The two youth’s reactions couldn’t have been more different.

  Axios was stunned silent to hear the man’s identity.

  Kenos’ smile only grew wider and he seemed giddy with excitement.

  “I take it that you know who we are then. Don’t worry kids, you are safe as long as I am around. Demons don’t like me much, for one”, Jonah declared, “Axios, can you please move away from the demon?”

  Axios did as he was asked and Jonah crouched down and grabbed his weapon by the shaft.

  They could tell that it was a spear, but it had the noticeable distinction of having two prongs instead of the single spearhead that they were accustomed to. The vice-admiral held the shaft in his hand and started rotating his wrists in opposite directions, until eventually the weapon’s shaft separated into two and he pulled the now shorter front section from inside the demon’s skull.

  “Ugh! This thing’s brains just look foul. I really shoulder carry some wipes in a pocket or something”, he sniffed the spearhead, “Blergh! Smells horrible too.”

  “You should see what its eye tasted like”, Axios commented and immediately started spitting into the distance as soon as he said it.

  “Uh?”, Jonah remarked, befuddled, looking back at the demon’s skull and noticing its missing eye, “You bit this thing’s eye? You are one disturbing kid, you know that? Hahahaha”, Jonah laughed nervously, as he remarked on the golden youth’s temperament.

  “Must have been the blood rushing to my head”, Axios counterargued.

  “Must have been the blood rushing to your head”, Jonah repeated, “Anyway, this thing is filthy. I am so used to being at sea that I can’t even remember the last time where I couldn’t just wash something by just letting it hang from the edge of the ship. I really should have brought a towel or something…”

  “Well, you can have this”, Axios said, grabbing his sickle and using it to cut apart a portion of his shirt to use as a rag, “Sorry about the blood. I isn’t mine though, don’t worry”

  “Thank you kid. That is very nice of you…Er…what is your name again?”

  “Teo”, Kenos answered.

  “So, Teo and Axios, what are you two doing here? Especially you Axios, you are wearing the uniform of the town guard. Why are you just randomly here instead of on the frontlines?”

  This had been the sort of questioning that Axios had wished to avoid, but he didn’t see any way to lie his way out of this so he just decided to come out with the truth.

  “I was already on the frontlines. After I helped cut open a path to the south gate, my superior told me that the best among that group were being requested to go through the middle of town and link up with the Limani soldiers coming from the outside, so soldiers like you, sir, but my unit got wiped out via running into enemy forces, in particular, this large three-horned knight. We managed to kill him but our unit was in shambles, with just three survivors in total and all of us at least partially injured. I decided to go look for civilian stragglers to help them and to check up on the children at the temple, since I am among their number myself. I don’t know what Teo was doing, but we met up by chance and we were already acquaintances from the temple and we both had a mind to go there to help the children”

  Jonah’s features softened.

  “I see…you belong to the temple. To be honest with you two, that was my destination once I had wrapped up with killing the demons and the enemies around them. I had told the Admiral and the men of my intent. They aren’t waiting on me.”

  “Ah, that is great sir! Then we can count on you to help us then!”, Kenos beamed.

  At that, Jonah pointed his bident at Kenos.

  “Not a chance. You children shouldn’t even be here. You came from that direction, right? Did you not run into our guys? Why didn’t you ask them for help in getting you out of here? Go back and do just that. I will deal with whatever issues might be ahead and I am more effective on my own.”

  “Awfully confident, aren’t you sir?” Kenos remarked.

  “Like I said, I am strong”, Jonah replied with a reassuring smile.

  “No, screw this!”, Axios stepped up and got well within striking range, “I did not walk through half of this town after seeing all my comrades die, my body wracked with pain and injuries, just for someone claiming to be an authority figure to tell me to go back to safety with my tail between my legs. I did not power through this entire night for the sake of a girl that I have sworn to protect just to stop halfway when my legs could still carry me further.”

  “Oh?”, Jonah lifted a single eyebrow at Axios.

  “With all due respect, sir. I am much the same. I have put myself into far more danger than necessary, doubled back into peril when safety was but a few steps away, just to be able to help this very same girl that Axios also wishes to help. I owe her more than can be put into words, even if she herself doesn’t realize it. I can not walk away from this. Without her safety, it is not an exaggeration to say that my life will never be able to move forward”, Kenos spoke his honest feelings, as he took half a step forward , causing the tip of the bident to poke him, yet he pushed the blade back with his chest.

  It was a show of determination, nothing more, nothing less.

  If this man wanted to stop them, abandon them or even kill them, they would have no means of opposing him. Getting him to empathize with them was the best outcome that they could hope for.

  “So it is love then?”, Jonah quipped.

  “Duty”, Axios corrected.

  “An agreement”, Kenos declared.

  The soldier looked at the both of them in silence for several moments.

  “I am not letting you come with me, but tell me her name and I will be sure to look out for her”, he said.

  Axios scowled but Kenos freely disclosed the information.

  “Her name is Aporia. She is a short Vermillion girl”.

  Jonah blinked at them in surprise and confusion.

  “Wait, seriously? You said that her name was Aporia, right? I didn’t mishear you, did I? and you said that she had red hair”

  “Yes…”, Kenos confirmed, tentatively.

  “So that is the one that Lyra had been mentioning in her letters…”, Jonah mumbled to himself.

  “Why would this “Lyra” woman know anything about a random girl like Aporia?”, Axios asked, starting to show some animosity towards the now revealed information.

  “Lyra is the name of the priestess at the temple. I am guessing that she never told you kids that…”, Jonah let his words trail off as he seemed to be in deep thought.

  He looked at the two of them, as if appraising them.

  “…Very well…”, Jonah muttered, “…you two can come with me. Teo will be the lookout and will take point and Axios is seemingly strong enough to handle himself, so you bring up the rear. However, let me be clear, I have also been asked to help Aporia if a situation such as this arose. I am bringing you along because you seem willing to throw yourselves in the line of fire for her, which is useful to me in this circumstance, but I don’t want you two to be under any illusions. In a normal situation I would treat you more kindly but right now, you coming with me means that I am willing to let either of you die in order to increase both mine and the girl’s chances of survival. Same goes for saving Lyra if we find her in need of assistance. Knowing this, are you still determined to come along with me? You have one more chance to turn back and go request protection and asylum from my fellow Iron Scales. You may even make use of my name when discussing it with them”

  “Pass. I am going to that temple. I didn’t sign up for the town guard hoping to live a long and safe life”, Axios reaffirmed his conviction.

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way. The fact that both me and him already came this far means that we are willing to throw ourselves into danger just on the faint hope that we can help that girl”, Kenos stated, matter-of-factly.

  “Speaking of faint hopes, that is pretty true. Why are you two thinking that she is at the temple?”, Jonah inquired.

  “Gut instinct”, Kenos replied immediately.

  “It is the protocol and Aporia is too shy and cowardly to venture out of the temple in these circumstances”, Axios explained.

  “I see…”, Jonah slurred, looking at the two youths up and down once more and Axios caught a glimmer of what he could have easily mistaken for a look of respect, “Let’s go find that child then”.

  Jonah flexed his arm backwards and in a flash that was almost too quick for Axios to perceive, he had spun his bident around and slung it across his back.

  They crossed what was left of the bridge and after the following intersection, they started moving northwards towards the temple, their bodies always clinging close to the walls of the houses that lined the cobbled streets.

