◈ Chapter 80:

The Hellhound bounded forward ahead of its master, fangs slavering, eager to tear into its foes. It stepped once, twice, and then it vanished into thin air, reappearing a dozen feet ahead before blinking forward once again, teleporting in short bursts, jumping from point to point.

Rain shifted his feet and spread his arms ready to take on the hound, to rip it to pieces as soon as it got within his range.

Instead, the hound suddenly changed trajectory, its blinking veering off to the side, away from Rain and toward Lyra and Opal.

The Goblin girl was being helped up by Lyra, her arm slung around the sheep girl’s shoulders, her legs like jelly beneath her, she looked up and her face dropped as the enormous dog charged right at them, they didn’t stand a chance.

“Lyra! Invisible! NOW!” roared Rain.

The sheep girl jerked her head up, caught one look at the bounding dog, and then instantly disappeared along with Opal.

The Hellhound stumbled to a halt, its head moving side to side in confusion, searching for its vanished prey.

“You’re protecting a leveler? Are you a slave? No, you seem to have a personal problem with me, but then, why do you want to protect her…?”

Rain turned to find the Ranker striding toward him, his boots crunching against the rubble and earth.

“Save your concern for your own life.” said Rain, the bridge of his nose wrinkling in anger.

He readied to leap on him, but then the Ranker grinned.

“You should take your own advice.”

He let off an ear piercing whistle and the hound turned on the spot immediately looking toward its master. Bane thrust out a hand, a thick finger pointing at the air to the left of the hound.

“She’s there dog.”

Rain’s eyes widened in surprise, he could see through Lyra’s Skill unaided! The Hellhound blinked forward and crashed into something invisible. There was a cry of surprise and Lyra and Opal appeared, the Hellhound falling bodily upon them, shoulder checking the two girls.

Rain tried to go to their aid but the Ranker suddenly leapt forward, a large fist meteoring up, catching him unawares. He twisted trying to evade, but the Ranker struck home, a brutal hammer blow that caught him in the gut. Rain choked as the wind was blown out of him in a rush. He stumbled backwards, set off balance, trying to raise his paws to defend against the follow up blow.

Behind him Lyra let out a scream as the Hellhound’s maw found her shoulder, biting deep, its serrated teeth scraping against collar bone. She punched and slapped at its head in a blind panic but she may as well have been petting it for all the Hellhound noticed. It snarled and then savaged her, thrashing her side to side, dragging and mauling her like a limp doll, her legs flailing, her hooves clattering uselessly on the stone as the dog tore into her, growling as its teeth inched deeper into her flesh.

“H-help! Help me!” screamed Lyra, fear and pain in her voice as the dog hauled her across the ground, blood washing down her skin and dying her fluff crimson.

Metal flashed and a small knife swung down, digging deep between the Hellhound’s shoulder blades. It yelped in surprise, its teeth coming loose from Lyra as a small green person leapt on its back with a cry of outrage. The hound snarled and snapped at the air, trying to twist its head to get at the Goblin on its back but unable to quite reach, its serrated teeth coming within an inch of her flesh.

“You owe me for this big time sheeepy!” wailed Opal as she was thrown around on top the hound, desperately holding onto the embedded knife as her legs flopped uselessly across its back.

Lyra stumbled to her hooves, one hand held tight over her shoulder wound, “G-get off it and come to me! Quick! I can make us invisible!”

“I can't! The moment I-”

Before she could finish however her hands slipped from the handle and she went flipping head over heels into the air. The hound’s head snapped around and its teeth came down on her leg, biting deep. Opal screamed, cut off as her head cracked against the cobble when the dog yanked her out of the air. Lyra jumped forward, kicking at the dog, driving her hooves into its side. The Hellhound simply ignored her weak kicks, instead of giving her an annoyed look and then disappearing along with Opal, appearing six feet behind her. It shook its head and Opal was bounced across the ground screaming and swearing as blood rolled down her leg.

“Drop her! Drop her! You stupid dog!” cried Lyra desperately chasing after it.

Rain’s feet slid across the earth as the next blow rocked him, the bones of his arms creaking and hairline fracturing under the impact, driving his arms back into his chest. It was like being hit with a sledgehammer, the steady brutal blows of a blacksmith forging steel, each strike rattling his teeth, this beast of a leveler was strong, un-fucking-believably strong. He was being driven back across the ground from the flurry of his strikes alone, furrows in the earth marking his claws as he desperately held on. A confident grin still spread the Ranker’s lips, each strike of the giant man's tree trunk like arms felt like an unstoppable force of nature, immutable, undeniable.

