“Form a perimeter!” Dad yelled. “Let no one through.”
I couldn’t look at any of them, my entire focus on the god considered my equal.
You’ll sleep in the cell I’ve built just for you—on the bodies of your dead loved ones.He started to move toward me before he issued a roar that sounded like a dragon, his mouth opening to show the flames that burned up his throat.
I unsheathed my blade, spun it around my wrist, and started to circle him.
He turned his body to face me while the others battled the spawn of the underworld. He gave a chuckle as he watched me, over two feet taller than me, his arms nearly the size of my body.
Ladies first.
I continued to move around him, trying to find the right time to make my move but painfully aware of everyone I loved fighting for their lives around me. I couldn’t pay attention to any of them. If someone needed help, I couldn’t break my concentration. All it would take was one blow from this demon, and my head would be?—
He launched forward with the speed of a charging horse and brought his sword down on me.
Zehemoth’s focus was still with me, even in another world, and the strength that Callum had permanently gifted to me fueled every muscle in my body, making me feel eight feet tall. It allowed me to raise my sword to block his attack without having to think about it, my reflexes supernatural.
He struck me again and again, slamming his sword down with both speed and strength, and through sheer instinct, I blocked every hit, my feet moving automatically to keep myself in optimal position. But that flurry of blows was followed byanother, and he hacked at my sword with his blade and drove me back, trying to tire me just from blocking.
But I knew he was weaker than normal since their harvest of souls had been put toward the destruction of the barrier, so he was probably trying to defeat me as quickly as possible by converging all of his strength in a single attack.
I blocked hit after hit, feeling him drive me back, my muscles aching from the exertion of stopping his strength.
He finally withdrew his blade and took a step back, but I’d been waiting for this opportunity as he’d pummeled me with his attacks, so I was ready to seize the moment, to strike my blade across his chest and scratch open the fibers woven in millions of intricate braids. It must have seemed like a paper cut to him because he didn’t release a roar of pain. I sliced at him again, leaving a scratch in the hard exoskeleton of his arm. He quickly raised his sword again and the dance continued, but now our pace was evenly matched.
I could tell he knew it, because he stepped back and released a quiet growl as he surveyed his next move. His movements became clunky and abrupt, like he didn’t know how to approach this fight.
A demon god against a fused goddess—evenly matched.
He stared me down with the threat of a nightmare, flames visible between his teeth, his black heart pounding against the fleshlike webbing that covered his body.
If I could stab my blade through it, it would probably defeat him.
Lily Rothschild, you shouldn’t have come here.
I slammed my sword against my chest as I moved in again, the battle surrounding me, when all I saw was the demon before me, the creature that had tried to force me to be his. I launched myself forward again, determined to get access to the webbing over his heart.
Even if you defeat me, the Covenant will destroy you.
“Ahhhhh!” I screamed before I attacked, catching his blade with mine before I spun it down and then slammed my elbow into his enormous arm. I hit him hard enough to make his fingers release the blade, and it clattered on the stone floor. I automatically kicked it away then resumed my attack, hacking at him with my sword, slicing across the exoskeleton on his arms when he used them to block my hits and protect his core.
He took an opening in my attack to grab me by the throat, and he effortlessly lifted me up and shook me hard as if he was trying to snap my neck like I was a rat he’d spotted in the corner of his bedchambers.
But instead of focusing on him and slamming both of my elbows down on his forearms to break free, I let him continue to choke me and throttle my spinal cord as I changed the grip on my sword, using both hands to stab the blade into his chest, where I saw the beating black heart.
The second I made contact, he stopped shaking me.
I shoved the blade in deeper and gave it a hard twist.
His hands suddenly slackened on my neck, and he dropped me.
My boots hit the floor, but I stumbled on the landing, dropping my blade and landing on the stone floor.
Leviathan dropped to his knees, his clawed hand moving over his chest where black blood oozed over the fibrous flesh. He stared at the gunk as it dripped down his fingers before he fell back, and the moment his spine hit the stone floor, a geyser of the black liquid erupted into the dark sky…and then it transformed into a cloud that slowly floated away.
I watched it slowly drift off before I noticed the silence around me. My eyes scanned the area, seeing the dead bodies of servants and monsters on the floor, while those who still battled immediately stopped their attack.
I couldn’t really think in that moment, overwhelmed by my victory, so I just counted the people I knew…and when I reached six, I knew everyone was still alive. I looked at the creatures I’d seen before, ugly orcs and bent servants who couldn’t stand fully upright. They fought with little daggers and swords, and they all stared at me with absolute fear.
