Friska's buzzing wings were the first sounds of excitement in a day. They just reached the peak of the mountain, and now a huge city y before them: Drazdul. Domes, ruinous towers, crumbling walls, archways and bridges, ft-roofed angur houses, all in the color of sand. The silence of the wild, desote Scorched Lands lingered here too, highlighting the complete abandonment of the pce. The sight was goosebump-inducing. Friska dashed up into the air with her little spygss, and began to examine it, she simply couldn't contain her enthusiasm. Seeing that made Chio smile faintly.

  She was rather lethargic since Taytum's suicide, and her mood affected the others too. But she got a lot of touch from Arabel and Terry, soft and gentle ones, as well as a back massage. This time, Terry didn't even do it in secret. Seeing how comfortable they both were with the practice made Arabel a little jealous, but she quickly shook the feeling off and just asked Terry to show her how it's done. The gloomy Chio suddenly had two caring masseurs working on her body simultaneously, paying attention to avoid touching each other on accident, but even more attention to Chio's micro-reactions, her breathing, her warmth. It was certainly soothing, but as they finally got up to get going, the mood was still definitely mencholic.

  Friska too expressed her condolences of course, and so did Porco. While Chio was occupied with heavy feelings and thoughts, she still realized that Porco in particur is feeling a bit left out of physical intimacy. She could sense it. He wasn't gonna comfort her that way due to his agreement with Terry, but he surely wouldn't have minded to do so. It was like an unspoken bit of absence, a ck of touch that she could feel just as much as being touched. So then out of the blue, while they were still ascending on the mountain slope, she hugged him. He smiled, and Terry didn't seem too shook by seeing it. A little bit of tension was resolved. It's always worth it, thought Chio.

  Now, up on the ridge, after they listened to Friska talk about the haunted city for half an hour or so, Chio cleared her throat and said:

  “I think I want to help people.”

  “Is that so?” Arabel raised an eyebrow.

  “After what happened, I just feel like I could. And I should.”

  “Chio, what on earth do you think you've been doing all this time?” the succubus ughed.

  “She's right, you are a very compassionate person,” Porco said. “That's how we all know you already.”

  Terry and Friska nodded in agreement.

  “Well thank you, but... what I mean is... we all leave our marks on this world. Arabel and I left some bad ones, even if it wasn't fully our fault. We did well too, sure, Lady Neia needed to be defeated and we pyed a crucial part in that, but... it's as you said,” the girl turned to Arabel again. “I can't take the idea that someone hates me. Or has hate in their heart due to my past mistakes. What I mean is that I would like to go back. I want to talk to Erleen.”

  “Oh, that again?” asked the redhead. “Seriously, you would go back to Midridge after all? We still just barely got here, to the nd of our freedom.”

  “I know... maybe I should go alone? It wouldn't take too long, I would be back in a month or so.”

  The others all exchanged a look. Terry especially seemed concerned by the idea.

  “What do you hope to achieve with her?” asked the succubus.

  “I wish to bring her some sort of resolution. Even if it's just a small influence, it must be possible.”

  “She would hate to see you, Chio.”

  “Taytum did too, at first.”

  “Taytum was out here in the middle of nowhere, alone. You can't just single out Erleen like that, you can't force her to talk to you. She is a busy dy in the capital of Midridge.”

  “I think she is right, Chio,” Friska said. “I get where you are coming from, but I feel like you are getting a bit carried away. That Erleen girl, after what you said you did to her, I think you should leave her be.”

  Chio lowered her gaze.

  “If we leave our marks on this world, I don't see why you would have to fix a bad mark you left, rather than making some new, better ones,” said Porco. “And I'm sure we will have plenty of opportunities still. I mean... you being here with us is already a pretty nice mark on our lives. I think we can all agree on that.”

  The girl smiled for a moment, then she was lost in thought again, and finally, she looked up at Arabel. “Warren Crown, then?”

  “What?” Porco asked.

  Arabel gulped. She sort of expected this to come up sooner or ter. The truth was, she was very much on board with eliminating that brutal man, she really disliked him. But on the other hand... an image of Chio's pale, bloody figure popped up in her head. Was it a nightmare she had recently? Or how Chio was back in the chaos of Cornertown, when they found her in the Silverlight mansion?

  “You really want to get involved with that psycho?” Friska asked.

