36.
Pull of Caged Flames
Mundus felt his chest erupt with lava. The hot river oozed through the curved bones that was his ribcage and dripped down on his heart. He brought a hand up to his chest only to touch the rough wisp of tattered fabric.
“Mundus?” Cerus voice sounded far away. “Do you also…”
A new sensation vibrated through him. The lava was gone and replaced by a weaving piece of thread. It encircled his heart and started to pull. The direction was felt as clear as the tug of a hand on his own. She was calling him.
“Reyna’s whereabouts are known to me,” he abruptly said, interrupting a conversation Cerus and Erian had started.
The two demons stared at their prince. He was facing north, his hand hovering over his chest. Cerus and Erian glanced at each other, an unspoken sign wavering in their brief stares.
“Go then,” Cerus spoke to Mundus. “We can handle this. I can’t leave Flow alone here anyways. He hasn’t healed yet.”
Mundus gave him a queer look.
Erian pointed east. “You do not sense them? The demons that approach. They are Ram’s and mostly of the lower level.”
Mundus peered at the direction he indicated. Their approach was clear and unhidden. The tug at his heart grew faint with his attention drawn elsewhere, but it was still there. Mundus was definite in his belief that it would never completely fade away until he found Reyna.
“Master?” Lina’s voice buzzed unpleasantly in his head.
At the moment, I do not wish—
“But Master!”
Her interruption silenced him into shock. She had never interrupted him before. Even when scolded harshly or slapped severely she never intervened in anything Mundus said or did. She received all from him dutifully.
At the moment there was searing pulse from her, a bubbling worry. What Lina had to say was important enough that she interrupted the person she worshiped. However, within her urgency was also fear and it was making her hesitate.
“Master,” she spoke up softly and slowly. “Muh–Master. This one…this one—”
I shall not hear you speak, insolent Spirit! Mundus mentally snapped at her and she obeyed.
“I shall take off in search for Reyna,” he said out loud to his demonic companions, ignoring Lina’s growing apprehension.
“I will remain here and help Cerus fight off these pathetic demons,” Erian said. The approaching demons were small, charging dots on the horizon. The urban isolation would provide more than appropriate room to quickly dispose of them.
Mundus grinned. “Though my desire to slay is great, I—”
“I’m going too.”
Another interruption. Two too many.
Mundus whirled to face the direction of the voice though he already knew who had spoken. A fully healed Dante stood with his sword in his hand over the spot where a few minutes ago had been his grave. His trim frame was as if new and much of that toned body was exposed through his torn clothes. The bottom half of his shirt was gone, the top almost too tattered to hang on his shoulders. His jeans were in better shape. One leg had a huge hole that exposed his knees and upper thigh. The other leg had become shorts.
Munuds seethed with anger. He could possibly overlook Lina interrupting him but not a human and certainly not that one. The moon demon’s arm flexed to draw his sword, but he was momentarily jarred when the Berserker, who had been several years away, appeared before him faster than Mundus believed the mortal could ever move.
His movements, Mundus thought with rancor. Of course.
Berserkers were constructed to be demolished and decimated. Their own blood fuels them. Even when Berserkers fall in battle, as long as their hearts retained a beat of strength, they would resurrect stronger than before. Death strengthens them. The only true way to kill a Berserker was to hack out his heart but even that can prove difficult to accomplish. The tough Berserker hide is stronger than steel and self-mends faster than one can slash through it. Even now, after rising from the dead, the mortal boy’s skin was flawless.
Mundus’ hand rested on his sword’s hilt with a nervous twitch. He leered at the young male. Dante met his gaze with equal hate.
“I’m going with you to find Reyna,” the mortal boy ordered the prince of demons.
The red fog of hate came into full swirl inside Mundus. It condensed and pressed against his skull until the dim thunder of black thoughts throbbed within him. The sound vibrated around his temples, increasing in volume and presence as the storm of hate overcame his senses.
The string around his heart suddenly squeezed and the tempest quickly dispersed.
Reyna.
