Chapter 24 - Ifrit

He examined his new minion carefully, seriously questioning whether or not he should have just killed her outright and tried minionizing one of the warriors instead.

“Good girl. I’m sure we’ll become great friends over the next little while.” Trey eventually muttered, coming to the conclusion that he really wanted to know what a priestess could actually do.

The young culn woman just continued to shake and hold her broken arm, cowering under him. He looked back at the door where splintered wood chipped away from the blows of heavy axes. The culn on the outside were steadily breaking it down, but the wood was thick. He guessed that he still had a couple minutes left and they made it to the barricade beyond the door.

Concentrating on Rivia’s abilities, the screen popped up a more detailed description of each.

Rejuvenation (Dark Miracle) - Level 1

A basic healing miracle that rejuvenates 1% of HP per second. Lasts for 200 seconds max. Can mend wounds and broken bones. Cannot cure disease. Channeling ability, if channeling is interrupted the miracle is lost. No cooldown.

Immortal’s Infernal Blessing (God-Specific Miracle: Alkir, Mistress of Darkness) - Level 1

Instant effect miracle that makes target immune to all damage for 3 seconds. Moderate cooldown.

“Can you heal yourself?” Trey asked simply, looking at the cracked bone tenting the skin of her arm. The sobbing girl underneath him didn’t hear him over her own crying and the loud banging on the door, so he took her face in his hands to look at him again.

“I SAID, can you heal yourself? And stop being so loud. That’s an order.”

The horror stricken girl nodded between sobs and she slowly got ahold of herself. Clutching her arm while covering her breasts the sobbing soon came to a complete stop with only tears shimmering down her bloodied face.

“I can…” the girl said pitifully. “I was just scared-”

“Well now isn’t the time to just sit there! Heal yourself and get ready to channel your abilities onto me!” Trey snapped at the girl.

To Trey’s left, Napoleon flung a firebolt. Out of a chipped hole in the door it went with a cackle from the imp, and a culn soldier on the other side screamed from the burning impact.

The new minion did as she was told and began reciting a verse in words Trey didn't understand. However, after ten seconds of channeling the miracle and dark energy trickling over her body sporadically - he began to see her nose slowly readjust itself and fit into place with a crunch of bones that made her wince.

She was even prettier than he had first given her credit for. Too bad she was evil, along with all the rest of these fuckers.

An arrow shot out from a break in the door and barely missed Trey’s head as axes continued chopping through the door at a frantic pace. Trey responded with a chaos ball of his own that sent all of the culn bastards adjacent to the door in a shrieking spray of body parts. He’d killed at least one and probably injured many more.

“You have gained XP.”

Unfortunately, Trey’s blast had also taken out some of his own barrier and had opened up a very small but traversable wedge between the debris piled up against the door.

“Fuck.” Trey muttered, throwing out two more chaos balls into the crowd of bodies.

“You have gained XP. Your minion Rivia has gained 1 Divinity Point due to increased faith in the divine that they will deliver her from potential death.”

Trey saw the notification and shot the girl a brief glance of interest, raising an eyebrow as her miracle slowly repaired the broken arm and cuts all along her body. He didn’t have too much time to gawk though as another arrow sailed out and nailed him in the gut.

Cursing at his stupidity for being distracted over the likes of a pretty NPC woman, he cast Chains of Chaos and sent them criss-crossing over the other side of the doorway. Four sets of sparking flaming black chains wound back and forth across the door, blocking the culn from getting in as screams of anger, death threats, and insults were hurled at him as they tried to hack away at the solidified mana. Trey hadn’t known if it would work, but was rather impressed with himself for the idea.

“As soon as your arm is healed, I want you to focus on keeping me alive with your rejuvenation miracle. If you think I’m in danger of being killed, then use Immortal’s Infernal Blessing. Got it?”

His new minion Rivia nodded frantically, not wanting to anger him any further amidst the shitshow taking place in front of her.

More firebolts were flung from Napoleon, and Trey rushed towards the doorway where debris was piled up to his right and left. The hole he’d created in the debris pile with the first chaos ball was big, and he didn’t think he had enough material to patch it while keeping the integrity of the rest of the piled barrier.

