The hot, purple-black smoke from the smoking opening in the stone floor rose slowly, hanging like a damp mist over the valley. At the edge of the pit stood the fresh squad from the Hellverse. They occupied the terrain not as a mindless horde, but as an organized, hungry battle force.
Nicola and Apollo stood shoulder to shoulder, observing every twitch of the newcomers’ muscles.
"Look at their formation," Nicola spoke under his breath, his voice analytical and cold, while his Ether Anting energy wrapped around his fingers like thin threads. "These aren’t brainless monsters from a forgotten dungeon. Those massive figures in the back, with those scorched, pitch-black armor plates and pulsing veins… those are Vulkanian Dread-Ors. And those agile figures with those predatory heads…"
"Panthera-Hellbeasts and Lycan-Infernals," Apollo added, his hand clamped tightly around the hilt of his sword. "And those small ones slipping between their legs with those razor-sharp teeth and flashing eyes… Aether-Imps and Shadow-Kith. They have their own hierarchy. Their own culture of cruelty."
One of the massive Vulkanian Dread-Ors took a heavy step forward. The rock beneath his clawed foot shattered into grit.
"They’re spent," the Dread-Or chuckled, his voice sounding like two sandpapers of rock rubbing together. "Their auras are flickering. They used up all their fuel against the old Bone Devourer. Take them!"
With a raw roar, the Panthera-Hellbeasts shot forward. Their movements were a blurred smear of golden-yellow and dark red predatory instinct.
Jane, still half in her Lynx beasthuman form, didn’t even blink. A wild, defiant grin pulled across her face.
"You really think you’re the only ones with claws?" Jane called out.
She shot straight toward the lead Panthera-Hellbeast. An explosion of neon-yellow lightning discharged around her muscles. Mid-air, their attacks intersected. Jane’s Electric Anting flowed seamlessly with the ice and time magic of Nyx, who launched a crescent moon of pure ice from the flank to block the beast-humans’ jumping angle.
"Nice leap," Nyx spoke with a sovereign, icy tone, "but on my ground, you only move when I allow it."
While heavy fighting erupted on the flanks and Aurelius joined Nicola in raising a wall against the heavy Dread-Ors, an utterly bizarre situation unfolded in the center of the field.
Ren and Miki stood face to face with two younger hellspawners who had leaped out from the flank. One was a skinny, bright blue Aether-Imp with large, mobile ears and a mouth full of pointed teeth; the other, a small Shadow-Kith girl with a dull, dark mist hanging like a dress around her shoulders.
Ren tensed his muscles, his Straw Anting ropes pulled tight on his chest. Miki clenched her fists, ready to let the fire spirit course through her veins. Everyone on the field expected a bloody confrontation.
However, the young Aether-Imp pulled no weapon. He stood still, tilted his head, and pricked his large ears. The lingering, rhythmic frequency of Beat’s music, still vibrating softly as an echo through the earth, reached his ears.
The Imp’s eyes began to shine brightly. A broad, chaotic grin spread across his face.
"Ooh… that drum!" the Imp cackled in a shrill, enthusiastic voice. He began stomping his feet on the ground to the exact measure of the beat, his whole body moving with the rhythm. "That drum is hard! That drum goes way too hard!"
The Imp circled Ren and Miki at inhuman speed, pulling the most ridiculous, wild faces they had ever seen. He stuck his tongue out, tugged his own ears, and dived straight at Ren in a flash.
Miki was ready to unleash her fire, but the Imp didn’t strike with claws. With a dry tap, his thin finger touched Ren’s shoulder.
"YOU’RE IT!" the Imp shouted, laughing hysterically before jumping backward like crazy and standing upside down on a boulder.
Ren stared at his own shoulder in utter disbelief for a fraction of a second. The switch flipped in his mind. The tension of the fight with Abaddon, the weight of the musicians’ legacy… it vanished entirely for one brief moment. A broad, wild grin broke across his firm face.
"Oh, that’s the game?!" Ren roared, laughter in his voice.
"Miki, throw me!" Ren yelled.
