Cyrus had warned me the last time I used Immolation that if I left it active too long I might draw the attention of something I really didn’t want to deal with. Idiot! I should have remembered that instead of wandering around in the middle of a literal tornado of fire that reached hundreds of feet into the night sky.

  Sure, it had been a black fire tornado, but apparently that wasn’t enough to conceal it from unwanted attention. I snapped off Immolation, snuffing out my flames, then triggered Mirror Cloak and Phantom Step, phasing out of reality as everything turned monochromatic. That should challenge even an overpowered monster to find me.

  Then I set a tether point and triggered Tether Slide. Hopefully the ethereal golden chain marking my slide path would go unnoticed. I had to take the risk. The giant bird was swooping down fast and even if it couldn’t see me, it could still crush me to paste if it landed on me.

  I launched up that tether to the farthest rocky point on the curve of the mountain overlooking the ravine. As soon as I hit, I kicked off the rocks and set another tether point to shoot up to the back side of the same flat shelf I’d used before to spy on the ravine.

  Behind me, the giant fiery bird swooped low over the ravine and the entire area exploded with superheated fire, lighting up the night as if the sun had touched down. Flames boiled up the entire mountain and I rolled away from the edge just before a wall of intense fire billowed up along the cliff face. The air turned blistering hot and tasted of ash.

  If I’d remained down in the ravine, that hit would have probably melted me to a charred puddle. Even protected by the cliff face, my exposed skin reddened and the air singed my lungs. I dropped Mirror Cloak and hissed, “Nigel.”

  The little guy barreled into my stomach, his entire body shaking with fear. I wanted to comfort him, but this was no place for a kitten, even such a strong murder kitten. So I focused on his collar again and sent him back to my castle.

  Nigel disappeared. He wouldn’t like it, but at least he was safe.

  Crap. If Ruby was still there, hearing about a giant fire monster would freak her out. I’d send her a message as soon as I could. First I had to see where the monster had gone.

  I rolled to my hands and knees to crawl back to the edge, but froze. A short demon lounged on a nearby rock, polishing its claws. He couldn’t be more than 3 feet tall and looked like a classic fairytale demon. Roughly humanoid, black skin, fiery gemlike eyes, batlike ears, fanged mouth, clawed hands and feet, and leathery wings folded across his back.

  “Fire Lord.”

  Yikes. That was it? Identify usually gave me a ton more. Did he have an ability to block his level? Cheater.

  Wait a minute. I scanned the sky but the fiery bird had disappeared. Glancing back at the demon, I frowned. I felt no aura, so either he was a different monster, or he’d suppressed it. Could this demon be the fiery bird? Was all that flame some kind of spell?

  Either way, Identify had never failed to give me a monster’s level. That suggested this thing might be super powerful, maybe even more than Alpha. Cyrus’s earlier warning of not wanting to attract something with my Immolation flames suggested this was not something I wanted to mess with.

  I prepared to use Tether Slide again, but the demon sighed dramatically and flapped its wings to lift itself to stand on the stone it had been lounging on. It spoke in a cultured British accent, sounding like some bored pampered lordling speaking to a servant.

  “I have never deigned to descend to this pitiful, weak stage, but tonight you had to insult the purity of fire for all the world to see.”

  “Um, sorry.”

  “Sorry?” The little demon floated into the air, his little wings flapping lazily, his ugly face glowing, as if fire burned just under his skin. “You double down on your insolence by speaking? A demon of my station should not have to stoop to taking out the trash.”

  “Hey, I’m sure we can—“

  The demon exploded. White-hot flames erupted out of him, consuming the area in a heartbeat. Despite my fire resistance, my skin instantly melted and searing pain tore through my entire body. I convulsed in the grip of the superheated flames and instinctively triggered Immolation again.

  My own flames exploded out of me in a tornado of destruction that crashed against the Fire Lord’s flames. Usually Immolation’s tornado would spread hundreds of yards, but they seemed to get enveloped by the demon’s flames and barely wrapped me in a protective cocoon. More importantly, the spell’s fire immunity still worked.

  I sagged with relief as the searing pain faded. My skin and hair were still melted, my clothing badly singed and smoking, but the healing energy from my Tesla Coil bracelet helped wash away the pain as I began to regenerate.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  The Fire Lord exclaimed, “By jove! You have purified your flames. Did I misread your previous conflagration? Was it corrupted by the foul beasts you dispatched?”

  “Uh, yeah. They were really corrupt.” My lips cracked when I tried to talk, and that hurt more than I expected, but I resisted the urge to grimace.

  The demon’s face lit up with a happy orange flame, and he flitted closer. “Perhaps the night’s distraction will prove interesting after all. I had not expected to meet another elevated being in such a lowly place. I should have realized you were more than base fuel for my fires. You have the eyes of a noble.”

  The abrupt change in his demeanor was weird, but I’d take it. “Hi. Nice to meet you. I’m Lucas.”

