The first thing Zoe did was warn Stella. The other Demon was still stronger than her, and they might need everything they could get to handle the coming threat. Zoe had to give everything to defeat the Inquisitor, after all—and that guy hadn’t even stayed dead.
“Guildsmaster is coming,” she warned the shopkeeper. “Do you think we can take him?” Stella had been in Blossomfell for far longer, so Zoe thought she might know more about how strong the cranky old elementalist actually was.
Stella took a moment before answering, focusing on finishing off all the ghouls that had been trapped within her impromptu hedge maze. “How do you know that?”
“I got a quest.” Seeing the Demon shopkeeper’s confusion, she tried to think of a way to succinctly explain it. Does it even matter, though? She just needed to get the information across. “The system told me.”
Stella didn’t look too convinced, but fortunately, she didn’t debate it further. “He’s a perpetual Rank D well past his prime—but his level alone is decently high, and he was always a decent warrior despite hitting a wall in his advancement. I would say we should prepare for a Rank D with more power to throw around than you’d normally expect—but if he’s involved with the cult, I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned to Infernal techniques to boost his advancement.”
“Got it.” Zoe focused on preparing herself, which mostly meant taking it easy and using rejuvenate on herself a few times. She wanted to make sure she had as much mana to work with as possible, and that meant sitting back until the larger threat arrived.
She also popped a few monster cores out of her inventory to snack on. She was starting to run low on those, but now seemed like exactly the sort of time she should have saved them for in the first place. In the end, they were most useful for her own core advancement. The temporary boost in mana was also nice, though.
She also took a moment to search through her inventory for anything else that might be useful. The only thing that came to mind were the explosive charges. She still had three earth-shattering charges and a single flame charge. Those had been in Basil’s storage ring, and she’d never ended up using any of them. Probably less useful than my own skills in this instance, she thought, but it’s good to remember that I have them.
The guildsmaster didn’t try to hide his arrival. A bolt of elemental fury cut straight through Stella’s defensive topiary, sputtering against the gore-slicked cobbles just several strides away from them. Shit. Zoe activated some of her own skills, but none of them were an attack.
Cloak of Scorn!
Surgeon’s Eye!
Mirage!
She wanted to see if she could sneak around him like some kind of assassin. Cloak of scorn and mirage both swirled around her, fading her presence and blurring the edges of it against the backdrop of the night. Meanwhile, she focused surgeon’s eye on the guildsmaster himself.
More lightning arced around him as he strode straight towards Stella. Tinged with black and red and even a faint haze of purple, the crackling energy radiated an Infernal taint that was crystal clear to the Zoe’s own Demonic senses. So he truly is a cultist.
His attention remained fixated on the shopkeeper. “Stand aside, Demon,” he commanded, “and you will enjoy a favorable treatment from your new masters.”
The words made Zoe’s skin crawl, and they weren’t even directed at her. This is what she meant when she said cultists aren’t are friends, isn’t it? Zoe thought back to what Basil had attempted on her first day in this world, immediately after she’d taken the core and before they’d even dealt with that High Paladin.
Disturbingly, it even would have worked, had she not understood how to use her special Outsider title. I guess you don’t summon demons to make friends. You summon them to enslave them for power. What was even worse was that the retired guildsmaster hadn’t said it in a way that seemed intentionally threatening. He’d intonated it as an offer—as if a vague and unenforceable promise of ‘favorable treatment’ was something they should be happy about.
Fucking gross. Zoe resolved then and there to make sure she killed him.
Likewise, Stella’s own face took on an uncharacteristic look of Disdain. “Your kind attains meager strength by grasping at shallow imitations of our own power and think it makes you our masters. And you forget your place, Anderson.”
Is that his actual name? Zoe supposed it must be. Ha—I’ve never actually heard anyone use his name. Everyone just calls him ‘the guildsmaster’ or something. Now properly flanking him, she tried to figure out what to do next. Attack now while they’re both posturing—or wait for the fight to start and catch him off guard then?
She didn’t know which was better. Either way, she needed to get closer. Even in the deep darkness of the early hours of the morning—helped too by the eerily strange, total lack of stars in this world’s sky—mirage still had it’s limits, especially as it was one of her many Demagogue skills that still had yet to reach even level 10.
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Pressing its effect together with the swirling aura of cloak of scorn seemed to help, at least when it was already dark and just a bit windy. Zoe focused on the idea of blending the two skills further together, smearing her presence out across the deep shadows and the cool, late autumn air.
Mirage has reached level 9!
Mirage has reached level 10!
…
Mirage has reached Tier II.
+10 Perception
Cloak of Scorn has reached level 11!
