Apexus didn’t know if he could live with Gizmo’s blood on his membrane. What he, however, was certain of was that the alternative was going to be worse for everyone involved. Presented with the opportunity, he had leapt and gone into a desperate dive.

The ritual had taken enough of the Warlock’s attention that he hadn’t noticed until it was too late. Apotho was forced half a step back. One foot passed the boundary of the summoning circle. Although that didn’t end the ritual in its entirety, it did suddenly cause it to slow and weaken. The presences that had been waiting for their final call dampened. Only the laughter of the woman grew louder, heavily amused by the summoner’s struggles.

“MEDDLING INSECT!” Apotho screamed, as oversized wings folded around him. All that Apexus wanted at this point was to cause more confusion and buy a little bit more time. His membrane opened as he tried to burn the warlock with his acid. Not an inch of skin was seared. Neither of them was in the mindset to notice. “I will reduce you to cinders,” the Warlock growled, focusing his magic energy under his palm. The old body could only channel so much power at the same time: not enough to blast the slime out of the sky, but certainly enough to incinerate him at close range.

‘NO!’ a mental outcry caused the magical energy to stay within his body. Gizmo’s slim remains of being rose up, protecting his student and the only company he had for one of a hundred years in isolation. There had only been Apexus and the metal fairy, both of which he would protect until he completely dissolved into nothingness. “Don’t just stand there!” the old man shouted at the Cardinal, in control for just the moment.

Remezan had already started struggling against the chains. The Warlock distracted and partly out of the circle, the spell lost its power. Although he had been weakened, he was not frail. ‘I am a Cardinal, a scholar of the divine, a follower of the teachings of righteousness and purity,’ he prayed mentally as his mouth screamed and his muscles burned, the ethereal chains moaning, ‘Gods, let me muster the strength for one final push!’

The chains shattered into thousands of pieces. One crack and they broke like a connected piece of glass. Remezan’s stance dropped, the spear appeared between his ready hands, and he charged forwards. Aiming the tip of the spear just under one of the slime’s wings, he thrust forwards. The blade buried itself deep into Gizmo’s guts, slided through his body and punched through at the other side.

The Cardinal attempted to twist the blade, to make it absolutely lethal, but Apotho came back into control. “HOW DARE YOU?!” he screamed, his hands trembling, then succeeding in gripping Apexus and ripping the slime off.

Apexus didn’t even know what was happening, so quick was the motion that removed him from the Warlock’s body. Within a second, he found himself rammed against the cliffside, stunned by the impact. Losing no time, Apotho gripped the weapon that had been buried inside him. Although pain had long since stopped bothering the Warlock, the fact that he could feel his lifeblood draining through the wound sent him into a state of panic.

“No, no, no, no,” he stammered, the blank fear in his eyes. It was that very same fear that had allowed him to overcome even Gizmo’s resistance. “I am living apotheosis, I am Apotho, I can’t die here. I can’t die. Never. I won’t die, I will never die. DO YOU HEAR ME WORLD?!” Even if the Warlock was weakened, Remezan had lost even more of his power. Slowly, Apotho shoved the spear out of his stomach, then managed to step back into the circle. Boundless lifeforce fuelled it, to the pleased, alluring and entirely misplaced moaning of that invisible woman.

New chains darted forth from the re-opened portals, once more binding the Cardinal. The spear dropped onto the desecrated ground and vanished. Apotho’s hands gripped his assailant’s skull, fingers dug into the scalp, as blood ran from the Warlock’s lips.

“I wanted you to see everything, how I turn this miserable Safe Leaf into a place of death, as fuel for myself,” he growled as dark red energy glowed in the little space between his hands and his victim. “You and your Church, you were supposed to witness and be helpless. Congratulations, I underestimated you. You should never have been able to hurt me. NOW PAY FOR IT!”

There was a prolonged, unpleasant sound. Like a titan sharply inhaling through clenched teeth, underlined with screams and disharmonic violins. The sounds of massive amounts of life being drained from a single person. Remezan screamed, in failure and in pain, as his black hair and beard turned grey, then white. Wrinkles in his skin were deepened, age spots grew, until Remezan looked even older than Apotho had at the brink of death, months back.

