Charles, seeing that his sister was going with his usual element, decided to go with fire instead. A pair of large firebolts formed above his hands as he flung them at the fallen gods. Fighting in the sky was always a mess, in his opinion.

It was too easy to dodge attacks at any range. That meant he had to get in close, which of course increased the danger.

That left him with two options, increasing the speed of his attacks or finding another way to get in close.

The second option was currently easier for him.

Charles blinked behind the right-most Ahriman and cast ‘Frost’ on him. It was a basic ice spell that he had just supercharged. The base version simply slowed the target down. The one Charles had just used had frozen his wings solid and sent him plummeting to the ground.

Charlotte was quick to take control of her daggers with metal element magic and send them ripping into his neck.

While she was doing that, Charles made sure the other two stayed off her back. It was hardly the perfect solution, but it was all they could do at the moment. Against a god who had the ability to seemingly clone himself and work almost as one, despite the number.

In some ways, Ahriman had the potential to be a stronger opponent than the others they had faced because of that. Thankfully, thus far, they had been able to catch him off guard and eliminate two of the body doubles.

It was a small favor that vanished in an instant as a third Ahriman appeared in the sky behind the two Charles was already facing.

He cursed and risked a glance down at his sister and the fourth Ahriman she was working over with her blades.

“So, you can keep regenerating them?” He asked wearily.

The three nodded with a gleeful smirk.

Charles felt his determination momentarily falter at the thought of the coming slog. No matter what he and his sister did, they were looking at a long fight if Ahriman could simply keep bringing the clone’s back from the dead. They either needed to find a way to defeat the real one, if that even mattered, or defeat all four at once.

No, he grinned and looked down at his sister again. There was one more option, they could simply disable the doubles instead of fully eliminating them entirely. He would be the first to admit the idea presented problems of its own. However, it was better than dealing with an endless line of them.

There was a wet thump from below them as Charlotte kicked the bloody corpse to the ground. She flew up to rejoin them and immediately took note of the three daevas flying in front of them. Their wings flapping desperately to keep them in the air.

“I could have sworn you killed one of them already!”

“I did.”

“Oh,” She glanced at the fresh body on the ground, and then behind them at the crater where the first one had been. “Ohhh, well crap.”

“Pretty much yeah.” He replied.

The three remaining Ahrimans were seemingly content to let the siblings waste time.

“So that means the one I just wasted will come back in a minute, then?”

Charles nodded. “This could take a while if we aren’t careful.”

“How long has it been?” She asked.

“We’re closing in on a minute.”

Charlotte bit the corner of her lip as she waited for the fourth Ahriman to appear. Which he did around the minute ten-second mark. She was willing to attribute the ten seconds to him not having been fully dead yet when she left him on the ground.

That meant they now had a benchmark for how long it would take for the clones to come back. Which meant they needed to eliminate them all within a single minute’s time.

The four Ahriman smirked and twirled their glaives. “Are you beginning to understand the price of killing Aeshma?”

Charles cracked his neck and pushed a finger against the side of his nose to blow it. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re just making this harder on yourself and more annoying for us. Nothing more, nothing less.”

His sister tilted her head and stared at him for a moment before shrugging. “Sure, I don’t see why you’re so confident. All we have to do is wear you down, if nothing else. It will be annoying, but it won’t be something worth writing home about either.”

She was bluffing. They both were.

Charles had his mana regeneration rune, but she didn’t. That meant he could conceivably keep going for as long as he physically had stamina. That wasn’t the case for Charlotte, who had more limited resources to work with.

The daeva of destruction and evil shook his different heads. “You simply haven’t thought it through yet, but that is fine. We will play with you while you do.”

Charles began gathering mana into his hands while Charlotte gripped her daggers. Below them, Kira had already torn through over fifty of the monsters. It gave the people from the town enough breathing room to send out their own warriors.

They weren’t the deadliest, but they knew how to work together and were better than nothing.

Charles flew forward, the lightning bolts jumping out of his hands with an earsplitting crack to hit the two daevas in the middle.

***

Charlotte panted wearily, her arms dragging by her side, and glared at the four beings in front of them. The ground below them had become a cratered mess as one Ahriman after another had self-destructed. It was pointless trying to leave one of them alive.

Not when they were so willing to eliminate themselves.

If one was unconscious, then another simply took care of finishing off the disabled body for them. With just the two of them, it was impossible to keep all of them busy at the same time.

Not to mention, they had noticed another thing. The new Ahrimans always came back fresh and full of energy.

They were positive they had eliminated all four of them by that point as well. Which meant either there was a fifth Ahriman hiding somewhere, or the main body could be switched among the doubles.

Considering they couldn’t sense a fifth one anywhere in the vicinity, the second option seemed more likely. It also explained why he had been so confident before. He was basically unkillable and would always have energy at his disposal after creating a new body double.

It was a broken, almost cheat-like ability.

So, while she was tired, and running out of energy, a state even Charles was getting close to physically, the daeva was still fresh as could be.

“I didn’t think I’d miss seeing our powers sealed this much already,” Charles grumbled, fixing his eyes on the daeva.

“Tell me about it. I didn’t think something so many levels beneath us would provide such a challenge.” Charlotte puffed, drifting to the ground to rest. She had her fists placed firmly against her heaving, sweaty sides. “I haven’t had a workout this intense since cross-country in high school.”

“I still can’t believe mom and dad made you do that.” Charles had refused to even entertain the idea of running such long distances when they tried to get him to sign up.

“Eh, it was therapeutic in a way. Not enough to keep doing it for more than the one year, but the exercise did help to clear my mind.” She panted out with a shake of her sodden hair.

“And how’s this working for you? Is your mind clear enough to come up with a workable plan?” Everything they had tried thus far had been unsuccessful. The most they had managed to ever get with their attacks was three of the daevas. Which left the fourth one to run free for a minute until more could be brought back.

“The only things I keep thinking of require more than just the two of us.” She looked quickly behind them to where Kira was finishing off the last of the troublesome horde.

Any stragglers could be taken care of by the people of the town.

“Looks like she’s almost done.”

“That’ll help, but she’s land bound. If he takes to the sky, her usefulness is cut by a fair margin.”

“That’s mean,” Charles protested.

The four Ahrimans looked up at the position of the sun as they drifted to the ground in front of them. “I believe the requisite time to play with you has nearly come to an end. This has been entertaining. It is almost a shame to end our time together. However, you did kill Aeshma, and that is a crime that you must pay for.”

“Get ready,” Charles whispered to his sister. “I think he’s about to do something stupid.”

“You think?” She growled back tiredly. “The question is, what counts as stupid for something like him, and what was he delaying us for?”

Two of the Ahrimans broke off from the others, heading towards the siblings at top speed.

“It’s a bombing run!” Charles shouted, grabbing his sister and blinking away from them.

In the distance, the rest of their party finally arrived on the scene to find the area mostly destroyed. Alli, with Sierra on her back and the two girls astride Inara, with Balor tagging along, appeared in time to see Charles blink away with his sister.

“What in the world happened here?” Beth muttered in awe at the destroyed landscape.

“A stalling tactic for the crazy God, nothing more,” Balor replied. “You should help them before it is too late, if it isn’t already.”