How I Helped My Demon Princess Conquer Hell

Liam pulled the High Inquisitor up to the bars. He couldn't see an obvious spot where it looked like there was a door, so he turned to the High Inquisitor instead.

"What do you need to do to open the cage?” Liam asked.

"I'll never..."

Liam smashed his face into the bars a couple of times and then pulled him back. There was already the beginnings of a bruise there.

"What were you saying?" Liam asked.

"I said I'll never..."

Liam smashed his face against the bars again. The High Inquisitor let out a cry of pain. Liam pulled him back. His face was beyond bruised into bleeding and broken at this point.

"I don't like doing this," Liam said, deadly serious as he stared at him. "I don't like causing harm if I don't have to, but I've already explained that I will do whatever it takes if I think it's for the greater good."

He looked at Ana. She stared at him and licked her lips.

Finally, the High Inquisitor raised his hand. Liam looked all around, sensing a slight movement from everyone around them. All of them were looking at the High Inquisitor with a very intense focus, no doubt wondering what he was going to do.

He touched the bars. They started to glow. Liam leaned forward, wondering if this was actually going to work. Ana threw her head back and started to scream in pain. As though she was under the knife that was promised when the Inquisitors took them captive.

Only they weren't in any of the Inquisitions' dungeons, and yet she was screaming as though she was in horrible pain as those bars glowed all around her.

"I can make the pain stop," the High Inquisitor said, staring at him. “All you have to do is surrender."

Liam turned to look at the bars, and then to Albert.

"There's some sort of magic that's making this happen, correct?" Liam said.

"There is," Albert said.

"Okay then,” he muttered. He looked at the bars, and then he reached out and grabbed them.

"No, wait, that's a really bad..."

Liam floated in a void as pain crackled all around him. He saw a series of intricate runes that made up multiple magical diagrams. He stared at them as they floated in front of him, pulsing with malevolent intent.

It was odd to think that a rune and a magical diagram could have malevolent intent, but that's exactly what was happening here.

"This was very stupid," Albert said, his consciousness floating in the void beside Liam.

"Maybe so," Liam said. “But clearly we aren’t getting anything from the High Inquisitor."

"Clearly," Albert said, muttering as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Okay, so what do I do?" Liam asked.

"You leave. This isn’t anything that…”

"You’re the greatest mage this world has ever known," Liam snapped, finally starting to lose some of the calm because he knew Ana was in pain. He was in pain, but he could deal with pain for himself. He couldn't deal with the idea of her being in pain. Moreso, he couldn't deal with that pain being his doing.

Not when he could do something about it.

"Very well. I suppose this is one of those situations where I need to show you how to do something rather than just letting you figure it out on your own."

"Thank you," Liam said.

Albert stared at the runes for a moment, and then his own ineffective mana brush appeared.

"You need to be very careful with this, but I need you to cut the arcane mana flow here, here, and right here, and you need to do it in that order."

"Show me again," Liam said.

"Very well," Albert said, and he went over it again with his mana brush. Liam fixed that in his memory.

"One more time just to be sure."

"You're not filling me with a great deal of confidence about this plan," Albert growled.

"And yet it's the only plan we have," Liam said.

"Very well," Albert said. "You need to take your mana brush and you need to cut the flow of arcane mana here, here, and then you need to cut here."

Liam did it without stopping to think about what he was doing. He just moved his mana brush. He knew Albert was keeping things simple. This was probably a brute force approach. There were different flavors of arcane mana that he could add to a spell to add to its complexity based on the element, but they didn't have time for that.

"Oh, and you might want to infuse yourself with as much mana as possible when you come out of this," Albert said.

"Wait, what?" Liam said.

"Just a little advice. Remember what happens when you interrupt the flow of mana inside a spell that's already running."

"Shit," Liam muttered as he finished the last cut. The pulsing went from malevolent to… Well, not malevolent, but it still didn’t look good. He could see the runes crackling and collapsing as the mana pulsing through them couldn’t move along the expected paths.

He stumbled back from the bars he'd been holding onto. He stared at the cage. It was glowing brighter and brighter, and it was a fitful glow.

"Holy shit," Ana said, staring at the mana. "What have you done?"

Liam stared at it, and then he did exactly what Albert had just said.

"Get ready," he shouted. "This is going to be big."

Ana's eyes went wide, but she nodded. He could feel the infernal mana pulsing out from her core. It was there, though, and it got stronger as the glowing pulsing in the bars grew in intensity.

"Get down!” Albert said.

The High Inquisitor had a moment to look at Liam, his eyes wide as Liam let him go and dove for the grass below.

Mana both arcane and infernal flowed through Liam to the point it threatened to overwhelm him, but he held onto it just on the edge of that destruction. He remembered the power that had flowed through him when he was on the outskirts of Isai, and how he'd survived it.

The explosion was massive. One moment the High Inquisitor was standing there looking at Liam on wobbly feet with wide eyes, and the next moment the explosion had taken him and he was gone.

