by Eric Vall
I landed on the stairs with a crash, and a wave of pain shot up my shoulder. My body tumbled down the staircase for a few seconds, but then I was finally able to catch myself. I pulled myself to my feet and began to head down the tower.
The sky above me may have been aglow with cascading balls of fire, but I was safe for the moment.
The demon grunts continued their assault on the tower as I descended, but their attacks must not have been strong enough to penetrate the brimstone walls. Every now and again, the impact of a fireball would shake the tower and cause me to stumble, but they weren’t getting through.
Azazel had built this thing like a fortress, and now it was backfiring on him spectacularly.
When I finally reached the bottom of the tower, Cupi ran over and wrapped her arms around me tightly. I winced in pain, and then she released her grip and let out an embarrassed chuckle.
“It looks like we need Sia,” the blonde succubus observed.
“We really do,” I agreed. “She’s our healer, and I have a bad feeling we’re gonna need an awful lot of that once all is said and done here. Azazel’s not pulling any punches this time.”
I grimaced in pain as I lifted up my injured arm and pressed the tattoo of the glowing gold hand on my bicep.
A brilliant white light shot out of my arm, and Sia’s petite figure formed in front of us.
“Invidia!” she gasped when she finally could see what was going on. “You’re free!”
“Jacob saved me from Azazel’s cage,” the gothic succubus retorted, “but I’ll never be free of the prison that is my soul.”
Sia’s eyes blinked rapidly.
“Good to see you, too,” she muttered in disbelief.
Just then, the castle walls shook from the impact of another wave of attacks.
“Did you forget we were in the middle of a battle?” Eligor said jokingly.
“For a minute there, I did,” I shot back and then nodded to my injured shoulder. “Can you fix this for me, Sia?”
“I take it Azazel found us,” Superbia asked as she summoned gold Hellfire into her hand.
The petite succubus touched my wounded arm lovingly, and a warm sensation took over as it began to heal. Within seconds, it was as good as new.
“He knew we were coming,” I confirmed. “But we have a leg up on him right now.”
“How so?” the redhead questioned with a raised eyebrow. “From the sound of it, he has us surrounded.”
“We have a castle, and he doesn’t,” I explained. “We can use that to our advantage. Cupi, you know this place inside and out. Are there any weak spots he might try to exploit?”
The blonde succubus rubbed her chin as she pondered my question.
“The only vulnerable spot I can think of is the area near the west tower,” she responded. “There is a bunch of scaffolding out there from the last time Azazel had it remodeled. They might be able to climb up and get in that way.”
“Maybe I’m missing something here,” Todd interjected. “Why can’t they just, like, summon wings and fly over the walls?”
“Todd,” Eligor sighed and rolled her eyes. “Do you really think Azazel, the Father of Warfare, would be so stupid? He’s got every hex known to man surrounding this place. There’s spells that prevent people from teleporting, flying, or using magic to break down the walls. The only way you can get in here is on foot.”
“Then we need to make sure they don’t get up here,” I growled. “Let’s get over to the west tower.”
Even though there were no enemies in the immediate vicinity, I gripped the Unhallowed Sword like my life depended on it.
At the same time, I noticed my friends getting ready for battle.
Sia and Todd both called Hellfire into their hands, while Cupi expanded her collapsible polearm and Eligor drew her dual swords.
Invidia still had the goat-headed dagger in her hands, and she looked like she was ready to skewer every motherfucker she possibly could.
We ran up the nearest flight of stairs so we were atop the outer walls of the castle, and then we continued on until we reached the west tower. Projectiles crashed into the walls as we moved, but they did little more than act as a distraction and an inconvenience.
“There!” Cupi called out as we approached the west tower. “Our two and our ten!”
Several of Azazel’s grunts were climbing up the wooden scaffolding, and they moved across the dark beams like scuttling cockroaches.
