with his automatic shotgun, forcing a handful of the devils near Ashtoreth to take cover as she gained a foothold.
Kylie stepped up to the cliff’s edge as Ashtoreth fought below: She sent several spikes of death magic toward a devil on one of the lower platforms, and Dazel watched it collapse, then rise again in short order and charge the devil nearest to it.
She’d given him the perfect opening.
“Hold up,” Dazel said. “Hey. Necromancer girl.”
Kylie glanced over at him. “Are you talking to me?”
“Probably,” Dazel said. “Listen: ignore those guys for now—get the ones on the top platforms.”
Kylie flashed him an icy look. “Excuse me?”
“Look, I know the lower ones seem more disruptive because you can pincer the devils between your minions and the princess, right? But she’s going to send them downward when they retreat, and your minions will get overwhelmed outside the range where we can support them.”
Kylie made a noise of disgust. “Spare me the backseat lichcraft, fancy feast.”
Below them, Dazel watched Ashtoreth charge along one of the bridges that spanned the ravine. She sheared a devil in half, bursting their corpse into a plume of hellfire, then dodged a volley of arrows by emerging from the top of the flames, having dropped her sword and pushed herself upward.
She landed behind the next-closed devil, then pulled on her sword, yanking herself into her enemy as the sword came at them from the other direction, impaling them. She flipped over the devil’s shoulders as more arrows hissed through the air toward her, grabbing the hilt of her sword as she used their corpse as a shield and charging down the length of the bridge.
Beside Dazel on the ledge, Hunter tensed and reached for his sword-hilts.
“What are you doing, Jaxxon?”
“I can [Shadowstride] down to the lower platform and take out those devils with—”
“Hold that thought, Roninslayer,” said Dazel. “Let’s keep the twin fangs of cringe and edge sheathed for now. You can reveal your true power level if Her Highness down there actually runs into some problems.”
“She’s moving out of range of my shotgun,” Frost said, loading another drum of ammunition. “It’s not too far a drop to that platform. We can move in behind her to keep up support”
“Eh, let’s not,” said Dazel. “She’s doing fine. She’s still got your buffs, and Kylie’s still in range. She can support.”
The necromancer let out a displeased grunt at this, but Dazel noticed that she’d begun animating the corpses of the devils by the upper ramps.
Below them, Ashtoreth launched her sword into a group of devils that had gotten too tightly-packed, causing a chain reaction of explosions as the counterforce launched her off her current bridge and onto a different one, where she began to attack more devils with her claws.
“Christ,” Frost said, watching Ashtoreth bound across a distance of twenty meters on all fours, then tackle a devil to the ground, rip their metal helmet away from their face, the gouge out the contents of their head like she was spooning the yolk out of a deviled egg. Her foe burst into a plume hellfire a moment later, and her sword suddenly shot out of this cloud to cause another one of the enemies to explode.
“She fights like a cornered animal,” the cop said.
“She’s a killer,” Dazel said, carefully injecting a tone of pride into his voice. “A real monster. You guys should feel lucky that she found you.”
“Lucky,” Kylie echoed.
Dazel swished his tail. Now was his chance—he just had to think of the right words.
“Sure. I mean, she’s not just a strong ally in the coming war—she’s also got immunity in case things go south.”
“Immunity?” Frost asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on,” Dazel said. “You’re police. You know.”
“No,” Frost said, his voice darkening a shade. “I really don’t.”
“Look,” Dazel said. “You know how in the Great Gatsby, Daisy’s laugh is the sound of money?”
“I think I read that in highschool,” said Frost. “But no.”
“I don’t,” said Kylie.
“Nobody? Jaxxon, what about you?”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“It’s Hunter, and I just used Sparknotes for that essay. Are you sure we shouldn’t be helping her?”
Dazel looked down into the ravine. Another skygorger demon had appeared from one of openings carved into the cliff walls.
