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Karlac rose through the smoky interior, shadow and smoke swirling around him, yet he was illuminated within, body flickering with fire. Anger raged across his face.
Arrogance had turned to rage—another emotion they could use.
“Nice shot,” Emilia said to Celaine.
“Yeah,” Hump said. “The plan didn’t include actually hitting him.”
“Plans change,” Celaine smirked. “Clearly he’s weaker than we thought.”
Karlac said nothing, lingering in the molten interior of Uvdar’s temple. All around him, the flames built, consuming the tables of preserved food, the great tapestries and paintings, and all manner of other treasures. At the rear, beyond the altar shadows of flickering flame danced across Uvdar’s towering statue as if hell itself had risen to consume him.
From the molten floor, an angry, smoking mass of muscle charged through the door ahead of Karlac, smashing apart what was left of it. The brutish captain was charred from head to toe. He roared, the very air shaking, his axe still in hand, the shaft flaming. Behind him, the smaller figure of the sorcerer emerged, a sphere of essence around it, keeping back the worst of the heat. Yet it wasn’t unharmed. Its robes were burnt, its skin seared. It had managed to save a few demons of the horde, but their number was thinned out significantly. It levitated across the molten floor, leaving the four demons it had protected behind, and coming to a stop slightly behind and above the larger demon.
Celaine loosed a volley of arrows, while Hump levelled his staff, gathered the rubble from the destruction around them, and unleashed a hail of stone. The mage demon swiped its clawed hand, wand in its grip, and sent most of their barrage off to the side, while the big demon slammed it away with a tree-trunk of an arm.
For a few seconds, the battle came to a halt, only the groans of dying demons and crackle of fire breaking it.
Then Karlac uttered something in demonic tongue, his voice dark, simmering with hate.
It seemed he knew better than to toy with them now, yet he still had not moved from the chamber.
The beast grunted at his words. Its brow lowered, eyes becoming focused.
Immediately, the energy in the air changed. Hump felt a shiver down his spine as something dangerous manifested from the demon. A weight like Celaine’s Predator’s Intent. The aura of a killer made manifest through its soul. In it, Hump sensed its hunger and rage, but above all, its desire to kill.
Suddenly it exploded forward, throwing itself at them in a frenzied charge. It spun wildly through the air, axe whirling around its body, gripped at the end of the shaft in both hands with no regard for self-preservation. Bud dodged beneath it and got inside its reach, then lunged, blade aimed for its chest, Frostfire blazing from its edge, only to be met by a pale pink barrier.
The demon grinned.
Then its axe slammed down, a yellow line carving through the air. Bud barely raised his sword in time to deflect the blow, yet the weight of it sent him stumbling back. Suddenly, he was caught in the smaller demon’s telekinetic grip.
The hulk’s grin turned feral as he reached out and grabbed Bud by the throat and crushed. There was the crack of armour. Bud grunted. Then the demon let out a cry as Ice Armour crystalised, spikes bursting from Bud’s armour and pierced the demon’s hand.
It stumbled back, and Emilia was there, her rapier dancing. Three thrusts pierced its stomach, but they didn’t go deep. Red essence poured from the wounds, some ability preventing more serious damage.
Hump activated Accelerated Thought, the world slowing down as he took aim at the mage demon.
It was then that Karlac finally moved. His wings unfurled and flapped, smoke and flame billowing beneath them with such power that a hot wind burst from the doors of the temple, battering Hump’s face.
The devil shot forward, veiled in shadow. The world turned suddenly dark, even the flames of the temple seeming subdued. Hump rose a Shield on instinct, barely finishing it in time as Karlac appeared at his rear, spear slamming down with force that rocked Hump on his feet. Karlac snarled, demonic words chanting from his mouth. Hellfire lathered Hump’s Shield, forcing him to abandon it.
This time, he took control of the flames, their all-consuming intent far from as overwhelming as in the past, and sent the essence straight back at Karlac. The devil caught it easily, letting it spiral around him. Celaine’s arrow whizzed past Karlac’s head and he dove forward, spear stabbing for Hump.
A Parry Shield deflected it to the side, but it left Hump off balance. There was nothing he could do as Hellfire descended once more.
“Nisha, fly!” he roared through their bond.
Then to save himself, he barked, “Dimensional Snap.”
The world sun. He appeared ten paces behind Karlac, the ground where he’d just been standing a raging inferno of Hellfire. Nishari was in the air, and Celaine had leapt to the side, more arrows already flying.
Karlac sprung into the air, this time his focus on Nisha. Hump raised his staff, only to hold off as Dylan intervened, meeting the devil in the air. The two collided, but Dylan fell back to the ground, unable to keep up in his Aspect of the Ape form. However, two vines erupted from Karlac’s shoulder and thigh, twisting around the devil then piercing down. Dylan caught the vines and pulled, dragging the devil back to the ground.
“What’s the situation?” Bud called, locked in a fierce fight alongside Emilia, the two facing Karlac’s captains.
“We’ll keep Karlac busy,” Hump shouted. “Kill the captains.”
“You will keep me busy, will you?” Karlac said.
