Page 167

But when he moved, a sharp pain jolted up his abdomen. He crashed to one knee, grinding his molars to shove down a groan. Even if his spiritual energy was abundant, his body was still mortal, still weak from bleeding out and suffering near-fatal injuries. And he’d exhausted too much of his strength while rampaging around in anger. The aftermath of it was just catching up to him now.

His gaze flickered toward Xen and Knox, but their figures had moved somewhere far beyond the forest. The clang of a weapon was still audible from a distance and the sparks of the demonic energy were still blasting into the night sky, but they remained out of sight.

Evan clutched his throbbing abdomen and slowly straightened. Breathing hard yet his chin held up.

The youth’s voice rang in his head.“Don’t give up, Evan.”

I won’t. Not yet. Not so soon.

Assuming a defensive stance, he made to draw out every last bit of his strength to summon a spiritual blast that could wipe out the whole clearing. Most of the cult members had been turned to ash or fled, so all that remained were demons. Destroying the whole area would eradicate the bigger part of the problem.

Blood pooled in his mouth and Evan swallowed it, gathering spiritual energy in his trembling palms.

The Hellguards sensed the pause in his movements, the scent of blood oozing from him, and didn’t waste any time before launching an attack. All at once.

A dozen rock structures lunging at a tiny, bleeding human. The sight would have been hilarious to Evan if he wasn’t the said bleeding human.

But even as several rock fists sped towards him, and the earth cracked beneath his feet, his resolve didn’t waver. He conjured a ball of spiritual light in his palm when—

Whoosh!

Between one blink of an eye and the next, Evan was grabbed, clutched into a warm wet cavity, and whipped away from the midst of the circle of demons. The action was so fluid that the sightless Hellguards didn’t detect it and started pulverizing the ground where their target once stood.

Eyes wide and suspended in the air, Evan was like a frozen lump of meat hanging on a hook. He swung from his middle which was snugly caught between something sharp. Warm puffs of breaths grazed his back and wetness soaked the back of his shirt. Something coiled behind him, slithering like a snake. A tongue.

Evan didn’t dare peek over his shoulder.

When the thing had grabbed him, he wasn’t able to see much because of its quick speed. All he caught was a glimpse of red eyes.

Specifically,threeeyes.

Evan gulped as he hung from the jaws of the three-eyed hound. It’s wet tongue soaking the back of his clothes. The hound growled at some approaching demons, then stomped on them, crushing them to a bloody pulp. The seven spiky tails pierced through and ripped apart the demonic tongues trying to sneak up on it.

It took Evan a second to remember that this horror-inducing creature was on his side. But his muscles remained tightly coiled.

With a deep inhale, Evan threw a cautionary glance at the huge crimson eye on his left. “Uh, thanks…for that. But could you let me down for a—”

The hound growled.

“Okay. Never mind.”

Evan continued to hang like frozen meat from a hook.

It wasn’t so bad, actually. He could catch his breath and watch as the Hellguards aimlessly squashed the ground where he had been standing, while the hound stomped over any approaching demons. And the spirits…

Evan’s breath hitched.

As soon as he had weakened, he’d drawn all his remaining strength to create a ball of spiritual energy in his palm. But the three-eyed hound had snatched him away in a rush and that ball of energy had shot out from his hand towards the unknown.

Yet, out of all the places it could’ve aimed at, it had landed on the barrier around the Tomb of Ascension.

The barrier was meant to protect but that ball of energy was meant to annihilate the whole forest clearing in one blast. As the two light sources clashed, the ball of attack was naturally stronger, fueled by Evan’s desperation to fight the Hellguards and anger at being weak.

A huge hole gaped open in the barrier.

Sensing the crack, the resentful spirits once again dashed forward, jumping through the hole, towards the Hellfire.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Evan’s eyes blazed blue as he tried to fix the hole before more spirits jumped in. Spiritual light coursed through his body and pumped through his veins, but as a result, blood spurted from his mouth, his weak body wavering over its limits.