◈ Chapter 84:

The Ranker seemed to hesitate, then he muttered, “Worth the cost.”

A gauntleted fist came up and his index and thumb moved toward his face, or more specifically the black and silver eyepatch. He touched at it, then drawing in a breath, he lifted it away.

Teeth, sharp needle-like teeth, reddened flesh, a disturbing mouth, that was what was behind the patch, a demonic mouth in his eye socket which contained a hellish swirling green Fel Fire. A very very dense Fel Fire.

Rain furrowed his brow, his animal instinct was warning him to be wary, this wasn’t normal, the Ranker had done something to himself even the Ranker himself was hesitant to touch.

He wasn't about to let him use it. He darted forward, the lake of Imp bits tearing up around his feet as he lunged for the Ranker, scythes reaching.

Fel Fire spilt from the Rankers eye socket in a waterfall, the fire poured and built as the Ranker stumbled back, fire running out faster and faster as though a great lake was draining.

A large demonic hand lurched from the fire, the rest of its body not even fully formed, and grabbed for Rain’s dark paws. A mistake. The demon didn't know what it was facing. Rain made his punishment swift and terrible, slashing out with his scythes, pieces of half-formed red demon disintegrating even as the rest formed. One demon formed missing a head and immediately collapsed, another with its arms falling to bits. Rain came on with a fury, shredding through the half formed battalion of demons as he chased after the Ranker.

He broke through and found the ground awash with Fel Fire. Ahead the Ranker was bent over, hands on knees, fire waterfalling from his eye socket so quickly that it splashed against the growing pool of fire below. He couldn't reach the Ranker as it was. He didn't have to wait long for the situation to change however, demons were rising, their red faces and yellow slitted eyes forming from the fire, the many heads already looking in Rain’s direction. These creatures were different from those that came before, broader, more muscular, and were wearing at least some amount of armour as well as wielding solid silver spears. Their teeth were larger too not fitting in their mouths, almost orc like.

Rain didn't give a shit. He launched into them, shredding through their ranks in a hurricane of gore even as they rose. While this ability of the Ranker’s was strong it had one fatal flaw, it was slow. If he had to guess the Ranker had used it only rarely and wasn’t used to pulling it out this quickly. He shot through the rising army, tearing it to pieces, his scything claws cutting a bloody harvest, dozens of demons falling with every passing moment. He leapt into the air, claws rising, and his scythes came down on the Ranker’s held up vambraces ringing like a church bell as they struck the eerie green metal in a flash of light.

The metal rippled and Rain snarled, the bridge of his nose wrinkling as his half lip lifted. He forced his paw down, his muscles bulging as with a shriek of metal the armour began to give. The Ranker’s one green eye danced between the scythes bearing down on him, unable to pull his arms away as the blades would instantly fall upon his exposed head.

He let out a cry of pain as a blade pierced through and nicked his skin, and then he didn't have a choice as he lost control of his arm. His arms fell-

But then the thing that had been forming behind Rain moved.

A mammoth hand curled around Rain’s leg and Rain found himself being flipped upside down and dragged up into the air, his scythe claws slipping free from the green armour as the Ranker fell back clutching his arm.

The huge demon dangled Rain upside down, Imps crawling over its vast and broad muscular body, yellow tusk like teeth sticking up through its mouth, long black hair hanging lank from its head, silver baubles woven throughout. Its body was clothed in sheets of metal plate, cruel spikes set along the surface, a match to the many imps that crawled across the giant, each Imp bedecked in their own plate just like the giant. Rain blinked up at it from where he dangled.

“Big.”

He had gotten used to being the largest person in the room, it was a little jarring to be picked up by the eighteen-plus foot demon. Its yellow slitted eyes examined him, then its other arm rose, a cleaver held in its fist. The cleaver was surprisingly well made, a giant chunk of silvery steel clearly well cared for, and sharp, very sharp.

The cleaver moved toward his chest as Rain came to the conclusion that he didn't like that this demon was larger than him. Time to cut some demon away.

His scythes swept up in a blur and sliced deep into the thick hand holding him. The demon jerked back with a roar as its fist began to disintegrate.

Rain fell away with the rain of flesh and bone and skin that poured down from the rapidly shrinking mass. He flipped through the air and came down with a crash amongst an army of angry demons. They instantly swarmed him, burying him in a mound of raging stabbing bodies, savagely fighting without thought for their comrades. The attack was barbaric, a brutal dogpile designed to crush and overwhelm with numbers and weight.

Then the screaming began.

The demons waiting to pile on looked down in horror as a pair of flying black wolf teeth burst from the mound before diving back in, turning the mound into a horrifying pile of wriggling gore. It took no time at all for the pile to go from desperately moving bodies, to desperately moving bits. The demons closely packed around it looked at the moving morass of gore and took a hesitant step back.

