The Virtues' Magecraft

Page 18: Holy Trinity

100 Seconds Earlier.

"Dammit! I can't sense any of them!" Gabriel muttered, still running through a seemingly endless meadow of verdant grass.

Giovanna was by his side. "I thought you were good at that, Gabriel," she mumbled, trying to keep up with Gabriel as they ran. She stared off to the side, where a tall, stone brick castle stood.

And to her other side, there was another castle. Plus, there was the entire space they had been running through for the last seven minutes. And the space where the others were. The place where they were fighting a demon.

She understood Anastasia had a very limited amount of magic energy. Out of all seven Virtues, she had the least. And to create an Enclosed World of this size...

Giovanna swallowed her saliva.

"What if we're going in the opposite direction? And those Golden Dawn guys we beat up are in the right direction?"

"First, they're unconscious. Second, not we, I beat up. Kind of saddened you didn't help out at all," he joked.

"I'm not much of a fighter. You know that. ...And since when did you make jokes?"

"We're in a damn Enclosed World. It's made entirely of magic. All I can sense is a jumble of energy everywhere. I'm not as good at this as Leonard. But if I can just-" His eyes widened as a smirk formed on his lips.

"I found them. We need to hurry," he said, grabbing Giovanna by her pale green hoodie.

"Hey, let me go!" she protested.

"I said we have to hurry. That's what we're doing," he muttered, as his body became reinforced on end with magic. Gabriel slowly took in a deep breath, before dashing to the side into the stone castle at their side.

-  -     -      -   -

Alexander had plunged that steel blade into Asmodeus' chest. The gleaming silver sword slid past his armor and his torso. He pushed the blade as deep as he could, until the sword itself appeared from outside the demon's body.

'But it's not enough!' he reminded himself.

He turned his head, before shouting, "Leonard!"

"The information we had... said nothing about fire resistance!" Alexander yelled, his eyes brimming with fervor. He clenched his jaw, grit his teeth, and tried to force a smile, as if to say, Trust me.

Leonard swallowed his saliva. "Don't let this go to waste!" Flames erupted around them.

The crimson fire began to burst, explode with each fervent spark. Flames began to spin around them like a tornado, burning the oxygen itself, destroying any chance of escape.

Endure it, Alexander urged himself. Endure!

'He's a demon,' Alexander reminded himself. 'There's no way flames would be enough. I know that much. But with Ascalon... We can do this!'

Alexander swiftly retracted the blade. "Again!" he urged himself, before slamming the blade into the demon's chest once again.

"Again!"

More explosions. More flames. And another impalement.

Alexander smiled. 'We did it,' he thought, beginning to look up at the crimson monster as the flames ceased and parted away.

What Alexander saw wasn't a face tainted with fear nor anger. What he saw a smiling face, twisted with manic mirth.

Asmodeus' armor began to crumple, cracking away at the pierced wound, unveiling a gap in the demon's physical body. Instead of a normal, human-like torso, what stood there was a contorted body, shifted away, with gaps and holes in between, leaving nothing but a grotesque form.