Magic resistance? Eva didn’t know. Void hadn’t exactly handed her an instruction manual—if it was his doing and not her own blood magic.
Halfway to the ritual circle, Eva stopped. She could sense Lucy nearby, but not far enough to actually be at the site. And there was something else.
Eva shifted slightly and started to run again. Tree after tree whizzed past Eva as she nearly flew towards the feeling. As she closed the distance, she started to hear something squelching. A grinding twisting writhing of wet limbs slapping against wet limbs.
“Lucy!” Eva shouted out as she skidded to a stop between two trees.
A mass of tentacles fought against another mass of tentacles. Teeth, eyeballs, and tentacles as thick as trees crashed against the much smoother more thread-like tentacles of Lucy. Neither was giving up ground. Lucy’s tentacles squeezed and crushed, destroying the thicker tentacles.
But the thicker tentacles were winning. Their mouths chewed off the thinner tentacles in droves.
Eva dropped the enigma without worrying about the possibility of giving it brain damage and rushed forwards. She snapped out an arm of blood, coating the larger tentacles as best she could with the liquid. In some places, she hardened it, in others, she stretched it. All in the name of separating the two monsters.
Only, as she continued, she realized something.
There was only one being before her.
Lucy’s tentacles merged into the larger trunk-like tentacles, and the larger tentacles were all connected to the bulk of Lucy’s mass. They were spreading.
Eva didn’t hesitate. She snapped her fingers together, detonating the tentacles she had covered at their base, as close to Lucy’s natural tentacles as possible.
As the viscera careened through the air, she spotted it. A little worm-like leech identical to the one that had been left behind after she had been shoved by the hunter’s massive arm.
Eva jumped after it, reaching out her arms to grab hold of it before it could escape and cause more harm. The blood that touched it hardened, forming into a solid sphere of blood. It had escaped from her initial detonation of Lucy’s limbs, but it wouldn’t escape now. The other one had died and so would this one.
Snapping her fingers, Eva turned back to Lucy. “Are you alrigh–”
A hole in the bloody snow opened wide. The half of the mass that was Lucy fell within, traveling down to Hell. Only a few bits and pieces remained, most of which were larger chunks of the corrupted portion of her body.
Eva stared for just a moment, feeling a sinking in her chest as she stared at the spot where the portal had disappeared. Somehow, she didn’t think that Lucy would be so lucky as to be sent back by Void as fast as it had sent her back.
Shaking her head, Eva got a move on. She couldn’t sit around moping all day unless she wanted to say goodbye to all of her friends like that. As she walked back to the demonic enigma, she coated each of the scattered chunks of corrupted flesh with blood. She didn’t exactly have time to deal with it all, but at the same time, she probably wouldn’t find this exact spot of land again. Leaving any sizable chunks behind could allow Life to do who knew what.
Snapping her fingers as she scooped up the enigma, Eva took one last look around the blood-splattered trees before taking off running once again. It hadn’t lasted long, but stopping even for a short time could cost her.
Eva reached the ritual circle before long and stopped right at the edge, staring.
There weren’t many left. Srey looked mostly unharmed as he stood next to the brain. Saija, not so much. She was collapsed in a heap towards the far end. Life—or the hunter—hadn’t corrupted her with the little worm thing and she wasn’t being pulled into a Hell portal, but she wasn’t moving either.
Aside from them, it was just Catherine and Zoe.
Eva’s eyes widened as she looked at Zoe. Her teeth ground together as she narrowed her eyes.
One of Zoe’s hands, blackened and scarred with red streaks up to her elbow, clutched tight against her other arm just below the shoulder.
She didn’t have much below that. The mangled remains of her arm littered the ground not far from where she had collapsed to her knees. Her little silver dagger was split in two, along with several of that arm’s severed fingers.
Catherine held the full attention of the hunter, dancing backwards in her full demonic form while avoiding strike after strike from the enraged hunter. But she didn’t hold the hunter’s attention for long. A sharp shift in her dance forced the hunter’s gaze to cross over Eva.
A swing from the hunter’s sword died as she stared. “No, no, no, no no no no! NO! I KILLED YOU!”
Eva chucked the enigma’s body to the ground, once again not caring for its health in the slightest. Her fists clenched and unclenched as she strode forward, eyes flicking between Zoe and the hunter.
A wound like that could easily cause her to bleed out in minutes. She needed to get close enough to stop the bleeding. A cap of blood over the arm should work temporarily. Maybe shoving some of her demon blood up Zoe’s arm could help replenish some of that which she had lost. Demon limbs could be grafted to humans, so why not blood.
But the hunter was already charging at Eva.
She wished that Catherine could have waited an extra minute before shifting the hunter’s attention. But watching the succubus—a demon that personified beauty and grace—heave and pant for breath now that the hunter was leaving her alone… she might not have been able to dance for much longer.
Eva needed to get close enough to Zoe, just long enough to drop off a little blood. Then she needed to escape before the hunter decided to strike at another, far easier target.
“You’re going to have to try harder than that,” Eva shouted back to the charging hunter. “But first… Kneel.”
Chapter 026
“Kneel.“
Across the entire ritual circle, everyone reacted in some way or another. Well, everyone except for Saija. Being passed out apparently afforded her some protection against Eva’s command.
Zoe, being already on her knees, didn’t react much either. Her head bowed down. Not to the point where it hit the floor, but just a nod. Which was perfectly fine with Eva. She had no desire to cause the woman any further pain.
The two most affected were Catherine and Srey. Both hit the ground hard enough that they would have made Eva wince had she not been focusing on their other guest. It was a good thing that they were demons; a human would have cracked their kneecaps. Hopefully Catherine would forgive her considering the circumstances.
As for the charging hunter, she fell to the ground in a heap. Yet, Eva wasn’t sure she had actually tried to kneel. Her momentum was at fault. The command had disrupted her legs just enough, just a twitch, that she hadn’t been able to place one foot in front of the other. With all the force of her charge, she soon started rolling across the floor.
Eva didn’t have time to stand around and admire the work of her command.
While the hunter pushed herself up, her arm burrowed into the ground.
Eva threw herself to the side, just in time to avoid the arm coming up just in front of her. As she flew through the air, ten little orbs of blood formed from her fingers. She flung them out, seemingly at random.
Seemingly.
While the hunter had to roll to one side and immediately froze five of the blood spheres, leaving a portion of her arm behind as a parasitic worm—which Eva immediately started flinging more blood at—two orbs scattered to the winds. The final three landed almost right on top of Zoe. Eva hoped the professor would get a clue and dip the stub of her arm into the conveniently bowl-shaped puddle. She couldn’t spare the thought to actually direct it around while her own blood was hurtling back towards her as razor-sharp spears of ice, but she would be able to harden it to prevent a total bleed out.