Luis watched as Gerald stepped toward Nero to buy him time. The chosen speaker of the sun god refocused his attention on the pale creature drifting near the wall below. The wall had been cleared of those things by the young cleric's last attack, yet countless new demons were already crawling up the mountains of their fallen kin. Only two figures still clung to the structure: the massive one in dark armour and the pale being marked with symbols. The latter continued working on the inscriptions without showing the slightest concern for the slaughter surrounding him. Luis didn't waste another second. He jumped headfirst off the wall, straight toward the two demon. His magic pumped rapidly through his blood as light began to glow on both his palms.
Shire looked up at the person approaching her. A growl escaped his throat as he tensed all his muscles. Unfortunately, he had no way of flying, so he had to resort to the second-best method available to him. He tensed and then hurled himself straight up toward Luis. He swung his clenched fist, ready to smash the young man's face. For a moment, it looked like he was going to hit him, but at the last second, Luis flew to the side.
Cursing, Shire shot past him. He reached out with his claw to grab the wall, searching for a ledge to stop himself. When he finally managed to grab a protruding stone, he abruptly slowed his momentum. If the symbols in the wall had not preserved its integrity and protected it from harm, Shire would have torn the stone out without slowing down in the slightest.
When he finally managed to stop, he looked down. Angrily, he realised that the man was only a few meters away from Ramor. Luis clapped his hands together, and a focused beam of radiance shot toward the symbol-breaker. Once again, Ramor faced immediate death with no aid in sight.
The messenger of god was already smiling, seeing his attack mere moments from its target, when suddenly another demon appeared from nowhere. This new figure bore the same salt-white skin as the other one, trying to break the symbols. Its hair was pitch black, and two broad, curved horns rose from its head. Its eyes glowed gold rather than merely yellow, shimmering like those of the sacred lightweavers of the church. A long black robe whipped around him as the wind howled past.
The newcomer raised its clawed hand with three talons and met the radiant strike head-on. The moment before impact, the creature swatted the beam aside. The golden light bent like a harmless serpent and veered off course, flying several hundred meters before gradually dissolving.
Xersies, Nero's first general, commander of all Polykenas for two consecutive millennia, proud student of the queen of Polykenas herself, stared now at Luis, the vessel of the sun, leader of the lightweavers and chosen representative of the divine. Xersies regarded the youth with a surprisingly warm voice, sounding far too human as he asked, "What is your name, human?"
The cleric looked at him in confusion. He didn't expect the demon to actually address him. "Why would you want to know that, abomination?"
"It is my custom to learn the names of worthy opponents," Xersies answered smilingly.
He had adopted this tradition when he was still the sole ruler of the Polykenas, before the Duce appeared. Whenever one of his kind challenged him, he remembered their name so that, if he spared them, he would know which individuals posed future threats to his power and should be watched closely.
The divine emissary hesitated but found no harm in answering. "Luis," he said. "And do you creatures have any designation for yourselves?"
"We have names as well," Xersies replied. "Mine is Xersies."
"Xersies..." murmured the chosen of the sun. He immediately knew he would remember this name until his death. "I will wipe you and every one of your kind from the face of this world, like vermin driven from a holy temple. And once that is accomplished, we will celebrate a worldwide festival every year, where we will all remember how humanity came together to dispel the darkness!"
Xersies simply smiled. "You sound very confident, man, so why don't you finally show me your power?"
The divine emissary raised his hand and snapped his fingers. While speaking to Xersies, he had secretly gathered his magic and now unleashed it in a concentrated blast. Yet how could he strike an ancient being over a thousand years old so easily?
Xersies lifted his claw, and a golden shield expanded before him. When the attack struck, the barrier nearly shattered, but the general raised his second talon and reinforced it. After three seconds, the blast ended.
The cleric prepared another strike, but Xersies acted first. He vanished in a streak of light and appeared in the next instant directly in front of his opponent. The young man had not anticipated close combat and was struck before he could react.
