2 The Planetarium

Lai took a look at the demon and sized it up. It stood near twice as tall as a regular man and was three times as wide. It didn't look fast, but it damn well looked like it could tear a regular person in two. Its blubbery skin looked surprisingly solid, a pale pink like that of an infant's, but far thicker, like the hide of a wild animal. Blunt force would do nothing to it.

It twisted and turned towards Lai, indicating that it could feel its way around despite lacking a head and the eyes that would come with one, and its massive belly-mouth, lined as it was with teeth long and sharp like swords, was more than eager to get to a fine chomping.

In contrast, Lai had on a pair of black slacks and a blue dress shirt. He looked nice, but that wouldn't help him here.

With a start, the demon grunted and let go of the ceiling, launching itself forward towards Lai. The floor shook as it landed with a solid thump, and it immediately started to lurch forwards, its belly fat pooling across the floor like slime.

"Kaunaz!"

Haley had gained enough composure to start putting her family name to work. With a trembling finger, she'd drawn a rune in the air. The ancient letter glowed crimson before projecting a torrent of flame that gushed forwards in a brilliant and bright nova of sunset orange and blood red.

Lai ducked in anticipation for flames to roll over the fat demon and continue flowing past it, but things didn't go so smoothly. The demon thrust out one of its chubby arms in a surprisingly quick reflex. Its palm had yet another mouth centered on it, and it inhaled, drawing in the flames like a vacuum.

That brilliant burst of fire, large enough to have almost covered the whole living room – a true testament to Haley's raw talent – vanished into the demon's hand like it was being drained into a black hole.

"Magic resistance," said Lai, loud enough that Haley could hear.

Demons strong enough to obtain a physical form always had some form of magic resistance, and they had a particular resistance to human-sourced magic, known as they were for swindling humans and granting them magic in the first place. A sorcerer of Haley's caliber was useless against it. Needed someone from the church to do anything about this.

"Haley, I want you to prep a barrier. Any kind of shield. Make it big enough for two of us."

"Huh!?"

"It'll work out," said Lai, trying to project his voice as forcefully and convincingly as possible. "Just trust me."

Lai took the sight of Haley drawing up a circle of runes around her as a yes and put his plan into motion.

The demon grunted as it surged forwards, faster than before, empowered by the magic it had feasted on. Still slow enough that Lai had an easy time maneuvering around it, rolling under one of its clumsy swings. While right under the monster, Lai shoved a hand into his own chest. His hand disappeared, sinking into his chest as if he'd pushed it underwater.

He reached inside, to the one thing that made him so unique among sorcerers, the one thing that gave him the qualifications necessary to be a Sentry. The Planetarium, his singular ability, his personal world, an entire reality hosted within him. And from there, he didn't take out a wand or stave or staff.

He took out a grenade, pulled the pin, and rolled it under the fat bastard. The demon didn't sense any magic from the trinket, so it ignored it, instead deciding to try swiping at Lai again.

Once more, Lai evaded, this time sprinting towards Haley.

"Shield! Now!"

Haley gave a quick nod and slammed a palm to the floor. The ring of runes around her lighted up in a dazzling display of multi-colored letters, and Lai managed to get inside it right as the grenade exploded.

The explosion was muffled, not all that loud, honestly. Hollywood shows grenade explosions like they're artillery blasts, gouging out big, smoking holes in the ground, but really, they didn't pack that much of an oomph. It was the flying shrapnel that was really dangerous, and that was what Lai needed this barrier for.

Lai watched as bits and pieces of shrapnel pittered and pattered against the forcefield Haley had erected. He looked at the smoke cloud that rose up from beneath the demon, keeping a close eye as it died down.

Soon enough, he saw the demon's silhouette.

Its lower half had been blasted away by the grenade, essentially tearing its stomach mouth in half. A trail of overgrown entrails dangled behind it as it still moved towards Lai and Haley with a deranged ferocity, using its arms to push itself forward.

"Shit," said Lai. "Wasn't enough to take the thing out. And not just that, look-"

The demon was regenerating, and rapidly at that too. Its bleeding had already stopped, and new flesh, soft and pink, had started bubbling up from its wound.

Haley tapped the barrier and put it down, and before Lai could question her, she once more wrote runes in the air. One was familiar – the fire spell she'd used before, but now there was another letter beside it.

"Purs-Kaunaz!" she shouted, ejecting a stream of ghostly green fire.

The demon couldn't raise its arms to absorb the fire this time, occupied as they were with pushing its sizable bulk forward. The fire washed over its bloated body, sizzling it like acid. The creature roared from its half mouth, but the fire burned its throat, cutting off its screams mid-way.

"Cursed fire?" said Lai. "To stop its healing?"

Haley nodded, her breathing quick and nervous.

"You're quick on your feet." Lai admired her ability to stand here and fight despite her lack of experience in any life or death situations. He'd have to revise his initial impressions of her. "You'd make a better sentry than me with the right training."

"If this is what Sentries do," said Haley with a faint smile. "Then I don't want the job."

"True, the pay isn't all that great."

Lai shrugged and made a careful advance, watching to see if the demon melted down properly. If it took enough damage, it should lose its physical form and go back to whatever chaotic plane of existence it hailed from, but the process was slower than usual.

Which is when Lai noticed that the demon wasn't taking damage from the fire any longer. Its skin had stopped bubbling, melting, and instead it stretched taut, bathing in the fire's magical energies, feeding on it. Its regeneration starting kicking in again despite the fire lighting up every inch of its body.

