"Three Supreme Wizards to fight a single me?" The shadow slowly became more and more defined, revealing its yellow, shining eyes. "I'm flattered, creatures of Artius!"
Sylvester, Malisius and Rathagun watched the Demon come out in the open. Emerging from the jaws of the tentacle creature. The Demon slowly floated upwards toward the sky, finally revealing its complete form.
It was humanoid, standing six feet tall with an average build. There were no clothes on its muscular upper body, and its head looked like a skull with hair and two sharp, long horns.
There was a black, smoke-like piece of cloth tied around its waist. His entire body was dark ashen, and there was no visible armour on him.
"He can speak," Rathagun exclaimed.
Sylvester was as shocked as the rest, "This is my first time seeing such a Demon—all the others in the past could say one or two words at most."
"Let's kill it," Malisius said with a lot of malice.
Sylvester agreed with him, but he didn't know how easy it was going to be. However, he didn't bother warning the others since the two men were full of confidence and would not take his words seriously in any case. The best course was to let them face the consequences of their actions as long as they didn't lead to death.
"I know the name of the Demon, so I'll start the ritual to banish it," Sylvester told the two monarchs. "I'll need you to keep it occupied."
"Easy!" Mailisius roared and sharpened his claws.
Sylvester shared a glance with King Rathagun, "Be careful! Do remember that he can absorb your magical power. It probably has all the natural abilities of all species."
Rathagun carefully nodded and brandished his sword, "I understand, Pope Sylvester."
Right away, the elven King moved with King Malisius toward the Demon. They flew carefully, unaware of how the Demon would react or fight them. They expected dark elemental attacks, but having heard Sylvester, they also expected the other elements.
"Two against one? I'll take my chances," Zama'tar's mouth on the skull curved into a creepy smile.
Boom!
"Ugh!" Malisius groaned, noticing the creature's countless tentacles below swinging in the air around them at a sharp speed, forcing them to dodge it.
Malisius suddenly changed his size and grew his claws out, appearing as sharp as a sword. He didn't dodge the tentacles anymore and swung his claw anytime they came close. He easily cut through them. However, they soon realised the tentacles instantly grew back.
This merely being the phase to test the waters, King Rathagun also attempted it and sliced the tentacles with his light elemental sword. This time, it took some time to grow back.
Woosh!
Right then, a beam of light came zooming in from behind the two monarchs and struck a cluster of tentacles as they rose from the ground like countless trees and branches.
The light beam was tens of metres wide, shining gold and blazed through. It burned all the tentacles it touched and formed a hole in the mass as far as the beam went.
Sylvester watched as the damage he did healed back. But with one look, he realised what they were truly up against.
"That's not a Demon! It's a massive Bloodling created from the amalgamation of many other Bloodings. I'll take care of it. You two focus on the Demon!" Sylvester told them and started to chant under his breath. This was the only way he knew how to defeat the Demons.
"Chonky," he whispered to the furry cat on his shoulder. "Go to the edge of the swamp on the ridge. Set up one of the bigger Solarium Light Cannons that I made with Elder Magic. Shoot it at the monster Bloodling down there—it should be able to deal some damage."
Miraj's eyes sparkled as he got to do something, "Aye, Aye, Maxy! I will kill it!"
With Miraj gone, Sylvester went all out without worrying about his little friend's well-being. His golden eyes began to shine with light, and using the Elder Magic, he created rune inscriptions in the middle of the air that came out of his body from all sides. They looked like tightly knit chains but were instead runes meant to hold Zama'tar in place and exorcise it.
'Now that I understand runes better—These exorcism runes don't have anything related to God or light. It's as if… it's related to the space element.' Sylvester noticed when millions of lines sprawled from his body and flew towards the Demon. 'A demon's body would never be in harmony with this realm's laws if it came from a different realm, with a different set of rules.'
"Hahaha…" Zama'tar laughed maniacally and started flying around. Around his legs was a constant stream of black smoke that left a trail in the air. He was fast and swung his arms rapidly, controlling the tentacles from the ground and throwing them around at will as if they were his weapons.
"You underestimate us," King Rathagun finally got serious and placed his sword back in its sheath. He was a wizard in the end. His black hair began floating abruptly, and his armour flickered green. "Mother Remira is mighty, for nature exists everywhere."
Boom!
As Rathagun began chasing after Zama'tar while avoiding the tentacles at lightning speed, the dried, destroyed swamp began to suffer through a massive earthquake. Cracks formed in places, and from them came massive, thick roots as large as the tentacles. They slowly began to grip the monster Bloodling, stopping its tentacles from hindering them.
"Wonderful!" Zama'tar praised while floating around. "All these years, I've been waiting for this moment to absorb a few Supreme Wizards—I will cherish your abilities, Rathagun. But…"
Click!
Zama'tar snapped his fingers once, and immediately, the vines that stopped the monster Bloodling began to dry up and crumble.
