Demonic Magician

I placed my hand against the large, ornate doors and pushed.

They opened smoothly. Almost without resistance, as if they were weightless. No groan or creaks. Truly a set of doors that befitted a king. Soon to be mine, I hoped.

Perhaps more interesting than the smooth entryway by manner of several factors was the room that it led into. Wide and tall, with a domed ceiling decorated with black and gold. Spiraled patterns that might make sense if I had the time to stand and stare at them for a while, but at a brief glance they were just dizzying.

Centerpiece of the whole throne room was the throne itself, and its current occupant. The seat was made of a dark material - obsidian, but a swirl of energy rolled around the surface almost like faint waves of dry ice. Spiked, with various skulls on the ends of some of the longer protrusions. Many humanoid but others were various beasts or creatures I couldn’t even imagine.

The demon king himself was every bit a cliche as I could have imagined. A towering humanoid of dark red flesh, easily twenty feet tall if he stood. Hooved feet, dark leathers covering little of his muscled form, yellow eyes, sharp fangs, and two large horns of a black almost as dark as the throne. He wore a tired but amused look on his face, his position in his seat casual and unbothered. On his right side, a tall flaming greatsword hung in the air - hovering in place as an eye in the hilt observed us.

To his left stood a cloaked figure. A long beak extended from the darkness of their wide hood, so they were probably some manner of bird-demon. Hunched and rounded, two clawed hands clasped at a long staff. The magic weapon looked as though it was made from the twined sinews of many victims, like gnarled wood. Pale strands woven together rose up to encircle a large skull that constantly bled from the eye sockets.

The rest of the pristine marbled floor was covered by his elite guard in waiting. Two dozen, at least, heavily armored demons of various shades. None smaller than ten-feet tall, and each armed with wicked looking weapons that either glowed with insidious intent or dripped unknown poisons and toxins. Eyes glared at the three of us as we stood in the opening.

I was almost thankful that they hadn’t immediately attacked, so that I could take in the splendor and absolute weight of energy and power in this room. Even the titan zombie had nothing on the king and his retinue. We had been constantly punching above our level in this world, but this monster wasn’t meant to be assailed by Players - let alone so few.

As the star of the show, I took the first few steps forward. Tense and ready to burst into violence. If they had allowed us a brief second to fully drink down the sight before us, then there was a chance one of us could get a monologue off before heads started to roll. I almost craved it.

A quick glance to my two companions, and neither seemed to be shrinking away under the power before us. Ren looked stoic, perhaps her exhaustion just too great to care anymore. Wolf, on the other hand, was a lot more agitated than normal - eager to chew through this last hurdle. And I… was calm, considering.

“Mortals,” the king’s voice boomed out, as he leaned forward. “I don’t know how you’ve managed to survive down here, but your luck has run out.”

“On the contrary.” I smiled and continued forward, slowly. “This is the first time we’ve had the chance to entertain royalty, so luck is truly on our side.”

“If only for a few more seconds. You don’t understand how outclassed you are.”

I looked around the room at all the demons, just tense and ready to try to take us apart. Part of me missed the System giving us a little heads-up about levels and monster names. Mostly, however, I had been enjoying the feeling that this was more akin to real-life compared to our previous experiences with monsters in Othea. Even if they were still constructs of the System, being able to hold a conversation was a novelty.

It made dazzling them all that more pleasant.

As I opened my mouth to speak, I found no words came out. Instead, my throat felt tight and constricted. The king’s hand extended, and I felt weightless, my feet rising off the floor as the pressure on my neck increased. I extended my hand in an attempt to cast something, but my vision blurred as my eyes bulged out.

With a sickening crunch, my head exploded, sending brain matter and blood up into the air like a geyser.

The perfect firework to start off this soon-to-be-massacre.

While my corpse dropped to the floor, the real me stepped out amongst the group of demons on the right side. A shot rang out as Ren fired for the spellcaster beside the king, a blazing shield of swirling orange light protected the bird-like demon from even the high caliber rifle. Two cards of bright purple spun into my hands and I jabbed them forward like daggers into the kidneys of the opponent in front of me, who hadn’t turned.

And then all hell broke loose. Heh.

Wolf powered into the left side of the throne room, stunning and disemboweling the first demon he came across as my ace dropped area effect scrolls. Reduced Armor. Reduced Speed. Weakness to debuffs. Oh, we were going to debuff the shit out of them.

I felt elated. Not a traditional show by any means, but a culmination of all we had suffered through and overcome in our little jaunt through the hells. Already overpowered by Player standards, the bloodshed had acted as a lubricant for us to force the dial even further.

was easy to reset now. A simple matter of dropping twenty percent of my own health through Bloodletting, my Demonic Regeneration and passive recovery from items and Ren topping my health up to full again within seconds. They needed to pin me down to put pressure on - but I was as slippery as anything. Perhaps also lubed from the bloodshed.

