(25) Not To Overdo It

Nephthys stared out, her vision piercing the fog. A great stampede of monsters charged across the Crater, kicking up a storm of blackened dust, like a fire raging across the land and belching black smoke.

There were towering obsidian cyclops charging with crashstone clubs. Magma wyrms, some terrible cross between an earthworm and a crocodile, burrowed through the ground, leaving trails of molten rock in their wakes.

There were even a few racknas, illusive flame salamanders filled to the brim with valuable materials.

“W-what are we gonna do?” Tara muttered.

“Do?” Ramose replied, glancing at her.

“To…you know…defend against all those monsters,” Tara clarified.

“Why would we do anything?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

The two stared at each other, neither understanding the other. The moment of confusion lasted a few seconds before Hannibal broke it.

“Nemesis was built to survive an assault from legions of demigods. A monster stampede is barely an annoyance, let alone a threat. They would break upon the mountainside, never breaching even this outer gate,” he said, his explanation dry and assured rather than boastful.

“Indeed. Dregs are dregs, whether one or a thousand,” Ramose confirmed.

Tara looked between the three: Nephthys, who continued to stare at the cloud in the distance, Ramose, hands clasped calmly behind his back, and Hannibal, who casually leaned over the railing.

“Oh, okay,” she said, seemingly deflating.

“Hannibal,” Nephthys said. He straightened and thumped a fist against his chest. “Send Leonidas and the lieutenants to deal with the stampede. Send Horemheb after the instigators. We tolerated their investigatory strike, but this is not something we can take on the chin without response.”

“Right away, my lady,” Hannibal declared, a blue flame surrounding him.

Before he disappeared entirely, Nephthys glanced at him.

“I understand they are demons and pent up after two centuries of isolation. However, instruct them not to overdo it,” she said.

Hannibal nodded with a small smile as he vanished, seemingly consumed by the blue flames.

“A wise choice, my lady. Any of us would, of course, restrain any earthly desire to fulfill our duties, but I am sure they will appreciate the opportunity to let loose after so long,” Ramose said.

Nephthys once again resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She would eventually have to address this with Ramose. While he was competent and capable, she had no desire to be surrounded by sycophants.

Five figures suddenly appeared before the gate, four in the familiar shape of wrongly-proportioned muscles bulging beneath black armor, while one stood a head taller than the others.

Leonidas was a demon duke, the highest rank of demon, below only the Archdemon, of which there was only one at a time. Titles for dukes were many: pitlords, archfiends, and many other nefarious-sounding monikers, but the key was that they were the peak, the pinnacle of demon-kind. Only an archdemon could command them, and lesser demons would recognize their might and authority instinctively.

Leonidas, though his real name was Nuthabaal, had fiery skin that looked perpetually wet, as if he was constantly covered in blood. He had four horns, two that shot straight from his forehead, curling slightly back, and two that jutted out from the sides of his head, curving back at a near-ninety-degree angle. They pulsed with a red light, shining through the crevices between the horns’ ribs and nodules.

His eyes tapered vertically, as if human eyes were turned ninety degrees. His sclera were black, his irises red. His pupils were slitted, and they had what seemed like little spikes or channels that split off from them, as if his pupils were cracks in the ground.

His fangs speared through his closed lips, and his expression was usually one of displeasure. He wore armor to match the others, though his had spikes on the pauldrons that curled back, matching his horns. He had sharp spikes emerging from his forearms as well, extending to the ends of his hands, which looked ready, eager to gouge flesh.

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He strode at the head of the group, his massive ax sheathed on his back. When they were a hundred feet away, they took off like lightning. Their strides were long, covering dozens of feet each. They split off from each other, each heading in a different direction. The demons seemed to be creating a five-pointed perimeter that encompassed the entire mile-or-so area before Nemesis.