  Jonah seemed to think that it was needless at first, but after Axios pressed him on the issue, he decided to play it safe.

  “He is overconfident”, Axios whispered to Kenos, “Can we place our trust in him?”

  “You have trusted me for less”, Kenos shrugged, a massive grin plastered all over his face, “Besides, he will fight our fights for us, if he is indeed as strong as he says”.

  “I have been around you for years”, Axios shot back.

  “And you have been around the temple’s pillars for the same length of time. Did you ever talk to them?”

  “Oh, so now you got jokes all of a sudden? What has gotten into you? You are smiling like a kid. You have since Jonah showed up, but you were pretty much scowling until then”

  “Oh, I am just happy that our odds of finding Aporia safe and sound just went up drastically”

  “Liar…you haven’t confirmed if she is at the temple, her condition or even if Jonah’s cooperation will even be needed in the first place, so why are you really smiling?”

  “I don’t have to tell you”, Kenos replied.

  “Yeah, keep doing that”, Axios argued back.

  “As if you don’t have your own secrets to keep.”, Kenos retorted.

  “I didn’t peg you as someone that would want to join the Iron Scales. Are you trying to dodge the draft? You do know that your criminal record won’t allow them to be kind to one such as you.”, Axios reminded him.

  “Oh, but I happen to be in luck. That record will go up in smoke and ashes before the night is done”, Kenos licked the side of his lip, “I get freedom, I get a ticket in…all I need now is to find Aporia safe and sound and this will have been my luckiest night ever”

  Axios shot Kenos a cold dead stare.

  “I don’t trust you…and you being cryptic isn’t even the worst of it…”

  “Eh…at least you are starting to cool off and thinking straight”, Kenos replied with a mocking grin, “maybe you will live longer like that”

  “You are vile…”, Axios cursed under his breath.

  Suddenly, as they were walking along the side of an empty street with barely any signs of combat, two demons suddenly dropped from the rooftop and in front of Jonah. Axios had been distracted with the conversation and his mind raced to catch up to the sudden series of events.

  However, his reaction was utterly unneeded.

  As soon as the tip of the first creature’s paws made contact with the ground, Jonah had taken a half step backwards from its landing spot and with a single motion, grabbed the bident slung across his back and swung it down on the demon’s head. Silver light flashed and the tip of the bident touched the stone pavement with the softness of a feather touching still water.

  The second beast begun to move, so Jonah placed his weight on his left foot , lowering his postured as they both came within striking distance of the other.

  Silver light flashed twice as the demon’s clawed swing from the left was cut short by a reverse gripped shooting upward from its sheet like an arrow from bow and its following counterstrike from the right was avoided and counterstruck by a backwards lean which carried a reverse gripped slash from the right along with it. The beast’s chest had been diced, but with that being just the windup, Jonah’s body moved like a spring and without changing his grip, drover the tip of the sword in his right hand between the creature eyes.

  “Uh?! What?!”, that was all Axios had time to say before the clash swiftly ended.

  Jonah had erased the two demons in the brief instant that took Axios to perceive his assailants and merely utter two words of surprise.

  Meanwhile, Kenos was just standing there clapping his hands.

  “That was quite impressive sir. Your footwork in particular is very good. You couldn’t even catch the steps in each movement and all that with no wasted space. But that silver light…now that is something I haven’t seen before”

  “Oh…was I being tested just now?”, Jonah said with a jovial but sly smile, “I take it that you were satisfied with my performance, Teo. But as for that light that you mentioned, lets just say that it is a secret that we Iron Scales keep close to our chest”.

  Jonah walked up to his bident and swiftly slung it across his back once more and now Kenos was inches away from his face.

  “Still…I wonder how you managed to catch that. We make it a point to do it quick enough to keep it hidden. Most swordsmen wouldn’t be able to catch me doing it and I can see by the way you walk, you are no warrior, so that is odder still”

  Kenos shrugged, “I probably have some talent as a lookout”

  “Talent…yes, you are talented no doubt”, Jonah pursed his lips and moved them sideways in a strange pondering expression, “but…you are rather odd for someone of your talents. Anyway, lets go”

  Axios let the two of them go in front. Kenos occasionally chatted with their new companion, but they went up the increasingly inclined streets mostly in silence.

  Despite having cooled off by now, that last display had started to make Axios smoulder with a breed of emotions that was often foreign to him.

  Envy.

  Contempt.

  He ruminated on how smooth and borderline perfect Jonah’s movements had been, yet, try Axios as he might, he would most likely never be able to hold a candle to the man’s prowess. He was unable to hold down the feeling that he had just come into contact with human talent in its purest form and he couldn’t help but express disdain for the man’s good fortune as an attempt to cope with the harsh truth that his effort would never match up to that much inborn aptitude.

  While it took him all the effort that his body could muster just to merely grapple and slow down the advance of the demon at the bridge, if it was him, the creature would have been dead long before the idea of letting go of his blade would have even crossed his mind.

  If it was him, the horned knight would have been killed before he even had the chance to do any damage.

  If it was him, Heron and all of his comrades would still have been alive and well.

  And this nigh-perfect warrior had now crossed the whole town just to rescue the one person that Axios himself had crossed the entire town to save.

  He just couldn’t help but to dislike the entire situation, despite the obvious advantages that his presence brought.

  Eventually, Axios spoke up.

  “Hey! Vice-admiral, sir!”

  “Anything on your mind Axios, my boy?”, the man answered.

  “I just wanted to know if you have ever won any tournaments. You are good enough with that spear and those blades to have made a name for yourself. Did you ever match them up against any other champions? Where could I go in the future to try my luck at it?”

  “No, no…I never…well, actually, you could say that I won one, but it was rather informal…I never entered an official one. Too busy sailing the seas and defending our watery motherland.”, the vice-admiral laughed it off in a jovial manner.

  Kenos turned his head to look at Axios, giving the golden-haired youth a look that could only be described as “wide-eyed surprise”. A couple of moments later however, it changed to a full mouthed mocking grin.

  “Where did you fight in that one?”, Kenos inquired.

  “Oh, it was just a few bouts among the Star Division of the Iron Scales. Just something to pass the time while we sailed on our flagship. That division is particularly tough, but I managed to get the final victory!”, excitedly Jonah punched the air above his head multiple times while recalling the event, his expression not unlike that of an excited child, “But the admiral is the one that has actually won a few tournaments. Every now and then he goes to Praelia to check the border, decides to stick around a bit longer than expected and when we meet up, he brings us some souvenirs and sometimes he is also carrying a trophy.”

  “You make it sound so casual”, Axios grumbled.

  “Well, it isn’t like any of us are expecting any harm to come to him anyway.”, Jonah shrugged.

  “In Praelia? That place is just warriors, mercenaries, and wild beasts. Going there on official diplomatic business is one thing, but there is no way that he would have any help in the arenas. That place has no restriction on killing someone. They are combat-crazy”, Axios remarked.

  “Well…aren’t you well informed…let me take a guess, you have been there before, haven’t you? Don’t know how an orphan managed to go from there to our sweet land of Limani, but you don’t talk like you just read about these things in a book. You got too much emotion in your speech, you know too many small details, like the beasts for example. That isn’t a well-known fact. Well, you probably could find books documenting that detail in the library of a larger town, but not this one. Trust me, I have read the books you got here. I can only assume that you have set foot there yourself.”, Jonah reasoned.

