Chapter 10
The clearing was dead quiet for a moment before the lead demon smashed his mace hard enough into a tree trunk to send splinters of wood flying for dozens of yards in every direction.
"Fucking rats," he growled out despite his face looking like a smiley face drawn with children's fingers in the sand.
"We can go in and kill them," one of the other demons said, and the lead demon smacked him aside.
"Orders are we don't go in. Instances are for your betters," He laughed, and the others awkwardly joined him.
Some of the more insectoid ones let out a rough skitter before his gaze turned to them sharply.
"You're unnecessary," the leader said, hefting his mace and putting the spikes inches away from the insectoid's compound eyes.
"Go back to what you were doing. It's clear they're not strong enough to deal with us.
We'll just take them apart as they exit. "
The insectoid, however, didn't back down and instead glared back. "We serve the Demon Lord, and not you," he hissed. "So put your mace and your words away."
The manta ray demon’s strange lips curled, and his smile turned up slightly larger, before his mace disappeared and reappeared with a flash, braining the demon and sending it sprawling along the ground.
"Now, the rest of you… are you going to be a problem, or are you going to get lost?"
Two of them grabbed the insectoid whose skull had been scrambled and splattered along the ground, before rushing away with him.
"Be careful what you wish for," one of them threw over their shoulder, before hurrying after the others.
However, the manta demon just laughed, his large fins quivering with each chuckle.
"Stupid insects. Only valuable for their numbers. None of the demons like them, and fuck all if I’m going to share any reward with them," he said to the mantas around him.
"Unlike us, who have a far higher ceiling.
They're guaranteed to be little more than drones for the entirety of their lives. "
***
As soon as our group had escaped the demonic warriors, I found myself in a mystical jungle rather than the deep verdant greens that had surrounded us in the rainforest. They were now a light vibrant blue, dotted with red accents.
Those from the First Garden who had defended alongside us were falling to the ground before the healers, panting as their adrenaline spikes faded off and left them exhausted and far too aware of their wounds.
Two healers bent over them and began healing. A third glanced at me. "Do you need any help?"
I held a hand up and waved her away. "It's fine, I have a powerful regeneration.
" I reached over my shoulder and brushed aside the blood to show that the wounds had already healed.
My eyes then shifted down to Almeria, who, after a moment of concentration, had blue water ripple over her and was cleansing herself of blood and wounds as well.
"I'm fine, too," she said with a smile. "A small self-heal for my own purposes is enough."
"As you wish." The healer bowed quickly to the two of us and moved on to her sect-mates instead.
"Now what?" Almeria turned to me, and I sat down by the instance portal.
"We let the sect continue to fight. I don't think we're supposed to use these resources ourselves," I told her.
"Eve would not mind, as long as you split the bounty fairly." The healer who had offered help apparently still had her ear perked in our direction.
"Well then, I suppose clearing an instance isn't too hard." I rubbed my chin. "Perhaps we can speed everything up just a little."
***
The insectoid demons were fleeing, though, unbeknownst to them, a shadow slipped beneath them, following their every step as Merlin and Nyx stalked them.
They paused, glancing down at their brained companion, and pulled dark potions out of their spatial rings, cramming them down his throat.
"Can you believe that, Ogal?" one of them said, with a twist of his head that reminded Merlin of someone rolling their eyes, but, in this case, the compound insectoid eyes did not have the flexibility to roll.
"Do not let him bother you overmuch," one of the others said, folding two sets of arms in front of their chest. "When the time comes, the swarm can always reap their lives. So what if they're strong? They are but a single individual. The swarm always wins in the end."
The demon chuckled, and the others joined him, only for the one who'd been fed the potions to begin coughing as his skull healed. He looked around, dazed.
"Damn it, why didn't you fight for me?" he growled, and the one who'd been talking about the swarm spat in his direction.
"We didn't have the numbers to win that fight. You're an idiot for picking it.”
“Technically, he asked us to go against the Demon Lord's commands.
Do what you want, but I will always push back when it comes to betraying those orders.
Now, if anyone asks, I got brained for trying to follow them.
" He huffed and looked away. "At least I have an excuse. I don't know about the rest of you."
Two of them buzzed their wings on their backs as a sign of agitation, and Merlin's eyes peered from the shadows, watching. If they were going to take flight, it was going to be far harder to follow them.
"And now, which way should we go? Back to the nest or to the instance?" one asked.
"The nest," the one that had put up the fight and recovered from the potion said.
"Use me as an excuse. We went back to make sure I fully recovered, and perhaps we can lodge a complaint.
These fucking mantas think they rule the world, when they're not even that competent.
I heard in the sea they ran away from their target because they couldn't kill it in time. "
The one who had taken the lead buzzed just over the surface of the ground.
