Daemon Sinners vs Gustav(5)

Magnus Ragnasson's weathered face contorted with rage as he stared at the headless corpse of his young soldier.

The boy had been barely eighteen, fresh from the training grounds with dreams of honor and glory burning in his eyes.

Now he lay crumpled on the bloodstained cobblestones, his life snuffed out in an instant by a creature that hadn't even bothered to move.

"What did you do?" Magnus roared, his voice echoing off the surrounding buildings. But Gustav remained perfectly still, his golden eyes gleaming with bored amusement.

The demon's lips barely moved as he muttered something under his breath, words that seemed to carry weight in the air itself.

System Peak. Level 24. External Energy. Decapitate.

The casual way Gustav spoke the words made them somehow more terrifying than any battle cry.

There was no emotion, no effort. Just a simple statement of power delivered with the same tone one might use to order bread from a baker.

Magnus's knuckles went white around his lance shaft.

"Don't be afraid of this puny demon!" he bellowed to his remaining men, though his own voice carried a tremor that betrayed his underlying fear.

Gustav's head tilted slightly, those predatory eyes focusing on the commander with newfound interest. "Puny demon?" he repeated, his voice carrying a note of genuine curiosity. "How delightfully naive."

Magnus was already reaching for something deeper, drawing on the well of inspiration that had carried him through countless battles.

His voice rose above the fear and chaos, taking on the cadence of a man who had learned to speak to the souls of warriors.

"Men of Guass!" he cried, raising his lance high. "Today we die not for glory, but for the fall of evil itself! We ride to avenge our fallen comrade, to prove that humanity will not be trampled beneath the heel of darkness! Let our blood water the seeds of hope!"

The words struck something primal in the hearts of his soldiers.

Fear remained, but it was joined by something stronger.

Duty, honor, and the desperate need to make their deaths mean something.

A collective roar erupted from nineteen throats as they spurred their horses forward, lances lowered in a charge that would have broken any mortal line.

In the chaos of the charge, Daemon barely noticed the figure that dropped down beside him.

The man was smaller than the other soldiers, his armor bearing the markings of a field medic rather than a front-line warrior. He carried a worn leather satchel that clinked softly with the sound of glass vials and metal instruments.

"Had to come from behind," the medic muttered as he opened his kit, pulling out bandages and a small bottle of something that smelled like pine pitch. "Didn't want to catch that thing's attention."

Daemon tried to speak, but only managed a wet cough that brought up flecks of blood.

The medic's hands moved with practiced efficiency, cleaning wounds and applying pressure bandages with the skill of someone who had tended battlefield injuries for years.

"It's a miracle you're still breathing," the medic said, his voice filled with professional bewilderment. "With injuries like these, you should have been dead hours ago. Are you a demon? Some kind of supernatural being?"

Despite the pain that wracked his body, Daemon managed a bitter laugh. "If I were a demon," he rasped, "I wouldn't be lying here like a broken doll, would I?"

The medic nodded, accepting the logic.

"Fair point. Still, there's something unusual about you. Your wounds are healing faster than they should be."

Daemon groaned, trying to shift position and immediately regretting it. "Too early to die," he muttered through gritted teeth. "I don't fancy the prospect of my soul vanishing into nothingness."

The sounds of battle erupted around them as Gustav finally moved.

The demon didn't walk. He jogged forward with casual ease, as if he were taking a morning stroll through a peaceful garden. But then something changed.

His pace shifted, and suddenly he was moving with inhuman speed, his form becoming a blur of pink hair and pale flesh.

Gustav crashed into the first horseman like a battering ram.

The impact sent both rider and mount flying through the air, their forms arcing high over the marketplace to crash into the village's bell tower.

The ancient stone structure, which had stood for centuries, crumbled under the impact.

Massive blocks of carved granite tumbled to the ground, and the great bronze bell that had called the faithful to prayer for generations rang one final, mournful note before disappearing beneath the rubble.

The second horseman, his attention momentarily diverted by the destruction of the bell tower, made a fatal mistake.