“Nah,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”
Ashtoreth ducked to avoid a green bolt of magic that it threw from its spear as it rose into the air. Then she crouched against the railing of one of the bridges, bracing herself as she threw her sword at it.
The skygorger might’ve beat its wings hard and used its flight to dodge the fast-moving sword, but it never got the chance. Ashtoreth seemingly used the same ability she’d used to break the construct boss’s shield, imbuing the sword with far greater velocity once the demon was committed to its initially calculated dodge.
The sword struck the demon through the center, not so much impaling it as breaking it apart like a bullet striking a small bird.
Dazel cocked his head as he watched Ashtoreth. Cracks had appeared in the stone of the bridge around her. She pulled herself up to her feet with her arms, and he saw a bend in each of her ankles straighten. She’d broken her legs to throw the blade that hard.
“See?” he said as she leapt toward more devils that were spilling from the openings in the cliffsides. “She’s fine—she’s having fun, I’ll bet.”
Kylie had more minions on the upper bridge, now—she’d been raising more of the devil-skeletons with death magic, and they were filling the space along the railing to throw spells down at the emerging enemies. Surprisingly, she was targeting the right enemies: not the ones Ashtoreth was engaging, but the ones closest to reinforcing the ones she was engaging. She was keeping Ashtoreth from being overwhelmed.
“Anyway,” Dazel said, “Immunity. Look, Frost, you know how back when you were a cop—”
“I’m still a police officer, Dazel.”
“—There were people who you couldn’t arrest? People the law didn’t apply to?”
“No one’s above the law,” Frost said firmly.
“Bullshit,” Kylie said—with perhaps more emphasis than she’d said anything since Dazel had met her.
“You guys use lawyers who you hire with money to handle legal matters,” Dazel said. “Don’t tell me the rich ones don’t have an edge.”
“The system’s not perfect—”
“There you go!” Dazel said, cutting him off. “And its imperfections? They serve the Ashtoreths of the human world. The politicians, the trust fund babies—hell, even just the more attractive people have an advantage.”
“Like I said, the system’s not perfect. But I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
Again, Dazel swished his tail through the air. It was a bit of a gamble, what he was about to try—but resentment was the same across all species. He knew that well enough.
“Kylie knows,” he said.
“Excuse me?” the necromancer asked.
“Some people were born right,” Dazel said. “And some weren’t. Some people are so protected from consequences that they can bend every rule they don’t like. And if it turns out they can’t break it? Well, that’s fine, they’ll get a slap on the wrist and move on to the next one.”
Kylie eyed him suspiciously. “And you think I know this, why?”
“The point is, some of us get to casually assert control over everything they come into contact with. I mean, how else can you explain how happy she is? Nothing she’s ever done has really ended in disaster. At least for her. Her Highness down there is one of the elect. Some of us live in an amusement park, a vacation made out of the world that people build. Some of us,” he said, nodding meaningfully down at Ashtoreth. “Get to own the world that we live in.”
He watched the princess leap clear of a gushing explosion of hellfire to slam a devil to the ground and tear their face away.
“Some of us get to be free.”
“Ashtoreth is a child soldier,” Frost said. “Her parents have seen her as a tool her whole life, and if she’s happy, it’s probably because she’s never been free—not until today.”
“There’s a noble outlook,” said Dazel. “Maybe you’re more of a paladin than I thought. Come to think of it, maybe you’re less of a cop—I haven’t seen you unload an entire magazine into anyone’s back after shouting at them to stop resisting, either.”
“Is she really a princess?” Kylie asked quietly. Her glowing blue eyes were fixated on the archfiend fighting below them. “Seriously?”
Got her, Dazel thought. “Oh, she’s the princess. Her father is the King of Hell. And good for it, too: imagine the stability that relationship will bring once she becomes the Monarch of Earth.”
“Sorry, ‘Monarch of Earth’?” Frost asked.
