We caught up to the van at almost, but not quite, the worst possible time- when they were just barely at the Ziggurat, where the remainder of Paimon's cult had been waiting for us.

  I pulled the bike into a sliding stop a good quarter mile out, giving Faith the ce to line up a shot with the gun I'd given her. After this, I swore I'd be making a full set of guns for all of us, but right now, all I'd had to give Faith were a dinky little pistol that'd be useless at any rahat wasn't "close enough for me to use my own gun" and a long-gun I'd made for Dad as a birthday present.

  The long-gun had beeed with hunting in mind, and as such, with Mom's help, I'd been able to ent it for sileo pensate for its explosive kick, and most vitally, to vastly improve accuracy. After all, gravity and wind had a tendency to nudge projectiles off-track, and much of a marksman's skill was in ating for that, but sihis on was o us all, I didn't want Dad to have to i a ton of time into an unasked-fift for it to be useful.

  So. Whatever was uhe crosshairs when Faith pulled the trigger? That was what this gun would hit.

  "Any preferences?" Faith asked, shouldering the long-gun.

  "Mind the stock pt," I said, nudging it a little, before she braced it against the meat of her chest where it was supposed to go. That thing kicked like a mule, and an inch to the left was the distaween risking a dislocated shoulder and risking a bruise. "And... Go for the guys with red amulets."

  "Got it," Faith said, before taking her first shot. Up on the Ziggurat, a cultist's head burst like a watermelon, and the rest of them started scrambling, realizing that we were in fact a threat at this distance.

  "Three more shots, then we move in," I said, as she lined up her shot.

  Her wo shots weren't quite so graceful as the first one- everyone was moving or hiding, and even with a perfectly accurate on, it wasn't easy to hit a moving target. She still hit with both shots, but they were winging hits, that didn't immediately kill or disable their targets, and only slowed them down.

  Her fourth shot, however, was straight through the head of the cultist who stepped out of the bay van. He'd been carrying one end of a stretcher, which dropped along with him, and oretcher itself was one bound-and-gagged Emily Redwater.

  Unfortunately, while I erfectly tent to let Faith take a fifth shot, the cultists immediately shut the door of the van, and her shot just plinked off the metal exterior.

  "Why'd you make the van bulletproof?" Faith asked, pintively.

  "I had this delusional notion that we'd be i," I said dryly, before kig the motorcycle bato gear, and starting to close the distance. "Alright, well, you might wanna sling that on your bad switch to the pistol. We're about to have a lot less room to maneuver and take careful aim. Talia, whatever your pn is for the fight, get ready for it."

  Talia, still turned into a rat, climbed up out of her pocket, up my jacket, and then down my right sleeve. It didn't take an Occultist to know what she was thinking here, and I carefully turned my arm over, so she could climb into my hand, which I cocked back, ready for a throw.

  Talia was the first into the fight, a flung rat transf in midair into a flung bear, shing out with sharp cws among the cultists, shrugging off bolts from their lightning wands with subtle Druidcraft that rendered her already-tough hide proof against anything these simpering little pissweasels could bring to bear against her.

  Especially once Faith and I got in oion, dismounting the bike and opening fire on the cultists.

  "Get Emily!" I yelled up to Talia. "We've got these ones!"

  Talia nodded in aowledgement, and began to bound up the steps, chasing after the cultists hustling Emily aretcher up to the top, before being jumped by a hellhound that came around the er.

  "Oh son of a whore," I hissed, as more demons were summoned, and we suddenly had more fearsome foes to tend with than just unarmored humans with shitty mass-produced ons.

  I didn't bother identifying the demons besides the hellhound, admittedly, because none of them were all that more fearsome than the cultists we'd so far been sughtering like mbs, but they still ate up valuable time and effort that we should have been using to stop the cultists who were carrying Emily, who had, in my momentary pse in attention, mao get her to the top of the Ziggurat.

  I sprinted up the steps, tent to ighe remaining threats- my jacket had armrade entments on it, and could turn cheap wand-lightning and crossbow bolts without issue- in favor of stopping the summoning of a Demon King, and reing that Talia and Faith could probably ha without me.

  Judging by the sounds of ripping, tearing, and gunfire, followed by heavy footfalls ing after me, I assumed I was right.

  I took shots as soon as I could see what I was shooting at, but as, the ritual to summon Paimon was either very short, or had already been done mostly in advance. In the sed it took me to line up my shot and kill the st cultist, he drew his ritual dagger across Emily's palm, drawing enough blood to drip upoar.