He looked away from his enemy for just an instant, and in that moment of distraction, Gustav appeared beside him.

"Never take your eyes off your enemy," the demon said with a soft grin.

Gustav's hand punched through the soldier's chest armor as if it were made of paper, emerging from the man's back in a spray of blood and viscera.

The horseman's scream was cut short as Gustav discarded the body with casual indifference, tossing it aside like some broken toy.

In the span of heartbeats, Gustav was already moving to his next target.

The third horseman saw him coming and screamed, swinging his lance in a desperate arc. But Gustav simply raised his hand, his lips moving in that same emotionless cadence.

System Peak. Level 29. Spiritual Energy. Dismantle.

The blood that had been pooling on the cobblestones suddenly defied gravity, rising into the air in crimson streams.

The liquid metal formed a net around the terrified soldier, wrapping around him like the web of some monstrous spider.

Gustav's hand closed into a fist, and the blood net contracted with surgical precision.

The horseman's scream lasted only a moment before he was divided into dozens of pieces, each cut so clean it seemed as though he had been dissected by the most skilled surgeon in the world.

The pieces fell to the ground in a grotesque puzzle of flesh and bone, steam rising from the warm blood in the cold evening air.

Seven more horsemen circled Gustav, their faces grim with the knowledge that they were riding to their deaths. But they were soldiers of Guass, and they would not falter.

They raised their lances as one, hurling them at the demon with all the strength they could muster.

The weapons flew true, their points aimed at Gustav's throat, heart, and skull.

For a moment, it seemed as though the demon would finally face justice for his crimes.

The lances closed the distance in the blink of an eye, their steel points gleaming in the dying light.

Then they stopped.

The weapons hung suspended in the air, mere inches from Gustav's flesh, as if they had struck an invisible barrier.

The demon's voice carried that same bored tone as he spoke the words that would seal their fate.

System Peak. Level 18. Negative Energy. Counter.

The lances reversed their trajectory with the speed of loosed arrows, flying back toward their wielders with deadly accuracy.

Seven soldiers died in as many seconds, their own weapons punching through armor and flesh with the force of a ballista bolt.

One man was pinned to a nearby wall by his head, his lance having passed completely through his skull to embed itself in the wooden planks behind him.

Daemon tried to push himself upright, but the medic's firm hand pressed him back down. "You're too weak to move," the soldier insisted, his voice tight with fear as he watched the slaughter unfolding around them. "Those wounds..."

The world suddenly tilted sideways, and Daemon felt himself slipping toward unconsciousness. But in that moment of weakness, he saw something that made his blood freeze in his veins.

A figure stood at the edge of his vision, clad in full black armor that seemed to absorb light itself.

Dark energy radiated from the apparition like heat from a forge, and Daemon found himself unable to look directly at it.

The figure raised one gauntleted hand, beckoning to him with a gesture that was both invitation and command.

Daemon could feel the pull of that summons, the promise of power that lay behind it. But something deep in his soul recoiled from the offer, and he shook his head weakly.

"Are you alright?" the medic asked, his voice seeming to come from very far away. "Don't try to move. I need to get into the fight..the commander needs every man he can get."

The soldier grabbed his lance and ran toward the center of the marketplace, where Gustav was now facing Magnus Ragnasson in single combat.

Of the twenty men who had ridden into the marketplace, only three remained alive, Magnus, the medic, and one other soldier who sat propped against a wall, his severed leg self-bound with a tourniquet.

Daemon's vision blurred again, and once more he saw the dark figure.

This time, the apparition's voice reached him, speaking directly into his mind with words that seemed to bypass his ears entirely.

"Surrender to the system," the figure whispered, its voice like the grinding of tombstones. "Accept your stronger side."

The memory came unbidden.

The werewolf fight, the moment when everything had changed.

He had seen this figure before, in another moment of desperate need.

The system, whatever it was, had been trying to claim him for some time.

As consciousness threatened to slip away entirely, Daemon found the strength to shake his head once more.

Whatever price this system demanded, he was not ready to pay it. Not yet.