Hump ignored him. “Dylan, keep us alive,” Hump said. “I’ll focus on the fight. Celaine, that arrow hurt him. You can kill him. Now finish the job.”
“Just find me the opportunity,” Celaine said from the shadows.
Fire burned away the vines, and then he was upon Dylan. Spear and staff met in a fierce exchange, but the druid couldn’t keep up. As strong as he was, he lacked the training of a duellist. He flipped and dodged through the air, staff whirling around his body in an acrobatic display.
But mistakes slipped in.
A cut here, a slash there. Blood trickled from wounds across his body after only seconds of battle.
Hump’s spellbook whirled. “Grasping Hand.”
A fist of stone rumbled from the ground, grabbing at Karlac’s leg just as Nisha swooped down. Fire bathed the devil’s back, catching him off guard from the left where his eyes didn’t so easily see. He screamed, more from shock than pain, her fire not hot enough to do any real damage, but it was enough to buy time.
Celaine’s arrow shot from the shadows, a silver trail streaking behind it. Karlac managed to partially dodge it, but it took him through the left shoulder, piercing until the point stuck out the other side of him.
He howled a primal, animalist scream, then whirled on Celaine.
The devil’s wings flapped so hard they rocked Hump on his feet. In a heartbeat, he was before Celaine. He stabbed at her, but she managed to judge, launching herself back with Spring Step. But his spear was fast.
Hump sent boulders flying for him with Rock Shot but he seemed to sense them coming, smashing them apart with his spear even as he attacked Celaine.
He caught her on a misstep and stabbed, spear slicing the side of her neck. Her hand went to the wound, blood coming away, the sight of which made Hump’s heart still.
She stumbled to the ground and crawled backward, then kicked at the ground, launching herself back in a blur of shadow. She grasped at the shadows, pulling them tight around her as she manifested her own soul once more.
Karlac loomed over her, but Dylan appeared overhead, staff growing until it was so large it cast a shadow across the street.
Hump’s spellbook churned, falling open onto Molten Pit. The ground fell away beneath Karlac’s feet, heat swallowing him, his feet sinking into it as he tried to move, but Hump held tight, forming it around the devil’s ankles. Forcing lava to climb his legs.
Dylan’s staff slammed into Karlac’s back with the force of a mountain. Karlac managed to partially block it with an arm, but the impact sent him flying, crashing into a nearby wall and passing straight through it. In an instant, he emerged again, shooting at Dylan like an arrow, spear first. Dylan dodged the bite of its blade, but the flame exploded outward as a blade of its own, slicing Dylan across the torso.
The druid screamed, hitting the ground with both hands over his stomach. Green essence of nature poured from his hands, saturated a charred, bleeding wound.
Hump stepped before Dylan then, staff in hand, spellbook churning in his left. Essence spiralled between the two, both shining bright with power. His soul surrounded him, its violet aura radiating. He marched on Karlac, blasting him with Essence Blast, sending him staggering back.
Lifting a hand, Karlac prepared a spell, but Hump sent another straight at him. Each Essence Blast struck him in the torso, staggering him a little further. One step. Another. The irritation on his face grew, but Hump realised something.
He was faster.
For all Karlac’s power and control, when it came to a simple spell, Hump was faster.
Another arrow found Karlac’s back. The moment it made impact, Celaine’s essence exploded from within, flesh and blood raining from around the wound. Karlac screamed again and launched himself into the sky, retreating even as his magic went to work healing the damage.
“The mage!” Emilia shouted. “Someone!”
Hump looked over to see Bud struggling against the mage and brute. His blade would find the brute, but every time a barrier pulsed around it—the mage demon’s doing. Emilia was dodging at the side, pursued by a barrage of magical arrows of blue light. With the brute locking Bud down, the mage was free to pressure them at will.
Dylan held up his prosthetic wooden arm, taking aim. “Briar Cage.”
Vines erupted, but his target wasn’t the big demon at all, but the mage that had been supporting it. Thorned vines erupted from around its feet, twisting together to form a cage that tightened around it.
Its barrier was disrupted. Bud dropped into his sword stance, blade gripped in both hands and to the side.
“Face my Blade of Judgement,” Bud declared. His weapon surged with Frostfire, then in a perfectly clean slice, he carved out the big demon’s throat.
It gripped it with a giant hand, eyes wide as it stumbled back, stunned. Blood flowed profusely, only to turn to ice in its flesh. Removing its hand, it stared at the crystallised blood in its palm. The gouge in its neck would have brought a human to the ground in an instant, yet somehow it still stood. Its face scrunched up with fury and it stumbled toward Bud, trying to raise its axe.
Bud raised his sword overhead, then brought it down to deliver the final blow with Divine Reckoning. Yet this time, it was not the power of Kelisia that surged through his blade, but its own. Hump felt Bud’s aura explode from him. Courage, honour, justice—the intent of a true knight filled the air.
The blade split the hulking beast from head to fit, carving him in two. Each half hit the ground with the heavy thud of ice.
Nishari alerted Hump to Karlac’s movement above.
“Above!” Celaine shouted.
Karlac was fleeing, but not toward where they had first entered the fragment. He was heading deeper in, toward the temple at the very top.
“Come on,” Hump said, making his way up the road. “Let’s finish this.