  “I don’t want to talk about any of that. We are just getting to the temple anyway, so let’s focus on being on guard

  The man smirks “You tell me that story later over drinks, kid”

  “I don’t like drinking. It makes my head hurt”, Axios remarked.

  “Then drink water while I down some spirits, haha!”, the vice-admiral of the Iron Scales declared proudly.

  They kept walking for a few more moments until they could see the start of the small hill where the temple resided.

  It was a massacre.

  The bodies of children, women, men, guards, knights and demons were scattered all around the hill, all of them in pieces. The air reeked with the scent of smoke and the pungent odour of iron on the wind. The dark clouds rising from the buildings in the distance drowned out the moon and the stars, so that no silvery light could shine down on the macabre sight unimpeded.

  Axios clicked his tongue in irritation and started to take off running, but as Jonah stopped him with one arm as soon as he tried to pass the man in front.

  “You two stay next to me and we move up at my pace”, the vice-admiral cautioned, his tone firm and cold as the steel of his blades.

  They started to walk forward and Kenos immediately covered up his mouth and nose by pulling his shirt up.

  Axios focused on the smell in the air for a moment and could understand why he would have done it. It was by no means a pleasant atmosphere. However, he found that the way that his eyes were erratically darting around instead of looking in front and the way that his body seemed to be shaking was rather strange.

  The vice-admiral seemed to notice it as well, “Are you afraid of corpses by any chance Teo?”, the man remarked.

  “No…this whole thing just makes my noise act up and I can’t tell which of the smells is worse…it reeks beyond belief”.

  Jonah put a hand on the raven-haired boy’s shoulder and said “When we get inside the temple the smell should subside. The piles even thin out when we get closer to the structure, see? Hang in there for a moment, kid”.

  Finally they set foot upon the cobblestones that made up the plaza. The normally white stones that were once a mark of home had been dyed black and crimson by the falling ages and the spilled blood. Axios could not help but to link the sight of these colours to the invaders of their home and he felt his temper flare up beyond what he thought was adequate at the moment. They needed tact and caution right now, yet Axios desired nothing more than to make whatever men he chanced upon to be made to pay for this evening.

  “I get the feeling that we came too late”, Jonah remarked as he held his bident in his right hand. He was examining the outside of the temple’s walls. The stone had been slashed and carved up as if the wood from a tree had been ripped apart by some wild beast. Worse than that still, was the fact that the thick and tall front gate had been ripped apart, despite the fact that it had a large lock barring entrance from the inside. This could not have been the work of any mortal man.

  “Tch!”, Jonah clicked his tongue in irritation and self-loathing, “Rot and Bones, there were demons that managed to get in. I hope that the rooms inside managed to provide some refuge, otherwise, no one that was inside should be alive still.”

  Axios felt his blood run cold and his heart sink.

  How long ago had this happened? Would he have come on time if he didn’t save that woman like Kenos had advised him? Had he been on time if he had abandoned his unit earlier and didn’t fight the horned knight as he did? Or was it a mistake to even do his duty and help the innocent a mistake from the get-go?

  “I don’t know about any others that were there before, but there is only a single demon on the inside”, Kenos stated, matter of factly.

  “Huh?”, Jonah let out a sound that was a mix of surprise and distress, “How do you even know that?”, the vice-admiral inquired.

  “Demons have a very specific smell and it isn’t hard to notice when they are close. It is quite pungent”, Kenos explained as he touched the tip of his nose with his index finger.

  “You can…smell demons…”, Jonah looked at the jade-eyed boy with distrust.

  By contrast Axios was giving Kenos a look that bordered on “you are wasting our time”.

  “There is just one on the inside. It probably drove out all the other ones that tried to stay in, so the good news is that we only have a single enemy. The bad news is that it is probably really strong and different from the ones that we have seen this evening…You are the expert here, sir, does this description ring any bells?”, Kenos expounded.

  Jonah paused for a moment before answering.

  “Well…from what you are describing, that would be what we colloquially call an “alpha”, among the demons. A stronger one amongst them that seeks to claim territory for itself to turn into its nest and then start reproducing.”, the vice-admiral looked around the temple, “It would fit the type of carnage that we saw on the outside. It wouldn’t be unlikely that it killed everything in its way, though it probably just stumbled into an existing battle…you know what Teo, you are probably right. It would probably take something far stronger than just a few normal demons to get through the gate like that.”, he pointed his bident at the destroyed gate, “it would have taken many strong men days, hacking at it with swords, in order to get past that entrance. Then there is also all those claw marks…territorial markings perhaps?”

  “I can tell you that they smell different than the rest of the demonic scents all around this area. Demons reek, sure, but those marks are absolutely putrid”, Kenos expounded.

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  “Territorial markings…there is little doubt about that…”, Jonah thought aloud.

  “So what are we going to do? Charge in? Double back and request support? How strong are these things supposed to be?”

  “Well…I fought two of them tonight already. They are big trouble, if I am being honest. Someone like me and a few elite fighters that I have trained myself and even then they can still be trouble, but we killed both of those tonight still with minimum injuries”

  “We aren’t elite fighters though. I haven’t even had any swordsmanship training”, Kenos remarked.

  “Yes, you two certainly aren’t and there is no guarantee that I could do it by myself either. No guarantee that anyone inside is still in one piece either…”, Jonah thought aloud.

  “I am not turning on my heels! To the Abyss with all this drivel!

  Axios held his blade at chest height and started walking forward, but in a flash, the blunt end of Jonah’s bident was touching the front of Axios’ throat, stopping him from moving forward.

  “That is a very stupid idea”, Jonah cautioned.

  “I can kill it!”, Axios argued back.

  “Your arm can barely handle you holding a sword. You cant hide something like that from me”

  Axios paused for a moment before turning around and stepping into the vice-admiral’s personal space.

  “Then what would you have me do? To stand back as you wait for the stars to align to make it a lossless victory for us? To wait weeks until my arm is as good as new? I have sacrificed enough tonight to be earned this chance. Hesitation means death on the battlefield and you seem to be hesitating long enough to let Aporia die! What happened to all that willingness to get her to safety, huh?!”

  If Jonah was given the liberty to speak plainly and truthfully in this moment, he would praise the boy’s bravado, but he would admonish his foolhardiness with corporal punishment.

  Instead, the vice-admiral decided to walk the path of logic.

  “If you go in, in your state and unprepared without backup, not only will you die, but anyone that might still be alive in there by some fluke or miracle is liable to get killed by the demon. In the event that there is some sort of temporary balance or stalemate to the killing, you stepping unto its territory may trigger it to go kill anyone that they might have willingly spared.”, the vice-admiral reasoned.

  “To the depths with that! The inverse is just as likely from where I am standing. Children could be getting killed as we speak and they might have moments to live if we don’t distract the creature!”

  “With this much silence here on the outside? If there was killing happening, we would be hearing it, no?”, the older man reasoned.

  “Actually no”, Kenos spoke up, “way before I chanced upon either of you, I went to see the house of someone that I had a connection to…it was silent at first, probably because they were in the cellars, but eventually I stared at the entrance for long enough and I saw one of those demons eventually make it out of the building with her body in its jaws…Axios may be right. It can be silent where we are standing, but the creature may be feeding on children as we speak and Aporia would be in that group.”

  “So you are siding with him now Teo?”, the vice-admiral glanced at the shorter of the boys, with a single raised eyebrow.

