The A-rankers emerged from the blood sea in drips and drabs. They appeared to be spaced out among the teams, as far as I could tell there were no teams of JUST A-rankers, at least not near me. Which made sense. While there had been ten thousand entrants to the tower, and were therefore a thousand teams, A-rankers were a minority among them from what I’d seen.
Still, a minority among ten thousand people was still more than a few. Abel and Bethy were keeping the weaker ones off, but Fade and I were alone in here in terms of ability to hang with A-rankers. At least, we were for now. I glanced back to where the building crew was working. “Beelzebub,” I called to the active clones. I’d pushed him to A-rank to help with the build, but he wasn’t limited to Agares. “We need Asmodeus.”
He nodded, and nine of the thirteen clones shifted away from Agares into Asmodeous. My enhancement demon spread out, overlaying my teammates, pushing them all up to A-rank directly. “Team up and be careful,” I warned them. “This is temporary. And very limited.”
Asmodeous was damned useful, but he wasn’t the same as the pillar boosting someone. There were inherent limits to the demon’s ability, and I didn’t want them cropping up during this fight. Best to warn them ahead of time. With that established, I turned to face the nearest A-ranker, my staff spinning up as I strode forward.
I didn’t recognize the man, but I assumed he was from Harper’s department. He was clue with gills, and he surged forward with not just speed, but a kind of unnatural flexibility that I didn’t enjoy dealing with at all.
Still, I was prepared. My staff snapped out and down. One constant for humanoids was that they needed support to stand. No matter how flexible their bodies were, in order to stay standing, you need your feet on the ground, and you need ankles to hold them there. The butt of my staff smashed down on the bone spur of the ankle like a hammer, and the blue man snarled, stumbling back.
My staff swept up, smashing into the bottom of his jaw, snapping shut his teeth on his tongue (they were very sharp, from what I could see), and he snarled in pain as he recoiled, stumbling back from me.
I snorted, following behind him, my staff striking the parts of the body he needed to brace himself or hold himself up. Finally, I landed a solid blow to his temple and he dropped, crumpling loose paper. Of course, I didn’t have time to relax, I had to rush to meet the next one entering. Fade was already fighting four of them by himself.
My friends joined in, two at a time, rushing to swarm the incoming A-rankers. I was actually kind of impressed. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to focus on that, I was forced to change mental gears as I found myself face to face with the glowing blue eyes of a Void spawn.
“Void,” I said dismissively. “Man, you guys will just work for anyone, huh? Still, I have to hand it to you, you’re pretty stubborn. I wouldn’t have the guts to start trouble in an exam like this.”
The A-ranker stepped forward, prepared to fight, but froze. “You forget what to say here?” I asked sarcastically. “Monster, butcher, destroyer of Void beings. Meet your end at the hands of…whatever you name is. Those are the lines, right?”
He stared at me. “Outsider,” he said in a voice like a million rioting beetles screaming for salvation. “We need not be enemies.”
I winced. “Shit. You’re the Overgod. The Void Child.”
“You call me such,” he shrugged. “I am simply I. I would parlay with you. You have proven competent. I would avoid such an enemy at a time of upheaval.”
“You’re scared of me?” I said sarcastically.
He shook his head. “It is not fear. Simply caution. My plans are delicate, they may be unbalanced easily. I wish to avoid this fate, and as such, I offer a truce. We have no need to be enemies.”
“You say that,” I said grimly. “But your horned monster gored me.”
“That was your fault,” he assured me. “Its target was simply your wife. Had you remained out of the way, you would not have been harmed.”
My eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry,” I said in a voice like an arctic wind. “Do you think trying to kill my wife makes me LESS angry? Do you think Callie is less important to me than my own continued existence? Because she very much is not. You will not hurt her, and your previous attempts to do so were unacceptable. I won’t ever allow you to hurt her.”
“Sentiment,” he said coldly. “Is replaceable. You prefer the female. She can be substituted. We have many females. You can choo-”
He didn’t finish talking. Mostly because his head was exploding in a corona of white flame. He screamed, falling back, clearly unable to understand the Peaceflame. I snarled at him. “Don’t EVER,” I said with a venomous snarl. “Call my wife replaceable again.”
I stepped over the twitching body, eyes hard as I called for Mephistopheles, meshing the black flame with Sammel’s power. I was pissed, and this was a good opportunity to let off some steam. My staff cracked the air like striking thunder as I engaged with the nearest three A-rankers. I didn’t care. I was too pissed to be wary of the threat.
The first one to come in was from the weapon department, I suspected. He used a long spear, and he wielded it expertly. The other two, a summoner who called different types of crow and an armored warrior whose plate seemed to grow out of his skin, flanked him, preparing to take advantage of any openings in my defenses that he might leave. I didn’t give him the chance. I went on the attack, rushing the main bastard head on.
