[Theft of Boons] was limited in how much power it could hold, and the enormous buff that Ashtoreth had stolen from Set was probably going to bleed out in less than a minute… which meant that she’d have to either steal it again, or kill her sister in that timeframe.

  Somehow, she doubted Set would be incautious enough to let Ashtoreth land a shot with her cannon if the boon ran out.

  “I see you’re still—”

  But Ashtoreth simply raised an eyebrow at Set as she began to talk, seeing through the obvious attempt at distracting her, then lunged.

  Set drew away, but Ashtoreth was fast enough now to close the distance between them with a single beat of her wings. She lashed out with her claws, and Set drew back in fear, giving Ashtoreth just enough time to finish conjuring her sword and strike out with a [Mighty Blow] that her sister spun away from in a perfect dodge.

  The next few moments were a frenzied flurry as Ashtoreth did nothing but press the attack, the air hissing around the blade of her sword as it blurred through the air. Each time Set blocked a blow she was sent skidding back over the stones of the dome, and her blades of light cracked wherever they connected with Luftschloss as the hellfire in her sword burned away the spell that composed them.

  It was only a few more seconds before Ashtoreth staggered her sister enough that she could strike her dead-center in the chest with a [Mighty Blow].

  Threads of light ran out across Set’s body from where Ashtoreth’s sword had stricken her, and she was sent sliding backward along the surface of the dome.

  Ashtoreth scowled. So that was why the fight had been relatively easy, thus far; Set had stacked [Defense] and Ashtoreth hadn’t hit her.

  Upsetting, but Ashtoreth’s [Theft of Power] could steal it all away from her.

  She just needed to keep stealing the boon as she worked down Set’s defenses.

  Set threw a volley of spears at Ashtoreth, and Ashtoreth conjured a loose wave of hellfire to overtake the spears as she bounded forward through them, beating her wings to close with Set once more.

  Set hissed and raised her swords, but Ashtoreth leapt above her instead of meeting her sister head-on.

  Then, as she sailed above Set’s head, she angled her sword downward and launched it into her sister with a [Mighty Strike] that catapulted her into the air.

  The sword connected and burst into a cloud of hellfire, and Set became a burst of white light as her protective magic flared to save her from the attack.

  Unbelievably, she slid backward out of the flames a moment later, seemingly unharmed.

  But Ashtoreth had conjured her cannon once more, and Set’s head snapped up to look at her a moment too late as the [Draining Round] left the barrel to streak downward and strike Set in the head.

  This time, Ashtoreth struggled to fight against the sudden, dazing jolt of power as she stole her sister’s boon. But the transfer of energy was simply too strong: it was hundreds of levels worth of stats. Her vision flashed, and she fell through the air for a moment before she could flare her wings and slow her fall.

  She blinked the blinding light from her eyes just in time to see another sphere of light drawing inward around Set, empowering her once more.

  She scowled. Set probably had spell triggers to instantly restore the buff as soon as it wasn’t on her. Along with what was very likely a [Protection] aspect and her naturally high resistances, she’d clearly prepared better than Ashtoreth had anticipated.

  Even if she was now unlikely to hurt Ashtoreth beyond what her regeneration could handle, Set was still wrapped in enough protective abilities to potentially fight Ashtoreth until one of them ran out of resources.

  But that wouldn’t come soon. Ashtoreth’s cannon regenerated its ammunition out of her scythe’s [Bloodfire] pool when it wasn’t conjured. She could theoretically fight Set until her satchel ran out of hearts.

  Got it, said Dazel. Need some juice?

  Ashtoreth took a glance at her buff and saw that it wasn’t even half-done. No.

  She lunged, and their seeming stalemate continued. Ashtoreth easily had the upper hand in melee combat, but she couldn’t break through Set’s many triggerable defenses.

  But she could out-fight her enough to line up another shot, and very soon she’d knocked her sister off-balance, then spun past her and launched her sword into Set’s back, conjuring her cannon a moment later to launch another [Draining Round] into her sister’s back.

  The jolt of power filled her as her [Theft of Power] stole Set’s massive buff.

  Only now there was no flash of light to accompany Set being instantly re-buffed.

  Immediately, Set threw herself into the air away from Ashtoreth, her face a mask of fear.

  Her hand moved through a sequence of gestures as she sped away, but whatever she had tried didn’t work. Dazel had tampered with the controls in the tower to seize control of the mechanism that Set had created to empower herself.

  “I did warn you that my cat was a genius!” Ashtoreth called out, launching herself into the air and easily catching up with Set even though she was still wielding her sword.

  Set shut her eyes momentarily as the realization of what she missed must have dawned on her. Then she opened them, her face despondent as Ashtoreth drew closer.

  “I thought… I thought I’d considered everything,” she said. “I had a plan.”

  “I know, Set.”

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  “Your ammunition. Your resource pool. Your tendency to the get the upper hand and deliver a deathblow….”

  Tears glistened on Set’s cheeks as Ashtoreth grew closer. “I thought I’d figured it all out.”

  Ashtoreth said nothing.

  “I hate you,” Set whispered, her mouth trembling. “I hate you so much.”

  Set glared at Ashtoreth, and Ashtoreth knew that the look in Set’s eyes meant that she understood.

  Without her buff, no amount of protection magic would save her. There was nothing to stall for now, anyway: Ashtoreth had all the power that Set had only moments ago.

  The good news, if it really was good news, was that if Pluto had been anchored, Set would be too.

  “Give Pluto a hug for me,” Ashtoreth said.

