Chapter 93 - Ezdeath (Part 2)

The succubus held the star pendant slung across her neck with both hands, and a light glow began shining from the central ruby. She stared out at them with a sneer, unwavering as the glow turned into a burst of bright light.

Out of pure reactionary instinct, Trey let off two chaos balls and dove out of the way as an incoming projectile flew past his head to crash into the wall behind him. In shock, he stared at the destruction it left in the wall and immediately realized what it was that had almost taken his life. She could throw out chaos balls too, but hers were far superior to his own with twice the destructive power.

Mere seconds later the bright light died down again to reveal his enemy. In one hand she held that extravagant halberd from earlier, and in the other palm-up hand were two more chaos balls slowly rotating around one another. That, however, wasn’t what really caught his attention. She was now decked out in heavy armor the likes of which he’d never seen before.

Wicked curved pauldrons created from obsidian black spiked up to either side of the large neck-guards protruding from her shoulders. The armor was somewhat form-fitting with a sinister jawed face engraved into the chest piece. Just like her halberd: Orange-red lines of power were marked into the dark metal all over her body, with a few small pentagrams and hexagrams stationed at regular intervals. The plate mail left her tail open in the back, with long demon wings out to either side from custom openings. The tips of her fingers were open too, and golden eyes were visible between the slits of the visored helmet carved to resemble a devil’s face… and her horns protruded through holes built in; the helm was adjusted specifically to her. Resistant cloth-like metal made from threads of black mithril adorned her waist to cover the front of her crotch and backside, each bearing a symbolic crimson seven-sided star… with a picture of a three-faced devil in the center.

It was Eleknar’s symbol, and as his eyes met the sight - right before the room tore into motion - Trey heard a string of Eleknar’s words echoing through his mind…

“Hadean armor… And a Warden of Necranoc… one of my unholy children has finally found her way home. To me.”

An arrow clipped her wing and another simply bounced off. The wing’s membrane was thick and the arrows hadn’t done anything more than scratch her – one of the only exposed parts of her body.

She didn’t even flinch.

Reiklin’s hands blurred with motion as he let off a multitude of arrows in a streamline of arrows, empowering some of them and was finally able to puncture her wings with a couple of his shots. Rivia cast a pestilence miracle, initially exploding upon casting and planted her staff into the ground to summon the black Field of Agony from her crucifix staff. Toady launched his tongue out at her to try and grab a leg.

To Trey’s sheer amazement and shock, Ezdeath dealt with all of these attacks effortlessly. She took Rivia’s pestilence miracle full on, exploding with the miracle’s dark energy as she grunted but pulsed with red light to rid herself of the rot afterwards instantaneously. The two chaos balls held in her open palm launched towards Reiklin, narrowly catching him in the shoulder as he tried to dodge with the secondary explosion completely tearing his arm off as he screamed. Simultaneously - her halberd came around and directly intercepted Toady’s tongue, pinning it to the ground mid-strike with superb speed before she yanked the enormous squealing oblivion toad completely off the ground by its tongue towards her position with superhuman strength. The huge demon toad flailed like a fish caught on a line as it soared through the air.

For a split second Ezdeath’s hand glowed hot white as a sacred art activated, then it shot through the toad’s thick armor mid-air and ripped out its heart in a swift single motion as the bigger demon passed overhead. Toady sprawled onto the floor behind her as she crushed the muscular heart with claws that had extended from her exposed fingertips. She flung it to the side of the dying brute, and pulled her ornate halberd out of the impaled tongue.

“Your minion Toady has died.”

She peered out at the rest of them with an audible sneer they couldn’t see through the visored metal helm. [Ancient Demon Dialect] “Pathetic.”

“WAIT!” Trey screamed, trying to get her attention before things got further out of hand and hoping that she’d listen.

She didn’t pay attention to him at all.

Atharost roared as he and his elemental Boxamoth tore into her with flames, Ashe quickly joined in with bolts of her own that simply bounced off the succubus’ armor like they were nothing but toys. Izumi’s cannon took Ezdeath off her feet, knocking her back a couple of yards and leaving a very small scratch in her breastplate.

