Chương 22

Lodin's shoulder slammed into the demon's ribs. Shin struck beside him a half-beat later, and the double impact hurled it across the square. The demon crashed through the front wall of a house and the structure exploded around it, its walls buckled and the roof caved inward as the demon's massive body tore through the building like a fist through paper.

The creature burst out the back of the home in a shower of debris, rolled across the dirt yard beyond, gouging a deep trench in the earth on its way, and roared in pain as its spine struck a stone well, which brought its skidding and rolling to an abrupt stop. What remained of the house groaned and collapsed into a heap of timber and shattered tiles. Behind Lodin, Dae Han pushed himself upright at the edge of the pit. Blood soaked his tunic where the barbed tail had struck him.

He looked at the demolished house, then at Lodin, tipped his kasa and grinned.

"Respect," he said. Then he vanished. Lodin frowned at the empty space. Hopefully the vagabond hadn't chosen to flee. He turned back toward the wreckage. Shin stood at his side, soulsteel skin aglow, burning eyes fixed on the rubble.

"How do we hurt this thing," Lodin said.

"Uncertain." Shin's voice hummed like struck iron.

"It could be feeding on that ritual array for power."

"It could just be invincible."

"Doubtful. Something that strong would not be left as a mere watchdog." Timbers shifted in the debris. The demon began to rise from the wreckage. It shook dust from its mane, and looked around, still disoriented.

"We could try to overwhelm its regeneration," Lodin said. Shin's brow creased. His burning eyes narrowed.

"Go all out," Lodin said.

"Hit it as hard as we can." He charged before Shin could answer. The demon had just found its footing when Lodin reached it. He dropped low, loaded his legs, and drove an uppercut into the creature's jaw, and the shockwave from the blow flattened the weeds in a circle around the spot where Lodin stood. The punch tore the demon off the earth. Its lower jaw cracked loose on one side, hung crooked, and a fan of black ichor sprayed across the flagstones below. It rose into the sky.

Lodin crouched and launched himself after it. The ground cracked beneath his feet as he shot upward, closed the distance in a heartbeat, and met the demon at the peak of its arc. Its burning eyes found him just before his fists did. He locked both hands together overhead and brought them down on the crown of the demon's skull. The creature's horns snapped at the base. Its spine compressed, and the massive body folded around the point of impact before it rocketed toward the ground.

The demon struck the earth and the flagstones erupted. A shockwave blew outward across the square, ripped tiles from rooftops and toppled a stone wall thirty feet away. The crater beneath the demon's body sank three feet deep, and fracture lines spread through the square like a shattered mirror. Lodin landed at the crater's edge, saw the demon twitch and begin to rise, and dropped in after it. The demon made it to one knee before the first punch drove it back down.

Lodin stood over the creature and let his fists go. Left, right, left, right, left, right. Faster, and faster, and faster. Each blow crashed into the demon's skull, its jaw, its chest, its ribs. The pace built until his arms were a blur and each impact bled into the next, a drumroll of knuckles on bone that echoed off the ruined houses and shook loose stones from their foundations. A punch to the sternum folded the creature's chest inward, and Lodin heard its spine crack against the stone beneath.

Black ichor sprayed from every wound, pooled in the crater, soaked into the broken earth. The demon's head snapped around wildly, its mane whipped back and forth, ichor sprayed from its mouth and nose in black ribbons. Craters formed in its flesh where his knuckles landed, caved inward, filled with ghost-flame, caved inward again before the flame could finish its work. The force of Lodin's punches fractured the ground beneath the demon's body, made it sink a little deeper with each blow.

Lodin threw one last right hand, a straight shot from the hip that he put his whole body behind. The punch cratered the demon's chest and collapsed both sides of its rib cage. The blow launched the creature out of the hole. It struck the flagstones once, bounced, struck them again, gouged a trench through the third impact, and plowed through a stone pillar that exploded into gravel before it struck the base of a ruined wall which collapsed on top of it in a cloud of dust and fragments of brick.

Stolen novel; please report. Ghost-flame flickered across the buried form. Pale light seeped between the fallen timbers and broken stone. The rubble shifted, rose, and fell away as the demon stood. Its chest was whole. Its ribs were whole. The collapsed ruin of its torso had filled itself back in, smooth and solid beneath fresh blue fur. The creature shook dust from its mane, and there were bony popping sounds as it rolled its neck. Lodin stared at it. His knuckles ached, slick with black ichor.

He had felt its skeleton come apart beneath his hands, felt its chest cave and its spine shatter and its horns snap free. And the demon stood there, grinned at him, and looked as if it had just woken from a nap. Something cold settled in his gut. He flexed his hands, curled them back into fists. Shin flowed in beside him, soulsteel limbs a blur of punches to the body, kicks to the legs, elbows and knees wherever an opening showed itself. His metal skin glowed brighter with each exchange.

Lodin loaded his weight onto his back foot and threw a right hand from his hip. The punch buried itself in the demon's midsection and folded the creature in half. Shin pivoted and whipped his leg around. His soulsteel shin crashed into the demon's skull and wrenched its head to the side. Ghost-flame flickered across the demon's body. Pale threads knit torn muscle and reset shattered bone. But slower now. The wounds stayed open a half-second longer than before. A gash across the demon's cheek lingered.