Swearing to himself he narrowly dodged an arrow that blindly shot through the flaming crimson-black chains across the doorway. The archer cursed because of the misfire and then abruptly screamed as Trey’s clawed hand reached through the opening, gripped his wrist and yanked him in.

The archer crashed against the chains and began screaming as the chaos magic rippled across his body. A second later, Trey’s greatsword slid into his belly and out his back. Letting go of the archer: Trey began to dodge swords poking in while using the length of his longer, larger weapon to stab through the gaps in the chain wall. He simultaneously continued pouring more mana into the chains to keep them from caving in to the strikes of his infuriated enemies.

“You have gained XP.”

He briefly had time to yank the first arrow out of his stomach with a terrible gut-wrenching pain as the hooked ends tore out bigger chunks of flesh. He immediately realized what he had done was stupid, and that he’d just opened up a bigger wound… Now he was beginning to bleed profusely. Just how many times was he going to fuck this up? Gritting his teeth at the further stupidity he’d shown, he glanced over at Napoleon who continued to shoot firebolts out at a rapid pace - but the imp was nearing an end to his mana being at 21/150 MP. Trey’s own mana was at 48/134 MP, while his HP was at 193/220, and there were still a ton of enemies out there. Without mana he was going to be hard pressed to even have a chance at winning… and the realization that he was likely going to die again dawned on him.

But looking at the charred corpse of captain douchebag… considering he’d respawn because of the All Spirit’s ‘ON’ cycle: it had been very, very worth it. He would make sure that his life came at a high price before they sent him packing again, and two more culn soldiers hit the floor at the choke-point never to rise again with large gaping wounds.

“You have gained XP. You are bleeding, this is a damage over time effect.”

Then Trey felt something carve into his leg.

He screamed, looking down at a spear with the blade lodged in his shin. He felt it grinding against the bone as the culn soldier laughed out in victory on the other side of the doorway with the encouragement of his comrades, and Trey suddenly began to vomit. He stumbled backwards and tripped over a large book, pulling out the spear head as he went, and if it hadn’t been for Napoleon he would have taken an arrow to the chest again. Thankfully the imp’s cover-fire caused the archer to pull back and miss his shot.

Trey could feel his mana waning as the chaos chains continued to have weapons battered against them. He was down to 39/134 MP and hadn’t even used a spell in that time. The culn were upping their aggressiveness and the swings of their weapons were coming faster since they had seen him fall back.

“Your minion Napoleon’s Firebolt spell has increased to level 9.”

Without even a thought Trey’s right hand shot up and caught an arrow aimed straight for his eye. He stared at it, looking at the shredded fingers where the arrow’s blade had cut through them, and appreciating how close it was to his face.

‘You’re welcome.’ his symbiote Sithis stated, impressed even with himself at the feat he’d accomplished. A feeling of pride was blossoming within Sithis and Trey could almost taste every bit of it.

“Sithis!!! What a badass!” Trey laughed, still being able to keep humor amidst such a dire situation. His laughter only grew when he began to feel soothing dark energy ripple down his body in sporadic waves. He caught sight of Rivia: the demoness was channeling her Rejuvenation miracle while muttering and focusing on him intently. He gave her a grin and a thumbs up, knowing that she didn’t WANT to help him but appreciating it anyways despite the contract forcing her hand.

He rolled behind the pile of materials to the right and caught his breath as his abdomen and leg began to very slowly mend. As he did, he watched Napoleon’s mana bar plummet to zero and the imp immediately became useless. The little imp realized he was out just as Trey did and started beating his little hands against the floor in a loud, ridiculous temper tantrum.

Trey chuckled before watching his MP drop again to 30/134.

“You’ve done well Napoleon, but I think you’d better leave without mana. You’d just get in the way and die unnecessarily... Thank you for your help, my little friend.” Trey gently smiled at the imp who stopped what he was doing to look at Trey with a sad expression.

“But master die if go!” Napoleon whimpered, running over to Trey to put his little claws on Trey’s thigh. “I no let die! I stay stay!”

The sentimental act brought a lump to Trey’s throat. Napoleon may have been an NPC, but Trey wasn’t sure what the even really meant. The All Spirit had made it seem like they were just as alive as he was... and he was still trying to figure how he felt about that.

