Chapter 112 -
- Josh -
The air smelled of smoke and iron. My arm throbbed, heat coursing from my veins through the Divine armor. Cyan flames flickered across my skin, reflecting in the polished black stone of the chamber. Kaysi's eyes...they weren't entirely themselves. I had noticed it before, but it slowly became clearer. Kaysi's aura shifted more and more. There was a glimmer, a memory brushing at the edges of her mind. I saw it in the hardness of her gaze, the tilt of her head, the way her fingers flexed around her sword.
I didn't speak. Not yet. I needed her calm, steady, and ready. She was already charged. This place—energy thick, suffocating, like the Abyss had torn itself into our world. It was too much for even her to barrel through blindly.
"Josh!" Her voice rang sharp, cutting through the roar of the growing hellfire. I saw it then: her eyes, traversing through a memory, recognition. The old Kaysi. The one who had survived more than anyone should. The one who had survived—me.
I forced my own fear down. I saw Kaysi in a flash of illusion from my past. Stand there as she was covered in the bruises and blood I put on her. I shook my head and the memory away.
The cult leader transformed before us, making my skin crawl. Black and red scales gleamed, their muscles rippling beneath his once-human body. Tail fully extended, wings open, and horns grown, eye burning like twin infernos, it was a dragon. Skeletal bones like armor covered his whole body. The aura of the man was no longer his own. This didn't feel like any demon I faced, even in the Abyss. He stood tall, as if proclaiming himself a king among demons.
Every movement from him shifted the air, every step cracked the stone. Hellfire coiled along his wings, dripping molten energy that hissed against the floor.
I raised my arm, the flames spreading into a massive surge. My chest burned, lungs straining—not from heat but anticipation. Heavens' divine fire that echoed against the hellfire. I felt the hellfire before, but not like this, and this never divine fire felt almost alien to me. I poured energy into myself; it is what I needed.
The dragon demon's energy, like lava, flowed into the other unconscious people as they rose like zombies, one by one, fully recharged and now morphed into other demons.
I felt it all there, humanity like 'his' stripped and gone.
"You can't change and control people like that. No matter if you have sold your soul!"
"Oh, but I can; they have already paid their souls for this moment."
Kaysi's sword slashed through the first few demonized cultists that charged our way, with fluid, lethal motion. I watched her, simultaneously afraid and proud. She didn't falter nor hesitate—yet you could see the weight of the abyss clawing at her. I could feel it echoing in the chamber, pulling at her focus.
"Focus." I hissed, not a command, but a tether. "I am right here, right now."
She blinked, and for a heartbeat, the flicker of memory sharpened, eyes widening as if she recognized a truth buried beneath her forgotten past. That glimpse lasted only a moment before the abyssal pressure pushed it away again—but it was enough. Enough to steady her. Enough for her light to flare within, it drove me too far, and I felt it resonate through me like a surge.
"I am okay. Kaysi whispered."
The dragon roared, and the ground quaked. He lunged, pulling the earth up from his lunch. Claws gouging deep furrows into the stone. Splinters and dust rained down, and sparks erupted from the walls. The heat was immediate, the scent of sulfur and blood thick. I dove forward, my flame slashing, aiming for a wing joint —the only exposed spot on his body. The fire grazed, hissed against scaled skin, and he howled, hurling his tail with force like a battering ram with spikes against my side.
It hit hard, landing me on the ground. A numbing pain flared up in my side like I'd been set on fire from the inside. The spikes on his tail had some form of neurotoxin. Cyan sparks hissed as I rolled, flames dancing across my armor, forcing myself up before he could attack again. Kaysi leapt atop a raised stone column, swinging her sword in a deadly arc that carved through another demon, as if the metal itself obeyed her will.
The dragon reared back, mouth opening in a torrent of blackened flames. The heat hit me before it even reached my armor, singeing my hair, making my teeth ache from my grit. I slammed the phoenix flame outward, a shield of burning blue fire erupting between us, convulsing against the infernal tide. The impact sent a shockwave that rattled the chamber, knocking both Kaysi and me sideways.
"Damn it," I swore under my breath. The dragon was faster than could have been predicted. Smarter. And what's worse...He spoke, voice rolling through the hellfire like molten stone.
"Fools! You cannot kill what is already mine! Even in death, the Abyss will cradle my form. Divine power is fleeting. Mortals like you cannot cleanse what belongs to the darkness." He growled.
The words stuck deep, a reminder of the nightmare waiting beyond this fight. I spoke through my gritted teeth. "Then we'll make it fleeting," I spat towards him again. Kaysi was beside me now, sword humming, her aura flaring. Her light was spreading through me, magnifying my flames, feeding and stirring the Phoenix powers inside my armor in ways I hadn't felt before.
The dragon demon felt the threat and whipped his tail again. I dodged as he came in with a clawed right hook to my already injured side, sweeping me off my feet. Pain exploding along my side, ribs attempting to cave in. I coughed fire into the air, suppressing the momentary dizziness as my body grew even more numb from the neurotoxins. Could I even move right now? I swung my arm in a wide arc as best as I could to send a burst of power to hit him. The blast struck him in the shoulder, scorching his scales. The dragon shrieked in fury.
Kaysi didn't wait for the moment she finished off the other demons; she vaulted forward, sliding under his claw strike and slicing upward at the side of his arm and jaw. Just like when we fought before when we fought before the abyss. Blood—something darker, corrupted essence—sprayed across the chamber. He howled, spinning to catch her with a wing. I jumped.