The crowd cheered to the confidence in Neyu’s voice.Some picked up broken bits of wood and stones to throw at the golden creature.
“They’ll know the truth once you are dead,” Ahraan growled.
“Then destroy me as you’ve sworn to do!”
Neyu...
Ahraan moved swifter than Saer anticipated for a creature so large.The beast feinted with another bite, then swiped with his enormous, clawed foreleg, slashing Neyu away from the flames she drew strength from.As the creature moved, more of its body became visible—broad wings upon his back and a tail decorated with wicked ivory spikes all the way to its tip.
Ahraan roared to match the thunder.Neyu snarled in return, and claws and teeth met with a brutality only the black of night could mask.The immolated stage blinded, the combatants darting amidst glares and shadows of flame and lightning.In one burst, Neyu clung to Ahraan’s winged back, clawing and ripping with nails and talons.In another, she lay crushed under his hindleg as his long neck swooped around to bite.
No!
Saer stumbled towards the remaining fire, calling Kalia’s name.Taking her hand, he dragged her into the blaze.Their soaked clothing steamed and hissed in the conflagration.
The tendrils of flame poured into the demons as if their skin drank it, until all light disappeared, save that from the storm.Saer called upon his given form, flesh ripping as wings burst from his back and bloodlust coated his tongue.Kalia followed suit.
Their roars joined the battle.
In his given form, Saer stood twice the height and bulk of the average man, but no contest in weight against the golden beast.Saer’s wings took him to nose-height with Ahraan.When the golden head swung around, Saer’s arm hooked between the beast’s horns, locking himself in position to kick at its nostrils and eyes.His body was as large as the monster’s head.
Neyu’s damaged wing forced her to stay low, making the occasional attempted rip across Ahraan’s belly with her nails and teeth, though the powerful armored scales kept her from dealing any significant damage.
One of Ahraan’s heavy wings caught Neyu under it.Kalia’s claws ripped along the thick, leather membrane of the appendage, drawing fresh blood.Ahraan bellowed and swiped his head at the smallest demoness, catching her arm in his fangs, then jerked his head in the opposite direction.
As Saer’s silver hoof kicked his eyelid, Ahraan flapped his wings and jerked with a snarl, releasing Kalia from his mouth.Ahraan whipped his tail around and slashed the pointed spikes across Saer’s lower back.
Neyu dug her nails into Ahraan’s side and climbed upward, along the golden beast’s ribcage as Saer’s howl of rage and pain reverberated through the atmosphere.Kalia clung to the edge of Ahraan’s wing and tore into the vulnerable membrane with her claws and maw, even as Ahraan slammed her over and over into the ground, covering her in dust and blood.Sloth screeched, and with an outward thrust of Ahraan’s wing, she was thrown off.She tumbled and fell in a broken mass a few yards away, bleeding, crushed, and still.
Saer planted his hooves at the widest points on Ahraan’s nose and gripped the monster’s gleaming horns with his claws.Desperate to find another way to fight the towering monstrosity, he reached metaphysically, hunting for a thread of Ahraan’s own pride to push or pull against,somethingto control which wasn’t sheer size or raw muscle.
The sin emanated in wisps and flashes, elusive and immune to his innate power, exactly as Neyu had told him.
Roaring his frustration in Ahraan’s face, the beast answered with a cry of his own.Ahraan shook his head side to side.
Saer held on, and through the third jerk of Ahraan’s head, he leapt and pulled down with all his might, using the monster’s momentum and size against him.Ahraan’s skull crashed into the wet ground, splashing rainwater, mud, and blood.
Saer and Neyu struck—Neyu for Ahraan’s throat, and Saer for his eye.
Neyu plunged her nails where the beast’s scales changed from fewer, wide, and flat on the back to more numerous and rounder at his belly.Raking her razor-tipped digits through the weakened ridge, she flayed the side of the monster’s neck open, exposing pink flesh and tissue.
In the same moment, Saer’s clawed hand dove into Ahraan’s left eye.Wrist deep, he pulled his fist out, clenched around a mess of blood and gelatinous fluid.
Ahraan howled.He slammed his tail into the back of Saer’s legs then thrust his fore claw onto Saer’s upper right shoulder and arm, missing his chest.Saer’s collar bone, first ribs, and upper arm crunched under the weight.He screamed behind a clenched jaw, then openly when Ahraan’s teeth snapped into his opposite hip and stomach.
The pressure stopped as soon as it had begun.Ahraan choked then gasped, pulling his head back.
Saer caught glimpses of Neyu, her arm buried deep in Ahraan’s throat, wrenching with all her weight against the solid column of the beast’s windpipe.She forced her arm deeper and heaved again, screaming in blood rage, her onyx skin bathed in wet crimson.
Ahraan whipped his tail, flapped his wings, and shook his head as he tried to dislodge Neyu.She fell loose when he managed to take clumsily to the sky with one tattered wing.Flying low and deeper into the storm, the beast collapsed outside the platform.
The massive golden body illuminated between flashes of lightning as Ahraan struggled to stand.His head and neck shook and bent in panicked flails, blood pouring from his wounds.He rolled to his side in a blind mania, slamming and rubbing his head against the ground.The motions became more frantic before they slowed, and between several bursts of lightning, Ahraan’s body slumped.
It burst into spontaneous flames.
Ahraan’s body burnt to nothing well before Saer moved his head to locate Lust and Sloth.
The motionless demonesses lay not far away, sprawled without grace across the unyielding ground.Neyu’s arm lay pinned under her body at an unnatural angle, Kalia in a curled heap on her side.Saer extended his heat sense towards the two of them.