Closer and closer, Zoe crept forwards until she was almost close enough to lunge for him with her scythe. At that same moment, the old cultist scoffed, turned away from Stella, and unleashed a bolt of Infernal lightning straight into Zoe’s chest.
Fuck. The bolt physically blasted her back, sending her skidding backwards along the slick ground. Smoke curled upwards from Zoe’s chest where the attack hit—it burned through cloth and skin alike. Nothing that can’t be fixed! Zoe didn’t let her failure at stealth deter her.
Rolling to the side before another strike could land, Zoe twisted to her feet—something that made her feel momentarily very, very awesome—and retaliated with blood and hellfire.
Hellfire Blast!
Reap!
She’d saved up her last few kills to use the latter skill on the incoming guildsmaster. There had only been a few, though, and the effect also faded the longer she tried to preserve it. Still, a bloody, spear formed from arcane mists struck true, tearing a gash across the old elementalist’s backside even as he twisted to dodge both attacks.
Stella wasn’t just standing by and watching, and the other demon took that as an opening to trip their opponent with a thorn-covered, bloody vine that had twisted up between some gaps in the cobbles.
Cursing, the guildsmaster erupted in dark lightning to burn away the questing vines and free himself. It still sent him stumbling, and he wobbled precariously for a few precious seconds that allowed Zoe time to close in.
No stranger to combat, the elementalist discharged another bolt towards her at point blank. That was exactly what Zoe expected, and with a combination of skills, stats, and sheer, determination, she pressed on.
Mana Manipulation!
Mana Channeling!
The intent was to user her own growing control over the forces of magic to rip the energy out of her path. It worked—partially. Her own mana manipulation skill did catch onto the opposing skill, but her grip on it was heavily contested. All she could do was twist it slightly, diverting it to hit her shoulder with a glancing blow.
In turn, mana channeling helped her cope with the hit a little bit better than before. It was far from ideal, though, and her skin there was blackened and burned.
Mana Manipulation has reached level 12!
Mana Channeling has reached level 19!
At the same time, actively focusing on and channeling her Durability and Power stats helped enormously. The former, together with her core trait of magic resistance, helped her shrug off the attack and reduce the amount of damage. Meanwhile, the latter helped her press forward with her own attack.
Rending Touch!
Blood Whip!
Channeling the potent rending touch through the scythe, Zoe attempted to hook her opponent with the edge and pump the destructive power of the skill into him. Despite his age and seemingly decrepit appearance, though, the former guildsmaster was fast. He narrowly avoided the tip of her weapon and ducked gracefully under a whipping vine—only to get smacked with a whip of blood from the other side. Got you.
Rending Touch!
Two additional skills went off at the same time, both of them traveling down the arcane wiring of Zoe’s blood whip. The first was the second instance of rending touch, the brutal magic of the skill ripping through the old elementalist’s body like it was a piece of cold clay dumped in a blender.
The second was a surge of crackling power coming from the other direction. The guildsmaster used Zoe’s own trick against her, pumping massive amounts of his own power back through the connection.
The two found themselves momentarily locked in a roaring embrace of pain. Neither’s attack was enough to kill the other—but both were incredibly damaging.
Zoe could barely see anything, and the intensity was almost enough to send her into a state of unconsciousness. The guildsmaster probably wasn’t much better, with repeated uses of rending strike sending fractal razors rampaging through his gut.
Only one of them had blood and healing magic, though—and that was how Zoe planned to turn the tide of the fight.
Mending Touch!
Blood Siphon!
The pain didn’t vanish, but it did diminish—and by a significant amount. The sudden loss of blood that came with using her more powerful healing skill was a concern, yes—but it was soon offset by absorbing the blood now spiraling around her like a gory whirlpool.
It was the guildsmaster’s blood, of course—siphoned away from the weeping wounds that her excessive use of rending touch had opened up.
Rending Touch has reached level 18!
Blood Siphon has reached level 4!
Blood Siphon has reached level 5!
And yet her opponent still wasn’t dead, even as Stella pitched in with suffocating, strangling vines dripping with toxins, thorns, and fresh blood. The guildsmaster’s resilience was incredible—but Zoe had one last thing to try.
Grabbing onto him with her own hands—claws—she hugged the bastard close—and activated one last skill. She put everything she had into it—as much mana as she could muster—and she channeled all of it through a single stat Power.
“How about I give you a taste of Hell, asshole?”
Hellfire Eruption!
The world turned red, then white. Searing, all-consuming heat ripped through the ruined square, and even Zoe found her body ravaged by its fury. Searing, blinding light quickly gave way to deepest black—and the last thing to assault Zoe’s senses was a notification from the system.
Quest Complete!
Now rolling for rewards…