  “He makes a good point”, Kenos shrugged, “besides, between risking life and limb in the moment and letting Aporia die and the implications of that loss going forward, I would rather fight. I am going to win anyway”, the boy shrugged once more and started walking towards the entrance.

  “Thanks for the bridge”, Axios said, as he looked the man dead in the eye and used the words of gratitude to paper over his undisguisable contempt for the man.

  Axios heard the man sigh loudly behind his back.

  “Fine…ok, fine…I will charge headlong into the creature’s lair with you”, Jonah said as he caught up to them before they could register his words.

  “Weren’t you going to wait for backup?”, Axios remarked.

  “On the off chance that Lira is still alive, I should make haste and defend her if I am still able to. Besides, as a follower of our faith, neither I nor her could ever tolerate a filthy demon making its lair into one of our temples. I would be cursed in the afterlife if I allowed this without a fight.”

  “How very pious of you, sir. No wonder the priestess confided in you about Aporia’s value, whichever one she may have seen in her”, Kenos bemused.

  “Haha, you speak as if you haven’t figured it out already Teo!”

  “The worth I see in her is probably a lot different than either of you saw”, the boy shrugged.

  As they came upon the entrance, without warning, Jonah held his bident horizontally, at an angle where it stopped them from going forward.

  “Hey, what are you-“, Axios was cut off as in a flurry of movement, he had been thrown a new sword at his chest and Kenos was now holding the length of the bident against his own.

  “Sorry for the scare, but I figured that it would be quicker than explaining and negotiating. Teo ain’t a warrior, so you take the long range weapon that can keep you safer. You however, Axios have military training, so have Teo’s blade as well, just in case.”

  The vice-admiral unsheathed his blades in one fluid motion.

  “You two stand behind me until the time is right”

  The three of them squeezed through the destroyed entrance door and were on full alert as they took in the entrance chamber where the children would often be gathered for their daily prayers and headcounts. The pillars that held up the ceiling seemed damaged by the same sort of claw marks that were found on the walls outside, but nothing that looked like it could cause the structure to collapse. The hallway that led to the lower levels and the sleeping chambers stretched out in front of them, inviting them to see what may be hidden beneath the earth and the dangers that could be hiding behind each of its tight and serpentine corners. To their right however, the entrance temple had been shattered just like the door that they had just come through, indicating that something must have gotten inside at one point.

  Looking around the chamber, Axios sighed, seeing the eight of so bodies that had been ripped apart and strewn around. He saw no red haired people amongst their number, nor anyone that he was particularly close to, but he could surely recognize their faces.

  Calix, Zephyr, Demus, Timon, Panos, Irene, Eulalia and Euphemia.

  Those had been unfair casualties of this attack and their lives had been snuffed out far before their allotted time. Axios most likely couldn’t have prevented their deaths even if he had been here before, but he made every intention to cleanse their home of whatever invading filth still lurked within these walls. That was all he could do to honour his fellow orphan’s deaths.

  Jonah gestured them that they were clearing the temple first.

  As they walked closer to the door and the silence set in, Axios could hear the sounds of something being crushed and snapped coming from beyond entrance.

  Jonah slowly entered through the broken wooden door, both blades in hand and Axios mirrored him a moment later. A single crouch later and they found themselves in the overly familiar location. The closed space was decently well lit from the usual braziers that hung from the stone walls.

  However, that was the extent of the feeling of safe familiarity.

  The wooden benches on the sides largely untouched, but the ones in the middle and close to the front had been left in an unrecognizable state from all of the damage. The floors, usually pitch black with a thousand painted stars to mimic the evening sky had had its evocative brilliance marred from all the crimson fluid that had been spilled upon it.

  A thin line of red blood still flowed, ever so slowly, from somewhere above his eye level. As Axios looked up, he locked eyes with it.

  Ghrrrrr!!

  The creature growled at the trio that had dared to enter its new abode.

  The demon was perched atop the giant insignia of our faith. It had somehow deemed it as an effective and resting place, as a ruler might deem a throne and it looked down on them as if a bird of prey eyeing its prospective meal.

  Were Axios the religious sort, he would no doubt have found the gesture to be the height of blasphemy. For, in truth, what God fearing man would allow a filthy unnatural creature to rest upon the symbol of their creed?

  Its fur was dark like the smoke that rose from the town. Its frame over two times that size of a man. Upon its back, it carried several small plates of what seemed to be some form of natural armour, the tiles being the colour of bricks.

  However, those were by no means its most concerning or horrifying features.

  Instead of merely one, it had two heads. One was similar to that of a goat, with two long horns sprouting from the top, yet its teeth were far too numerous for a warm blooded land walking creature. They more so resembled the teeth of some carnivorous underwater beast. Its eyes were jade green with slits resembling a viper’s and atop its forehead, it had an additional blood red eyeball. its second head looked like a black hound’s, yet its teeth seemed to have been replaced by multiple fleshy, tentacle like feelers, as if it was closer to a blood sucking parasite than a predatorial beast. That head’s eyes did not match in coloration either. One was bright orange and the second was a deep blue, like the afternoon sky.

  Its hind legs were quite muscular and they had a strange backwards bent to them. They were however, very unnatural looking. They had hooves, befitting its goat-like head, however, it had various forward-facing claws that hooked like something in between a bird of prayer and a tree climbing creature with hooked nails.

  Its most disturbing features were that its two front legs were actually two tentacle-looking appendages. They were covered all over with spikes, making it look like two thick and twisted rose thorns. There was a concern that they could be poisonous.

  Finally, its tail ended in what seemed to be a blade made of some sort of natural material.

  Unnatural and bizarre as it might look, no onlooker could deny that it was not a build made for combat or that its unorthodox appearance wouldn’t cause its enemies to misjudge its movements and attack patterns, earning any adversaries a swift yet bewildering death.

  It was because of these unnatural limbs and appendages that it could stand comfortably on top of the spiked structure without slipping or growing tired, as it crunched bone and flesh in its goat head.

  As to which body that same flesh and blood belonged to, the answer was a rather shocking and concerning one.

  Axios initially held his breath out of surprise and respect, but Jonah was probably boiling with cold anger, he could feel and it consequently made Axios quickly mirror the older warrior’s mood.

  Impaled on the central spike of the crown-shaped insignia of their faith, close the demon’s chest, was the body of their long time caretaker. The priestess, Lira had been ripped from this world by that filthy abomination, in the most sacrilegious method imaginable. And to top it off, not content with the simple humiliation of killing her in this manner and standing atop of the effigy of their religion and beliefs, it was also feeding on parts of her body, having already taken and arm, a leg and seemingly, some of her organs.

  Unfortunately, they were not the only ones that were indignant in this situation. The creature was certainly getting ready to pounce on them as it shifted its body around and positioned itself so that its hind leg could kick off of the structure that it had perched itself on.

  Its two heads made it difficult to understand which target it was eyeing exactly, so everyone had to be equally on guard at all times and they could not predict which person it intended to strike. Its strange body also made it hard to understand and imagine how it would fight. Would it mimic the more straightforward movements of a normal predator found in the while or would it move in a strange and non-linear manner?

  No time to think it over since by the time Axios realized that the creature had moved, it was only a couple of sword lengths from his head. The golden-haired youth raised both blades in front of his chest to block and pierce through the creature, but he would at the very least have its entire body weight crash into him at unimaginable speeds.

