The Primeval Era-Chapter 122: Demon! IV

His body pulsed with agitation.

"When the elders speak of the River of The World, they mention it as a boundary that must never be crossed. Not because the journey is difficult, but because what waits on the other side should never be invited into our territories. What the fucking fuck man..."

His crimson eyes fixed on the Kishi.

"Why would the Dominion of Crimson Stone have anything relating to them?! What madness would drive humans to bargain with such things?! These dumb fuc-...bah!"

The question hung in the air without answer.

The Kishi watched them discuss with both its faces.

The handsome visage in front smiled warmly, eyes twinkling with amusement as if it were listening to children debate matters far beyond their understanding. The hyena face in back grinned with savage anticipation, drool dripping from jaws that seemed eager to tear and rend.

"How rude and inconsiderate."

Its voice emerged from both mouths simultaneously, creating waves that shouldn’t have been possible. Warm and melodic from the front. Grinding and cruel from the back. Together, they formed something that slithered into the ears and nested in the mind.

"To talk about someone while ignoring them."

The handsome face adopted an expression of wounded feelings.

"It hurts my feelings, you know?"

The hyena face cackled.

"Ka Ka Ka!"

The creature spread its arms wide in a gesture of invitation, crimson-obsidian muscles rippling beneath translucent skin. Its posture was welcoming. Friendly. The kind of openness that made you want to step closer and hear what it had to say.

"Come to me."

Its voice dropped to something intimate and enticing.

"Let me tell you who I am."

HUUUM!

Its eyes opened fully.

Both sets of them.

The handsome face’s eyes, which had appeared warm and inviting, revealed depths of absolute hunger beneath their surface. The hyena face’s eyes, already terrible, blazed with light that seemed to reach toward those who witnessed it.

And from those four eyes, crimson light erupted.

It wasn’t merely illumination as it was enticement given form. Desire made visible. The light bathed the skies above the vessel and washed over everything below, carrying with it whispers of pleasure and belonging and the sweet promise of surrender.

Come, the light seemed to say. Come and rest. Come and forget your struggles. Come and let me take your burdens away.

Serala clutched her head.

Her wing-shaped pupils flickered erratically as the crimson light pressed against her consciousness. The disciplines she had cultivated across years of training strained against the assault, her mind struggling to maintain its independence against something that wanted nothing more than to slip inside and take control.

"No..."

She staggered, her wings flickering in and out of existence.

Masamuk’s body shook violently.

The stellar blue points within his obsidian form dimmed and brightened in rapid succession, his essence fighting against corruption that sought to overwhelm it. The damage he had already sustained made him vulnerable, and the demon’s enticement found cracks in his defenses that shouldn’t have existed.

"What... what is this..."

His voice came out strained. Confused. As if he were forgetting why he should resist!

Damian stood unmoved.

The crimson light washed over him just as it washed over the others, pressing against his consciousness with the same whispers of surrender and belonging. It tried to find purchase in his mind, tried to slip through the cracks in his mental defenses, tried to convince him that resistance was unnecessary and painful and so very exhausting.

But on his heart, an inscription made by the Primordial Tongue itself shone brilliantly.

The letter of Persevere blazed with sacred blue-gold radiance, responding to the demonic assault with defiance that transcended simple willpower. The inscription released a glow of protection over his entire body, a barrier of ancient power that rejected the demon’s influence absolutely. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

The whispers couldn’t reach him.

The enticement couldn’t touch him!

Oh!

The crimson light broke against the Primordial Tongue’s protection like waves against stone, unable to penetrate, unable to corrupt, unable to do anything but slide away into nothingness.

Damian looked at the Kishi with eyes that held no fear.

Only cold fury.

And the demon’s handsome face, for just a moment, stopped smiling.

Damian looked toward the demon.

He squashed down any sense of fear in his heart, crushing it beneath the weight of everything he had endured. Eight years of hiding. Eight years of being powerless. Eight years of watching the world continue while those who had murdered his parents thrived and expanded their reach.

He would not be afraid of this thing.

He would not bow before corruption given form.

"Persevere."

BOOM!

---

Blue flames erupted around his body with intensity that dwarfed every previous invocation.

The sacred fire roared into existence like a living thing, wrapping around his form and sinking into his flesh with hunger that bordered on violence. The inscription on his heart blazed with radiance visible through his skin, a star burning within his chest that declared defiance against all that opposed it.

And the flames didn’t stop with him.

They spread outward in waves, reaching toward Serala and Masamuk and washing over their struggling forms. The sacred fire wrapped around the Holy Daughter first, sinking into her body and pushing back the crimson enticement that had been clawing at her mind. Her wing-shaped pupils steadied. Her wings blazed back into full manifestation. The whispers that had been trying to slip inside her consciousness burned away like shadows before dawn.

The flames reached Masamuk next, flooding into the damaged portions of his obsidian body and filling the gaps the demon’s eruption had carved. Stellar blue points reignited with fierce light as the Slime of Chaos shook off the enthrallment that had been taking hold. His crimson eyes cleared, focusing once more with the cold intelligence that marked him as a Beast Lord.

They fully resisted the crimson light of enticement.

And Damian moved.

---

Tendrils of blue Mana and flames gathered beneath his feet, concentrating into a platform of pure force.

He exploded forward.

His body shot toward the Kishi Demon like a blue flaming comet, trailing sacred fire across the sky in a streak of radiance that burned afterimages into the air itself. The spear in his hands hummed with power drawn from his blood and the Primordial Tongue, crimson-blue metal singing with eagerness to bite into demonic flesh.

He reached the creature in an instant.

His arms moved in a horizontal slash, the spear cutting through the air with force that cracked the atmosphere around it. And following the blade came a crescent of flames and Mana, a wave of sacred destruction that thundered toward the neck of the demon with all the power Damian could muster.

The attack struck.

DING!

The sound was akin to hitting an extremely hard metal.

Damian felt his spear vibrating in his hands, the force of his own attack rebounding through the weapon and into his arms. The bones of his wrists ached from the impact. The muscles of his shoulders screamed in protest.

When the scene cleared, one could see the results.

The tip of his spear had made barely half an inch of indentation on the neck of the demon. That horizontal slash, backed by sacred flames and Mana concentrated through the Second Doctrine and empowered by the Primordial Tongue itself, had accomplished almost nothing.

Half an inch.

Against a being whose corruption had melted chunks from a Beast Lord.

Damian looked at this somberly.

The demon smiled devilishly.

Its handsome face turned toward him with an expression of mild amusement, one elegant hand rising to touch the scratch on its neck. The hyena face in back cackled with grinding mirth, drool dripping from jaws that seemed to find the whole situation hilarious.

"Oh my."

The creature rubbed the tiny wound as if a mosquito had bitten into it.

"That almost fuckin’ tickled."

Damian didn’t hesitate.

"Run!"

...!