Treading on Serpents and Scorpions

Our forces were not moronic, despite what pig-ignorant imbeciles might say in an attempt to strengthen and bolster the fiendish influence of Satan. Just in the range of the few mountains around us, there were thousands of Exorcists with experience, intuition and supernatural sensing abilities, all honed throughout the entirety of their careers. Beyond even there, far more were positioned over the extending mountain range bordering our two warring nations, our forces numbering in the tens of thousands.

Lucifer knew he could not escape the all-seeing eyes of Heaven - thus, he tried to surprise us. Casting what would likely be a laughably undemanding spell, the Devils turned the falling snow to the color of their souls - a vile, detestable onyx - and distracted our ordinary soldiers and even our scouts with a paltry effort. From there, the Horde rushed over - presumably with the aid of a teleportation ritual - and caught our forces off guard with their appearance, giving them time to set up a defense and charge.

Regardless, when the black snow's implications were realized, others took action. And when the Devils made their direct appearance, numbering, perhaps, one or two thousand - likely concentrating nearly all of their forces at this location in an attempt to decapitate our leadership or disable the source of the attacks that had been plaguing them - the battle erupted, the two forces separated by little less than a kilometer's worth of air.

Spells, Alchemically crafted arrows and other attacks rained through the air above me, swiftly approaching the charging Horde. Potions were prepared for when they reached a supernaturally throwable distance. The Devils were not defenseless, their plan's entire premise revolving around an intimidation that allowed time to erect an interlocking, hexagonal barrier with the might of all their sorcerers empowering its abominable structure. It withstood the might of the collective assault smashing forth. Joseph and other Ufficiales' voices blared through the mountain range in a request for reinforcements as well as in an attempt to coordinate the defense.

The aforementioned defense was partially in formation at the battle's start, to begin with. With Ufficiales and capable Exorcists with common sense spread among the forces - all already positioned in areas that were optimal for defense, as no army with a shred of sapience would haphazardly situate their men - they simply waited for the Horde to reach proper fighting distance. The long-range potshots were just that - potshots, a mere token effort, for Exorcists best battle up-close.

And while all of this was ongoing? I simply took notice of how the large barrier and mass of unholy demons were rapidly approaching where the Sixth Seal's barrel aimed.

I scrambled for the firing string and pulled it taut, trying my best to calculate the trajectory the artillery shell would likely travel through the air. My best guess was that it would travel in a straight, twenty degree angle for long enough that I wouldn't have to bother with fretting over bullet drop. Behind me, defensive structures were set up with the use of potions and spellcraft, the fighters optimally positioned to eradicate at least one Devil for every two Exorcists slain.

As I watched, more and more Exorcists poured over the tops of the nearby mountains to join up with our defense, bolstering our strength and bringing in new methods of attack. Most notable was an Exorcist with an apparent archery-related Sacred Gear, whose summoned bow and arrow made cracks in the hundred meter barrier wherever they landed. His rate of fire was sufficient enough to make up for the lack of penetrative power or crushing force behind his attacks, launching perhaps two arrows a second.

Upon closer look, I saw it was Joshua, the first of many to have asked me questions during my de-facto speech. His attacks were for naught, however, as a glowing surge of energy went through the barrier, repairing and strengthening it.

By now, the Devils were a little over a hundred meters out, most already wielding spells in their hands.

I pulled the string, and a resounding boom drew the attention of most within the mountain range.

The artillery shell impacted the very top of the barrier - it being a miracle that it didn't completely miss - and shattered perhaps a fifth of it with the heavenly might of Holy Energy-infused engineering. A few devilish screams of agony echoed through the air, and perhaps one or two dozen of the Devils dropped like rocks, having been pierced by shrapnel, no doubt. The rest not directly in the path of the shot were fine, likely having erected some sort of defensive measure to defend themselves against the few errant shards of Blessed metals that hadn't strictly followed their original path.

I had taken five Devils out of commission in exchange for having another few hundred focus their hateful gazes upon me.

They went forth with a more hurried speed, no doubt worried there were other hidden aces we hadn't yet unleashed, and soon, they arrived.

"HEY, IOANN!" I heard.

I turned on my heels, seeing Joseph, crouching behind a defensive structure of earth, shout with his hands cupped around his mouth.

"I'D SKEDADDLE IF I WERE YOU!"

A dozen spells of varying nature - some of fire, some of ice, some of pure energy, most of a sufficiently worrying lethality - launched toward me from the approaching infernal mass, and with a leap of faith, I empowered myself with Holy Energy and slid underneath them, jumping straight off the mountain's edge.

