Chapter 40

The demon was taking his time fucking about and trying to make his intro look as cool as possible, so Michael took the time to spitfire some questions to Keith.

"How the fuck is he here?"

"Well it looks to me like he's been summoned. Tricky stuff that is. I never had the talent for it."

"Yeah ok, but why this bastard!"

"How should I know? He's probably just someone who was linked to the dimension she came from. I wouldn't worry about him too much, dimensional travel is extremely difficult to do. I would say doing it perfectly was impossible, if you didn't exist that is."

"Then how is he here?"

"He's using the skeleton's soul like an anchor to this world. I'd reckon he'll be shoved back to his own world in about ten minutes give or take. However long it takes for the skeleton's soul to burn away under the pressure."

Suddenly the demon coughed loudly, causing Michael to turn his full attention back towards him.

"I hate to interrupt, but I'm on a schedule here and I was paid in advance so we'll need to get this started, but I have one question first."

The demon narrowed his eyes.

"What did you do with my throne?"

…

...

"Uhhhhhhhh."

Deciding it was best not to tell him he'd pawned it off to an Ikea, Michael let loose the bolts he'd had trailing him down the hall.

The demon scoffed as he sidestepped around the bolts that swarmed him like angry wasps. His body contorted as he dodged each one before he inevitably began to swat them out of the air using his spear.

He laughed as he approached Michael, "You've grown stronger since your defeat at my hands, but it won't be enough to save you."

"Mate, what are you on about? I won that fight."

With that Michael leapt into the swarming bolts and swung his warhammer at the demon, which he inevitably blocked, but that's what Michael was aiming for. Not to deal any direct damage, but to tie him up long enough for a bolt or two to hit him.

Two of the closest ones took the opportunity, nearing his head and where he'd assumed his heart was.

In one swift movement the demon kicked the floor, his foot digging into the ground and rocketing bits of concrete towards the walls which ricochet several times before intercepting the bolts, setting them off midair.

Keith chuckled, "Oh you're so fucked. Can you do that shit Michael, because I don't think you can."

"Shut up Keith."

Michael's heart beat in his chest, flowing the feeling of pity that still resided within it into his weapons. The skeleton had done what she'd done completely out of pity, sacrificing thousands just to satisfy that emotion.

That gave the heart some umph.

Every emotion could simply be converted into energy using the heart, but specific emotions would have different properties when used right.

Michael continued to pressure the demon amongst the swarm of bolts. Their weapons colliding several dozen times within the span of a few seconds, aided heavily by Michael rapidly teleporting mid-fight, until eventually the demon separated them by flinging himself down the hall.

He looked down at his spear where clear marks had been left by Michael's weapons, not from the force of his hits, but from where the metal had begun to corrode.

A grin appeared on the demon's face, "You're a tricky one, ain't ya? You'd be a tough fight for most opponents. Sadly you had the misfortune of meeting me not once, but twice. The person pulling the strings of your fate must truly hate you to give you an unwinnable fight."

"I already told you I won our first fight."

"Bullshit, you ran away like the thief you are! You send your opponent flying with an extremely lucky hit and don't even have the decency to wait until they get ba-"

Michael didn't wait for him to finish, instead opting to swing his mace and at the peak of momentum teleport behind the demon.

It fell with incredible speed, but the demon could perceive it, contorting his body to doge and quickly grabbing hold of the mace as it descended. The demon's skin rapidly began to peel on the hand that gripped the weapon, but it was easy enough for the creature to ignore as he held Michael in place and began to plunge his spear towards Michael's gut.

"Goddamnit!"

Michael wasn't about to let go of the weapon, and taking a spear to the gut probably wouldn't kill him, but it would definitely make this fight considerably harder.

So he did the next best thing.

Michael and the demon both disappeared with a flash of light and reappeared higher up in the facility. Specifically right in the path of the meat tentacles currently barging their way through the halls.

Upon the teleportation ending Michael and the demon were immediately slammed into by the wall of flesh. Well, not so much a wall but more of an amalgamation of thousands upon thousand of people that had been melted together.

