Blood Magus Chapter 85

As they made their way through the town, Zeth looked out for any signs of movement around, and Astrys walked next to him, seeming much less vigilant. Instead of glancing around corners and watching out for danger, much of her attention was spent staring at him with that same inscrutable expression on her face.

Behind them, he could hear the labored breaths of Withstrom as he was forced to keep pace with Zeth’s quick steps, and Sinthar next to him walking quietly, doing everything he could to stay as out-of-the-way and unnoticeable as possible. 

It was in that formation that they strode through the empty town streets until finally, as they crossed another street, Astrys broke the silence.

“Sir,” she said quietly, “there is another monster down the street to your left. One of the hounds.”

He looked at her, not turning around to see the monster. “I told you a while ago not to call me ‘sir.’”

She looked at him, confused. “O-okay, I will not. But the monster has noticed us.”

Zeth heard the distant patter of paws on cobblestone behind him, but didn’t turn around. He continued staring at her. “I’m serious. I’m not some commanding officer ordering you around, and I don’t want you to feel obligated to treat me like one.”

“S-sir, the monster is approaching us quickly. Should I move to intercept it before—“

“I just told you, don’t call me ‘sir.’ Listen, if I put you off because I hurt one of your species, then I’m sorry. But you get that he deserved at least a good bit of what I did to him, right?”

She looked back and forth between Zeth, staring right back at her, and a point behind him that he assumed was the still-approaching beast. But he still didn’t look back. As far as he was concerned, this was more important right now. She was acting weird. If that fucking asshole Withstrom actually managed to get in her head and convince her of even a single thing he said back there, it needed to be fixed. Zeth wasn’t about to let that jackass succeed.

“I apologize. But the monster is going to attack you. You should tell one of us to kill it before it reaches—”

As the sound of paws on stone came closer, Zeth felt a familiar scent waft into his nose and received a notification.

[Poise check passed.]

If it’d gotten close enough to hit him with its smell, then it was close enough to attack. In one swift motion, Zeth turned and leaned back, lifting up one hand and pushing a stream of blood out of the little hole in his finger from earlier forming it into a needle and quickly hardening it as the hound monster soared right past him, having leapt to bite into his back mid-air.

Just as its torso was in front of his head, the needle finished its construction and Zeth grabbed it out of the air and slammed its point into its body. It yelped and howled as it was pushed off-course midair and tumbled to the ground, spasming randomly but otherwise unable to move. Zeth had planned to go over and finish it off, but it seemed like he’d gotten it in the heart with that strike and there was no need.

He turned to look at Astrys again. “Okay, it’s dealt with. Now, answer my question. You’re aware that Withstrom was being an asshole and deserved what he got, right?”

“...Why did you stop him?” she asked quietly, staring at him.

“What do you mean, why did I stop him? He was trying to convince you to kill yourself, Astrys. In what world would I not do something about that?”

“No, I mean…why did you care? What made you feel like it was necessary for you to intervene?”

Zeth frowned, not understanding what could be going on in Astrys’s mind for her to ask such a thing. “I don’t even know where to start, answering a question like that. I mean, just on the most basic level, I need you here. I rely on you for survival. If you unsummoned yourself and disappeared, it’d be very bad for me. Obviously I’d want to stop that from happening. And considering how much you’ve helped me, I’d be a pretty shitty person if I just left you stranded when you were in your own time of need, right? You deserve that much. And, on the topic of deserving, someone as fucking annoying as Withstrom is the type of person I really just like making suffer. Honestly, I’m pretty proud of myself for managing to stop where I did after you asked me to. That took a lot of self-control.”

“...I see. I believe I understand now,” she said, nodding. Her voice was creeping back to how she usually sounded, rather than the uncertain, quiet tone it’d been this whole time. “Thank you for finding me useful. I will do my best to continue being someone you can rely on.”

Zeth’s frown only deepened. He had the suspicion that Astrys had taken the wrong message from his explanation. “Listen, it’s not just that you’re useful to me or whatever, it’s that—”

A shout from behind interrupted him. “There!”

Zeth turned around, looking to see who it was, and found a group of figures that made his heart seize up. Four Inquisitors stood at the end of the street, swords held at the ready as they faced off against an approaching fleshtaker. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like they’d noticed Zeth or any of the demons.

“Come on,” he whispered, “quiet.”

As quickly as he could, he snuck across the street with the group following behind until they were hidden from sight behind a building. That was the first human activity he’d seen in the confines of the town, which at least offered a little bit of relief; it seemed like the Inquisitors were still attempting to protect everyone. He hoped they’d leave him be when they realized he was here to help them in that goal, but he wasn’t totally sure whether they’d believe him when he tried to explain that, so as far as he was concerned, keeping his distance was best.

But before they could get far, the sound of the Inquisitors cutting the fleshtaker’s body to pieces still loud in Zeth’s ears, he heard another sound to their side. He looked over and saw another dog monster bounding toward them. Instantly he nodded to Astrys, who rushed forward to meet and silence the thing, but it was too late. Before she could reach it, it unfolded its mouth and let out an ear-piercing screech. The moment it did, she got to it, grabbing its head and ripping it from its torso, but the damage was done.

“What was that?” one of the Inquisitors said, only a single building between them and Zeth. Instantly, boots on stone rang out as they rushed to find out what they’d heard.

Zeth ran further down the street, motioning for the demons to follow as he glanced back and forth for somewhere to turn. The others kept pace, though Withstrom’s labored breathing had turned to audible wheezing. Eventually, he spotted a narrow alleyway, motioning sharply for the group to follow, and they darted into the cramped space. The walls pressed in close, Astrys squeezing in next to him and the other two following in afterward, and the scent of mildew and refuse filled his nose.