He patted Napoleon on the shoulder and gave the imp a firm squeeze. Before Napoleon could say anything else, Trey began to dismiss him. Dark magic filtered through his hand to his fingers and a pentagram surrounded the little demon with streaks of crimson light.

“I’ll see you soon, my guy.” Trey declared, and then watched as Napoleon disappeared into the nether realm. He felt a tinge of sadness as the imp went, and it was soon placed with anxiety as he heard the renewed screams of his enemies nearby. His mana pool dropped again to 24/134, and he kept piling it into the barricading chains he’d summoned at the doorway.

His eyes traced the room’s interior until they abruptly stopped on the shredded corpse of Jerekka, his first culn minion. The dead man still lying against the wall where he’d been flung by a psychic blast. The armor had crisscrossing jagged rips in the metal right over where large wounds were apparent on the body underneath.

A large pool of blood had encircled his minion’s body, and although Trey hated the bastard just as much as the rest of these culn, he couldn’t help but wish that Jerekka was still alive so that he had another pawn on his side. Trey was already losing his edge and the fear of death was starting to hang over him. Now that he’d done what he came here to do... Well, let’s just say death isn’t a pleasant thing even if you’re able to respawn.

“Master... May I suggest summoning... one of the creatures... held within me...?” Trey’s greatsword asked, getting Trey’s attention in the final minute before his barrier broke down.

Trey only frowned at the idea. “Why would I do that? Then I’d just have something else trying to kill me and it’s unlikely as it is that I’m going to get out of this alive.”

Another arrow rocketed past him and slammed into the stone next to Trey’s exposed foot, bouncing off the floor and flipping up into the air. He quickly withdrew his foot from the line of sight of any archers and pondered what he had to do. He’d try to kill as many of them as he could, and holding the choke point was the key. Rivia could heal him in the meantime. If he got surrounded he had no chance at all, but if he held it... then he may be able to break free. It was possible that they wouldn’t even realize Rivia was his minion at this point and he’d likely be able to dismiss her then resummon her to whatever spot he’d gotten to after escaping.

But he knew that was a long shot.

“It is highly likely... that they have no magic users... in this group...” Talsh’Noc’Un whispered from somewhere within its dark grey blade. “If either summon accepts you... then you will have a better chance... to win this fight...”

He could feel the sword’s yearning to stay. The sword wanted to win... it wanted to win so that it could keep on killing. Sithis’ hunger matched the sword’s own, and the two in unison swayed his mind… causing him to yearn for the fight as well.

Was it really possible that he could win this fight though? He turned around the corner of the pile and watched over a dozen of them clashing their weapons of various sorts into his chains that were becoming weaker by the second. At the same time though, his leg was now almost fully healed and his abdomen had sealed back up. Rivia had done good work.

“Wouldn’t that be a waste? Shouldn’t I wait until later so that I’m certain to get both?” Trey muttered under his breath, yanking his head back as another arrow soared through.

The sword chuckled. “They are indeed... rare specimens... and it is unlikely... that you will find any of their... species... any time soon... but be warned... these culn know who you are... and will likely try... to imprison you... making escape impossible... and life... agonizing... for untold amounts of time... until you lose your permanence... They will... be able to figure out... how to kill you... once their identifiers clarify what... your ability to respawn is... I would hate... to lose another... master...”

Trey paled at the thought amidst the screams of rage and hacking at the wood. He’d been thinking about that same possibility, but hadn’t wanted to keep it in mind.

‘Or you could just kill yourself before they break through. You could even have the wench do it.’ Sithis suggested, shooting Rivia a look through Trey’s eyes. ‘It is a safer route, but choose quickly. They are almost through.’

Ugh. Suicide wasn’t really his forte, and he really... REALLY didn’t want to deal with another agonizing death again.

Captured Creatures in Storage: 4/5 grand soul stones filled

Empty Ifrit, Greater Demon Dark Djinn, Fallen Taurun, Greater Demon Angelic Dread Berserker, Fallen Archangel

“Fine... Do it.” Trey muttered to the sword when the window popped up. “Pull out the ifrit."

His MP dropped to 11/134.

