Chapter 33
I strode into the battle training halls, having changed into a two-piece training set from Tempest, and also having searched for the training halls for thirty minutes.
“Syera?” A Magus approached. She was a warrior, and experienced. There was a surety in her step.
I nodded.
She extended a hand. “I’m Delta, battle affinity trainer in this coven. Tempest told me to expect you.”
I glanced around. Small details of Magus life filled my head after a morning touring the coven and surrounding lands. I recalled that the morning was used for affinity practice, and in this time of war, the afternoons were used for practicing those affinities for use against demons.
The training hall was filled with battle Magus, and a group of Luther and Vissimo were also present. “I’m here so everyone can practice fighting a demon,” I said to the older Magus. “That’s why Luther and Vissimo are here today?”
“They come three times a week,” the Magus replied, gesturing me to walk after her.
“They’ll take home what they learn today, and the groups of Magus who are currently in their territories also bring back what they’ve learned from Luthers and Vissimo.
Tomorrow will be spent teaching their own people anything they’ve picked up from other races.
And we repeat. Great progress has been made so far with our group strategy.
Perhaps the demon king did not foresee that by placing us in various games, he was building skills that we would later use against him.
I’d never considered that, and she was exactly right.
We stopped in front of an expansive training area covered with mats. Three Magus were fighting—Wild’s friends: Huxley, Sven, and Corentin.
They were good.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
Delta assessed the fight before her, then shouted, “Sven, hold your affinity at the ready. You’re letting it slip back, and Corentin is using that split second against you.”
Corentin’s laughter echoed through the hall, and he was gone in the next second, only to reappear behind Huxley.
Whoa. He was fast. My eyes hadn’t picked up a single bit of his passage from Sven to Huxley.
Delta glanced at me. “I know you are dual-natured like Tempest, but the two of you are unique. Can you switch off the Magus somehow?”
I pursed my lips. “I can draw on one power and not the other, unless I react instinctively.”
The trainer grunted. “Your powers are more defined than Tempest’s. She has trouble separating them.”
“A result of only possessing her demon for a matter of weeks, I’d say. I’ve known mine for five years.”
Huxley was… slippery. Literally. He’d coated his skin in something, or radiated a quality over his body that made the others struggle to hold him.
Sven was all strength.
Corentin was the most formidable opponent.
His body reacted without thought, and he had an instinctive strategy in his responses.
Huxley overthought every move. Sven was a constant risk.
If he got hold of me, I had a feeling the battle would be over, and for a big guy, he wasn’t slow or lacking in endurance.
“That’s enough,” Delta called.
The trio stopped fighting, and all of them took the chance to sit down and recover.
“Anyone in particular you want to fight?” she asked me.
I lifted a shoulder. “It’s your training. I’ll fight one or all of them. Do you want me to just defend as you test attacks, or fight as usual?”
She smirked at the trio, and I had a feeling the trainer was anticipating an ass-kicking for them. “How about you settle for just defense right now? We’ll start you with the guys, then I’ll roll others in to test whatever they’ve worked on. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.” I walked onto the mats.
Delta called after me. “Sing out if you need a break.”
I didn’t need a break. What I really wanted was a few hours to think. My head was filled with mealtimes and common routes of the coven and trying to get a handle on the alliance’s attack response.
I wanted to think about everything learned in the divination journey.
And that wouldn’t happen in the next few hours at least.
The three males stood as I approached. They shot Delta a look, and whatever they saw on her smirking face convinced them to spread out and get serious.
“We’re testing out attacks,” Delta called, and the whole training hall went silent to listen.
“Syera has been kind enough to be the guinea pig. I’ll call on some of you in turn.
Don’t pull your punches. I have a feeling she can take it.
And no barriers today. We’re going to pretend the worst has happened, and the barriers are down. ”
I caught sight of Adeuto and Owu edging into the training hall. They crept to a bench against the far wall.
“He sneaks in to watch each day,” Sven told me. “He doesn’t seem bothered.”