Sia blasted the first one off the scaffold with a shot of red Hellfire, but then three more instantly took its place. She hit another one as it leapt into the air, but the remaining two grunts were able to land safely on the ground.
That safety didn’t last long.
The second their disgusting demon feet touched the dark brimstone, I lopped off their heads with a single swing of the Unhallowed Sword. Their craniums hit the ground with a plop and rolled away as the stumps of their necks spurted blood into the air.
Another wave of grunts came into view, and they jumped off the scaffolding before any of us had a chance to take them out.
Oh well. It was more fun this way, anyways.
Invidia jabbed the goat-headed dagger through the temple of a nearby grunt, and then she spun around, touched another one, and separated his soul from his body with a flash of silver Hellfire.
Cupi was working on crowd control with her polearm. The fit succubus had the weapon stabbed into the ground as she spun around it like a stripper pole and kicked away the grunts.
Meanwhile, Sia was catching the little fuckers in her black Hellfire of fear and holding them in place while Todd incinerated them with baseball-sized fireballs.
“Ultra combooooo!” the imp cackled as he reduced the grunts’ heads to nothing more than melted flesh and charred bone.
A small group of grunts moved on Eligor and I, but we were more than ready.
I skewered the closest demon through the gut with the Unhallowed Sword, lifted his flailing body into the air, and used it as a makeshift battering ram to knock down his comrades.
Even though I was focused on the fuckers in front of me, I could occasionally see the glint of Eligor’s swords as they stabbed and slashed at the grunts.
The first wave of demons had been defeated, but another quickly took their place.
“We need to destroy the scaffold!” I ordered as I threw a handful of yellow shuriken into a nearby grunt’s face.
“On it!” Cupi exclaimed before she smashed a grunt’s face with the blunt end of her polearm.
Then the Sister of Greed dashed toward the wall of the west tower, and she froze a few grunts with her blue Hellfire as she ran.
While the fuckers were frozen, Todd zipped between them and sliced their throats with his claws. Geysers of blood sprayed from their necks, and the grunts made a sick gurgling noise as they choked on their own viscera.
“Jacob!” Cupi called out as she drew close to the tower. “I need an assist!”
I stabbed my sword through a nearby demon’s head, whipped around, and threw out a flaming purple hand.
Cupi leapt up into the air, and a platform of violet Hellfire appeared underneath her feet. She landed on the makeshift pedestal, looked down at the approaching grunts, and summoned red Hellfire into her hands. The fit succubus clapped her hands together angrily, and a literal tidal wave of incendiary flames blasted downward.
The demon grunts screamed in pain as their flesh was melted off their bones, and they released their grips on the scaffold.
More importantly, the wooden beams of the scaffold went up in flames. The fire danced on the poles for a second, and then the entire thing groaned as it collapsed. There were still a few grunts left on the wall, but they all looked around in a panic as they realized it was now open season.
I quickly used my telekinetic magic to pick up a nearby barrel and slam it into a nearby group of demons.
They let out a grunt of surprise as their small bodies were flung over the edge
of the wall, and they plummeted to their doom.
“Jakey!” Todd called out from behind. “Power slide!”
I turned around to see the imp running toward the last few grunts, and I knew exactly what he was thinking. I raised my hand, called forth my emerald flames, and opened a portal underneath the demons’ feet.
Todd fell to his knees and used his momentum to slide like a rockstar toward the grunts. His slide was timed just right so his claws sliced open the throats of the fuckers as he passed by their falling bodies.
I opened a second portal over the edge of the wall, and the grunts’ corpses fell through.
“Holy fuck,” Todd gasped. “I’ve always wanted to David Lee Roth a bunch of demons to death!”
“Is that all of them?” Eligor panted.
“I think so,” Cupi confirmed as she leapt down off the flaming purple platform. “At least, for now.”
“Are there any other weak points?” I asked. “Places where the grunts could get in?”
“I don’t think so,” the fit succubus admitted. “We may have won this round.”