Xersies struck Luis in the chest with his claw, who, more instinctively than consciously, formed a light layer of pure light on his skin. The actual blow had little force, but the gigantic explosion of light that now burst from Xersies' hand did. Luis was thrown upward at tremendous speed, but thanks to the small layer of concentrated light, he was unharmed.
Xersies watched the king of men soar away like a comet. He cast a final glance toward Ramor, who was still pressed against the wall, utterly absorbed in his work, then transformed into a beam of pure brilliance and pursued the divine emissary. The sacred man broke through the cloud layer and finally halted, radiance leaking from every pore. He saw Xersies' streak of light piercing the clouds in pursuit.
The cleric growled and lifted his hand. With a sweeping motion, a flowing torrent of light burst out around him like a shining river. He guided the current in a wide circle, then sent it directly toward Xersies. The longer the stream extended, the faster it got.
Forced out of his luminous form, the demon general braced himself, seized the stream as though gripping a solid object, and struggled against the current. In a sudden shift, he bent the flow back toward its creator. The emissary snarled as two beams shot from his eyes. Both rays targeted Xersies, who needed both hands to control the torrent and was forced to release it. He swerved aside, dodging the ocular beams, but as a result was struck on the shoulder by the stream of light, which spun him around and threw him to the side.
The robe on that side now showed holes that were still burning. His white skin shimmered beneath them, already showing severe burns, but Xersies did not waste any time tending to his injuries. Instead, he spread his arms out to the left and right. He did not appear to be grabbing anything, but when he brought his arms back together, he seemed to take the entire room with him.
Suddenly, Luis saw nothing. Darkness enveloped him entirely, the only illumination coming from his own body. He snarled as invisible pressure converged on him like two massive walls closing in. His muscles bulged as he pushed outward. Slowly, gradually, he drove the shadows back until they collapsed in a single instant and daylight returned. Xersies was gone, and so was the light-stream Luis had conjured. The young emissary scanned the sky, startled, until he noticed a disturbance within the clouds. A colossal flame of pure luminescence burst forth and rushed toward him.
He clenched his hand into a fist, forming a tiny glowing sphere. Opening his fingers, he let the orb float toward the oncoming blaze. The moment the flame touched it, the sphere absorbed its power like a miniature black hole and began to grow. It expanded rapidly, heating until the surrounding air turned to plasma. The atmosphere boiled. When the sphere touched the cloud bank, they vanished in a perfect ring. The entire battlefield below flashed white for an instant as the titanic sun-orb finally burned out.
Even Xersies had not dared confront that attack directly and had dodged aside in a streak of light. He stared in disbelief at the divine emissary, who had struck yet again with overwhelming might. But the general immediately recognised the cost. Tiny fractures had begun forming on the youth's fingers. Luis noticed Xersies and rocketed toward him, firing blast after blast of concentrated radiance.
Xersies retreated through the air, deflecting every strike with rapid blows, returning fire whenever an opening appeared. They descended toward the earth in a relentless exchange of magic. Moments before Xersies would have struck the ground, he shifted into a light beam and darted aside. The emissary mirrored him, and the two streaks chased one another like duelling serpents.
Xersies abruptly turned at a right angle and shot upward again, reforming into physical shape. Drawing a circle with his fingers, he summoned a monumental pillar of light that thundered toward the divine vessel. The cleric had no choice but to exit his beam form as well. Raising both hands, he shaped a radiant disc that met the descending column. The holy man was pushed downward, yet his body glowed ever brighter. Inch by inch, he resisted the crushing force.
Realising that the pillar failed to break through, Xersies spread his fingers. The column shattered into thousands of small spears made of light. They gathered around the emissary, aiming at him from every direction. The demon commander extended both arms wide, then clapped his claws together with explosive force. Thousands of golden javelins were launched at the chosen vessel of the sun, each one ready to end his life.