Reborn to Devour: A Demonic LitRPG

[Ishmael]

I smashed through the windows to see a violent melee breaking out in a house fire. Hot air and smoke poured out through the hole in the glass, heating up my scales and bathing me with the reek of burning wood and cooked flesh. Below, I could see Vendetta surrounded by white robed assailants while the angelic leader of the Grigori stood patiently behind their lectern.

What a beautiful sight.

In a split second decision, I decided to use my momentum to let go of Sir Leal and allowed him to crush some of the attackers below. The crunching of bones and spilling of blood caused by the impact told me that they were either weakened by Vendetta or weak from the beginning.

“Satan.”

The Grigori leader’s attention was fully on me while Vendetta continued to grapple with the horde that surrounded her. I was elated by the way that Armaros looked at me. I felt like a threat. Despite that, I felt like I had disrupted an intimate moment.

“Am I interrupting?” I asked Vendetta.

“What brings you here?” She returned question with question without paying me much mind.

“The dog spoke so highly of his leader that I wanted to see for myself. But, it seems as though they don’t do any of the dirty work themselves. Do you need a hand?”

Vendetta grunted in response and looked away from me. Fire spewed out of her hands like flamethrowers to buffet the room with superheated air. The heat turned the attacker’s blades white-hot and partially melted the blades of lower quality. More stray strikes raked across her body, leaving steaming wounds all over.

But, I stayed on my perch. I had heard some of the conversation as I careened into the chapel. I did not know what had gone on between the two of them, but I knew that it was personal. If I were her, I would not want someone interfering without permission.

I would just wait until after she’s dead.

I felt Armaros stare holes into me with their intense glare while their worshippers were turned to dust just a few feet away. The remains sprayed against their mana field and created a ring of ash around the lectern.

Then, Armaros flicked their arm and a spark of magic left the tips of their fingers. A few shields surrounded a handful of attackers. Vendetta’s eyeholes flickered in surprise. Her attacks hit them ineffectively and their weapons came down without resistance. Her health suffered and her flames weakened from exertion.

The eyeholes of the horse skull faced me. I saw prideful flames dance from her obscured face. What a limiting thing pride is. There are so many things that one will avoid doing, myself included, in order to maintain dignity.

I could see the debate between that pride and the reality of the situation. I decided that I would take an active role in ending it swiftly.

“I thought that the plan was for us to get rid of anything that got in between you and Armaros,” I wondered aloud. “Are you telling me that you want to fight all of these people instead of going after your real prize?”

Vendetta tensed up at my words before she began to laugh.

“Go on then, kill them all,” she invited.

I plunged down from my perch; my wings allowed me to control the speed of my fall. My feet slammed atop one of the robed figures and brought them to the ground. My tongue snaked across their neck and pulled like a lawnmower chord. Blood spilled onto the ground and they went limp beneath me.

My claws led the way through the melee. Flesh quickly gave way and life was extinguished like a candle in a hurricane.

They were just weak.

My [Aura of Fear] was fully activated, preventing the zealots from pursuing me as fervently as they had Vendetta. I could see unnatural hesitation overcome them as their eyes widened like deer in the headlights. Their rigid, robotic movements were going to be easy enough to block. But now, they left their necks and torsos vulnerable to my own onslaught.

I made sure to go for their necks and their heads, popping skulls from their necks like twist-top bottles. I had seen firsthand how they managed to deliver a death blow through excruciating burns. Severing the neck was the only way to ensure that they did not manage that second wind.

Even if they did manage to scrape their blades across my scales, my teeth were bared to maintain my health. I punctured necks and snapped limbs with my augmented bite force.

Now that I had stolen much of the attention, Vendetta was able to recover and press on with her true objective. She threw up two walls of fire that created a scorching path directly towards Armaros. Her smoldering bones pressed directly against the mana barrier and intense fire spewed directly into it. A few of my opponents caught fire and died even though they stood nowhere near the attack.

I narrowed my eyes as I tried to make sense of how those events were related. But, before I could give it real thought, I found myself surrounded by the same shimmering mana that I saw shrouding Armaros.

I scratched at the surface of the barrier. My burning claws caused the magic to steam and stretch, but it did not break. My prey instantly turned their backs to me and charged towards Vendetta with great fervor. Their blades, once again took bites out of Vendetta’s health in exchange for their lives.

Black miasma left my fingers and into the barrier. [The Great Decay] ate away at the mana. I could feel it grow brittle in between attacks. The mana screeched under the pressure until, after several seconds of trying, I ripped my way out of the barrier.

I rushed to support Vendetta. I only managed to make a few steps before a violent pull around my ankle stopped me in my tracks.

One of the many bodies that scattered the ground, ash coating their face, had come back to life. Without a weapon within their immediate reach, they tried to stop me with their body.

If these dead were already returning to life, it would not be long until Sir Leal opened his eyes.

Before I could reach down and attack, a bolt of lightning smote my ambusher with the wrath of Zeus. Yoshitsune sprinted out of an open set of doors behind Armaros with the robed figure of Herzblatt behind her. If I didn't know better, I would have said that the dog priest was a member of these fodder zealots.

Without the need for words, Yoshitsune understood the situation. She immediately went to work by shooting further bolts at the zealots. Her lightning arced among the densely-packed enemies, stopping multiple hearts in a single blow.

Herzblatt, traitor to the faith that he was, summoned a weapon in each hand and rushed the zealots in front of him. The weapons that he used were larger; two great axes in each hand. They were used to devastating effect. He fought maniacally. The elegant puppet-master that once held the strings of his mastery had been replaced with a berserker.

