Chapter 98: What Are You Waiting For?
While Astensia carved her bloody path toward the chapel, Thor and the rest of the attack team made their way to the clocktower in the center.
The street here was wider but the buildings that dominated it were completely demolished. The miasma was even thicker, making dense vortices reaching for them with killing intent.
"The clock tower is four blocks north," Valeria Bloodgood said, pointing with the tip of the Starsplitter.
Others followed the tip of the spear and saw the dark spire of the tower through the gaps between ruined buildings, its face wrapped in crimson tendrils.
Thor’s hammer crackled with hunger. "Then let’s move. Fast. Do not stop to savor kills. The only thing that matters is reaching that tower."
Vernon eyed her.
Quickly, they advanced towards the tower in formation. Thor led by the point, Valeria on her right flank, Vernon on her left, and the rest of the attack team spreading behind them in a wedge.
Kaleb summoned storm clouds overhead, lightning. Evander’s winged Beasts began to materialize, taking the air above them. Silas Mercer activated runes all over his arms, increasing his strength and resilience.
They made it one block before the first wave hit.
Very quickly, they realized that most of these Demons were stronger than the rest.
In Awakener Supreme, star tiers within the same Rank created a power curve that was relatively gentle from one to four stars. A two-star Gold could hold their own against a three-star Gold for a few exchanges before being overwhelmed.
The gap was real but not insurmountable.
At five stars and above, the curve very quickly became a cliff.
A five-star Descending Demon had roughly twice the raw power of a four-star. A six-star had nearly triple. And a seven-star—the rank of the Demon Commander they were marching toward—had five times the power of a four-star.
The exponential scaling meant that higher-star Demons weren’t just stronger; they were fundamentally more in every category. Faster reflexes. Denser hides. More vicious intelligence.
Thankfully, most of the Demons were around the Fallen Rank and the lower stars of the Descending Rank. However, they were all lead by one or even two of the higher stars.
The first wave was led by a massive Bug Demon. The creature had six legs, each with a tip that resembled a scythe-blade and a body segmented like an armored centipede.
Behind it came a swarm of Winged Demons, bat like creatures with humanoid torsos and faces twisted into ugly grins.
Everywhere else, the Humanoid Demons—the ones with multiple heads and misaligned limbs—poured from the gaps between buildings, forming a tide around the larger creatures.
"Hahh!" Thor ran forward with her cape billowing behind her, she dragged her warhammer, gathering lightning behind her.
Then, she raised it high above he head. "Forked Descent!" ...And brought it down.
Five separate lightning bolts split from the sky simultaneously, each one targeting a different point in the Demon formation.
The first struck the Bug Demon directly in its cluster of compound eyes, punching through its armored carapace and out the bottom of its segmented body. The creature’s legs spasmed, before it collapsed, paralyzed from the shock.
The other four bolts struck the ground in a square around the Demon swarm, creating a cage of crackling electricity. Any Demon that touched the thunder-lines was instantly incinerated.
[Heroine, Thor Stormchild, has killed 14 Demons (Rank: Descending, Fallen)]
[Heroine, Thor Stormchild, has critically injured 1 Demon (Rank: Descending, 5-Star)]
Valeria sprinted forward to finish the Bug Demon. With the Starsplitter extended in front of her, she jumped, launching herself with the strength of her Platinum-Rank legs.
Her body rotated in the air, bringing Starsplitter down in a two-handed thrust directly into the gap between the Demon’s head and thorax.
The spear’s true damage activated.
[ Weapon: Starsplitter ]
[ Grade: S ]
[ Details: Forged from star-metal by the Blacksmith of the Elders ]
[ Active: Carries burning heat and light of stars, capable of completely purifying Demons on contact. (Output varies with Rank).
[ Passive: Completely bypasses physical defense layers. It inflicts True Damage that scales exponentially with the velocity of the user’s strike. ]
There was no resistance. Starsplitter slid through the demon’s flesh like a hot knife through butter, the star-metal absorbing the heat.
Valeria landed on the other side of the creature, yanking her spear free as she passed. A spray of purple-black ichor followed the blade and painted the cobblestones.
The Bug Demon’s legs finally stopped twitching.
"The flying ones are coming!" Silas yelled.
Everyone looked up to the sky where a swarm of Winged Demons, undeterred by the Bug Demon’s death, dove down coordinatedly.
There were twenty of them, maybe thirty, their bat-wings folding as they plummeted toward the attack team, claws extended and mouths open.
Vernon saw his chance to shine and took it. He sauntered forward, his hands dancing in front of him. Fire and ice spiraled around them in equal measure, the two elements twisting together without canceling each other out.
"Thermal Cascade!"
Vernon thrust both palms toward the sky.
A column of superheated air exploded upward from his hands, and the diving Winged Demons crashed right into it.
The heat was so intense that Lancet that Thor and the rest of the attack team could feel it on their faces.
The Winged Demons were instantly vaporized.
Their bodies turned to steam in less than a second—flesh, bone, claws, and teeth all converting to pink-tinged gas that rose into the red sky.
The ones at the edges of the column fared slightly better, which is to say they only caught fire. Flaming Demon corpses rained down around the attack team, their death shrieks cutting off as they hit the ground and shattered into ash.
Vernon lowered his hands, a satisfied smirk playing at his lips. He glanced at Thor, clearly expecting acknowledgment.
Thor was already walking forward, her hammer resting on her fierce grip, leaving a trail of smoke.
"Keep up," she said without looking back.
The Humanoid Demons—the ones that had been using the Bug Demon and the Winged swarm as cover—now surged forward in earnest.
They came from both sides of the street, climbing over the rubble of collapsed buildings, crawling under the wreckage of burned-out carriages.
Dozens of them. Hundreds. Their multiple heads all focused on the same target: the Valkyrie at the front.
Thor immediately stopped walking. Her eyes narrowed, pupils moving to the corners as she watched them get closer.
Keeping her feet planted to the ground, she tightened her grip on her hammer and thrusted it at the nearest Demon like the barrel of a gun.
"Chain Lightning!"
A single bolt of lightning leapt from the hammer’s head and struck the Demon in the chest. But the bolt didn’t stop there.
It bounced, arcing from the first Demon to the second, then to the third, then to the fourth, creating a chain of electricity that connected every Demon in the front rank.
At first, it looked that was it, which was odd because the Demons were barely even hurt. But suddenly, every Demon connected by the chain of blue lightning suddenly began to convulse.
Their heads snapped back uncontrollably, limbs jerking in opposite directions. Purple blood sprayed from their eyes, their ears, their mouths.
And even worse, the electricity detonated.
Every Demon that had been hit exploded simultaneously. Their chests burst outward, ribs splintering, organs vaporizing. The street became a carpet of torn flesh and purple ichor, and the smell of dead Demons filled the air.
[Heroine, Thor Stormchild, has killed 47 Demons (Rank: Descending, Fallen)]
Thor lowered her hammer. "Let’s move."
The attack team stared at each other, utterly astounded. Even Vernon couldn’t hide his amazement.
Thor turned to them. "What are you waiting for? I said—"
WHEEZEEE!
She immediately bent her neck and a whistling dagger cut through that space, nearly hitting Valeria.
"Incoming!" Kaleb Vance shouted, looking up at the top of the buildings.
Thor turned. There, on the rooftops and the craggy holes of demolished second-story windows, dozens of Humanoid Demons lunged into view.
"How many of these things are there?" Valeria muttered frustratingly.