  Its strategy was bizarre but deadly. It made a beeline for Axios, the jaw of its goat head fully unhinged and aiming for the boy’s neck, while its spiked tentacle arms were swung wide and coming in from the sides, almost as if it intended to hug everyone in the three man bad and strike all of them in a single motion.

  As Axios braced for what may well have been his death, Jonah quickly sidestepped to the right and swung both of his blades to the side, intercepting the creature mid-charge.

  Silver light flashed and steel cut through the air with a skull rattling whistle, creating a blur of motion that Axios couldn’t perceive with any degree of clarity.

  His vision finally regaining focus after being pushed to the brim, he saw that the creature had jumped several meters backwards to avoid further damage, as its right tentacle had a deep gash running across its length that was emitting white steam and a similar exhaust was being produced by the eye in the middle of its goat head.

  However that moment of reprieve lasted but half a breath’s worth of time, as the demon grabbed one of the thick wooden benches around it and threw it at Jonah with its whole back into it. Jonah’s blade flashed with silver light once more as he swung it down but the moment his eye regained sight of the creature, the tentacle and tail blade came at him both from the same right side that he had just swung down and was now open to attack with.

  The wooden bench, cleanly bisected in two flew through the air in either direction and it got in between the creature and Axios, yet the golden haired youth wouldn’t let the man blessed by talent carry this fight by himself any longer. Axios swung both of his blades downward, catching the large piece of wood mid flight and slamming it against the creature so hard that it snapped at the middle.

  Shocked, dazzed and rattled by the impact to its side, it halted both of its attacks against the commanding officer of the renowned Iron Scales.

  However, this was yet another one of its prioritization mistakes.

  As soon as the demon’s movements halted for that split second before it could lash out in retaliation, its flesh was dug into once more by the twin blades held by Jonah, as the warrior swung his blade wreathed in silvery light through the monster’s right flank, quickly coming close to the creature’s spine as it passed through sinew as if it were water.

  The thickness of the muscle however, just as any body of water would, slowed down the cutting steel ever so slightly and the beast did not miss this. It took a quick backstep and followed up by kicking powerfully, with its left hind leg.

  As if a three pronged trident, the clawed foot rushed to impale the young vice-admiral straight through the chest, but the man dodged certain death by a hair. He took advantage of the suddenly decreasing momentum of his blade to take a short backstep and pull back, clashing with the hoof of the creature’s leg with the steel so close to the guard that a casual observer could have made the mistake that his fingers had been crushed.

  Unfortunately, salvation did not come without its drawbacks.

  The vice-admiral’s stance had been broken and he was momentarily off balance and his body was completely perpendicular to the monster’s own. Not missing this chance thanks to both of its independent brains, the creature whipped its tail from the right side, aiming to impale the swordsman through his back.

  Jonah could not move in time and in a one on one fight, this would have been the end for the end of his journey.

  However, from even the two headed creature’s blindspot, a polearm was swung down.

  Kenos had seen the creature’s attack coming and stabbed the two pronged bident into the demon’s already injured left tentacle, at the same time, catching the bladed portion of its tail as it came down.

  The demon squealed in pain and outrage, but Kenos immediately stepped forward, planting the sole of his sandal atop the pierced tentacle and pushed the bident’s shaft was if it were a lever, smacking the goat head hard in one of its snake-like eyes.

  “Khhsaa!!!”, the monster hissed in pain, the teeth of its goat-like head revealing a forked tongue like a viper’s.

  Not missing a beat, Jonah crouched, bringing his reverse gripped left blade upwards across the demon’s body and Axios swung both blades downward at its dog-shaped head. Despite its two independent brains, its freedom of movement was still heavily restricted by having its right side pinned down by the bident and its field of vision was further diminished by having been struck in two of its goat headed eyes. Despite these handicaps, the creature understood that its priority was to protect its heads, first and foremost, so it prioritized the blade that was about to clash with its canine skull over the sword currently cutting through its flesh.

  Axios was blown back and sent flying by a spiked tentacle swinging almost vertically upwards, clashing with his swords as they both met into an X-shaped pattern.

  “Agh!”, the golden haired youth groaned as he soared through the air, his already damaged arm sending jolts of sharp, unignorable pain into his brain.

  Jonah however, performed two motions almost simultaneously. As the blade in his left hand cut through the creature’s chest, the tip of the blade on his right soared through the empty air, hidden behind the first sword until it was too late to notice it, inches away from piercing through the demon’s goat-like skull.

  Had it been any other opponent, whether it be a demon or a skilled mortal, the fight would have ended right there.

  No one would call Jonah’s tactics and movements anything less than “perfect”.

  However, when faced with an opponent with two heads, its expanded field of vision and ability to independently compute information, could make the impossible possible.

  As the one good left eye of the goat-like head of the right paid attention to Axios’ attack from above to its left, the hound-shaped head was observing Jonah’s offense and clearly grasped the existence of the killing blow aimed at its counterpart, hidden behind the much wider and painful attack.

  So the creature crouched down, leaning into the weight that was being put on its right side by the bident-wielding youth and avoided the fatal stab to its right head, even as it allowed itself to be cut and the neck of the left head immediately bulged to a worrying degree.

  Jonah immediately understood that he had miscalculated and focused on anticipating the spot that would receive the demon’s counterattack.

  But such an attack never came for him.

  Because one after the other, two important things happened.

  “Khhsaa!!!”, it hissed once more, this time more so in indignation that out of any significant sense of pain.

  The demon’s righteous outrage was directed at none other than Kenos, who had just removed its tail with a single stroke of the sickle that he had been hiding up to now.

  The youth might not be the type to blindly rush into unknown danger, but no one would disagree that his momentum and commitment was enviable, once he took in a measurement of the challenge ahead.

  Without even stopping the motion that had bisected the creature’s appendage, he circled his arm back around and swung at the goat -like head, taking advantage of its blind spots and attempting to impale its neck.

  However, the alpha crouched even further in response and Kenos’s sickle struck flesh, but only in between the plats that defended the creature’s back.

  The second thing that happened as this took place was that Axios had thrown his Limani blade straight at the creature’s head as soon his back hit the wall and the tips of his boots touched the ground. The sharp steel sailed through the air with killing intent as it closed in on the creature’s left head.

  Under normal circumstances, Axios would not have been able to imagine himself being able to pull off such a precise throw the first time in his life, but whether it was luck, the flow of the battle or his boiling blood that grew fiercer and hotter with every moment that the fight carried on, something was pushing his skill and strength beyond what he had previously perceived to be his limits.

  Due to being preoccupied with understanding the threat that Kenos posed, if for but a moment, as well as paying attention to the dual wielding swordsman’s tricks, the creature’s eyes couldn’t perceive the incoming projectile until the last possible moment, so it was startled, the left head’s attention immediately darting from Jonah to the weapon as it barely managed to swing its right tentacle down before it got its skull pierced.

  However, the short gap in attention was all that the vice admiral needed.

  Letting go of the blade in his right hand, which he had overextended in a piercing motion, he whipped that arm back with great force and took a half-stet backwards and then immediately switching his remaining blade to his right hand once more and stepping to the right and swung the blade diagonally upwards.

  “Ghuurrgghhh!”

  Silver light flashed and the creature was gurgling on a green liquid coming from its throat that caused its skin to smoke and the fur on its chest to dissolve.