His spear licked out toward me, seeking. I deflected, but it pulled back, adjusting before launching another flurry of stabs. Cursing, I whirled my staff around me protectively. One of the main benefits of a staff, I’d found in my years wielding one, was the reach. Staves are long and sturdy, and the end caps are brutal. This makes them excellent defensive tools because they can cover a large portion of the body at once, and excellent attacking tools because the end caps land from VERY far away and have time to build up momentum.
However, there is one other weapon that works even better for that particular purpose. The spear. Now I’d seen too much to call the spear ‘the king of weapons’, or anything pretentious like that. But the saying ‘another inch longer is another inch stronger’ wasn’t just talk. Reach was a very real advantage, and a well prepared spear used could capitalize on that to devastating effect.
Especially with a blade on the end, it opened up thrusting attacks as a method far more devastating than I could manage with my staff. I spent the next few minutes on the defensive, countering the spear while a parallel dealt with keeping track of the other two.
I didn’t rush. I didn’t need to. I was in contact with Dantalion, who was nearby, and he was analyzing the fight. The longer they fought, the more clearly he could dissect their combat style. Combined with tapping into the Overlay, I was slowly overtaking the tempo of the fight.
Keeping track of the arrows as they dipped and wove around me required another parallel, the summoner was flooding the area with crows and the plate warrior was doing his best to block off one direction without interfering with the spearman’s range. These three had fought together before, and without my advantages I’d have been hard pressed to keep them back.
But I HAD my advantages, and that meant I eventually found my breakthrough. In minute five, the spearman got agitated after missing a thrust and lashed out, turning with his upper body to unleash a sweeping slash toward my throat. It was the first time he’d done that, but he’d STARTED to do it three separate times and changed his mind midway. Dan had noted the pattern despite the attempts to backpedal and had steered me toward baiting out the blow.
Meanwhile, the back end of my staff had been deflecting and maneuvering the plate warrior, and I’d been controlling the space to herd the harrying crows. I dropped under the slash, my staff tapping just under the spear head as it flew, gently redirecting the fore from a sideways arc to a diagonal.
The plate warrior screamed as the razor sharp blade of his companion’s spear passe through his visor, and along with it, his eyes. He stumbled back, clutching his face, unable to see my staff slip behind his ankles for a trip. As he went down, I reached out with Cosmic Waltz, pushing the demon to A-rank with my staff and ignoring the pain in my skull from pushing the pillar so far. I warped the space behind him, bringing it up and around as I pushed him into a current and sent him blurring out past his teammates and back in like I was hurling a shotput.
Armor guy boomeranged out and back, building up speed, and hit the spearman at speeds he could barely process, his whole body turning into a projective as he rode the spatial stream into the back of his ally, landing with a crash and driving the first one into the second.
The plan had been cooking for a few minutes now, so there was no suspense as I drove the bastards off the edge of the platform in a tangle…and right toward where Brad was waiting.
My demon had a strange ability, he could make a pit in anything. That included Void Roads, and it DEFINITELY included illusory cloud covers. The three A-rankers went through the hole in the clouds, still trying to react to the sudden assault, and Brad let it close behind them as they plummeted.
I was sure they’d be fine. The crow guy could summon birds, and he was the least injured. But it would take them time to get back to their tower and return to the top. Azazel could handle things at the bottom if they rushed ours, but since my people were hiding inside the tower which was out of phase with this reality courtesy of Callie’s Adherent fire, I doubted they’d be an issue again in the short term.
Wheeling, I took in the nearby fights. My people had managed to overwhelm the A-rankers who had come, and not a single B-ranker had emerged from the blood sea. Bethy was good at what she did. For now, it seemed like we were in a lull.
Groaning, I limped over to the platform nearby and slumped down. “Jessie,” I called for my healer. She appeared immediately, pouring her amplified life energy into me, and I sighed with relief. “Everyone ok?” I asked after a moment. “Does anyone else need healing? I can wait if it’s necessary.”
“Bit late for that,” she snorted. “And no, I was keeping up with the fights. A few people sustained injuries but we were mostly dealing with them two to one. Fade was the only one fighting multiple enemies besides you, and he didn’t get a scratch.”
Snorting, I looked over to my bodyguard, who was looking fairly smug. Abel, who had only tangentially pitched in for fighting, looked a bit worse for wear. “Can you top Abel up?” I asked Jessie. “I think keeping up the Blood Sea is getting to him. We don’t want that thing coming down anytime soon.”
Pulling back her hands, she nodded as she turned to help relieve some of the pressure on my friend, and I checked on the progress of the castle. When I saw how early we were in the development, I cringed. “Dan,” I called for my information demon. “I’m bringing out some help, direct them as needed.” I released fifty or so demons with a high enough tier to be useful. Dan just grinned as he gestured them over, putting them to work. I hoped we got this done fast. The sinking feeling in my gut had never gone away. Something was still coming for us, I just didn’t know when.