Demoness 2 - Chapter 35 - Outrage (Finale) (Patreon)

Elania watched Joren closely as she, Gaston, and the guide followed him up the circular stairwell. The monk was clearly upset, and the guilt in his eyes stoked the anger in her chest.

He had once helped her on the way to the city, keeping the inter-party conflict muted, but what had the monks done to Yolani that she could see the shame in his eyes?

Torture came to mind first, but that threatened to make her lose her focus. There were shouts and vibrations echoing through the fortress behind them, and she needed to be ready to react if someone came up behind them.

The stairwell opened into a wide hallway, and Joren led them to a door at the end. He hesitated and then stepped inside.

The room was large; there were already a dozen monks inside, all of them looking at the door with surprise. Yolani and Henri were kneeling on the floor, their wrists bound and tied behind their backs. Both of them had a gag, and Yolani tried to struggle to tell them something.

For all her mental preparations and telling herself that she was ready to act without hesitation, Gaston moved first. He grabbed Joren and shoved him into the room, using the monk as a body shield as he led the party inside.

Elania bit her lip as her rifle came up but held off firing. The weapon wasn’t nearly accurate enough to ensure she didn’t accidentally hit her friends.

As she examined the group waiting for them, she realized they weren’t all monks.

There were several Lightbringers as well, and then her gaze settled on one man in the back. He was wearing a robe, but it was a different color than the standard gray of the monks, a beige with yellow embroidery.

[Elder Winx - Human - Lvl 412]

The memory of one of the monk guard’s words came back to her. Here was the ‘Elder’ that was in charge of security.

The man oozed presence and power like the Magisters.

“Release them,” Gaston ordered, his voice hard but strained.

Elder Winx’s eyes narrowed. “It seems our intruders have come to us.”

Elania’s eyes flicked to the sides. The monks and Lightbringers all seemed to ready their weapons at once. She wasn’t sure what array of spells and abilities they had, but she was certain that this wasn’t going to be as ‘easy’ as the dungeon had been.

“It’s the demon,” West hissed, his eyes settling on her. “Look at her eyes, she’s been supping on the engine.”

It wasn’t like she had a mirror to check out the varying state of her eye color, but it was a guess that they’d shifted towards being gold again. She hadn’t been keeping track of her essence distribution.

[Soul Management]

[Darkwalker Core - 33%]

[Divine Core - 33%]

[Human Core - 34%]

[Essence Distribution]

[Darkwalker - 25%, Divine - 33%, Human - 29%, Other - 13%]

When had it worked its way up so high? It seemed like it had jumped up suddenly after remaining low since she’d fed the Celestial Engine. She’d need to revisit the Magistry soon.

There was a sudden shift in the air, and she realized she had zoned out. The monks and Lightbringers were all looking at her, ignoring Gaston and the guide.

“Demon, surrender yourself,” Elder Winx ordered. “Your friends will be spared once the Guard pay for their heavy-handed acts of depravity.”

Elania shook her head. “I was raised to believe in never making deals with terrorists.”

Confusion ran across their faces, and that was just fine with her.

She took a heavy drag on her mana shard that was partially drained, pushing her past her normal limit high enough to set her nerves on fire. Then she tugged on another, clearing it out as well.

It was far, far more [Power]than she’d dared to use before, but her capacity had been rising steadily.

She only had two mana shards left, and she needed to finish things before they ran out.

Then again, there were a lot of free energy sources in the room, if she could get to them. That was a kind of thinking she had always shied away from, but that was a luxury she didn’t think they could afford.

[Power: 2937/1544]

Her skin felt like it was on fire, and the sweat that seeped down her forehead glowed with a golden hue, evaporating into a thin sheen of glowing steam.

Okay, she hadn’t meant to go super-saiyan-ish. At least her hair hadn’t turned into golden spikes.

An updraft around her blew her shimmering ruby hair until it was floating. Gaston and the guide looked at her in alarm and scooted away from her.