  “It's just... we were warned about him by a certain fortune teller friend,” Chio said. “She told us that our paths will probably cross his, right Arabel?”

  “Yea...”

  “Well, we already crossed him, but I had the feeling that's not gonna be all there is to it. And to be honest, that man is an absolute menace. We all witnessed that. So why not help Carlos and Iesha and all the others to fight him?”

  “But Carlos was insistent in that we shouldn't worry about it,” Porco stated.

  “He was, but...”

  “Cause he liked us in his weirdo way,” Arabel sighed. “Wiping Warren Crown off this earth would be one heck of a positive mark to leave, I get it. But Chio... can you at least stay out of it?”

  “Me of all people? But... my ability.”

  “She is the strongest one of us,” said Friska. “In my opinion, at least.”

  “Hey, I'm pretty strong too!” Arabel said.

  “Especially against men,” Porco added.

  “True, but Warren knows about her already,” said Friska. “Don't you think that the ability of a succubus is more... counterable? I mean, Chio can just rip someone to pieces with her will.”

  “Please don't say that!” shivered Chio.

  “Why? How else are you gonna fight?”

  “I can just...”

  “Yea, it makes sense,” Arabel admitted. “Chio is pretty strong too.”

  While the others were arguing, the succubus suddenly remembered Gloria's advice. Until now, she barely paid it any mind, as she simply wasn't the biggest fan of angels (other than Chio of course). But what Gloria told her was that she can rely on other people too. That her friends will help her face her demons. And if she was gonna commit to fight Warren, she wouldn't have trusted any other person more to back her up than Chio. Even if she worried for her safety at the same time.

  “So, are you down?” the girl asked. “With me coming too?”

  “Sure. Let's fuck up Warren!”

  “I'm down too,” said Terry, thinking of that poor naked woman, Car, who Warren left tied to that creepy contraption in the ocean.

  “It's been decided, then,” said Porco, thinking of his old master. In his prime, Vincent Swiftsword would have surely accepted this kind of challenge too.

  Friska ughed. “You guys...” she shook her head. “I guess all these tricky potions I have might have a use for them after all.”

  And so the fellowship of weirdoes once again turned around. Their destination: Murky Bay.

  The manticore reached the top of a hill in the middle of the night. The wind was kind of strong, but the sky was clear and starry. The beast barely stopped for a second, quickly taking in the new barren scene to the south before it, then it hurried on. It was a rather grotesque creature: a lean, but strong body twice the size of a grey-mane lion, pitch bck, hairy, and with cat's paws as big as ptes, but six limbs rather than four. Its head was oddly small for its body; it was a human head, an ill-tempered one, grimacing constantly like it was angry and/or in pain, but silent. It had wings too, but they looked weak, skeletal with just a bit of paper-thin, torn skin between white bones. Even though its movements looked kind of unstable and awkward, it was terrifyingly fast, way faster than any horse.

  Porco was up that night for lookout duty, sitting with crossed legs by their camp, holding his hard cock. It was the night of an abstention day for him, which he ended up kind of appreciating – fantasising and gooning was a good way of keeping himself awake. He sat down close to Arabel's hammock so that he could hear her breathing. Even though it soon turned into snoring, he found it endearing and sexy.

  He was so fond of this woman by now. She was sadistic to a degree, sure. She liked to mess with him, but she liked to mess with Chio too, as the young man found out by now. That was just her way of connecting with people, especially when it came to sexual connections. She simply knew how fucking hot she was, and she liked that power. Porco grew accustomed to her intensity, trusted her, and not only endured, but got off on her small cruel gestures too, such as her grabbing his dick randomly while the others were occupied, just for a moment, while they both knew he is meant to abstain that day. Yes, she just did that earlier, right as they were setting up their camp. And while Porco found that to be a bit of an asshole move, he couldn't help but moan quietly, and stare at the woman with hopeless, frustrated longing. The succubus' fervent green eyes, her slightly open mouth with just the tip of her tongue showing, and her hand in his pants made his brain melt. And now here he was, wondering if the sex-demon intentionally gave him that “gift” to help him stay awake throughout his night shift. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. Either way, Porco freakin loved being part of her team. What's risking his life, getting entangled in this fight against Warren when he will be by the side of such a woman? He never would have imagined he would end up like this when he set out for this journey, but the best outcomes are sometimes unexpected.

