“I believe!”

  Amanda announced with enthusiasm, putting faith in my cause to protect humanity from the influence of demons. She tossed away her glasses for some reason and lifted her scepter valiantly into the air. A red aura spawned from her choice tool that surrounded Indena and I.

  Ghostly red rocks, as small as pebbles, forcefully collected over our skins, visibly enhancing the size of our hands to look much like small boulders. The appearance change seemed purely cosmetic, but my strength actually doubled!

  “Oh yeah!” Indena threw her flaming fist at a demon and punched it so hard in the jaw that it rocketed up into the ceiling! “Perfect timing!”

  “Thank you, so much!” I raised up my hand, pushing stardust energy through the skin of my palm and firing an orb of light into the air. “Let there be light!”

  The orb of light bathed the ruined building in a sun-like glow, creating an environment hazardous to the demons.

  Everything was looking great. The sudden advantage we had over the battlefield left me feeling full of newfound energy. With my second wind, or at this point, like my fifteenth wind of the day, I charged back into battle, cutting down demons and turning them into dust.

  Indena was just as powered up as I was, knocking heads left and right. We were doing so well that the demons started to run away.

  “You won’t get away that easy!”

  I tailed them and kept up our winning momentum. They weren’t getting any mercy out of me!

  Unfortunately, some of them escaped in the mines, but we did a number on their ranks.

  “Guys, great stuff!” I threw them a thumbs up and smiled brightly. “We pushed ‘em back pretty good.”

  “Yes yes…” Amanda was crawling around on the rocky floor, patting her hands over everything. “Now can someone help me find my glasses? I can’t see anything without them.”

  “Girl, why’d you throw them then?” Indena began aiding her in her search.

  “Because it was symbolic, you nincompoop!” Amanda yelled at Indena, but was looking at me like I’d mocked her.

  “No, Indena’s to your left…” I pointed.

  “Oh, sorry…” she turned her head. “...Because it’s symbolic!” she repeated, as if Indena hadn’t heard her the first time. “I took away my own sight so that I could let the angel see for me.” she tilted her head and mumbled something else under her breath. “And I thought it was cool…”

  Indena snickered, but accepted Amanda’s explanation.

  -WARNING! DARKNESS LEVELS RISING!-

  The levity of our victory was short lived, because I was detecting more darkness, and a lot of it. We’d just one that fight, so the darkness should have been steadily dropping though…

  My senses were flaring up, as if a danger was approaching fast. The sounds of chains rattling hit my ear, so I turned to look out the door to see what it was.

  Something big in the air was heading straight for us!

  An oversized spiky recking ball blasted across the remnants of the building we were sheltered in, blowing it to bits. Thankfully the two of my friends were on the ground, or they would have been hit by that!

  In the wake of its fast attack, a heavy gust followed that blew away the rubble.

  That weapon was a giant flail. It lifted high up into the air like a wrecking ball of death, preparing to drop on us with tremendous force. Crimson mana energy burned bright around the core of the weapon.

  My eyes widened in sudden shock, sensing such awful murderous intention.

  I summoned a stardust shield, tanking the heavy hit as the flail head dropped on us with meteor-like force.

  Stardust shrapnel rained down all over me as the shield shattered. Within seconds a second crimson meteor strike dropped, finishing off what remained of the shield.

  The spiked flail head rose up again even faster. There wasn’t enough time to make another shield!

  “Entering False Theta Form!” I announced, leaping into the air fast.

  I crashed into the flail head like a lightning bolt, forcing it back with overwhelming energy. It burst apart at the intense collision.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The chain on it connected to a short rod at the top of a pile of ore. A feminine silhouette, dressed in some white gothic looking outfit, stood as the culprit wielding this unusual weapon. She had skin of shadow and hair of dark pigtails. Surrounding her body was a foreboding red aura of evil.

  -Warning! Greater Nephilim sighted!-

  -Greater Nephilim tagged; Foe-

  I blasted through the air to strike down on her this time, but she leapt away from her rockpile to dodge. The remnants of her flail head reeled back, re-collecting under the guidance of her red aura. She tried to hit me from behind, but I turned quickly and struck it away with a back handed slap.

  Hot gas vented from the hexagons on my skin to cool my overheating body, filling the air with a veil of haze.

  The nephilim girl used that for cover and immediately struck me in the face, focusing her aura especially on her fist to deal more damage.

  I went flying, but she caught my foot with the chain of her weapon and swung it around wildly, sending me whirling along with it. She used my entanglement to drag me across piles of rubble and rock.

  My hand grabbed onto a solid chunk of metal and dug firmly in, preventing me from moving anymore at her will.