Of course Adeuto wasn’t bothered. His magic would be preying on the pain in the room. And I could see that Sven was trying to distract me while Huxley and Corentin moved into a better position.
“Will you talk your way through a battle with a demon,” I asked him.
Corentin snorted. “He’d try.”
They moved together, in a way that only years of practice and a true connection could have made possible.
Huxley stood back and summoned a book. He opened it and a figure of the past poured out. I shot black flames at the book, and the Magus screamed and dropped his attack to put out the fire.
I laughed. Fucking grimoires.
My head snapped back as Corentin connected a blow to my jaw. But as he did, I could feel his past where he’d stood seconds before.
Ah, a portal. A very clever portal the exact shape of his body. He wasn’t fast. He was fast at portaling. Which meant there would be a surge of inwards magic in the second before Corentin moved.
I dialed my demon senses higher in his direction.
Sven was moving in.
I released my smoke in his direction. He blurred back, then threw a charm. I flicked it back at him, and it detonated around him. Fire.
Not playing nicely at all.
Huxley darted in to engage as Corentin’s power surged.
I whirled to punch Corentin back through his barrier. Then blurred to his original location to cover him in smoke.
He screamed, and I left him to return to Huxley. Slippery Huxley.
I funneled a jet of smoke at his arm until I pierced the oily magic he’d used to make himself hard to grip. Once inside the layer, I forced my smoke between the oily layer and his skin. His eyes bulged and he dropped the defense.
I grabbed his throat and held him high, squeezing until he tapped my hand.
A presence behind me. A whoosh. I placed my forearm behind my head, and staggered forward when a blade struck my arm, then glanced off my black scales.
“Damn,” muttered Sven.
I summoned my new blade, and faced the Magus, who eyed my weapon warily.
“Damn again,” he said.
He ran at me, and I widened my stance to engage, only to feel the mats melt underfoot.
Fire again. This time in the form of a molten substance I strongly suspected was fucking lava.
Not good for a demon. I leaped aside, and Corentin’s magical attack followed me as Sven cornered me from another direction.
My blade rang against Sven’s, and I stumbled back from the force of his blow. Shit. The guy was strong all right.
He wouldn’t go down easily either.
I raised an arm to defend against a blow, and felt a crack in my scale there. Whoa. Cracking my scales wasn’t a simple feat. In fact, that was a first for me.
I whipped out smoke to catch at his feet and sent him crashing to the ground.
Leaping over the continued attack from Corentin, I threw a smoke net his way.
He redirected his attack to meet my smoke, and I smiled as fire speared through my magic toward me. That was a great strategy that would work well with most demons. Any demon weaker than the Magus, which would be most. I could sense three affinities, and none of them was weak.
I connected the smoke I’d aimed at Corentin with the smoke still around Sven’s feet. Sven screamed as his friend’s burning attack landed on him instead.
“Shit,” Corentin cursed, quickly cutting off his battle affinity.
“You’re done,” Delta called to them. “Next!”
Huxley jogged back onto the mats to help Corentin drag Sven away. Sven held a thumb up in my direction.
“Nice,” he wheezed.
“Any thoughts?” Delta asked, moving onto the mats to join me.
“Corentin’s fire attack is a good one, but any Magus who uses it must be sure of their strength relative to the demon they’re facing.
Sven’s strength should be utilized more.
He’s strong enough to crack the scales of a demon, of my scales.
If he—or other strong Magus—are able to crack enough scales of a demon, that is a viable way to defeat them. ”
I held up my forearm where a tiny wisp of smoke was escaping the cracked scale. Nothing to worry about—it would be gone tomorrow—but twenty more cracked scales would have weakened me. Fifty could have killed me.
I added, “The faster Magus need to be utilized for magical and decoy attacks. The slower Magus for crushing attacks at intervals. Rotate them round. Speed is your friend against a demon. We live expecting attack and notice weaknesses easily. Huxley spends too much time considering his attack. And the book thing… demons don’t care about burning books.
There is value in using ghosts and echoes from books, but keep the books out of sight. ”
Delta was nodding. “You understood Corentin’s portaling attack immediately. Was that demon or Magus magic at work?”
