Chapter 17 #3
She might as well have punched a wall of iron.
Harald heard the bones in her wrist and hand break but didn’t give her a chance to recover. He twisted, drove his elbow across her jaw, then bent his will upon her, the full force of the Crown, willing her to sag, to suffer, to surrender.
Sythryxa leaped back, more cuts appearing across her body as the motes passed over her, and Harald realized with bleak amusement that he wasn’t nearly overwhelmed enough to profit.
If he were against five or six Sythryxas, he’d be draining them all and benefiting from that accelerated rate of empowerment.
One foe?
It felt like sipping the headiest whisky, but the amount was miniscule compared to what he’d enjoyed against the dozen Handmaidens.
No matter.
“Is any part of you burning?” he asked, striding along the ridge of the huge rooftop toward her. “Itching? Has it been for a while?”
Sythryxa glared at him, momentarily confused, then reached up reflexively to touch her neck.
Harald roared with laughter and unleashed another pulse. It poured forth and he leaped right after it. Sythryxa leaped high, shattering the ridge as she bounded into the darkness, but the pulse, it turned out, flooded out in every direction, including up.
Harald leaped after her.
Only to be blasted back as she swept both hands together and clapped, unleashing a crashing boom that hit him like a runaway carriage.
The blast punched him straight back, flung him down and into the tower from which they’d emerged. He slammed into the stonework, shattering it and blasting it a yard deep, parts of him falling free into the staircase beyond.
But the hit didn’t even stun him.
Constitution 45.
Incredible. With a laugh, he tore himself free and raced up the roof again even as Sythryxa fell, off-balance, nauseated no doubt by his pulse, to crash awkwardly down on the tiles.
Harald willed the abyss to consume her.
Abyssal Imperium coalesced around her once more, void blades flashing, and this time Sythryxa screamed.
More essence flooded into his Well, and through it into him.
Faster than thought, he raced up the roof to reach her, only for her to raise her face, black blood running down her cheek, and whisper, “Kneel.”
The word hit him like a bullwhip, causing his body to spasm. To Harald’s confusion, he found himself crashing down to one knee, then toppling forward, hands punching through slates, as his very essence rebelled against him.
Sythryxa rose unsteadily to her feet and laughed throatily. “You think I fear brute force? I am Eclavistra’s regent. My command is unquestionable. And you. You that have harvested so much essence from my sisters… you now fall under my purview. Kneel, fool, and acknowledge me your master.”
Harald clenched his jaw, eyes wide with strain, and fought her command.
He wasn’t fighting her, he realized—it was his own Form he was contesting, the very essence that was warped into his being, the unholy power that had augmented him so.
Essence stolen from Handmaidens, essence that knew only one thing: to obey Sythryxa.
“I’m disappointed,” said the gaunt, elongated demon as she began making her way toward him, completely at ease. “Eclavistra spoke so highly of you. To think even my mistress could be mistaken.”
Harald considered relinquishing the Demoniac Body.
But pride, obdurate hatred, refused to accede.
Instead, he drew on the power of the Crown.
He drank deep from his own mighty will. He summoned every vestige of self-control, and from the raw, stubborn fact of who he was—and who he was did not kneel.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to do.” Sythryxa loomed over him now. She bent down to caress his brow. “You’re not supposed to be this pliable. You’re ruining our plans—”
With a roar, Harald tore free from her control and rose behind a punch that had every ounce of his hatred behind it.
His fist slammed into her gut. Strength 37 meant the very fabric of her flesh distended before the blow, her massive demon form bowing over his arm as her back bulged out, and then she flew off his fist like a ball smacked by a bat.
Harald gave chase, leaping after her flying form. The roof blurred under them. They crested the ridge, rose high over the other side, and then Harald reached her and brought the Scourge down.
Her head parted from its neck.
Black essence flooded into the Well and his demonic reservoir.
They crashed down, slid, rooftiles shattering and bursting before his falling weight as he lunged to snag the demon corpse by the ankle.
Her head rolled off into the darkness and was lost, but just shy of the cathedral roof’s edge, he arrested his fall and came to a stop, to lie on his back, half-sunken amidst a wave of cracked tiles, her shrinking body still clasped by one hand.
The sound of metallic stars ringing out against the void filled his mind.
The Demon Seed Has Stirred
Your Dexterity has risen from 22 to 23
Harald lay there, shaken.
For at the last moment, she’d turned to look back at him, and grinned.
Grinned with pleasure, with amusement, with pity.
Pity?
He’d bested her. From where her arrogance?
Harald yanked the corpse up alongside him.
In one fist, it still clutched the crown.
Was it for this Artifact that she’d fled the battle below? Was it so precious she couldn’t risk it falling into human hands?
The last of his demonic essence he’d poured into the Body ran out, and Harald chose not to drink from the reservoir so as to maintain it, so he shrank swiftly back into his human form.
He almost fell through the roof as the gaps beneath him suddenly yawned massively, and he was forced to scramble to safety.
With the Demoniac Body’s release, he felt some measure of sanity, of self-control return to himself, and he glanced up at Exeros’ mote of light.
It hovered there, uncaring. The Shattered Seraph might not like Harald’s new power, but it seemed he didn’t object to his using it to kill demons.
Cautious, frowning still, Harald reached and tried to pull the crown free. The corpse wouldn’t relinquish its death grip, and in the end, he had to snap each finger off.
Sagging back into the nook he’d carved down the roof’s side, he turned the black crown about in the moonlight.
A near perfect replica of the Twilight Crown.
But what was it?
What did it do, and how had Eclavistra planned to conquer Flutic with it?
There was only one way to find out.