The Eternal Assassin

Asher stared at the immobilized demon as Donvath's words echoed through his head. Even as he tried to digest them, the High Prince continued to hurriedly speak.

"The four of you didn't manage to get all the lesser demons, some of them escaped and ran directly for the greater demon overseeing the attacks. It's already on its way, and should be upon you any moment now. I called because rather than run, you decide to try and fight it. You do end up taking it down with all four of you working together, barely, but you all die in the process. You come back of course, but the loss of Samantha damages you in one of the few ways you can't heal back from."

"Stop, slow down!" Asher all but shouted into the stone, his hand shaking as he stared at the glowing symbols. Unlike when Sefta had shown him the stone earlier, this time, all of the symbols were glowing. "What do you mean she dies? How?"

"I don't know details, only the broad strokes of certain events," Donvath said, frantically rustling through more papers based on the sounds coming through the stone. "The point is, you're not strong enough to take down the greater demon without all four of you working together, and if you lose Samantha, you change as a person. And not in a good way. I can't let that future come to pass, Asher, I have need of your skill if things are going to work out the way I want."

"What is he saying?" Audrey demanded, looking more annoyed then worried by the half of the conversation she was able to hear. "Who dies? What are you talking about?"

Before Asher could even decide if he wanted to explain, Donvath cut him off.

"There's no time! You have to get out of there, now! Take Samantha and Sefta if possible, and Recall back to Poltar! The timeline is changing too quickly for me to give you any further instructions, but there's at least one more critical point I can make out. If you want to save Brian's life, you need to-"

The glowing runes on the sending stone winked out, and High Prince Donvath's voice vanished as the magical line went dead. Asher stared blankly at the ordinary-looking rock for a moment, his mind whirling with more questions than he'd ever had in his life.

"He said the greater demon was coming and we needed to get out of here," Asher repeated numbly, turning to look at Samantha. The hunter was giving him a concerned look, as though she knew something was wrong but didn't want to show weakness in front of the people they might be about to fight. She looked beautiful standing there in her combat leathers with her bow at the ready, more than prepared to attack a truthseeker of all people, if it meant helping him.

He couldn't have asked for a better partner.

As if she couldn't get any more perfect, she simply nodded at his explanation, returning her arrow to her quiver and holding out her hand. "Be careful, okay?" she asked, as if that was all that needed to be said. Neither of them had any idea what would happen to the contents of his Personal Rift in the event of his actual demise. And seeing as they both knew just how deadly a greater demon was, she was putting her entire fate in his hands.

"I will be," Asher smiled, taking her hand and pulling her into his Personal Rift. While his statement about the greater demon had jarred Sefta and Audrey, making Samantha vanish into thin air made them both jerk back in shock.

"What did you just do?" Audrey demanded, narrowing her eyes at him once more. "Where did she go?"

"No time," he said, tossing the sending stone back to Sefta before reaching out via Distortion past Audrey to slice the head of the lesser demon they'd been interrogating clean off. "Donvath said we need to leave, so that's what I'm going to do."

Asher vividly recalled his experience the last time the greater demon had managed to get a hand on him. He had no idea how it had done it, but somehow, the demon was able to counter his Spatial skills to a certain extent. Not only had it followed him into the astral realm, he'd been forced to rip off his entire arm in order to teleport away from the demon the last time they'd met, and he wasn't about to risk coming face to face with it again just yet if it would cost Samantha her life.

He didn't exactly trust High Prince Donvath at this point, but the man hadn't steered him wrong yet.

Asher didn't know what Donvath had said to Sefta, but the noblewoman merely nodded and let out a shrill whistle. Her pegasus shot down from the sky, and she hurriedly clambered up onto it, nearly forgetting her harpoon in her haste.

"I'll see you back in the city!" she called out, attempting to take off back into the sky without even waiting for his response.

Only for her pegasus to let out a startled whiny and nearly fall over when it found its hooves frozen to the forest floor.

"Nobody is going anywhere," Audrey said coolly, eyeing up the decapitated demon warily before turning her focus on the two of them. "If the greater demon is coming, we'll stand a better chance of taking it down together. As a truthseeker, I refuse to leave such a menace free to roam the countryside and kill more."

