CHAPTER 572: BEING FAIR

“This isn’t natural,” Demi said for the third or maybe fourth time.

Mason said nothing, but he felt it too. The winds were battling above them, swirling in unnatural patterns as storm clouds raced towards them. The air was too cool for the terrain, like it was blowing from somewhere else.

They were dug into the top of a steep hill, the civilians covered in tarps and tents, the combination of medieval cloth and space-aged nylons all pegged down and flapping in the wind. Chinua’s players formed a loose circle around them, staring out with alert but miserable faces.

Mason understood why. The rain was picking up. They had a few fires going and half protected, but the light wasn’t good for much. The moonlight was clouding over, too, and the world was going dark.

Something was very wrong. Mason felt out with One with Nature and sensed the panic. He could still feel the ‘patchwork’ of demonic ground out there—the rotting life wherever the demons had ‘won’ their invasions. Except that rot was…moving.

Slowly he started to think the demons were ‘pulling up’ from one or more of their victories. He’d asked the question: what would they sacrifice? And he was starting to get the answer.

Somehow the demons were giving up conquered ground. They were using that power for something else. And Mason had a pretty good idea what.

“Forget about a ‘light dusting’ of spores,” he said to Demi. “I want a killing field.”

The new Avatar of Gaia nodded as her jaw clenched, dark hair whipping in the wind. Her eyes glowed as she made another patrol around the hill, sprouting up new life everywhere she went. Mason closed his eyes and focused, waiting for anything to get within a mile. Streak sat beside him growling and chewing a stick.

Did he try to get a message to his players? Tell them to come rushing out to help? He knew they wouldn’t arrive in time, and probably couldn’t find anything in the storm. None of this made any sense.

Why would the demons be so hell bent on killing a bunch of civilians? They had thousands and thousands of humans in the nearby city. In the grand scheme of things, the loss of a hundred wouldn’t matter to humanity’s survival. Wouldn’t the ‘conquered ground’ be worth more ‘points’, or whatever, in this ridiculous game?

But he supposed his confusion made no difference. Reality required no advocate. They were coming, and they had to be stopped. He felt the first planar presence touch natural ground to the south.

“They’re here,” he shouted to Demi and the others over the wind. Then he turned and sprinted down towards the lower ground, elven bow in hand, Endless Quiver at the ready. Whatever was coming towards that hill, it wasn’t going to reach the top.

**

Abyssals marched in ragged formation. Dense clouds had formed above them, crackling with lightning as the dark creatures advanced with a chorus of shrieks and growls.

Amongst the growing pack, Mason saw two demons at least thirty feet tall. They were half smoke, half flesh, swirling and looking almost joined with the clouds around them. He’d fought something similar before—servants of a greater demon of the abyss that had trapped him in an abyssal environment with their master.

They’d been almost impossible to hurt with arrows, half warping in and out of existence. They’d used mind magic and shot acidic smoke. And their master had been a giant, sword swinging killer that trapped him in a wall of bone.

He almost smiled at the memory.

Bad news, friends, he thought, raising his bow. I have abyssal arrows this time.

His first Power Shot whistled across the terrain, right on target. A few feet before it struck, the arrow angled and whirled up into a spinning cyclone of wind, the power blinking out. He let out a long sigh.

“Why can’t things ever be simple,” he muttered. Then he turned and ran down towards the enemy’s flank, dropping explosive traps before loosing a steady stream of arrows at the smaller demons. They had no such protection.

Shrieks of pain and rage rose above the storm. Small demons charged from the line on all fours, sprinting like half dogs, half monkeys with loping strides. Mason blasted a Crippling Shot into a pack of them, the shards peppering the little bastards like duck shot.

He held his ground and loosed at once impossible speed, now just the norm. He watched the planar arrows glow as they struck targets they were designed to kill.

And kill they did.

Endless Quiver and the string of his elven bow hummed with power as the arrows flew again and again. In less than a minute, the first batch of charging demons lay scattered in a dead line leading up to his position. They didn’t quite make it to the traps.

