The Runes of the Spell vanished from his vision as he accepted the new Deal.
For a moment, Eirwen stood still in the middle of the gore-covered tunnel, his fingers wrapped around [Hydra's Choice], golden eyes fixed on the thing forcing itself through the broken gate.
The Fallen Devil pushed one long black arm inside, then the other, its claws scraping against black stone with a dry, grinding sound that made dust fall from the cracked arch above it. White ash drifted through the opening around its body, slowly covering the blood on the floor like dirty snow. Its burnt horns scraped against the top of the gate as it lowered its head, and for a second, the almost human face carved into its skull twisted with agony and anger.
One of its long arms moved up, hand gripping the gate with such force that the metal bent inward like dough. The old black plates tore free and flew into the tunnel, spinning across the air before smashing into the wall hard enough to bend around the stone. Several soldiers threw themselves aside, but one was far too slow. The plate caught him across the waist and crushed him into the wall with a loud crunch. Blood burst from his mouth in a wide spray before his body slid down beneath the bent metal.
Eirwen barely glanced at him.
His full attention was on the Fallen Devil.
It dragged itself deeper into the tunnel limb by limb. The creature was tall, tall enough that even with the high ceiling, its horns nearly touched the stone above. Its body had the shape of a man, with long arms, a narrow waist, and legs bent backward like those of a beast. Its blackened hide was cracked everywhere, revealing dull orange light beneath the skin like dying embers beneath charcoal. Its chest was hollowed inward, and inside the cavity, something pulsed slowly. With every breath that left its mouth, more ash drifted into the tunnel.
Countless voices echoed inside Eirwen's mind as Leviathan spoke.
'Mind that one, child. Its strength is far beyond anything you've fought so far. One careless touch, and you will be scattered across this tunnel in pieces.'
Then, after a moment, the ancient creature added, almost lazily, 'The ash is worse. It will rot you from the outside and burn what remains from within. Let the Master stand in front. That is what large men in thick armour are made for.'
Eirwen's brow twitched, but he did not argue. Leviathan was right, annoyingly enough, though he could not help wondering why the ancient creature was being so helpful all of a sudden. With every passing enemy, he seemed to speak more and more.
'If my advice offends you, I can return to silence,' Leviathan said, his own voice rising above the countless others that followed every word. 'I have spent millions of years doing nothing. A few more minutes will not wound me.'
The blond Dreamer's whole face twitched this time, but he pushed the thought aside as the Fallen Devil fully dragged itself inside. Around them, the remaining soldiers staggered into position despite the horrible wounds most of them carried.
Eirwen looked down at himself afterward.
Steel Shroud was barely holding together.
Its iron-silver plates were cut, dented, and torn open in several places, and the parts around both his hands and thighs were completely missing since he had been forced to cut them off during the previous battle. The armour had protected him well enough against the Skreels, but against the Gravehounds, it had been far less useful.
Eirwen clicked his tongue and recalled it, remembering how good [Kissed by the Sun] had been before it was destroyed.
'I'm definitely getting a new armour-type Memory,' he thought as Steel Shroud dissolved into sparks and fragments of bright light, leaving his body exposed for a single heartbeat.
Cold air touched his skin as more of it flowed into the open tunnel. Blood and sweat had already dried over the newly healed flesh.
Then he summoned another Memory.
It was not armour, unfortunately. Gale and he had only ever gotten two armour-type Memories, and somehow, Eirwen had managed to destroy both of them.
That obviously annoyed him.
But it was still better than walking around naked.
The Memory manifested over him in a shimmer of light, forming into a fitted military uniform. A long dark cape settled over his right shoulder, the colour somewhere between midnight blue and black, falling just above his knees so it would not restrict his legs. Silver-white stitching ran along the collar, cuffs, and chest in thin patterns. The inside lining was pale grey, almost white, and a narrow belt of black leather crossed his waist with a silver buckle shaped like a trident. The high collar framed his neck, and the sleeves fit close to his arms, light enough not to slow him down.
It looked cool and pretty, no doubt, but it was also the most useless shit in a fight like this. Even the one Enchantment it had would be of no help, because the only thing it did was that no matter the damage, it would not get fully destroyed and would restore with the body. On its own, the Memory was not bad and was surprisingly durable, but it would not stop the claws or teeth of a Fallen Devil from turning him into red paste.
But it was light and easy to move in.
If he was going to survive this, speed would matter more than protection.
Varkos stepped forward, and the tunnel immediately looked smaller.
His black armour drank the red torchlight and the orange glow leaking from the Fallen Devil's cracks. Pale fluid, black blood, and ash clung to the titanic plates. He lifted his axe with both hands.
The Ashen Gatekeeper saw him and dashed forward with a choked scream that sounded like a man being torn apart.
For something so large, it moved insanely fast. Its long arms struck the floor first, claws digging into stone, and its body followed like a corpse dragged by invisible chains. Varkos moved at the same time. He did not wait for the creature to fully reach him. He stepped forward, turned his body, and swung.
The axe did not touch the Devil.
The blade passed a full arm's length away from the Nightmare Creature's head, but the air in front of it split anyway. An invisible force extended from the edge of the swing, carrying the attack far beyond the reach of the weapon itself.
