Chapter Sixty


    When Elayne was taken, Ambrose calmed his mind and heart. Some people often panic in situations like that, and because of that, they lose control. That and giving into anger. Noelle raised an eyebrow at him at the thought, and he scowled.


    “No, the irony is not lost on me. Come on, we need to follow.”


    It wouldn’t be hard to follow Stroud. If he had used [Retributions Gaze] on him, the skill would have allowed him to track him that way. Except he hadn’t used the skill on Stroud. It didn’t matter much anyway; he could track Stroud without it. Whatever skill Stroud had used to hide his departure did not hide his tracks.


    Ambrose wasn’t the best tracker. His father had been really unhappy about that fact, but he had picked up enough that he could easily pick out the path that Stroud had taken.


    Even when he had trouble, Noelle’s nose twitched, and she would point out a direction. It was nice to have options, he snorted. After walking for a while, he paused. Ahead, the clearing opened up, and he looked at Noelle, nodding. Stroud was ahead, and what was more, he could hear ominous chanting.


    “Ominous chanting in the dark, foreboding woods? Yeah, nothing good has ever come from that.” Ambrose muttered to himself.


    There was nothing for it, though, but to push forward. Besides, he would surely need to stop whatever was going on. When he walked into the clearing, he immediately took stock of the area and situation. He found Elayne instantly. She was in the middle of a huge occult-like circle, with candles and other items at the edges.


    Stroud stood over the kneeling Elayne, a ritual athame in his hand. He was wearing a pitch-black robe, with the hood pooling around his shoulders like a pillow of black silk. Others stood around the circle, hoods pulled up, looking every inch like dark cult members attempting to summon a dark god. For all he knew, they likely were.


    Stroud paused, but the others kept chanting. He patted Elayne on the head, and her face twisted into a wrathful scowl. Ambrose saw her try to move, but the inner circle flared with terrible light, and her scowl turned into an expression of pain.


    Stroud stepped out of the circle, walking confidently toward Ambrose.


    “Ah, the outworldler. You’re going to attempt to interrupt our little ritual here, aren’t you?”


    Ambrose shrugged,


    “I’ve got nothing better to do. Look, I know you’re going to resist. You think you’re powerful enough to stop me. You’re not. Let Elayne go. Stop whatever profane thing you’ve got going, and that will be that. We’ll go our separate ways.”


    He hardened his voice into brimstone.


    “Don’t, and I’ll scatter your ashes across this forest.”


    Stroud threw his head back, and cold, mocking laughter filled the air. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    “Well, aren’t you just full of yourself! I don’t think there’s much more to be said, is there?”


    With a flash of a gleaming knife, Stroud flowed forward, shrouded in liquid darkness.


    Only to be met with crackling lightning raking across him with arching power. Stroud was blasted backward, his form shattering into black glass before flowing back together.


    Ambrose’s eyepatch flared, trying to catch any illusions, but he saw nothing. He had to conclude it was a different sort of skill.


    Drawing on the power of [Hellfire Manipulation] he crafted a portal, sending it spinning like a blazing shurrikken of fire toward Stroud. As he did this, he spun up another portal, summoned Akaroth to his hands, and fell through the portal.


    His spinning portal sliced through Stroud''s reconstructed form like he was paper, and once again, he burst apart into a shard of dark glass. When he reformed again, Ambrose was there, and with a slash of Akaroth, he decapitated Stroud.


    “We could do this all day, big guy.”


    Stroud had not reappeared in the same way as before this time. Instead, his decapitated form merely melted like black wax. Ambrose whipped his head around as Noelle growled, held out her hand and sent a bolt of lightning at Stroud, who was now standing yet again by Elayne with a nasty grin on his face.


    The grin wasn’t relevant.


    No, it was the blade jutting out from Elayne’s chest that demanded his attention. The elven woman’s mouth was open in a little ‘O’ and her skin was going pale as blood flowed like water from her wound. It was swirling as if it had a will of its own, seeping into the circle. A feint sanguine glow like that of dying light emanated from the circle.


    As Elayne’s lifeblood drained out of her, the circle itself lifted off the ground. It was rotating, glowing, and thrumming with power while draining Elayne’s life force by the second. Ambrose did not wait, he attacked the circle, raising Akaroth high.


    The dragon roared in his mind as lightning wreathed the blade. At his strike, thunder boomed, lightning pulsed, and he was blasted back in a flare of a sanguine blue explosion. His feet skidded against the dirt, and he gritted his teeth, furrowing his eyebrows in a scowl as a clawed hand burst out of the circle’s middle.


    Elayne fell to the ground, life draining from her eyes as she stared at Ambrose. Her face calmed, and a little smile curved her lips. She mouthed her final words,


    “Thank you.”


    Then she died.


    Heat blossomed like a rose in his chest that intensified as his body quivered.


    Anger was a tide of fire within him, and he roared as Stroud’s mocking laughter filled the air.


    He raised his hands, crying out as a demonic form tore itself free from the vortex in the air.


    Its skin was as red as the blood that had fueled the portal it came from. Sickly yellow eyes blinked slowly, and ebony horns curled in a horrific fashion from its bald skull. Gleaming claws were its hands and webbed; leathery wings unfurled from its back.


    It floated in the air, and Ambrose could feel the spiritual pressure coming from it like an invisible pillow attempting to smother him.


    She had thanked him. His nails dug into his palms, and Akaroth shook in his hand.


    Her final words. The last thing she would ever say.


    She had thanked him.


    Ambrose could not care less about the devil that hovered in the air. His own spirit was countering the devils, so it was no obstacle for him at all in preventing him from raising Akaroth at Stroud.


    “I am going to kill you.” He said calmly.


    Stroud grinned but turned away from Ambrose to kneel before the demonic entity.


    “My lord Wrath, we have broken the spell that sealed you in Musphelheim. This world is ready for you to take.”


    Ambrose raised Akaroth to strike out at Stroud, but the entity spoke.


    “How many eons has it been? No matter…I am hungry.”


    Almost casually, his forked tail lazily swishing behind it, the entity lashed out with a claw, piercing Stroud through the chest and lifting him high.


    With his other clawed hand, he decapitated Stroud, blood bubbling from his stump; the demonic being lifted Stroud’s body up, and like a bottle of soda on a summer day, he drank him.


    The being''s throat moved up and down as he drank Stroud’s blood before tossing his corpse aside like a discarded bottle in an alley.


    “So good to be free.”