These demonic beasts possessed a feral martial instinct that far eclipsed the demon minion. Although they were as sadistic as any spawn of the abyss, they were not witless. The moment they sensed the tide of slaughter turning against them, they would flee—only to lead a monstrous horde of the Demon Legion back to consume their quarry. This was their craven way: the pack-logic of the hyena.
Seraph narrowed his eyes, taking to the sky with the predatory grace of a raptor. The young magis banked around a nearby spire, cutting a swathe through the air to intercept the beast with a speed that mocked its frantic escape.
The Crawler scrambled across the rooftops, its limbs a blur of frantic motion, only to find the enigmatic human suddenly looming in its path, radiating a crushing aura of mageia. The young man hovered amidst the gale, the Rubyflame Sceptre levelled at the retreating beast like a finger of doom.
In a desperate gambit, the Crawler kicked off the masonry with such force the bricks detonated into dust. It corkscrewed through the air, changing its vector with a speed that outpaced the human eye.
Yet the flame-red Sceptre tracked its every contortion, as relentless and unforgiving as a vengeful wraith.
"Flamus Piercingspear!" Seraph intoned, the incantation sharp and clinical.
[VREEE-EEEE—!]
A lance of solidified solar fire ignited and was unleashed. The sound of it tearing through the atmosphere was a high-pitched, terrifying shriek, reminiscent of a gargantuan ballista bolt. The flare of the flame strobed across the sky, moving with a celerity that far surpassed any spell he had previously cast.
[SKREEEE-AUGH!]
The mageia armament impaled the beast with the celerity of a mirage. The sound of the energy lance punctuating the flesh was hushed, almost clinical, yet it was drowned by the Crawler's subsequent, harrowing wail. The sheer momentum of the spell dragged the creature backward, slamming it into the masonry before it plummeted to the cobbles; its dense, muscular bulk shattered the stone flags upon impact.
The Crawler collapsed into a heap, the flamus spear buried deep within its chest. Demons possess a staggering resilience and a vitality that defies the natural order; even as its heart was reduced to cinders, the creature clung to its wretched existence for several agonising seconds.
At last, it fell still. The unearthly green light in its eyes flickered and died, fading into a hollow void. The spectral spear dissolved into embers that drifted away on the wind, leaving a charred, hollow cavity where the heart had been—a wound so absolute one could see clean through to the stones behind.
Suddenly, a piercing shriek erupted from the rear!
Seraph pivoted and surged back with preternatural speed. Upon his return, he found the second Crawler struggling to its feet, heaving its mangled frame against the iron lance that pinned it to the earth.
Though such a feat demanded a toll of excruciating agony, demons are entities sired in the crucible of torment and malice. Perhaps this visceral suffering was merely a dark rapture for the denizens of Helheim.
"Ventus Piercingspear!" the magis commanded, unleashing the gale with urgent precision.
[Whammm-pulse!]
Seraph's entire form erupted in a vibrant, emerald aura. The wind-forged lance shrieked forth like a roaring naga. A thunderous crack echoed, accompanied by a rhythmic shockwave as if an atmospheric cannon had been discharged.
The resulting gale was so fierce that the onlookers were forced to clutch the surrounding masonry to anchor themselves. Not a single soul present could track the magis's movements. A second detonation rang out—sharper and more compressed than the roar of the flamus—as the wind-lance struck its mark.
The gale-forged lance ignited in a brilliant emerald strobe, the kinetic discharge rattling the Crawler's entire frame as if a giant's fist had caved in its thoracic cavity. The ventus bolt transfixed the beast's heart with clinical velocity, the lingering shaft anchoring the carcass to the cobbles and forestalling any chance of displacement.
Mageia of the wind prioritised celerity and a razor-edged precision over the raw, concussive trauma of the flame. While its explosive yield was lesser, its penetrative potency was such that it surged through the beast, flinging the Crawler's heart clear from its emaciated chest in a singular, intact, gore-slicked arc.
The organ skittered across the stone, coming to rest in a steaming pool of dull emerald vitriol. The creature coughed a final, jagged spray of ichor, convulsed once, and succumbed to the grave with a speed that eclipsed the first.
Every calculated strike and rhythmic movement of the enigmatic magis had unfolded beneath the stunned witness of the Ragguard populace. They stood agape, their expressions of disbelief bordering on the farcical.
"Adequate..." Seraph whispered to the wind, his voice a low, dismissive rasp.
The titanic shadow of the Arkdreadnought began its slow, predatory crawl toward the city's heart. In its wake, nearly five thousand demon hunters plummeted from the hull—the vanguard of those who had forsaken the official contest to join the culling at the frontier. They descended in a controlled swarm, encircling the young man in a silent gesture of martial deference.
"Lord Seraph..." Robin spoke, stepping forward.
Robin was a ranger of exceptional affinity, counted among the most formidable blades in the initial muster. His true nature, however, was sequestered in shadow: he was a knight of Arthus's Royal Guard, a clandestine sentinel tasked with shielding Seraph from the abyss without the young man's knowledge. Yet, looking upon the carnage, such a mandate appeared laughably redundant.
"Their physical resilience and that hide... it is irritatingly stubborn," Seraph remarked, his brow furrowing with a visible dissatisfaction at the efficiency of his own slaughter.
"Their hide is singularly dense, possessing a preternatural elasticity... and their skeletal structure is as unyielding as tempered steel. A Crawler is effectively a martial demon encased in a biological suit of plate armour," Robin observed, his gaze dissecting the mangled remains.
He stared at the carcass of the beast, still impaled and standing in a grotesque mimicry of life. These entities served as the sovereign vanguards of the undead; they were rare within the Demon Legion's hierarchy, and to fell one was a feat of exhausting attrition. To claim a specimen in such a pristine state, however, was bordering on the miraculous.
"Execute your own stratagems as you see fit... but should any among you undertake the task of harvesting these carcasses for me, I will grant you a moiety of the liquidation," Seraph proposed, his voice cool and transactional.
"Consider it done! We will resolve this triviality for you without delay!" Robin nearly bellowed, his enthusiasm poorly masked.
A ripple of avaricious delight surged through the gathered contenders. A whole demonic specimen was a treasure beyond measure; the hide and marrow of a Crawler were the foundational components for a myriad of high-rank artefacts and mageia steel.
In the heat of the slaughter, they were engines of ruin, yet in death, their husks were transformed into concentrated wealth. The demand for Crawler remains across the Seven Realms was insatiable, yet the market was perpetually starved, for few hunters ever returned with more than shattered fragments.
Within the Ragguard Fortress, numerous guilds and syndicates possessed the expertise to process such spoils for a pittance. By making this offer, Seraph was essentially bestowing a fortune upon his peers. Should any contender survive this Bloody Hunting, their share of Seraph's tithe would elevate them to a state of immediate opulence.