84 On the Backfoot (1)

- Lucifer, Kahvis, Jahkar, Baastra -

Lucifer couldn't believe he had lost one of his hands. He needed to get to Kahvis immediately.

"Scared Prince?" Baastra smiled.

"You mean now that it's a fair fight?" Lucifer retorted.

Baastra's face twisted in anger. He didn't care how he won, just that he did. He flew towards Lucifer.

Kahvis was on the ground dealing with the increasing amount of demons. They had seen Baastra fly into the battle and knew they needed to help Lucifer sooner rather than later.

Baastra used his right hand to create a whip of flame while using the left to shoot orbs at Lucifer. He had a massive advantage that he wasn't going to waste.

Lucifer returned his wings and fell out of the sky the moment Baastra started flying towards him. Fighting in the air wouldn't be to his advantage with only one hand. He ran towards where he saw Kahvis fighting while doing his best to lessen the damage from Baastra.

Jahkar was on the ground. He was completely depleted and barely able to move. He was so weak in his current state that he could be killed by a human. He saw his brother's body and closed his eyes. He needed to get to safety. There was no point in getting angry when he was in no position to do anything.

Baastra hounded Lucifer from the skies. He felt no disappointment in the way this fight was going. His goal was always to kill the Prince, not have a fair duel.

Lucifer did his best to fight back against Baastra. He could handle the flame whip but the explosive orbs were a constant source of damage. He hated that Baastra was actually being clever and attacking with two different sources of fire. He wouldn't make it to Kahvis at this rate. He only had one, maybe two options.

'Focus,' Lucifer rapidly chanted in his head.

Lucifer shot a breath of flame at Baastra's explosive orbs while weaving the flame whip around him. One of the orb's explosions caught him in the mouth.

'FUCK!' He screamed in his mind.

Lucifer had one last option, one that he had wanted to avoid at all costs. He conjured his wings and used them as a shield against Baastra's attacks as he ran. The constant reformation of his wings was burning his mana at an extreme rate. Any normal angel would have been depleted almost instantly.

Baastra couldn't believe what he was seeing. He wasn't aware that Lucifer couldn't keep using the wings as a shield.

Lucifer put his hand behind him. He needed to find an opening where he could blast himself towards Kahvis. He had been timing Baastra's attacks in his head, waiting for the moment he could return his wings.

'Now!'

Lucifer returned his wings and shot himself forward into the crowd of demons that were surrounding Kahvis. He used his flame breath to clear a path as he landed.

Kahvis pushed through the remaining demons with their magic and ran up to Lucifer.

"Hann firth," Lucifer held up his stump to Kahvis.

"Sorry," Kahvis said as they restored Lucifer's hand in an instant.

The agony of having a limb regrown in an instant paralyzed Lucifer for a second. This was one of the most painful things he had experienced, freezing him in place.

"MOVE!" Baastra yelled at the demons surrounding Kahvis and Lucifer.

Baastra put his left hand forward. He blasted a stream of fire so powerful he was bound to kill some of his own with friendly fire.

Lucifer looked up at the flames. He understood Baastra's style of fighting now.

"Orbs..." He said to Kahvis.

Kahvis understood the message and used wind magic to stop the fire. The orbs Baastra was shooting with his right hand were caught, exploding in the middle of the two clashing elements. Kahvis went to heal Lucifer's mouth the moment the explosion happened.

The pain was substantial but manageable. Lucifer looked up at Baastra.

"Now then..." He mumbled.

Lucifer put both hands towards Baastra.

'Catch this!' Lucifer thought as blue flames roared from his hands.

'Blue fire?' Baastra questioned.

"DODSH IT!" Jahkar yelled at Baastra.

After hearing Jahkar's scream, something in Baastra's mind told him to avoid the attack. The heat of the flames surprised him. Had he tried to weave the fire he would have further burnt his arms.

Lucifer flew up to meet Baastra.

"G-"

Lucifer interrupted Baastra with a blast of flame. He was done bantering.

Baastra weaved the flames away with a smile.

Kahvis was looking around for Jahkar as Lucifer and Baastra started their dogfight above. They were trying to find the demon, using the previous shout to find him. They found the smiling demon crawling away.

"Ple-" Jahkar said before Kahvis put a bolt through their head.

- Lucifer, Kahvis, Baastra -

Lucifer and Baastra's aerial battle continued with no clear winner. Baastra was clearly superior to Jahkar in his ability to weave fire magic. He was matching Lucifer blow for blow.

Lucifer couldn't find an opening to finish Baastra off. The demon was maintaining their distance, so closing in with his dagger wasn't an option. Simply overpowering them with blue fire wouldn't work either since they were both flying and avoiding the attack would be simple.