“Now who is fighting all alone?” Vendetta demanded with a mocking laugh. More flames erupted from her hands and started to create hairline fractures in the barrier.

The reviving reinforcements were killed instantly. I ran through the bodies on my hands and feet like a real reptile; my eyes scanning for any signs of life. As soon as a demon’s eyes opened with renewed life, my claws put an end to it.

Even those that managed to hide better would occasionally spontaneously combust from whatever invisible forces tied them to Armaros’ barrier.

Then, I saw Vendetta get knocked off of her feet. The barrier around Armaros expanded, pushing everything in its path away. Bodies picked up like a tidal wave of flesh that was to crash down atop me.

I took to the skies, avoiding my fate of being buried in a mass grave. But, I was still struck by the barrier. It felt like getting hit with a truck and sent me flying out through the destroyed front doors.

I stumbled to my feet and shook my head to shake off the disorientation. The pile of bodies in front of me burst into flames as Vendetta clawed out like a zombie. Thick streams of mana poured from the bodies, even from the city behind me, and flowed into the barrier. Finally, the barrier shattered into millions of tiny pieces and flowed in to join the rest of the mana. Armaros was wreathed in magic that turned blood red.

“I left you alone,” Armaros hissed from inside his mana cocoon. “I knew who you were from the first time I set eyes on you, but I left you alone. We knew where you were holed up like a little rat, but I left you alone. I thought I would just leave you to God’s devices, but it seems like with everything else, His judgment is not what we believed it to be. I tried to defeat you as a leader, as a good man. But now I realize that the only way to put you into your place is to defeat you as a demon.”

Wings sprouted from Armaros’ back. They were not the beautiful white angel wings that I envisioned them possessing. Wine-colored bat wings spread out and flapped off the blood. Their form bulged and cracked as they grew in size; creating splotches of red on the white robes. Porcelain skin blistered and flaked away to reveal red flesh while their nails grew to sharp claws. Their beautiful face lost their soft features and were replaced with sharper, predatory ones.

“That’s more like it, Armaros!” Vendetta cackled at the demon’s change in appearance. “Finally, you look like how you are supposed to!”

“Enjoy yourself while you still can,” Armaros advised. “There will be no grace left for you after I render my judgment upon you. Oh, Sword of Ehud, come to me and render your judgment upon these unworthy heathens.”

A sword with a purple blade dropped from the sky and plunged into the lectern, turning it into splinter. A massive eye in the cross-guard opened. It rolled around before focusing on Vendetta.

“I will not allow it!” Vendetta screamed as she rushed Armaros. Her hands billowed with a new, pitch black flame. “This flame will burn you for as long as I live!”

But Armaros did not hurry. He wrapped his fingers around the hilt and pulled it from the ground like he was King Arthur. He casually hefted the blade and infused it with a diseased mana. The sword shone in the light of the fire in Vendetta’s hands.

It appeared to be a casual swing. Not much force or effort seemed to be put behind it. However, a line of energy that stretched in a diagonal line from ceiling to floor appeared, tracing the path of the strike.

Vendetta leapt at Armaros with the full force of the sun. She screamed in mindless rage. Black flames erupted from her like a bomb. Whatever windows in the chapel that hadn’t been broken shattered from the shockwave of the blast to create glass confetti. Still, through all of it, I could still see the purple line shining.

I took to the air to avoid the concussive ripples that shot out of the front doors. But, before I could get much altitude, a purple beam the width of the line shot out with the speed of light. I could see Vendetta’s silhouette take the full brunt of the attack.

I could not move out of the way fast enough. The line cut me with an icy sensation. My legs were cleanly severed along with the tip of my tail and plopped to the ground with loose splats.

The loss of weight made me take to the skies at greater speed. Blood dumped from my sheared thighs like fuel leakage from a rocket ship. I felt a bit light-headed from the blood loss and increase in altitude. I quickly looked around for any surviving Grigori before I felt safe to regrow my limbs. But, I did not see any living members of Armaros’ forces. The failed defenses of the chapel were covered in the corpses of the soldiers, all leaking miasma back into the chapel.

Plumes of dust covered the city. Everything that stood in the path of the line from the chapel to the walls had been affected by the strike. Buildings toppled over with loud crashing sounds and larger clouds of debris.

Any members of the slave army that stood down the main road had been reduced to piles of bisected torsos. I could see Claw’s corpse amongst the attacker’s fallen.

It only took a few seconds to grow enough flesh to seal my leg’s wounds and stop the bleeding. I quickly filled up on a recovery potion to bring my flagging focus back to full attention.

An eerie quiet covered the city. Only the soft rumbling of distant buildings sliding and crumbling in the streets and the wails of the survivors who did not make it out unscathed could be heard. It looked like it had just been subjected to World War II bombing runs.

Another purple beam shot out from the walls of the chapel, decimating the world below me. Even though my legs were yet to fully reform, I still flew down to better inspect what was going on.

Armaros stood by himself in the middle of the chapel. He was wreathed in Vendetta’s black flame; her final, most powerful attack. He summoned water and doused himself in it, but the flames evaporated the water before it could reach him. His skin melted and his hair burned as he groaned in great pain.

“Where is she?” He demanded.

Message

Have Vendetta. Near Death. Herzblatt and I are fine. In portal. Need time to burn Armaros.

-Yoshitsune

Armaros’ blade carved through space. His pained strike left a jagged wound in the fabric of the universe. His eyes bubbled and burned from fire and rage.

I ducked beneath the oncoming beam and quickly moved from the chapel entrance. The blast showered me with dust and debris. Black flames exploded from the chapel as Armaros charged out into the city.

“WHERE IS SHE?”