  Even with the knife dropping from his nerveless hands as he lost his head, the runes graven upoar began to glow with a bright, ugly red, which spread across the wide, ft surface of the top of the Ziggurat.

  The Ziggurat itself, which I was finally paying attention to, was an holy-impressive edifice, structed from big blocks of hard, bck stone, likely made from the iron-rich sands of the Bck Desert by melting it together. The outer structure, at least, seemed to be built around one-by-one-by-two meter blocks, id in tric, stair-stepping courses around and building up to the ft-topped tral pilr, with two-meter-long quarter-blocks pced along at least one side of the Ziggurat to form an actual usable staircase.

  The tral pilr, rather than being visibly made of blocks, seemed to be monolithic- at least, oop surface- so I couldn't just t blocks, but I'd estimate its size at about teers or so on each side, which was big enough to tain an actual house.

  As glowing demonic power spread through radial grooves in the floor, numerous strange sigils and runes lit up and revealed themselves, until the power reached the outer ring of the ritual circle, which lit up all at once.

  "Shit," I hissed, as demonic magic welled up iohe whole lightshow had taken scarcely half a sed to plete, and at this point, I wasn't fident I could actually damage the circle enough to stop the effect from pleting, and the attempt would take all my magicka- which I was about to need very desperately if I was going to be fighting Demon King Paimon.

  A single cw stabbed through the fabric of reality, six feet above the ter of the pilr. It desded about a third of the distao the floor, tearing a long gash as it went, before it turo one side, joined by more cws, and then even more cws ing through to grip the other side.

  With a truly painful noise, like nails on a chalkboard, the cwed hands tore the small gash inter opening, exposing the fires of Hell and Demon King Paimon.

  Paimon was tall, even hunched over, and not standing fully upright. From the floor to the of his skull, he was at least seveall, with a pair of big, bck horns that gleamed in the fadi daylight, curving forward from his temples t their sharp points to bear.

  His body owerfully-built, each limb being as thick around as a person, and further covered with shaggy brown fur. Scars showed through all over, as thinned-out fur that was lighter in color, showing that Paimon was no hothouse flower, and had fought his way to the top of Hell's hierarchies.

  His arms ended in thickly-cwed hands, and his feet in long, talooes. From the base of his back extended a long, tapering tail, swaying slowly behind him with each step he took, through the portal, and onto the surface of the Ziggurat.

  Demon King Paimon stepped onto the Mortal Pne, but for all that the portal closed behind him... he'd brought Hell with him.

  "Mm, nice," Paimon said, as he id eyes upon us. His voice was surprisingly clear, for an inhuman monster whose lipless mouth was quite clearly evolved for the sole purpose of teari from the still-thrashing bodies of its prey. "More sacrifices. Gotta say, kids, getting here from Hell took a lot outta me, so you being here is much appreciated. Tell ya what, if you mao say your names before I kill you, I might even remember 'em."

  I shot him in the head, which didn't seem to faze him much more than a punch would, but did still visibly jar him. I could tell he was more drained by the ritual than he was willing to admit, but... still, whatever kind of demon he'd been before ing here, it arently the sort that wasn't fazed by bullets.

  "My name is Joseph Iro, grandson of Artorias Wind-Caller," I said, repg my gun with my sword, hoping its entments would be enough to pierce his skin. "And I'm going to put your head on my mantel, o the other self-absorbed shithead who called himself a King."

  Paimon bared his teeth, and I simply charged at him. I couldn't hurt him fre, and if I didn't kill him here and now, then we were all fucked. Besides, if that was a glint of surprise I saw in his eyes, then I got the feeling he was out of practice with this kind of hands-on bat.

  As I drew closer, he twisted around, cog his hips, whipping his sharp-tipped tail forward to try and catch me in the side. If I'd been a human, or simply bad at this, maybe it would've worked, but I simply jumped over his tail as it swept through the space my legs had been through, before bringing my sword down and through half of his tail, stopping only when I hit bone.

  Paimon screamed, and the backsh of his tail picked me up and threw me across the top of the Ziggurat, but I mao nd safely, ing back up with only a few sore spots that I knew would bee bruises.

  "Let's-" I began, before stopping. Paimon wasn't ing at me for round two, and Talia was not ripping into him with her cws.

  Instead, surrounding him was a big, spherical shield of glowing red magic, which grew to twenty feet across before stopping, dumping Talia onto the stone, as her bear form finally expired, leaving her in the shape of an elf.

  Just what the hell was he gonna do ?

  AnnouAs always, if you like Iro and wao keep making it, the best way to do that is to leave a ent, here or on my discord server.