"What's going on?" remarked Haley. "Should I use another spell against it? Poisonous fire?"

"No." Lai reached into his pocket and pulled another grenade from his inner world. "It has adaptive resistance – fire's nothing to it anymore. Magical fire, that is."

He unpinned another grenade and tossed it forwards, expecting that to end the foul creature, but he didn't expect the demon to actually grab the damn thing and toss it back. It rolled forwards, right between Lai and Haley.

She stared at it with wide open eyes, but Lai was quick to react. He crouched over the grenade and slammed his hand against it. The grenade slid into his hand, disappearing into that same vortex of space-time that he'd withdrawn it from.

Lai hadn't had time to decide where that grenade went, but it most likely had gone to his armory, the last place where he'd taken things from, where he kept all his weapons. With how many explosives there were, he figured most everything there was toast.

"Well shit," Lai said under his breath. All of those weapons had costed a very heavy penny.

The demon didn't care much for Lai's disappointment, and it started standing up again, shambling towards the duo. If it even got close to them now, the green fire coating its body would probably burn them too.

"Do you have any spells you can use?" stammered out Haley. She looked around the flat. "This is your base, right? Do you have any artifacts? Any traps? Weapons?"

"A few potions, but I haven't had time to make anything recently." Lai coughed into his hand. That was a lie. He hadn't made anything recently because he figured he didn't have to do anything. He hadn't done anything as a Sentry for five whole years – this demon had caught him with his pants right down. "As for spells, well, I'm a Dud."

"A dud!? A dud!?" Haley breathed in hard, trying to control her emotions.

Lai couldn't blame her. Duds were the rare breed of sorcerer that didn't have an affinity for any magical element. Talentless and doomed to be miserable, the lot of them. Not someone you'd expect to be put into a position to kill other sorcerers.

"Calm down," said Lai, conjuring up his deepest and most convincing voice despite how screwed he felt he was.

Haley bit her lip and nodded, keeping her eyes glued to the approaching demon.

Lai watched as the demon circled around the hole it had made coming up here. It was slow, unused to the new flesh it had regenerated. He sneaked a glance to his kitchen and tried remembering the various potion ingredients he had left.

All useless though – none of them were processed into potions, and in the first place, he only knew how to make basic healing and strengthening ones. Neither would help here.

But the basic components for them, all those herbs that symbolized strengthening, reinforcement, amplification – they were still there, and, come to think of it, that was all Lai needed.

"Haley, I want you to follow my every word." Lai started moving towards the kitchen. As expected, the demon shifted its attention to him. "Blast a hole in the wall. It should lead outside. We're going to run."

"Are you insane!?" said Haley. "Are we running!? And we're on the tenth floor – if we jump, we're dead."

"I'm trusting you!" said Lai as he made a mad dash to the kitchen, close to where the demon was.

They were going to run, yes, but not before taking this demon out. If left to its devices, it'd just keep growing stronger and stronger, gaining more and more resistances until nothing could handle it. At that point, the least of Lai's concerns was losing his job as a Sentry. The damn thing would massacre the whole city before the Court of Keys could bring in a more competent sorcerer to deal with it.

Lai sprinted behind kitchen counter with the demon right across it, like they were playing a game of very odd tag. It roared as it swung an arm towards Lai's head from across the counter. Lai ducked, letting the heavy arm swerve past him. While ducking, he opened the cabinets of his sink to see several bottles packed with herbs and powders of different kinds.

With a quick swipe, Lai gathered as many of them under his arm as he could and rolled backwards. He narrowly avoided the demon slamming down on the counter with both its arms, splitting the metal and wood sink cleanly in two. The broken piping spurted water hap-hazardly, sizzling as it came into contact with the demon's fire-wreathed body.

Lai checked how many bottles he had. Three. Good enough. He shattered them across the floor and gathered the herbs and mosses together. All plants that symbolized growth, amplification, and expansion – all perfect ingredients for a strengthening mixture. But he didn't want a potion right now.

The demon pushed past the counter with raw strength, flattening it under its sheer weight. Lai moved quickly, not wasting a single motion, not even wasting a breath. He wadded up the herbs and put it against his palm. From his inner world, he dropped out another grenade.

Not a regular one – all of those had blown up already. But a thermite grenade, a type of explosive that didn't really explode, but instead superheated, melting a hole into enemy fortifications. Could be tossed into tank barrels to melt them straight off. Made for destroying bunkers and structures, not enemies – so he'd kept these in a different place from his other more straightforward explosives and weapons in his inner world.

He unpinned the grenade and watched as a streak of sparks started sputtering from its top. With another hand, he wrapped the herbs around the grenade and looked up to see the demon standing over him, its mouth wide open and ready to chomp down.

"Here ya go," said Lai as he tossed the incendiary grenade into the creature's maw.

The demon paused for a second, it's mouth open in some semblance of shock as it tried to figure out what it had just eaten. And oh boy, had it eaten a deadly mixture. A thermite grenade didn't explode, but it burned hot – 4000 degrees Fahrenheit. And combined with all those herbs that amplified, strengthened, and expanded, and that little not exploding drawback was more than covered for.

Lai smiled at the creature's confusion and capitalized on it, swerving past it and running full speed towards Haely.

She had cut out a neat hole in his flat, leading out to the night and a ten story drop. Just what he needed.

Lai grabbed her arm and pushed her close to himself. Before she could protest, he jumped, plummeting into the night.