  I deactivated my False Theta Form and Combat mode, decreasing the size of my ankle enough to slip through the grip of her chain weapon, then I quickly powered them both back up and jetted back at her.

  Amanda boosted my attack with her spell, allowing me to send a titanic sparkling fist into the gut of the nephilim girl.

  “It’s over!” I shouted, spawning my spear and thrusting it at her.

  Her hand touched the spear and she shoved it down between the gap of her legs, cutting through the skirt of her dress. It struck the ground hard enough to break the spear in half!

  *CRACK!*

  Light burst out in every direction, swallowing both of us in blinding brilliance for a second.

  The nephilim girl was forced back, her hand a steaming stub of its former glory after touching the stardust spear.

  With both my transformation and all the energy I just expended, I was tapped out, sliding backwards and holding myself together with just a few heavy breaths. Every part of me was in dire pain, and I held tightly to my side in a vain attempt to ease the stabbing sensations.

  The nephilim girl was hurting too, but not enough.

  “You’re the demon girl who was fighting Uncle back in the dream…” I recognized her weapon and appearance. “What, did I put you out of a job, now you're working for a new boss?”

  Her fist tightened around the handle of her weapon and she swung her flail head around to reel it in for another strike.

  “I’ll take that as a yes!”

  I braced myself for whatever she had in store for me, because there wasn’t a snowball's chance in heck I had the strength left to fight.

  Just when I was losing hope, Indena came in with a flaming kick and knocked the Nephilim girl off her high ground.

  “Where the heck were you the whole fight?!” I smirked through my grit teeth.

  “Finding an exit!” Indena ran over to me while the nephilim girl was recovering. “There’s an elevator not far. We can use it to get the hell out of here!”

  Sounded good to me. But first we needed to make sure that demon girl wasn’t going to be on our butts.

  With what little stardust I had remaining in me, I blasted the demon girl with a shimmering wave of energy, carried by a gust of wind magic. She seized up and shook all over the ground like she was trying to put out a fire.

  “How long will that hold her?” Indena asked as she led the way to the elevator.

  “Probably only a few seconds!” I replied with a nervous laugh, feeling my diaphragm ache with every movement. “Aahh!” Pain caused me to collapse onto the ground, clutching my stomach tightly before falling to my side. “I…I can’t move…”

  My body hit its absolute limit. It felt like all my appendages were painfully ripping off me. It was such a horrendous feeling that I could barely speak.

  “What!?” she uttered, giving me a shocked look. “Are you serious?”

  “I…I’m sorry!”

  I was running on a cup of coffee and a thirty minute power nap on the way to the beach. We were lucky I made it this far on what little strength I had left!

  She brushed her hair back from the stress, then picked me up and threw me over her shoulders. “You burned yourself out again!”

  Uncle was mad at me the last time I did that. But there wasn’t any choice here. If I hadn’t activated the False Theta transformation, we wouldn’t have survived. My friends deserved more than just becoming a demon's pincushion.

  As predicted, the nephilim girl was quickly back in action, but this time she was miffed. Bat-like wings ripped out of her back and took her into the air. Her spiky wrecking ball of doom whipped down on us with devastating force. It crashed down and sent shockwaves through the earth, blasting Indena and I up into the air along with piles of rubble.

  “Hang on!” Indena leapt up and kicked her feet off the climbing rocks. Her magic flames allowed her to jet off of them and she maneuvered quickly through the chaos, like a frog hopping across a street of destruction.

  She continued springing off rubble until we finally found a circular structure that Amanda was already inside of.

  “That’s the elevator!” Indena called out, throwing me down and cupping her hands close to her heart. An orb of flaming mana balled up between her hands and blazed forth like a mini laser.

  “Dragon Breath!”

  The Dragon Breath attack struck the demon girl, but wasn’t strong enough to blast her or her flail off course.

  “Damn it!” Indena cursed. But I quickly arched my chest upwards from the floor and charged up my mana cannon.

  “Mana cannon, fire!” I shouted, shooting a beam of much more powerful hot blue energy at the demon girl, blasting her backwards.

  “That’s how you use a laser,” I smugly smiled.

  “I got five a’ your lasers right here,” she shook her fist at me as we entered the elevator.

  Unfortunately for us all, none of us had any idea how to start this thing, and that demon girl wasn’t backing down!

  -Sketch Dump #4 (#3 found on chapter 149)-

  -(From Left to right) Lesser Nephilim, Greater Nephilim girl (concept art), A hobgoblin and his gems-

  Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please support me, Taylor The Writer, here on Royal Road! :)