The sound of boots on cobblestone grew louder as the Inquisitors turned down the street they’d just jumped off of, and started down it. The moment they got close enough the demons’ fear auras would tip the soldiers off.

He continued down the alleyway, hoping to get out of range before the Inquisitors passed by the entrance, but as he ran toward the far end, a silhouette appeared, hunching over as it turned to start down to meet them. A fleshtaker, likely attracted by all the noise, snarled in hunger as it bounded ahead to bite into Zeth. They were cornered—unable to continue forward without killing the monster first, but unable to wait another second here without drawing the attention of the Inquisitors.

“Run ahead with the others, take care of it!” Zeth whispered to Astrys. She nodded, pulling the two other demons alongside her as she ran to intercept the fleshtaker and get her fear aura away from the Inquisitors. As she did that, Zeth turned and ran backward, toward the approaching soldiers. He needed to buy a little more time.

Their boots drew closer and closer as he made his way through; they’d likely be able to see down there in just a moment. Behind him, Zeth could still hear the sounds of fighting as Astrys and the other demons killed the fleshtaker. He just needed to distract them for a moment. Off  across the street was another alleyway where a barrel was situated, atop which was a glass bottle. Perfect.

Glancing around, Zeth tried to find a loose stone on the ground he could grab, but infuriatingly, none were in sight. So instead, he drew yet more blood from his hand and formed it into the easiest shape he could—a simple, lumpy ball—hardening it immediately. The moment it dropped into his hand, he reached back and threw it as hard as he could at the bottle. The hardened ball of his own blood soared across the street and slammed into the bottle, tipping it over where it fell and smashed across the cobblestones.

He heard the Inquisitors, still approaching, grunt in surprise and change direction to approach the alley, turning away from the one Zeth was in so they could investigate the noise. They’d quickly find that there was nothing there, but all he needed were a few seconds.

Instantly, he turned and sprinted back down the alleyway to meet up with the demons again, where they were finishing up their fight with the fleshtaker—or, really, their slaughter. After dismembering it, they stood up to see Zeth running toward them, motioning for them to run out of the alleyway now that the obstacle was cleared. He heard the Inquisitors behind him muttering between themselves as they investigated the site of the distraction, and wasn’t confident they’d be occupied for more than a moment.

Once they broke out of the alleyway, Zeth pulled them aside so they were no longer in view if the Inquisitors glanced their way, backs pressed against an adjacent building. He breathed heavily, listening for any sign of suspicion, but thankfully found none. Escalating this situation past fighting monsters and into fighting Inquisitors as well would only end badly.

With that, he nodded to the demons and muttered, “Let’s go. Quickly.”

He turned and headed toward the distant sounds of combat they’d been heading toward, not sounding so distant at this point.

As they trekked through the abandoned town, Zeth kept an eye out for any further sign of danger—monster or human—but thankfully they faced no more major interruptions. Eventually, they made their way all the way from one side to the other, and Zeth slowly realized what he was hearing, and where he was hearing it from.

Off in the distance, it appeared on a hill outside town. The prison the Inquisitors had constructed, already made for battle with its stone walls and battlements, was manned to the fullest by Inquisitors defending it, fighting off hordes of Sixth Realm monsters that stalked around outside. There were armored soldiers down on the ground cutting through them with their razor-sharp swords, and ones on top firing arrows from bows they must’ve gotten from some armory inside the prison.

As Zeth watched, a woman, blood streaking from her head down her face, sprinted up the hill from a destroyed house nearby, chased by a pack of the eye hounds. An Inquisitor on the ground stepped in to intercept the pack of monsters, holding them off as she continued up, rushing over to the door where one of the soldiers hurriedly opened it up and let her squeeze inside. It seemed like this was the stronghold keeping everyone safe, with the Inquisitors focusing on this area to ensure nothing broke through the walls. Zeth imagined the majority of the people in the town were huddled inside—or, at least, he hoped so. If they weren’t in there, they were likely scattered in pieces in the town streets.

He was glad to see the Inquisitors risking their lives to protect everyone, though. Maybe they were just trying to keep their precious witnesses safe for the sake of capturing their targets, but if they were helping the people, that was good. It gave him a little hope that he may end up being able to work alongside them at the end of all this. And besides, if they were doing such a good job keeping the jail safe, it was possible Zeth wouldn’t end up being so necessary to the protection of the town in the end.

But then, in the distance, Zeth heard a roar—one he hadn’t ever heard before. It bellowed through the town, shaking walls like an earthquake. He looked over in the distance, hoping it was just a particularly odd fleshtaker. But it wasn’t.

Stomping ahead through the fields outside town, coming from the direction of the mines, was a gigantic beast on four legs. It was like some sort of oversized alligator, with a long snout and stubby legs that it used to slowly make its way toward the prison. Only, its head was easily the height of a grown man, with a snout long enough to devour entire houses. Zeth could barely believe it managed to make its way up the mineshafts. But it was clearly from the Sixth Realm; its skin was that same charcoal black of the hounds and the fleshtakers, and it had a strange matted fur protruding out in inconsistent tufts that ran along the spine of its back. As it opened its gigantic mouth to roar once again, saliva slopped out, hitting the ground with unnaturally thick consistency.

Everyone turned to look at the beast, and though the Inquisitors all wore masks, Zeth could tell they carried panic in their postures. He could already tell; that thing was gonna bust through the stone wall of the prison like a person walked through a spiderweb.

Zeth had no idea if he could offer any help against something that massive, but he knew he had to try.

And in the back of his mind, he wondered just how many Level-ups he could squeeze out of a beast that size.