"Which elf did you absorb?!" Rathagun roared, his eyes bloodshot since he understood how uncommon green magical elemental abilities were and how cherished they were among the elves.
"Wraaaa!"
Before Zama'tar could reply, King Malisius roared in front of him, jaw wide open and hot, intense flames spewing from his mouth. His entire body was on fire, appearing like armour all over him. Only his eyes were discernible and shined like beams of bloodied crimson lights.
Woosh!
Zama'tar dodged, but Malisius swung his majestic wings, sending tornadoes of brilliant fire at him, covering the Demon.
Rathagun immediately flung his arms, grabbing giant pieces of ground as if huge boulders and sending them flying all around Zama'tar's body.
Boom!
The boulders gathered together and fused with each other, forming a spherical cage of boulders around the Demon.
Crush!
Rathagun pressed his palms together, and the spherical cage of boulders squeezed into itself, crushing Zama'tar inside it. Veins bulged on Rathagun's face as he gave it his all, putting all his power into crushing the enemy.
"Wraaa!"
Malisius circled the floating prison of rocks and spewed his flames, melting it all into a mess, turning the individual boulders into fused pieces, and eventually leaving the sphere as a single piece.
"Human Pope! Do it!" The dragon roared.
Sylvester walked forward on his Light Tiles, and the chains of Elder Runes shined gold surrounding the cage. Round and round, weaving itself about in all directions. It began to look like an actual cage.
"Keep the hold tight!" Sylvester ordered the two.
Rathagun was already sweating, and Malisius began using his fire elemental magic to mould any cracks that would appear from the resistance Zama'tar likely showed inside.
♫From the world beyond, we accept no Demon,
May you be banished with my holy sermon.
You are the reason for countless people's plight,
Begon—bellows the earth, fright in my light.♫
Ting!
Sylvester's halo suddenly turned crimson as he noticed some of the chains cracked and fell apart, the Elder Runes proving to be ineffective. He could see many cracks forming all over the cage of boulders faster than Malisius could mend.
'Is the ritual useless now? Zama'tar was granted a perfect body as a medium by Lazark's teacher… Is he no different from a human now?' Sylvester wondered, doubts forming in his heart.
Woosh!
Bam!
"Argh!" Lost in thought and so much more, Sylvester failed to notice the tentacles of the Bloodling below being freed once again. They scraped his back quite heavily. But he immediately used healing on himself, not resorting to mutilation like Malisius.
'What is Chonky doing?'
Left with no other choice and wanting to focus on Zama'tar, he looked down, looking scary with his bright halo and shining eyes. He pointed one finger toward the massive Bloodling.
Just like when Rathagun did it, the ground shook. But this time, even bigger roots and vines came out of the cracks. They squeezed the massive, disgusting creature of death, freezing it in place. All the tentacles were also trapped, covered with green that appeared out of nowhere.
"You can also—!" Rathagun exclaimed, glancing at his son with pride in his eyes.
Sylvester shook his head and focused back on the Demon as the pressure against his chains of runes increased. "Solis or Remira, I'm blessed plenty."
Crack!
"He's coming out!" Malisius abruptly roared, sounding like a cry for help. "It caught my leg!"
Sylvester frowned and looked. A skeleton arm had come out from a tiny gap in the rune chains since no normal arm could from that small space. It had caught Malisius' leg, and just from the toxicity of the Demon's dark element, his entire leg began to turn black—rotting.
"Chop it!" Sylvester bellowed.
Boom!
Right then, Zama'tar's skull-like head emerged from the rune cage, having dug to the edge of the boulder prison.
His mouth still curved in a creepy smile. He laughed at Malisius, "Haha… You can't win against General Zama'tar, Artiusians—Give me your magic!"
"Cut your leg! It's draining your magical abilities!" Sylvester shouted.
"I can't! Human! I can't move!" Malisius roared in panic.
Sylvester showed an angry and worried expression for the first time. He stopped using the rune chains since they had turned out to be ineffective. But it took some time for the chains to vanish, and in that duration, he kicked the Light Tile and moved like a flash of lightning, a light sword already formed in his hand.
Woosh!
He chopped Malisius' leg and threw the King of dragons away.
"Don't get caught by him!" Sylvester shouted and retreated, creating some distance. He watched as Zama'tar freed himself and created flesh on his exposed skeleton arm.
"NO!" Malisius' enraged roar echoed right then. "My magic! It's two levels down!"
"Good mother Remira!" Rathagun prayed to the goddess. "It only took him a few blinks of the eye—How do we kill it now?"
'How?' Sylvester wondered the same.
Bzzz…!
"Hmm?" At that moment, all of them, including the Demon, looked to the right, towards the swamp's edge. A humongous surge of magical energy formed there, and a blinding light flashed, akin to nothing they had seen before. It was the middle of the day, and yet the light was such that everything turned white.
Seeing that, Sylvester only had one name under his breath.
'Chonky?! What did you do now?'
A/N: See Zama'tar