It immediately slammed the two of them into the ground, sending cracks throughout the flooring.

Michael could feel the strain upon his body as the monster tried its very best to smear him into red paste upon the floor. A part of him knew that Keith would give him an unending amount of shit about this later, but for the moment his muffled yelling was all the mask could manage.

But he had a point, this was sort of an out of the frying pan and into the fire kinda situation, and by god the fire in this analogy sucked. He could already feel the random body parts making up the tentacle grabbing hold of him and begin to drag him towards the surface.

Michael grit his teeth, he really, really didn't want to do this, but there wasn't really a choice at this point.

Michael focused his mind, and immediately a feeling of immense weight fall upon him. It was overwhelming, like he was trying to bench press waaaaaay too much at once. But he kept pushing and little by little it began to budge. Through his concentration he could faintly hear the demon hacking away at the monster in an attempt to reach him.

His deal with the skeleton was simply to deliver him to the surface and make him accept the sun, but it seemed he still had a bone to pick. Which was good, it meant he was still touching the monster.

Michael pushed through the resistance, blood dripping from his nose and his eyes turning deeply bloodshot, until finally he felt something click and he laughed.

With a flash of light Michael's world shifted and the weight he'd felt was all but gone as he teleported himself, the behemoth and the demon several miles above the facility.

Air began to rush past him as he looked down to the world below, to a word obscured by darkness. He rapidly began to approach the ground, and up above he could see a wall of flesh with no end. Several dozen tentacles that had been scouring the facility flailed wildly, including the one that held onto him.

First order of business was getting off this wild ride before it hit the ground. Michael bit the inside of his cheek, forcing blood to flow from the wound at an accelerated rate until it finally got to a point he could use it.

The blood slithered from his mouth and stretched out several feet before forming the shape of a blade and slicing through the flesh around him in one swift motion, sending him free falling away from the death tentacle. A quick glance to his side revealed the demon kicking off from the monster and flying towards Michael, black wings unfurling from his back.

He was quick, likely being able to reach him within a couple seconds, but it wouldn't matter because he didn't have that long.

Michael grinned and flipped off the demon before disappearing with a flash of light and reappearing deep within the facility where the momentum from his fall violently threw him into the ground.

His blood splattered against the walls and several of his bones let out a sickening crunch upon impact, but all things considered it could have been worse.

...

"Ouch."

...

He took a second to lay on the ground, letting his body heal and thanking whatever god was listening for his ability to dampen pain, because this shit would've hurt otherwise.

He could feel his flesh and bones rapidly fixing themselves back into their proper positions and not long after he finally stood up.

And then immediately fell down again when the world erupted into deafening noise and violent shaking.

It seemed the meat monster had finally touched back down to earth.

Grinning, Michael stood back up and walked back over to the reinforced door before knocking it off its hinges with a single swing from his mace.

Inside was an assortment of buttons and switches that he had no real idea how to work, but luckily someone here did.

"Alright Keith, let's get this done."

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The process wasn't a long one, matter of fact it would've only taken a quick swipe of a card and a push of a button if he actually had a guards keycard.

Sadly there were no corpses in this facility, as they'd all most likely been dragged up into the light by monsters, so they'd have to take the long route where Keith slowly told him what to input into a consul until it finally believed that he was indeed a staff member with probable cause to blow up the building and all of its surroundings.

Keith honestly had a worrying amount of information in regards to this.

But hey, he was kinda evil after all.

Michael's train of thought was interrupted by the demon's voice echoing throughout the halls.

"You goddamn bastard, you think dropping a mountain on me can kill me? You're fucking dead!"

Luckily he was just about done, he just needed to flip a switch and click yes to an 'are you sure?' question about fourteen more times before the speakers finally came to life, filling the halls with crackly noise.

"Attention everyone! The on site omega warhead has been activated, detonation will commence in five minutes. Please exit the facility as quickly and calmly as possible."