God of Hell - Chapter 51 - Fire And Blood (Patreon)

Selvas heard the sound of Klaus’ weapon going off.

She was in the kitchen when she did, and it had come from the Prophet’s office.

A betrayal then—but by whom? Had the Death Rattle turned against them, or the Prophet? Both were equally likely in her eyes, but then again, Selvas knew she had a tendency to distrust others.

Silently and quickly, she stalked her way up the stairs and towards Nero. He’d have heard it—he’d be awake by now—but that gave her little relief while knowing he’d likely be the target of whoever was carrying out this betrayal.

Selvas had barely gotten up the steps when she spotted two figures racing up behind her. 

Women—thralls from the look of them. And both, it seemed, with orders to kill. They had runed blades in their hands and no hesitation in their eyes. Good. Selvas wasn’t going to hesitate to use hers either.

She fired her crossbow at the enemy and felt a pang of frustration as the closest one dived to the side, dodging death and guaranteeing their place as a future obstacle in her path.

The furthest one caught up to Selvas and met her with a kick to the chest before she could fire off another shot. The breath was chased out her lungs, her feet left the ground, she hit the manor wall—hard enough to break through the thin wood and crash into another room.

She laid there amidst a cloud of dust and a pile of ruined wood for a few moments. How she hated the Damned. Each time she’d had the displeasure of fighting one, it always  ended badly.

She heard the pair forcing their way through the newly-created hole in the wall, and then she was on her feet again, running—because what else could she do.

She reckoned she edged out in speed but not strength, judging by the pain that still surged through her chest from only one blow and the fact that just that one had landed. Her best bet was to assume the other woman had a similar Might distribution.

Selvas slammed through the door—tearing it off its hinges and starting down a hallway. A quick peek behind showed her the approaching two had not given up on their chase. She had not been expecting them to.

One threw a dagger at her. It tore through the air. She dove to the side, and it missed. The pair were on her before she could regain her lost momentum.

She fired one bolt and felt a humm of satisfaction in her heart as it lodged into the shoulder of one. Not neck, however. The satisfaction was sullied somewhat.

She dropped her crossbow, swung her dagger, and missed as the unharmed opponent slid just a fraction short  of her arch’s reach. 

Selvas was preparing to lash out another attack when the woman she’d shot in the arm met her with a wicked foot to the face.

Selvas’s world went white, then whiter still as something hard and heavy slammed into her head once again.

Blood fountained from a broken nose. Her skull drummed in agony. And yet her vision was clear as day. It had been impeded a great deal by the blows, but her gift of sight still gave her enough clarity to see the next blow that swung her way.

She dodged the fist faster than her opponents had expected from a reeling enemy, and moved to use that sliver of advantage to catch one with a blade to the neck.

Selvas moved on shaky feet, and was met with a fist burying itself beneath her ribs before she had even gotten halfway to her target.

The ground met her knees and was covered with vomit the next moment. She searched her grip for her dagger and found none—she’d lost it somewhere in the haze of agony.

A glance up showed her an enemy unsheathing a sword.

Selvas tried to move but her legs weren’t listening. Her heart was thrumming softly—fear—she’d begun to feel that a lot lately. More since she'd met Nero and far more still since she’d fallen in love with him.

Two Thralls—one me. There was never a chance in the first place. 

That didn’t bring her comfort—it only made her angrier.

So close… So close to having Dolore, so close to going back to Stradale… So, so close.

A thought occurred to her—perhaps she really should stop whining. How many people had ended with even worse fates after suffering worse still lives? Perhaps she should be grateful, grateful for what she’d lived so far: both its high and its lows.

Bullshit.

That was bullshit, and she knew it. She wanted a life—a good fucking life—one where she and the people she loved didn’t have to fight just to survive. A life where they weren’t subject to the whims of horned tyrants and demonic powers.

And she’d almost had it.

She’d almost had it.

So close, so fucking close!

Selvas called on her legs but they didn’t listen.

So she could only wait, and hate, and wallow in terror as the life-ending blade raced for her neck.

The steel hung in the air, twisted, and parried a spear that would have impaled its wielder.

Selvas screamed at her legs once more, and this time they listened.