Ezdeath screamed in anger more than pain as the flames continued to bathe her body, then exploded out of the line of Atharost’s attack into flight. Trey stopped only for a moment as he heard another more familiar scream that was cut off a second later, and as he whirled around he saw Ezdeath standing over Reikling’s decapitated corpse.

“Your minion Reiklin has died.”

Trey was full on panicking now, he couldn’t let her get to his friends. Toady and Reiklin were bad enough, but the ones he truly cared about could be next.

And that’s when Juila launched herself across the room in a single well-aimed leap. The strength her new body gave her catapulted her right into the succubus, and the two of them smashed into the far wall with rubble spraying out of the stone - only to have Juila rocket out of the wall at high speed across the room again and into the opposite wall.

Juila’s HP immediately hit 602/1380, taking over half her health in one go as her bones shattered and she sprayed blood from her mouth on impact. Trey’s eyes widened as Ezdeath vaulted out the same way - heading directly for Juila with wings outstretched and halberd poised to finish her off.

Trey made a snap decision just before the attack pierced Juila’s heart. “SACRIFICE OF SHADOWS!”

Sacrifice of Shadows (Master’s Ability): Only activatable by her master. Must be activated before she is killed by other means in order to use this ability, or must be triggered by ‘My Life for You.’ If activated appropriately, Juila will explode – dealing shadow damage to all enemies within 50 yards of her position. All allies that are party-bound within that 50 yard range will acquire shadow-clone bodies. These shadow-clones mimic the real bodies and items donned in most aspects, but have no pain sensation, and upon death will spawn the real bodies they have replaced at full HP, full MP, full SP, and full DP somewhere nearby.

“Your minion Juila has died and will respawn without penalty in 24 hours.”

Trey’s sacrificial lamb blossomed into black flame, ripping into Ezdeath like a hurricane and filling the room with shadow for only a brief moment. Ezdeath was sent back like a ping-pong ball, slamming into the wall directly next to the first crater they’d created.

Each of Trey’s other nearby minions burst into shadowy figurines mimicking their actual bodies. Izumi did too, as she was just within range - and it wasn’t a moment too soon.

Just as Ezdeath made contact in another shower of debris - dozens of flaming, ovoid hellfire missiles rocketed across the room and tore into Trey’s party. Each missile homed in on a target, so even when numerous party members tried to dodge they were followed and sought out by the hostile magic. Explosions ripped into his party members in a gross display of power, and although they weren’t as powerful as the chaos balls she’d thrown earlier they were still significant enough to completely take out most of the shadow clone minions.

Cow-Daddy’s shadow clone was still standing as it took the magic head on and began to charge the succubus, but Fat-Daddy’s shadow clone evaporated after it made contact with the minotaur’s head. Fat-Daddy found itself in its regular body yet again a second later, appearing next to Trey only a few feet away and in a state of shock. Napoleon was huddled underneath a dome of dark magic cast by Rivia’s soulcatch lantern, where Ashe and Jason were also grouped up underneath the barrier.

A blast sounded off from Trey’s left and Izumi’s cannon ripped through the air and slammed into Ezdeath’s helm, sending the succubus warrior head over heels in a sprawling heap as Napoleon cast his burden curse to slow her down.

“Got her!” Izumi screamed excitedly just as her face erupted in a spray black after a downwards slash from Ezdeath’s halberd - Izumi’s shadow clone decaying and dying before his eyes as Izumi’s real body appeared right next to him.

Fuck.

Trey whirled just in time to meet Ezdeath’s charge head on - he brought his sword to block her halberd and heard a crunch of bone amidst the clash between enchanted weapons. Chaos energy sparked from the halberd and the sword, but Trey’s left shoulder was utterly fucked.

Not giving up and trying to give Izumi time to run, he undercut the succubus with a sweep of his legs. She was momentarily thrown off balance and tripped, but caught herself and backflipped over a flurry of green curse-imbued firebolts Napoleon tried to hit her with from behind.

Then she was gone again… and Trey heard a scream from behind. He whirled, only to see Ezdeath’s claws sticking out Izumi’s front from where she’d impared the Japanese girl between her shoulder blades.

