We couldn’t see the bottom, so the gods only knew how deep it went. Martha and Conrad nodded. She raced up the stairs while he took the woman Lyall was still holding before following in her wake. But the air shifting around us drew our attention away from it. To my shock, I noticed a very angry Elliot standing at the back of the room, on the opposite side of the pit from us.
“You fucking survived!” he hissed, his eyes throwing daggers at me. “I told Demetra her obsession with you would be her downfall.”
“Why was she? Why couldn’t she leave me alone?” I asked.
If I could keep him talking for a bit, it would buy time for the Templars to make the women as secure as possible, for those outside to try and figure out a way to reopen the exit, and for us to assess any weakness we might exploit to take down that wretched male. To my relief, the others seemed to guess my intention and didn’t make waves.
He snorted and gestured towards me.
“Look at you,” he said in the self-evident tone. “Do you not see how formidable and magnificent you are? You literally ooze with power. Even from where I stand, I can feel it. In your vessel, she would be unstoppable.”
“Instead, you turned her into a magic battery for yourself,” I said with contempt.
He waved a dismissive hand. “Demetra failed too many times in her pursuit to possess you. Each time, it devastated the Order. Despite that, I was willing to give her one last chance. See how I have healed her? Do you have any idea how many resources I had to burn in order to achieve that?”
“Yes, I can see that. This level of healing should be nearly impossible,” I conceded. “So why go through all that trouble only to turn on her now?”
“Had we gotten your Amulet, your soul would have enhanced her in a way that would have made her nearly divine. Not as much as if she had taken over your vessel, as she initially intended. But it would still have been close enough. Without your Amulet, she wasn’t worth investing in further. But her powers remain impressive. Here, as my thirteenth bride, she will serve me well.”
He gave me a slow, assessing look with a lurid edge that made my skin crawl. The low growl that vibrated in Lyall’s throat expressed his displeasure at the disrespect.
“You could join me,” Elliot proposed in a suggestive fashion. “I could help you achieve even more power than you currently have.”
I huffed. “And end up like her, being leeched to death the day you decide I’ve displeased you too much or you find someone better?”
He shrugged. “Don’t displease me and keep improving yourself, then we’ll have no problem.”
This time, Lyall bared his fangs at Elliot. I could tell he was calling on every ounce of his willpower not to lunge at that vermin.
Elliot chuckled smugly, pleased to be getting under my man’s skin.
“Right now, it is you who is inferior and without the means to improve yourself,” Lyall interjected mockingly while waving at the vacant spots of the nine female clerics who had already been taken away.”
A wave of anger flashed over Elliot’s face. A part of me wished my mate had not taunted him into lashing out just yet. However, for all his faults, the cultist was no fool. He knew exactly what we were doing and only indulged us to the extent it suited him. The clicking sound from the pit had been steadily growing. It was clear that battle was upon us. I had hoped he would have triggered one of my traps before it came to that.
“You may have taken my brides, but the sacrificial lambs do not need to be women. The lot of you will more than do. I cannot wait to harvest your power, doppelganger,” Elliot said in a sickly-sweet voice.
Moving at dizzying speed, Lyall threw his palm forward, and a massive lightning bolt shot out towards Elliot. The foul male vanished half a second before he would get struck. The wall right behind where he’d been standing exploded in a shower of rocks and debris, leaving an impressive gaping hole in its wake.
Another series of rooms appeared on the inner edge of the pit, and both the runes in and around it started glowing red. The clicking sound became deafening, and moments later, a throng of Gerus swarmed out of the pit.
My heart sank upon seeing the dreadful creatures. Their bodies measured a little over a meter long, with long three-segmented legs in front and in the back that allowed them to move at insane speeds like a spider and jump at incredibleheights. The front legs were recurved with vicious teeth that vaguely reminded me of a praying mantis, although they walked on them. The back legs simply ended in razor sharp tips that could be used to pierce through the hardest scales or shield. Their pallid, spotted skin could have belonged to a diseased maggot.
But the most terrifying parts were the head and the underbelly. The head could have belonged to a bald human without eyes, nose, or ears. It only possessed a massive mouth filled with dagger teeth. Sharp hooks lined the sides of their underbellies. And the length of the stomach was yet another mouth filled with even more terrifying teeth. The dreadful creature loved to jump on to the back of its prey, lock onto them firmly by sinking their hooks into their victim and then using their belly mouth to crush the spine, disabling their target so that they could devour them in peace.
Aside from their incredible speed, the Gerus’ strong resistance to magic made them formidable foes. You easily needed to cast four to five times more spells against them to achieve the same result as you would against any other enemy. Considering their great speed and the viciousness of their attacks, mages usually didn’t have enough time to do sufficient damage before they got overwhelmed.
Although they were extremely vulnerable to physical damage—especially piercing blows and beheadings—getting close enough to inflict a direct bodily injury was a major gamble. A human’s fragile skin against their limbs didn’t fare too well. It also didn’t help that I didn’t come equipped with a sword or bladed staff. Then again, when we left Lyall’s mansion this morning, I had not expected to go into battle. Otherwise, I would have prepared much differently.
With an instinctive symbiosis born of years of combat together, the Templars and I immediately cast kinetic pulses toknock back the nightmarish hoard. Lyall rained down lightning on them, but it quickly became apparent that it would take too long to take them out. He had to successfully hit the same target at least three or four times for them to falter. And that didn’t even guarantee their deaths. In some cases, they were just severely stunned before they recovered and rejoined the fray.
I assisted by casting firebolts and my incineration aura to further weaken them. But there were just too many, especially with the pit continuously vomiting more of the abominations.
One of them made a giant leap and landed on Conrad. He screeched as the creature stabbed its hooks into his sides. Lyall emitted a war cry as he punched through the skull of the Geru, ripping its brain right out. The beast went limp, flopping onto its back. Conrad fell to his knees, bleeding. Puncture wounds were visible along his spine where the Geru’s teeth had begun to sink in before meeting its untimely death. He tried to stand but struggled. While his spine had not been severed, he had sustained some serious enough injuries that he would not be able to perform any type of physical combat or even run away from or dodge any attack.
Lyall grabbed Conrad and flew him up onto one of the natural ledges lining the sides of the dungeon. It was a small, oddly shaped rock outcropping with maybe a two-meter radius. But at its height of nearly four meters from the ground, it would keep him in relative safety. He did the same with Martha and Paulus, finding a different ledge for each of them.
This seriously helped me. As I no longer needed to worry about their welfare and the risk of friendly fire, I literally turned myself into a human torch. Searing hot flames raged all around me like a demonic bonfire. The insane heat over a large radius had them scrambling back. The Gerus’ magic resistance didn’t protect them from the flames, which inflicted almost the same level of harm as a blade would. They circled around me, tryingto find a safer spot to approach while I pummeled them with magic, weakening their defenses.