  Something seemed to break in Set, and she let out a snarl that became a roar of pure rage before charging Ashtoreth.

  But she was painfully slow now that her buff was gone. Ashtoreth dodged to one side, then launched her sword into Set’s back with a [Mighty Strike].

  Light flared as before, but now the blade still punched cleanly through her body.

  Set vanished in a cloud of white ether.

  {Gained [Archfiend Set Core] — Tier 2}

  Ashtoreth stayed with her eyes locked onto the place where her sister had faded for some time. Eventually, Dazel rose through the air in front of her and nudged her in the belly so that she brought her arms up to hold him.

  “You did good,” he said. “Got her away from me so I could manage the device. If you hadn’t gotten her to use it again, I wouldn’t have been able to figure it out so fast.”

  “You really are a genius,” Ashtoreth whispered softly. She knew enough spellcraft now to know that Dazel had commandeered Set’s setup in an almost unbelievably short amount of time.

  “Uh, gee. Thanks, boss.”

  But he seemed to know that it wasn’t a compliment. Now that they were actually in the middle of the invasion of Earth, Ashtoreth was reminded again that she had no idea who Dazel actually was.

  She’d need to be more proactive in finding out, somehow, but therein lay a problem. The only people who might be able to help her were Hell’s oldest residents.

  And potentially Dazel himself.

  “You want to land, now?” Dazel asked.

  Ashtoreth was still staring at the place where Set had vanished. “I don’t want to do anything, right now.”

  “Oh. Uh, look, kid—”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Okay, well, look boss,” he began. He seemed to hesitate, then added, “I don’t really know how to comfort you. You should probably stop staring.”

  She turned away from the place Set had been destroyed in and began to drift down to the dome on the top of the tower. “Double genocide, Dazel. That was her plan. Once she was done winning Earth, she’d have earned enough favor to wipe out every last devil in Hell. That’s how she wanted to make it better.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “And I can see why that’s bad. But at the same time—”

  “Seriously?”

  “What?” he asked. “They’re devils. She’s probably up here watching them all fall over themselves to betray your other sisters and each other as soon as they get the chance.”

  “Set and I only ever sort of got along,” said Ashtoreth, touching down on the dome. “But I never hated her. And I just… that was life to her, Dazel. Those were her dreams—didn’t you hear? Her best life, her highest aspiration, was to kill an entire species.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t think about all this now. Later, sure—but right now we’ve got a lot to do.”

  Ashtoreth shook her head as she looked out on the empty towers of the bastion. Empty, all of them, because Set had harvested their occupants.

  “He did this to us,” she said. “If Set had gotten to grow up on Earth with two parents who loved her, what would her dreams have looked like?”

  “Really, Ashtoreth, I don’t think this is best thing to be doing right now. This bastion—”

  “Stop,” she said. “I just… I’m never going to be able to hurt him, you hear? I’m never going to be able to stop him from doing this to another set of children.”

  Dazel was silent.

  “Is this why you’re so cynical?” she asked. “Is this why you gave up? This feeling—feeling like I can’t change it, not what really matters, no matter how hard I try?”

  “Uh, look,” Dazel said. “I’m no therapist, but you gotta just keep with it, boss. You’ve never even been as high a level as you are now. You can’t know what the cosmos actually holds, how far the bounds of—”

  Dazel cut off suddenly.

  “Bounds of what?” Ashtoreth asked.

  But Dazel’s voice was suddenly quieter, more direct. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

  Ashtoreth instantly felt the sudden pressure that would eventually compel her to answer his question. “Yes, Dazel. I do most everything intentionally, you know.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  The pressure was still there, and building. “Okay, fine,” she said, rolling her eyes. “When I killed Pluto, you told me the same sort of thing. You suggested that I shouldn’t give up on eventually killing my dad.”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought I could get something out of you if I played the same note,” she said, shrugging. “Maybe get you to reveal a little more about what you know. You obviously don’t want me to give up hope of killing my father.”

  “Good Lord,” Dazel said, flying out of her arms. “I can’t believe you!”

  “Well you should,” she said. “All things considered.”

  “You used your sister’s death to try and manipulate me into telling you something,” he said. “You’re utterly devious. I don’t know how I keep forgetting your a fiend, but even though I should know better, I actually let you trick me with your constant act!”

  Ashtoreth rolled her eyes again. “It’s not kayfabe, Dazel. I can’t lie to you, remember? So believe me when I say that I really do have this great a personality.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “And when I first met you, I thought that the way you act and being conniving, manipulative, and hierarchical were somehow at odds. My mistake, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I’m such a bad archfiend for trying to figure out who the mage that bound me into a contract is,” said Ashtoreth. She put a hand on one hip. “You’d have a better perspective on things if you came down off that incredibly high horse of yours, you know. But look: if you want to hurt my father, we’re in the same boat and headed the same direction. Why hide anything? Let’s help each other.”

  “Let’s just drop it, okay?” Dazel said. “Your sister was right. I might not be telling you everything, but if that one single unknown makes you assume that I can help you kill the King of Hell, I think you’ve got a hope problem.”

  “No such thing!” Ashtoreth said. “But fine, we’ll finish this conversation later.”

  “Or never,” said Dazel. “In the meantime, we should figure out how to destroy this bastion. There aren’t enough hearts for you to unravel its planar fabric.”

  Ashtoreth swept her gaze across the towers below her. “Destroy it?” she asked. “We already know we can commandeer it and all of its defenders are dead.” She patted the stone of the dome with the end of her tail. “We’re keeping this baby.”