Trey gasped as Izumi staggered forward onto her knees, coughing up blood and quivering as she stared down at her ruptured ribcage. Her mouth tried to move and speak, but no words came out. As her eyes finally met his, she slumped to the floor in an immobile heap. Standing next to his friend was Ezdeath, holding Izumi’s still-beating heart in one gauntleted hand as her claws retracted back into normal fingers.

He didn’t understand. How had this happened? How had Ezdeath even gotten there in such a short time? He hadn’t even seen her move except for the faint blur of her figure. His gut churned and a sick sensation of nausea engulfed him as Ashe screamed. His eyes fell to Izumi’s status bars along his HUD where all his party’s health points were listed, and upon seeing zero he violently began to quiver with hatred.

This enemy was beyond their capabilities to defeat. It was as simple as that. In the very short amount of time undertaking this fight, he’d already come to that conclusion. In all of his life, after all the fights and killing he’d done, Trey had never been so outclassed…

“EZDEATH!” Trey yelled out, trying to get her attention again - his mind reeling at what had just happened. There was a chance that she was somehow involved with Eleknar after he’d heard the words spoken into his mind… and seen the symbol on her armor. If he could only get her to stop fighting... “PLEASE SPEAK TO ME!”

He felt heat beginning to burn along his chest. He looked down, and along the top of his sternum was a seven-sided star surrounded by a circle, and in the middle of it all was the picture of a three-faced devil - Eleknar’s symbol… Eleknar was trying to send a message just as much as Trey was. It burned with red light, but was it enough to get Ezdeath’s attention?

Another chaos ball lit up Rivia’s dome shield and the lantern’s protective dark magic shattered, resulting in an explosion that sent everyone underneath it sailing backwards with minor injuries.

Fat-Daddy and Cow-Daddy roared and charged ahead, the huge minotaurs grunted with every step they took as they flung themselves at the enemy. Ezdeath easily parried the much larger warhammer strike with her halberd and slammed an outstretched foot into Cow-Daddy’s side with a kick, sending the two-ton demon like a flesh-rocket into the far wall. Fat-Daddy’s axe slammed into her shoulder, causing her to grunt and fall to one knee, but the armor firmly held and did minimal to no damage.

Fat-Daddy bellowed, inspired by his ability to cause her to stagger. His huge muscles bulged and raised the axe one more time over his head with bloodshot eyes and a grim smile. “PUNY WOMAN! FAT-DADDY CRUSH YOU!”

His axe came down, only to ring out with an audible crash as Ezdeath caught the shaft of the axe – blunting the stroke on her pauldron.

She leaned in with a hiss through the metal of her helmet. “Know your place, you belligerent cow.”

She easily ripped the axe from Fat-Daddy’s grasp and simultaneously dropped her halberd with her right hand to slam it into the minotaur’s muscular abdomen. Fat-Daddy let out a flabbergasted half-wheeze, half-bellow as ribs crunched under her strike. A second later and her wings contracted, vaulting them up towards the ceiling where she took the minotaur by the neck and slammed his face hard into the stone dome. Fat-Daddy’s horns and skull shattered as the stone ceiling cracked under the impact, and with an arrogant flick of her wrist… Ezdeath tossed the other demon down to the ground in a bloody broken heap.

“Your minion Fat-Daddy has died.”

Atharost and Boxamoth continued to barrage Ezdeath with fire after that, and explosions of dark pestilence miracles initiating rot were intermixed with arrows from Jason and Ashe. Napoleon was still cursing her with burden, and finally they were beginning to see some progress. The arrows did little to nothing as they just bounced off her enchanted, high-tier, demonic armor - but they were able to pierce her wings a couple times and Atharost’s flames were able to seep through the cracks. Rivia’s pestilence miracles only did initial explosion damage because their rot was immediately purified by Ezdeath’s cleansing spells, but it still worked to slow her down and whittle away at her HP.

Ashe was frantically reloading her crossbows and dodging hellfire missiles just like the others were, even despite her ability to make a scratch on this dungeon boss’s armor. She was crying and fumbled one of the bolts, dropping it to the ground before rolling to the left to avoid another blast.

Seeing his friend in danger, Trey finally came back to his senses and willed himself to move into action. With Sithis fueling him forward and helping stabilize his mind, Trey rushed ahead to intercept Ezdeath just as the flying succubus swooped down for the kill – targeting Cow-Daddy.

