Chapter 30 - The Battle for Vork

‘Shit.’

That was the first word that came to Sithis’ mind and was repeated numerous times by Trey’s own thoughts as he looked at... probably another 70, maybe 75 enemies in front of him. He saw some of the bodies lying about, noticing that there were mages in teal robes amongst the dead as well as those from the group of the poorer-looking people who knelt or sat in chains.

Beside him and exiting Oblivion through the green mana portal on his right came Napoleon, the imp giddily jumping on over and exiting the green with a startled stop once he saw everything there. Atharost came on Trey’s left, and as the living bonfire pushed through and exited to stop next to his master - the greater class demon pulsed even more brightly in challenge to the new threat.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Insects…” Atharost growled, flipping his flickering tail back and forth. He was itching for a fight, awaiting Trey’s signal to charge headlong and incinerate everything that moved.

That would have been a bad idea though. Trey knew it. There were too many enemies to handle, but even with numbers on the enemy’s side... the culn and cultists took a step back almost in unison when they saw the ifrit.

The two groups just stared at each other, not knowing what to say or do until Rivia made an appearance. She’d lagged behind the others, being in the back and healing from afar and as she stepped out of the green liquid wall she came to a stop next to Napoleon.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Wench!” one of the culn officers called out after seeing she was one of his own people. He drew an ebony sword and looked anxiously, even angrily between her and the others that had just come out. “What is the meaning of this? Why is Captain Xhawhan’s head laying at my feet and who are these other demons you present yourself with? Speak!”

You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

Rivia looked over to Trey and then to Atharost, both men not paying any attention to her and looking ahead at the crowd of enemies and chained prisoners. She nervously gripped a small steel dirk she had picked up off a corpse on the way, and said a small prayer to Alkir. Quickly coming up with a mediocre plan to get them all alive, she did her best to put on a calm expression and began to spout bullshit.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “There has been a coup.”

It was a longshot. The demon lord presiding over the territories these culn lived in was powerful with few enemies strong enough to dethrone him and they all knew it. Rivia was banking on the fact that she was a culn as well, and that they’d trust the words she spoke for it. The real story was much more unlikely anyways, and if she even had told them the truth they’d call her a liar and try to kill her. So this was the best she had.

Adorek, the old dark haired cultist leader, frowned immediately. “A coup? Has Lord Aahdexiz been killed?”

Adorek was shoved out of the way by the original culn officer to address the girl. “You lie! Where is the proof in your words? I do not know of any who would enlist an imp into their army!”

Rivia scowled and protectively picked Napoleon up. Her voice became stern and it grew in volume to feign confidence. “This imp is my personal pet, so watch your tone, underling. You should know that you speak to a woman of noble blood, pledged High Priestess of the dark goddess Alkir, praise be unto her! Unless you want my slaves here to take your heads, unless you want me to retract the offer of allegiance I was going to give you, you will remain QUIET!”

The officer’s jaw dropped for a second and he recovered himself soon after. He eyed Napoleon, then the ifrit, and the… he didn’t know what the other one was. His identification skill wasn’t good enough to figure it out either. If what the girl spoke was true about being of noble birth, or even a high priestess, then the officer had every reason to believe that she would have slaves. An ifrit slave though… Now that was a rarity. He had to tread carefully, because if this woman was right and there was another army on the other side of this gate backing her... then he’d be a fool not to switch allegiances.

“I would have heard of an ifrit slave if there had been such a thing!” the culn soldier called out, weapon still in hand but now looking a little less certain. “Also, what type of creature do you possess that holds the large sword? I have not seen the likes of him before and am unable to identify him.”

“His information page says he’s human...” Adorek muttered before he was swiftly backhanded by the officer for interrupting. “I can’t get a read on his class though. At his level, he shouldn’t be this hard to identify… How strange.”

