For good measure I grabbed my kusarigama. I knew that Grave Oath was useless against a Blood Demon since the creature didn’t have a soul, but I suspected that the magic of the kusarigama could come in handy.
By this time, the Blood Demon had come close enough to the camp that I could hear it eagerly crashing through the undergrowth, and when I looked up at the sight of the big, low moon shining through the close-packed trees, I saw the twisted form of the creature approaching. This time, the demon had possessed the corpse of a barbarian warrior, so it looked far more intimidating than the scrawny young peasant I’d fought before.
Even so, I knew now that looks meant nothing when it came to these things. Whether possessing the corpse of a toddler or a gigantic barbarian warrior, they all had exactly the same strength.
I would need some room to maneuver, so I waited for the shambling thing to reach the edge of the camp. The creature stopped at the edge, gripping its wavy red dagger in an overhand grip, and leered at me.
“We are on the verge of materializing in this plane, you fool,” the thing rasped at me, its voice sounding like the voices of a hundred warriors all roaring at once. “You are too late to stop us! We will eat your soul just like we will the souls of every living thing in this world. Every inch of land will be drowned in a sea of blood! You cannot stop us.”
“You wanna eat my soul, you ham-fisted shit-for-brains?” I said. “Then come on over here and try to take it.”
Chapter Sixteen
As the creature approached, I felt the armor getting colder. The froststone, it seemed, was able to sense the presence of enemies. Then, sections of the ground started to glow with a pale blue light, wispy trails of it rising like fine smoke from the ground and connected to my fingertips. I realized that I could trigger any or all of these wisps of light to throw up an ice wall.
That gave me an idea.
I kept my eye on the Blood Demon’s lurching, jerky footsteps, and as soon as it stepped onto a patch of blue light, I triggered the wispy trail attached to it. The ground rumbled briefly, then a 10-foot-high, three-foot-thick wall of ice exploded up from the ground. The force of it hurled the Blood Demon into the air, its body spinning as if punted by a titan. It flew up 50 yards, then came hurtling groundward and smashed into the earth with a potent crunch. The impact would have killed any living thing, but the Blood Demon was no living thing.
The commotion roused the camp, and everyone was clambering with haste out of their beds and scrambling frantically for weapons. The Blood Demon’s body had been left twisted and bent, but it was still clearly very strong. It struggled to its feet, straightened out its limbs, flashed an evil smile, and came toward me again, its wavy red dagger still gripped in its hand.
“Lord Vance!” Rollar yelled when he reached my side, the Thunder God’s hammer gripped in his hands. “Stand aside and let me give this foul thing a taste of thunder!”
“No, Rollar,” I said. “I have this under control. Everyone else, stand back and let me handle this.”
I grabbed my kusarigama and called up its Wind magic as the Blood Demon advanced. The weapon produced a howling tornado, and with a shout, I directed the madly spinning wind at the Blood Demon. I used the man-sized tornado like a fist to scoop the demon up and smash it through the ice wall. The force with which the demon struck and then shattered the solid wall of ice would have obliterated even a mountain giant, but it didn’t do anything of the sort to the Blood Demon. Part of the wall was still intact, though, so before the tornado faded out, I swung the trapped monster into it with furious force. The tornado faded away, leaving the night air still once more… and the twisted, broken heap of the Blood Demon’s body stood up, still leering with its solid red eyes. This time, the impact had knocked the cursed dagger out of the creature’s hand. Isu saw this, grabbed a rag, and darted over to snatch up the evil weapon before the Blood Demon could retrieve it.
Now that the demon had been roughed up a little, I figured it would be a good time to try out my new Plague Fists. I summoned their magic, sending black roots blasting out from my feet through the ground to burrow in search of rotting corpses at an incredible speed. It didn’t take long to find them in this forest; there were dead animals everywhere. The black roots sucked in the putrefaction and channeled it through my body. Soon, my hands turned a sickly dark shade of gray. The power of decomposition pulsed ever more insistently in my fists, building up a furious pressure. Keeping the magic boiling in my fist, I waited for the demon to lunge for me, then unleashed everything I’d been holding back.
I ducked under the creature’s clumsy grab for my throat and slugged it in the stomach with my right fist. The blow hit it with the force of a boulder hurled from a giant trebuchet. The Death magic, concentrated in the form of infectious, explosively spreading decay, was transferred instantly from my fist to the demon’s body.
The demon was hurled up into the air, the blackness spreading across its midsection. If I had hit a man with one of these fists, not only