I rolled through the ashen snow and crashed against a few rocks and other obstacles along my way before stabilizing myself, beginning to run rather than tumble down the steep slope. Three Devils pursued me with their gangly, static wings when I turned around, leaning to the left to dodge a blast of shadow.

When I turned back around to get my bearings, a sweeping wall of rock and dirt rose up in front of me at the same time that a bolt of Demonic Energy smashed into my back. I bore the first attack with the aid of my dented armor, ignoring the sensation of liquid flowing down my skin, and simply jumped over the merely three meter tall structure.

Having no time to think, I tumbled back into my undignified roll before stabilizing myself as soon as the chance arose, having to leap again to avoid a broad blast of freezing air from my left side. It originated from an androgynous, diabolical Devil whom I couldn't divine the gender of.

Abruptly, I halted in my tracks, straining my leg muscles with the sudden change in momentum, and leaped back after the hairs on the back of my neck tingled with the suspicion of an incoming attack.

Just as I collided with a blast of flame that set ablaze my cape and warped the decorative extremities of my gear, I crashed right into an incompetent female Devil and brought her down in my fall. I engaged in another ignoble tumble, this time with an unwilling, infernal partner, trying to keep hold on one of her wings before giving up so as to not break my arm.

A force barrier came into existence, this one right in front of me, and I smashed into it, cracking every inch of its structure yet not breaking through. I quickly used the slowing in momentum to right myself up, using the explosive power of my empowered musculature to shatter the force wall just in time to avoid an airbound tackle from a male Devil.

I scoured the landscape ahead of me for the female Devil I had cast down from that lofty perch in the sky, though while taking care to weave around the obstacles of earth that the abominable mockery of the proper state of man - the androgynous Devil - elevated around my feet. By now, the brown-haired, primly dressed female Devil had begun to take flight again, perhaps ten meters in front of and to the right of me.

I pumped more energy into my legs and vaulted toward her, grabbing her long, free-flowing hair and this time landing on my feet, continuing to bound forward.

The mountain we had positioned on was one of the larger ones. Despite the time already spent traversing its downhill, we weren't even halfway down to the awaiting forest and stream. The black snow had coated the landscape by now, making the area appear desolate and void of all life.

Void of all life other than the clamorous battle raging on the mountain above us, the shrieking form of the brunette Devil in my unrelenting clasp, and the two aggrieved Devils above still accosting me.

"UNHAND HER!" the purple-haired, male one yelled, crashing down five meters ahead of my path.

I did not slow for him, for no infidel impedes me. Swiftly and without remorse, I jerked the contemptible Devil in my grasp upward, bearing the wave of darkness she had been preparing that coursed into my flesh and drained half my mana. I used her as a battering ram - or, I suppose, shield - to crash into the vulgar oaf, keeping the swine from exerting the full force of his accursed brawn. He contented himself with wrenching the loathsome damsel away from me, thinking that he would get his chance to lay me low at another time.

He sprung up and two dozen meters ahead of me, flapping his wings and chucking a rock that sent reverberations through my shoulder. After it shattered into dusty pieces that impeded my sight with their fragmentations and powder, I was left unable to dodge the pillar of stone that erupted in my path, slamming into my gut and banishing any trace of oxygen from my lungs. My momentum in bounding down the steep hill worked against me.

I was left with a perfect view of the scene ahead of me, however.

The male Devil cradled the diabolical wench playing the victim - whose whimperings and groans nearly sent me into a blind rage - before his eyebrows shot up to the very extreme. He abruptly - instinctually - shoved her away from him and onto the dirt below, where she detonated with celestial wrath, bisected into two piles of entrails.

I had taken care to place a Holy Hand Grenade in her bosom, and seeing the expression of horror and shock on his unsightly visage, I cackled, my lungs refilling with air.

"'For the righteous falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall stumble in times of calamity,'" my voice rang out.

My viewing of the hateful glare on his face was interrupted by a prickling of the hairs on my neck, a sensation heralding a pummeling blow on the back of my skull, knocking my helmet off and stunning me. In my confusion, I was unable to dodge whatever attack came next, though I knew it knocked me to the side and, again, left an indentation in my armor. I felt blood flowing down my neck and an ungodly piercing sensation where I had been thumped, likely the result of a broken rib.

However, I was lucid enough to see that my remaining opponents' minds had been overrun and consumed by wrath at their ilk's demise, leaving room for crippling mistakes in coordination. The male Devil had lunged at me in fury, likely aiming to repatriate my soul to paradise, the fool, but the attack from the other creature - the androgyne Magician, though referring to such a novice as anything beyond an apprentice was disrespectful to the profession - blew me out of the way.

