Blade of the Goddess
Chapter 103 - Attack of the Demons Part 3

Chapter 103: Chapter 103 - Attack of the Demons Part 3

"You look uglier than the last time I killed you!" Zion taunted, grinning as he cracked his knuckles. "And weaker!"

Olzak roared, wings flaring wide, charging, but Zion danced around his strikes now, slipping through the gaps with almost insulting ease.

"What’s wrong? Demon got soft?"

Olzak snarled, unleashing a demonic blast. Zion deflected it with a rune-enhanced palm strike, the explosion leveling the castle courtyard.

"Maybe you need a hug?" Zion laughed, dodging a tail swipe and answering with a vicious uppercut that rattled Olzak’s skull.

It became a blur: fists, wings, claws, flames, lightning, a whirlwind of destruction across the kingdom. Every time Olzak tried to rally, Zion was there first, quicker, sharper, and crueler.

Then, Zion grinned widely.

"You like Thunder Strikes, right?"

Before Olzak could react, Zion struck, a perfect blow to the weak point in Olzak’s demonic energy barrier.

White flash.

One.

Olzak staggered, disbelief flashing in his eyes.

Two.

His wings drooped.

Three.

A gout of blood burst from his mouth.

Four.

The earth trembled beneath them.

Five.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the kingdom.

Zion hovered above him, golden eyes blazing with merciless joy.

"You thought you were a demon?"

He drove a knee into Olzak’s back, forcing the demon to his knees, bleeding and broken.

Zion leaned down, voice dripping with venom.

"Look at you, bleeding at my feet like a little bitch. You claim to be a demon, but I’m more of a demon than you are. You’re nothing but a fucking fraud."

He grabbed Olzak by the throat, lifting the massive demon effortlessly into the air.

Olzak struggled weakly, a flicker of terror crossing his face.

Zion smirked savagely, then drove a final Thunder Strike into Olzak’s chest.

The world shattered.

The sheer force split the land in half, a canyon ripping outward from the impact point, swallowing forests, rivers, and mountains in its path. The explosion was so bright, so violent, it briefly turned day into night.

When the dust finally cleared, Zion stood alone atop a jagged cliff, breathing lightly, and made a cloak from his nanobots that fluttered behind him just for the style points.

Olzak lay broken in the chasm below, motionless, and his upper half was completely blown away.

Zion rolled his shoulders lazily, glancing down with a grin.

"Tessa," he said, voice casual, "remind me to call that move the ’Shut The Fuck Up Strike.’"

[That’s a stupid name.]

Zion laughed, stepping away from the ruined battlefield as the demons and demonic humans who were able to watch his fight stared in awe and terror at the man who just broke a demon in half.

He whistled low, looking at the damage his battle caused to the kingdom.

"Tessa," he said lazily, "pretty sure we just violated, like, every building code in the kingdom."

[Correction: 4,132 structural regulations have been breached. A new personal record, according to the information I have about the property damage you’ve caused.]

Zion grinned widely. "Fuck yeah."

---

The ruins of the stadium smoldered under the blackened sky, debris and broken stone floating midair from the chaos of clashing mana. In the heart of the destruction, three figures blurred faster than the eye could follow. Zaleena, Raven, and Anastasia, locked in a ferocious dance of blades, magic, and blood.

Zaleena darted in first, her sword gleaming like a lightning bolt. Anastasia spun backward with a wicked smile, a whip of blood coiling around her wrist to parry the strike. A split second later, a jagged arc of arcane energy ripped through the air from Raven’s fingertips, forcing Anastasia to somersault high, her crimson hair trailing like a comet.

"You girls sure know how to make a lady sweat," Anastasia purred mid-flip, grinning wide enough to flash her gleaming fangs.

"You sure you’re sweating and not bleeding?" Zaleena quipped, slashing upward.

The strike sliced across Anastasia’s chest, blood spraying into the air. For a brief instant, the crowd of soldiers and mages who were watching from far-off rooftops gasped. Anastasia looked down at the gash, shrugged, and with a snarky laugh said, "Hey! Those were my favorite set of boobs!"

With a sickening crackle, the wound closed, flesh knitting back into perfect form.

Raven answered by blasting her with a condensed sphere of gravity while throwing some garlic, forcing Anastasia down like a meteor. The ground cratered under the impact. Dust billowed. Without missing a beat, Zaleena flashed in, sword poised to skewer her.

But Anastasia wasn’t there.

A swarm of blood-red bats exploded from the crater, zipping through the air before fusing back into her form atop a broken spire.

"I thought garlic was supposed to work on you freaks," Raven said dryly, hurling a barrage of compressed lightning bolts.

Anastasia cackled, flipping Raven off before weaving through the bolts. "Honey, garlic’s for cooking, not killing!" She dropped toward Zaleena like a crimson missile, her hand turning into a wicked blood-scythe.

Zaleena’s blade met the scythe with a shockwave that cracked the spire beneath them. For a moment, the two locked eyes, golden against infernal red, before they exploded apart, moving too fast to track.

Steel hissed, blood sang, and magic roared.

Anastasia’s body twisted like liquid, slipping around Zaleena’s furious strikes, only to be hammered by Raven’s long-range barrages. A spear of crystallized blood hurled toward Raven, but she snapped her fingers, teleporting aside with a cocky smirk.

"You missed," Raven teased.

"Just like your last boyfriend," Anastasia shot back, grinning wildly.

Zaleena used the opening; her sword cleaved through Anastasia’s side, severing a chunk of flesh. Blood splattered, but instead of screaming, Anastasia laughed, grabbing the severed chunk and tossing it at Zaleena like a snowball.

"You can keep that! A souvenir!"

Despite their overwhelming teamwork, it was clear: while Zaleena and Raven could damage her, they couldn’t kill her. Anastasia moved with an unsettling ease, her strikes wild but precise, her defenses slippery, as though she were a tide they couldn’t fully stop.

Midair, Anastasia twirled, dodging twin blasts from Raven, and perched effortlessly atop a collapsed column. She licked blood off her fingers, looking every bit the queen of madness.

"While you two don’t exactly threaten my gorgeous little life," she purred, "you’re strong enough to pin me down in this annoyingly weakened state. And while I’d love to rip you both apart for the sheer fun of it..." She tilted her head with a cruel smile. "Drakoth can’t break the cocoon anyway, and Gonrod’s going to flatten him. So guess what? It doesn’t matter."

Zaleena narrowed her eyes. Raven’s hand flexed, gathering more mana.

"Oh? No snappy comebacks this time?" Anastasia mocked, spreading her arms wide. "Come on, girls! You’re boring me! Hit me! Hurt me! Make it fun!"

Zaleena answered with brutal simplicity. Her blade blurred, severing Anastasia’s arm clean at the shoulder.

Anastasia blinked once. Then smiled even wider.

"Rude!" she barked, laughing as the limb regrew before it even hit the ground.

Raven muttered, "I liked her better when she was missing an arm."

"Please," Zaleena said, adjusting her grip on her sword. "She talks enough for two. I’ll arm for her throat next time."

The ground cracked and ruptured as they rushed in again, a whirlwind of silver, black, and blood-red violence. Each blow, each spell, each taunt pushed the ruined landscape closer to collapse.

The kingdom trembled under the weight of their clash, and Anastasia laughed through it all.