◈ Chapter 81:

“How do I aim?!” he shrieked.

“No need, leave it to me!” There was the sound of bone snapping against bone and one of the skull’s teeth pinged free from its jaws, a small shaped-bone crossbow contraption built into the skull's mouth snapping flat, a canine firing forward through the air in a straight line. The small fragment of bone struck true and the Hellhound yelped as the tooth smacked it directly in the eyeball. It teleported away out of instinctive surprise and Opal rolled up, viciously headbutting the Imp straddling her with a crack, blood spraying up between them as Opal let out a cry of anger of her own.

Red grabbed up the bag as he leapt free from it, hauling ass across the cobble as he raced toward the girls, skull held firmly underarm. The tiny crossbow contraption in the skull’s mouth swivelled and turned, peppering the Imps with extremely accurate stinging boney projectiles eliciting yelps and cries of Impish outrage. The Kobold jumped into the air, bag held high, opening stretched wide and scooped the stumbling sheep girl into it in one go, top to bottom. The Imps did not like this in the least and immediately swarmed him. Unfortunately for them, his scales weren't flesh and their teeth and claws slid off the smooth surface struggling to find a grip. He fought his way through the horrible biting clawing swarm, repeatedly screaming his mantra of determination “Just think of the goooooold! Think of the gooold!” all the while the miniature crossbow kept firing over and over keeping the worst of the Imps at bay.

A furious Goblin girl currently trying to beat to death an Imp on the cobble was ahead of him. Dashing forward he flipped the bag and expertly scooped her up without even breaking stride. Then, his little legs still pumping furiously, he ducked down and then shoved his own head inside the bag, followed by his shoulders, then chest. He couldn't see where he was going now of course and crashed blindly through the crowd of Imps, now just a pair of Kobold legs ending in a bag at the hips. The pair of kobold legs ran with a fury born of pure unbridled terror, pumping like a pair of pistons, the kobold legs bounced, jumped, and then leapt into the air, the legs fully disappearing inside the bag. The pair of kobold legs had become just a bag spinning through the air, a bag that fell into a giant outstretched paw.

Rain’s foot slid out as he spun, his entire body torsioning, then torquing back as hard as he could manage, with a roar his paw whipped around and the bag slipped free, rocketing from his claws and launching up over the rooftops, and far up into the sky. The bag was gone in an instant. The ones he cared for were out of this evil Ranker’s reach he could at last fight him on his own terms without having to worr-

He turned to find the Ranker crouched down, his hands deep in a mound of earth.

“Found it.”

The Ranker twisted in a mirror to Rain, except what the Ranker held wasn't a bag, but a blade, his blade, that barbaric near seven foot slab of pitted Iron. The mound exploded as he ripped it free, his upper body twisting as his legs slid out for optimal leverage

Rain snapped his arms tight, holding them up to his chest, there wasn't anything else he could do as time seemed to slow to a crawl, the oncoming chunk of metal an inevitability. His eyes traced it, the metal had truly seen better days, its edge heavily blunted and worn and chipped, dirt and dried blood scarred deep across its surface. The thing was, it didn't need to be sharp, the amount of force behind it meant it was more important that the blade could hold up under the extreme forces that were being exerted on it. The Ranker didn't change weapon because there was no other weapon, he didn't change because everything else snapped like a twig under his raw strength.

The edge smashed into Rain’s held up arms like a meteor from the stratosphere, fractures shooting up his arm bones and into the ribs behind as they were slammed up against him. Then his feet were ripped from the ground as he was folded around the blade, the blade not slowing in the slightest as it swung, his body tearing apart under the forces moving him until it swung fully around and he was launched up from the edge.

He tore through the air entirely out of control and smashed into a nearby building, through the wall, then the room, then another wall, another room, through the exterior wall, across the street, into the exterior wall of a second building, through it, destroying the rooms inside, then lastly crashing up against the exterior wall, his body embedding in the stonework, the wall, disintegrating around him. He fell from the second floor, half the building collapsing atop him, an avalanche of masonry. He came down in the garden below, half-buried in rubble.

A long pained wheeze escaped his lips, and then a gurgled wash of blood that spilt down his chin. He slowly, agonisingly, lifted his brutalised shaking arms from his chest, it felt like someone had spent the entire day pounding rocks over every inch of them, making them numb and dead. He looked at his paws and willed them to move. They jerked and twitched then slowly curled, barely responding to him. The sword had done more than just damage his flesh. He was thankful his body was so tough, had that hit a normal person he suspected they would have been spit in half, blunted blade or not.

He couldn't wait for the time needed to heal this injury, He was coming. Desperately struggling he managed to half sit up. Looking around he found the backside of a building, or what remained of it, the entire exterior wall seemed to have fallen out exposing the interior rooms to the open air.

As he watched an Imp came into view, peering down at him from where it crouched on the edge of the second storey's exposed floorboards. It grinned at him, its eyes alight with a hellish malevolence. It wouldn't be long before others came, he needed to go, Now!

He moved his shaking arms downward and lifted himself, elbow walking back, shifting his legs and dragging himself free of the rubble, stones falling around him on the grass as he struggled. The Imp above let out a battle cry and jumped down, flapping its wings, ten more followed after him, flying down onto him. The little things seemed mindless with fury and they put it all into their assault, their teeth and claws painfully digging into his flesh.