Mundus brought his hand down from his sword. His fang baring snarl was replaced with his usual scowl. He turned away from the Berserker and without a word sped north as swiftly as he could move. Dante immediately followed and though he had the ability to keep up with Mundus, he lingered a few feet behind, weary and cautious.
Mundus had known the boy would follow him. I shall simply kill you within Reyna’s presence. The Berserker’s heart shall explode within my palms.
Cerus and Erian watched Mundus and Dante quickly disappear.
“Well that was awkward,” Cerus laughed.
“It was as if we were not even here.” Erian agreed.
They return their sights to the approaching enemy forces. They were close enough to see the outlines of their animalistic and insect bodies. The two calmly walked towards the forthcoming mass.
“Too slow. I’m meeting them.” Grinning, Cerus rushed to one of the leading demons from the horde.
It was a mutant looking praying mantis with human legs. A pair of blade embedded arms jutted out from a leafy green torso. They lunged out at Cerus, sharp and whistling through the wind. He easily caught the bug’s arms within his hands. Though they slashed his palms, the wound was shallow enough that Cerus’ self-rejuvenation quickly healed them. With a jerk, he pulled the arms out of the demon’s body with a wet crunch. The praying mantis fell to the ground and rapidly bled to death.
Cerus tossed the limbs aside and turned to his next opponent. And another and another. Countless encircled him, each baring different faces and physiques: fangs from animals, scales from reptiles, multiple eyes, forked tongues, fur, diamond cat eyes, manes–black, blue, golden, grey. Some were trudging on two legs, more crawling on four, others scaling on eight and equipped with dripping venom, numbing saliva, exposed claws, and piercing stingers. They all leered at Cerus, animal instincts poised high and ready for use.
He grinned. And all without weapons.
Agile as the wolf he Fuses with, Cerus jumped and dodged all attacks aimed at him. His retaliation was quick; Cerus would angle his body around his opponents to grab and tear out whatever bodily attachments he could grasp. Wings, tails, antennas, and other appendages were plucked out like petals from flowers.
Cerus would leave his opponents on the floor to bleed out. Others were blessed with a quick death as he popped off heads or stabbed through chests to crush hearts. As he weaved through the horde, Cerus was trailing a spectral display of death and blood on the otherwise bland ground.
Opposed to Cerus’ head on strategy of attack, Erian waited for the demons to approach him. The first swarm headed his way, however, never reached him. They all stopped in their tracks as if they forgot what they were doing. Suddenly, one of them –a weasel looking demon with a human face that had a furry, jutted muzzle– shrieked like a startled banshee. It twisted to the slug demon behind him and bit its elongated eye off. Before the thick, black blood could fall to the ground, all the demons in the herd turned on each other. A blitz of tusks and pincers, stingers and paws, and hooves and antlers gored each other to death. Bodies piled upon one another until a mini-mountain of carnage was created.
Another wave of fiends advanced at the Seer demon. He uncurled his weapon. The bladed whip lay limp in his hand, spilling and curving on the ground. With hardly a flick of his wrist, Erian’s weapon came alive and stretched to a length that seemed endless. It shot out at the assembly of approaching opponents and wrapped itself around them, squeezing them together to the point of immobility. The blade continued to shoot out and encircle around other groups of demons until dozens of clusters were trapped within the whip blade’s unbreakable hold.
“Now, Azul.” Erian’s voice rang with its soothing yet authoritative tone.
The blade pulled. Shredded torsos flooded the air, twirling in swirls of black, blue, gold, and red blood. The flying bodies spilled to the ground with wet splats, and the blood flooded down to the earth with the sound of an ocean’s wave.
“Hey!” Cerus appeared from the butchery dripping with what looked like tar. “Watch the blood rain!”
Erian, unsoiled, rolled his eyes as his blade retracted. Gore and flesh whipped off the fragmented edges as it coiled back to Erian’s side. “We still have about a hundred more to go,” he coolly spoke. “Behind you.”
Cerus knew the demon was behind him before Erian’s warning had even left his lips. He turned to avoid the blunt ax that swished at him.