Jahkar's warning had been invaluable to Baastra. It gave him a heads up on Lucifer's trump card. Now it was simply a battle of mana and magic weaving. He was confident he could win, eventually.

Kahvis continued their trimming of the demons' numbers on the ground. Their main priority was still keeping the lightning users down so Lucifer could fight without having to worry about being shot out of the sky. This objective went both ways, unfortunately, since it meant they couldn't stop to shoot Baastra down.

The neverending wave of demons was creating a growing concern for Kahvis. They knew the numbers were against them but this seemed like more than what they should have been dealing with. The sight of more curled-horn demons joining sent a warning to their mind. They ran out of the crowd of demons, covering themselves with stone armor as they moved.

Kahvis assisted their speed with wind magic and threw an illusion up into the sky near Lucifer. They played their voice through it as loudly as they could.

"Baal's army is coming!"

Lucifer and Baastra both heard the illusion. Lucifer knew he needed to leave.

Baastra saw his opportunity and got more aggressive against Lucifer. If he could pin the Prince's movement until Lord Baal arrived it would give him another chance to get his kill.

Kahvis couldn't assist Lucifer. They were being pursued by the demons they had just run away from.

- Lucifer, Baal, Urdros, Kahvis, Baastra -

Baal and Urdros entered the battlefield and rushed towards Kahvis. They both noticed Molakar's and Jahkar's bodies.

"Weaklings," Baal insulted as he ran towards Kahvis.

Kahvis put both hands on the ground. They took a deep breath as the magics of their pursuers came towards them.

Lucifer and Baastra could feel the vibrations of what Kahvis was doing. A large wave of stone spikes shot up from the ground towards the demon army.

Baal, stone breaking against his black skin that was turning back to red, laughed.

"You okay, Urdros?" He turned to his commander.

"Fine, sir," Urdros responded as stone fell around him.

Kahvis wasn't done. They filled the stone with a mix of fire and lightning magic, causing the spikes to explode into shrapnel. Their breathing got heavy as they looked up from their attack.

Lucifer knew that Kahvis must have seen either Baal or Moloch approaching for them to use so much mana. He needed to get Baastra off of him now but he still couldn't manage it.

Kahvis looked at the figure of Baal approaching them.

'Death...' They thought.

- Death, Lucifer, Kahvis, Moloch, Baal, Urdros, Baastra -

Death rode onto the battlefield as fast as he could with Moloch trailing behind him. He could see how desperate the situation was getting for Lucifer and Kahvis. He conjured his scythe and tore his way through the demons in his way.

The sound of Hrom's approach sent a chill down Baal and Urdros's spines.

Death didn't stop to attack Baal or Urdros. Instead, he kept riding towards a heavily breathing Kahvis. He brought Hrom to a stop.

"Assist Lucifer, I'll cover you," He ordered Kahvis.

Kahvis nodded their head. They channeled lightning in their right arm and took aim at Baastra.

"DON'T LET THE UNKNOWN FIRE!" Baal commanded.

The demons flooded towards Kahvis who was taking a long time to line up their shot.

Death took a familiar stance as he put both his hands on his scythe and reared back.

"RUN AWAY!" Urdros shouted.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Baal grabbed Urdros by his horn.

["DIE!"] Death shouted.

Baal watched as a large wave of demons disappeared into nothingness. He couldn't believe what he had just seen.

Baastra and Lucifer were still in a stalemate in the air until Kahvis's bolt hit Baastra across the chest.

Lucifer took the chance and flew down to Death and Kahvis.

"GO!" He shouted.

The three got onto Hrom and rode off.

Moloch appeared shortly after, still holding the mass of accrued blood.

"HOW COULD YOU LET THEM GET AWAY?!" Moloch shouted at a hunched Baal.

"You didn't see it..." Baal responded quietly. "His stories...I thought they were myths..."

Moloch couldn't believe what he was seeing. He let most of the blood hit the ground behind him as he spoke to Baal.

"We need to finish this," He told Baal. "We can't let them get away with this."

"Right," Baal said. "TIME TO KILL THE RIDER AND THE PRINCE!" He shouted as loudly as he could.

Urdros knew his lord was acting tough. He looked around at the pile of burnt demon corpses. He tried to ignore the bodies of Molakar and Jahkar that he saw as he ran with Baal. Even though he hadn't cared for Moloch's commanders, he couldn't help the feeling that he might be next.

Kahvis was barely holding onto Lucifer as the three rode back into Bolotano.

"Sorry for missing..." They said.

"It's fine," Lucifer responded. "What happened on your side?" He asked Death.

Death informed them of how his battle had gone, leaving out the part where he lost control of Hrom.

- Satan -

"Finally, time to make our move!" Satan said. "I hope they're not already dead."