I walked over to the wall, looked out over the army, and locked eyes with Azazel.
The cocky demon looked exactly the same as the first time I’d met him. He was nearly three times my size, with bright red skin and muscles nearly as big as my head. His feet were hooved, and his entire lower half was covered with a silver armor with a pattern similar to dragon scales. His horns, of course, were his most defining feature. The pitch-black appendages grew out of his temples and curved up over his head to form a sideways “C.”
Nothing had changed. He was still an ugly motherfucker.
“Celebrate your victory, mortal,” Azazel mocked. “For I, the King of the Fourth Circle, will win the war. I will bathe in your blood as you bleed out at my feet and watch your imp beg for death. I will reclaim my whores, and they will forget all about you once I take them to my bedchambers and remind them why I am the king around here.”
My hand tightened into a fist, and I took an angry step forward before Eligor’s hand stopped me.
“He’s trying to goad you into exposing yourself,” the knight explained. “Don’t fall for his trickery.”
“You’re not gonna do jack shit, cock-for-brains,” Todd mocked. “This fortress is more impenetrable than my ex-girlfriend.”
“Wasn’t she banging a bunch of other guys?” Cupi whispered. “That’s pretty penetrable, if you ask me.”
“Correction,” Todd called out. “More impenetrable than my ex-girlfriend was for moi.”
Azazel crossed his arms, threw back his head, and cackled maniacally.
“Foolish imp,” he mused. “I almost wish I could keep you around as my new fool. But then I remember all of the times you’ve been a thorn in my side, and my desire to crush your skull beneath my hooves boils to the surface.”
“You heard the imp,” Invidia spoke up. “You’re not getting into the castle. You told me yourself it was impossible to breach its defenses and stuff.”
“I don’t have to get inside,” the King of the Fourth Circle snarled. “I’m the Father of Warfare. I am the one who quite literally invented the siege. You will come out of there sooner or later, and then I will make your skulls into drinking cups.”
“Siege warfare?” Todd scoffed. “Borrrring.”
“Boring is right,” I sighed. “But there’s a reason it works. He’s right. We can’t stay in here forever.”
“Jacob,” Sia argued. “This is a fortress. We can hold out here until--”
“Until what?” I snapped. “Azazel’s not going to go away. This place might be impossible to breach, but he's immortal. Sure, we can keep switching out succubi to get food so we don't starve, but that can’t last forever. Even with all our riches on Earth Realm, the money’s going to run out eventually. He’s going to sit out there with his army until we get sloppy and make a mistake. Or until we run out of funds for food runs. And I don’t intend to let either of those happen. We’re gonna have to face this asshole now.”
“Jacob … ” Cupi said with worry in her voice. “What are you planning?”
I refused to answer the succubus, mainly because I knew exactly how she was going to react. This was a fucking crazy idea, but I had to do it.
It was the only way.
I stepped forward, all the way to the edge of the wall, and pointed at Azazel with the Unhallowed Sword.
“Azazel, King of the Fourth Circle and Father of Warfare!” I bellowed.
“Jacob, don’t!” Cupi gasped.
“I, Jacob Ralston, the Champion of Thea and Leader of the Cult of Ralston,” I continued, “challenge you to a duel. Winner takes the Fourth Circle and the succubi. The loser dies.”
Azazel crossed his arms and tilted his head in amusement.
“Your titles are phony,” he growled. “You have cheated, lied, and deceived your way up the ladder, and now you find yourself at a place no mortal deserves to be. Why should I trust you?”
“Trust me?” I scoffed. “If I lose, I’ll be dead. If anything, I should be wary of trusting you.”
“I am many things, mortal,” Azazel sneered, “but the Father of Warfare will always honor the terms of a joust.”
“So?” I asked once more. “Do we have a deal?”
“Please, Jacob,” Sia begged behind me. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m with Strawberry Shortcake on this one, bro,” Todd added. “I’m all for being reckless, but this is suicide.”