Rivia had heard the cultist loud and clear, and she rolled with it without skipping a beat as she became more confident in her story’s ability to work. “His name is Trey. He is a prized human, yes, but he is a longstanding experiment of my house. We have been using human slaves that please us and manipulating them with black magics, trying to make them more… like us. As a reward for their faithfulness. Forgive me, but that is all I can tell you about him.”

This piqued the interest of the culn soldiers and cultists alike, with murmuring spreading between their ranks instantly.

Just like Rivia had expected. The cultists that supplied her people with slaves were focused on one thing: power. Though the culn themselves only had a few talented mages and soldiers in their arsenal, their master Lord Aahdexiz was a species of greater demon called a ‘Hellspawned Devastator,’ and was much more knowledgeable than the culn he ruled over.

“Trey, please remove your mask. Show them that you are one of them, and what they have to gain by joining us over their previous lord.” Rivia said loudly, commandingly, as Trey looked slowly over her way.

She was afraid that Trey would be mad, that he’d strike her like he had in the fortress she’d called home. However, the look he gave her wasn’t one of anger over giving him a commandment, but of amusement. He was smiling.

“Of course, mistress.” Trey stated in the demonic tongue and bowed to her, commanding the infernal mask and jaws along with the claws to fade away and reveal his more human features. These cultists, who craved power more than anything, began to mutter more loudly once his mask disappeared to reveal his human face. His eyes were still glowing red centers surrounded by black he still had the horns and tail, but he definitely looked human otherwise.

“They are tricking us.” one of the prominent cultists in the group said stepping forward from Trey’s right. The guy was gaunt, frail looking and very pale with a hood covering his head. He pointed to the ground and summoned a demon to his side the same way Trey did with his own demons, but the summoning was somehow a lot faster and it surprised Trey to see the spell so efficient or that someone else had the same abilities that he did.

The demon that was summoned - Trey was unfamiliar with. It looked like a slightly bigger, more muscular version of a panther with six legs and red scales along its body. A frill around its neck was colored shades of orange and yellow, and the eyes looked like solid green gemstones.

Trey immediately understood why the man could use that ability when his identification page popped up alongside his minion’s, and True began to worry. They both seemed strong.

Name: Cultist

Race: Human

Class: Warlock

Level: 21

HP: ???

MP: ???

SP: ???

DP: ???

Name: Oblivion Striker

Race: Oblivion Striker, Beast/Demon

Class: ???

Level: 20

HP: ???

MP: ???

SP: ???

DP: ???

Thankfully, as Trey went around the group identifying the other people there, he found that for the most part they were much weaker than the speaker and ranged from levels 3 to 18. This was aside from their leader who was level 23, and the three ebony-wearing culn officers who were levels 19, 19 and 27. Regardless… Trey wasn’t going to be able to beat all of them. He was a lowly level 7, even if he did have a ton of buffs from that essence he’d bonded to. Even if he did have 3 minions helping him… a fight was going to be beyond tough.

The challenging cultist continued to glower at Trey after letting his words sink in, stepping forward warily and letting his hands drop into a position where he could cast aimed spells with ease.

“This man is an infernal summoner!” he shouted out, pointing to Trey and looking around at his fellow cultists. The prisoners just listened intently, waiting for what was going to happen and cowering in hopes they wouldn’t get caught in a crossfire.

“For those of you who can, identify him and see for yourselves! I believe it is likely that these are his minions!”

Trey’d been called out and the tension was building. Even though being an infernal summoner didn’t necessarily mean that these other demons with him were his, the question looming over the onlookers was: where were they, if not here?

His heart started to beat faster and he began to hold his breath, but he remained outwardly calm as the cultist began to try and persuade his fellows of the truth. Then… he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Far out on the edge of the village in the cover of trees. He couldn’t make out exactly what it was, but he could have sworn he saw movement.

