by Max Jager
"SUKI!" Estellese shouted out, and in a flash Estellese was right behind her. She had turned both of her arms into giant stone arms and caught the axe with her stone hands. But the blow struck her with so much force that it shattered most of her stone arms, it broke both of her actual arms and badly hurt her legs, causing her to scream out in pain.
Suki rushed and quickly stabbed her sword into the pinned demon's head as she spun around just in time to see Estellese save her, but also to see that the demon hadn't only swung one axe. The demon's second axe was a split second behind the first, and the blade of the axe was a bright red. The demon's own armor-piercing spell. But as it swung towards her a portal opened up above the axe and Kaden fell out of it. He sliced the handle of the massive axe with his sword, using its armor piercing enchantment to cut clean through the metal. The head of the axe went flying off into the distance, narrowly missing Suki. But the demon leaned deeper into its swing, striking Suki's shield with the handle of the broken axe. It wasn't the lethal blow the demon wanted, Suki blocked it, but with its superhuman strength it threw Suki backwards several feet and sent her body flipping and skidding across the ground, breaking several bones along the way.
As Kaden fell towards another portal the greater demon kicked him out of the air, causing him to miss the portal and slam into the ground a few feet away. He remained motionless.
The pure demon stopped focusing on the snake and summoned a massive fireball. As soon as Suki hit the ground and stopped skidding it hurled the fireball at her. She was too badly wounded to move so she expanded her shield and hid underneath it. As the fireball struck her shield it exploded and unleashed a massive whirlwind of flames. The flames spiraled above and around her shield, waiting for her to come out from under it. Then, a trail of embers shot across the ground from the pure demon towards where Suki was hiding.
Estellese tried to grab control of the embers with her own fire magic, but the demon was a master and she was still just a novice, she couldn't pry control of the spell from the demon. The embers slipped underneath the shield and exploded. An ear piercing scream and searing hot flames burst out from underneath the shield.
By this point the pure demon looked almost like a porcupine with how many arrows were sticking out of its back. The arrows and bullets were simply too small and too lacking in power to cause any significant damage to the eight foot tall, metallic-skinned creature. The pure demon was too far away for anyone other than Kaden to reach it, but he was unconscious and too badly wounded to fight.
Alicia had been sprinting at the pure demon, but even with her superhuman speed she arrived too late. She immediately swung low for the demon's leg but the demon saw her coming and jumped backwards. By this point the pure demon had stopped controlling the ice-snake long enough for Pex to melt them both with her fire magic. It required such a large amount of energy to make those ice snakes that it couldn't summon another one without completely exhausting itself.
Alicia was fuming, tears were running down her cheeks and she was focused solely on killing this pure demon. As soon as the demon jumped back she rushed forwards and stabbed her sword toward its chest. The pure demon sidestepped the blade and with a short swipe of one of its four arms it made a big block of ice appear beside Alicia and sent it flying at her from the side. Alicia dove forwards to evade the ice and slashed at the demon's legs again. The demon quickly stepped back but wasn't fast enough and Alicia's sword sliced deeply into one of its legs.
"Alicia! Behind you! Focus!" Lillith shouted out as she ran towards Alicia.
Alicia spun around just in time to see an ice javelin flying straight at her back and the greater demon charging at her. She sidestepped the javelin only for the pure demon to kick her while she wasn't looking at it. Alicia's body was sent skipping across the battlefield, letting out sharp cries of pain each time her body struck the ground until it eventually came to a stop.
"Alicia!" Lillith shouted out, taking a sharp turn to sprint straight towards her friend. The greater demon saw that she too had lost focus and immediately hurled its massive battleaxe straight at Lillith while she was watching her friend. The full demon also took advantage of the situation by hurling a massive fireball at Alicia.
Mendelen was quick to rush in front of the fireball, his dark undershield spell absorbing the fireball and preventing it from reaching its target.
Zanath rushed over to Lillith and yanked her to the ground with him, the massive battle axe flew over their heads and narrowly missed Lillith. But as it flew over their heads Zanath noticed that there was a glowing ember on the handle of the axe. "MOVE!" Zanath shouted out as he dove as far away as he could jump.
Lillith was in shock after seeing Alicia go down, she was not a fighter or accustom to being on the battlefield after all. She tried to jump out of the way too but her reaction time was dulled by shock, she wasn't fast enough. The ember on the axe exploded blasting flames in all directions. Both Lillith and Zanath screamed out as they were caught in the blast. Zanath took the least damage, he had second degree burns all over his left side. Lillith had second degree burns over most of her body and her lower legs were covered in third degree burns. Zanath was able to stand but was having a lot of difficulty staying on his feet, Lillith on the other hand couldn't get back up.
Mendelen rushed over to stand by Alicia, also covering Zanath and Lillith who were near her with his anti-magic zone as well.