“Magus.”
“Anything else?”
I realized that our conversation was being listened to by the whole hall.
I returned my focus to Delta. “Demons are ranked in power by their scale color. The smoke of a strong demon will hurt the smoke of a weaker demon. The barrier that Huxley used over his skin is something that demons will exploit. His barrier effectively held my smoke against his skin where he couldn’t escape it.
But his concept could be used to trap a strong demon’s smoke against a weaker demon’s body. ”
“Using one demon’s power against another,” the trainer murmured, smiling after.
“You’ve used the four-affinity barriers as defense,” I said. “They can also be used in attack. With those, none of the Magus would be harmed by the smoke as they would individually be using that strategy.”
Delta clapped me on the back. “All good ideas. Ready for another round?”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
I squared off with the next group. Of Luthers.
My smoke wouldn’t work, and I felt the first stirrings of genuine enjoyment. I circled my arms and watched as half of the Luthers started to transform into werewolves.
I stepped aside to narrowly avoid a slash of lethal claws. Yep, that was decapitation material.
When the next swipe of claws came, I held up an arm. Crack.
There was potential there. Not to mention what would happen if a Luther managed to get their enormous jaws around my neck.
The ten Luthers surrounded me, and as they descended upon me in a snapping of teeth, I portaled out, then opened another portal on top of the nearest group of watching Magus. The charging Luthers ran through them like bowling pins.
When the Luthers untangled from the startled—and bleeding—Magus, they padded to surround me again.
One of the wolves launched at me, and as I dodged her, she shifted midair. I reeled from her kick. My power locked onto the pain of her shift, and I gripped onto the slipstream of her transformation from wolf.
The female fell to the ground, screaming.
The other Luthers were closing in, but I stepped closer to assess what I’d caught.
Oh. Oh.
I speared magic in both directions, and felt my demon power connect with the closest Luthers. They all fell to the ground, and I released them after.
Delta crouched by the fallen female, then glanced up after seeing she was okay. “What happened there?”
“What happened is that none of the Luthers should ever transform in front of a strong demon. I was able to affect their pack bond through the pain of her shift. Carmine could eliminate the entire pack that way.”
The largest wolf padded over, then shifted. “I’m Hairy, Sascha’s beta. He could take out all of us?”
I could have, so Carmine absolutely was capable of that. “Every Luther here, and every Luther not here. Anyone connected to the pack.” I looked up at him. “Including me. I am connected to Axel now.”
“I heard,” grunted the beta.
“If Carmine ever gets hold of the pack bond, then use my connection to the pack against him. He won’t destroy it if there’s a possibility of hurting me too.”
The beta exhaled. “Mates are mates, I guess.”
A cold laugh left me. “Not always, Luther. He would not hurt me because that would hurt him.”
The Luther frowned. “Then that’s shit. I’m sorry he’s your mate.”
“So am I.”
Delta was speaking with the Vissimo. She glanced over her shoulder. “Up for a tangle with Vissimo?”
I glanced at Owu and Adeuto, who were now pretending to be Luther. Their hands were clawed, and they were covered in scratches. Mother be.
“Let’s do it,” I answered, returning to the mats. I paused, then glanced back at the beta. “Sascha should consider inviting a four-affinity barrier in to protect the pack bond. Just for emergencies. I know that’s invasive, but the entire pack could fall in one blow otherwise.”
“The pack is stronger than you think,” he retorted.
I arched a brow. “No offense meant, beta, because Luthers are uniquely equipped to fight demons. The most even fights will occur between our kinds because you eliminate the advantage of our smoke. But you don’t eliminate our magic.
Your pack should keep shifting to a minimum and explore ways to use portals to your advantage.
Also, the claws and teeth… use them more. They are effective against scales.”
He glanced at my shoulder that was leaking smoke. “One scale.”
“A scale of the second most powerful demon in the realm,” I said. “You could do serious damage to a weaker demon.”
I faced the Vissimo and felt the first tingles of fatigue hit me. “I’m ready.”