“Fine.” Azazel nodded. “I agree to your terms. Winner takes all, and the loser perishes.”
Even though I’d already defeated this asshole once before, my entire body was shaking with anxiousness. I nodded my head, summoned a handful of descending purple platforms in front of me, and followed them down to the ground.
Now, I stood directly in front of the towering monster of a demon.
My heart pounded in my chest. This was it.
One of us wasn’t walking away from this alive.
Chapter 18
“You probably think you are brave for challenging me one-on-one, mortal,” Azazel taunted as he cracked his knuckles with anticipation. “You probably think you’re going to kill me, or that by sacrificing yourself you’ll be giving your friends enough time to flee. But you’re not. Had you stayed in the castle, you and your friends would have died a merciful death from starvation. Now, thanks to your foolish choice, you will all die a slow, painful death.”
“You know,” I growled and readied the Unhallowed Sword, “for someone calling themselves the ‘Father of Warfare,’ you do a lot more whining than you do fighting.”
The demon raised his eyebrow at me as his mouth twisted into an evil grin.
“I’ve never seen somebody so eager to die,” he mused. “And with what? The Unhallowed Sword? It’s only purpose is to cut through enchanted steel, mortal. Other than that, it’s a fucking letter opener.”
I was done talking. I quickly dashed at the demon and took a swing at his arm.
Azazel stepped out of the way, reared back his muscular arm, and swung his oversized fist at my face. I dispelled it with a shield of purple fire, and the Father of Warfare grunted angrily as his hand smashed into the barrier at full speed.
Before he could recover, I took a jab at Azazel’s leg. The bastard moved his leg up at the last second, and the Unhallowed Sword stabbed harmlessly into the ground.
The next thing I knew, Azazel’s massive hoof slammed down on the sword and pinned it to the ground.
I just barely ducked out of the way of his incoming fist and tried to yank the sword free, but he had me trapped.
It was either abandon my weapon or risk getting pummeled by the demon’s boulder-sized fists.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have much say in the matter. Azazel clapped his fists together above his head into one large, deadly club. Then he released a guttural howl of glee as he brought it down directly at my head.
I was forced to relea
se my grip on the Unhallowed Sword and throw my glowing purple fists up into the air. I was able to create a giant wall of protective Hellfire just before the deadly blow hit its mark, and the impact brought me to my knees.
Azazel brought up his fists again and then began to repeatedly slam them into the barrier as he cackled with glee.
I felt the brimstone beneath me crack as I was driven down into the Earth, and a wave of hot pain erupted from my shins. The jagged landscape cut into the flesh of my legs, and my appendages began to go numb.
If I didn’t do something fast, this fucker was going to snap my spine like a twig.
The next time the demon brought his fists above his head, I tossed down a portal of green Hellfire directly beneath my body. His makeshift battering ram smashed into my shield once more, but this time it pushed me through the portal like a pinball plunger.
I reappeared in the air, directly behind Azazel, and I summoned red Hellfire into my hands. Just as he began to turn around, I let out a scream of frustration and blasted the back of his head at point-blank range.
The Father of Warfare let out a gasp of surprise as my attack collided with his skull, and the impact threw him forward so his ugly mug violently slammed into the ground. Azazel pulled himself to his knees and shook his head frustratedly as I picked my weapon up off the ground. Then he spun around and took another swing at my torso, but I was more than ready.
I cast a spell of green Hellfire in front of the fist’s trajectory, and it passed through with deadly intent. The second portal opened to the left of Azazel’s head, and his head snapped to the side as he struck himself with his own fist.
“That ‘ol trick still works on you?” I mocked. “Some things never change.”
“No, they don’t,” Azazel growled as he wiped blood from the corner of his mouth. “But you mortals consider that a good thing, no?”
The King of the Fourth Circle stood up on his knees, summoned silver Hellfire into his hands, and then slammed them into the ground. Instantly, the brimstone between us began to shake violently.