That brought distracting thoughts up that I didn’t need right now. My glance went over to the elf as she skewered a demon with the jagged bayonet before blowing a hole straight through them into another opponent behind.

I felt the displacement of air before I saw the attack from behind me - but I swapped places with my ace and the axe attack instead bounced off the rounded cylinder of my cannon left in my wake. Purple card went out and slashed through the back of the knee of a demon approaching Wolf. They stumbled and dropped in front of the bear, who leaped up and tore the face off of the demon with a quick bite.

Then I went invisible, my cannon firing a blast of confetti through the throng as I walked over to the center of the room once more. I could… feel something in the air. I glanced at the king, who was rising from his throne to take up his sword - but that wasn’t it.

Instead, I looked back to the open doorway. Another smile widened across my face.

Before my invisibility wore off, I spun on my heels to face the throne once again, using a [Smoke Scroll] to create a cloud of obscuring mist around me. The wall of gray dispersed almost immediately, as scores of hell-birds rushed through the doorway and into the chamber, swirling the smoke away to reveal me now in my .

But that wasn’t all!

As my bird friends swooped past me, I allowed them to take spell scrolls from my outstretched hands. Although I couldn’t interact with them directly, I sent my ace around the room. It passed through the hell-doves without harming them, instead just acting as an activating wick to burst the spells from the claws of the small demons.

The demon king stretched out his neck and twirled the sword in his hands, readying up. Crackles of energy from constant spells, blasts from the sniper rifle, and the roars or crunches over by Wolf filled the throne room.

“The rumors were true then.” The king grimaced, glaring at my wings and horns. “Far beyond any other mortal than has dared step foot in my kingdom. I can see it in your eyes… you would never settle for less than the throne. There is no point asking for you to join my side.”

“Correct.” I grinned, birds still swooping around me to retrieve more scrolls to take into the battlefield.

My cannon fired off another blast of confetti, and the king didn’t even flinch. I could feel the power in his sword, even from here - the weapon was a demon, too. My mundane deck burst from my belt and swirled around me, the air now thick with cards and birds. As I stretched my fingers out to show the white gloves I now wore, I could sense the threads of magic that joined them all to me.

A network where I was the anchor, able to control and utilize everything to my benefit.

Before I could make the first move, a wave of heat buffeted me - a shockwave burst out from the king, tensing up to launch towards me. He would be much quicker than me, I was sure. I snapped my fingers as he burst forth, putting the advanced version of on him.

Slowed - something that reduced both movement and attack speed. How fortuitous… although a debuff that instantly killed him would have been preferable. I’d just have to wait for the refresh.

I switched position with a bird near the throne as the large sword cut through the air where I had been standing. A purple trail remained where it had swiped, as if he had scarred the atmosphere itself. Several of my hapless hell-birds bursting into fine mist from the strike.

Just to my left, the spellcaster was gathering up some crackling energy, ready to cast something at me. I raised an eyebrow at the shadowed demon as my absorbed the strike. “Lightning, really? But it’s only just started to rain.”

The demon opened their mouth to squawk at me, before looking up. A cloud had formed, suddenly ejecting bolts of radiance straight down upon them. The golden beams fizzled as burned as they struck the orange shield, but the spellcaster had to focus entirely on holding their spell up to not become scoured by Ren’s skill.

Wolf was protecting the elf as she stood with one hand extended, blood already running from her palm. Before I could lend the power of my cards to aid in the destruction of the defensive spell, I caught the glare of the king - he was switching focus to Ren.

Transposition was on cooldown, so I just powered up a card as quick as I could. The bear stepped in the way, ready to intercept any strike - but the large demon didn’t even lunge for a swing. Instead, he held out his hand.

Ren rose from the floor, a scowl on her reddening face as she glared at the demon king. Yet she didn’t drop her spell, despite her health plummeting, as she was squeezed just as I had been. An intense anger surged through me like a lava burst and my wings snapped back to launch me towards the king, my card spinning through the air towards his neck.

He shimmered a deep gray as my card passed straight through him, dissipating as it struck the wall over the door.

The king turned his wide grin to me to gloat. Intending on dragging this out to make us suffer. Then shock flashed across his smarmy expression, and his arm sagged slightly. He dropped the elf to the ground. She panted and gasped for air as her extended hand shook, Wolf almost sitting on her to keep her blocked from view.

Relief slowed my charge, my temperament cooling, so that I didn’t speed head first into the sword.

Our eyes turned to what had waylaid the attack.

Beside the king, his eyes wide and panicked, stood Roger. His was mace bloodied from where he had struck the tall demon, but that looked to be as far as he had planned.

“Worm,” the king sneered, and clicked his fingers.

With one last glimpse toward me, Roger unraveled in a spiral pattern, as if reality was peeling him away. It dragged on for ages in my eyes, seeing the calm realization in his eyes torn apart, even though it happened in a near instant.

And then he was gone.