Damian let out a deep sigh and took off his ring.
The three-faced demon, Zeraphon, waited for something to happen, almost as if he was ready to tackle whatever demon would shatter out of Damian's thick skin.
Damian closed his eyes and concentrated; he held back the flurry of energy that was about to escape him. His heart started beating faster, in an irregular manner. Suddenly, an overflow of energy poured out of him; it cloaked him like an aura. Crimson in colour.
The Demon laughed. He underestimated Damian.
"You're nothing but more food for me."
Zeraphon blew life into the Pillars from his breath. The Pillars rumbled and turned into Humanoid Statues, which looked like Knights. They were armed with swords and shields.
Damian set a timer on his stopwatch.
Damian didn't wait for an attack; he dived straight to one of the statues and brought it down, crumbling into pieces with one blow.
A statue by his right swung its massive axe. Damian dodged at precise timing and struck back faster than the blink of an eye.
Damian effortlessly took down the statues. As he battled, Zeraphon lurked in the dark, watching with its giant pitch-black eyes from its middle face, studying every single move Damian made. The other two faces had their eyes closed.
Damian took down all the statues and jumped straight to the face. But a statue appeared in front of him with a giant sword. Damian saw it coming; he evaded the attack and moved for a fatal blow. The statue blocked with its shield. The shield was hard and impenetrable.
Damian jumped back down. The statue does a superhero landing. The other defeated statues rose out of the rubble.
Zeraphon laughed again.
"What? You thought you could punch your way out of this?"
Damian was surrounded.
The statues attacked him; he evaded and countered, but this time, he couldn't break through their tough armour.
Damian briefly retreated and concentrated to release more energy, just enough for him to use against the Statues.
Damian charged to attack again; this time, he used his size as an advantage. He targeted the legs of the statues, shattering them with his fists, toppling them down. He moved swiftly from one to another.
The statues that fell and shattered into pieces formed into many smaller ones, only 7 feet tall.
Damian punched them all down with his fists, but the more he destroyed, the more they rose out of the rubble. This time, it took him 2-3 blows to actually destroy one; they were getting stronger.
The Statues tackled Damian and pinned him to the ground. The stopwatch fell next to him. Damian saw that he had not much time left, and he thought he could wrap up the fight with not much of a hassle.
Through the glass in the stopwatch, he could see that his left eye was filled with a blood clot. A horn protruded from the left side of his forehead.
Damian had to end this quickly, before he completely lost control. He held the hand of the statue, pinning it to the ground, shattered it and successfully escaped.
His clothes had ripped off, and the heat pulsating from his body was burning them.
Damian charged straight towards Zeraphon. He easily punched all the statues coming his way, reducing them to nothing but rubble.
He got to a point where he leapt, but he hadn't reached forth so far into the air before a leg swung out of nowhere and kicked him so far back, out through the door, right where Elise was.
Elise was startled.
"Damian!"
She knew it was him, getting his ass beaten.
Damian got up quickly and walked past Elise. For the first time, she saw a demon. Elise froze, aghast. Was this the same Damian she got into this domain with? She wandered.
Damian glanced at her and zoomed back into the fight. Elise felt the wind; it threw her off balance, and she fell.
Damian got back into the fight, but this time, Zeraphon was waiting for him. He was out of the shadows and now in the open; his hands were skinny and long like a strand of spaghetti, and his body was a disfigured blob of mess.
Zeraphon opened all three of his mouths from three of his faces and started sucking everything within his vicinity, from rubble to debris.
Damian was strong enough not to be drawn by the suction. But he let go and let himself be sucked in.
Zeraphon shut his mouth and laughed uncontrollably until he stopped and felt something in his chest. He looked down and saw a red glow illuminating through his skin. Damian burst out of Zeraphon's body with his massive heart.
Zeraphon yelled in pain.
"Noooooooo!"