Well, their plan had been shit from the start. Why bother working things out now, in the face of the enemy?

“You two should go back down,” Elania warned.

“Elania! I don’t know what you’re thinking, but Henri and Yolani will be caught up in your attack!” Gaston shouted at her.

Joren started to speak. “Elania, please. Obey Elder Winx…”

She grabbed his arm. “Why is his name his literal class?”

He didn’t get a chance to answer. There wasn’t really time for it. The Lightbringer nearest to Yolani stepped toward the Conclave’s two captives.

She had absolutely zero interest in hearing an ultimatum backed up by the threat of murder, and they had made the mistake of not having their blades at their captive’s throats.

Joren weighed nothing to her, and he screamed as his arm dislocated as she pulled him closer so she could pick him up and throw him as a missile at the Lightbringer.

It wasn’t quite possible to keep up behind him as he flew, but her sprint cracked the floor with each step as she flung herself forward.

The monks reacted immediately, but that wasn’t fast enough to stop Joren from slamming into the first Lightbringer and sending them into several others like a tangle of bowling pins.

“Kill it!” Elder Winx shouted. Golden light flashed down into the room as chants erupted. A golden bell slammed into place in front of her.

Elania wasn’t sure when her Vorpal dagger ended up in her hand, but she poured power into it and slashed horizontally. A wave of vicious red energy flowed off the blade like a rope, hitting the bell with enough force to wrap around it.

The bell groaned, then cracked. She flew through the exploding shards of golden light.

Despite using Joren as a projectile, she barely arrived in time as one of Lightbringers that had avoided being knocked over stepped over them. She reached out with her palm and blasted him away with a thump of kinetic [Power] as he slashed at her.

Yolani looked up at her with panic in her eyes. Well, that was fair. They were in the middle of a dozen attackers, all focusing their precious ‘holy’ magic on them.

“Don’t worry. I came up with a plan.” Elania’s voice was strained, the crackling energy around her making her feel like she was about to explode. She wasn’t even lying. She’d come up with it on the spot.

The little wrist band she’d made for the mana shards pulled off with a snap and she held it up in the air. Three of the five shards were already drained, but that left two full ones.

Her capacity was already at its limit and beyond, but she didn’t intend to drain them into herself.

She’s learned a lot about [Power] and how it worked, most importantly the amount of power used resulted in an exponential increase in the amount of energy released.

What they needed were two things: a nice protective shield and a big explosion.

That sort of sucked for Gaston, but he’d just have to understand. The good news was the enemy was right in line with the center of the city. She pulled the two mana shards apart on the bracelet, letting the empty ones fall and spread her arms out and then crushed them in her hands.

Outrage filled Elder Winx’s face as he finished his chant.

Elania pulled her internal energy into a small sphere around Yolani, Henri, and herself. Then the room exploded in a blinding flash of light and heat.

The only thing separating them from it was a thin blue bubble formed from her own internal [Power] store… it included the stone under their feet, too. That was a good thing, because it looked like the rock outside was melting. The good news was the directional strike she had envisioned seemed to work, leaving everything behind her intact.

Kneeling down, Elania removed the gags from her two friends.

The expression on Yolani’s face morphed between a half dozen emotions instantly. “Elania what have you done!”

Elania furrowed her brow. Wasn’t that obvious? “I’m rescuing you!”

The blast light slowly began to clear. The energy had pulverized everything that there wasn’t even a lot of smoke. There wasn’t much left of anything—there was a triangular cut from the room they had been in that had grown like an inverse pyramid until it had cleared the entire fortress, deleting it from existence.

Unfortunately, it looked like it had blasted into part of the Conclave district as well, and left a deep, still burning gouge in the city cavern’s ceiling. Several hanging light stones looked like they had half their chains snapped and were about to plummet, too.

Worst of all, Elder Winx was floating in the air on a golden disk a stupid golden monk bell thing surrounding him.

Fuck.