“There is no army!” The gaunt cultist scoffed arrogantly as some of the others began to draw weapons or prepare magics. Firebolts, condensed electrical discharges, dark orbs and various other magics soon started popping up to aim at Trey. “LET US KILL THE SUMMONER AND CLAIM HIS-”

Atharost’s torrent of a fireblast nearly roasted the man alive, but the warlock was able to bring up a barrier of dark mana just before the attack connected. It hadn’t been constructed in time to save his feet though. The impact boiled the man’s skin, and the warlock began screaming as he fell while the earth underneath him was singed black.

In an instant, all hell broke loose.

“GET BACK!” Trey screamed as he let loose two simultaneous chaos balls to the right and left just as an electric bolt slammed into him. He dropped, stunned by the electric shock as numerous magics were exchanged between Trey’s minions and the closest of the cultists. Immediately he felt Rivia’s hands grab ahold of him and pulling him back towards the gate. Meanwhile Napoleon let loose firebolts as fast as he could, barely dodging a shard of ice that would have impaled him one second earlier - only to have another shard of ice strike Napoleon right between the eyes.

The little imp fell dead to the ground, stopping the demon’s absurd barrage of insults in their tracks.

“Your minion Napoleon has been killed.” the mechanical voice of the All Spirit said.

Screams erupted all about them as Atharost shot skywards and started raining down fire blasts while cackling like a madman. The ifrit simultaneously placed a ‘Wall of Flames’ spell many times Trey’s standing height inbetween their group on the ground and the cultists, obscuring vision and letting Trey have a way out into the village on the right-hand side.

“Let’s go!” Rivia yelled while straining to try and half-drag half-pull Trey across the opening left by Atharost, but she gave up halfway amidst the screams on the other side of the flames when she realized Trey was just too heavy. Rocketing magics whizzed a few feet overhead coming through the wall of flames as the two lay close to the ground.

“You must get up or we will all die!” Rivia yelled, channeling a Rejuvenation miracle on Atharost while concentrating on his figure flying overhead. Atharost was racing about at high speed and dodging numerous magical attacks while doing it, by far outclassing his enemies on the ground and keeping most of them preoccupied while he burned many of them alive.

Trey’s vision was still blurry, but he managed to shake it off and coughed twice before righting himself. The wall of flames in front of them was beginning to die out, the flames were creeping lower and were less intense than they had been just a couple seconds earlier.

“FIRE AT WILL!”

The cry came from the woods on the village’s edge where Trey had seen movement not long ago. A moment later and screams erupted from all around the village as arrows soared overhead amidst a roar of battlecries.

Still dazed, and picking Rivia up while trying not to interrupt her line of sight, Trey dashed forward until they reached the end of the towering flames. A small stone wall had been constructed around a partially destroyed house, likely to keep small animals in. The mud was thick and there was either pig or dog shit everywhere, but that didn’t stop Trey from turning the corner and slamming his back against the wall as another bolt of lightning clipped the stone to send a couple small fragments airborne.

Rivia was still channeling on Atharost, her eyes never leaving the ifrit except to blink, and she continued to chant the prayer of the miracle in low undecipherable mutters.

“Keep it going and don’t stop, be sure to use your other miracle whenever you deem it best. Don’t fuck this up.”

She nodded understanding without looking at him.

Trey took a chance to glance over the stone wall as clashing of steel was overheard and was beyond surprised to see a new group of soldiers in close combat with the culn and cultists.

It wasn’t just soldiers though. Archers from the far treeline were firing off arrows between ducking for cover, and there were even a dozen or so robed mages with wizard’s hats throwing up purple arcane barriers or blasting the cultists with colored bolts of mana. They were trying to do the best they could while not hitting the prisoners, who in turn were trying to flatten themselves against the ground or cover up their loved ones amidst the chaos of battle.

Occasionally there would be some collateral damage as one of the chained villagers was killed though. The tusked boars had been focused down first by this new group, killing every single one of the animals outright so they couldn’t run with the slaves dragging behind.

An explosion of flames off to his right again and one of the larger buildings in the village was torn to shreds. Screams followed and then more explosions of flame lit up the trees nearby, with cultists who’d been set aflame flailing or running about on the ground while Atharost laughed maniacally. He continued torching everything that moved and wore a turquoise outfit while easily dodging the attacks the mages on the ground were trying to throw at him.