The Ashen Gatekeeper's shoulder opened in a long, deep line, blackened hide cracking apart as ash and dull orange fluid sprayed from the wound.
'So that's his Aspect…' Eirwen thought, wanting to try and Record it, but understanding that it would not be possible in the middle of a battle like this.
The attack was deep and disgusting, but the Fallen Devil barely slowed.
It slammed into the Master with enough force to send a shock through the whole tunnel.
Varkos's boots carved two deep lines into the floor as he was pushed back, but he did not fall. The enchantments on his black armour flared faintly, dark lines spreading across the plates like cracks. The impact should have crushed his bones or at least torn some muscles, but instead, part of the force sank into the black plates and vanished somewhere inside them.
But it could not absorb all of it.
The Master's arm jerked, his shoulder plate denting inward. The Devil's claws scraped across his chest, and the black metal groaned. Varkos answered with a short swing, burying the axe into the creature's side. A heartbeat later, the wound exploded outward, invisible force bursting deeper into the Fallen Devil's body from the place where the blade had entered.
The Ashen Gatekeeper staggered for a second, jumping back to make some distance. Then its hollow chest opened before Varkos could follow it, ribs moving out of the way to expose the pulsing thing inside.
Ash erupted out of it with a deafening boom.
It was not a cloud, but a dense wave of white ash bursting from the cavity in its chest and rolling through the tunnel like a storm. Varkos crossed his arms before his helmet, but the ash struck him head-on anyway.
His armour hissed immediately. The black plates around his forearms turned grey in patches, the surface drying and cracking as if the armour had endured decades of decay in a few seconds.
The soldiers around him were not as lucky.
One man screamed when the ash hit his face. His skin dried immediately, lips splitting, cheeks cracking open in pale lines. Another tried to cover his eyes, but the ash ate through the exposed flesh of his fingers, turning the tips brittle and black before they crumbled to the knuckles. A healer with an arm missing tried to drag somebody away, only to scream in agony as the ash stuck to her body and eroded her down to the bone.
Neither Eirwen nor Seraphiel flinched at the sight.
The white-haired boy simply raised an arm.
Silver pressure flickered in front of him, forming a weak barrier that caught part of the ash before it could spread farther. He held it for a few seconds, forcing the ash to bend around him and Eirwen—and the few lucky soldiers behind them—before it fell harmlessly onto the gore-slick floor.
The Ashen Gatekeeper's chest closed again as the ash stopped, but once the smokescreen disappeared, the large Nightmare Creature suddenly vanished.
"Shit!" Eirwen cursed as goosebumps crawled over the back of his neck, his eyes widening.
He moved without thinking.
[Hydra's Choice] left his hand like a silver streak as he infused Essence into its Enchantment. The blade struck the Fallen Devil's forearm just as it reached for Seraphiel. It barely did any damage, but it changed the angle of the strike by a fraction.
That fraction was enough for the claw to miss Seraphiel.
It hit the wall behind him instead, and stone exploded from the sheer force of it.
Seraphiel was thrown across the floor by the impact, rolling through blood and ash before slamming into a broken barricade. He did not scream. His body simply folded, and for a heartbeat, he did not move.
Eirwen recalled the sword to his hand, only to notice that the Devil was no longer looking at Seraphiel.
It was looking directly at him.
Varkos was still trying to recover from the ash eating away at his armour, and he wasn't fast enough to defend the two Dreamers.
Eirwen's golden eyes widened as a single word crossed his mind.
'Fuck!'
The creature crossed the distance in one motion, its ugly body becoming nothing but a blur.
Eirwen tried to dodge, and maybe against something weaker, he would have succeeded. Against a Fallen Beast, he had been there and done that with the Burrowing Death. Against an Awakened Devil, easily.
But this thing was a Fallen Devil.
Its hand moved faster than his body or mind could properly react and the back of its claws struck him across the torso. It was not even a proper attack. Just a careless swing meant to remove something irritating.
But for Eirwen, the world disappeared.
For less than a second, he understood nothing and felt nothing.
Then his body hit the wall. Or well, to be more precise, became part of it.
His bones shattered all at once. His ribs, spine, skull, legs, everything broke together under a force so absurd that pain could not even arrive properly. Flesh burst outward in a red stain. His body flattened against the stone, organs torn open, limbs crushed beyond shape, half his skull split and pressed into the wall as blood sprayed in a wide halo around him.
For a moment, he was nothing but meat.
Even his consciousness was forced into his Soul Sea, because outside of it, there was simply nothing left to receive him.
Then his Flaw began dragging him back before he could even say anything.
It started slowly from whatever remained stuck to the wall. Flesh trembled and bone fragments shifted inside the red smear. Torn muscle pulled itself together in wet strings. After his brain and skull a jaw formed, crooked and incomplete, then part of a throat. Then one golden eye opened inside the gore and rolled wildly before the rest of the face rebuilt around it.
Eirwen could not breathe, because he had no lungs yet. He could not move either, because there was no body to move.
Essence poured out of him like water through a broken cup, and once his ear recovered, the first thing he heard was the roar of a beast.
Varkos roared.