The rift had almost shrunken enough to stop the abyssal demon from getting out, it just needed another minute or two and the demons knew this. They exchanged a few words in their own language, before the greater demon charged at the machine and Pex. Checkmate. With the pure demon waiting in the back Mendelen couldn't leave Alicia's side. She was the princess of the elves, he had to keep her safe and if he walked away for even a second the pure demon would finish her off. Mendelen didn't stand a chance against the greater demon by himself anyways. He was the only one left who was uninjured and still able to fight, the healer had not only been taken down but she was also inside Mendelen' anti-magic zone. His spell wasn't only protecting Alicia but was also blocking Lillith from using her healing magic, and she was too close to Alicia. There was no way for him to protect Alicia without also blocking Lillith.
Mendelen looked around the battlefield, trying to think of a way out. Zanath's guns were not strong enough to do much to the greater and pure demon. The pure demon was clearly wounded from all the bullets and arrows, and those wounds were slowing it down, but they needed to kill it. The demons' armor and the toughness of their skin were just too much for these primitive guns and bullets. He couldn't move from this spot or Alicia and Lillith would die, possibly Zanath too since they were all close together. Suki was dead, Pex was the only thing keeping them off the machine, Kaden was badly injured and knocked out, Estellese broke her arms and badly damaged her legs and… Was missing?
Mendelen skimmed the battlefield again but couldn't see Estellese anywhere, Kaden was also gone.
Pex watched in horror from her position guarding the machine. Things were going okay at best, but as soon as Suki went down everything just fell apart in an instant. It was clear that the demons were getting worn out from these powerful spells, she could tell the demon charging at her was exhausted, but did it matter? It was a greater demon, one of the most dangerous demonic soldiers out there, versus a librarian. Even if that demon was worn down and tired, she was just a librarian not a soldier but she had to do something. It was going to break through the barrier either way.
Pex dropped the barrier around the machine, leaving it unguarded as she took flight and flew after the greater demon. The demon did not know she wasn't a soldier, so it immediately treated her as if she was a significant threat. It began launching a barrage of fireballs at the small fairy, but Pex was quickly bobbing and weaving through the air around the flames. She flew low near the demon's legs and immediately unleashed a massive gust of wind upwards at the demon.
The greater demon was thrown
up into the air, and would have been launched far away had it not responded so quickly. As soon as it was lifted off the ground its arm turned into a giant ice arm that stretched out and grabbed onto the ground, pulling the demon down and out of the air. As it landed it swung its arms forward and the ice arm shattered into hundreds of tiny ice shards which fired back at Pex. They were tiny to a human, but huge to a fairy. Pex responded by making a big blast of flames around herself, melting away all the ice.
It seemed like a good idea at face-value, but she was expending far too much energy using all these big attacks. It was even worse when she did it at times like this when she could have done other things that would have been less taxing on her stamina. Her lack of combat experience was showing. Her magic was powerful and her attacks were dangerous, but if she kept fighting like this she was going to burn all of her energy up in seconds flat. Even the demons tried to hold back on bigger attacks like that for the sake of not exhausting themselves too quickly.
The demon charged at Pex again, but Pex let out another powerful blast of flames followed by an equally powerful gust of wind that caught the flames and made the flames nearly explode out at the demon. The demon hadn't been ready for such a massive blast and was engulfed in the fire. But as the flames cleared the demon was still standing, it was severely burnt over its entire body, but still alive. Pex was gasping for air, the powerful spells taking their toll. The demon threw a black chain at Pex and she was too exhausted to evade it. As soon as the chain latched onto her it began draining her already diminished stamina even more. Worse, as the demon sapped Pex's stamina, its burns started healing. The demon smirked and began walking towards the machine, knowing that the small fairy was no longer a threat and was now just a flying source of free energy. Pex tried to fly after the demon and began throwing gusts of wind at it, but she no longer had the stamina to give her attacks the power they needed to stop the demon.
As the demon walked the gusts of wind kept making it stumble around, the little fairy was really getting annoying. The demon clenched a fist then spun around to swat the fairy out of the air and end this once and for all, but as it spun around the first and last thing the demon saw was the blade of Kaden's sword as it stabbed into the demon's forehead. Kaden fell to the ground with the greater demon's corpse, someone had healed all of his wounds but by this point he was completely exhausted. Those armor piercing enchantments on his swords consumed a massive amount of stamina every time he activated them, even when he missed. He had overused the enchantments and, like Pex, had just completely exhausted himself of energy.
As soon as the full demon saw its ally fall it skimmed the battlefield in a panic, and finally noticed that the human woman was gone. It had presumed her to be out of the fight, but clearly she was up to something. It began looking all around trying to find her, the pure demon knew she was coming to finish it off, but where was she? Then it remembered, she had wings now! She can fly! It immediately looked up and was prepared to shoot her out of the sky, but she wasn't there.
Suddenly vines sprang out of the ground and grabbed onto the demon's four arms, yanking it down to its knees. The demon instantly tried burning off the vines, but as it did Estellese burst out of the ground with earth magic. Her arms had stone gauntlets covering them, and the gauntlets had sharp claws in place of fingers. All of her wounds were healed and her arms looked much more muscular than they originally were. Estellese slammed the palm of her stone gauntlet into the demon's face and grabbed on, digging the stone claws into the sides of its head. She immediately slammed the back of the demon's head into the ground with her newly gained superhuman strength. As she slammed the demon she used her wings to ensure that she landed on its chest so she could follow up her attack with another hard punch to the head and a slash across the face with her stone claws while the demon was stunned from the first blow. Her arms returned to normal once the strength boost ended, but the demon was dead now. She quickly began running over to Alicia and Lillith to try and heal them now that she had swapped out her fire magic for nature magic.