“Your minion Atharost has gained 1 overall level.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m glad he’s on my side!” Trey laughed, but then nearly caught a stray arrow to the face.

That’d been close. He hoped that the newly arrived party wasn’t actively trying to hit him and that the arrow had just been an accident. He gained some encouragement from the fact that they were completely avoiding attacking Atharost and even helping the ifrit with buffs appearing underneath the his HP, MP, SP and DP bars.

That being said, Trey didn’t have time to stop and see what those buffs were, though he was content enough to see the ifrit’s mana pool regenerated at a rapid pace and assumed that must have been at least one of the enchantments.

Summoning four chains of chaos, Trey flanked his enemies who’d all but forgotten him in their struggle with this new adversary. The tides had turned and now the numbers were even. With a sadistic grin he let out a scream and flung them into the fray, shredding through the soft bodies of two mages and impaling them. The fact that they didn’t have armor meant the chains did a lot more damage and could cut through the bodies like butter.

“I’LL SEE YOU IN THE AFTERLIFE!”

Trey whirled at the sound of the charging Culn officer just in time to avoid the thrust. Whipping around his greatsword he tried to counterstrike and connected with an upraised shield, sending the piece of metal flying off to one side and surprising the culn immensely with the force of the sideswipe.

Trey’s infernal mask blackened his features and his jaws opened up with a laugh as Sithis commanded Trey’s chains to whip around in an arch. They came whistling through the air, cleaving the impaled writhing cultists amidst the screams and clashing of battle at a 180 degree turn - all slamming into the culn officer who was still scrambling to get his shield back.

“You have gained XP.”

The staggered officer rolled with the impact and in a surprise acrobatic maneuver whirled into the air and let out a black mist from an outstretched hand. The mist hit Trey full force and he immediately began to choke and sputter. His eyes watered and quickly became inflamed, and every second he stayed there his HP began to drop by a couple points.

He was blinded.

He heard the soldier coming for him before he saw him and pushed off the ground to fling himself backward just as he heard the culn cursing him. To his further dismay Trey still couldn’t see and he began to run, slamming into a building and then tripping over a piece of rubble with the officer howling on his tracks.

“OH GOD DAMN IT!” Trey screeched just as he felt a sword slice through his left shoulder and into his clavicle. Trying not to cry like a little bitch he activated the berserker ability with Talsh’Noc’Un.

The sword hissed in pleasure and the effect was immediate.

His debuff cleared, the dark haze surrounding him vanishing instantly as insanity took over. He felt adrenaline pumping through his blood and a murderous desire to destroy overcome him like a tidal wave. Icons for increased strength, speed, dexterity, intelligence and faith all popped up along with his aggression... and he felt… powerful.

The culn officer was only a foot away and drove the weapon deeper into Trey’s left lung, sneering with spit dripping down his face and using both hands to push for the final kill. He felt the lung collapse just as he turned and smiled at the officer who was unaware that Trey could see again. The only clue indicating the culn’s upcoming demise was the widening grin along Trey’s jaws.

Brilliant crimson hellfire erupted from Trey’s mouth in a roar that bathed the man inbetween the crevices of his armor, baking him alive and letting him writhe with high pitched screeches for mercy.

“Your skill Aspect of the Devil: Mask has gained 1 level.”

Trey yanked the blade remaining in his left chest out, laboring to breathe even with berserk clearing his senses. He felt blood pooling in his chest and he was becoming light headed with his HP bar at 42% and quickly dropping. The bastard must have severed a large artery or even many of them, and the bleeding debuff icon was flashing vigorously.

Trey spat on the writhing culn soldier beneath him and with his tail wrapped it around the demon’s throat. The culn began to gasp and claw at the tail as the crimson flames continued to consume his flesh with wicked crackling sounds. Trey thought his victim was trying to say something, but couldn’t understand what and didn’t want to waste further time... so with a violent yank he felt the culn’s neck abruptly snap underneath the tightened grip.