“My thoughts... echo your own... master...” the greatsword hummed. Another moment later and a dark streak of black lightning shot into the middle of the room, scaring Rivia and causing her to shriek. Immediately after she lost focus, the channeling stopped and the miracle collapsed.

“Keep it going!” Trey snarled at the frightened girl. “I want constant regen, now!”

Stuttering something he couldn’t make out, the girl nodded frantically and began channeling another miracle; taking another single divinity point out of her pool to do it. At full DP points, he realized that she’d be able to cast this miracle 15 times in a row.

He was slightly impressed, if only for a second.

Another blast of black lightning emanated from the sword and into the ball of dark magic floating in the middle of the room. Slowly but surely, the demon there began to take form...

A deep bellowing roar sounded from just outside and Trey turned around to witness two muscular minotaurs had been brought in. They were huge, the largest he’d seen yet with the exception of the brute back at the spawning pools days ago, and these ones were armored with heavy broadswords and shields to boot. When he went to identify them, it made his heart sink a little.

Name: Minotaur

Race: Minotaur, Demon

Class: Warrior

Level: 13

HP: ???

MP: ???

SP: ???

DP: ???

Name: Minotaur

Race: Minotaur, Demon

Class: Warrior

Level: 15

HP: 406/406

MP: ???

SP: ???

DP: ???

They had about twice his HP, which was not encouraging. He wondered for a brief moment how these minotaurs had been subjected to slavery by culn. The culn were... weaker, weren’t they? Culn were even classed as ‘lesser demons’ like Trey’s imp Napoleon, and these minotaur that served the culn were classified by the system as just straight up ‘demon.’ But when the first minotaur charged head down to ram his horns against the chaos chains he immediately realized why they were the underlings.

These creatures were downright stupid.

The minotaur roared in pain as his horns and face got caught up in the flaming, sparking chains of mana, and it only began to entangle itself the further it went. It pushed and yanked and tangled itself up more and more, and in the end the creature fell to the ground in a screeching lump of tortured mass. But even as it lay dying, it had done its job well.

The chains were in ruin, the remnants of them simmering around the hulking monster on the ground, and the doorway was wide open with only mounds of piled trash to either side of the choke point.

“Oh boy...” Trey cursed and he immediately got up to rush the downed minotaur. Slashing it with his claws in a frenzy he tore out pieces of flesh in chunks just before the second one began to charge.

“You have gained XP.”

The remaining minotaur didn’t give two thoughts about the chokepoint. It was much bigger than Trey, and it couldn’t be stopped. As the huge bulk connected with Trey’s frame, the smaller man was sent flying into the far wall with a sickening thud and crunching of bones.

He gasped, trying to regain the air that had been knocked out of his lungs. Talsh’Noc’Un was still busy summoning the ifrit and couldn’t be used, while Rivia continued channeling the miracle while cowering in a corner. Little pieces of flesh began to knit together as Trey dropped to the ground, the dark miracle doing its work at a slow monotonous pace, but it definitely wouldn’t be fast enough.

The jeering and cheers from the culn beyond climbed in volume as they pushed one another to try and get inside, taking their time stepping over the dead minotaur or scattered debris at their feet. The remaining minotaur already inside the room bellowed and lifted its thick, jagged sword to finish the job. It roared out a challenge, flexing its muscles underneath the thick cast iron of it’s armor, and struck down hard.

Trey saw it coming and knew he was dead. He simply closed his eyes and awaited the death strike, but as the sword made impact a warmth enveloped him and the sword bounced off his skin harmlessly. The minotaur toppled back from the rebound and fell into the culn behind it, causing them all to stammer back as the foremost culn was crushed by the much bigger minotaur’s body

Opening his eyes, Trey came to realize he was glowing with an orange light. Meanwhile, some of the culn warriors from the doorway cast baffled, unbelieving stares of betrayal at Rivia. That’s when Trey understood what had happened. ‘Immortal’s Infernal Blessing’ had been cast, and for three seconds Trey had gained absolute immunity from harm. Though by the time he had realized this, the miracle had worn off, and he knew based on the ability description that the cooldown for it would make it unable to be cast again anytime soon. A divinity point had dropped off Rivia’s DP bar too, and then another went as she began to channel the Rejuvenate miracle again.

