“You idiot,” he roared, his voice his own and the Blood God’s combined, making it sound as if a hundred soldiers were all shouting at once. “You think you can stop us? You think the darkness is your ally? Now, you pathetic little deity of nothing, we will show you our true strength!”
He began to chant something in a language I did not recognize, as he whirled the flail around above his head. The morning star heads started to glow red as they spun faster and faster in whipping arcs, and soon they were crackling with lightning. I glanced up, and noticed that the stars in the sky above me were disappearing—they were being covered by thick storm clouds that seemed to be appearing out of nowhere. The clouds were not tinged with a blueish purple, though, as storm clouds often are—instead, these clouds were tinged with red. Thunder started to rumble from the growing clouds, and soon it was booming and pealing in earsplitting cracks, while Rodrick’s chanting increased in volume and intensity to the point at which it sounded as if he and the Blood God were screaming.
“Fuck this,” I muttered to myself.
I would have to sacrifice my personal satisfaction at watching the life fade from Rodrick’s eyes as I sucked his soul into Grave Oath; if he unleashed whatever he was brewing up, I probably wouldn’t get the satisfaction of killing him in any way whatsoever, as I might be dead myself.
I took aim with the Bone Bow, lining up my uncle’s face in its sights, and then, with a growl of disappointment, giving up that dream of delicious vengeance I’d had for so long, I squeezed the trigger.
Instead of seeing his head explode, though, I saw a red flash in front of his face, and a shower of bone fragments. His head stayed right where it was, and he was left unscathed, while my bone projectile exploded into dust.
“Shit!” I yelled.
He had some sort of invisible shield around him. Hoping that my first shot might have weakened it, I fired another few shots in rapid succession, but each one simply exploded in a shower of bone chips when they hit whatever magical shield he had around him.
As soon as I realized my current plan was going to fail, it started to rain—but these weren’t drops of water; they were drops of blood.
“Goodbye, nephew,” Rodrick yelled after he stopped whirling his flail and chanting. “You have lost, and we have won. We will drink Lucielle’s blood tonight, and our Demogorgons will walk the earth.” He then turned and strode briskly back into the Temple of Blood.
“Wait, did he just say Demogorgons?” I yelled. “There are more than one of those fucking things?! Shit!”
Down below, the soldiers were now fighting back against my zombie archers, and through the weight of their numbers they were starting to overwhelm them, despite the high number of casualties my archers had inflicted on them. I needed to kill more of them and raise more zombies—but before I could do that, I had another thing to focus on: my own survival.
The ground around me was heating up, and it was almost like there was a sizzle of power in the air. Instantly, and out of nowhere, instinct told me to dive. I hurled myself to the left just as a massive streak of red lighting blasted out of the clouds above and smashed a crater into the ground where I’d just been standing. The explosion covered me in dirt, but I was safe. Not for long, though—these were no random lightning strikes. They were seeking me out. The only way I’d avoid getting fried by lightning was by getting out of this storm, and into the temple.
“Goddamn, shit just got a little more difficult.” I scrambled to my feet as the promise of another strike crackled in the air.
I sprinted down the slope, and just behind me yet another streak of lightning smashed into the ground, blowing out a crater and showering me with dirt and rocks. I didn’t panic as I ran through the storm of blood, though; instead, I shot soldiers as I ran, taking them out and raising them as zombies in the space of seconds, turning them against their comrades in the unfolding battle.
The storm became worse the closer I came to the Temple of Blood, and the wind howled like a live, giant animal, and the blood gushed down in torrents. The red lightning strikes became more intense, and more frequent, and it was getting harder to dodge them; soon the strikes were missing me by feet instead of yards, which was close enough to hurl me through the air. Sooner or later one would hit me; it was almost as if the lightning strikes were improving their aim every time they struck the ground and missed me. Like they were studying how I dodged them and started to personalize their electric shots. At least I was warned before they struck; when the intensity of the charge in the air around me increased, I knew to veer to the side or jump or dive. Even so, it was clear that there was no way I’d be able to keep evading them.
An idea then popped into my head. I couldn’t conjure up an invisible shield like my uncle, but I sure as hell could improvise a shield of my own, one that might protect me from the blood lightning long enough for me to get to the temple. As I ran, I began to call zombies over to me, resurrecting every one of my uncle’s soldiers who fell. They surrounded me, packing their bodies in close, all running in sync as I arranged them around me. Then more zombies clambered onto the backs of those who had surrounded me, and even more, locking their arms together and forming an undead, moving dome around me. Once a first
