I swiftly ducked underneath an axe swing that split the tree I was standing beside in half. I lashed out with a casual dismantle as I spun around, splitting the beast in four.
My palms came together, and I swapped places with a lumbering demon trying to flank me. It had the skull of a Water buffalo and stood well over 10 feet tall. It obliterated what was left of the tree when it stumbled into it abruptly, spraying me with wood chips. A Dismantle separated its head from its body.
Two demons charging from downwind twisted and popped like the world's most disgusting water balloons, spraying offal and blood everywhere. None touched George thanks to his Infinity.
A group of twelve robe-wearing cultists had assembled to our flanks, and together as one, they chanted a Latin spell and hurled cheery red fireballs at us the size of human heads. George vanished while I slammed my palm into the floor and pulled up a thick shelf of stone, then counterattacked. The earth opened up, swallowing the ones George didn't swiftly decapitate with casual slaps.
It surprised me just how effective the fireballs were. Some came close to eating through the ten-foot-thick fortification that I hopped on top of. Twenty more cultists were rushing down the road that led up to the mental hospital, and twice as many demons were lumbering out of the darkness of the forest.
We were in for a fight.
"Take your pick. The demons or the cultists?" I called out to George, who answered my teleporting in the direction of the cultists.
More for me then.
A bone Javelin manifested in my left hand, and I launched it with a twist and a crack of the air. It blasted through the base of a tree before hollowing out the torsos of demons unfortunate enough to be running at me in a straight line.
I reloaded and twisted again and again and again, whittling down my attackers to just under ten. Only then did I pounce, exploding off the wall so quickly that it crumbled. A bone saber took the head of the first demon I encountered, and a dismantle delivered via swift slash cut through several dozen feet of forest before bisecting another trio.
I swapped places with one of the falling bodies and launched myself at my fourth victim, annihilating their body with a kick fueled by raw reinforcement.
The remaining five fell quickly after, the effort taking me no more than a few seconds.
"Julius, come in! What just happened?" Gina's voice came through the comms, startled and concerned. It sounded unnatural in my ears.
"We might've set off a magical trap," I said. "The cult knows we're coming."
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," she said. "The boy talked. No torture required. The people we are fighting call themselves the Church of Blood. And from what he's told us, the situation is worse than we thought. We're coming in."
By the time I made my way back to the marked tree that started all this, they were waiting for me, and they shared what they'd discovered.
The Church of Blood was an interdimensional demon cult with a history that goes back to the medieval church. They've been led by an unbroken line of nigh-immortal high-priests who wield potent blood and demonic magic and call themselves Brother Blood.
Over a millennium of resource gathering, plotting, and proselytizing has led them to this day, when their eleventh leader plans to consume Raven's blood and force her to open the door for Trigon.
"And he just told you everything?" I asked, a bit baffled.
Shelim shrugged. "What can I say, I'm convincing."
"You're not that convincing," I insisted.
"He wants out!" Nathan blurted out. We all looked in his direction. "I grew up Catholic, so I know how it can feel to be religious only because your family is."
Ed was the same way, too. He used to go to church every Sunday before his mom passed. She, and every pious person in the congregation, was also aware of just how performative his faith was.
"Why is he alive?" I asked plainly. "They have to know he'll talk the first chance he gets."
"It doesn't matter," Gina said, "they have a barrier surrounding the mental hospital. According to Jed, it's fueled by the lifeforce of several generations of church members. Even Constantine will struggle to get through it."
"Jesus," I said. "Why send us here without any sort of magical help?" I was beginning to wonder what Lucifer and Constantine were thinking.
"However strong that barrier is," George said, "I bet it can't withstand a Hollow Purple."
"Or we could try Curse Piercer first," I said gingerly. I knew my possession of the weapon could be a problem, but I offered anyway.
No one said anything, not even George. They all had to know I killed Ade to retrieve the weapon—and they saw what I did to his body.
Though the tense looks I got told me the matter was not settled, not by a long shot.
"If it doesn't work, then we can all whip out our maximum technique and try to overwhelm the barrier.
"Brute force? Not the worst idea I've ever heard," Shelim said.
"It's not great either," Gina said. "We could seriously hurt the girl."
"I highly doubt it will be that easy," I said. "But we could start off with my technique before cranking up the damage."
"I don't like this at all. Too many things could go wrong, but given our timetable and the stakes, it's worth a try," Gina reluctantly conceded.
We got into a few more scrapes, the demons and magicians growing increasingly stronger and skilled with proximity to the Hospital. There were beasts with four arms, titans that towered over trees, and magicians who tried to manipulate the local fauna to do their bidding. The leader of the last pack we mowed through even controlled a swarm of blood flies that were supposed to sap our life force.
The cloud dispersed when Gina pulped him and his entire group with a flash of her Anti-Gravity System technique.
Sorry for the late upload. Had a small emergency Yesterday.
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