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Bloodsworn Ch. 43
🕑 Added 2024-11-30 22:38:00 +0000 UTC43.
The demon turned and locked eyes with Erak and he felt the cold intensify, shooting down his spine in a frigid blast that could rival the North Pole in the dead of winter. The explosion of heat that ballooned through him met the frost and they interlocked in a monstrous battle in his chest, the pain nearly bowing Erak over.
It was tall and skeletal with ruby red skin, white scar lines around its cloudy white eyes, as if it had raked its own face with its small claws. It squinted and the pain worsened in Erak’s chest. All around him people began to scream and thrash, attacking everything around them as the street became a glimpse of Hell. Erak shoved a woman half his size who tried to stab him with a piece of glass, and then speared a Hellspawn as it whirled on him with a knife in its hand.
The crowd parted and Erak lunged free, aiming his spear at the thin demon. It leapt back, its speed impressive, and Erak cursed as a pair of hulking ape-like creatures interceded. They were flat faced and overly muscled, with bronze armor across their broad chests and dark warhammers clutched in hairy knuckles. Erak’s vision was red at the edges as he struggled to fight against the demon’s effect on him.
Simian Guard lvl. 21
A proliferate species who sells their aggressive services cheaply
Rage Demon lvl. 23
Specially bred on the Fifth Plane of Hell they cast a powerful rage aura
Erak grunted as a hammerblow hit his shield and staggered him back. He sidestepped an overhand strike and the black iron hammer buried itself in the cobblestone street in an explosion of stony shrapnel that peppered his shins. Erak stabbed at the simian but the creature twisted and Erak left nothing but a thin trail of blood leaking down its tanned, bare face. It hooted in surprise and leapt backward as its partner surged forward.
The ugly beasts were nearly as strong as Erak, and stuck as he was fighting both at the same time it was a challenge. Finally a Challenge.
Erak twisted as the next hammer arrived, sliding it off his shield and to the side as he stabbed at the original guard. It wasn’t as fast as its counterpart and the spear dug into its side, piercing its bronze armor and burying itself in the simian’s rib cage. The creature howled in anger and pain and punched Erak in the face, his helm rattling as Erak’s head snapped back.
Erak left the spear and drew his sword with a fluid motion as he knocked the second ape’s hammer aside with a clean parry. He dashed forward, and sent three slashes as fast as he could, his wrist snapping with every strike. The simian backed up as Erak slashed a blood furrow through its thick quadricep.
The first ape yanked the spear out of its side and let it clatter to the ground as it lunged back at Erak. Erak forced the two wounded simian’s to a standstill, his shield and sword parrying every blow. Every ounce of his attention was focused on the two enemies in front of him, the rage demon backing away.
Erak burst forward with an explosive motion, tanking a hammer strike to his pauldron, to run over the simian he had stabbed with his spear. The ape lifted its two handed hammer and his sword skated over the handle of the hammer. Erak pressed down, using his height and strength to force the hammer low, the edge of the sword on the simian’s neck.
Erak sliced across the beast’s neck and a spray of hot blood washed across Erak. He shoved the ape to the ground, lowering his shoulder and shoving it off its feet. He spun around just in time to see a wide headed hammer falling towards his head. Erak dropped to a knee and interposed his shield and the blow rattled his bones as he stopped the hammer in mid-air.
The creature was overextended and Erak simply thrust his sword straight out into the ape’s gut. The sword parted bronze like paper and the creature hooted once softly and then fell to the ground dead. Erak rose up and over it and shook his shoulder out, seeing the large dent in his kite shield where he had stopped the hammer.
Erak looked for the rage demon and saw it, scurrying around the edge of the field of the scrum. It dipped and slipped between combatants, no one reacting to the demon as if it didn’t exist. Erak sheathed his sword and grabbed the spear, twisting it in his hand and hefting it up. Erak took two skip steps and hurtled the spear with a grunt.
The spear flashed across the distance in a flash, blowing straight through a Hellspawn and piercing the rage demon’s leg.
The demon staggered and screamed as it fell into the scrum. Its scream rippled across the crowd and the mob’s fury increased as they cut and slashed without discerning friend from foe. A man stabbed at Erak with a piece of blackened wood, Erak gently pushed him away as he stalked toward the rage demon.
He was gentle with his pushing, setting people to the side as he loomed over the demon. It whirled on him, kicking at Erak’s knee with its good leg. Erak’s knee bent back, but didn’t break. Erak gritted his teeth and drew his sword, slashing apart the offending appendage.
The demon’s scream was stopped as Erak lopped off its head, watching as the conical head rolled away. The after effects of its aura took a few moments to fade away, the people slowly coming down from their rage induced mob behavior.
Scores of demons backed away, melting into the darkness the moment the rage demon was killed. Erak looked back at where the mass blood leeches had been and saw the tide of albino monsters coming now. The Hellspawn rose up and into the night's air as the leeches flooded into the alley.
Over a hundred of the flabby creatures scurried toward them, running or crawling across walls, the road, or jumping across the rooftops. The crowd of shell shocked citizens looked about, their eyes clearing of rage and filling with fear as the ravenous horde came at them.
Erak roared, a soundless challenge of dominance as he stepped in front of the bulk of the crowd. His shield and sword rising up as the horde fell upon him. Talons scraped and slashed, each strike staggering him as his sword turned into a silver haze. The creature’s fell apart like badly constructed toys, limbs popping free with every slash, bones weak and flesh rubbery.
People screamed behind him as the crowd of leeches flowed around him like a wave did a stone. Erak stabbed and slashed, killing with every other blow, but there were too many. The battle had dissolved into a massacre as Erak built a rampart of corpses around himself.
“RALLY! FIGHT!” A woman’s voice billowed behind him and a sense of confidence filled Erak. A stream of warriors, dressed in silks and gauzy underclothes with naked steel in their hands, came in a roaring wave. A handful of heavily armored figures formed a wedge and pushed through the stream of leeches, the woman who had shouted behind them, lifting an old officer’s saber over her head.
