. . .BOOOOOM!
The same explosion as before echoed into the black sky. The earth shook visibly and Rafel cursed under his breath.
"Smelly hybrid cunts."
Rafel never did like Minotaurs. You couldn't get a single one of them to wash. The half-man half-bull oddities were mercs sold in Hel's black market to the highest bidder. They would soon turn to murder their own master if his adversary doubled their asking price. But something about the giant entity in the middle told Rafel this group of Minotaurs weren't working for money this time.
He could see the warbling of the witch magic spread over the dome of invisible cobwebs that kept the beasts at bay.
Suddenly, spotting Rafel too, the man in the center of the lunging Minotaurs drew back his shawl and Rafel growled low at the frightful white eyes.
Typhon.
Typhon was known in Hel as the Lord of Monsters. His shapeshifting abilities were to infinity. He could be a dragon. A viper. A cricket. A grey wolf.
And what was worse was his capacity to mix them into each other; a malformation of a serpent with the head of a lion, or a cheetah with the tail of a scorpion.
Typhon was A-rank, Immortal, and like Rafel, lived for only one thing.
Blood.
He was Hel's Fixer.
Finally, a worthy adversary, Rafel mused.
"Let down the wards!" He called back to Cora.
She regarded Rafel a moment before doing his bidding. Lifting up her hands, blue light shimmered at her fingertips as the dome surrounding the manor crackled and dissolved.
Rafel's amber eyes already blazed in fiery delight, anticipation of blood-borne war making him grow a few inches taller to seven feet. "You know what to do with the Little Raven," he said again to Cora.
When the witch lifted her glowing hands again, this time a summoned whirlwind lifted Ravenna right into the air, carrying her across back to the Manor in a whistling speed and shutting the door behind her. Her banging could be heard. But the house wouldn't let her out.
"Good. The battleground of demons is no place for a mortal." Rafel said.
And together, himself and the other two women took their stance.
A Hell Lord. A Succubus. A Dark Witch.
From beyond, Typhon stretched out his monstrous spear, whose arrowhead poured inky black poison.
"BRING ME THEIR FUCKING HEADS!" His roar tore across the grounds to Rafel's ears who stood with ease.
The horde of Minotaurs immediately rushed out. They weren't two hundred. They were a thousand.
SCREEEEECH!
Their bullheads frothed as they leapt and skipped across the darkened frontyard of the Manor. The grass under their hooves were flattened to ash and noises of terror filled the air. It should be noon. Yet the sky was dark as twilight.
"Equip Sphinx armor, embedded in one Dragonscale chainmail." Rafel spoke to his System.
The Minotaurs were now upon them, and he dodged the first one's club, slapping the head right off the smelly fucker's neck, just as his system chimed and his body began to glow.
[Ding!]
[Sphinx armor and Dragonscale chainmail equipped!]
Rafel's transformation sent golden light spewing all across the battlefield, and behind him Corazón and Aya Naamah fought with the feral intensity of Valkyries. Aya's horns were out. She was full, untarnished blue. So was her long serpentine tail that slashed at the heads of incoming Minotaurs.
Her claws were long and black, and when she leaped up to the air, several severed limbs followed her descent.
Corazón was whispering. Words no one could understand. But she was covered from head to toe in a halo of ocean blue. Her eyes were streaked like an angel's. And liquid blue fire poured from her hands. Any of the huge Minotaurs stupid enough to go close to her haloed form was quickly absorbed in her dark light and incinerated on the spot.
No longer were the Manor's lawn clean and green.
"Surrender the girl, Hell child, and I promise I'll go easy on your corpse."
Rafel stumbled to his feet, seeing his opening now that Typhon was mostly normal. "You and I both know I won't," said Rafel.
And before Typhon could react, he equipped his Serpent Symbiote telepathically.
[Ding!]
[Hell Serpent Equipped!]
[Force: Cosmic Race.
Level: Ninth Lunar Circle.
Bite: Immobilizes Opponent for thirty seconds.]
With a burst of infernal red mana, the seemingly fragile tattoo on Rafel's back sprouted into the air, sweeping across for Typhon. Before the Lord of Monsters could react to the wicked swift assault, the great snake wrapped itself around his huge frame, breaking a few bones in the process.
And then came the bite.
The Hell serpent lunged, straight for Typhon's open neck.
The Lord of Monsters began to convulse, before going completely still. Rafel knew this was his moment and shouted behind to Corazón who was cleaving apart a Minotaur's head.
"Send up a Dark Shield!"
Once he saw the black hexagonal shadow rise up between he and the part of the Manor where Cora and Aya stood fighting, he smacked his hands together and shot out both fingers, calling upon his secret Hell art.
"Apollyon Plasma Torch!"
He screamed on top of his lungs. Instantly, he lit like a beacon, glowing and glowing until he was a star on the earth. Still, mana kept flowing into his body. Behind the shield, Cora had to avert her eyes as he burned and radiated like a supernova.
And then, just when he couldn't get any brighter, he exploded.
KABLAM!
It was a terrifying blast. It rocked Cora and Aya on their feet. The shattering light burst forward in all directions, incinerating everything with even a drop of demon's blood. It obliterated the remnant Minotaurs to passing ash. And when it passed over Typhon, still frozen from the Hell serpent's bite, it flayed the skin from his bones, exposing red raw muscle.
But the plasma beams kept shooting out from Rafel's glowing body, dousing the Lord of Monsters in wave after wave of celestial cosmic flame.
Eventually, nothing remained.
When the great light calmed, Typhon was gone, smothered to dust, and all that rose from where he stood were the stumps of his feet, cut cleanly by the plasma energy at the ankles.
Even his ash wasn't recovered as the wind drove it skyward into the forest.
It was a complete annihilation in the battlefield.
No adversary remained.
The dark skies soon began to clear and slivers of sunlight pierced through the cold gloom.
The moment Cora was certain all of the plasma had radiated off the estate, she hurriedly lowered the shield and ran for the deep burned crater where she hoped her Earl still was. She found Rafel in the black hole, surrounded by heaps of hissing Minotaur flesh, burned to a crisp. His Grace was naked.
If not that he had being birthed from a pool of Hellfire himself, he too would be ash.
But he was whole. Healthy. Pale. And beautiful. His red hair swarmed down his neck and torso and Cora admired him a moment.
Aya was quick to appear, in company of Ravenna who stretched out a long black cloak to Cora. The silver-haired witch kneeled beside him and gently placed the robe over Rafel's shoulders. His skin was hot to the touch and nearly singed her palms.
"My Lord?" She moved forward to meet Rafel's eyes. "You did it, Typhon's gone."
Rafel lifted his amber eyes with a glowing smile that made all three women blush. His skin still sparkled with residual mana and Ravenna couldn't help ogling his nudity.
"No," said Rafel. "We did it."