“This is going to be a little tougher than the guards we just dealt with,” I said grimly. “Those aren’t men we’re looking at … they’re Blood Demons.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Yumo-Rezu asked, taking aim at the head guard. “Let’s show these Blood Demons what happens to those who try to prevent the resurrection of a dragon!”
She loosed three arrows in rapid succession, and the glowing blue projectiles streaked through the air and slammed into the breastplate of the head guard, sending jolts of Cold magic ripping through his body. He gasped and staggered back, coughing and shuddering as the Cold magic froze his body solid. Yumo-Rezu smiled as she nocked a regular broadhead arrow to her bowstring; one final shot would shatter him into broken chunks of ice.
Red light, however, blazed from his eyes, and his coughs and gasps became a series of slow, mocking chuckles. The ice melted off him, and red steam rose from his armor.
“You’ll have to do a little better than that,” he snarled, yanking the arrows out of his torso and snapping them contemptuously in his steel-gauntleted hands.
“Loyal children, destroy those creatures of evil!” the Lord of Light commanded.
“Hold up,” I said. “I’m taking this one myself. Your boys and my assassins can take the rest, but this asshole is mine.”
For one tension-laden moment, our forces stared down the Blood Demons. Then both sides broke into a furious, headlong charge, racing at each other with weapons drawn and battle cries resounding through the white-walled maze.
I’d faced Blood Demons before, so I knew how much punishment they could take. The question in my mind, however, was not how I could beat this Blood Demon, but rather how quickly I could pound him into nothing but mincemeat and splattered blood. I hadn’t been nearly as powerful the last time I’d faced one of these creatures, and now, filled to the brim with power drawn from the Gray Sentinel, I wanted to see what I could do.
As I closed the distance between the Blood Demon and myself, I concentrated all of my own power and the Death power I’d drawn from all over Luminescent into my left fist, which I cocked for a killer punch. Before the Battle of Brakith, I’d pulverized a trebuchet boulder to dust with this fist, and now, with even more power at my disposal, I wanted to see how my fist would handle a Blood Demon.
I reached him, and he took a swing at me with his greatsword, which was glowing red with Blood magic, but I slid effortlessly under the attack and countered with a vicious Death Fist uppercut. When my fist struck him, the power was unleashed. A flash of pitch-black darkness engulfed the entire passageway, driving out all light, even the glow of the Lord of Light and his troops. A tremendous shockwave rocketed through the maze, bowling everyone over and flinging them against walls or the ground. In the pitch-black darkness, I felt wetness spray across my face. When the shadows faded a few seconds later and were displaced by light, the Blood Demon I’d been fighting was gone. All that was left of him were a few twisted, half-molten lumps of steel splattered all over the surrounding floor, ceiling, and walls. A spray of red dripped off the walls and my armor. My Death Fist had hit him with such force it had vaporized him.
Everyone on both sides had stopped what they were doing to stare at me with both awe and fear.
“What are you waiting for?” I yelled. “Get on with it, kill these fucking Blood Demons!”
The Lord of Light’s troops entered the fight with their greatswords blasting out torrents of superheated light. While under his spell, they were able to wield similar powers to Elyse’s. Friya transformed into her werewolf form and tackled a Blood Demon guard to the ground, roaring like the vicious beast she was as she ripped off the foul creature’s arm. Yumo-Rezu was shooting arrows at such a furious pace that I thought her fingertips might start smoking. Her Cold enchanted projectiles pierced Blood Demons’ skulls, froze their heads solid, then shattered them into shards of blue ice before their Blood magic could counteract her Cold magic.
I raged through the demonic masses with the Dragon Sword in my right hand and my Death Fist vaporizing them with my left. With each strike of my empowered left gauntlet, the entire maze was plunged into complete darkness and knocked people over mid-fight.
Soon enough, we’d defeated all the Blood Demons, but the fight was far from over. After I’d killed the last monstrous creature, the ground started to rumble beneath our feet, then the whole maze started to violently shake.
“What’s going on?” Yumo-Rezu asked, alarmed. “It feels like a monstrous earthquake, the biggest I’ve ever felt!”
This was no earthquake, though. I could feel it in my bones, my heart, and my spirit.
“The Blood God is awakening,” I muttered. “And he knows we’re here. This is it, everyone; brace yourselves, for the greatest battle of our age is about to begin!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chunks of marble started falling from the ceiling, and huge cracks tore across the floor and walls. The shaking grew increasingly violent with each passing second, and as sturdily built as this place was, I had no doubts in my mind that it would completely collapse in a few minutes, burying us all under thousands of tons of stone and rubble.
“How far is the main entrance from here?” I asked Yollah.
“Twenty minutes, if we can run straight there and not have to fight any more guards,” he answered.
“And the secret escape tunnel?”
“Twenty-five or thirty, also best-case scenario,” he said, looking worried.
“We’re not going to make it out in time,” Yumo-Rezu murmured, and a look I’d never before seen on her came across her beautiful face: fear.
“Yes, we are.” I clenched my fists with determination. “This doesn’t end here, like this, with us dying crushed under stone like a bunch of