But then Rain caught sight of Opal being mauled by the Hellhound.

He dropped his arms.

The next strike crashed into his chest, a rib instantly snapped, but this time instead of leaning into the blow he leapt back with it, catching the Ranker’s fist with his paws and, using the Rankers own strike to launch himself away. He fell backwards, twisting, and managed to turn his leap into a mad dash, half on all fours he scrambled across the loose earth and rubble and lunged toward the Hellhound. His curled paw lashed out ahead of him and he struck it in the head. The hound yelped, its teeth coming loose from Opal’s leg, then a large paw wrapped around its own back leg. Rain, still in full motion, dove into his lunge and spun, torquing as hard as he could, the hound was torn off its feet and whipped around like a sack of meat, moving so fast its joints groaned. Then Rain let go, flinging the Hellhound away from him at a ridiculous speed.

The hound was launched through the air spinning in a blur, flying across the street. It was on a direct line of impact for the base of a solid stone building, its body about to be pulverised to mulch by the impact, when it simply vanished. The Hellhound appeared a dozen feet to the side, its paws, tap tapping down on the cobble as it came to a gentle stop entirely unharmed.

It turned eyes on Rain, and there was a look of real anger there, strange to see coming from a dog.

“Get behind me!” growled Rain, as Lyra scrambled toward Opal.

“HAH! You actually care for them. A monster caring for a leveler and a Goblin slave. Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that it's an Elf who would go in for this nonsense, race of whores.”

The Ranker put his hands together, and then formed a seal, and then another, then more, his hands dancing as the occult runes carved into his body flared with orange-red light, his hands were a blur as balls of green Fel Fire appeared floating around him, each about a foot or so in diameter.

Rain eyed the fire warily, moving to place his body between the fire and the girls.

Was this some kind of magic fire attack? He reacted at the thought, a chill going up his spine. Magic fire made his skin crawl like little else. But then the fireballs seemed to shrink and forms and shapes appeared amongst the flames, small demonic shapes.

The shapes began to move, limbs twitching and small heads turning. The fire wisped and flickered across their skin, their blood red skin, their slitted yellow eyes blinked as fresh air touched up against them, their triangle shark tooth maws opening and snake-like tongues flicking out to taste the air. They were all of them bald and rounded, their ears long and knife-like, their tails whip thin and spaded.

Rain realised he had some vague notion of what he was looking at, demons, or more specifically, Imps.

They struggled in the air and began to flap their small wings, alighting and then hovering, floating around the Ranker in a cloud.

“Tear them to pieces.” spoke the Ranker and the dozen Imps made a raucous eager cry and swooped toward Rain, or more specifically toward those behind him.

Rain grabbed for the nearest Imp, intending to crush it to paste beneath his paw pads, but the Imp simply flapped its wings furiously and jerked out of the way of his claws, just missing being caught. The Imp cackled and danced around him, sticking out its tongue, flitting by his arm, and zooming past. Rain turned as Lyra cried out, an Imp crashing into her, its mouth opening up and biting down on her arm, its triangular teeth sinking deep into her flesh just as another landed on her, then another, biting all over, her legs, her stomach, her breasts, she screamed as Opal desperately punched and struck at the Imp straddling her chest.

This was bad, and instantly became much worse as the Hellhound blinked toward them. They were going to be picked apart unless the situation changed.

“Save your concern for your own life!” taunted Bane, using Rain’s own words against him.

Except Rain couldn’t, he just couldn't, the screams were driving him mad. He turned to go after them, to save them from the Imps, but then a fist caught him across the muzzle snapping his head to the side, blood spraying from his lip, he stumbled under the force of the blow, near losing his footing.

“Did you think you could do what you did and not suffer consequences from those stronger than you? What world do you think we live in?”

Another blow took him across the side of the head setting his ears ringing.

“H-help!” Screamed Opal as the Imps tore into her body with tooth and claw, overwhelming her with numbers. The Hellhound blinked on top of her, its forelegs over her head, its open mouth lowering toward her terrified face.

Rain roared, desperately trying to get to them, but this time the Ranker prevented him from escaping at every turn, beating him into submission, moving and blocking his way.

The Hellhound’s teeth descended.

And then a red scaled Kobold slowly arose from a discarded bag lying on the ground. He was holding a skull with green flame eyes in his claws, he held it up and pointed it and-

“How do I aim?!” he shrieked.