Chapter 23
Milo soared through the city, ignoring the outbursts of destruction from nearby guilds and the pleas from enchanters fighting hordes of fiends in the streets.
Instead, he focused on a looming threat that I couldn’t make sense of.
Even as a manifestation latched to his side, I barely kept up with the whirl of intel filling his mind.
I wanted to reach out, to tell him I’d been locked in a psychic trap. But when Milo reached his destination, I froze at the sight of the destruction.
The Global Tower, an embassy of magic authority, had been leveled. Not the entire building, but the top five stories now littered the ground with debris. Flames fluttered across the block. Ten sets of red eyes locked onto Milo as he slowly hovered toward the demons.
“She said the clairvoyant would show up,” one of the demons spoke, sending an icy chill through my body.
This was no demon. This demon possessed a host. This was a devil. And he possessed the most frightening host imaginable. A muscular man with a slight tan and slicked-back blond hair.
Richard Kingston, the number one witch in the world.
The strongest witch in the Global Guild.
He was known as America’s sentinel. America’s vanguard.
He was also occasionally referred to as America’s dick, given his name and our nation’s need to swing our metaphorical cock around in a measuring contest for authority.
These ten witches were the top ten members of the Global Guild. The greatest enchanters in America. The collection of power that’d finally agreed to gather so we could put an end to The True Witch and her Celestial Coven. And now… Now they all stood possessed by demons.
Gladiatrix and Wadsworth stared down Milo with their shimmering crimson eyes.
Even as a fragment of psychic energy, the pulsating ferocity of their demonic energy made me recoil.
How had the top ten guild witches in the world all been possessed by demons?
The True Witch managed to subdue them all long enough for possession. A frightening thought.
And not just any demons, but a clan of vampires now poised as mighty devils with the strongest host bodies they could ever require.
These might not be perfect hosts, like what the chimera craved when trying to possess my body, but each of these witches would contain their vampire demon long enough for it to wreak havoc upon the world.
Milo descended to the streets below, encouraging the devils to follow him by keeping his guard down.
What kind of recklessness was he planning?
As he landed on the street, he picked a spot not entirely covered by debris.
The devils encircled him from every direction, glimmer of excitement in their eyes, and sadistic fanged smiles.
“I’ve trained for this possibility,” Milo said quite casually, as if he weren’t surrounded by ten foes with the superior advantage.
Not that I doubted Milo’s skills, but any one of these enchanters would push him past his limits.
The idea that he believed he could hold his own against all ten simultaneously. The audacity.
Yet, he really did believe it. While I couldn’t make full sense of his garbled visions, I believed he exaggerated on training for this precise possibility.
The murkiest realities he feared only ever gave him inklings of ideas.
Milo didn’t know for certain what he needed to ready himself for, but he knew he needed to prepare for something foul and demonic—since they obscured their movements from magical detection.
The irony of Milo preparing for a battle against demons because he couldn’t predict the impending battle against demons wasn’t lost on me.
“This was actually my first vision,” Milo said with a smile, crossing one arm over the other to stretch his muscles. “It’ll be nice to finally clear that one from the books. So to speak.”
His first vision? I shuddered, taking in the sight of the ten sets of crimson eyes. This was the vision I’d seen in his nightmare. Milo said it was outdated, impossible. Of course he lied.
“You know, preparing for this actually kept me motivated during my training regimes.” Milo bent his leg, lifting the foot behind him, so he could grab hold of it and stretch the muscles.
He repeated the process with his other leg, then did a few squats.
“Still, I never expected to face ten devils possessing the top ten witches in the Global Guild. This should make for quite the entertainment.”
Milo’s eyes flitted around the area, surveying bystanders, tracking the news helicopter, and the others recklessly livestreaming this impending battle. These people should be fleeing for their lives, not recording the scene.
“Time to show y’all why they call me The Inevitable Future.” Milo smiled, big and confident, so much so that his bright blue eyes closed for a second. He stood before these threats without a care in the world, even if his thoughts surged in and out of visions, looping through endless scenarios.
“The hubris of psychics,” Gladiatrix hissed. Correction, the demon possessing her body hissed. It seeped through every cell of her being, manifesting the raw radiance of a devil.
