Nightmare is getting frustrated...

I pulled Tremble from the chest of the last succubus commander, who fell bonelessly to the ground.

A whirling circle of force blades came down around me, and I leisurely cut out, Null Aura slashing through the magic, and the spell dissipated before they could even start spinning.

“Die!” shouted the lilithi. She looked rather impressive there, with her four scorpion tails all poised up and aimed at me, bat wings spread wide, and stabbing a nail-claw directly at me as the unholy symbol at her throat flared with dark purple light.

A ray of necromantic power drove at me… and naturally faded away a foot from my chest.

I took the time to look around, stepping aside as a babau lunged at me with a twisty-spiked dire halberd, cut up through it, down through clawed hands twice as large as those of a human, and then Doc chopped over and cut off its hook-horned black skull as the handless demon bent down to bite at me in pure savagery.

There weren’t any other demons in the area. I was wearing parts of most of them, but they were all going up rapidly, coating the ground in burgeoning white mist.

The lilithi was up atop a carriage of some sort, looking rather out of sorts. She had on a tremendously revealing set of priestly attire, her holy symbol bore the black lips of the demon princess Dedira, and any man would certainly have considered her to be looking dead sexy, with pale skin, black hair, cherry lips, awesome complexion, chest assets like that and hips and legs to match, if you were into cloven feet.

Still, her pet army of Dream demons had been hacked apart… and she’d watched me crush her eight subordinates, totally ignoring the enchantment magic sent my way, and I’d ripped through them so fast in combat it seemed they were barely capable of defending themselves.

She flapped her wings, and only managed a couple feet of altitude before rudely descending back to the top of the carriage. She didn’t seem to have a ranged attack other than spells, which basically meant she was stuck up there doing nothing.

“You gonna Call him in?” I asked archly, punting the head of the babau at her leisurely. She avoided it deftly, hissing at me.

“You… you’re the soul in this dream! How are you so powerful?” she protested, and I felt the subtle wash of enchantment magic vanishing into my Null.

“You got fifteen seconds, then I’m gonna jump up there and turn your wings into a cloak and your tails into a light snack,” I said, ignoring her question. “Go on, bring him in. It’s your only chance to get out of here alive, after all.”

I’d made sure the city Wards here included an anti-Teleport component, so she was Interdicted even if I didn’t pop one. But I certainly didn’t mind if the succubi brought in more True Karma for me!

Her eyes were sparking hate and fire, but my fingers were counting down visibly, and Tremble was counting down loudly and happily in my hand.

“Horagraezshar! Help me!” she cried out in impassioned Demonic, actually rippling the structure of Dream, and her plea extended out into the worlds beyond.

“Great!” I added, as something began to roil Out There, and even as her eyes lit up in expectation and she opened her mouth to smile and start the gleeful success dance, I was somehow right in front of her, and Tremble was buried to the hilt in her chest.

As space tore apart behind me, she dropped off the carriage limply, hitting the ground just as her Big Bad Protector showed up.

“Hey there. Pleasure to meet you. We’re gonna fight now, so don’t go anywhere.”

Space solidified, and the demon’s head, like a furless horned wolf, turned sharply as it sensed its avenue of magical retreat had closed, like dimensional vault doors slamming together.

It was about seven feet tall, moving with a powerful ease that displayed some very superhuman strength. The beaked Axe in its clawed hand was ogre-sized, moving with the ease of a willow wand. Plates of armor were nailed into it all over its humanoidish body, as if simply strapping them on was obviously not good enough, and were even affixed to parts of its bat-like wings. The armor was all gory and bloody around the nails, but I was pretty sure they were all just parts of its body, and it was all for show.

“You killed Esrizea?” the demon barked at me, and I sensed an expanding aura of pure Chaos churning at the edge of my Null, upsetting the Dream… or maybe invigorating it, who was I to know?

“Her? This twit couldn’t fight if her life depended on it, and it did,” I sniffed, as my Null ignored whatever he was trying to do to the atmosphere. “But she brought you here, and that’s good. I wasn’t expecting a Gallu, but you work with what you get, amiright?”

He was visibly debating between charging me and wondering just what the heck I was, to so identify him and not be at all intimidated. And, of course, Tremble was in full Evilborn-Slaying Mode, and that was not a pleasant thing for a demon to be looking at. This guy was also one of the top tiers of the Evilborn, so Bane of Legends was cranking in and letting it know how much it needed to die.

He leapt forwards in a blur of movement, hidden power exploding out for all to see. His Axe chopped down almost invisibly fast.

I almost killed him right there. Tremble was out and in the Archer Stands Thrust, and only a desperate heave aside saved him from getting spitted, the skin-plates alongside his neck splitting with a shriek as I shifted justso into his rush, and his Axe chopped down behind my shoulder.

Our faces were almost touching, so I slammed my forehead into his nose.

