Page 92 of The Misfit Mage and His Devilish Desires

“Good. If that hive of a mind is kept busy, you can’t buzz with self-doubt.”

I leaned in and hugged him. “Thank you.”

He squeezed me back so tight and comforting, it removed all the doubt. All the stress. All the confusion. There was only me and Bez.

I didn’t use this time to train, to study, to prepare. Everything about to unfold was unlike anything I’d experienced. We were about to clash with a devil, a being with the power tosway dimensions, consume entire realities, command armies of billions.

There was no preparation that’d ready me for that. So I used this time to hug Bez, to hold him as he held me, to hope and pray and wish and believe our plan worked.

We’d attack Beelzebub. We’d stall him. Keep Lilith alive a little longer. Kell would complete the orb. She’d seal away Lilith. She’d seal away Beelzebub. The end. The easiest of easy plans.

I chuckled anxiously. “We’re so fucked.”

“You, always.” Bez squeezed my ass cheeks. “Me? Only if you’re incredibly lucky.”

My laughter turned into this bizarre cackle from Bez’s utter absurdity.

“And how does one get so lucky?” I slapped his butt and grabbed his firm cheeks just as tight as he’d squeezed mine.

“For starters, that whole confidence thing is really doing it for me.” Bez kissed me.

I gathered everyone as the tide of the battle neared its end. Using my senses, I peered through the distance, zooming in at the sight of two devils. Lilith had shrunk, barely larger than an anaconda, wings flapping as she slithered around the confined space where her opponent kept her trapped. Beelzebub had shrunk too, barely a few feet taller than Bez. Quite the stark difference from when he entered the dimension towering over most of the buildings. It was difficult to know if the size morphic change had to do with his depleted essence dueling with Lilith’s across the planet or if he wanted to toy with his prey.

“If we’re gonna do this,” I said with a gulp, one that didn’t remove the trepidation stuck in my throat, making every word shaky. “We have to move now.”

Each step Beelzebub took had this taunting effect, as if he wanted Lilith to suffer and beg and break before he ended it all. An end that he’d worked toward for nearly a thousand years. The surreal impossibility of it all. The distortion of reality.

I found myself questioning my world’s timeline, the biblical truths so many humans believed, and how much of that truth, to a degree, might’ve overlapped with the history of Diabolics. How much of their accords trickled down to lowly worlds such as ours through the mouths of demons who’d just witnessed a hundred-year battle or a dimension concurred and shared that truth, that history with mortals? With Mythics? With a world so much younger yet the same age as their dimension?

There was so much I wanted to study, to research, to share with the world. No way was I going to die here and now. No way was I going to let the world die.

“How close are you, Kell?” Mora asked.

“Minutes away if y’all just hold on for a bit.”

Lilith wailed in the distance.

“We can’t.” I stared at the handful of glass shards Kell needed to assemble, the remaining steps to invoking the Diabolic orbs’ power. “We can hold out for a few minutes.”

“We’re all going to die.” Mora folded her arms. “And just know that I’m going to make all of your lives as miserable as demonically possible when we’re in Oblivion.”

“Aw, you’re making me feel all warm and squishy.” Corson puckered his lips.

Mora ran a finger along Corson’s sharp jawline, smiling up at him. “Remember that time I murdered you?”

“Didn’t take.”

“If at first, you don’t succeed.” Mora winked.

“Enough,” I said. “No joking around. I get you’re all used to being the strongest person in the room 99.9% of the time. I get that you’ve all faced death and wars before, but this is Beelzebub. This devil will obliterate the entire dimension, every dimension, if we fail.”

“Let’s fuck ‘em up.” Bez flexed his claws and spread his wings wide.

I led everyone outside, and we formed a line as we walked into battle. Part of me wanted to surge ahead, fly quickly, but with each step, I noted the strategy.

Bez stood beside me, unleashing waves of black lightning that crackled against Beelzebub’s elements circulating across the city. Jolt after jolt reshaped into electrical silhouettes of Mythic beasts, primal lightning lunging furiously ahead.

Mora stood on my opposite side, strutting in her heels while weaving her hands to trace incantations of the highest caliber. Her technique was flawless, her spells on par with the strongest of mages, which meant her host body must’ve belonged to someone highly skilled in Collective education. Magic erupted in every direction, countering or redirecting the chaos of Beelzebub’s strikes.

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