Name: Alicia Lawrence
Branch: Alteration (Supreme Physicality)
Rank: 4th
I trembled. These vampires were nothing like the chimera. They oozed with power either because they had too much to hide or simply didn’t concern themselves with discretion. I’d never felt demonic energy on this level. Even looking in their direction made my skin crawl.
“Let us rid ourselves of this witch so we can feast upon the city,” the demon possessing Wadsworth said. His tired, old body moving freely without the aches and pains of nearly a century and a half of pushing well past his limitations.
Name: Samual Wadsworth
Branch: Rejuvenation (Healing)
Rank: 8th
“Shall we begin?” Milo asked, lunging forward in a blink.
I’d never seen him move so quickly. I’d never seen anyone move so quickly. Even the devils were stunned, especially the ones possessing Gladiatrix and Wadsworth. Milo snatched the pair by their faces and then slammed them headfirst onto the ground.
The earth cracked, the devil’s eyes glowed white, and a flurry of demonic energy erupted into nothingness.
What the hell was that?
“How’d you…” The devil possessing Enchanter Kingston stared wide-eyed at the unconscious Gladiatrix and Wadsworth.
Milo banished two devils at the same time. Their thoughts were faint, lost in the murkiness of slumber, but they were alive. The last time Milo banished a devil, he had to channel a hundred fellow witches to ensure the chimera’s exorcism didn’t kill Jamie Novak in the process.
“I told you; I’ve been preparing for this battle my entire life.” Milo shifted his stance, raising his fists. “The only true way to face a devil is through your root magics, so I perfected mine.”
What? Milo had perfected his banishment root.
This whole time, he’d just been holding back, encouraging others to assist him.
No, it was more than that. Milo moved at a blurred speed that would compete with Gladiatrix on her best day.
That meant Milo lightened the weight of his body with levitation and propelled himself with telekinesis. He perfected those roots, too.
Had Milo really been holding himself back this entire time?
He always proved he could handle the hardest of battles, but he often preferred outcomes that gathered alliances and grateful comrades who went on to achieve more heroics after their encounter.
Still, did Milo believe that with his perfected roots, he could hold his own against the ten most powerful witches in the world?
“Enough of this,” snapped the devil possessing Enchanter Barlowe. He was pale and sickly looking, though some of that could be attributed to the possession.
Name: Maximus Barlowe
Branch: Arcane (Heavenly Ice)
Rank: 3rd
The devil channeled Barlowe’s branch, drawing the molecules of water and the refraction of light in the air to twist them into a unique type of ice under Barlowe’s control. The arcane magic was a mix of primal, cosmic, and rejuvenation.
Before he could impale Milo with a dozen icy blades, Milo waved a hand to destroy the attack.
“Impossible,” Barlowe’s devil said.
“Perfected telekinesis can do wonders.” Milo grinned, leaping forward to strike Barlowe with banishment.
“Not happening.” A glittery flicker of light appeared beside Barlowe, and another devil snatched him up and teleported out of Milo’s reach.
Name: Miguel Lopez
Branch: Cosmic (Shimmer)
Rank: 5th
Enchanter Lopez had a deep amber complexion and a similar build to Milo’s. Even their jaws held the same clenched tension.
“Perfected roots or not, you can’t maintain them for very long,” said the devil possessing Enchanter Stone. “Wear the witch down, then feast upon him.”
Name: Conrad Stone
Branch: Primal (Floral Divinity)
Rank: 2nd
The second-oldest member of the Global Guild and currently ranked second, while in his early fifties.
Enchanter Stone, most commonly known as Nature’s Champion, despite notoriously selling out to corporations and acting as their spokesperson.
I shook away my personal disdain for the witch and focused on the devil using his body to hurl hundreds of thorned vines at Milo.
They burst before reaching Milo. Every vine, pedal, and leaf exploded into puffs of green mist before blowing away in the wind.
Holy hell. I just realized what Milo was doing with his perfected telekinesis.
He was literally ripping apart their attacks cell by cell.
He controlled every single one of them on a molecular level, dividing and destroying.
If he did that to the devils themselves, he’d easily win this battle.
He could shatter their host bodies, then banish them as they struggled to regain their senses without possession.
I tsked.