She backed away from the pair of thralls and felt a friendly arm hold her up. It was one of Mifa’s, and she looked at Selvas with concern.

“Are you okay?” Jion asked as her spear threw itself back into her grasp with a soft hum.

“I can still shoot,” Selvas said through what she knew were bloody, gritted teeth. Her mouth tasted like acid, tongue like iron.

“Good,” Jion nodded. “Then shoot.” 

Mifa let go of her and charged towards the thralls with a roar. Jion followed a moment later.

Selvas found her crossbow, loaded it and aimed it at the battle.

Her allies were natives of the second circle and members of notorious Death Rattle, but what they weren’t—were Damned, and the difference was made clear the moment they engaged those who were.

Mifa and Jion were outmatched. They’d done better than she’d have expected from any Tayalnisyan, but the thralls were just, for lack of a better word, Mightier. The battle would have been theirs were Selvas not in it.

But she was.

She fed the bolt into the crossbow, pulled the trigger, and watched the first woman die. A shot through the eye. Twitchy, jerky. No such thing as a clean death but that was as far from it as possible.

The second one began backing away upon the realization that her ally was dead. Her face was contorted in agony, and Selvas needed only look at the hissing smoke bleeding from the woman’s shackles to know why. “No, No, No, No!” She screamed in horror.

Selvas had a clear shot on the woman but didn’t fire. With their numbers, they could overpower and free her.

Mifa had a similar idea, for she was already pouncing on the woman. They wrestled for a moment before Jion turned the tide fully in Mifa’s favour with her own efforts.

Selvas stepped forwards to help, but she realised the woman had stopped struggling when she got there. Blood pooled in the thrall’s mouth and overflowed, soaking into the carpet and forming a pool of scarlet by her head.

The dead woman stared up at the ceiling with sad, empty eyes.

Jion kept her gaze low as she spoke. “She bit her own tongue in half.”

Part of a secondary order in case they fail a mission—certainly.

A Demon wouldn’t want their items spilling out all of their secrets, after all.

Selvas got on a knee and closed the woman’s eyelids.

She turned and headed down the hallway. “I need to find Nero,” she told them. They were surely here for him, and she was under no illusions that this was all they had sent.

Nero stepped out of his room at the gunshot, looked left down the hallway and saw no one, looked right and saw the Fire Breather and his Imp racing towards him with both hands alight.

Ah.

Something had obviously gone horribly wrong, but he’d just have to figure out what that was later.

Now, Nero met Dario’s charge.

He shot a bolt of light at the man, watched it collide with a ball of fire and saw both explode into blasts of gold and red.

Dario emerged from the cloud with flaming fists, both chasing Nero, and neither catching himt.

The last time they had fought, Nero had no magic—he couldn’t call on his Light—and the thrall had all the advantage. This was not last time.

Nero pursued him with Light coated blows and found that each one that landed was a glancing hit, Nero on the other hand had opted to dodge the strikes thrown his way entirely.

For several seconds they fought—and just like he’d suspected—Nero was the man’s superior. Yet, while it seemed like Nero’s tactic of dodging blows was superior to Dario’s of only taking shallow ones, he knew that all the Thrall needed was a well timed strike to turn the tide of the fight completely in his favour.

Nero leaned back from an arc and spat out a stream of Light. Dario was quick in reacting, catching the burning light with an arm and lashing out with a hook with his other.

This one caught Nero by the jaw, bloodying his teeth and bruising his face. The world spun and Nero spun with it. When he blinked his vision back, he saw the reason why the man hadn’t struck: he was too busy trying to snuff out the Light eating into his skin.

He’d just about finished patting it  out when Nero regained his balance.

Dario sent ball of flame after flame at Nero, eager to keep a good distance between him and his opponent now that he knew that close quarters was a losing game.

Nero knew better than to let him get what he wanted.

He raced towards Dario, dodging the shots he could, and nullifying those he couldn’t with his own bolts of magic. More than he’d have preferred singed and scorched him, by the time he’d closed the distance between him and the man there was a fire burning on Nero’s shoulder.

He ignored it, and met the man’s face with a golden flaming fist. The first strike was hard enough to snuff the man’s hands out, and the second shut his brain off.

