Page 82 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

This fight was endless and impossible. Nothing I attempted broke through the layers of essence dividing us from the villa. Every effort I made to counter, block, or flat-out attack Eligos failed. He tossed me around like a fucking ragdoll, pummeling me before vanishing back into the shadows.

“You possess essence from the most potent Hell, yet received tutelage from a second-rate demon proclaiming herself a king,” Eligos said with a mix of arrogance and contempt.

Mora had learned early on during our training even without accessing the devil essence in my possession, my own demon essence quickly overpowered her. It turned out I was a natural for violence from so much time spent observing the battles and deaths, all meant to provide Beelzebub with an ounce of entertainment. To say the skills went a bit to my head was an understatement, but each successful strike Eligos landed reminded me that the demons from my Hell battled on a level unlike any other Diabolics.

Eligos fought with such finesse; there was beauty in the blurring blows breaking my bones, ripping my flesh, bruising my muscles, all in an effort to force my depleted essence to heal the injuries or lose a second host in a day. These attacks were tactical—just strong enough to force instinct over strategy but not enough to provoke my essence to lash out chaotically. I shook away the blossoming admiration I had for his fighting style and dropped to my knees again.

Everything stilled. The trickling rainbow comets. The slithering shadows. The subtle patter of Eligos. He didn’t know what to make of it, that much I was certain of. I’d gathered after the first hundred attacks that he planned to drag this out at a crawling pace, something vindictive and petulant. Not at all like the knight I had once respected.

I closed my eyes, stopped my breathing, and turned off every single sensation except for my hearing, which I amplified with everything I had. My joints locked in place, hands laying defenseless on my thighs, neck tilted, showing the exhaustion I feigned, all so I could stall his next attack and find him.

He knew I was faking. Otherwise, he would’ve struck already. No. He worried I had something planned, something he couldn’t quite make sense of, so like a sneaky serpent, he hid and bided his time, believing he had all the time in the world. But he didn’t. Soon he’d be dead.

“Taunting me, perhaps,” Eligos whispered from afar, slightly to the right facing forward about six meters. I tightened my attention, pinpointing the slightest slither of his multitude of limbs seeping in and out of shadows. “I learned long ago not to arrogantly attack you. Play your game; I can wait for you to reveal your move.”

I forced a cough, spitting blood I’d held down to add to feigned defeat and also relieve the thick burn in my throat. Blood dribbled down my chin. “That so?”

“Oh, yes.” His voice echoed behind me, four and a half meters more centered than before. “I stalked you for the better part of a year, deducing the strength of the devil, believing my rebellion had left him wounded in the mortal realm, completely unaware you were a fake.”

“When was that?” I licked my lips, savoring the taste of iron before letting the flavor fade so I could follow the near-silent drifting of Eligos moving to my left—now five meters exactly.

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is my shortsightedness allowed me to fall into the clutches of a curious Fae seeking answers to questions I’d never once pondered.”

“Bested by the baron?” I snickered. “He wasn’t even that strong.”

“His best years were behind him, having sunk most of his magic and power and influence into the creation of this villa.” There was a gentleness in Eligos’ voice, a hint of awe for Novus.

“Mad I killed your boyfriend?” I waited for the physical reaction it provoked… Nothing.

“Saved me the time,” Eligos replied, no biting back rage or resentment, no hidden feelings whatsoever. Novus’ death wasn’t something I could exploit. Too bad. “While I lay captive by him for centuries, suffering the indignities of his experiments as he sought ways to properly utilize Diabolic essence in tandem with Fae magic, I eventually brokered a trust with him.”

“How’s that?” Carefully, I redirected essence into my fingernails, cautious and quiet.

“I showed him how proficiently I could take down my brethren, offering him more demons for experimentation all in some drive to control the very threads of the universe itself.”

“And here I thought you loved us all. Guess it’s okay to betray your own when you mean well.”

That incited a reaction. Eligos’ many limbs coiled round and round each other, muscles tightening and flexing.

I smiled, bright and bloody in his shadow realm, knowing my glistening teeth were the only light in the darkness since the comets had all but fizzled out. Their faded colors no longer reflected off Eligos’ abandoned armor, but I kept my attention on the suit, awaiting any potential clank of metal.

He remained where he was, knotted in fury, too tense and unfocused to counter.

Now.Now was my opportunity to hit him where it hurt.

Unveiling my wings, I flapped them furiously, unyielding. I would beat Eligos. Before shifting my senses back to equal proportions, I caught Eligos unbinding his body, preparing to lunge for a strike.

Releasing my three tails, I bounced them against the shadowed floor, shifting my trajectory midway to colliding directly with Eligos, and went for my real target.

Eligos screamed, a pained, visceral, hateful sound as my claws met his suit of armor and sank into the metal. I shredded the stomach and hollowed out the back, brandishing a huge hole. I laced enough essence into that attack to know it’d take weeks, months, years for him to mend the wound. Hell, he’d be better off tossing the thing out with the trash. Host bodies, organic or not, didn’t recover that well when ripped to bits by Diabolic attacks.

“That’s for Mora, you cunt.”

Eligos tackled me, the two of us entangled in the throes of chaotic combat, each slashing and hacking at the other. Too much of his essence had been redirected, aimed to fix his armor, his treasure, his most precious sentiment. I roared with laughter at his rage, ripping at his Diabolic flesh because he couldn’t feel it without the suit, and didn’t realize the deep level of damage I caused. Even in this Diabolic void, we were both outside of Hell, and sensation required possessing something from these lesser realms.

“You filthy—”

I reached out, plunging my claws into his jaw and ripping it off. The warmth of essence spilling from his gaping mouth fueled me, filled me. I continued attacking Eligos, gutting his meaty torso, hacking off limbs, taking deep bites of flesh and tearing it from him.

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