Chapter 80

**Merianna**

I shouldn’t have thought like that. I might’ve jinxed myself…

The sky was darkening at an alarming pace, the thick clouds overhead only served to bring the darkness sooner. My heart was thrumming in my chest with fear. It made me glad that Zerial’s aura had somewhat healed my previous wounds. The way I saw it, there was no way that we would be able to get out of here anytime soon.

I had heard through one of Fog’s previous lectures before that souls were one of the purest forms of raw natural energy anyone could find. But because a soul is a form of ourselves without a body, it was strictly forbidden to ever touch or use any spells or incantations that would require souls as a source of power. That would cause a soul to be destroyed and never have any hope of being reborn again. There were weapons like Noch’s previous staff that had living souls forged into them, but those were far and few between. The individual must give their consent to such a procedure and fully understand what it was they were getting themselves into. Being a sentient weapon for all of eternity only to serve the purpose of being wielded by someone else wasn’t an ideal existence to most. Not to mention, it was said that the process of forging a soul into a weapon was a unique kind of agony.

And here we were, with Junnie having been devoured by Dermon as a source of energy, and a newfound wave of demons descending on us. The power of souls was a lot more potent than I thought.

As Thyrion and Hezerial fought on either side of me, they made it clear that I was supposed to stay wedged between them and not fight. I knew that I was wounded, but this was getting a little stifling. Ara, Raska and Noch were all clearly having a Ball without needing to bother with protecting someone. Maybe I was in the way? A little? Maybe?

I clutched at my scythe around my neck. I hated to admit it, but I was a little outclassed in this battle. I reached out to Hezerial, ready to tell him to take me away from here so Thyrion can also fight comfortably, but I didn’t have the chance.

“Not again!” was all I was able to shriek out before cold damp hands around my ankles were able to successfully drag me down this time.

Thyrion and Hezerial’s yells were all I noticed before my breath caught in my lungs and blackness enveloped me again, like it did back in the caves. It was cold, icky. It made my whole body break out in goosebumps as I felt like I was being shot like an arrow from a bow. The speed made my head spin and nausea creep up my throat.

Thankfully, it didn’t last for long. Before I could worry about needing to breathe in fresh air, I was practically spat out of the darkness and landed heavily on the rocky ground. Coughing, I quickly rolled onto my side and looked around. My heart plummeted when I saw Dermon standing over me with a smug grin on his bruised face. He looked as though he had just caught his favorite prey and was about to skin it right there and then.

“You Bastard!” Noch yelled from my left. He wasn’t too far from us, but it looked like Dermon had left two General demons in his stead as he slipped away to catch me.

“Leave me alone, you creep!” I yelled and swung my expanding scythe up towards his smug face.

My scythe's momentum came to a sudden stop against Dermon’s hand. The blade didn’t even so much as nick his skin as he increased his hold on the blade. Black energy was snaking around the point of contact like a slithering mist.

“Sorry my dear, but I will not fall for your blows a second time.” He grinned.

Changing tactics, I poured my lightning into the scythe. Intending to scorch him from the inside out with lightning. The crackling energy shot up through the handle faster than most would be able to see, but fizzled to a stop when it reached the blade. My eyes widened with dread as I stared into his cold eyes.

“Like I said, I won’t fall for your blows a second time. Not any of them.” He then ripped my scythe from my hands and tossed it away with a flick of his wrist. I tried reaching for the daggers I always kept on hand, but my hands were suddenly wrenched behind my back and gripped tightly. I couldn’t see what held me immobile, but it was cold, like the darkness that surrounded me earlier.

“This should be more than enough to hold you for now.” He said before he bent down to me and gripped a handful of my hair.

I screamed as he yanked me by the hair and dragged me across the rocky ground. My scalp screamed in pain as I noticed that telltale spark of energy that activated a Gate.

I couldn’t let him take me! Even if I had to resist hard enough to pull all the hair I had from my scalp, I had to get away. Raska, Ara, Noch, Thyrion and Hezerial were all kicking up a fuss big enough to make rubble out of a castle, but they were still struggling against the demons to get to me.

I tried to dig my heels into the ground as much as possible, tried to hook my feet and legs around anything that stuck out of the ground. Flipping myself onto my back, my hands were getting scraped raw as I was pulled. My eyes, on the other hand, caught sight of the dark heavy clouds that hovered overhead.


*“You know what I love the most about rain clouds?”* An excited sounding voice rang through my head like it did earlier with those visions. I could envision a similar sky looming overhead over a landscape of rolling hills. *“I love the lightning that lights up the whole world for a split second.”*
*“That’s a special way of looking at it. But I think you like it most for a different reason.”* A man, he sounded like he knew an inside joke.
*“Right! I love it when it answers me back!”* A bubbly giggle tinkled in my ears. She knew of the inside joke, but liked evading his jab. *“I love when it answers my call.”*


“Answers my call.” I mumbled, repeating her words. As if the sky above heard me, a rumble growled through it, as if responding to me.

Without overthinking it, without giving anything much thought anymore, I threw all the energy I still had in me up at the sky. “ANSWER MY CALL!” 