Fortunately, they weren't strong enough to do real damage, only surface, but he still found himself struggling under their barrage. The Imps quickly discovered they weren't having much of an effect, unfortunately, they seemed to have learned from Vash’s attack: There was always a weak spot in the eyes. The Imps swarmed toward his head, their little claws reaching. Rain snarled and swept them away with a clumsy paw, still struggling back from the rubble.

The back door on the building next door was suddenly booted off its hinges, the wooden rectangle sent spinning through the air until it thumped down on the grass. The Ranker stepped through, his Hellhound at his side, his terrifying blade held over one shoulder. He looked around and spotted Rain, then grinned flashing a set of perfect white teeth.

“You survived! Amazing! Most disintegrate and fall to bits when I hit them hard you know. More and more I wonder what kind of monster you are, I’ve seen so many, but none quite like you.”

The Hellhound eagerly blinked forward, teleporting across the garden as Rain scrambled to his feet shedding Imps with every motion.

He wasn’t going to let the Ranker have things all his way no matter how many demons he threw at him. Ignoring the Imps as best he could he watched the Hellhound oncoming, carefully counting the timing and measuring the distance it teleported, then he stepped once, and his foot came up as hard as he could. The Hellhound blinked into place at the height of his kick and his foot smashed into its face. The Hellhound choked out a yelp as its head snapped back, its neck making a grisly crunch as bones of its neck ground together. The Hellhound flipped end over end through the air before crashing to the ground in a heap.

Rain didn't even wait for the Hellhound to land, he turned and fled. His feet sending up showers of turf behind him as he bounded away, putting to use his speed. He smashed through the fence at the back of the garden shedding imps and came out on a street he knew from his past life. A front of shops met his eyes on the other side and he picked out the one he was looking for. He charged toward it and slammed open the door, squeezing down through the small door frame and disappearing inside. He pushed past the wooden shelves, knocking them aside as he went, merchandise and stock spilling across the aisles as he rushed to the back.

Behind him a bell tingled as the door was opened once again. The Ranker squeezed through the door much like Rain, his own mass creating problems. He pulled his sword through with him then narrowed his eyes as he looked around the dingy room.

Rain hadn't taken Opal’s original plan as a guarantee of success, in fact it had inspired him.

A dozen heavy rope nets abruptly fell from the ceiling as he bit through the strings holding them up. The Ranker was buried in a hill of tangling rope, the ropes so many that he was lost from sight.

Rain took in long steadying breaths, staring at the shifting mound as the Ranker struggled. His paw came to rest on a wooden handle.

Most of his traps had been simpler than hers, and unfortunately most had been in the street they had accidentally bombed, gone now. But some had been further out, in places he suspected their fight might move to based on his deep knowledge of the town’s layout. This had been one of his favoured spots, although he hadn't expected to arrive at it by being thrown through several buildings.

He grit his teeth and with a snarl willed his numb digits to wrap around the wooden handle.

The problem had been, how to grievously harm the Ranker once he was momentarily caught? It wasn't like a high leveler could be easily harmed, and he couldn't use his strongest weapon, his teeth, like this.

They had found the answer in an abandoned stall in the market, a stall full of mining equipment, more specifically in a sharpened pickaxe, a sharpened pickaxe designed for two men, a tool designed to split boulders.

He held the enormous pickaxe with a six foot span in both paws and advanced on the nets. Then bounding forward he raised it above his head, and then with a roar brought it down on the mound with all the strength he could muster. He would end this here and now.

The pickaxe combined all the swung velocity of an axe blow with the piercing properties of a spear, it was the absolute perfect weapon for the trap he had laid.

The sharpened tip swung down-

And met an Imp. The Imp was immediately stabbed through, impaled on the pick, then as the tip of the metal tore through the Imp’s back a second Imp launched itself up into it, the pick taking it through its screaming face, ripping down through it and out its asshole where a third Imp slammed up into the pick, stabbed through its guts, then a fourth, but by then the pick had slowed, the furious flapping and friction of their bodies having a small effect.

The combined impact of the Imps somehow taking pickaxe’s descent from meteoric to merely extremely fast.

It was enough, a hand at last found its way through the nets and snapped up, fingers curling around the metal. The axe’s descent slowed massively, then ground to a halt despite Rain straining his muscles to the brink to keep it going.

The pickaxe remained as it was despite his efforts. The Ranker’s overwhelming strength holding it in place. Rain stared, just how strong was this man?

He caught sight of a flickering dancing hand finishing making seals beneath the net and green fel fire suddenly bloomed to life. He stumbled back as fire washed up the pickaxe, greedily latching onto the thick wooden handle, quickly burning it away, the wood becoming blackened and then falling to ash.

The nets too, fire washed out from the Ranker and the nets fell apart around him, then the floorboards and the shelves, the room quickly becoming awash with fire. Rain’s stomach dropped and he backed up to the far wall, his eyes dancing as everything in view became green fire. There wasn't even anyone for him to attack, the Ranker was lost in the sea of flames.

He couldn't be here, he could feel the heat of the fire on him, horrible memories crawling unwanted into his mind. He turned and smashed apart the rear door, struggling through and fighting through the back of the shop, and then out the back. He turned the exit to splinters as he crashed out of the building just as the entire thing went up in flames.

He turned and stared up at it, green flames, fire everywhere, magical fire, he found he couldn't look away, locked in his own mind. There were shapes in those flames, people, screaming people, Bane didn't just use any old magical fire, this stuff was far worse. Something that belonged not of this world, something hellish in nature.

He shivered involuntarily. This was madness.