“Yeah,” Hunter said. “That sounds powerful. How does someone become the Monarch of Earth?”
“That’s how all of this works,” said Dazel. “The system will make one person the monarch, and they’ll control inter-realm travel both to and away from Earth, among other things. Think of it as this: they get realm-wide admin privileges from the system, but they can also be challenged for the role.”
“That’s what princess chucklefuck down there wants?” Kylie asked. “To rule over mankind?”
Dazel swished his tail with satisfaction. Kylie’s life had not gone well, as far as he knew… and what did a loser like her want, more than someone to resent?
He was a demon from the Pit of Sorrow, after all. He knew.
“Of course that’s what she wants,” Dazel said. “She couldn’t not want it. She’s an archfiend of pride. She’s either getting stronger along every vector possible, or she’s failing. She’s the best of all infernals.”
“And so you think she should rule Earth,” Kylie said.
“Woah!” Dazel said. “Hold on, not rule it, just… control travel. And fight as its champion so that nobody else can take that power away. ‘Monarch’ is just a title. And you can’t deny she’s got moves.”
Below them, Ashtoreth impaled a devil on her sword, then swung the sword hard enough to throw their corpse at one of the entrances and ignited it in midair with a hellfire bolt, hiding herself from their view as she surged forward toward them.
“Look,” Dazel continued. “You should stick with Her Highness down there, is all I’m saying. Even if this invasion doesn’t go your way, she’s still got—I don’t know, immunity, freedom, protection, call it what you want. Her betrayal’s not an unforgivable offense, and you’d rather be her favorite humans than some other infernal’s lunch.”
“Like a bunch of… pets?” Kylie said acidly.
“Take it from me,” Dazel said. “I’m a cowardly, cretinous demon. I know how to survive! And the first step to surviving is to become immune to shame. She loves humans! I mean, she’s not dragging you along as her coattail passengers because she actually needs you for something, she’s doing it because she wants friends. Ashtoreth isn't the manipulative type—I’d know if she was, trust me.”
“I don’t,” said Frost.
“All right, fine,” said Dazel. “But I’m telling you: she’s not using you, she likes you. You’ve met her: she’s no good at that kind of lie. And bear in mind that the only time she’s ever really been in danger so far was when she ran into the trap back there—the one with the two skygorgers.”
“You mean when I killed one with my shotgun.”
“Exactly that!” Dazel said. “She did that because she knew that while she could have given those demons the runaround, you guys wouldn’t have been able to escape. She leapt headfirst into a trap to protect you. That’s how you know she really cares.”
“Cares enough to protect her assets, maybe,” Kylie said. “He’s right—if she wants to win the tutorial, what’s she dragging us along for?”
“Hey, wait a second,” Dazel said. “If I’m right about that, at least trust me on the other thing, too—Ashtoreth’s not manipulative. I’m telling you, she really cares.”
“Listen,” Kylie said.
She never finished. A deep noise boomed out through the chasm below them like a gong. A thin film of darkness seemed to ripple outward from the lava-lit depths of the chasm, passing over everything in the space of a moment.
All the remaining devils below them fell to the ground, dead.
“What was that?” Frost said, raising his shotgun even though there was nothing to point it at.
Below, Ashotoreth shook a limp body off the end of her sword, seeming almost disappointed. She looked up at them, then made an exaggerated shrug.
Dazel yawned. “Life harvest spell,” he said. “It’ll reverse in a sec.”
Sure enough, the ripple of smokey power coalesced again and withdrew along the path it had come, converging somewhere below the network of stone bridges and walkways.
“See?” Dazel said. “It’s just a boss fight.”
A winged figure shot up from below, then dove downward to land on the same bridge as Ashtoreth, standing opposite her, then folding their wings behind their back.
{Archdevil Gethernel — Level 24 Boss}
“See?” Dazel said. “Anyway, try to get a hit in if you want loot—Imma nap.”
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