Chapter 224: The First Abyss (III): Just Passing By

The air was blistering hot but at the same time the eerie feeling that Rezar had been feeling all this while was even thicker. It came of as heat, but it was anything as that. The feeling literally made Rezar feel as if someone or something was scraping their claws over his skin. He shuddered as he began to pick his away against the cracked earth, heading towards the black mountain and the black castle in the distance. From their position it would probably take them a solid 30 to 60 minutes of walking to get to the castle, it was a little way up the mountain and scaling it might be a bit difficult, especially if they didn't want to be discovered by the swarms of demons currently circling the mountain like an eldritch rain cloud of living beasts.

Between them and the mountain was a field cracked and baked black by the flames and lava that seemed to run beneath it, in some areas, the earth was a deep rustic red, but Rezar could smell it clearly, and he knew it wasn't red because of the flames or some special properties, it was red because of the blood that has been so soaked into it, the soil's natural color had become the shade of red they could see. There were jagged stalagmites popping up out of earth like the horns and fangs of some ancient demon, and on the bodies of the rocks red veins pulsing with flames could be seen.

Frankly speaking it was as if there was either they were on the body of colossal creature, or quite frankly this entire so called first circle was a living creature on its own, or was alive in some way. That made this place even more creepy, but Rezar couldn't back out now. He had already said he was going to check out the mountain and he had no idea how much his reputation in front of his followers would plummet if he backed down now. Besides he was just going to check it out, it was not as if he was going to invade or blow the place up.

The pitch black stalagmites were really large, they reached a minimum height of three meters and a width of about four to six meters, the larger ones were as tall as sixteen meters and about seven to eight meters wide affording them cover and protection from any demon that would have seen them coming. This was like a forest of red veined stalagmites, it would have been like a maze, but thankfully the mountain in the distance was like a beacon calling out to them, so there was probably no way for them to get lost or encounter any sort of problems, at least that was what they though until they rounded a corner and came face to face with about a dozen demons with grey rock like skin.

The two groups paused for a second, each surprised by the sudden appearance of the other without any sort of prior warning. The grey rock demons as Rezar immediately coined them, had cracks on their skin like a land that has been parched of water and completely drained dry, they had horns that were straight and pointed like those of a unicorn and it was pointed straight into the air. They had hind legs, however instead of the expected cloven foot like those of a minotaur, what they had was some sort of balled feet, like single tired roller blades, and from what he could see, Rezar didn't doubt that these demons were quite fast.

"Sorry for disturbing you guys, we were just passing through." Rezar said to them as he moved his hands to his back where Vita Gratia was sheathed in her Khophesh form.

Of course just out rightly attacking them would have been seen as discriminatory on Rezar's part, he would have been no different from colonizers the first time they set foot in Africa, however considering they were cannibalizing one of their own kind, and the poor demon was still alive, it wouldn't be too farfetched to say that there was no way they were talking their way out of this one. And the rather nasty and predatory grins on the Grey rock demons oblong shaped heads were all the proof they needed; the razor sharp teeth also drove the deal home.

*Swrrriiiiririiririririr *

The sounds their balled feet made when they moved on the earth was annoying, and considering they were quite fast it would leave most people without sufficient time to react to the speeding Grey rock demons and their rapidly approaching horns. But Rezar was not most people, he shifted to the side using his [Bullet Time] skill, and just in time too as he swung one of Vita Gratia's blades, decapitating the heads of one of the Grey rock demons, and stabbing the other into the side of another demon and pulling it out just as they rushed past him.

One headless demon crashed into a stalagmite, smashing the structure to bits and spilling boiling hot lava over his headless body, but Rezar didn't thin k he minded that much, he was already dead anyway so that's not too bad. The demon that got a Khophesh to the side could only roll forwards for a few meters before it crashed to the ground holding its side; with copious amounts of blood pouring out. It was red, just like every other blood, which meant they could be quite tasty, a delicacy has not had a chance of tasting before. Rezar was pulled out of his thoughts of how tasty demon blood might be when Screet swept his staff up in an arc, smashing the jaw of another approaching rock demon.

Kitagawa's tails flashed past, it was like a trap all of its own as the approaching grey demons Impaled themselves one by one on the tails. Tristian stayed back, completely content to watch everyone do the hard work, of course that could be mainly due to the fact that there was no enemy for him to take care of, as in seconds all of the grey rock demons had been taken care of.

"Well that's was a bump in the road; hehehehe, onward and upwards my soldiers! We have a mountain to check out, and maybe more demons to fuck up!"