The huge black minotaur was still recovering from his wall-bound flight after Ezdeath’s kick had launched him across the room, and he turned around while disoriented to find her right on top of him. Cow-Daddy pivoted and barely avoided the thrust of the pike despite his disorientation, in large part due to Trey shadowstepping directly next to her and landing a sweeping arc of an obliterate attack with Talsh’Noc’Un into her body.

Trey’s teeth clenched and a sweet sense of achievement overcame him, but it was premature. In the half-second it took to swing his weapon and engage her mid-air she was able to spin her body around and brace her weapon against his attack. She activated another sacred art, her weapon glowed a deep green and when Talsh’Noc’Un made contact the weapon took the brunt of the force head on.

Trey and Ezdeath shot across the room in opposite directions after the explosion from his greatsword took hold. Chaos magic rippled through the air and Trey’s back slammed into the opposite wall, knocking the air out of him and giving him a killer headache. He slunk to the floor, feeling blood trickling down the back of his neck from where the wound on his head was after impact. Trey’s vision blurred in and out, but he saw Ezdeath’s figure rushing him just in time. He abruptly leaned to the side, narrowly dodging the halberd’s blade as her weapon pieced the stone wall behind him as she screamed in anger. At the same time he lashed out with his tail and wrapped it around her leg, slinging her a couple feet back and recovering with a barrage of shadow blades that ripped off from his body in waves. His attacks yet again glanced off her armor in mass, but a couple of them were able to pierce her outstretched, bloodied wings.

“As one!” Atharost cried out as another blast of fire rocked Ezdeath off to the side, causing her to scream as the flames lapped at her wounds. Atharost’s roar of approval lasted only another second when her body ripped free of Trey’s tail and sped up.

She cleared the distance between her and the ifrit in what seemed like milliseconds. In astoundingly fast motions she ripped Atharost’s two limbs off with extended claws, headbutted him to break his nose with an audible crunch, and spartan-kicked the ifrit with a crunching of ribs. The attacks happened in succession so quickly Atharost had no time to react. He was sent sprawling across the room with a trail of blood following him, armless and bleeding out.

Trey’s heart nearly stopped. Atharost was his best friend… this could not happen. He would not allow this to happen. “NOOOO!!!”

Boxamoth reeled around and tried to wrap its fiery form into her helm, but she crushed the elemental effortlessly with one hand and it evaporated into the air just as Ezdeath finished Atharost off with a lash of her tail.

“Your minion Atharost has died. Life of Pheonix has activated for your minion Atharost, and he will be reborn from the ashes sometime over the course of the next 5 days. Atharost and Boxamoth have lost 2 levels for dying.”

Trey’s heart slowed a little as the notification displayed itself, but even as Atharost’s body began to turn to ash… he didn’t have time to dwell on it. They were likely all going to die here…

‘We shall not die.’

Trey felt his insanity began to kick in as his rage bar climbed to 41/100, amplifying his total damage output by 41% as well. Sithis vaulted Trey’s body forward, using his tail almost like a spring in addition to his legs and catapulted ahead. His sacred art ‘Terror Stricken’ blazed through Talsh’Noc’Un with a +200 speed bonus as dark magic engulfed the blade, cleanly slicing through Ezdeath’s left wing in a rush as the succubus shrieked and whirled.

Horror Crusader: Terror Stricken (Sacred Art) - Level 1

*Empower your next weapon strike with terror imbued dark magic. Upon

contact the target will lose all buffs, become terror stricken, and take an

additional 250% of base physical damage from dark magic. Terror may be

resisted by a high willpower. Strike gains +200 Speed.

The terror effect didn’t take hold when a notification stated her willpower resisted, but the stump of her left wing gushed blood as it fell to the ground. It was all Sithis and Trey could do to parry her next thrust, only to have the halberd’s curved part of the blade wrap around their ankle and yank them to the floor onto their back.

Her speed was ridiculous, and her next lunge forward with her polearm lodged in his gut as he screamed. She lost her footing though as Rivia blasted her with another pestilence miracle, the dark explosion rocking her head back and afflicting her face with rot again to stagger her. She was further staggered as Trey let out a blast of hellfire from his mouth, engulfing her armored body in dark red flames and clearing her off the floor with the impact of the point-blank blast.