“You have gained XP. Your skill Aspect of the Devil: Tail has gained 1 level.”

“RIVIA!” Trey screamed, still under the influence of berserk and battling the urge to go kill versus knowing he needed some help. “RIVIA I NEED SOME HEALING!”

He looked around and made eye contact with her the next second. Then he realized she’d been watching… he wasn’t sure for how long, but she’d definitely been watching that fight and hadn’t done anything to help him.

He scowled angrily and clenched his fist, deactivating the berserk ability that was fueling his anger lest he kill the bitch right then and there. It seriously made him wonder just how much the minion contract could force her to do when he was or wasn’t looking and how it all worked… he’d have to find out so things like this didn’t happen again. He would be sure to punish that bitch later, and by god he would take his time.

“NOW!” he screamed at the culn woman who reluctantly did as she was told.

He didn’t understand why she would help him get up and out of the fray in the first place if she was going to try and let him die here… but the more he thought about it the more it made sense. She hadn’t acted just now because she didn’t think he’d notice what she’d done. When he’d been with her next to the Oblivion gate, it would have been obvious that she’d been neglecting him if she hadn’t acted.

He tossed the thoughts aside as he felt the healing miracle start to mend his wounds. He continued to cough up blood for another half-minute, which seemed like an eternity during the battle even if he was only on the fringes. Then when he’d hit 60% health, he bolted forward ten yards to stop an incoming scimitar from cutting into the arm of a sword-wielding, well-armored battlemage locked in combat and being overpowered by three enemy cultists.

As Trey poorly parried the blow that had been intended for the battlemage’s elbow joint, the cultist’s eyes went wide and Trey’s horns connected with the man’s face after a headbutt. The convex side of the horns didn’t pierce or wound the man, but they did some serious bludgeoning damage and Trey heard the man’s orbit crack around the left eye.

“Oof!” Trey chuckled just as he undercut the dazed man’s legs and tripped him with his own, finishing the suddenly-panicking cultist off with a downwards thrust of Talsh’Noc’Un as the greatsword hissed gleefully.

“You have gained XP.”

“More…” hissed the huge weapon with phantasmal glee in its voice, giving the other cultists and even the battlemage pause to warily glance at the weapon before resuming their fight.

The battlemage was an old but muscular man and the armor he wore was splattered in red. He had two gashes along his right cheek, one on his forehead, and a bleeding deep cut along the back of his left thigh where the armor had been pierced.

Without moving his body himself, Trey’s hand snapped up and blocked an incoming shard of ice with a summoned claw - the ice shattering against the armored skin of his hand and forearm but leaving a deep bruise nonetheless.

“Thanks Sithis-” Trey managed to say between labored breaths, turning back to the 2v2 as Sithis acknowledged the praise with a low internal whistle.

“Your minion Atharost has gained 1 overall level. Your minion Atharost’s Firebolt spell has increased to level 24.”

He sloppily blocked another strike of a scimitar as he fought the guy on the right while the battlemage next to him fought the cultist on the left. The cultist in front of Trey was rather fat, but somehow very quick as he tried to get inbetween Trey’s long reach with his faster jabs. Trey slashed and slashed again, both times missing by a mile as the cultist openly laughed at him only to have a chaos ball slam into a barrier he erected just in time. He snarled and was just about to counter attack when a flaming dagger buried itself in the cultist’s chest and exploded, tearing the fat man’s body open and dropping him to the ground with scattered chunks of abdomen.

The battlemage gave a haughty laugh and gave Trey a nod, almost losing his eye because of it but still was able to dodge a scimitar strike before being shocked with an electric bolt.

The armored battlemage staggered, fell back, and lost his balance. His bearded face looked up to see a sneering enemy cultist lunge in for the final strike. The old battlemage went pale, and a look of resignation came over him.

‘Obliterate.’