My demand rang in my ears. I felt Dermon’s grip on my hair jerk like he was surprised by my sudden outburst. But it was far too late for him to react to what was coming.

Lightning snaked across the sky from the outside edges of the clouds, like the branches of a tree before coalescing right above my head. In the flash where all the strikes met in the middle, a huge bolt of blinding light erupted out from their union and came straight down on Dermon and me.

Sound and sight vanished at that moment. As the white hot light engulfed me, it seemed like time had slowed. As I kept staring up into the light, I was surprised to see small specks of smaller, lighter flashes of light descending from above like snowflakes. They whizzed this way and that within the column of light around me like they were dancing, almost reminding me of the pixies I caught sight of in Faerie.

Small high pitched whispers escaped them as they excitedly buzzed around me. It was like a cacophony of millions of voices until they seemed to say something in tandem. *“We missed you!”*

I gasped in surprise as it felt like something else was tickling at the back of my mind. But, everything vanished in the next moment, leaving my ears ringing as my blurry vision tried righting itself.

The first thing I was aware of was small, fine droplets falling onto my face, a slight drizzle falling from the clouds above. The second thing was warm arms wrapped around me, hugging me close. The ringing in my ears was dying down slowly but surely while my eyes tried to adjust back to the dim evening light. I wondered for a moment what on earth just happened? Was I the one that just caused that bolt of lightning to come down like that?

I didn’t have much time to think before I felt myself being picked up and a roaring din if fighting invaded my ears. I blinked furiously to see just who had me in their arms, but the healing aura radiating off of them told me it was Hezerial.

“That wasn’t something you see every day!” Thyrion’s voice reached me through the din and I managed to make out his blurry figure hitting something into the ground.

“That was amazing!” Ara yelled excitedly from somewhere behind me.

“Had no idea she was capable of something like that.” Raska’s voice piped up next, which only made Ara cackle happily.

“Now, now Ladies, fight first, think later.” I heard Noch quip close by as well. By now I was able to see more clearly, even though my vision was still slightly blurred. I was more grateful that my hearing was back though.

“What just happened?” I asked everyone while rubbing my eyes. I didn’t know where Dermon was, whether he was dead from that strike or still alive.

A relieved sigh escaped Hezerial. “I suspect that you just called lightning from the sky, My Lady.” 

“It was Amazing!” Ara exclaimed again from a little further away.

“No, not that. What happened during the strike? Or after it? I couldn’t see or hear anything for a bit while it happened.” I rephrased and blinked again. At least I was able to see mostly clearly now.

Noch let out a dark chuckle as he kicked back another demon. “You fried the bloody bastard pretty good, I must say I am impressed Demon Spawn.”

“Where is he now?” I asked while twisting my neck to see all around me. I couldn’t spot anything.

“Ela came flying back during the strike and is currently keeping his bodyguards busy over there.” He pointed his staff directly behind Hezerial and me. I twisted around in Hezerial’s grasp to look over his shoulder and saw what Noch was talking about.

Ela was impressive as she brought her blades down on the demons that were crowding around Dermon and trying to drag him to the gate he had almost dragged me through. Angelic blades sure were something. Our own weapons could only wound the demons to a degree where Ela and Hezerial were able to completely destroy the demons at a fundamental level. It made me want to wield one of those weapons myself.

My attention was pulled away from Ela’s fight with a demon when a wheezing chuckle rolled through the air. Hezerial also turned towards the sound and we stared at Dermon, who was struggling to gain his footing.

“Such a strong alignment. I never would have guessed it to come from someone in this cycle.” Dermon panted out as his black eyes pinned themselves to my face. 

“It’s none of your business anyway Dermon.” Noch clobbered a demon over the head and stepped aside for Thyrion to take over. He then made a beeline for Dermon, only to be stopped again by another demon that emerged from the ground. Noch cursed and gritted out, “This is getting redundant.”

“Something that you unfortunately have no power over.” Dermon smirked, then winced. Glancing over his body, I was glad to notice that whatever I had done had done some decent damage. That realization made a small part of me very satisfied, since I was still frustrated about what happened in the cave systems. But that satisfaction didn’t really go very far because of that sickening smirk of his as he moved over to the Gate.

Ela had jumped into stride with Noch and started striking down the demons that he shifted her way. I could see that Noch’s trust in her was unwavering during battles. Even if she did act like everything was a hassle and she didn’t want much to do with Noch in general, she didn’t hesitate in her duty as his guardian. She was as fierce as a Valkyrie as she made sure the demons got beaten into oblivion.

Noch’s scowl didn’t waver as he tried to make his way over to Dermon as quickly as possible. We all knew with a glance that Dermon was weakened now, and if we didn’t get him now, he would be even harder to fight off the next time around.

Dermon grinned as he finally reached the entrance to his Gateway. “I do hope that we meet again soon, Noch and little Merianna. May you be well until our next meeting.”

And with those final words, he sunk into the gateway with his demon minions. A pop resonated through the area with the disappearance of the gate and a few seconds later, the demons dissipated as well. Leaving our group behind in the now decimated remains of the Dark Warlock caves.