"We did it!" Pex breathlessly shouted out. But not a moment after she shouted explosions filled the sky above the rift. The group of demons who had been sent to take out the fairies above the rift had all blasted incredibly powerful fire attacks up into the sky. The abyssal demon was smart, these demons were not random demons, but were hand-picked for these jobs. While the group facing the Alphas failed, the other group succeeded. As the explosions filled the sky hundreds of chard fairy bodies began falling to the ground. The sight was enough to make Pex sick, the small fairy flew down to the ground and disappeared into the grass where she wouldn't be able to see any more of what was happening.
As the explosions rang out in the air above them the abyssal demon's four arms once again rose out of the rift and grabbed onto the ground around it as it began pulling itself out again. Within a split second a portal opened beside one of the arms and Kaden sprang out of it. Using his armor piercing swords to hack away at the arm, he severed the demon's arm after three swings, causing the demon to roar out in pain and rage. As quickly as he could he used portals to move to the next arm and repeated the same action. But after the second slash an explosion of flames burst out of the demon's arm. Kaden tried to jump through his portals to dodge the flames, but the fire followed him through the portal and burnt him anyways, leaving him badly burnt and unable to do that again.
The abyssal demon pulled its head out from the rift and looked around. As soon as it spotted the machine one of its three remaining titan-sized fists slammed down and crushed it.
By now, Alicia, Lillith, and Zanath were all healed. Everyone helplessly watched the machine being crushed to pieces again. It was over.
Mendelen spotted someone familiar amongst the fighting near the rift, he couldn't tell exactly who the fairy was because it was far away and the fairies were too small to see at a distance, but he recognized the magic. Powerful ice magic, the spiked ice tendrils, it must have been Sybil. He knew the plan was to have guards pull her out of the battlefield as soon as the fight started. She must have gotten a moment's rest and returned. She was gunning for the abyssal demon with everything she had and she alone was holding it back, but she could only keep this up for so long. As he moved closer to the rift he could see more of the abyssal demon beneath it, it looked weakened. It had used blood magic to heal its injuries so many times that its blood magic wounds had become worse then any injuries that were being inflicted on it by its opponents. But it was still standing strong and still had a long way to go before it was taken down. Then, Mendelen heard an odd sound. A dog barking and it sounded like it was coming from above him.
Mendelen looked up to see a huge, pure white, fluffy dog with wings flying over his head straight at the demon. As the massive dog flew over the rift it suddenly let out a bright flash of light and split into two. One of the things that split off of the flying white dog was a normal looking golden Labrador retriever, which landed right next to the rift and began barking encouragement at its owner. The other thing that split off of the giant white dog was a knight, wearing pure white, heroic looking armor. The white knight had a white cape, a large gem-encrusted white sword, and a small but valiant looking white and blue shield. The knight fell out of the sky and landed on the abyssal demon's head, and immediately stabbed his sword down into the beast's skull.
"What are you doing?" Sybil shouted to the man, she knew that wouldn't kill the demon. But… The sword was burning through the demon's head with a white flame. He seemed to focus and the sword expanded to become much bigger for only a brief moment. Long enough to finish off the abyssal demon, killing it once again and buying them a few minutes before it came back. As the abyssal demon's lifeless body fell back into the rift the white knight jumped off the demon's head and back onto the ground. Sybil just fluttered there in shock, she had never seen a weapon that burnt demons like that. "Is that… A holy sword?"
"Yes ma'am" The knight replied with a brief salu
te and a bow, the voice sounded like a teenaged boy, and it was around this time that Mendelen noticed that this white knight was actually kinda short. It betrayed his grand heroic entrance and appearance. The knight turned to the dog he flew in with "High-five Rex! Nice work!" He called out as he held out his hand. The dog happily barked and jumped up to paw at his hand. "Now go get Inami" He instructed.
The dog barked in confirmation and wagged its tail happily as it suddenly transformed into a greyhound and sprinted off to the north.
Within a few seconds the white knight's armor and fancy equipment disappeared. Revealing a young thirteen year old boy with messy black hair and soft blue eyes. He looked a little frail, but seemed otherwise average for a young boy. He was wearing a gray hoodie with blue pants and a white t-shirt under his hoodie. He carried a small wooden buckler and a normal-looking iron longsword. But, most importantly, he was a human.
Mendelen looked back at the rift to see that demons were still climbing out of it, but the remaining fairies from the rift-guarding section were shooting them down quickly and effectively. As for the rest of the battlefield it was calming down. it looked like the elves and fairies had cleared out almost all the remaining demons on the surface. He glanced back at the others just in time to see a portal open beside Estellese and Lillith. Kaden fell out of the portal and ungracefully landed, sprawled out and face-first, on the ground.