*BOOM*

Trey’s sword flared to life with chaos mana and upon impact discharged. The cultist was literally sent flying across the battlefield and split into two halves as chaos mana trashed his internal organs.

“You have gained XP. Your skill Blades has gained 1 level.”

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “HAHAAAAAA GET IT SON!” Trey yelled over the clashing of weapons and he held a hand down to the old battlemage.

The older man took it without hesitation and let out a hardy laugh.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “By the gods boy, that was a good hit!”

Trey was surprised that the old man could speak the demonic tongue and he did a double-take because of it. The next thing he knew Trey felt a searing hot pain along his right flank and was sent sprawling. He flipped once, hit the ground and then bounced to slide over a chained woman cowering on the ground - narrowly missing her with the sword he gripped. He shook his head to clear it and saw the battlemage lying prone in the dirt not far off, his neck was bent at a weird angle and he wasn’t moving.

“Shit.” Trey muttered while trying to get up, but he failed. He soon found out he couldn’t use his right leg and looking down saw that there was an open, simmering wound the size of a basketball down to bone where fragments were sticking out.

He nearly passed out and began to feel woozy, and looking up he just in time caught a glimpse of an incoming blast of purple energy from the cultist leader Adorek.

The impact hit true and would have killed him if not for the help of his minion. Trey felt the purple mana surge across his skin just as an orange light enveloped him. To his surprise he felt nothing, took no damage and in that moment he felt... invincible.

“Your minion Rivia’s miracle Immortal’s Infernal Blessing has increased to level 2. Your minion Rivia has gained 1 overall level.”

Nice.

The look of stunned bafflement across Adorek’s face was enough to make Trey giggle, and Trey was glad he’d ordered Rivia to use the miracle to the best of her ability before he’d left. If not, she likely would have let him die. With 1 second left in the miracle and feeling amazing he got to his feet and hoisted the greatsword over his head.

Then he threw it.

The giant sword spun in an arc, sparking with chaos energy and slammed into the cultist leader’s chest - piercing through his back and toppling him to the ground to convulse as the magic sword shocked him relentlessly.

“You have gained XP. You have gained 1 overall level.”

He giggled once more and the miracle wore off, causing him to collapse back on his right leg and scream as the pain suddenly swelled up inside him.

“Oh, oh, oooohhhh my goddd……” Trey’s eyes rolled back and he vomited all over one of the chained villagers, bleeding on them as he went and beginning to drag himself across the dirt while trying to get to safety. He was dying, he felt it though he couldn’t see just how much of his HP bar was left because his vision was blurry. Whatever the hell that fucking Adorek had thrown at him was no joke.

Another blast of light and a searing heat shot overhead just as he looked up to see his ifrit landing in front of him with a large smile of approval.

“Want some help?” Atharost asked, laughing to himself. The ifrit’s flames died down and he irreverently hoisted Trey up on his shoulders to ignore the screams of pain from his master. Talsh’Noc’Un soon joined them, flying over of its own accord and hovering nearby.

“Oh shut up Trey, you’re fine! You big pussy. And we still have a few more enemies to go!” Atharost just laughed louder as Trey began to curse him when the ifrit launched himself skywards, over the battlefield, and towards Rivia who was still cowering behind the stone wall where Trey’d left her.

Trey was dropped like a heavy sack next to Rivia with a thud.

“Heal him.” Atharost commanded, and the culn woman gave a small nod.

“I… I only have 2/15 divinity points left. So after I heal him I’ll only have a single miracle of rejuvenation left for you…”

Atharost ignored the young woman and she slowly began to chant again, meanwhile Trey was just trying not to cry.

“Your minion Rivia’s miracle Rejuvenation has increased to level 2.”

Unfortunately for Trey, he wasn’t able to witness the end of the battle. Darkness was encompassing his peripheral vision and he closed his eyes while trying to focus on the alleviating touch of Rivia’s miracle. Before long he’d passed out, and Atharost had soared off to finish the last of the cultists with the newcomers who’d come to help them.