The man was on the floor a moment later, breathing, but knocked out.

Nero broke his shackle with several strikes to the metal and watched it come apart a moment later.

He was panting, arms vibrating, sweat pouring down his forehead. His eyes flicked over to the small Imp, which jumped at the motion and whizzed away in a streak of light.

“Nero!”

He unsheathed his blade at the voice and lowered it upon seeing Selvas. Behind her were Jion and Mifa, all three with the bruises to prove they had been in a fight.

Selvas seemed to have fared the worst. Nero felt his gut twist at the sight of her bloodied teeth and cut lips, but knew she was alright and turned his attention elsewhere. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“I don’t know, thralls came out of nowhere and attacked us,” she explained.

“Where’s Erlo?” he asked Jion, panic rising.

“Hiding, he’s no good in close quarters fighting,” Jion told him. “Where’s Klaus?” she asked, eyes wide and frantic.

Nero felt his stomach drop. “I… I don’t know.” He told her. “I didn’t see him.”

A gasp drew his attention behind, and Nero turned to find Dario stirring on the floor. He’d woken up, but from the way his eyes drifted in their sockets, it seemed like he couldn’t yet tell which direction was up or down. He did recognise Nero however, and terror exploded across his features.

“Relax,” Nero began assuring the man. “We’re not going to hurt y-”

“Where's Klaus!” Jion roared at the thrall—once-thrall. She was kneeling over him, eyes burning like magma.

He flinched back and raised his arms in panic. “I- I don’t know,” he sputtered out.

It was Mifa who had to drag the woman off of him.

“Is everyone alright?” came another voice. It was the Prophet’s. She hurriedly made her way down the hallway with weary eyes.

“Where’s Klaus?” Jion asked her.

She shook her head nervously… Too nervously. “No idea. I heard the sound of his weapon, and then a thrall came running at me.” She looked far too unhurt for a person who’d just had a clash—and with a thrall no less.

Nero’s eyes floated over to Jion, Selvas, and Mifa. From the look in their eyes, Nero knew all three suspected foul play, but there was no proof to act on. So Nero gave them some. “Where are the guards?”

The woman swallowed. “What?”

“The guards, your guards—the manor, it’s empty. Where is everyone? Where did you send them off to and why?” Nero asked.

The woman was sweating now. Good. She should be sweating.

“Where’s Klaus?” Jion asked once more, this time stepping forwards.

“I… I didn’t want to kill him… I had to, he left me no other choice I-” The woman’s words bled into screams as Jion’s spear sliced clean through her wrist. Her hand hit the floor with a wet thud, and then she was running. She didn’t make it far, however.

The spear cut through a foot, then a knee, hand, shoulder—slice by slice—reducing the woman to bloody chunks of herself while leaving just enough of her to still be alive.

Jion only stopped when the Prophet was nothing but a torso with a screaming head attached to it.

“Kill me… kill me please.” The woman sobbed, croaked and whimpered.

Jion’s voice was soft now, trembling. “Where’s Klaus?”

“In my office!” She cried out. “I left him in my office.”

Jion nodded softly, coldly, and pulled her bloody spear back into her grip. She turned to Nero with eyes like lava. “The Demon has to die for this. No deals, no compromises, she burns at a stake.”

It was the first time she’d demanded something of him—always so full with veneration.

Good thing for them both then that he couldn’t have agreed more if he tried. Nero nodded and opened his mouth to say as much, but someone else did so before he could. 

“She will die,” Dario guaranteed as he pulled himself up to his feet. One look in his eyes told Nero he meant what he said, another at his scarred wrist guaranteed that he couldn’t have meant anything more than he currently did this. “The Demon will pay for everything she’s done.”

At that, Jion nodded and made her way down the hallway, Mifa behind her—both to their friend's corpse.

Nero, Selvas and Jion rested their eyes on the Prophet. She struggled to set a drifting gaze on Nero. Her every action was weak, the lifesblood pooling around her was the reason for that. She was dying, and dying terribly and far too slowly. When she spoke, her voice was a shaky, gurgled mess. “Light Breather… Please… Please kill me,” she begged.

Nero turned and then walked away to let her die like Klaus did, alone.