Bleeding Demons: The Dark Bloods - Book III ✓

Chapter 15 - Harvest

Verden and Ayame were the only stoic figures within a whirlwind of chaos. Like swarms of locus, spirits swirled around the two figures, a violent ring of energy and pandemonium. The backdrop was a giant spiderweb of unrelenting lightning. Before a bolt could totally disappear, another would appear in its place, wired in a more twisted angle than the previous one. If it wasn't for Verden standing before her, Reyna wouldn't have recognized the earth for what it was.

She locked eyes with him for a second and she saw in his gaze that he had felt his powers return. But why wasn't he moving? Well if he wasn't going to do something about his situation, she was. She raced toward Verden, not yet trusting her teleportation ability to take her where she needed to go. Her footsteps seemed to signal the start of it all. As if realization was of a hive mind, the spirits within view turned and raced to Reyna and the others.

"Reyna!" Gahn's voice broke through the buzz. "We're still under ya summon."

She looked over her shoulder. "Just defend yourselves! Or do whatever!" Reyna didn't have time to give orders to the demons she summoned. Verden was being stupid, and even though he usually had a reason for what he did, he was still being stupid because standing in the middle of a cluster of murderous spirits was stupid.

"This is me doing whatever," Dante said as he ran next to her. Or tried to, for he lingered a few feet behind her. "I see you've gotten even faster."

The smile she had wanted to give him never made it on her lips. A flash of white forced her to leap backwards and a surge of static stole her breath. Reyna thought lightning had struck in front of her, but then she heard a loud cough as Dante was knocked to the ground. A figure twice his size with four spiny arms pinned him down. Thin veins that reminded Reyna of a nervous system bulged out of its back and intertwined and folded among themselves like wings. Some of those ashy threads impaled Dante's arms, but the lack of blood and his confident grin told Reyna he would be fine.

Verden and Ayame were still motionless. It wasn't till Reyna tackled the spirit, something she felt was too easy to do, that Ayame reacted. Verden gave Reyna a concerned glance before tending to the demon portal that was still open, a fiery eye that witnessed the end of the world.

Ayame glared at her, but Reyna was still caught off guard. The spirit shot a set of white arrows at her without a bow. The sting that went up her arms was outdone by the force that knocked Reyna through the air and over a set of trees. She used a thick branch to help her catch her balance to land on her feet, but she stayed rooted when she noticed what she landed next to.

Ram's torso and head was half buried under lose dirt. There were wounds on his face, arms, and chest Reyna hadn't recalled on him when Lys had thrown him down at her feet. More than likely he had been trampled by a temperamental spirit. Or several.

She kneeled next to him and moved the hair from his closed eyes. She didn't know what to feel, but she knew she could at least move him from a bit further from the battlefield. When she did, thankful for the solid stop from her teleportation, she sat him up against a tree. His head titled to the side, giving the illusion he was sleeping. Reyna frowned. Had his black marks always fully encompassed his neck?

An explosion of magika drew her attention. It was fierce and heavy, a nuclear bomb within her chest that dissipated just as violently. Reyna was on the scene and time seemed to slow as she surveyed how empty it was. The spirits, the same entities that filled the skies as thickly as the endless lightning, were disappearing in mass groups. Plucked from the sky, they were there one second but gone the next. Not only would their physical body dissipate, but their magika energy would as well. It took only seconds for what seemed like hundreds of spirits to wane from existence. About a dozen remained, and like magnets, they had all drawn those they were fighting to the same area.