A dent in its ribs held its shape for two heartbeats before the bone popped back into place.

"It's slowing," Shin said. The demon roared and surged forward. Its claws raked the air where Lodin's head had been. He ducked and Shin's fist crashed into the demon's jaw from the other side. The creature's head wrenched sideways. It spun toward Shin and Lodin hammered its ribs from behind. A rhythm began to take shape. When the demon turned to face one of them, the other struck. When it lashed out with claws, they split apart. When it lunged, they came together and drove it back.

High and low, left and right, they traded roles without a word. Shin thrust a side kick into the demon's knee and the joint buckled. Lodin cracked an uppercut under its chin, and the demon staggered. Shin swept low, took its legs out from under it. Lodin was already in the air. His fist came down on the demon's chest and drove it into the dirt. The creature thrashed and rolled to its feet. Ghost-flame stitched its wounds closed. But it gave ground. They pressed forward.

Step by step they drove the demon back, away from the pit, away from the square, toward the edge of the village. Ruined houses passed on either side. The demon snarled and snapped and clawed, but each exchange pushed it further. Lodin glanced over his shoulder. The pit was fifty feet behind them now. Dae Han was still nowhere to be seen. The edge of the village drew closer. Lodin could see the wall of the town behind the demon, a low barrier with weeds grown between the cracks in the stone.

They drove the creature toward it step by step, blow by blow. The demon snarled and slashed but could not hold its ground against their combined assault. Its haunches struck a rain barrel and knocked it spinning. Its tail swept through a fence and reduced it to splinters. The demon glanced over its shoulder. Its burning eyes found the wall ten feet behind it. It threw its head toward the sky and roared.

The sound tore through the air, loud enough to rattle Lodin's teeth, loud enough to shake loose tiles from the ruined houses behind him. His ears rang. The ground trembled beneath his boots. And ghost-flame erupted from the demon's body. White fire burst from its hide and enveloped the creature from head to toe. The flames licked and curled around its limbs, its torso, its horned skull. Heat washed over Lodin's face. The air itself seemed to recoil. The demon lunged and Lodin met it head on.

His right cross crashed into the demon's jaw and the skull wrenched sideways. He followed with a left hook to the body that cracked ribs he had already broken twice. The demon staggered, swiped at him with ghost-flame wreathed claws. They raked across his chest and the fire licked at his skin, warm but nothing more. The claws left pale scratches on his flesh that faded before the demon could draw its hand back. But the ribs he had just cracked were already whole. The ghost-flame had changed.

Where the wounds had lingered before, now they sealed over in the space between one punch and the next. Lodin threw a four-punch combination. The first split the demon's jaw down the middle. The second and third cracked against the sides of its skull. The fourth dented the front of that skull deep enough to expose pale bone beneath the fur and flesh. The demon's face sagged, misshapen, ruined. Ghost-flame surged and the jaw fused back together in a flash of white light.

The dents in the skull filled, and fresh fur sprouted across unmarked skin. The whole process took less than a heartbeat. Lodin's stomach dropped. Before the ghost-flame, the wounds had at least lingered. He had seen the damage hold for a second, two seconds, long enough to believe the next punch might be the one that stuck. That hope was gone. The creature seemed to heal faster now than it had at the start of the fight.

He circled wide to the left and the demon's head swiveled with him, its burning eyes locked onto his movement. The creature turned, slow and deliberate, claws raised, ghost-flame curling from its maw. Shin stood behind it, forgotten for the moment. A shadow fell across the demon's back. Lodin looked up. Kang Dae Han had appeared in the air above the creature, silhouetted against the darkening sky. His long jian rose overhead in a two-handed grip.

The blade blazed gold, bright as noon sun, and trailed streamers of light that rippled and shimmered in its wake. His one good eye was fixed on the back of the demon's neck. He fell like a thunderbolt. The sword came down in a single perfect arc. Its blade first met flesh at the base of the skull, and the rest passed through without resistance. It carved through muscle and sinew and vertebrae like a hot knife through butter.

The demon's head separated from its neck and the wound seared shut on both sides, flesh blackened and smoking where the blade had passed. The massive skull tumbled through the air with its shaggy mane trailing behind, horns over jaw over horns, and struck the ground with a heavy thud. The body stood where it was, claws still raised. Ghost-flame still licked at the ragged stump of its throat. For a long moment it did not move. Then the legs buckled and fifteen feet of dead weight crashed to the earth.

Dae Han landed in a wide stance, his boots planted in the dirt beside the demon's corpse. His chest heaved. Blood ran from the wound on his chest and dripped from the hem of his ruined tunic. His jian hung loose in his grip, its blade still aglow with fading gold light. A paper talisman was wrapped around the base of the blade, just above the guard. The ink on its surface had burned to ash. As Lodin watched, the last of the golden light flickered and died, and the talisman crumbled away to nothing.

Meanwhile, the registry chimed. – DEMON SLAIN – Dae Han looked at Lodin. Then at Shin. Then at the demon's headless corpse. His shoulders slumped as he let out a long breath.

"Sometimes you just need to do the right kind of damage," he said.