Chapter 24 Lily #3
Even if you defeat me, the Covenant will destroy you.
“Ahhhhh!” I screamed before I attacked, catching his blade with mine before I spun it down and then slammed my elbow into his enormous arm.
I hit him hard enough to make his fingers release the blade, and it clattered on the stone floor.
I automatically kicked it away then resumed my attack, hacking at him with my sword, slicing across the exoskeleton on his arms when he used them to block my hits and protect his core.
He took an opening in my attack to grab me by the throat, and he effortlessly lifted me up and shook me hard as if he was trying to snap my neck like I was a rat he’d spotted in the corner of his bedchambers.
But instead of focusing on him and slamming both of my elbows down on his forearms to break free, I let him continue to choke me and throttle my spinal cord as I changed the grip on my sword, using both hands to stab the blade into his chest, where I saw the beating black heart.
The second I made contact, he stopped shaking me.
I shoved the blade in deeper and gave it a hard twist.
His hands suddenly slackened on my neck, and he dropped me.
My boots hit the floor, but I stumbled on the landing, dropping my blade and landing on the stone floor.
Leviathan dropped to his knees, his clawed hand moving over his chest where black blood oozed over the fibrous flesh.
He stared at the gunk as it dripped down his fingers before he fell back, and the moment his spine hit the stone floor, a geyser of the black liquid erupted into the dark sky…
and then it transformed into a cloud that slowly floated away.
I watched it slowly drift off before I noticed the silence around me. My eyes scanned the area, seeing the dead bodies of servants and monsters on the floor, while those who still battled immediately stopped their attack.
I couldn’t really think in that moment, overwhelmed by my victory, so I just counted the people I knew…
and when I reached six, I knew everyone was still alive.
I looked at the creatures I’d seen before, ugly orcs and bent servants who couldn’t stand fully upright.
They fought with little daggers and swords, and they all stared at me with absolute fear.
“Lily Rothschild, Goddess of the Underworld.” My hand made a fist, and I placed it against my chest. “You serve me now.” I stared into the sea of faces, searching for resistance and dissent, but not finding any. “Lead me to the Covenant.”
At that moment, there was another mighty sound in the distance, the sound of iron twisting on itself, and then there was a ripple in my sight…like the world I saw had started to fade.
“We don’t have much time left,” Callum said.
Then a cacophony of high-pitched screams pierced the sky, coming from every direction around the castle. The sound of thousands of voices turned into a single venomous growl.
Then they appeared out of the abyss, the three demon lords of the Covenant.
And they were much different from Leviathan.
One had twelve horns on his head and five layers of teeth in his open jaw, his head sporting red eyes. Two enormous swords were visible over his shoulders, and he was covered in pitch-black armor on his huge body. He also had two sets of arms, hence the two blades.
The other looked like a living skeleton, his head a skull, while his eyes were filled with an intense blue. But his bones were large, and he was tall, the openings in his armor showing the bones underneath.
The third was so formidable and strange, I couldn’t even describe him.
His eyes were too big for his wolf-shaped head, and they were solid white, like he didn’t have pupils.
With powerful legs and claws with nails that looked like individual daggers, he was the tallest and the biggest…
and seemed to be the leader of the three.
“Wrath.” The one in the center addressed Callum, even though it was unclear where his stare landed.
“You killed your successor, and now you’ve turned your ambitious sights on us, the beings who extended your wife’s life when she should have perished early in her youth—and this is how you repay our kindness? ”
“The deal was unfair, and you know it. My misery fueled you for hundreds of years, my soul slowly cracking under the weight of despair,” he said as he stepped forward, a line of black blood down the side of his face.
“Now you try to take the woman I love. Try to claim the world that is meant to be free of your heinous touch.”
“We can’t take what is rightfully ours, Wrath,” he said. “She made a deal. Your freedom for her soul. Rothschilds have a habit of not paying their debts—and that ends now.”
“Or you end now,” Callum said as he cocked his head. “I like that option better.”
