I mean, the odds were stacked, but maybe she didn’t wish to diminish her kill.
I pursed my lips, casting a look after the orange. He was nearly at the checkpoint. Killing him was the quickest choice, though not the wisest. The magical double trick that I’d used today wouldn’t work a second time. Not as well anyway. Part of my decision to fight in the arena had been to win over Carmine’s subjects, and that meant winning their respect.
Bloodthirstiness. That was what demons revered—the bravery and simplicity of inflicting pain because that was our food source. There was a trust reserved for demons who soughtbattle in pursuit of survival and strength. Part of me might not wish to be that woman. I’d entered this game determined to only take my single kill each week.
But I had to become someone else to win everything, and not just the game. I needed demons on my side in the end.
For him.My son.
For her.My twin.
The smoke had all but cleared from my mob of attackers as they stood back to allow the strongest red her kill. The row of reds and purples was closest to me, and every one of them was facing away. The other members of my ambush party were taking their chance to run or kill each other now that I was apparently defeated. They didn’t want to be the strongest demons’ next kill.
Allof the strongest opponents faced my decoy, who had cleverly dropped to her knees to force their attention away from the checkpoint.
I couldn’t pass this up, or I’d regret it next week.
I blurred toward the reds and strongest purples, closing the distance at a blurring pace.Six hundred feet, five hundred, three hundred, one hundred.
Fifty feet away, I unsheathed my father’s blade. The one infused with so much of his power. Grandmother gave me this blade when I was fifteen, and I had wondered at the time why she gavemethe mighty blade and Tempest the dagger—in that Tempest’s power was so much greater.
I didn’t need to wonder why anymore. Not with the demon power filling me. This blade was mine.
Over the last twenty feet, a mere second of my sprint, I allowed the blade to drag across stone. That was all the warning they’d get.
The whine of blade on rock made the nearest demons in the row leap and whirl.
These weren’t powerful crimsons. Most of the reds had barely any scales around their necks, and the scales on the necks of the purples didn’t present much of an obstacle.
In other words, as I blurred down the line of reds, decapitating them with my father’s blade, the job was not physically difficult.
But they werereds and strong purples, and so by the time I arrested my sprint to look back, I was panting from the drain in my power. I’d had to push a fair amount of power through the sword to combat their collective smoke.
The first head slid forward to the stone. A red. Then the next. The strongest purple. In a beautiful wave of death, the remaining seven heads slid forward to thump on the stone and roll to join the others.
My chest rose and fell with the recovery from my sprint and the exertion of power.
The arena shook with the crowd’s approval. I was brave. I’d chased battle.
I was a worthy demon.
Only then did the strongest red glance away from my decoy to follow the shocked looks of the rest of my ambush party.
She blinked at me, then whipped back to stare at my decoy, just in time to see decoy me float away in wisps of black smoke.
“Blesopil!” she hissed.
Clearly not impossible, but a first, yes. I cocked a brow at the spiked ball at her feet and the chain attached. “I know your cousin, demon.”
My gut twinged, and my divination magic flared. Yep, I really had to start training with my divination magic. Because with that simple twinge, I could justseehow this would go.
I stepped to the right as she flicked her wrist and used her magic to help the spiked ball hurtle to where I had been.
The red ran at me, punching at my head. I rotated to dodge.
Ah,that was how Tygrio disoriented me to distract me from the spiked ball. The red had used the same tactic. Her weapon was now behind me. The chain was in her hand.
She smirked and twitched her hand.
