The|MULTIVERSE

"Why? Why's he moving his chest like that?!" Wickels said nervously as the coarse fiend—who blocked their way—continued to bounce his beef pecs with beguiling cadence. As it turned out, they were but a jog away from their goal: the giant revolving mechanism of extravagant stone that he, Aethenius, and Deo once studied, the Heart of the Crux; the sole means to counteract Machiavel's invasion.

It awaited them, but the demon before them choked their destination. Becoming an intimidating wall of vulgarity that must be removed.

But can two me'ka and a rune mage stop this uncouth beast of the abyss?!

Baartimo stifled a nervous laugh. "Y-you s-sure its a...he?"

Wickels freaked. "Why don't YOU stand under it and see for yourself!"

"It suddenly appears that the two of you have lost touch of your traditional nerve," Aethenius pointed out. He never once cast his stern eyes off of the fiend, but the me'ka at his back was WAY too frightened, and that pressed the question as to where their courage has fled.

"He's right. We're better than this!" Wickels agreed and yanked himself out of his fear. He still used Aethenius as a meat shield, though. Just as Baartimo performed. If the demon was to strike, Aethenius would be the first to catch the blow. Selfish tactic. Smart tactic. A clever and prejudiced tactic that the both of them wouldn't think twice to not try—for they have several times before. "We've faced one of Ricven's nemesis bigger than this sado-maso-freak!"

The leather-laced demon chuckled comfortably in his muscle-flexed pose. "Are we done with the sweet talk? I'm SO ready to have my fun with you, three delicious dames!"

Aethenius glared thin. "I only await your initiative. I'm no fool."

"But it's only courteous for a lady to go first!" moaned the demon. "After all, it's the chivalrous thing to do."

Aethenius stayed firm. Not like before. Big or small, he assumed this one possessed the blink speed of a ginger bat out of hell—Noboo that was. Never in all said hell that Athenius would shoot first. Outrageously enough, the demon didn't bother to strike, either.

Then it happened.

In dashed the demon, from the side, in blink speed. He phased before their startled eyes as quick as he vanished, and at that moment—as the demon skid alongside them, chuckled cruel, and flogged his flaming cat-o'-nine for the three—Aethenius intervened. He intercepted the demon's whip, challenging the demon's advance. Wickels and Baartimo hugged the floor, tripping over another as Aethenius knocked them away.

When the two mustered a gaze, the rune mage hovered above them like a shield of magnificent magic. Aethenius' torrent of pale arcane light consumed the demon's inferno red cord, dazzling their grandstanding gaze as the stunning power of magic overwhelmed and pinned them in place beneath the two giants of light and darkness.

The demon shielded his whiskery eyes and groaned in nasty pleasure. "Ooh! YESSSS!"

Wickels exclaimed. "Ooh-I-don't like the sound of that!"

Swallowed by the intensity of Aethenius' unfathomable light, the brute of bondage squealed-astray. The mage trapped the demon in a turbulent white rapture and all that the demon could do was howl and wail in roasting bliss. The impressive bellow of throat-cloggy ugliness quaked the chamber like a rough orgasmic horn, rocking the whole chamber soprano style. Indeed. It caught the fiend off guard. Hell, it took Wickels and Baartimo by utter surprise.

Who would've thought that Athenius harbored so much magic within himself?

That was just a tip of the rune mage's iceberg.