Chapter 11: Demon Lord, part three (66)
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Evil Eye flinched back, sending her sphere of crystal back a couple feet. She grimaced, her shell cracking again. It had been a rather long, and annoying fight so far. Yet, her foe had yet to stumble or even seemingly take damage.
It was as if she was invincible. She had even set up a sand trap, yet the sand blaring around them both seemingly did nothing to her foe. Even her magic was getting low, and she didn’t know if she could even continue to fight for long.
She just hoped that her ally, Calvaria was doing well. She also hoped that Calvaria’s team was doing well. Anna seemingly didn’t like her at all. Yet she herself didn’t mind the woman.
Nabe was fine, if a bit standoffish. Though, she felt her eyes on her a multitude of times, as if sizing her up like a piece of meat to be fed to the pigs. It was slightly unnerving; hackle raising, really.
She felt her bubble of gemstones shudder again. She shook her head of the strange thoughts filling her mind. It wasn’t everyday that she did battle with an enemy of this power level. She really should pay attention.
She dodged left, still in the area that she had been in before. Yuri darted forward, her fist pulled back for a punch. Evil Eye darted to the right as she tried to get away. This failed and her bubble of rock shattered like glass.
She took a breath on reflex, feeling her mana drain as she tried and failed to pull back with a flight spell. Then the right fist that Yuri had yet to land on her landed on her face. The blow caused her spell to trigger, using all but the last dregs of mana that she had so that the damage wasn’t taken.
Her mask suffered a much worse fate, though. The bottom of the mask shattered, showing to the world her lip. She grimaced once again, and pulled up a wall of crystal to try and stall the undead maid. She darted back as it erupted from the earth.
This blocked the maid for but a couple of seconds, it was time enough for her to lash out with a massive crystal lance. The wall shattered as her mask had, and Yuri rushed forward. Only to be then interrupted by the lance that Evil Eye had fired off.
Yuri Alpha barely managed to dodge out of the way. Her feet hit the stone floor underneath her, and she darted back. Evil Eye let her shoulders slump just a little as she witnessed the maid take a cautious stance.
She had once again, forced the maid off of her. She had barely done this before. Now, she had done it once again. She had been on her back the entire fight, and only a couple of times had she actually managed to get her away from herself. Annoying as she may be, Evil Eye could respect the undead for that.
“Okay,” she rolled her shoulders now, trying to hype herself up for this last leg of fighting, “let’s do this!”
She charged forth, setting up a spell and readying to fling it at her foe. Yet, she was stopped. Not by the foe herself, but by her ally’s.
The wall to her left exploded, and a group of six girls busted out. These were her two allies, and the four other maids that had attacked along with the one she was facing. She took a step back and avoided the stone shrapnel.
Looking at her allies, she noticed that they were better off than her, by a long shot as well. Nabe seemed to just have been roughed up a bit, and Anna seemingly had only taken one or two hits.
So, either they were good at dodging, or they were durable beyond belief. She blinked again, and looked to the full on maid force in front of her. They looked worse than her allies, but not by much.
She let the two others fall in line beside her, and glanced at them. She then spoke. Her words worried, they may just look fine. Yet, they may be worse off than her. Mentally, at least, it must have been bad to face four foes instead of just thew one that she had.
“You guys aright, how are you guys feeling?” she asked and received a happy response from Anna.
“Never better! I had a rather deep and emotional conversation with Nabe while we fought these fools,” she explained, earning an uneasy nod from the vampire.
Nabe simply frowned, a small blush now creeping up her cheeks and neck a little. Evil Eye hadn’t the faintest idea what they were talking about, not at all. She simply shook her head with a sigh.
“Okay, but let’s just finish this fight,” she said, and the other two nodded their heads.
Yet, when they were just about to rush into the fight once more, the wall of a building exploded. This was the very same building that Calvaria and Yaldabaoth had run and dived into. Bricks and wood showered them all. A single body came flying out of the rubble.
Evil Eye winced, and then opened her eyes wide as she looked at the person. Her armor looked banged up, much more so than her companions. Evil Eye nearly rushed to her side as she saw her push herself up raising her weapons up as if the armor she wore hadn’t been used to contend with a demon lord.
