Betrayal (IV)

The more time passes, the less that bodyguard's body resembles that of a human; however, their power has increased, so the less human the remote puppet looks, the stronger it gets. What an annoying ability.

I blew the whistle yet again, and it didn't work on him. Glaive, on the other hand, seemed to suffer its effects more greatly than I thought possible.

The branches bursting out of its body grew so big they were obstructing his movements and so heavy they eventually brought him to his knees. The tree branches were lashing out, impaling the bodyguards he was creating and ordering his maggots to consume them.

His body was ripped apart, then regenerated, only to be destroyed again in a cycle of screaming agony.

In between the many cracks and hollow spaces, many eyes opened, yellow eyes glowing in the distance.

 He must've been preparing for quite a while; he's using none of the abilities I often saw him using. Moreover, those bodyguards of his, they're also pretty tricky to deal with him. Just how long were you ever truly loyal to our family? No, this piece of shit was planning to betray us from the start.

"No matter how much fear those guys have for me, they will betray you the first chance they get. Don't get too comfortable around them." The words of my wife suddenly came back to my mind.

Yeah, we should've made a rotation of families like you said, made the ones that conspired against us disappear, and brainwashed their kids. That way, we wouldn't have found ourselves in this situation. You were right not to trust them.

My body was starting to slow down, breathing was slowly getting more and more difficult, and my eyes felt as heavy as an apartment building.

Damn, I guess this is it. My body cannot hold out for much longer under this constant pressure. Perhaps instead of letting them capture me like this, I should just kill myself. That way I won't trouble my wife more than I already have.

I began expelling all the blood in my body, squeezing every drop I could find while flooding the nearby area.

Before I could try to make my next attack, my head was blown up by a sniper round. All the while, the area became dark.

How are you able to still summon more and more shit? Just how much ashen have you prepared for this occasion? Even with lots of it, you still won't be able to escape the side effects.

I attempted impaling Glaive like I did before, testing out the durability of his armor. Yet strangely enough, the damage was reflected back to me.

Even this… You fucking bastard, at this point you're just showing off. It doesn't matter; soon you'll succumb to your own demon. You should've known better than to challenge me; you know that the more you rely on demonic powers, the weaker you are against me.

I blew the whistle more, rattling the beasts within his body more and more, till the lance he was holding changed form. The many branches that were twisted together, forming the spear, suddenly freed themselves and stabbed Glaive, slowly eating his arm.

With time, his bodyguard's number had multiplied by at least a hundredfold. The more I killed, the more appeared. Even with nigh infinite blood, it was almost impossible to win that battle.

The clones of the bodyguard had slowly lost more and more of their details with every incarnation, and right now, they had lost all that made them look human; now they looked like colored mannequins made out of wood.

The waves of blood around were no longer enough to stop them, as one of them managed to reach me and tackle me to the ground. Before he could land an attack, I used my own blood to push him away, only for yet another copy to emerge from the ground.

It locked its arms around my chest and kept me steady as more copies fell from the skies, ready to kill me.

I made my whole body explode and regenerated somewhere far away from all of those remote-controlled puppets, gathered all the blood lying around in my hand, and unleashed it back in a giant wave, crushing all of those puppets.

I then fell on my knees; this way of fighting was making me feel lightheaded; constantly draining my own blood was starting to take a toll on my body.

I need to hold out, just a little more…

Out of curiosity, I created a large pillar to pierce through the giant floating hands in the skies that were now idling around. Hidden within the pillar was the ability-sealing gladius.

Surprisingly, the gladius landed on someone as the bandages quickly extended themselves to wrap themselves around my waist.

The sniper then, instead of shooting at me as usual, targeted the bandages. But his weapons couldn't pierce through the bandages.

 Well, I might as well give it one last try before ultimately going down.

I wrapped those bandages around both arms and dragged down whatever the bandages were attached to.

Instead of a person, a large open gate fell on me, trapping me in a dark, empty space without colors.

What is this? Is it a pocket dimension? What for? Do they intend to kidnap me as well?

The bandages were connected to something hiding in the distance, completely hidden by the darkness of that strange place.

So far it doesn't look like they're trying to move me elsewhere; otherwise, my body would've once again melted and regenerated next to the banner… This is just a waste of time; let's just kill whoever made this and get over with this.

I walked forward, following the bandages. They led me to what I could only assume was the real body of the bodyguard. He was currently floating in an empty space, bleeding from his neck and with the sword stuck in his belly.

 I bet even killing him or taking his powers away will end up making me lose. If the teleportation ability sucked that much, I can only imagine how this could potentially kill me.

I grabbed the sword and forcefully extracted it, cutting open the bodyguard, and then I beheaded him. When the sword tried forcing me to absorb the powers he held, I cut off the bandages using the blade and put away the sword.

 I do wonder, now that the bodyguard is dead, what will happen to those wooden copies?

As the pocket space around me slowly began to disappear, the two marbles containing the demonic abilities began to expand, preparing to unleash the demon back into the world.

"How dare you!" As soon as I was out of the pocket dimension, my body was split in two by a sharp blade, then both halves were blasted away by an explosion of flames and melted until nothing had remained of them.

Then, as he was about to continue to cuss me out, gibberish came out of his mouth. It was probably another foreign language, a strange language I couldn't understand.

While I was away, Glaive went through a substantial transformation. The maggots were now amassed together, forming a bunch of tendrils floating around him or forming weird braids behind his head.

The angelic-looking armor had disappeared, and in its place there were layer upon layer of wooden plates; hiding in the crevices of that newly made set of armor were many eyes.

A crown decorated with large antlers was sitting over Glaives' head; his head was covered by a spiked helmet split in two in the middle that showed his exposed brain. The mouth of the demon was located in the chest, a large voracious mouth from where many tentacles emerged.

The demon was extremely brightly colored, each eye stuck in his body glowing a different color, with moss growing all over its body, which resembled that of a centaur.

As he turned around to face me, I saw the many spikes on the helmet suddenly stab the brain. Whatever that creature was, it looked as if it was about to win the battle of wills. If it did, it would've killed its host and set itself free.

The creature charged at me, the wooden armor on their arms growing exponentially, forming large spears and swords.

Fuck, maybe I shouldn't have provoked that demon; well, I might as well let it go all out now. Whatever, who cares about the consequences?

I tried to use the whistle, but my body froze in place when I tried to do so.

Fuck, what now? What's this? Why can't I move even a single muscle?

I desperately tried to keep moving, starting from the tips of my toes up to my head, but nothing worked.

Glaive used his lance to impale my chest. He then pinned me to the ground and began slashing at me using the sword.

Not even the blood under my command was obeying my order.

Is this it?

I gave up, unable to do anything. I closed my eyes and surrendered myself. The last thing I heard was the loud roar of the demons I had just freed.