Miki didn’t hesitate for a second. She grabbed Ren by his belt and hurled him into the air with a powerful swing. As Ren flew through the sky, he let dozens of golden straw fibers from his Straw Anting float through the wind like glittering snow. Mid-flight, he executed his speed technique, SAW.
At immense speed, he shot after the Imp, landed on a ridge, dived down, and tapped the jumping Imp squarely on his back.
"YOU’RE IT, OHHWW!" Ren shouted at the top of his lungs.
Due to his own intense momentum, Ren missed his landing on the wet grass. He tripped over a loose root and tumbled through the mud in a series of wild rolls. The Aether-Imp bounced upright, looked at the rolling Ren, and both youths burst out laughing so hard they lay in the grass, kicking their legs with their hands on their stomachs.
A short distance away, the small Shadow-Kith girl stood still. She wasn’t staring at the fighting demons, but at Miki’s hand. Miki had quietly searched her pockets and pulled out a small block wrapped in gold foil.
"Here," Miki said gently, unwrapping the foil and holding a piece out toward the dark girl. "You look like you could use some energy."
The Shadow-Kith girl sniffed suspiciously at the dark block. She took it carefully with two thin fingers and popped it into her mouth all at once. Her eyes went as wide as saucers.
"Yeah, that’s called chocolate," Miki explained with a smirk. "There’s also this thing called cake… you really don’t know what you’re missing down there."
The girl chewed with desperate speed, the dark mist around her shoulders spontaneously shifting into a soft pink glow.
"Ca… ke?" the girl uttered with an ancient, full mouth, crumbs rolling down her chin.
At the side of the field, Vulkan hung heavily on Valeria’s shoulder. His face was swollen and his blue veins flickered weakly, but his eyes were wide with utter astonishment.
"Are… are you seeing this too, Valeria?" Vulkan muttered, shaking his head. "First they demolish an archdemon… and now they’re playing tag and feeding candy to the Hellverse?"
Valeria couldn’t suppress a short, sharp laugh. "They’re out of their minds, Vulkan. Absolutely out of their minds. And that’s exactly why we’re going to survive this."
Then, the bizarrely humane atmosphere on the field flipped completely within a single heartbeat.
Without any warning, sound, or aura discharge, every single hellspawner stopped in their tracks. The Panthera-Hellbeasts lowered their claws. The Dread-Ors stopped swinging. The Aether-Imp and the Shadow-Kith girl froze mid-motion.
In a fraction of a millisecond, the entire squad of hellspawners zipped off in another direction. They shot across the surrounding hills like pitch-black, lightning-fast shadow streaks, fanning out across the field and vanishing into the distance at insane speed.
Only the leader of the hellspawners remained behind.
With a movement that seemed to fold space itself, the leader appeared directly in front of Silarias. Silarias instantly tensed his muscles, his eyes flaring orange, ready for close-quarters combat.
The leader of the hellspawners did nothing. He stared Silarias down from head to toe. With a calm, almost respectful gesture, he reached out and tapped Silarias dryly on the shoulder.
BOOM!
A deafening sonic explosion burst from where the leader stood. The air pressure blasted the plumes of smoke around Silarias away. When the smoke cleared a second later, the figure was gone without a trace. Nothing remained but a thin circle of gray ash on the ground.
Silarias stared down at his own shoulder. Right beside him, Vulkan stepped forward. They looked at each other with wide, disbelieving eyes.
"OH!" Silarias and Vulkan shouted almost synchronously from the bottom of their lungs. "AND NOW WHAT?!"
At that exact moment, Beat’s lingering spiritual music cut out completely. No echo, no vibration, nothing. An icy, absolute silence descended over the ruined valley.
Everyone on the field froze. Every head turned slowly, millimeter by millimeter, toward the edge of the forest ruins behind them.
From the shadow of the scorched trees echoed a heavy, royal, and visibly annoyed voice that chilled them to the bone.
"I’M GONE FOR A MOMENT… JUST A MOMENT… AND WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS NOW?!"
The smoke between the trees blew away.
There he stood. King Solomon, carrying an imposing stature with his cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders. And standing directly by his side, with a calm yet ruthless glare in his eyes, was none other than Faustus.