God, she was so much more useful than that useless twat Jerekka. The other culn minion under his command left a lot to be desired.

He made the most of the opportunity even with the little time given though. Kicking off the wall for an initial boost and using what little mana he had left, he shot out a chaos ball as he ran forward.

Or at least he tried to. His mana was so low that it wasn’t enough to cast the spell, and instead all he got was a flicker of black sparks from his outstretched hand.

Nevertheless he kept going forward and slammed a clawed hand to wrench at the fallen minotaur’s outstretched bicep. Claws sank deep into the softer flesh and began to tear, but he didn’t remain there for long. The demon bellowed in agony and with a single motion flung Trey away, clutching at the mangled mess of its arm muscle and getting back up to steady itself.

Trey hit the ground on two feet this time, not having taken much damage and abruptly went back at the creature. He feigned an uppercut which it tried to block with an upraised shield, then he dropped low to kick out the legs of the beast. This caused it to rear back and fall on yet another culn in confusion. Angry that the culn were getting in the way the brute elbowed back into the unfortunate culn man behind him, clocking him straight to the temple and dropping him before trying to get back up yet another time. The bloodshot eyes of the beast focused on Trey with hatred and its muscles bulged outwards, glowing a faint red along the outline of its figure just as the minotaur back at the spawning pools in Negaizer had done. It let out a crazed bellow, feeling empowered with its buffs and began to charge through the small choke point.

“Burn.”

In a flash and torrent of searing fire, the injured creature was flung back along with four of the culn behind it, flames billowing out through the doorway and into the hall where screams erupted from the tightly packed group of soldiers trying to get in. The piles of random crap Trey’d piled off to either side of the doorway, originally used as a barrier, were also alight with flames. Smoke was beginning to accumulate at a rapid rate and the burst of heat caused Trey to flinch away reflexively.

As Trey’s eyes adjusted to the new light, he stood in shock while looking at the devastation. He turned slowly to his right, and hovering in the air immediately in front of him was a flaming demon with two large horns adorning the top of its head. Unlike Trey’s horns that protruded to curve forwards and upwards, these horns were thicker and larger. They curved around, up and then back down and around like a ram’s horns would.

At first Trey could only see that it was humanoid in shape due to the raging flames encompassing its body, but the flames were beginning to die down. As the brilliant fire disappeared, the horns stood out as a smooth, rich mahogany color. A long ebony tail darted about from behind it, similar to Trey’s but slightly longer. This new demon was about 7 feet tall, a full foot taller than Trey, but looked even bigger due to the way it effortlessly hovered over them. The creature’s skin was pitch black and completely hairless over the entirety of its body, with handsome masculine features concerning the nose and jaw. The only thing it wore was something similar to an egyption style loincloth colored deep gray, and it unashamedly flexed its muscles with folded arms to posture.

The deep red eyes of the demon slowly shifted from the ones it had just killed over to Trey, with feline slits for pupils. They focused on him, then looked at the sword, and then looked back at Trey.

“Culn... nearly as pathetic as the mortal races we eat. No better than rats.” The ifrit remarked with disgust apparent in his words. The demon blinked and it descended to land, eyeing the man up and down as if appraising him. “Human? I am surprised. When reading your status page I expected you to be... something else, though I could not discern what. Are you the new owner of this sword?”

A culn soldier had shoved himself into the room past the remnants of two comrades and screamed a battle cry to throw an axe directly at the ifrit. With catlike reflexes, the demon batted the axe aside with his tail of all things and simultaneously summoned ball of flames to his hand. In one swift motion the ifrit lunged forward and slammed the ball of condensed flames into a gap in the armor. The culn screamed as flames erupted across his left shoulder and chest but was cut short as he was lifted up and flung face-first into the ceiling with a loud *CRACK*.

The body dropped to the floor with a thud, then remained still.

Trey raised an eyebrow, silently appreciating the kill’s execution. “I am.”

The ifrit glowered at him for a second, and then pointed a finger Trey’s way. “Then it is you who I will kill. You have robbed me of the opportunity to rip asunder the one that came before you. Make your pleas to the false gods you worship and prepare yourself, summoner.”

Trey facepalmed and grunted out an: “Oh, god damn it!”