While they weren't flying above the treetops, they were moving substantially faster, and Merlin had to be quick to keep up with them, slipping from shadow to shadow.
She did her best not to be obvious as she lurked behind the four demons as they darted through the rainforest. They'd gotten far enough that if it weren't for her teleportation ability, she was certain she wouldn’t be able to find her way back.
A new demon suddenly joined the four, buzzing down close. "What are you doing back so soon?" it asked, and Merlin knew without a doubt they had arrived near the demonic insect’s hive.
If the Demon Lord had a presence, she did not want to risk going closer and have some inscription ruin her and Nyx’s moment of surprise.
"It is time," Merlin said and sprang from the darkness. Shards of shadows flew into the five demons, locking their legs to their own shadows and rooting them in place, only for Nyx to materialize beside her, bow drawn with half a dozen arrows.
The Medusaic archer let loose. The arrows split midair, becoming several dozen arrows that turned the five demons into living pincushions.
She didn't stop there, drawing her bow back and firing another volley that turned the five demons into Swiss cheese, blowing holes through them as they dropped to the ground, the arrows disappearing reclaimed as a spell by the system.
The demons melted into the ground as the system reclaimed their strength, too.
Merlin turned and raised a hand for Nyx to high-five. "Let's grab the rings and get out of here," Merlin said.
"At least we know this is close." Nyx was already sweeping up the rings and jumping into Merlin's shadow as she teleported them back to the instance where Bran would come out eventually, once he’d dealt with the demons.
Having Nyx and Merlin lurking in the shadow was a strange sensation.
In a weird way, it was like they were sitting in a pitch-black room with several windows to the outside, each in the shape of the shadows that Merlin controlled.
But the good news was they could talk inside without letting out a sound.
"So, did Simone tell you anything before we came?" Nyx asked as she sat beside Merlin. The Monarch of Shadows looked over her shoulder at Nyx and smiled.
"No, but I think Simone favors you more than me. What did she tell you?" Merlin asked.
Nyx shrugged. "Lots of things and nothing at all. Sometimes, I swear she speaks in riddles."
"She's just indirect at times," Merlin said. "Even with Bran. Though he's the kind of person you have to speak to directly, or not at all."
Nyx chuckled. "He had no idea what romancing meant.”
“In fairness, it means something very different than it says." Merlin rolled her eyes, though he’d done well enough.
"And he was successful?" Nyx asked, her serpents peering over her shoulder and betraying her real interest.
"He was successful enough," Merlin said. "I put a condition on our first time, and he fulfilled it the second we got back to the citadel. Unfortunately, he rushed off here too quickly for us to seal the deal, so to speak."
Merlin smirked. It had been cute the way he helped her move her boxes into the room next to Circe's.
Merlin had been jealous of Circe and wanted to make her jealous in return, yet at the same time, she acknowledged it was a silly request. And now she was almost frustrated that she was forced to wait.
But even now, she could sense a difference in the family meals. Upon her return from Wukong, she suddenly felt like she had joined the family fully. She was now included by people like Simone and Gloria.
Gloria's shift had actually been the most interesting. Simone had always been quite flirtatious and vivacious, but Gloria had always been fairly standoffish, even for those amongst Simone's select few. But by the time she came back, it seemed Bran had accepted her, and Gloria had been like a best friend, albeit a slightly abrasive one. When Gloria would see her, she often brought a gift or would eat with her. She wasn’t entirely sure what to do with all of Gloria’s attention.
And then, of course, she quickly learned that everyone loved Nyx.
Nyx was a grown woman by all rights, but compared to a mobster, a madam, and an ancient nymph, she was by and far the most innocent of them.
And that innocence led all of them to have a faintly protective instinct of their youngest sister.
"Things are good," she said and put a hand on Nyx's lap. The Medusaic archer seemed to prefer walking around on feet as of late, though her serpentine tail had been fairly advantageous when going through the rainforest.
"I can see what you mean," Nyx said. "There's some sort of draw that Bran has. It makes you not want to disappoint him, and one of the best ways to disappoint him would be shunning one of our sisters or treating her unfairly. I'm sure Gloria would get an awful spanking if she was rude to you."
Merlin turned in slight disbelief. "Gloria, spanked?"
"Whoops, forget I said that." Nyx curled her lips mischievously.
Merlin, however, leaned forward in curiosity. "Oh no, please do tell. I think we have some time before we have to get back to business."
Nyx kept her lips curled in and rapidly shook her head, while all of her snakes bobbed up and down in confirmation.
Merlin knew it would only take a little more prying to get the story out of Nyx, and somehow, the nature of it all brought a large smile to her face.
It really did feel like she had been inducted into Bran's family, and it gave her a sense of warmth and protection, as well as a certain sense of responsibility.