  In that moment, the demon may have been able to launch some sort of counter with either its last free tentacle or with one of its legs, but faced with the shock of having had its neck cut and the pain of the acid suddenly dripping down its neck and chest and the incoming charging Axios, the creature’s survival instincts immediately took hold and it jumped backwards with both maximum force and maximum urgency.

  “Whoooaaaa!!”, Kenos yelled out, as he was dragged along by the creature’s bulk thanks to the hooked sickle that he still held unto.

  The bident that had pinned one of its limbs down until now was thrown into the air and the monster escaped, but its rightful owner grabbed it out of the air as if it were second nature to him, reversed the grip on the blade in his right hand and threw it forward towards the monster like a dart.

  The throw was precise, the force praiseworthy and the timing was perfect.

  Jonah’s aim was not to score a killing blow however, it was to provide a distraction while throwing his momentum forward so that he could immediately start sprinting in order to close the distance between himself and his retreating foe.

  Axios caught up to him and both warriors sprinted in perfect unison, brought together by their burning hatred for the despicable and desecrating beast.

  The short sword flew through the air, aimed at the hound-looking head of the creature, still chocking on its bile and its vision wracked by the tears in its eyes due to the stinging nature of the fluid that originated from its neck and whose smoke streamed upwards.

  Unfortunately, not all vapours which emitted from the demon were harmful to itself. The reason why Jonah was rushing through this fight was because he was the only fighter aware of that single fact.

  The truth was that a higher level demon, when injured, would immediately heal at an accelerated rate, which often produced excess heat and outputted a good amount of fluid as a result of the healing process, which lead to the wounds starting to smoke.

  The Limani blade flew through the open air of the temple, aiming at the hound-like head that was suffocating and had its eyesight impaired, but the goat-like head to the right just had its vision partially restored in its right eye and thanks to its left, it had enough depth perception to grasp the incoming threat and to whip its right tentacle to deflect the projectile, sending it spiralling towards the ceiling.

  The alpha now fully committed to crushing the two incoming warriors and picked up a thick wooden bench with each of its spiked tentacles.

  He would throw them at them and splatter them against the walls.

  He would swing them at them blow above and bludgeon them into paste against the floor.

  The demon grabbed hold of his weapons of choice and raised them above its heads in anticipation and suddenly half of its senses were cut off.

  “Ghhaaaa!!”, the hound-like head heard, as it failed to register the presence of its other half.

  More so than even with its sight, its sense of touch allowed it to register and deduce what had happened.

  It was the boy that had been dragged along when it jumped backwards. The boy had held on, grabbed one of its horns for leverage and used his sickle to pierce through the back of goat-like head’s neck.

  In a panic, the hound-like head took control of the entire body that had been shared between two minds until now and threw both benches at the incoming warriors and immediately after, whipped its right tentacle behind its own back to strike at Kenos.

  “Hgggghhhhhaaaaa!!”, Kenos yelled in pain, as the thick appendage slammed into his back with enough force to nearly make him pass out and he let go of the creature and hit the temple’s floor like a sack of wheat.

  The otherwise triumphant moment for the demon was short lived as its attention was once again taken up by enemies in front of it.

  The polearm-wielding warrior dealt with his own incoming projectile by striking the incoming obstacle with the back end of his weapon, using the blow to both alter the projectile’s trajectory and alignment, but also using the force of the collision to spin his body around to effectively dodge the brunt of the clash and keep on running with barely any change in forward momentum.

  The sword wielder took the opposite approach of the spearman. When the heavy wooden bench sailed towards him, he merely grit his teeth and let out a battlecry of pure fury.

  “Rhhhaaaa!!!”

  The youth cried out as he swung at the wooden obstacle with a two-handed swing and as the steel bit into the hardened wood, his strength and the momentum of his strike flung the bench sideways, as a ball would upon hitting an obstacle and bouncing to the side.

  Racked by pain and its sight impaired by a variety of factors, the demon was still no fool and its mind was still clear. It understood from the get go that the golden-haired youth was the priority target and this uncommon display of strength amongst the humans was yet another reminder and confirmation of that assessment.

  The monster jumped upwards and backwards, coming to rest for a moment upon the structure where it had sat in waiting until the challengers had come and ripped the sickle out of the nape of its slain head. As soon as it did, the wound started to steam, showing that its flesh could still heal even in such a circumstance. Still, it couldn’t be sure that it would actually heal properly or ever ben like before, but its priority was buying a few moments to allow its throat to heal so that the acid within its body could be once again turned from a demerit into a weapon for itself.

  Due to their reverence for the symbol which the creature was perched on and due to no longer having any viable projectiles on hand, both sides took a moment to breath but within moments, the creature had jumped to the side and wrapped its tentacles around the nearest pillar and took hold of the brazier that hung on its side.

  If the creature could smirk, it most likely would have in this moment.

  It ripped the brazier out of its perch and threw it at the spearman, spreading fire, oil and glass everywhere and temporarily separating the two warriors by a small, albeit deadly, wall of flame.

  Not missing a beat, the demon pounced on the golden-haired youth, coming down with both tentacles at once, attempting to crush the youth into paste.

  The youth managed to roll to his left and avoid the crushing flow due to a last second decision to ignore the urge to clash with the creature and stone splintered and cracked beneath the force of the whipping strike.

  The demon was slightly surprised by the lack of death that his lunge had reaped. It wondered if it was mere luck, if the youth had simply managed to get faster somehow or if it was simply due to its lack of precise control from having lost the head that usually controlled that half of the body and was therefore heartbeat slower than normal.

  Due to its hulking frame and the positioning of both heads, the youth now found itself in the remaining head’s blind spot . Axios swung his sword horizontally with both hands and struck the creature’s right flank.

  “Rhaaaeeeeiiii!!!”, the hound-like head screeched as it felt its side flare up in pain as if branded by fire and it could feel its wound start to steam and boil.

  The youth must have struck where the accursed spearman had slashed into him earlier with his short sword and hit the same spot again. That was the only answer to his sensation. The boy’s guilt was noticeable beyond other mortals and his strength was beyond average for his ilk, but that was all that the demon could notice in him. The makings of being an actual threat to it would forever elude this golden-haired mortal.

  The demon swung to take Axios’ head off, but the boy ducked even faster than before, circled around to behind the creature’s back and swung at its legs.

  Steel cut through sinew and splintered bone.

  “Rhaaaeeeeiiii!!!”

  Axios readied himself for another swing as he failed to fully cut through the creature’s muscular legs, despite aiming for the thinnest section.

  Outraged by the wound inflicted upon it by the mortal, the creature’s hound-like head twisted around so much that it would make anyone question if its neck actually had any bones to speak of and stared the youth down as its neck inflated with acidic bile, ready to spew it at the golden-haired youth.

  Yet the youth, against what any other warrior of greater talent or experience would have done, hadn’t even registered the movement of the creature’s head and instead had tackled the demon’s injured leg and pushed himself off of the ground, trying to double the creature over.

  This single rash and oblivious action had prevented his face and upper torso from being reduced to the same sludge that the spot where he had been standing a couple of heartbeats prior ended up becoming.

  The monster scoffed at the youth’s attempt. Not only was its other supporting leg perfectly healthy, the demon was much too heavy for a human to lift.

  So it came off as a noteworthy surprise when the youth actually managed to lift it off the ground.

  The creature limped on its good left leg and thrashed around for a moment, as it regretted the loss of its tail, which could have easily impaled the youth where he stood.