Thankfully most of the force moved up and out rather than down. It washed over the Inquisitors who were still on the ground and they went rolling. Meanwhile, Liam was down on the ground covering his head and thinking that he might’ve just killed Ana trying to save her.

But he could still feel the pulsing from her infernal core, and it seemed to pulse with a power that almost rivaled even his. Like it was a brief flare for a moment.

He screamed and he breathed out. He'd read in a book somewhere it was a good idea to do that if you were in the middle of a magical explosion. Some account from some soldier who didn’t have any Ascensions or mana but had survived being caught between mages fighting one another on a battlefield somewhere in the Demon Wars. He wasn't sure how much good it was going to do him here, but he figured something was better than nothing.

It seemed to last forever, but the explosion couldn't have lasted for more than a moment. Then everything was quiet again. He opened his eyes and looked around. Albert was sitting on his haunches right in front of him, his tail whipping back and forth. He looked very pleased with himself.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Liam asked.

"Maybe," Albert said.

"You knew it would cause an explosion that would kill him.”

"I don't know that it killed anybody," Albert said. "It was a big explosion, but it wasn't that big. You're going to have to start thinking like somebody who has access to mana."

"Right," Liam said. He got up, feeling a little wobbly on his feet. He looked over to the cage that had been on wagon wheels. One of those wheels had cracked and the whole thing was askew and empty. The bars were gone.

"Ana," he said, his voice quiet as he looked at that empty spot. "She would’ve been right at the middle of the explosion, even if it did blow out."

"Yes," Ana said.

Liam jumped, then he turned to look at her. She was smiling, sharp teeth showing as her eyes glowed. She stood up on her tiptoes and then back down, looking very pleased with herself.

"It's going to take a lot more than a little explosion to kill a High Princess of the Demon Realms," she said, sounding very pleased with herself.

Liam opened his mouth to tell her that she should watch who she said that sort of thing in front of and then he closed it. All of the Inquisitors around them already knew who she was, or at least they knew who she said she was. It's not like anything could be done about it now.

Instead, he wrapped her in a hug. Her eyes went wide for a moment as he pulled her in, but then she was wrapping her arms around him as well and holding him tight. So tight that it might’ve cracked some of his ribs before he had his Ascensions.

He didn't care. He held her against him and enjoyed feeling her breathing and living next to him. And he could also feel the infernal core at her center. Fainter than the feeling he got from the Inquisitors since he was touching theirs directly via that spell, but still there.

"I was worried you’d died," he said.

"Yes, well, I already told you it's going to take more than a little explosion like that to kill me," she whispered into his ear. "But thank you for rescuing me."

"I always will," Liam said.

They held one another for another moment, and then she pulled away. She let out a snort and started brushing herself off.

"Well. You certainly took your sweet time getting me out of there, didn't you?"

"Well, excuse me, princess," he said. "I was trying my best."

"I feel like you were stalling my rescue there at the end because you thought I was being too demanding."

"Maybe you're just too demanding," Liam said. "And you know not to do that in the future."

"You should watch yourself," she said, holding up a clawed hand, though there was also a smile there.

"I'll be sure to do that," he said, grinning right back at her.

"Um, excuse me, Liam," Albert said.

"What?" he said, looking down at the cat.

The cat looked up at him, and then he pointed away with his tail. Liam turned and followed his gaze, and he realized a few of things at the same time. The first was that he could no longer feel that magical spell wrapped around the arcane cores on all the Inquisitors. The second was that he could feel their arcane cores. The third was they were standing all around him, filling those cores and looking at him with murder in their eyes.

Though there were more than a few lying on the ground unmoving. He winced at that, though he couldn’t bring himself to be too upset. They made their choices and he did what he had to do.

"Okay," Liam muttered. "It looks like that explosion distracted me from maintaining that spell, or it wore it off."

"Either way, we might be in for a fight here," Albert said.

Liam looked at each of them in turn, and he smiled.

"You all saw what I did to your boss, right?"

Some of them hesitated.

"I'll accept your surrender now if you'd like," Liam said. "Nobody has to be hurt."

The Inquisitors exchanged glances with one another. They seemed to take strength from one another standing there together, and then as one they turned their malevolent gazes back on him and started moving towards him. The glow of magical spells appeared at the tips of their fingers, and Liam could feel arcane mana filling them.

More than he’d be able to deal with if all of them came at him at once. He needed a distraction so he could do something. Maybe try to cast the arcane dampening spell.

And it was as though he sent that thought out into the world and it answered in the form of a massive furry ball of death that stepped out of the darkness of the woods and into the firelight, letting out a bellowing roar and swiping clawed paws at the Inquisitors as his notebook jotted down notes.

The Inquisitors’ eyes went wide in horror. At least the ones who weren’t busy getting disemboweled, eviscerated, or otherwise occupied by Alistair.

Liam shrugged. "I tried to warn you."