"High Prince Donvath just told us to get the hell out of here!" Asher argued, staring at her like she was mad. "He's your boss, isn't he?! Just call him or something!"

"The sending stones are down," Audrey said, as if that were obvious. "Which is something that would only happen if the greater demon is close. The stronger a demon, the heavier they weigh on the very fabric of reality. More complex enchanted items will stop functioning entirely, and even the simplest ones will lose strength the closer it gets. I refuse to believe the High Prince would order us to leave the greater demon to someone else."

Asher hesitated, debating whether to just cut his losses and Recall now, or try and reason with the aggravating truthseeker. If it were just Audrey, he'd be more than happy to turn and run, letting her perish at the hands of the greater demon. But Sefta had been nothing but helpful up until now, and he felt bad about leaving her to die when he might be able to do something.

That said, he wasn't willing to risk his life because of her, let alone Samantha's. The moment the greater demon appeared, he was out of here before it could say a single word.

But before he could even begin to argue, Sefta surprised him. Rather than simply sit there and join Audrey in her doomed battle, the noblewoman raised her harpoon high above her head.

Before turning and hurling it at the truthseeker with far more force than Asher would have thought possible.

Water rocketed out of the back of the harpoon as it left her hand, turning the pointed weapon into a functional missile. The attack clearly caught Audrey off-guard as well, as the truthseeker barely managed to summon a wall of deep-blue ice fast enough to block the projectile. Even that wasn't quite enough, as the water-propelled harpoon smashed straight through the improvised barrier, slamming into Audrey's chest and sending the truthseeker tumbling backwards. Based on the lack of blood, it didn't seem to have enough power left to penetrate the layer of ice on her own person or the armor underneath, but Sefta's attack had accomplished what it had been meant for.

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Before Audrey could right herself, Sefta shattered the ice on her mount's hooves with four pin-point thrusts of her finger, firing small jets of water with unerring accuracy. The moment the shackles were gone, she nodded toward Asher one final time as she took off into the sky. Another whistle sounded, and Asher watched as the pegasi that he and Samantha had rode on the way over here joined hers as they began flying away.

"Sefta!" Audrey roared, clambering back to her feet and firing a massive icicle at the distant target as she vanished beyond the tree tops. "You'll pay for this!"

Well, I suppose that means I'm good to leave, Asher thought, letting out a small sigh of relief as he went to trigger Recall.

Which naturally, was when a griffin smashed into his side, breaking his concentration and sending him and his surprise attacker tumbling sideways into a nearby tree. Asher felt the wind get knocked out of him as he smashed against the hard wood, but at the very least, he hadn't broken anything.

Actually, he didn't have any claw wounds or beak punctures either, come to think of it.

Asher stared down at the crumbled body of the griffin, his blood going cold as he realized Slipstream was already dead. The magnificent beast's wings had been brutally torn off its body, and its head was twisted in what was clearly the wrong direction. The griffin hadn't pounced at him on its owner's orders.

Something had thrown the griffin's corpse into him.

Asher didn't waste any time, immediately going to activate Recall and get the hell out of there. His body flickered as it tried to occupy two different locations in space at the same time, before his skill failed and he snapped back into his position under Slipstream's corpse.

What?! Asher thought, looking around for any sign of the greater demon. He'd thought the demon had to have physical contact with him for it to lock down his Recall, but it seemed that option may have been off the table the very moment the sending stone's magic had winked out.

"You caught me by surprise last time, but that's not going to work twice," the familiar voice echoed through the forest, seeming to drown out all other sounds as if they bowed to its authority. "It's rather annoying having to focus on bringing my weight to bear like this, but I can keep it up for long enough to handle you."

The greater demon finally stepped into their small clearing, its monstrous, nine-foot-tall frame looking down at him from barely two dozen feet away as it licked its lips with that eerie, tri-forked tongue. Its clawed fingers were soaked with presumably the blood of Slipstream, and if the feather stuck to its bloody maw was any indication, it had eaten the wings it had ripped off the poor creature.