  Its right tentacle couldn’t reach the boy due to how its body was built, so it stretched out its left tentacle to build tension for a destructive whiplash, yet as it swung down on the youth, the muscular appendage did not reach him.

  It wasn’t as if it had been blocked or that the youth dodged. The required length of the appendage just wasn’t there.

  In shock, it twisted its neck back around, just in time to see that a bident’s swing was about to take away his remaining leg, the accursed light of his detestable foe blazing through the flickering shadows as if a flame of quicksilver.

  Desperate to save its leg, the demon threw itself backwards as it jumped, effectively summersaulting to save itself and catching itself with both its tentacles as it flipped over for extra stability, as a human might use a hand stand.

  Even as it flipped itself back into a standing position, the golden haired human was still attaching itself to it, so it would like to get rid of it to regain its proper mobility.

  Yet it had little time to think about that as the spearman’s bident cut through the air, attempting to skewer the alpha through the skull.

  In a flash of brilliance born out of desperation, the demon raised its captured leg and twisted its torso as it pivoted on its good leg, effectively now turning the annoying human that had grabbed it into a human shield.

  The spearman’s thrust halted and the demon immediately kicked at the warrior with its hooves and talons, yet the man managed to block the strike with his weapon’s shaft, even if it threw the man back a few steps.

  The demon immediately spun, using its inhuman strength, weight and body formology and swung his hooked leg rightwards hard, generating enough centrifugal force to throw off the young man that had attacked himself to it and launch him across the floor.

  Yet the boy quickly rolled to his feet, sword in hand.

  Now freed, the demon again focused on the more dangerous spearman and it launch yet another volley of bile at his foe, yet, with flowing footwork, the man evaded the projectile and responded with a wide downward swing of his bident, held with a single hand for greater reach.

  The demon flinched as the blade infused with the foul argent energies carved into its flesh, through a mix of back stepping and blocking the shaft with the thick remains of its left tentacle, the creature managed to escape having its head split into two and with its right leg now free and fully healed, it jumped backwards and again grabbed hold of one of the pillars, revelling in this distance advantage that it held against its limited foes. It again spat acid at the spearman, this time in two smaller volleys, attempting to catch the enemy off-guard with the second shot as the dodge from the first one made his back collide with one of the thick wooden benches, yet the spearmen either had great reflexes or great spatial awareness or both, as he rolled into the obstacle at his back and used it to flip over and go over the bench itself, much like the demon had done a moment prior with its own evasive maneuver. Still, it hadn’t been fully perfect, as the spearman had needed to cover his pivot hand with those silver flames as he doubled over, to prevent his hand from becoming a pile of molten bone marrow.

  Yet now the spearman found itself deep within the centre of the temple’s place of prayer, surrounded on all sides by wooden benches. Movement was not easy in such a space.

  Despite its hulking physique, the alpha demon was still an intelligent predator, even more so as it could feel that its other head was close to reawakening some of its consciousness and mental faculties.

  It spat a single stream of acidic bile in front of the spearman to prevent him from again vaulting above the obstacles and into open space once more and then immediately after jumped to the pillar to its left and threw the brazier that rested on it.

  The flammable vessel shattered against the wooden benches and made a wall of flames that locked the spearman further in, increasingly making footwork nearly impossible.

  Furthermore, some of the fire flew to the spot where the demon’s bile had landed and the flames immediately grew to an enormous size in the blink of an eye, even seeming to reach the spearman behind them before he could jump back.

  “Jonah!”, the golden-haired youth cried out.

  The demon’s goat-like head started to make a sound that would resemble a chuckle. Now the path ahead was simple and straightforward. It would not get distracted by the golden mortal just yet. First it would destroy its detestable, sworn foe, carefully, deliberately, using its various advantages. Then it would move on and feed on the annoying and surprisingly strong mortal that was being noisy and at worse, in about an hour or less, all of its wounds should heal and its severed limbs should grow back.

  A simple, straightforward path. Nothing would stand in between this moment and that future and it would solidify its claim to this land by impaling the corpses of his sworn enemies at the top of its new lair.

  Then an object came at it through the blindingly bright flames as it surveyed its polearm-wielding foe and prepared to jump to the opposite side of the temple.

  It connected, much to the demon’s surprise. Its second head must still be in a pretty bad shape if it couldn’t notice the small incoming projectile.

  Then, with a roar, the alpha exploded into flame.

  “Rhhhhaaaaasssssshhhiiiiieeeeeee”, the two heads cried out.

  The flaming projectile that had hit its chest ignited its flammable bile that was still on its fur ever since its throat was initially slashes and it had drenched its torso.

  The demon fell on the ground hard, like a sack of stones. Both of its heads hit the stone floor with the full brunt of its weight and the flames melted its eyes, causing darkness to immediately creep into its sight and burning off the hound-like head’s sensitive nose.

  “Rhhhhaaaaasssssshhhiiiiieeeeeee”, both heads continued to cry out in unison as they struggled to understand what had just occurred. In one moment they were close to their triumphant victory and definitive conquest of this new domain and the other there was nothing but pain, darkness and the inability to smell anything at all.

  Taken aback by what had just happened, the vice-admiral of the Iron Scales looked to his left and saw the boy that he knew as Teo, his chest exposed to the hot air and holding what was seemingly his shirt in a crumpled mess in his right hand, the white linen possessing noticeable scorch marks from apparently having come into contact with sometimes that had been lit aflame.

  But beyond that, the boy smiled an unnerving smile. The first comparison that came to mind was a child torturing an insect that they had found, already battered and broken. It was a look of perverse joy and immoral fascination.

  The boy noticed the spearman’s glance and immediately put on his mangled shirt once more and erased the unnerving look from his face. Without any room for doubt, the youth’s full attention was on the demon that was struggling to get up, its tentacles wrapping around its heads in attempt to put out the foul smelling multi-coloured flames born from its fluids.

  Axios intended to charge at the creature but held himself back as it suddenly turned to face him, despite seemingly having no idea as to Axios’ exact position, as it still held on to its heads, obscuring all its senses.

  It half-charged, half-stumbled towards the golden-haired youth, as if guided by some ingrained instinct to prioritize his death.

  Yet the boy hadn’t halted due to fear or even an abundance of caution, but rather a desire to maximize the most damage that he could possibly do to the horrid creature. The pause in the boy’s traditionally unrelenting offense was due to having stepped close to the nearby fire and used it to heat up the metal of his blade. He did not even need to cringe in pain or flinch, for his fury and desire to destroy the demon far surpassed his ability to process any pain that he felt.

  Once the creature was close enough, Axios swung down with both hands, putting his everything into the attack, cleaving and burning through the creature’s flesh. He prioritized and aimed for spots where he knew that the creature had already been struck in, not allowing their previous efforts and sacrifices to go to waste.

  “Rhhhhaaaaasssssshhhiiiiieeeeeee!!”, the demon hissed, its fur still covered in flames, making anyone question whether the added heat on the youth’s blade could even add anything to the already excruciating burns that it was feeling.

  It swung its tentacles around blindly, attempting to swat the prey into submission, yet its hollow eyes didn’t perceive any light and its supernatural ability to detect Axios could only do so much to guide its movements. The youth ducked under and weaved through the whip-like motions and swung at its side, its chest, its necks, its previously injured leg.

  The offense was unrelenting and each swing, each motion, ever slightly stronger and faster than the one that preceded it. The youth had finally found his stride against this detestable and profane enemy.