The first one with the red eyes started to chuckle, his voice so deep it hurt my ears to listen to it. “Gods can be killed and replaced. Servants and monsters can be used for their services. But demon lords are eternal. No mortal or vampire can touch us.”
I didn’t have the same confidence as I’d had with Leviathan. These demons were a different species, a different level of power, so ancient that time itself seemed to fuel their veins.
I was scared that we were all about to be killed.
My dad…my brother…the man I loved.
I’d never been more unsure of myself than I was then, painfully aware that this was a major mistake.
The one with the red eyes and double arms stepped forward and removed both of his blades from his scabbards, holding one on each side of his body.
Oh fuck.
“We will use your souls to destroy what remains of the barrier,” he said as he moved forward, every step from his heavy body audible. “And Lily Rothschild’s soul will make us powerful beyond imagination.”
Callum turned to me and spoke in a quiet voice. “Their strength is weakened.”
“You’re sure? Because that’s not what I see.”
He must have seen the terror in my face because his gaze hardened. “Xivin, you can do this.”
“I really don’t think I can.” I was scared, the most scared I’d ever been in my life. When that demon came closer to me, he would snap my neck then rip it off my shoulders.
“One at a time,” he said. “We’ll distract the other two.”
“We’re all about to be killed.”
“Lily.” He suddenly grabbed me by the arm and gripped me with his stare. “I know you can do this.”
We had but a moment together before the demon came for me, but Callum stared at me like we had all the time in the world. Stared at me like he wouldn’t let me go until I was ready.
I felt my lungs work to draw in the air I needed, to dispel the anxiety that drowned me. I finally gave a nod.
He gave a nod in return and stepped away. “Protect the Goddess of the Underworld and the Queen of the Dead!” He shouted his orders to the minions that didn’t know what to do—to obey the demon lords that they feared or the god they were supposed to serve.
They made their choice, a group of them taking up positions around me as the red-eyed demon came for me.
Callum continued to issue commands. “We stop the other demons from getting to her.”
I didn’t hear what else was said because the demon swung at me with both swords—and the fight began.
“Oh fuck.” I dodged backward and ducked one sword before I blocked the other, and I barely managed to take a breath before the first sword came at me again, aiming to slice my head off like it was the top of a carrot.
I didn’t have a clue what was going on with the others because I had to give my entire focus to this one demon.
The monsters started to do their job, two of them crawling up the back of the demon who came for me, while another grabbed a heavy stone and hoisted it at the fire-eyed menace.
It gave me a chance to get some space and take a breath.
But the demon punched the monster with his bare hand and shattered the stone.
It was going to take more than talent with the sword and the strength of a god to defeat this thing.
He came at me again, rushing forward and yanking orcs off his body with his two free hands while the others with swords swung at me.
I ducked and rolled, panted and heaved, careful not to release the only sword I had.
I had to think—and think fast.
When he threw off one of the orcs, I got an idea.
“Continue climbing on him,” I ordered to whoever would listen.
They moved in another wave, climbing up his body.
It was like he didn’t notice they were there, like he was the earth and they were tiny ants crawling on a mound.
When both hands were filled with monsters and the swords were still coming at me, I dodged one attack and then jumped onto his arm that held an orc just in time.
The sword followed in an effort to hack me into pieces as I let go and hit the floor.
The sword sliced straight through the demon’s own arm, and it dropped beside me on the ground.
Black blood started to gush out of the wound and drip down his body, and he stopped to stare at the damage that he’d caused to himself.
It was the only chance I would ever get to do further damage because he would expect me to repeat my plan, so I rushed forward and raised my sword over my head and brought it down with all the force I could muster—slicing off the other arm.
This time, he screamed, more black residue dripping from his severed extremity, and he jerked back in horror as he understood that my sword had managed to slice through his hard exoskeleton because I’d packed enough force into it.
He released another scream as he relaunched his attack with his two swords, desperate to hack me into tiny pieces out of spite.
The rage gave him a surge of energy and speed that dominated me, and he pressed me forward viciously as one sword came down and then the other, and even sometimes both at the same time.
The creatures that were now under my command struggled to keep up because he moved so quickly.