I bounded down the hill at a blistering speed, having to utilize the last scraps of Holy Energy in my Sacred Gear to keep my bones from breaking at every turn. Righting myself after a few seconds, I pulled another Holy Hand Grenade out of the folds of my satchel, finally noticing that my cape had been scattered to the winds after having turned to ash by one of the initial attacks, and I purloined every last bit of Holiness from it to replenish an acceptable amount of my reserves. I turned around to chuck it at one of the creatures as a distraction - there would be little to no damage without it harboring any Holy Energy - but my throw was disregarded in favor of leaping to the side, just avoiding the Devil who collided with nothing but air.

The philistine veered around faster than I'd seen him move yet, and in the midst of his spectacle, a blast of fire and earth simultaneously impacted my poor back yet again. The tear made in my armor at the start of the battle was, by now, an entire hole, and each spell from that abominable beast tailing me only widened it, wounding my flesh further. I was sent tumbling, and the vengeful Devil got his chance, crashing into my crumpled-up figure.

He gripped the joint of my left arm, his flesh scalded and seared beyond immediate repair by the soothing, pleasant consolation provided by my armor's Holiness - though for one of his ilk, it was nothing more than a wrathful rebuke. He let out a howl before turning my elbow to mush and recoiling. After releasing my own noisome exclamation of agony, I unholstered my pistol and shot him in the neck, the accompanying explosive enchantment blasting us apart from each other

However, it also set fire to the mustache I had let grow and coated my face with soot.

The Devil was left worse off than I, cradling his muscular nape while doing the flying equivalent of limping, veins bulging all over. While I stamped out the flames trying to spread to my nose hairs, that damnable, loathsome pest who had hardly shown its face the entire fight sent yet another spell at my back, this time glazing my armor in verglas and giving my shoulders frostburns. After unleashing its debauched, pitiful assault, the androgyne rushed to its comrade, propping him up with a shoulder and trying to administer aid.

I quickly regained my footing, having taken care of the blaze with the assistance of a simple water spell to keep it from pumping smoke into my lungs in place of oxygen, and lobbed my third and final Holy Hand Grenade at the duo.

Seeing my attack, the male Devil's eyes widened through the agony of having a Blessed bullet stuck in his windpipe, and in a final moment of lucidity, he shoved his would-be caregiver in the same manner as with the deceased female Devil.

He suffered much the same fate as that hideous brunette, a few of his steaming guts landing on his grounded comrade, who laid in an indent in the earth. I could tell it was feeling the wicked's equivalent of outrage or grief.

Nonetheless, I brought my pistol up, aiming at the depraved embodiment of human sin fifteen meters below, before another damnable pillar of earth blasted it out of my hand.

In fury, the Devil launched attack after attack.

It was a pitiful display. The creature was clearly a novice of Magic in every sense of the word, practically only knowing spells of basic elements. Without comrades to pressure me, even my injured form could dodge around while cradling my left arm's grievous wound, the enemy and final moments of the battle nothing of true note. I utilized my last embers of Holy Energy to empower my legs once the Devil came close enough, pulling a Blessed knife out of my boot.

Crashing down to earth with the Devil's face in my good hand, its nose galled by the knife in my grip pressing down, I brought the blade forth, ignored the barrage of stone pellets piercing into my armpit, and cleaved through the Devil's neck. I heard a foul gurgle for the first few seconds, and to be sure of the creature's demise, I fully decapitated it, sawing through the last scraps of flesh holding its skull to its body with notably more difficulty.

The blood pooled, flowing down and forming a strange coloration in combination with the ashen snow.

I held up its head as a trophy, instinctually orating inspiring words of scripture in the midst of heaving, pained breaths.

"'Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.'"

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The Devils weren't really incompetent (as, you know, they lost a 3v1 while being objectively superior beings, minus a critical weakness to Holy Energy) if you're given the context of their plan. The androgyne and female Devil both specialized in Magic, and the male Devil was a Rook. Obviously, they sensed the Holy Energy in MC's armor, so the plan was for the former two to somewhat disable him with spells so that the male Devil could properly utilize his strengths.

Of course, MC kinda screwed that up. It didn't help that the only Magic wielder alive past the first minute or two of the battle was a complete novice, a desperate one. But, nobody really cares, and neither do I - I just want to point out that I'm not writing actually brainless decisions.

And on a partially related side note, I'm going to try and include a few more Lars-esque characters in the future (fairly competent ones, in other words) so that MC doesn't only face random grunts that aren't completely dumb, but aren't especially smart or strong either.

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