  The creature however, stepped back for a moment and exposed the viper-like tongue from its goat-like head to the air and shortly after, its next motion finally grabbed the boy’s hip with its tentacle. Its many sharp thorns dug into the youth’s flesh, giving him enough pain that he started to perceive black dots from the agony. As Axios paused for a moment from the torment, its goat-like head unhinged its jaw to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth and bite down on the youth’s left arm.

  “Hhhhhnnnnnggghhhhhh!!!”, the boy held back the urge to scream as the intense pressure threatened to completely crush his bones, yet somehow the creature’s fangs failed to draw blood.

  Surprisingly, it wouldn’t be the demon to draw blood in that exchange, but the fiery youth, who drove the tip of his blade into the creature’s mouth.

  The demon thrashed, swinging its head and the captured boy up and down as it slammed its pretty against the ground repeatedly, yet the boy kept driving the blade into the beast, using serrating motions to cut as deep and as painfully as he could into the abomination’s mouth. Regardless of the pain wracking his body and the burning agony of the still lingering flames on the body of the creature that now embraced him, he would not allow himself to give up fighting to stay alive to the last moment.

  The dog-like head had seemingly managed to somehow heal one of its eyes to an extent and its head immediately twisted backwards to meet the spearman that had vaulted over the piles of flaming obstacles to meet the creature one more.

  Yet before the two could clash, the same head immediately snapped towards the burning wreckage that it had created, its hatred visibly painted upon its features, even if the head did not resemble a man in the slightest. It suddenly let go of its current prey, its current engagements and vaulted over the flaming wreckage before anyone could stop it.

  “Teo!”, Jonah cried out.

  On the other side of the blazing embers, the creature towered over the shortest of the combatants. The scrawny, raven haired boy who despite doing so little against it, had caused so much harm to it through craven and opportunistic tactics.

  It could no longer smell. It could barely see. It couldn’t even chew through flesh since the head who was in charge of such things barely hard a lower jaw anymore. Compared to how detestable the demon found the other two warriors, instinctually speaking the youth in front of it was barely perceivable, barely had any presence, yet its pride and ability to learn from experience would not allow the boy to live for a moment further. Neither would it let him go unpunished for all the harm that he had done to itself, but neither would it allow him to take another opportunistic shot at the proud alpha.

  The boy back off from the tall creature, sword shakingly in hand.

  Yes! Yes! The creature relished at its prey’s caution, at its fear! It would rip it apart and impale it on the spikes of its throne as it did to that woman before him!

  “Gghhhraaa!!!”, the hound-like head roared in pain and outrage as it got hit in its newly regrown eye with a lit ember .

  The jade-eyed youth smiled with gleeful satisfaction at the writhing monster’s distress as he held the sword that he took from near the altar as he stepped back towards it slowly but steadily.

  The demon pounced.

  It would not tolerate the flippant disrespect of this frail human child any longer.

  The monster soared through the air, intent on crushing its target with its full weight and maul with its remaining fangs if that alone was not enough.

  Yet in the moment when one would have expected the boy’s smile to turn into an expression of fear or surprise, it just widened further, as if a hunter that had gotten its prey to do as they desired.

  The boy kicked both of his feet out from under himself and let himself enter freefall, just before the creature collided with him.

  The impact was bone rattling, but as he didn’t put up any resistance to the momentum, he barely got hurt from it and as the creature came at him and everything below his shoulders was limp, Kenos grabbed on to the creature’s fur with his left hand and stabbed into the creature’s hound-like head, completely stabbing through its skull, the tip of the blade coming out from the other side, covered in foul smelling brain matter.

  Together they crashed through the smoke and the flames.

  “Ghhhhhaaaasssshhhhheeeee…”, the demon whimpered.

  As the pair had sailed through the air, they had crashed into the large spiked statue that represented this country faith. The very same structure that the creature that the demon had used as a makeshift throne during this single and only night. The very same idol in which the owner of the sword that now pierced its skull had been sadistically impaled.

  The monster had impaled its should on the blue pillar. The one representing their land’s very own Divine Oceanic Star. One might find it ironic.

  Kenos certainly thought so. His hunger for prayer and divine revelation fuelling his ever increasing notion that his current path was the one that he had been ordained.

  Now if only the creature’s momentum had just gone a little bit farther, its chest would have been pierced by the jet black pillar and that would have been that, but no, the egotistical whelp just had to inconvenience its betters.

  Kenos hoisted himself up until he was close enough to the remaining head so that he was sure that the demon could hear him with perfect clarity.

  “You see…this is what you get for getting in between the two of us…and you really shouldn’t have harmed someone close to her. She would never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t end you in kind.”

  He grabbed the blade that Axios had stabbed through the creature’s mouth with both of his hands.

  “Sweet dreams. May you never wake”.

  He pulled down in it with all his weight and he was covered in dark red blood as the creature’s lower jaw was completely removed.

  The boy chuckled to himself as he stabbed into the demon’s chest .

  Yet he found that he couldn’t fully pierce through and the demon was starting to move and stir once more.

  “Persistent, aren’t we? Just sleep as you are meant to.”

  Yet the creature refused to ear the advise given to it and kept thrashing about, coiling both of its tentacles around the spike that pierced its shoulder, attempting to wrench itself free.

  “Now, now, why would you go and do that? Just rest already”, Kenos said, gently and almost sadly, as he kept doing his utmost to drive the blade into the creature’s heart.

  “Oooooohhhhhhhaaaaaaa!!!”

  Axios came rushing in from behind the wall of ashes and flames, holding a large wooden bench above his head.

  “Die!”, the golden-haired youth roared as he smashed the bench against the creature’s back, hard enough that he snapped in half.

  The demon’s chest was driven into by the pitch black spike that it had luckily avoided at first and its body went limp.

  “You alive, Teo?!”, the golden-haired youth shouted.

  “What was all that standoffishness for?”, the boy replied, still out of sight due to the creature’s massive bulk.

  “Fuck you! That damn thing almost ripped my arm off! Now get out from there.”

  “I don’t think that we are done here yet”, Kenos replied.

  Suddenly, the creature started stirring again, its body releasing fumes of regeneration yet again.

  “Just die already!”, Axios howled as it kept smashing it in the back with what remained of the bench that he had lifted moments prior.

  “Stop doing that! You are in the way!”, Kenos protested as he found it difficult to stab his sword through the creature’s remaining head, as it was constantly being rocked back and forth and having partially healed one of its eyes, it was either constantly dodging or block the sword strikes with its horns.

  “Step aside”, a voice said.

  Shoving Axios to the side, the spearman covered his bident in argent flames and cleanly stabbed through the middle of the demon’s back.

  “When you want to make sure a demon won’t resist getting chopped off, you destroy its spine first and foremost”, he said, as he pierced through the creature’s back yet again, only higher this time.

  “Then you make sure that you rip off its heart or lungs. Honestly, lungs might just be better”

  He stabbed repeatedly, giving them a detailed lesson on the subject, matter-of-factly, yet Axios could clearly tell that the man was still fuelled by a white hot rage that could be at first confused by aloofness.

  The man repeatedly poked through the creature, as if an angry child stabbing a pillow out of frustration to let their anger out.

  “then finally, don’t aim for the head. That is reckless. The neck is a much better target”

  And with those words and a casual swing of his polearm, he cut through both of the creature’s necks, ending this struggle for good.