“A weapon!” he beamed. Cerus swirled and stepped towards his foe. His fingers reached towards his opponent’s right elbow and Fused into it. The action was like slipping on a glove. Flesh merged with flesh and Cerus had control of the demon’s ax wielding arm.
He swung and the fiend’s possessed arm obey the motion. Cerus guided it and the ax towards the demon’s feline head. The hatchet impaled into the furry forehead. Spotted ears twitched before an explosion of purple blood jetted at Cerus’ face. He unFused his arm.
“That was fun!” Cerus smiled as the corpse flopped to the ground.
“You did not complain about blood then,” Erian spoke.
“That’s because I killed him.”
Erian rolled his eyes and shook his head.
A yearning and familiar howl was heard. Cerus laughed and turned to the running Flow that jumped on top of his shoulder and licked his cheek through the demon blood and gore. Cerus grinned and then turned towards Erian.
“The rest of these demons will be dead within the next minute now that Flow is here.” He smirked.
A massive wall of flames erupted across the plain, tall enough to block out the sky. It waved across the ground and consumed the all of the remaining fiends. The fire stopped short from reaching Erian and Cerus before swiftly dying out. The ashes from the dead horde, nestled within the cracks of the charred dirt, were the only evidence of the demons’ existence.
The two superior demons stood waiting for the messenger to appear. She was taller than Erian but hovered short of Cerus’ height. Her hair was a mirror to the color of the flames that had danced across the sky not so long ago. Despite the sheath that hung by her right side, her sword was unsheathed and dangling by her left. The entire blade was consumed by flames, yet her odd clothes and dark brown flesh were unburned despite the heat the blade was emitting.
The new demon gave a small smile. “My lady desires you two to report to the Star Point Portal. The two mortal children are there and it is where Mundus currently speeds to reach.” She handed them a strip of green faded cloth evidently ripped from some piece of clothing.
Cerus reached for it and stared at it momentarily. An almost sorrowful look crossed his eyes before he pulled it up the Spirit that still sat by his shoulder. Flow stretched toward it, nose twitching as he caught the scent. Immediately, he turned north. His heightened senses could detect scent even when masked by a Spirit’s teleportation. A trail was always left.
“We’ll get to Reyna before Mundus does. And faster too. We’ll travel out of his range of detection. Flow has her scent locked on now. He won’t lose it.” Cerus said to the she demon and returned the piece of cloth.
She nodded. “I shall report to my lady.”
Erian watched the demon disappear and sighed. “I do not like riding your wolf form.”
Cerus chuckled. “It’s faster than you.”
“Mundus’ ambition motivates him to quickly push forward. The Berserker also wishes to reach that female mortal as fast as possible. There will be no hindering in their pace.”
Cerus nodded. “Yeah, but we’re not supposed to act until Mundus gets there, so even if we get there a little bit after he does, it won’t matter that much.”
“Yes, but it will be best if we arrive before him so hurry up.” Erian growled with impatience.
“We also can’t get there too early, or else it won’t work. Relax. Let me at least clean up somewhere. Dry blood isn’t all that comfortable on the skin.”
The Seer exhaled and tried to contain his anger. “I doubt there is any water nearby.”
“Well then we’ll walk till we find some. Not all of the United States is a desert.”
“You-night-state?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah. It’s what the mortals call this place. Canada is where the Star Point portal is at. Close to Alaska.”
Erian lowly snarled. “I do not care about the names of this realm. Simply our queen’s orders.”
Cerus sighed. “Yeah. I know what I have to do. Stop being so naggy.”
At this, Erian walked up to Cerus and glared at him. Despite his short stature, his eyes penetrated enough for Cerus to take a small, hesitant step backwards. Flow whimpered.
“And will you be able to do it?” Erian insisted. “Do not think I have not noticed your idiotic attachment to her.”
Again Cerus sighed and lowered his gaze away from Erian’s. “I know what I have to do and I’ll do it. I’ll kill Reyna if Ram somehow doesn’t.”
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