“I HELP HELP!” Napoleon was a little ball of fury, leaping up screaming indiscernible words to claw at her helm and trying to tear it off with his claws and teeth while stopping the burden curse and instead trying to blast firebolts into the visor of her helm.

Ezdeath cried out and gripped the little imp by one leg, crushed its limb and sent Napoleon hurdling like a rocket across the room to slam into the central stone throne.

Napoleon immediately went limp, but his HP bar remained at 35/216 in Trey’s HUD.

Through sheer willpower and a desire to live, Trey ripped the halberd from his gut and fought through the pain as intestines came with it. He flung the blade over to his left and tried to calm his bleeding, only succeeding as Rivia hit him with a rejuvenation miracle. Even then though, he was only barely stabilized.

He tried to get up, feeling weak and failing the first time due to the loss of blood. Ezdeath’s attack had applied some sort of poison, and his status bar was flashing with the new display notifications.

“You are bleeding. This is a damage over time effect.”

“You are poisoned. This is a damage over time effect.”

“FUCK YOU!” screamed Ashe as she let loose a hail of bolts into her new enemy, streams of water flooding her features as she did. Ezdeath quickly brought up an armored gauntlet in front of herself and deflected all incoming projectiles until being slammed by Cow-Daddy’s warhammer directly in the back, sending her bouncing off the floor to her front.

Ezdeath ducked another sweeping strike, dodged yet another, and rolled before jumping high into the air and black lightning emanated out from her body - damaging everyone else nearby in a randomized blast of raw shocking power that briefly stunned the remaining minotaur, Ashe, Jason and Rivia. Whipping her tail out around her it struck out to send Jason and Ashe both onto their backs with a loud *CRACK* - bloodied whiplash obvious across their fronts.

Muttering under her breath the succubus conjured three orbs of hellfire that circled her briefly before zipping out. One slammed into Ashe and effectively neutralized her as she fell to the ground in agony, one slammed into Rivia, and two headed for Jason. Jason was able to dodge them, but after missing they came back - homing in on the man and hitting him in the back. He too fell to the ground writhing with deep red flames cloaking his body and screaming in pain. Meanwhile though, Rivia glowed a faint orange as her Immortal’s Infernal Blessing protected her from harm.

Cow-Daddy roared and sprang to his feet after shaking off the momentary stun, then threw his warhammer as hard as he could in Ezdeath’s direction.

The weapon was easily dodged, and the succubus launched her own right back at the big minotaur. The halberd broke the sound barrier - torpedoed through the minotaur’s muscular chest - and ripped out Cow-Daddy’s internal organs to take out a stone pillar behind the demon in the process.

Cow-Daddy’s eyes rolled back, but he didn’t have the lungs to make any noise… and he fell to the ground as deadweight.

“Your minion Cow-Daddy has died.”

Rivia’s cooldown on the miracle ‘Kingdom Come’ was still not even a tenth of the way through since they’d fought that battle angel two trials ago, so that wasn’t an option. At most she could annoy Ezdeath with pestilence explosions and rot before the succubus cleansed herself seconds later, and after Rivia had just used her trump card of immortal’s infernal blessing - she was as good as dead soon enough.

His minotaurs were both dead. Atharost and Boxamoth were dead. Toady was dead. Reiklin was dead. Juila was dead. Izumi was dead. Napoleon, Ashe, and Jason were all incapacitated and on their way to dying.

And Trey was pretty hurt himself, his left shoulder was broken and his will to fight was gone despite the rage bar continuing to climb. He looked around at the damage done, and he despaired.

They had been soundly defeated. Utterly manhandled. How was he supposed to get out of this one?

This time the woman charged Trey, and as he held up his sword to block her incoming attack with his one good arm - a strange power coursed through her being, one that he was unable to identify. It seemed to him, and all those watching, that her body perfectly and reflexively responded to deal with his block - shifting her weight and thrusting one of her claws up to break his defense and then slicing open his bare chest with her other claw. He grimaced and fell back, but Sithis quickly counteracted her attack with a tail strike of his own that lashed out against her hand, knocking the halberd out of her grasp. Twelve black and red chains erupted from the void, homing in on their target. She spun her extended claws around to destroy four of them and her tail intercepted another, but three found their mark. Of the three - one bounced off her armor, and the other two were able to wrap around her arms. She roared in pain and fury, ripping them both out to crush them with her claws before being encircled by more.

