Charles watched in awe as his fiancé tore into the horde of monsters attacking the town. Her hammer switching forms as she went from one type of monster to the next. It wasn’t something she needed to do, but Kira enjoyed remaining in practice and not letting her skills grow stale simply because she could overpower them.

“You realize you’re probably going to lose every major argument with her in the future, right?” Charlotte said from the side.

“Maybe,” He agreed. “She can handle the scrubs. Let’s take care of the fallen god!” His eyes were narrowed dangerously as he glared at the being below. He was just as angry as Kira was at it for the part it was playing in keeping them from going to the other groups rescue.

“It’s not just the one.” Charlotte tapped her glasses and pointed to three more locations. “There are four of them in total.” She finished in a near whisper.

“That could present a little more of a problem,” Charles analyzed the first one to see what they were dealing with.

Ahriman Lv. 20 Class: Daeva

Zoroastrian daeva of ‘Destruction’ and ‘Evil’, who willingly chose this path upon his birth. He enjoys delivering unexpected, and often challenging and unpleasant tasks to those he meets. Usually gaining great joy in watching their lives fall apart afterward.

Charles skimmed the rest of what it said before closing it with a sigh.

“Well, we have another daeva on our hands. This one seems to have been higher up the chain than Aeshma was, but since it just barely fell, its level isn’t too high yet.” He said that, but level twenty was still high enough to potentially cause them some issues.

Not to mention the three that were still in hiding, they could be even more dangerous.

“Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this was planned,” Charlotte told her brother as they remained in the air, thinking.

“I have a feeling you’re right. What is Dantanian getting from this?”

“We already know what he wants, mom. The question is, how does any of this help him get her?”

“I don’t really care at this point, as long as we can stop him!” Charles charged down like a missile for the daeva of destruction.

He didn’t care about the beings’ long bladed glaive staff or the scorpion tail-tipped wings on its back. All Charles was focused on was eliminating yet another annoyance.

Ahriman, however, had other ideas, as living people often do.

He flew backward at the last second, dodging Charles’ reckless diving attack. The scorpion tails on his wings snapped out, threatening to sink into the vulnerable flesh in front of him.

Charles blinked out of the way, taking the opportunity to drop an icy lance down on the fallen god from above. The lance tore through a pair of the daeva’s four wings, ripping them from its back along with the corresponding tails.

“So, you are the one who murdered Aeshma!” Ahriman spat at him, as he hit the ground, no longer able to fly with half his wings missing.

“Murder sounds a little harsh. He did attack me and mine, time and again.”

“He was a god!”

“He was a piece of garbage! You know the rules of this world. You and all the other gods helped create them, after all. The strong survive and the weak die.” Charles snarled, gathering mana for a spell into both his fists. “He was weak, so he died. That was the choice he made when he came down here.”

He slammed his fists together, feeling a bit theatrical as he created the ‘Divine Electric Golem’. The daeva in front of him was an evil being, which meant that anything holy would do more damage than regular attacks. The divine electric golem was actually a seemingly misnamed holy spell.

The divine part of the name came from the ‘Divine Wisp’ it used as the basis for the holy component. It was a powerful spell, but it only lasted ten seconds before vanishing. That didn’t give it a lot of time to do a lot of damage.

Usually, it was enough to weaken the target, which was enough.

This time it managed a little more than that, but not much.

Ahriman was in a rough state when it vanished ten seconds later. His robe had been singed away, and his grey skin, a match for Aeshma’s, was burnt black all over.

“Do you think that will be enough to stop me?” The daeva growled, standing before him. His burnt skin cracking open and weeping pus and blood as he moved.

“Honestly? No. I would have been disappointed if it had been. Aeshma took far more damage than you have so far before going down. Even the first time we fought, he was more impressive than you have been so far.” Charles dared to glance away and look up at his sister. “Are you waiting for the other three to step in before beginning to fight for real?”

The fallen god seemed to struggle with something, looking down at his wounds in anger. “Why aren’t they healing?”

“Holy element, against an evil being. Why would they be easy to heal?”

Ahriman roared in anger and threw himself at Charles. “I’ll kill you! There are so few of us left that haven’t been forgotten, and you had to go and kill Aeshma!”

Charles waited until the last second to dodge the glaive, Blinking behind him again. He sent a burst of lightning into the god’s back and watched as his muscles locked up and began to twitch spastically. The glaive fell from his grasp, and Charles picked it up.

“You know it’s really too bad I can’t put this one in my inventory like I did with Aeshma’s trident. He really did not like it when I stole his weapon. I guess I’m just going to have to do this instead.” He plunged the bladed end into Ahriman’s chest and began to pull up, slicing him open. “You should never have agreed to work with Dantanian!”

“You’re an idiot,” The fallen god bubbled out, blood coating his black tongue. He grinned as his skin began to bulge outward.

Charles opened his eyes wide and blinked away. “Run!” He screamed to his sister, taking to the sky a beat later.

Behind them, the body of Ahriman exploded, cratering outward and flinging them through the sky with the shockwave.

“What was that?” Charlotte cried as they regained control and looked back at the blackened several-meter-deep hole the explosion had left behind.

“That, I think that was Ahriman testing us out. There is no way the real him is that weak. It must have been an ability of some kind. Something he used to test us out.” Charles wiped the cold sweat from his brow with shaking hands. That had been entirely too close.

The three fallen gods that Charlotte had identified as hiding before revealed themselves at last. Each one was a duplicate of Ahriman.

“Definitely an ability then,” Charlotte licked her dry lips while unsheathing her daggers. She didn’t exactly relish the thought of getting up close and personal with someone who could blow up.

Charles looked sideways at her, not willing to turn away from the approaching enemy. “You know, you just learned a bunch of new spells from me. Remember?”

She had, in fact, forgotten in the heat of the moment. “I haven’t been able to practice using any of them yet.” She muttered defensively. Which was true, they had been on the space station.

“Well, now’s as good a time as any.”

“Humph.”

The three came to a stop in front of them. Each of their four wings flapping frantically to keep them in the air.

“Ahriman,” Charles began. “I’m guessing one of you is the real one, and I’m also assuming you got everything that happened just now.”

The three nodded in unison.

“Great.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked down to see how Kira was doing.

She was doing just fine and was demolishing everything that came her way. She had taken a few hits but had been able to heal them away with her ‘Life of the Defeated’ ability. It stored the life-force energy of those she defeated and used it for healing whenever she needed it.

It was the perfect ability to have for someone fighting against a large horde. As long as she didn’t get tired, she was golden, but even stamina could be healed to a certain extent.

He looked back up and took in the three identical daevas. Two of them would undoubtedly explode on them. There was even the possibility that the real one would as well, just for spite.

Charlotte cursed. “Screw this. I’m not waiting around anymore. Let’s go!”

A plasma bolt formed above her hand, superheating the air around her. She had already had the elements for metal and electricity even before touching Charles’ core. Which had allowed her to gain access to a more advanced spell right away that shared the two.