Demoness 2 - ​Chapter 48 - Ambushes (Patreon)

Elania soared high above the rooftops, keeping pace with the carriage below. Her wings cut through the air effortlessly as she scanned the streets for any signs of danger.

They were there alright, moving into position at the intersections as the carriage blew past them. Yolani was preventing them from surrounding her thanks to the mad rush, but if the carriage stopped…

Things were going to be dicey. It felt like every monk that had crossed over before the bridge to the Conclave Fortress was destroyed was here.

And after them.

The guard had been right, they really should have moved faster in the shop. Neither Bannon nor Keswick had really warned them about this being a possibility, though.

She focused her senses, trying to locate the Conclave Elder she knew was still pursuing them. That didn’t take long.

Elania glimpsed movement on the rooftops, a figure leaping from building to building with inhuman agility. He wasn’t making any attempt to cloak or hide the powerful aura that stood out, either.

Now that she had a sense of him, she could almost feel him in the air, like if she had been holding her hand near a hot surface. Or the heat of a campfire on her face…

Except this one was a person and wanted to murder her and her group.

He was catching up fast, and it was obvious he was positioning himself to cut them off. Elania gritted her teeth. She was going to have to do something about that.

She glanced down at the carriage, ensuring Yolani was still in control. The carriage made a sharp turn, and then another. It was a good attempt at trying to forestall the incoming ambush, but it made anticipating the Elder’s next move difficult.

Worse, with there being monks everywhere…

A wrong turn put Yolani on a narrow street, with a group of monks already in place on a rooftop ahead of the carriage. They were watching the carriage, and a few were already chanting something.

Elania’s heart raced as she realized the danger. If she wanted to even have time to deal with the Elder, she needed to stop them.

Immediately.

Adding [Power] to her wings provided a burst of speed that left a crack of wind. That got their attention, but she folded her wings and dove toward them without hesitation.

A series of half-formed workings flew up at her, but she easily rolled out of the way.

She didn’t want to spend more time than necessary dealing with them, but she held back her most powerful attack.

Obliterating them wouldn’t give her a chance to recharge.

She broke her momentum as soon as her feet hit the stone roof. They began to surge forward to attack.

With a single motion, she spread her wings out as wide as she could and then spun while giving the glittering appendages [Power] fueled weight.

Her feathers were sharp when she willed them to be, and the monks had no time to react. They all were neatly bisected through the middle. The spray of blood let her trigger her ability to absorb.

Without wasting a beat, Elania jumped back into the air and spun, looking for her real target, the golden motes of light from the monks slowly chasing after her.

She quickly regained altitude and spotted the carriage.

The Elder was almost to it.

Yolani was doing her best to urge the artifice engine to go faster, but it wasn’t working. The carriage lurched and swayed as it navigated the narrow streets; the wheels rattling against the cobblestones.

The guards were holding onto the handles and grips with white knuckles, unable to do anything but hold on for dear life.

But it wasn’t possible to outrun the groups that were already placed ahead, and the Elder started cracking the rooftops with each leap.

Worse, Yolani made a turn for some reason, and now there was an entirely new row of monk ambushes on the ground that she needed to deal with at the same time.

Launching forward, she made a wide arc ahead of the carriage. A flurry of divine light spears began to form around her in rings, each one crackling with energy as they materialized.

Without bothering to slow down, she made a simple gesture, and the spears threw themselves toward the visible targets. She wasn’t sure whether [Throwing] helped with the accuracy, but that didn’t really matter.

Each one slammed into a street or rooftop and then exploded. The stone shrapnel and energy were more than enough to flatten the junior monks.

Each projectile cost her a considerable amount of [Power] but that was mitigated by the light motes that were slowly catching up to her.

The ambush teams quickly got the hint and disappeared into buildings.

By the time she nearly reached the carriage rushing in the opposite direction, she got a clear view of the Conclave Elder. It wasn’t one of the ones she had fought or seen before.

Elania gritted her teeth, realizing the Elder was closing in on the carriage. She had to act fast, had to keep him away from Yolani and the others.

With a burst of speed, she shot forward, her wings propelling her towards the Elder. A quick thought sent her remaining dozen spear projectiles flashing forward at him.

The Elder sensed her approach, his head snapping in her direction. His eyes narrowed, and he raised his hand, a shimmering barrier materializing around him.

Her spears struck the barrier, shattering into countless shards of light.

The counterattack came instantly as the Elder hurled a divine golden bell towards her.

She twisted in mid-air, her wings propelling her to the side just in time to avoid the bell’s trajectory. The bell whizzed past her, leaving a trail of sparkling motes in its wake.

Gritting her teeth, Elania summoned a larger spear of light, much denser than the smaller projectiles. [Power]followed an exponential curve, and this one was far more potent.

Dangerously so.

But that didn’t matter right now.

The spear thrust forward, aimed directly at the Elder hiding behind his shield.

The Elder’s eyes narrowed as he began to chant, his voice rising in a melodic incantation.

Her attack struck the shield, but the expected detonation never occurred, leaving her hovering in confusion.

The energy simply winked out of existence, and the golden dome was still in place.