I could see the spike of pain go right into his black-blooded eyes, and he flinched and heaved back as thrust became drawcut as I dove aside to avoid being hooked by that Axe, and he wound up fifteen feet away, the gorget-plate across his throat cut through and leaking black blood.

The cut across my calf hissed and stopped bleeding as Blood Healing poked it. It should have ripped my leg off. He’d spiked and razored the inside edge of his Axe so he could catch and rip with it.

He seemed a bit startled that I hadn’t lost a leg, and reached up to his bloody neck. His eyes narrowed as he felt the wound was not healing, and he glanced at Tremble.

“Horagraezshar sounds pretty contrived, Sama,” Tremble mentioned.

“He has to have a better title,” I agreed, eyes not leaving the gallu. “Hey, chop-chop, are you known by a decent title?”

His eyes widened, and he looked to be gnashing his teeth. “I am called the Defiler of Queens!” he exclaimed proudly, and I just rolled my eyes.

“Seriously? You’re a gallu, one of the warmongers of the Pits, and you’re Titled for sexual assault? No wonder you’re making out with a lilithi instead of a lilitu. They probably titter at you from behind their tails. Settling for a princess of the Pits instead of the queens…”

He snarled waaaaaay down deep, clearly not happy with me for pointing out the deficiencies in his name.

“Horagraezshar came from afar, brought to the scene by his petty queen!” Tremble sang out triumphantly. “Gave his throat to her blade, the wrong choices he made, leading to death with his last breath,” Tremble trailed off, and the demon looked even angrier… but didn’t leap to attack again. “Go kill him now, I guess?”

“Yes.” I skated forwards, feet and body not moving the ways they should, skating left while moving right, graceful as a curling wave across the bloody ground, and the gallu lifted his Axe to wait for me. He had a couple feet of reach on me, at the very least, even if my Blade was hurting his eyes to look at with the anathemic energies wrapped around it.

I slammed Tremble against his Axe, sparks and metal flew, and his taloned feet shifted quickly as he moved with the blow, shocked at the force behind it… and the huge gouge taken out of his Weapon. He certainly hadn’t expected anything my size to be hitting so hard.

He tried to take off, but only bounced a couple feet before landing awkwardly, unable to fly, and I was flowing in on him again.

He struck, knowing that any solid blow would rip me right in two, tear through flesh and chop through bone without problem. His Axe swirled through figure eights as lightly as a baton, poised to arc down on me from any angle required.

He was exactly one Tier stronger than me. I had his reach down, and he was hitting the arcs and vectors with wildly precise motions, innate chaotic MAB on full display, no form at all, just what was good at the moment it was needed, instinct gone large instead of training and conditioning.

Still, that meant he couldn’t be in two places at once. He’d probably try to be, however, thinking I was a sucker and would just be watching the dance of his Axe.

High MAB is heightened combat awareness. Everything is moving in slow motion, gives you time to notice things, think, and respond to them. As your MAB increases, your ability to respond to those things in real time increases, but never quite catches up, you’re always seeing faster than you’re moving.

Stand came up and smashed the Axe high as I dipped down to go under it.

His wing came over and under like a bat, smashing me in the direction the Axe was going, setting me up to bring it down on me and finish me abruptly.

I was already rolling over, and Tremble chopped down, the end of his wing flopped free. I continued the spin, the ground basically a frictionless surface under my Vajra. Stand reached out as I was upside-down, and Doc planted itself firmly behind his knee, sending a jolt of energy through me to heal my calf wound.

His wing was out of position, or he could have jumped high enough and far enough fast enough to evade what was coming next. I did full splits, stopped my slide against his legs, and thrust straight up.

His skin-codpiece and girdle shrieked in protest as I drove Tremble in full length, and wrathfire roared for an extra three inches in all directions, really making a mess of things on many levels.

“The Defiler of Queens lost his means!” crowed Tremble triumphantly. “Alas, a lass made a pass, and it was his last!”

He belatedly tried to jump away, and I leaned into it, Stand snapping out to bounce away the flicking Axe coming in to hook my neck and remove it, while Tremble ripped out the front of him in a blazing, multi-colored ripping of steely plates and iron-hard muscle and skin.

His shriek of disbelief became a howl of protest as his insides gushed out from his eviscerated torso, Banefire and Enmity stacking on vivic flames to really make the process that much more painful.

I rolled forwards and right up to my feet, as if my center of gravity was around my ankles, and looked back on him as he died.

“Second-rater. No wonder he settled for a lilithi, given his status,” I mused, and there was just that spark of spluttering outrage to send him off before the vivic flames popped his eyeballs, and he fell into the remains of his own burning gore.

I turned my eyes to the battlefield, where the motionless forms of the eight succubi were visible amid the burning corpses of the tossed bodies of their minions.

Still alive.

My smile was not pleasant. After all, I didn’t have a good ending in mind for them…