Rain stood, bones and flesh and muscles sheeting off him. He was drenched from head to toe in blood which made his partially exposed to bone face all the more disturbing.

He turned glowing yellow eyes on the demons and the demons began to fight each other to get away. Too late. A dozen pairs of wolf maws exploded out of the mound and launched into the panicking crowd.

These demons at least had a little success keeping the teeth away, the teeth could be deflected with a spear strike, or bashed aside with a gauntlet. But this didn't destroy the jaws, merely knocking them off course into the demon next to them. It wasn't until the giant demon brought its cleaver down that things changed, the wall of metal sliced through a dozen demons without slowing and with them caught two of the wolf jaws. This, at last, had an effect and the jaws gasified, becoming a shroud of darkness that slowly drifted back to Rain’s mane.

He turned his eyes up to the giant demon. Most of its free hand was gone, the exposed flesh that remained a grotesque ragged thing, the last of the affected meat dropping away as he watched. The giant was more wary of him now, he could see it in its eyes. He lifted a paw and rolled his digits, the scythes rolling along with them. The remaining ten wolf jaws burst from the panicking army they were shredding and rushed toward the giant along with two more he recreated as they passed by. The giant bellowed a guttural command seeing this and the Imps crawling all over its body reacted, turning to face the oncoming jaws, drawing weapons and taking to the air. The seemingly fearless things flew out with a warcry. They slammed into the oncoming jaws, throwing themselves into them suicidally, tangling their plate armour covered bodies in the teeth, steel filling the maws until they were unable to close until each set of teeth was a ball of twisted Imp and plate armour and they were forced out of the sky, the army below reaching up and helping to drag them down.

Even as that was happening the giant moved, its arm sweeping across, the cleaver like a sideways guillotine as it whipped by. Rain crouched then leapt up into the air, blood flinging from his drenched fur as he rose, rose high enough that the cleaver passed beneath him. He came back down, legs already pistoning and darted toward the giant. The giant seeing him coming backpedalled. It was a strange thing to see such a large thing shuffling backwards in fear, but it clearly didn't want Rain to get near after what he had done to its hand. A wise decision in his opinion. In the same motion the cleaver came back, swinging in a long loping line that the army of demons had to fight to get out of the way of. Rain changed direction, but the cleaver followed, the giant’s long arms giving it a frustrating amount of control.

The giant spoke once more, a guttural gurgle that might have been language, and the demons around him thrust their weapons into the air with a roar and charged. Rain blinked as the demons pressed in on him, except this time with some measure of organization. They held their spears out, a porcupine of spikes surrounding him on all sides. He snarled and scythed at the all metal spears, his blades knocking them aside, but they were soon dragged back into place, and he found himself once more frustrated, trapped. He turned, searching for an opportunity, but instead only found more spears, more demons. Then a shadow passed over top and he found the cleaver falling upon him with nowhere to go, nowhere to escape.

There was only one way to avoid the cleaver. He threw himself into the spears.

They cut into him, slicing at his limbs as the cleaver came down with a ground shaking thump inches behind. The demons took their opportunity and charged. He found himself pinned up against the flat of the cleaver, one of his arms skewered, a sea of demons around him all throwing themselves forward in one desperate attempt to end him, to kill him now.

He once more disappeared below a mountain of raging demons. He scythed wildly at them with his free paw but they had caught on that the key was armour and he found his scythes more and more blocked by metal, more and more blades puncturing his flesh, digging into him. He bit and snapped at those closeby, biting and tearing with the teeth he had remaining, growing more and more angry more and more enraged, fury building up, then a spear took him in the gut and he went over the edge.

Prey did not oppress the predator.

He snarled then roared and the gates once more swung wide, a billowing thrashing terror surging up his throat and then ripping past his shuddering maw, fringing and flaring with bright eye searing chromatic aberration, a plume, from which darkness lanced through the crowd, punching out the other side, across the ruined square, across the town, street after street, through the outer wall and into the forest, a solid beam of pulsing terror that sliced through everything, trees, buildings, demons, all were cut, and then around the cut the effect of pure terror given form, flee, run, hide.

He turned his head as his jaws juddered wider, cutting a great scythe like swathe through the army, Lynthia, utter destruction, the terrible rumbling of hundreds of buildings crumbling and miles of forest falling filled the air.

The demons surrounding him melted away as he turned, becoming pieces that washed down like grains of sand, unable to do a thing. The beam cut and killed and then it met the legs of the giant. It sliced right through them at the shin. It didn't stand a chance.

Rain felt the gates slam shut and the beam ended with the last of his rip snarl roar.

He was surrounded by a sea of demon bits. Thousands gone in an instant.