Page 49 of Chaos Demons

“Fuck,” I hissed even as the ice giants attacked, forcing Fen, Grey, and I to scatter.

“I’ll take the giants, you two focus on Nari!” Grey shouted as he unleashed his void, which tore at one of the giants, ripping away dead flesh and bone.

Fen grew to match his brother’s size a wolf-man over a hundred feet tall, something I couldn’t do, but I had other tricks up my sleeve.

I became a storm of fists and fury and I had a nice, soft target in front of me: Nari’s foot.

I hammered my fist down on his big toe. I might have been the size of a bug compared to him, but I still hit like a freight train, and my strike shattered his toenail and drove it into the meat of his toe.

Nari howled in pain and Fen launched a furious attack with his claws. But Nari had enough sense to shift his giant foot and stomp on me.

I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough… but I’d also been expecting this. I surged my chaos out to protect me, slapping my chest as I did, and the spike of pain from Ana’s new piercing kept me in control.

Nari’s foot pushed me down and pressed me into the earth. My muscles strained and my bones shook, but my strife protected me. I’d feel a whole-body ache tomorrow, but I was still in fighting shape. And pressed down as I was, I punched a rapid series of blows into the bottom of Nari’s foot and his blood poured down onto me, tepid and sluggish like the newly dead.

I gagged on the flow of ichor, but then Nari stepped away, freeing me. He and Fen were grappling now, shuffling to one side, so I took a moment to regain myself and wipe the corpse-king’s blood from my face.

Then I was up and launching myself at him again. My incredible leap propelled me upward to knee height. I hoped to shatter his kneecap, but he shifted at the last moment, and I only caught the edge of his joint. Still, I punched hard and the bone shattered beneath my fist.

I sunk that hand into him, holding on so I wouldn’t fall. Then began making my way up his leg, punching into his flesh and using that as a handhold to keep going.

A massive hand swung down to swat at me, forcing me to choose between getting hit or falling.

I released his leg, but not quite in time, and the tip of one of his giant fingers brushed me. The hit was enough to send me flying head-over-heels until I slammed into the ground, taking out a row of headstones as I plowed a twenty-foot-long trench in the dirt.

That… had hurt.

But my chaos was still strong, and no significant damage had been done. I’d have a lot of bruises tomorrow, but no bones were broken.

I stumbled to my feet, watching Fen and Nari for a moment. They seemed evenly matched… no… not quite. Fen was losing. He had to keep his beast in check, keep control, while Nari was super-powered and going all out. Fen was bleeding from several hits, but still attacking with all his ferocious might.

Time to—

Grey’s scream of pain tore through my thoughts.

I looked over to see how he was doing. One of the ice giants was down, torn to shreds, another was looking rough, missing one arm, but otherwise still going. The third giant had Grey clasped in its fist, crushing the daemon prince.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

I gathered as much chaos as I dared and pushed it into one fist. I slapped my nipple piercing with my other hand, using that spike of pain to push even more power into my fist without losing control. Then I punched the air, unleashing my aspect, aiming for that ice giant.

The air between us shimmered as my shot of chaos rippled out to strike the massive corpse. It hit true, smashing through the thing’s arm and chest, knocking the monstrosity back and causing it to release Grey.

The Lord of Conquest fell, landing on his feet, and with a quick look over at me, he nodded his thanks, then was back in the fray.

I returned my attention to Fen and Nari.

“Enough,” I muttered. “Time to end this.” I’d been able to summon more than my usual level of power a moment ago to help Grey. Perhaps Ana’s pain therapy had done the trick. I surged my aspect to its fullest, feeling the roiling tumult of chaos around me. It was nearly too much, and I almost lost control for a moment before I slapped my chest again. The spike of pain helped… but only gave me a moment of clarity in the cloud of discord filling me.

That moment was all I needed and I launched a blast of raw strife at Nari.

The roiling mass struck him low on the right side of his chest and side, hollowing out a hole and tearing away flesh and bone.

Nari screamed and instantly shrunk, probably to conserve power.

I laughed. “Take that, bastard.”

That’s what you get for taking on the Lord of Strife!

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