Abyssal smoke launched from the shadowy demons, striking a still unmoving Mason in the chest and arm. It hissed and dripped, his titles flaring as he just kept launching at anything in range.

“Don’t you guys talk?” he mumbled, ignoring the series of smoke shots that followed. “That’s not gonna work.”

He considered a Frozen Grasp but decided it wasn’t needed yet, holding as long as possible as he slaughtered the shieldless, unarmored demons at will. He felt a tickle on his neck—a longing or maybe hatred from another mind that wasn’t his. He blinked as he recognized it, then gave Streak a glance.

“Sorry buddy. But I gotta be fair.”

The wolf quirked its head, then howled in misery as he realized what was happening. Mason unsummoned the wolf, replacing him with the obviously eager, immortal Stag he’d been gifted by Cerebus.

The fey-creature came hurtling out of its natural plane with antlers lowered, huge white body rippling with muscled strain as he raced towards the demons. Mason grinned as he saw Fang Brother activate and infuse the creature as it charged. It was scary enough without it.

For whatever reason, Stag really didn’t like demons. Especially abyssals. Mason stopped shooting long enough to watch his first charge.

An ape-like humanoid tried to leap up and grab the horns. But Stag turned with unnatural agility and smashed straight into its chest. The crack sounded like a gun shot, and the demon bounced away in a broken heap. Stag raced right on through, battering through the line of demons like an armored warhorse.

Mason renewed his attack, and he and the fey-beast worked in tandem to smash apart the demon’s line. They charged back and forth, shooting and smashing as the creatures chased and plodded up the hill. The smoke-shots kept coming, and kept failing.

A round of flyers soared overhead with a screech, and Mason chased until he found them getting shot, sliced, skewered, and spored. Chinua and his people had a good amount of range, and Demi’s magic was bad news for anything small and weak. He turned back and kept working on the main attackers.

What Chinua and his people lacked was the defensive power of Nassau’s players. Their only ‘tank’ was Chinua himself, but he was more like a tough, slow killer. They didn’t have anything like Becky or Alex’s shields, or John’s lightning barrier, or the spearmen’s walls.

They did have a support type who could put up different effects, but it had looked more useful on offence.

So Mason’s job seemed simple enough—thin the ranks. Make sure they only got to the others in bits and pieces, so they’d get ranged down with no problem. He dropped more traps as the first ones went off, finally using a mid-sized Frozen Grasp on a particularly juicy clump of animal-demon hybrids.

Rain and some hail hit his face, coming down harder by the second. But it was nothing to him now. He ran, and shot, and killed. He felt more and more demons coming with One with Nature, and started to wonder if they had portals out there.

But the system hadn’t announced any official attack or event. This was more targeted. Intentional. An enemy general making some tactical decision.

And it still didn’t make sense. They weren’t even attacking logically. It was like they were being held back, sent in waves. Mason had to wait or run out to find more groups to kill.

He was happy to oblige—sprinting from cluster to cluster around the main group killing anything that got ahead. But he had to deal with those smoke-demons soon. He knew they’d be much worse for the others, and they were getting closer.

The entire attack was poorly done, but then abyssals were stupid and unorganized. Mason tried to get his paranoia under control, knowing it was as unwise to overestimate your enemy as underestimate them. He’d been waiting, holding back. But it was time to stop screwing around and kill the biggest threats he could see, and stop worrying about some ambush or plot.

He called to Stag, the immortal creature thrashing some demon off its horns. It turned back with a snort, still silent since the moment it arrived.

“You came on the right day,” he said, looking at the core of the demon’s attack. He drew his Claws, and then his Marilith Blades. “I have to get close. It’ll be abyssal ground down there and probably seven kinds of ambush. But I want to kill their leaders and see what happens. Any objections?”

The Stag stared with those cold, pale eyes, hate coming off it like waves of heat. The desire to trample and gore consumed its mind.

“No,” Mason said, forming his weapons. “I didn’t think so.”

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