Page 93 of The Misfit Mage and His Devilish Desires

Corson walked next to Bez, breathing in so deep that his chest swelled like the throat of a frog. Just when I thought he’d pop, he exhaled black fire. The flames cascaded ahead in a wild stampede, eating away the elements already stunned by Bez’s lightning.

Orias strutted in a similar fashion to Mora, eyes trained on her hips as he mimicked the walk. All the while, his tentacles sprang out of the torso of his host body, delicate of the flesh, and he waved his limbs to telekinetically hurl Lilith’s broken essence from the grasp of Beelzebub’s barrage of attacks.

Satan stayed the furthest out in this lined formation and turned to me.

“We devils gotta make the grand entrances, right?” He swallowed his lollipop—stick and all—then wooed loudly before raising a single arm and shooting a tight black beam from his palm. “In the fine words of a prima donna princess, get fucked posers!”

The energy struck Beelzebub and exploded with a cacophony. Not a single one of the demons I walked beside slowed down. They didn’t even appear fazed by the wave of explosive destruction. Admittedly, it was pretty badass walking alongside them through the empty streets of the Diabolic Oasis.

Tar and acid and ice and fire and wind and molten earth sprang forth in every direction, yet not a single demon flinched. None of them bothered to even react once Bez pulled his wings in tight over his chest.

The seconds ticked by, and the bombardment of elements swept in close until Bez unleashed a powerful black gale that sliced and diced the entire attack.

“He’s not even treating us like a threat.” Bez cocked his head, glaring. “Let’s make him regret that arrogance.”

“Gladly.” Corson grabbed Bez’s arm, and the two instinctively spun round and round, no communication required but so synced in their strategy.

Bez released his grip, and Corson flew ahead like a flaming comet.

In an instant, everyone took that as their cue and barreled ahead. Orias moved the slowest, easiest for my eyes to track. His tentacles burrowed deep into the street, pulling out chunks of concrete, which he set aflame and threw.

Mora appeared beside Beelzebub in a flash, evading the swing of his fist and darting back to the safety of darkness conjured by a spell just as Bez used the opening as an opportunity.

Bez stabbed Beelzebub in the chest with the demon-killing blade. The devil roared; he roared so loudly, the earth around the two cracked and crumbled, collapsing to pieces.

Before Beelzebub could attack Bez in retaliation, Corson slammed into him all fire and shock and cackling manically until Beelzebub threw him back with telekinesis.

Not that it did much good. Corson spit fire as he flew back. Satan swept in quickly, using the fire as a cloak. Each swing of his fist and kick of his legs held this majestic acrobatic movement. It was as if he danced circles around the devil, pummeling him in the process.

I watched this all unfold from a safe distance. As safe as ground zero of a world-ending battle could be. I couldn’t move. My knees quaked, an instant from buckling. But I didn’t need to fight. The five demons moved succinctly, striking Beelzebub at every turn.

Satan remained the heaviest hitter—logical since he possessed a piece of the devil Lucifer inside him. That made him the most vital fighter in their group. Seconded only by Bez, the only demon here actually trained by Beelzebub and used to waging battle with such ferocity.

No. I should’ve been the second heavy hitter. I had devil essence, too. I had Beelzebub’s essence. Not that he’d even deigned to acknowledge me or the loss in power he suffered from that missing fragment.

“Because you are nothing,” Beelzebub’s voice echoed in my thoughts, a roar of echoes surrounding his words, the Diabolic tongue.

What was this? My heart surged, my eyes fluttered, and everything around me twisted into gnarled, warped images of decayed plants, putrid air, and rotten corpses. The world spun in every direction, showing me the entire planet in destructive glimpses.

How? No. This wasn’t real.

I grabbed my head, squeezing away the Diabolic nightmare he’d cast. When? It didn’t matter. I needed to break free of this. I screamed, lashing out with essence and magic and spells to wash away the nightmares. Nothing worked. They continued spinning faster. I fell to my knees, hyperventilating.

“Relax.” Bez held a steady hand on my chest.

In the seconds since I’d fallen, he was covered in injuries; one of his wings had been sliced off.

“Bez.”

He wasn’t the only one in pain. Satan thrashed about, covered in flames. Orias had lost three tentacles. Mora stood riddled with open wounds, blood and essence spilling out faster than she could heal. Corson dragged himself forward on the ground, barely able to move. Had it been seconds? Had more time passed? This was the power of a devil at work. We weren’t even able to buy time.

“You all really believed you could challenge me? Five pathetic demons.” Beelzebub roared. “I have faced armies of millions. Slaughtered worlds of billions. Devoured dimensions of trillions. You are nothing.”

He withdrew the demon-killing blade, the one that’d remained embedded in his chest the entire time he fought off Bez and the others. It didn’t even faze him. With telekinesis, he crushed the blade, snapping the metal into a thousand tiny pieces that were forced into a small ball of trash for discarding.

“I’m more than a demon,” Satan hissed, finally free of the fire.

“Yes, a paltry fool with a few drops of Lucifer’s essence.” Beelzebub snarled, his snout revealing his fangs. “Lucifer was as inferior as Lilith, vain devils content with the gift the universe granted them and only interested in trivial foolery meant to make them memorable.”

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