“BLACK LOTUS!” she screamed, withdrawing the one good wing and other stump back into her body as she did.

On command, her body gained an unbelievable speed boost and seemed to dance between the homing spikes of the other incoming chaos chains. Her claws, legs and tail became blurred as a series of fast consecutive movements annihilated the surrounding solidified magics.

Another blast of chaos hit her from behind as Trey’s hand extended. Over and over they berated her heavily-armored body with a rage.

It seemed hopeless, but he wasn’t going to give up now. He’d taken one of her wings and caused her serious damage, so there was still a chance.

Ezdeath staggered under the barrage of blasts from Trey’s chaos balls and the follow up pestilence miracle explosions, only to glow red every couple seconds to cause her HP to spike or her rot to cleanse. Her armor was still in good condition despite the beating she was taking, and Trey felt the heavy hand of dismay lay itself to rest on his shoulders as his mana hit zero.

Then his rage bar went to full, 100/100. He may not have any mana left, but he still had stamina. He screamed with a crazed cackle as a torrent of madness overcame his mind. Unthinking and acting on instinct, he ordered Talsh’Noc’Un to unlock the next level of its thirsting.

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Talsh’Noc’Un, Sword of Ruin

Item Tier: (17) World

Damage: 4059

On Hit Effect: +12% additional chaos damage, 3% mana drain on enemy’s total mana

Bonuses: +71 Strength, +182 Vitality, +44 Dexterity, +167 Speed, +69 Intelligence,

+48 Wisdom, +93 Willpower

Requirements: Minionize this weapon to wield it at bare minimum potential, dealing 10%

of normal damage without bonuses. Requires 710 Strength and 138 Wisdom to

wield at full potential.

Durability: 12,000/12,000

Specials:

1 - Living Blade: Talsh’Noc’Un evolves and grows with its master, registers as a

demonic class minion. Occasionally for souls the wielder has struggled yet

prevailed to defeat gain an additional damage rating point or one

randomized stat added to the bonus categories that already exist. Evolutions

also occasionally occur with this blade after enormously challenging victories.

2 - Berserk: Tremendously increases aggression. Vast but temporary increase to

strength, speed, dexterity, intelligence, and faith. +180 to full body physical

and magic resistance. Immune to all debuffs. Lasts until out of combat.

Cooldown: Long

3 - Obliterate: Empower next attack, explodes upon impact. Damage is variable

based upon mana availability from the wielder. Cooldown: Medium.

4 - Thirsting: The longer the wielder owns this weapon, the more the wielder will

thirst for power and violence. Increasing thirsting level increases all damage

output by the wielder, but also adds insanity and aggression.

>Current Thirsting Level: 1 (+5% total damage output, +1% insanity and

aggression)

5 - Autoregulation - This weapon repairs itself, increasing lost durability over

time and is able to manipulate its own structure to the preference of its

wielder.

6 - Infernal Transcendance - Talsh’Noc’Un is able to select infernal creatures and

evolve them into something slightly greater. Target’s soul must be ready to

undertake transition, otherwise death may occur. High cooldown.

7 - Flight of Mechiaa - This cursed blade is able to fly about of its own free will for

limited amounts of time.

8 - Creature Compartments - This weapon has 5 grand soulstones built into it

that are altered to better contain infernal creatures, and is able to store these

creatures for later minionization.

Captured Creatures in Storage: 3/5 grand soul stones filled

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

9 - Abyssal Key - Unlock the lost realm of the Abyss with this blade. Traverse

between the Abyss and your realm of origin at will via portal upon a command

to your weapon.

Opinion of you: Content

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There it was... the way out of this predicament. He urged it to evolve, and the blade responded with a deep hiss. A moment later and a second crescent rune, marked with crimson light just as the first one at the base of the blade, was etched into the sword’s metal right above the original. He felt more than saw it, but the thirsting level went up by one level… along with the way his mind shifted and internally changed.