The Warlock, in the meanwhile, was rejuvenated. The wound in his stomach closed, then the small cuts. When his age itself began to revert, he forced himself back. Not just because he was absorbing more energy than he needed, but also because Apexus had recovered and tried to intervene again. “You’re just so annoying,” Apotho growled and stepped away from the Cardinal. With one hand, he caught the slime by the head.

Struggling, Apexus tried to do anything, but found himself unable. Apotho was the same. Although he tried his utmost to focus his magical power into a blast, he couldn’t. All he could do were actions that were unharmful to the slime, keeping him at bay by holding him like one would an unruly child. Without the fear of death overcoming Gizmo’s last grasp on this body, all the Warlock could do was defend himself. Annoyed, he clicked his tongue.

Discarding Apexus by throwing the slime like one would a crumpled up piece of paper, Apotho turned back to the summoning circle. The Cardinal was just a husk now, a sliver of life still in his eyes. If all went well, then he would still suffice as the necessary sacrifice.

“Why?!” Apexus wanted to know, watching with the disability of the powerless. “Why do you do these things?!”

“Should you not know?” Apotho laughed, more than willing to chatter while he was in control. “You’re a predator yourself. The lesser creatures are food to nourish the stronger. You feast on animals to expand your arsenal of Growths and thus become stronger to live longer. I take what I need to expand my life. Lesser people are there to feed my existence. Farmers are there to grow my food, smiths exist to make my weapons and armour and all people have one thing they can give to be useful to their better – to me.”

“I eat animals to survive. I don’t rip humanoids from their families,” Apexus protested.

Only grinning, finding that difference to be nonsensically small, Apotho raised his arms high. The chains were pulled tense. The Cardinal had no more life to scream. Even as he was pulled down to the floor, his now frail form getting pulled at more and more, all he felt was resignation. He had failed and thousands would pay the price.

Then his arms and legs were torn off. The limbs dragged over the floor, leaving trails of blood that arranged themselves into squiggly lines and runes. Apexus had seen enough at that point. Whatever his regrets were, the slime could do nothing else. He ripped his attention away from the perversely intriguing display and beat his wings.

‘Have to get Aclysia and Reysha. Get off the Leaf and just go somewhere else.’ It wasn’t an honourable view on things. However, Apexus wasn’t looking to help everyone he could. His approach was live and let live, and in this case, there was absolutely nothing he could do for anyone on this world even if he tried. With the Cardinal dead, all hope in that department was gone.

Apotho glanced after the fleeing slime. He wasn’t worried, and simply concluded the ritual. Four heads rose from the four portals at the sides of the circle. Four chains dragged the four limbs towards them. The demons caught them with four arms, their four eyes focusing and devouring the sanctified flesh gleefully.

The four demons were born from the portals, covered in viscous, clear liquid that quickly evaporated in the air, leaving behind dark, leathery skin that glistened as if polished. Their bodies were humanoid, albeit twisted or changed in many ways. Their heads were neckless things, long and smooth. Four eyes, two at the side of their heads, two on top, moved around independently, with red sclera and pitch black irises. Two large slits indicated a nose. Underneath, teeth, with no lips to hide them, grew directly out of the skin. The maw of one of the demons opened, split halfway down their head. Every single tooth had the exact same shape, an oversized canine, teeth that existed exclusively to rend. A long, pointy tongue tasted the air.

Their four arms all ended in hands of three long claws and two, comparatively short, thumbs. Although their legs were more than developed enough to support upright walking, ending in four claws themselves, one growing from the heel, they preferred to crawl. It looked more like a spider skittering than a wolf or another mammal. Long and muscular was the build of their bodies, bronze markings covered much of it. Although naked, there was nothing that would have pointed towards reproductive capabilities. A prehensile tail, longer than their legs, grew from the lower back of each of them.

Although they hissed and growled at each other, they kept their heads lowered when they looked in their summoner’s direction. Tails that thrashed were still and lowered when they reached him. “You remember me,” Apotho stated, putting a foot on one of their heads. The demon just took it, didn’t even whimper. They were of the Tharnatos Class, the second strongest category of demons. Their specific designation was Deathhound. “Good. Catch that slime,” the Warlock tried to swallow the next word, but it forced itself over his lips in a disgustingly weak tone, “...unharmed.”