What?

The elder began another chant and almost immediately she felt a drain. On her [HUD], the power counter began to tick down rapidly at an alarming rate.

That wasn’t good.

She threw more strikes at the barrier, but they evaporated as well.

It was literally an anti-[Divinity] cheat barrier.

Which meant she should have been able to wrest control of it from him, but when she tried to envision that, it just seemed like a polished shell with no holes.

But clearly that didn’t stop things inside from effecting the stuff outside.

Golden tendrils began to visually flow off of her, and then she really began to panic.

What hadn’t she tried?

Folding her wings, she slammed into the shield physically. She didn’t disintegrate, so that was good.

The barrier seemed to shrink slightly.

That was even better.

She began to hammer the thing with her fists. There wasn’t any proper form, and Sergeant Harlock would have been aghast.

But the barrier shrunk rapidly.

It stopped and solidified when she was only a few feet from her target. He wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were closed, and he continued to chant.

It felt like her whole body was wrapped in chains. This elder was stronger than the others.

She raised her hand and a ridiculously sized axe of [Divine] energy formed. Slamming it into the barrier just made it puff into light motes.

[Power: 877/1688]

She was fading fast.

Frustration welled up inside of her.

Yolani was still dashing away into danger, and she was stuck, about to lose.

A possible solution blossomed in her mind.

She pulled out the prototype pistol Yolani had gifted her earlier in a smooth motion. The weapon felt cool and heavy in her hand, the thick quad barrels forming a heavy lump of metal.

She flicked the hammer into the ‘fire all’ position, aimed for the elder’s chest and pulled the trigger.

It didn’t even need any input from her. The energy certainly wasn’t divine.

The shield didn’t even register the four lead balls as they tumbled through.

The Elder’s eyes finally opened in shock as his chant was abruptly interrupted by four large holes appearing in his torso.

Elania surged forward, a sword materializing in her hand as she closed in on the Elder. No reason to give him a chance to heal or something.

With a swift thrust, she plunged the weapon into his chest, the radiant energy piercing through robe and flesh. Then she slashed upwards, slashing him nearly in half.

A triumphant smile spread across Elania’s face as she watched the Elder crumple to the ground. Blood covered everything, but when she tried to trigger her absorption ability, nothing happened.

The body suddenly shimmered and then exploded in a cloud of thick mist.

Her heart sank. Illusion.

She whirled around, searching for a sign of the real Elder.

What if he had left this as a distraction and went after Yolani? Fear stabbed at her, and for the first time in the battle, her wings flickered. She started to search for the carriage to rush after it when a searing heat slammed into her back.

She screamed. The attack was nothing like the insidious lethargy and drain of the chain chantra. It was a pure, soul searing poker driven through her wing and through her torso. Something about it ignored the pain tolerance she had developed since arriving in Neftasu.

[Regeneration]fought it anyway, but there was a lot of damage and it took [Power] to remain conscious.

[Power: 611/1688]

Which was rapidly running out.

The world spun as she hit the ground, and then something like a massive hand slammed into her from above, driving her through the roof.

Rubble and debris rained down around her, the entire building crumbling under the impact of the fall. That had little effect compared to the pain searing through her body.

When she hit the bottom, she lay stunned, wings crumpled and a stone heap on top of her.

The respite came when no follow up attack arrived. Maybe the stone actually blocked the elder’s access to her.

Double-edged swords and all that…

Bones knitted back together… a hundred [System] messages started screaming at her. Blood dripped down on her.

The building wasn’t empty, she realized. Or rather, it hadn’t been empty while it was still a building.

There was no way to tell who the blood belonged to, but she knew one thing: they were dead.

So she fed herself.

That sped up [Regeneration]rapidly. She almost wished it hadn’t as her body reformed, literally shoving the crushing rubble out of the way.

The blood hadn’t just been from one person, but a half dozen. That was enough to refill her.

With a wave of will, she shoved enough stone off of her so she could stand up. Then she spread her wings, which turned ethereal.

That let her reduce the surface area. But there was no rule that ethereal wings couldn’t produce lift.

She shot up through the rubble like a rocket, breaking free into the air.

A hand snagged her ankle and then flung her back onto the ground. She caught herself and spun, kicking the elder in the head with a foot.

That got her released, but didn’t seem to affect him much other than put him in a defensive stance.

They stared at each other with animosity.

That didn’t last long.

He darted in and punched. She pushed the attack away and kicked. He rolled over her leg and tried to pull her off balance.

That didn’t work. She held onto her position by sheer will. That allowed her to knee him in the face.

Unfortunately, that didn’t do much.

The flurry of exchanges continued. He was by far the superior combatant using weird martial arts, but she held raw [Power] which made hitting her sort of like hitting a rock.

There was only one problem. She was a rock, slowly turning into a pebble.

She had no idea how he had so much density behind him. She’d already drained multiple normal sized mana shards worth of [Power] in the fight.

He didn’t even seem winded.

This was a battle of attrition she wasn’t going to win. She waited until there was a bit of space between them and then dumped a [Power] infused bomb between them.

It sent both of them flying away from each other.

But only one of them had wings.