4 - Thirsting: The longer the wielder owns this weapon, the more the wielder will thirst for power and violence. Increasing thirsting level increases all damage output by the wielder, but also adds insanity and aggression.

>Current Thirsting Level: 2 (+30% total damage output, +5% insanity and aggression)

He drew back his arms with his sword overhead, and brought them forward to fling the weapon in a spinning arc - slamming into Ezdeath’s helm with a violent crunch. The surprise of the maneuver led her to drop her guard, the 100% damage increase by his rage bar, and the additional 30% bonus damage added on by Talsh’Noc’Un’s thirsting… it made a significant impact.

And then she… she was just gone again with another blur of motion he couldn’t track with his eyes. Talsh’Noc’Un passed through the air after the initial impact to obliterate one of the scattered stone pillars of the circular room, leaving Trey gaping despite his insanity roiling inside him.

He cackled softly to himself, looking around for his target. He simply wanted to kill this bitch… to take her life and be done with it. That’s it. That was the sole encompassing thing on his mind… yet here he was, still trying to locate her after she’d vanished. After another minute had passed and he whirled about a couple times, his rage bar began to drift back down and his sanity came back to normal.

From behind him a slow clap echoed out from behind him, but he feeling so sick that he didn’t want to look back and just stayed in place. He assumed it was Xil, that fucking lich was about to congratulate him on completing this ridiculous escapade of his... until a woman’s voice gently whispered into his ear.

“If I had been even a little bit slower… that would have killed me.”

Trey went cold as a wave of power crept over him. He very slowly turned to see the beautiful features of the succubus staring directly at him from only an inch away. She was absolutely gorgeous, and her snow-white hair hung down over her left eye as she gently stroked his face. Blood streaked the left side of her scalp, her helmet lay dented on the floor, but even despite this… she was everything he had ever dreamed of wanting. For a moment the fear dissipated and he was left with a feeling of overwhelming lust. He wanted her, and he wanted her badly.

Across the room, Rivia dropped to the ground in a heap from some attack Trey hadn’t seen. Rivia’s field of agony dissipated, turning the floor back from black to the gray stone it had been when they’d entered. Rivia for whatever reason had been spared and just lay unconscious.

Now only Trey was left… and even he was done-for.

It was over… they were going to die.

“I do not kill Alkir’s clergy…” Ezdeath eyed him curiously before reaching one hand down around his neck, and bringing his jaw up to meet hers she brought her face in to touch her nose to his softly. Upon doing so - the effect was complete, and he was under her control.

“Let me into your mind… let me see…” She whispered into his ear, relishing the victory with a widening smile… until her eyes finally found the glowing red marking on his chest.

Ezdeath’s facial expression utterly froze. First came confusion, then disbelief, then horror… and then they all intermixed with one another as her features shifted back and forth between the three.

The succubus lurched backwards as if in shock, standing up and taking three steps back even after that. Her eyes went wide and her breathing began to rapidly increase. Her right hand, the one gripping the halberd, abruptly began to shake - and she violently dropped the weapon while those golden eyes of hers remained locked on the symbol.

Trey gradually pushed himself up, coughed up thick, bloody mucous… and glanced down to his chest where Eleknar’s symbol burned across his skin. He glanced back up, and saw her continuing to stare. “I tried to-”

Before he could finish that sentence - she vaulted forward again and slammed a gauntlet across his mouth to keep him silent. She was manic now, her breathing becoming so quick and her eyes so wide that she looked absolutely crazy.

“QUIET!” the succubus hissed in a high-pitched, unbelieving snarl before looking down at the symbol again as she straddled him. “YOU FUCKING IMPOSTER! You will die a SLOW death for this! HOW-”

From the back of Trey’s mind, Eleknar’s presence unfurled. It was an abrupt, sudden action that took all of the mana left in Trey’s body - extinguishing it in an instant. That mana pulsed forward, through Trey’s fingertips, and plunged into Ezdeath as a dark miasma.

Trey sat there, being held down by the throat against the cold, stone floor… as Ezdeath stared down at him with her jaw unhinged and slackening. She blinked once, twice, and then three times before she slowly let go of his neck…

And then as the black miasma rippled across her skin… her golden eyes rolled back into her head, and she fell over - unconscious - onto the ground beside him.