Page 164 of Last Gift: Supernatural Battle

I formed all four affinities of my magic into a disc and severed her head. It took the better part of a minute. Red scales were the toughest, though, like sawing through scarred sinew reinforced with fucking diamond.

My hand lifted of its own accord, and I peered back as my magic connected with Wild’s. Ooh. We had a good batch this time. Five demons hit the barrier, and Wild and I looped the second barrier around their backs.

I felt the magical draw this time as we snapped the barrier together and shredded the demons caught between them.

I wiped sweat from my brow and took stock. There seemed an endless number of them. They were like rats pouring out of flooding sewers.

“Past first fork,” puffed Sage through the sentry pendant.

The demons were being forced toward us.

“Kyros, let me have one!” Basilia stomped her foot as Kyros tore the head off another yellow demon.

King Julius, who hadn’t budged, laughed yet again.

“They’re working on the barriers,” Wild said rapidly. His face was streaked in blood. A demon blade had sliced across his cheek, but the wound wasn’t deep.

I scanned the caves and saw the barriers to the north that were working to narrow the fighting space were being attacked by a group of red-scaled demons who’d cottoned onto our ploy.

Wild took my hand, and we erected a barrier around ourselves first before directing the flow of our magic to the weakening barrier at the north entrance. There was something extra in the magic of the magus who shared a bond. Rooke had already formed the theory during the first battle with the demons, and the sentries had tested it out when the barriers opened.

Barriers formed by bonded magus decayed at a much slower rate. And Wild and I were about as bonded as magus could get.

We wove all four affinities to reinforce the magic there, and then I felt a dark stirring in my blood that reminded me of the magic my demon used weeks ago to cover the demon gate in my quarters. This time I could understand what was happening. Black smoke was congealing and drifting to add yet a fifth dimension—or sixth if a bond could be considered one by itself—to our work. The black smoke had to evaporate from my body to stop my blood from boiling me alive, but I could send blood out with it.

The fifth layer of the barrier contained specks of it.

I grunted as a blow landed on the charm immediately protecting us. The hit disrupted my focus on the barrier. No matter, the job was already done.

Demons of every color were pouring into the room. Wild and I were jostled back by Andie and Sascha in their wolf forms, who’d opted to protect us while we worked. We dropped the barrier, and I glanced around. All sides were being pressed back to the center.

“What’s the status of the others?” Kyros asked coolly. The guy wasn’t puffed in the slightest. Though… did Vissimo need air?

Wild answered, “They’re in the main tunnels. There’s most progress in the east, but the demons are surrounded currently and being pressed inward as planned.”

I licked my lips and made way for Andie to launch forward and drag a blue-scaled demon to the ground. She yelped as the supernatural kicked out savagely, but Sascha was on the male in the next second. Basilia dragged Andie back to the center.

The ground shook.

I didn’t mean a little shake—because that was already happening with upward of one thousand fighting supernaturals in here. The stone shook hard enough to collapse the place, and would have if the caves weren’t magically reinforced. The caves trembled, and the tremble extended to my very heart.

Because a roar had caused all that.

A being with incredible power.

The demon king was here. And his roar alone had chilled my blood as effectively as the smoke evaporating from my body.

“He stands on the knolls waiting,” King Julius declared from behind. “We shall meet him there.”

I had no resistance against the eruption of threads as those attached to most of the rulers tore from the chamber to jet out and up. If we didn’t go up there, then the demon king would come in here, or call his subjects back up to the knolls.

King Julius had put together the particular challenge in the roar quicker than me. The demon king was giving us a choice. Come out, or I’ll bring you out anyway.

Considering drawing his army out was the better strategic choice, I was surprised we got a say in the matter.

“We’re needed on top,” I told the other rulers.

Kyros was fighting but zipped back at my words to join Basilia. Andie already appeared to be mostly healed. Sascha helped her over.

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