Chapter 10-316: Dark Acquisitions (2/2)

“You are smarter than you look, but still not very smart,” I smiled slightly, as Shards winked into jetsilver flaming crystalline teardrop life all around me. Her expression sank as she counted them at a glance, and my total lack of needing anything at all to Cast them. “For instance, you’re looking at me.”

She jerked her head back just in time for Master Fred’s Wrath-imbued fist to shatter her jaw.

Sure, he gave up a lot of strength, but that Hellscarred face was very singular, and so he’d decided to come as himself. The rest of his Legion could just watch, even if they wanted to help him.

His knee came up, his arm grabbed hers and came down, and the nearest Blade went flying. He ignored her whipping hair with rather more DR than she had, and when she cut him across the chest with the other Sword, all she raised was a welt.

He jerked her forward as if she was weightless, ignoring the battering of her wings, and there was another burst of light as his forehead crushed into her sharp nose, flattening it as more Wrath burst out, and the crimson lights in her eyes guttered.

She was trying to pummel him with her wings and blind him with her hair, and he just grabbed her other hand, closed his fist, and she shrieked as diabolic bone snapped and she dropped her other burning Sword.

Still ignoring the wings that were basically hiding most of the fight from visible sight, and now holding onto both her arms, he brought his shin up between her legs, and I definitely heard the crack as her pelvis broke, held down by her arms and completely unable to offset the impact.

He forced her arms to cross, and his next kick came right up between and over them, heel into her jaw. Bone shattered, and rather sharp teeth sprayed with blood that burned as the Wrath hit it.

Her wings stopped moving, but he didn’t, dragging her forward and over and down, switching grips halfway onto her head, and slamming her face down into the cement like a piston. Hellfire vented the last of her Health Qi, and he grabbed both of her wings and bent them sharply.

Hellbone and sinew cracked and snapped, bent past ninety degrees, and the erinyes could only writhe under his grip beneath him. The wings flailed pitifully, doing nothing but making more pain for her.

His foot came down on the back of her head again, and one of her horns broke off against the concrete, scattering hellfire. I flicked a Dart at it to eat it.

She had stopped moving. He hauled her upright by her wings, and didn’t she look a frightful mess like that.

“I think she’s under control,” I mused to him.

......, was all he replied, holding her there, his black eyes glowing silver counterpoint to the eager hellfire of his Scars, which wanted him to Consume her and take her place as a devil and Pact Grantor.

That she’d been the one to give him all those Hellscars only made it all the more appropriate in the eyes of Hell.

Nope, she was going to another. He already had some erinyes exposure he could work on.

“Sleipner should be able to extend us back out to our Lived-Line with an hour,” I observed, bending over to look at the mangled face of one of Hell’s Huntresses. “I really need to go riding around more under this Shroud.”

He drove her down on the Disk I brought up as Sleipner rolled over for us to get aboard. At full speed, he should be able to cross a former Lived-Line of mine within an hour, and then I could Teleport us to China.

Hadn’t told Shvaughn yet. She’d enjoy the surprise. I just told her to make sure she was by herself and not too far from one of my Lived-Lines in an hour.

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300+ mph along the Veil to get back to a Lived-Line crossing the surface of the world. Teleport without Error literally all the way around the world to India, where Sama and Shvaughn/Windwise were organizing and leading a combination of slow Shroud-clearing and power-ups, and righteous smackdowns of more isolated Buddhists who hadn’t found out what was going on yet.

The various Warlords had learned not to mess with Sama. The smart ones had signed up under her, and were prospering.

Shvaughn was in that Cherokee Amazon Stormbound form of hers named Windwise, who she had informed me (after I asked) that she had acquired in 1920, and there probably wasn’t anyone else alive who would recognize her, especially an Amazon version of her, and certainly not in Southeast Asia.

She wasn’t even looking at us when Sleipner rolled up, eyes instantly fixed on the Grantor whose Bond was thrumming on her Pact.

It took great effort of will for her eyes to not go Hellfire and Black. She stared at the limp view of the broken erinyes with enough hate and anger to make the air simmer.

“What’s the price?” she finally ground out, keeping her distance, although her hands were shaking.

“You’re going to end up a Pact Grantor. A Raised Geas to never grant a Pact.”

“That’s it?” She glanced at me in shock, then started thinking it through. “Ah. No more Kiss Pacts on Earth, and I’ll have Hell hunting for me to get the right to Grant them back. They are already hunting for me, so that will mean nothing.” Her fists clenched in expectation. “Dammit, Boxer, why did you have to beat her up so bad first?”

I just snorted at her imploring look. “I’m not going to heal her up just so you can beat her down again, although...” I tapped my chin thoughtfully. “I think we all want to see the look on her face, right?”

“That will work.” Windwise’s figure flashed, turning back to the fire-haired Amazon swordswoman we knew best in almost the blink of an eye, and this time, her eyes did indeed go black and hellfire.