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With a chuckle, Delos was back to his bubbly self. He snapped his fingers behind his back, and the ropes binding his upper body loosened and dropped around his hips.

Evan’s mouth gaped open when Delos reached forward and softly tugged at the Thousand Knots binding his wrist. The spell-bound rope, sizzled and turned to ash without so much as a spark scorching Evan’s wrist.

It took him a few seconds to look away from his free hands to the crystal blue eyes smiling at him. “You could’ve done that all this time? Why didn’t you?”

Delos winked. “Where’s the fun in that? Come on, let’s go.”

As he grabbed Evan and started dragging him in the opposite direction from the Tomb of Ascension, Evan frowned. “Wait, where are we going? I’m not leaving without Aaron.”

“We’re not escaping,” Delos led the way, weaving effortlessly through the overgrown forest. “We’re going to get reindorsement.”

Evan face-palmed himself. “Reinforcement?”

“Exactly.”

As they moved through the forest, lightning roared across the sky again. The distant rumble of the gongs vibrated across Evan’s skin. Owls hooted, beasts howled in the depths of the woods, and the trees swayed aggressively, their crowns almost grazing the ground. It seemed as though the forest had come alive.

“What is happening?”

Delos slightly quickened his pace. “Keep an eye out. The forest will try to stop us from leaving.”

“Why?”

Before Delos could respond, something leapt out of the darkness ahead of them, and the pair came to an abrupt halt. Dirt and dry leaves flew into their faces.

Evan coughed, waving his hands through the dust. When his vision cleared, his heart leapt up his throat. “Holy f-fuck…”

He was looking at… Was that a dog?

No, a wolf maybe.

No, no, no. It wasn’t an animal from this world at all.

The dog-like creature towered at over twenty feet, baring a maw full of razor-sharp fangs that were each longer than Evan’s forearm. Two scarlet eyes glowed in its face like molten lava.And as if that wasn’t horrifying enough, a third eye cracked open vertically in the center of its forehead.

A low growl rumbled in its throat as the hound prowled forward, its tails swishing threateningly behind it.

Yes,tails. Not one, or two. Not even five.

Seven unnaturally long tails danced in a haunting rhythm behind the beast, each stretching over six feet, and ending in a venomous spike.

If there ever was a visual representation of “devil’s pet,” this would be it.

Evan motionlessly stared at the hound, Delos equally still beside him. Slowly they started backing away—

Thump!

The pair spun around and craned their necks once again, coming face-to-face with another giant, humanoid structure.

Thump. Thump.

By now, Evan was familiar with that noise.

Rocks tumbled from the body of the creature, raining boulders as its steps quaked the earth.

Just what was missing. A Hellguard.

“Stay calm,” Evan whispered, glancing between the incredibly sharp-eared demon and the three-eyed hound. “Just stay calm.”