“My, my,” the other body that walked out of the cloud of debris spoke, “I didn’t expect the magic scroll to have such a powerful explosion, but I believe the result speaks for itself,” Yaldabaoth intoned, brandishing his claws and he stalked forward.
Calvaria stood, even as she leaked blood from a nasty gnash pulsed on her front. Nabe started to walk over, but Anna put a hand to her shoulder, and shook her head no. Anna then looked to Evil Eye as she spoke, her tone serious now. It was as if a switch had been flipped, like she was bipolar.
“She can’t kill him, or banish him. We need to call for help, can you help me hold them off while Nabe calls for aid?” Anna asked, and Evil Eye nodded her head.
Just as evil Eye walked in front of Nabe, along with Anna, Nabe spoke. Her tone was flat, as if stating a fact, the weather even. It was jarring, and she shuddered to a stop as she said so.
“No need, I have the Idol that we can call Her with,” she said, who, “Her,” was, was left unsaid.
The other two of them flinched, their forms straightening as if they had been struck by lightning. Evil Eye didn’t know why they reacted like this. The , she heard it, the muttering coming from Nabe.
Evil Eye turned her head to look at her. It was in this moment that she saw what she was holding for the first time. It was a statue. It wasn’t a simplistic thing, like many small Idols or statues like it. It was advanced in its construction. It looked like a one-to-one recreation of something.
It was a woman, a woman wrapping herself around a pole as her chest heaved. That what it looked like, at least to her. It was a deep purple, nearly black. Her hair was long, her stomach was cut, as if to say that she was the opposite of life. As if she could never produce it herself. With her superior hearing, she heard the words that Nabe spoke.
“Oh, Glorious Goddess of Death, she who ends those who art unworthy of your radiant splendor. I ask thou, please head our call and cast this demon into the place of damnation. Cast this Demon lord away, so that he may return to his given duty once more,” she intoned, the are filling with magic as a circle appeared at her feet.
It was a deep blue, like that of the magic scroll being cast. Shivers ran up and down Evil Eye’s body as she bor witness to the words. It was then that Yaldabaoth screamed in anger.
“No!” he yelled, his voice cracking, “not to that desk, to that boring job!” he called out, his words earing a looked of scorn from Anna and a swing of the sword from Calvaria.
He dashed forth, trying and failing to reach Nabe. Calvaria stepped in the way and blocked his path with a swipe of her sword. He stabbed at her with his claws, failing to get a hit on her. It was then, that the call was complete. Clouds grew overhead, bolts of lightning thundered downward, yet bolted back up as if scared of the ground. She had never seen such a thing before.
Yet, then sound vanished. Evil Eye looked on at the thing, no the Goddess that had descended onto the battlefield. All looked on, unable to even process what was going on.
She was tall, elegant, and overall felt like she could end your life with a glance. Evil Eye only saw her back. Yet it was enough to instill in her a fear. A fear that told her that she was small.
Not even laughing coffin dragon lord did this to her. Not even any of the foes that she had faced while she was in the fourteen heroes was like this. She started shivering, not even her undead nature made her safe.
“Yaldabaoth,” she said, pointing at the demon lord as if he was an unruly child, “go back to your duty. Leave these mortals in piece. You have a debt to fulfill. Fill it,” she told him, and he vanished as if he was never there in the first place.
Then she turned to the maids, and they simply puffed away in a cloud of blue smoke that appeared to be teleportation magic. She then turned her face to Calvaria, and handed her a potion red as blood without a word. The warrior of her faith took it, as if it was a holy relic.
Finally she turned to Anna, Nabe, and Evil Eye. Her gaze roamed over them all. It wasn’t the gaze of a mortal, her robes making her look even more divine if that was possible. She sighed then, as if she had work in the morning.
“Call me first, okay kids?” she asked Nabe, Anna, and Calvaria, “I didn’t even know he was out, I was so swamped with work. Just be careful next time,” she warned them, then vanished.
Evil Eye felt the pressure leave her shoulders. She felt it leave her mind. she stumbled, like she had taken a punch to the gut, and nearly fell unconscious. That was how great of a power this goddess had. She likely had held back as well.
“What was that?” she barely croaked out.
“That was death,” the completely fine, completely repaired Calvaria said, her tone was like iron.
“Oh,” was all that she responded with, before the cheers of the others from other parts of the city rung like bells all around her.
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