"Now, are you going to come easily this time, or do I need to rip off any more of your limbs?" the demon taunted, sucking the blood off its claws like one would after eating a plate of chicken wings. "Not that I mind, of course. Your arm was remarkably-"

An icicle larger than Asher himself smashed into the greater demon's chest, actually rocking the being back slightly and causing it to look at Audrey in surprise. The demon hadn't appeared interested in the truthseeker in the slightest, but it seemed that attack had at least made her worth noting.

"I have no interest in you," the demon frowned, actually shooing her with its hand as if she was a pesky gnat instead of one of the most powerful warriors in the entire kingdom. "Consider yourself lucky. Any other day I'd take my time and enjoy snapping your bones one after another as you screamed, but I have a mission I need to complete above all else."

"You think you can just kill my partner and get away?" Audrey asked, actually laughing as more and more frost began to accumulate on her armor. "You might not have any interest in me, but I have more than enough interest in you. As a truthseeker of the Noala Kingdom, I will see you dead, demon!"

By the time she made her threat, enough ice had formed around her that Audrey was now covered in essentially a small golem constructed entirely of ice. She'd nearly evened out the height difference between them, the tip of her golem's form reaching up to the demon's chin. Smashing her fists together, the golem roared before running at the demon with powerful steps that shook the forest floor.

"See, this is why coming to the upper realms never ceases to be entertaining," the demon said to Asher, smirking as if they were old friends and seeming entirely unconcerned about the golem bearing down on it. "Here, watch this!"

Asher blinked, and the demon was gone. Just like when it had suddenly appeared beside him back in Horntho village, either it had some method of teleportation, or it was capable of moving at insane speeds, as he realized with a start the demon was now directly behind the massive golem. The moment it reappeared, the demon slashed its hand down, its claws somehow cutting far further than they should have been capable of and chopping Audrey's battle-form into five distinct pieces.

Asher could only stare in horror as his one ally against the demon fell to the ground in bloody pieces. Despite having witnessed Audrey's deep-blue ice withstand some incredible blows, it had been shredded like paper by the demon's claws. The truthseeker had been chopped apart in a literal instant.

"You mortals and your skills," the demon chuckled, licking the fresh blood from its claws as it turned back toward him. "Few of you ever stop to consider what elements truly are, and it shows. You're like infants playing in the embers of a fire, thinking yourselves strong just because you've managed to harness a few specks of power for yourselves."

While the demon monologued, Asher desperately tried Recalling once more. Just like before, his skill worked to a degree, and he could see Brian's sleeping face back in their tavern room, before he was snapped back to the forest. It was as though the demon had tied an anchor around his waist, and he couldn't escape.

"I already told you, my weight is far more than you can lift," the demon laughed, sucking the last of the blood from his claws. "Trying to escape is pointless. Now, if you could at least-"

For the second time in as many minutes, the greater demon was interrupted mid-sentence.

Shockingly, by Audrey once more.

Asher gasped as chunks of the golem shifted, and Audrey's body was revealed.

Or what was left of it anyway.

The truthseeker had lost not only part of her leg and all of her arm, a good quarter of her side and lower body had been sliced clean off as well. Somehow, she had managed to seal her wounds with her blue ice, stopping her blood from flowing out of her and allowing her one final surprise attack against the demon. But rather than launch any more icicles at it, she'd gone with a different approach this time around.

A thick, heavy rope of flickering smoke wrapped around the demon's torso, snapping taut and stealing the very words from its mouth. For the first time, Asher saw what looked like a wince of actual pain on the greater demon's face, as it was forced to experience guilt for possibly the first time in its very long life.

"Go!" Audrey shouted, coughing up blood even as her one remaining hand yanked back on the flickering rope and eliciting a deep, soul-shaking roar from the greater demon that made Asher's own chest hurt as his bones seemed to vibrate. "You won't get another chance! Tell Donvath I'm sorry!"

With a start, Asher realized he could feel that mysterious weight lessen around himself as the demon lost its focus and cried up at the heavens. Molten tears of what looked like boiling blood fell from its eyes, sizzling where they hit the ground. Before it could collect itself and lock the space around them down a second time, Asher made his move.

Thanking Audrey with one final nod, he focused on Brian's mark and activated Recall.

Slipping out from under the greater demon's clutches once again as the world shifted around him and took him far, far away from the sobbing, snarling demon as it turned its attention entirely on the grinning truthseeker with cold fire in her eyes.