  “And I am Lord Ashkaroth. Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve held a meaningful conversation with an enlightened one outside of the great queen’s court?”

  “It’s hard to find good company,” I managed, but my mind raced. Did he mean Marisara’s court. Was he like a real demon lord, as in a servant of Queen marisara? Cyrus had said she and her forces couldn’t descend to this stage yet. How had Ashkaroth circumvented that rule?

  He might be even more dangerous than I’d imagined, but if I played my cards right, I might be able to gain important information.

  “Indeed. Despite the futility of the effort, I can’t help introducing myself to new species, hoping for a little company outside of court politics. Alas, it seems none are worthy of mingling with higher rungs of society and all melt under the purity of my flames.”

  “I can see how that would make meeting girls pretty tough.”

  The little guy laughed, flames spurting from his fang-filled mouth. Good. Now, if I could get him talking. . .

  He flitted forward and awkwardly punched me, like he was pretending to have a buddy. His touch seared into my shoulder, and he recoiled with a shout of rage.

  “Imposter! You are not a being of Fire, but a usurper of the flame.”

  Damn. That could have gone better. “We can work through that, can’t we?”

  “I should have known! No lowly being of this stage is worth my time. My great queen warned me that my attempts at spreading the purity of my presence was a waste of time. You will burn for 100 years for your crimes.”

  He was laying on the act pretty hard, but I didn’t have time to give him any pointers in evil overlord etiquette. He opened his little mouth way too wide and spat a beam of pure fire mana right at my heart.

  The blast knocked me staggering into the wall of the cliff, even though my amulet rebounded 15% back at him. My Magical Resistance also captured another 30% of the damage, filling my extra power charge. The little orange power bar grew as large as my mana bar, glowing brightly as if full to bursting.

  The rebound hit only enraged the little guy, though. His condensed mana beam punched right through my other defenses, burned a hole through my jacket, and drilled into my chest, burning a path right to my heart.

  That’s when I screamed. The force of the mana kept me locked in place as every muscle froze, including my heart. His strength eclipsed anything I’d ever felt. It made Alpha feel like a puppy.

  I couldn’t move, I couldn’t seem to think, but I reacted out of pure instinct, pushing back against the onslaught with my own mana, heaving against the titanic pressure trying to cut through my heart and drill into my mana pool.

  He was definitely higher level, but I was still tier-1 with double-evolved mana. In a pure mana duel, I should be able to punch way over my pay grade.

  For a second, our battling wills and mana churned through my heart and raced through all my mana channels like streams of living fire. Every inch of me screamed as our two mana streams fought for dominance. My body convulsed under the pressure that felt like my channels might simply rupture.

  From what Cyrus and Fulvia had said, breaking channels was bad, so I unleashed every bit of my mana pool in an overwhelming rush, flooding my channels in a last-ditch effort to push back Ashkaroth’s power.

  It wasn’t enough. My mana was fundamentally stronger, but I unleashed it with little skill, like an ogre swinging a tree. Ashkaroth wielded his mana with the skill of a master, weaving it around mine and somehow using my own strength against me. His mana felt like it was melting through my channels.

  I tried screaming again as my body seemed to be catching fire on the inside, but still couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. My heart shuddered but failed to beat. My internal systems started to shut down and blackness crept across my vision. I was about to die.

  Whether it was the remnants of the werewolf still lingering in my soul, or my own innate stubbornness, that thought ignited an immense rage that boiled up through me. I would not die to a monster, no matter how tough. I had to survive. I had to fight.

  Fight!

  Something deep inside of me flexed and awakened, like a new, secondary chamber in my mana pool. I didn’t care where it had been until then or what it meant. It was more power, and I needed it. I reached for the new power source, but something blocked access. It was right there, but blocked from the rest of my mana pool by some kind of invisible barrier. I tore at it, but it did not part.

  My body started to convulse under Ashkaroth’s power as his mana seared me from the inside. In the corner of my vision, my health bar was plummeting like a falling stone, heading for the bottom and the cool oblivion of death.

  No! I grasped tendrils of my mana using my fledgling Mana Manipulation ability and drove them like spears into that extra pool of power. If I couldn’t simply break through from the rest of my mana pool, I’d release it from the outer edge, closer to my lungs.

  My mana spears drove into the barrier restraining the extra power source, and that time they punched through. Power erupted from the new pool like it had been pressurized in there. It ripped out through my chest and plunged into my normal mana pool, trying to pour down my channels.

  I screamed again as fresh waves of pain tore through me. It felt like my mana channels were getting shredded from within, as if that new pool of power was made up of thousands of tiny spinning blades. With the last of my strength, I seized the power and pushed it back out of my mana channels and mana pool altogether.

  That new power rampaged through my body, tearing into my organs and body. Maybe unleashing it had been a stupid idea. It felt like it was killing me even faster than Ashkaroth had been. My health pool dropped faster and death spread over me like another Puppetmaster cloak, about to settle over my soul and cast me into oblivion.