Demoness 2 - ​Chapter 83 - Demi (Patreon)

Elania’s gaze locked onto the golden scarab as it stared back at her. It floated forward slowly, landing on her cheek. She wanted to flinch, to flick it off, but she and everything else were locked in place.

Her skin burned as its legs slid across her skin, leaving little golden footprints behind. It moved toward her lips. Panic and revulsion flared.

Her mouth was shut, but the insect was undeterred. It pulled her lips open with a gentle insistence that couldn’t be resisted. Then it pried her teeth apart and slipped into her mouth.

Her entire body tried to squirm instinctively, to no avail. It tasted like someone had dumped a pepper spray into her mouth and she couldn’t even flinch away.

Suddenly, the scarab darted down her throat, and she gagged, her eyes widening in shock. It settled deep within her core, a searing heat spreading through her body like wildfire.

Heat consumed her.

An ethereal figure materialized before her eyes. It was Eziel, his form shimmering and translucent. Elania screamed silently in fear and confusion, but the phantasm remained impassive.

He moved forward, his form overlaying hers as he knelt down. When the shadow of his golden sword touched her palm, the sensation of the hilt hit her.

It was solid and real. The phantasm winked out; the sword materialized in her hand.

[Godling! The chains of mortals might bind seraph and lesser kin, but you hold inside of you the seed of true divinity. The only thing that might hold you are things you allow.]

Elania looked up. The collar around her neck shattered like spun glass. Time began to resume, and the rest of the chains split asunder as she flashed forward.

When she reached Yolani, Keswick’s ballista bolt was still only halfway to its target. Elania placed Eziel in its path and reality finally returned to enforce time’s march.

The stone ballista bolt struck the flat of the blade and stopped.

Return to sender. Elania swung.

The disintegrating stone reversed course and slammed into Keswick like a spray of buckshot.

Shock, terror, and confusion played across the Magister’s face. Elania turned away, tossing Eziel aside to scoop Yolani up in her arms and pulling her away from the jagged stone spikes on the ground.

There was a ‘tsk’ sound that filled the air as the golden blade caught itself from clattering to the floor and beginning a hover in the air on its own.

Elania searched Yolani’s wide eyes.

“Elania?” she asked hesitantly, a hand coming up to touch golden locks of hair.

Wings flared around them as they began to hover out of the crumbling control room. “Are you okay?”

Yolani nodded quietly, but there was pain in her face.

Elania pulled on [Divine Mending] and a golden glow surrounded them.

Yolani’s breath hitched as relief hit her. “Thank you.”

Below, Keswick staggered to her feet. Blood poured from gaping wounds. Elania watched impassively as it looked like the woman tried to shout at them, only for blood to pour out of her mouth.

The memory of Elder Winx coming back after she had kicked him into the chasm hit her.

Reaching down, she aimed her open palm at Keswick and then clenched it into a fist.

The entire engine control room squashed itself into a round ball of gold and bronze colored metal with a crunch.

[You have slain Arch Magus - Human - Level 677]

[For slaying a being over 450 levels higher than you, extra experience is rewarded.]

[You have gained 27 levels!]

Golden lightning crackled through the chamber, disintegrating everything it touched. The astrolabe of the Celestial Engine shuddered and groaned before the spinning metal tore itself apart. Shells of golden metal exploded in gouts of divine flame that melted the tower’s walls like wax.

Reality ripped in great tears, alternating portals to realms of inky black and golden light opening on their own.

Yolani clutched at her while Eziel flew on his own, following their ascent.

Elania rose into the air, her body weightless as she floated upwards and out of the crumbling control room. The golden energies swirled around her, caressing her skin like a lover’s touch.

“Elania, what’s happening?” Yolani whispered.

Eziel answered.

[The Celestial Engine has fallen. Its share of reality’s maintenance now rests upon the remaining engines.]

Eziel’s voice echoed through the chaos, his words cutting through the noise like a blade.

“What do you mean?” she asked, her arms tightening around Elania’s neck.

It was a good question. Elania listened for the answer, too.

[The concept seed has settled within Elania. She is Demi-Divine.]

Uhh. Oh. She wanted to ask what the concept seed was doing inside of her. Because she already had a good idea of what it was. The thought made her stomach turn queasy.

Elania’s arm tightened around Yolani’s waist as they floated upwards through a gaping hole in the Magistry tower. The structure was riddled with massive tears and golden cracks, reality itself seemingly shattered. The engine chamber itself fell away into a collapse, sending plumes of golden light into the air.

For some reason, the rest of the tower stood firm, as if nothing had happened. Elania bit her lip. Somehow, that had more to do with broken rules than any strength present in the stonework.

At least, that was what it looked like to her.

They landed on a floating piece of roof that wasn’t attached to anything. Elania set Yolani down gently, her eyes scanning the chaos below.

The district was under a massive assault. The monk’s siege weapons were no longer impeded by the divine shield. Golden orbs smashed into cannon emplacements while machine guns attempted to silence their sources.

A breach formed in one of the gates and Lightbringers poured into the district, thin lines of Guards rushing to meet them with sword and shield. Musket fire from the walls began to erupt both outward and inward.

Around the district, sections of the city crumbled as high-powered elemental cannon shot scoured the area clear. Whoever was in charge of the ammunition selection had decidedly determined that collateral damage was no longer something that could be avoided.

Yolani’s voice trembled. “The city is lost.”

[The Lightbringers cannot corrupt another Engine now.]

Eziel’s words hung in the air, a cold comfort. Elania’s brow furrowed.

Her senses expanded, and she could feel something closing in on them. Slowly, but steadily. It would take days, but…

“The pocket is crumbling,” she said, her voice steady. “It’s starting at the edge of the depths and working its way inward.”

A light stone cracked and then fell before a second one joined it. Suddenly, across the city, all the sources of light began to crash, exploding like bombs upon impact.

Each one taking with it a portion of the light that was quickly fading.

Yolani buried her face in Elania’s shoulder. Elania looked out across the city and raised her hand.

The gesture was simple, but the surrounding air warped, as if there had been a hitch in the light. The crashing light stones froze, some mid-fall, and hung like blazing stars.

As she gazed across the ruins of Neftasu, Elania’s vision shifted.

Ethereal golden lines appeared, thin ropes that ran from the city to touch her. Some even ran out of the cavern itself. The thickest one was the shortest of all, a blazing tunnel of light connecting her to Yolani.

Elania reached out and Eziel floated into her hand. She raised the sword and a golden dome slid down from the top of the Magistry tower and reformed its base around the outer walls.

The monks’ siege projectiles slammed into it without success.

As the dome solidified and turned transparent, pillars formed around the tower’s damage, struts acting as reinforcement to a place that had been sundered.

“We can leave the city,” Elania said. “We can fly up through the elevator to safety.”

Yolani squeezed her, a single, hesitant nod.

[The task is not yet complete. Elder Holt must be dealt with, and my brother must be granted peace from his enslavement.]

Eziel’s words echoed in the air, and she realized he was referring to the chained seraph the Conclave had used.

She had no real idea of what torments or suffering the seraph might have endured, or any concept of how long. But when she thought of what they had done to Yolani without a second thought, her resolve hardened.

A sudden sense of purpose washed over her.

“You’re right,” she said, her grip tightening on Eziel’s hilt. “We can’t leave until we see things to the end.”