Damian squashed the heart in his hands and ran straight for the body. He began with a barrage of blows. When the skin where he made impact had softened, he used his claws to rip open Zeraphon's stomach.
Damian had almost half of his body inside Zeraphon. He brought out the first girl and then the second.
Elise came for them. She checked their pulses; they were still alive. Elise carried one to the tomb. She came to see that the 12 tombstones were no more, including the totem. The place was empty.
Zeraphon was shrinking. Damian pushed himself deeper into his body. He found Annabeth, and part of her face was being swallowed up by one of Zeraphon's intestines. Damian forcefully pulled her out and laid her on the floor. Part of her face was disfigured. That would leave a huge scar.
Damian saw Elise coming. He quickly put on his ring.
Zeraphon completely shrank down and was back to Father Partridge, this time, old and frail.
Father Partridge trembled on the floor. Damian walked towards him.
"H—He promised youth… Open doors where there were none… Light in the dark." " 'Take my hand, and I will guide you through the paths.' Those were his words."
Partridge spoke frailly.
"But there was a price to pay."
Damian replied.
"I—I thought he was an angel."
Father Partridge drew his last breath.
Elise approached.
"Is it over?"
Damian hid his face from her.
"Yes."
Elise came in front of him to have a better look. She saw the tiny horn poking out of his forehead, his blood-clotted left eye and a cut across his right lip, revealing sharp molars.
"Do you still think I don't look like a demon?"
.....
Cove's bar was a favourite spot for high-profile persons. The bar was dimly lit in a way that you could barely see anyone around you, only the person at the same table as you. A lot of illegal operations have happened and continue to happen here, but that's a story for another day.
Damian and Elise shared a table. While Elise was uncomfortable, looking over her shoulders in fright that someone would jump them, Damian sat casually and sipped his coffee like a gentleman, saucer on the left and teacup on the right.
"Relax, nothing's going to happen to you as long as you're with me."
"You're overly confident."
"I speak truth."
Elise relaxed her nerves; this man got her through that hell of a domain. He ought to have earned her trust by now.
"Two of the girls, Sara and Mariela, came out unscathed, but still traumatised, and Annabeth… Her face… Poor girl. Had we arrived sooner?"
"It wasn't our fault."
Damian placed the cup back on the table.
"We did all we could. We saved who we could."
"And all those other girls… He turned them into monsters… The thought still haunts me. I need an explanation… Why?"
"Sometimes, beings outside the physical world reach out to us, promising long life, wealth and power. Some of them good, some of them sinister and evil… Father Partridge thought an angel had come to bestow upon him the power to liberate people. But he was only selling his soul to a demon… A demon named Zeraphon. A demon with three faces and six horns, who feeds on children… Specifically, young girls."
"He had to do as he was told; that's why he came to Gemstone city… To the orphanage… He took over all the Sisters, too."
"Zeraphon lived in his body, using him as a vessel and to fully gain his form, he had to conduct a ritual… He took the first three girls for his faces and six more for his horns."
"He was going to select out another nine at random to build a heart and kill off the rest of the girls for his body. But Annabeth took 11 of her friends to his quarters. He did get nine of the girls for his heart, killed off the rest in the orphanage, and ate Annabeth and the remaining two."
"We were fast enough to save them before he completely consumed all 3 of them."
"Her bravery saved her and two of her friends."
Tears rolled down Elise's eyes.
"Poor girls… Having to experience that at a young age… There's no coming back from that."
Elise wiped off her tears.
"I want to do more… I want to be able to help more Annabeths."
Elise spoke with determination.
"What we faced today is nothing compared to what's out there."
Damian didn't mean to scare her away, even though part of him wanted to. He spoke nothing but the truth.
"We're going to face more dangers, worse than this. Are you sure you're prepared for this?"
Elise looked Damian in his eyes.
"Yes."
She had that fierce, feminine energy in her.
Damian smiled and nodded his head.
Damian got up. Elise grabbed him by the arm, stopping him.
"And no… Our differences don't bother me."