  But now he had enough, he had to jerk off. He often did on his abstention days anyway. This time though, he didn't even reach an edge when for some reason, he stopped. It was just a sudden little annoying thought, the idea that it would be pretty dumb if something bad happened to them while he was distracted like this. He just couldn't shake it off. He stood up and looked around. Close to the south of their camp, there was that hard to spot, smaller canyon that they crossed on the other way too, with a shallow river on the bottom. To the north, towards the ocean, the next line of hills stood, but that was not all. Porco saw something moving in the distance that way. Something dark. He felt his heart skip a beat, then he wishfully second-guessed himself, rubbed his eyes and looked some more. No, it definitely was something.

  “Arabel! Chio! Something's coming!” he yelled.

  Chio was quick to jump out of her hammock, Terry sat up as well, but the redhead just mumbled something in her sleep, and almost like an answer to that, Friska mumbled some too. The little woman got quite drunk again st night, in celebration of their new anti-Warren quest.

  “Arabel!” Porco began shaking the succubus in her hammock.

  “Huh? Wha-”

  And then the creature shrieked. It was loud, unnatural like it didn't come from an animal, but something worse. It was spine-chilling. It made their poor donkey squeal and try to run away, but she was held back by the rope they tied her with to a stem. Friska and Arabel were up now too, the threat of that sound was so real, it was not a question. They barely had time to look around: the manticore was almost reaching them, running towards them like an unstoppable beast.

  “Everyone, step back!” Chio yelled, and the creature replied with a second shriek, dashing awkwardly, but quickly towards the girl, reaching for her with dark, cwy arms. But it got airborne, the girl flung it over herself. It was seemingly still carried by momentum though, and it nded on the other side of their camp, taking out just one of their bamboo-sticks.

  Then, it started to wriggle it's entire body while still shrieking, a sound so loud, it made it almost impossible for the group to communicate. And Chio, who was still concentrating on the being, lost her footing. She was shocked. She understood that her power had a limit, she couldn't just levitate an entire building or something like that. But she felt like she should have been able to lift up or incapacitate a living thing this size fairly easily – it was big, sure, but back at Cornertown she once threw around a whole group of Maidens of Death, for example. And yet, as this monster twisted and turned, struggling against her invisible force, she too was dragged around, she was like a fisherman who caught way too big of a catch. She fell on her side with a big puff, almost losing her “grip” on the monster, but she quickly kneeled up and continued staring at it intently. Arabel reacted swiftly, she pulled out one of those bamboo sticks, and drove its pointy end into the beast's body. And it kept shrieking, seemingly only getting more worked up. Terry, with his heart beating fast, ran up to Chio and grabbed her shoulders to help her fight against the frantic pulling force she was caught up in, but it didn't really make a difference, he was just pushed and pulled with her. Arabel materialized her cws and got them to work, hacking and sshing the struggling manticore as much as she could. Friska was just sitting on Porco's shoulder, both watching in terror.

  Suddenly, the monster somehow managed to reach out and catch Arabel with one of its long, hairy limbs, pulling her in.

  “No!” Chio screamed, and she lost her bance again, stumbling over Terry and falling. As she sat back in panic, ready to refocus her power, she saw fmes – Arabel was omitting as much fire from bot of her palms as she could, right into the monster's grotesque human face while it was holding her, now with two hands. The manticore shrieked again, and began backing off, as if to get away from the fire, but it either wasn't intelligent enough to let go of the source of it, or its limbs lived their own lives. Either way, it kept holding Arabel right in front of its head. And then, it stepped over the edge of the canyon with its back leg, and fell, rolling down the steep canyonside, dragging the succubus along. Chio now materialized her wings – the monster didn't seem like it could comprehend what that meant, but the angel didn't really care anyway, she flew after her lover instinctively, down towards the river on the bottom.

  The panting Terry stood up and quickly stepped right next to Porco with Friska on his shoulder. “Fuck...” said the fairy.

  Arabel and the beast rolled down the slope, and bounced off a rger rock near towards the bottom. For some reason, the manticore fpped it's weak wings while they were airborne, which gave them a bit of extra momentum. They crashed into the steep slope on the other side of the valley. Fortunately, the monster's body took the impact, which was rather drastic: they broke through a yer of rocks, and ended up in a hidden cave, still rolling down. Arabel was kept being held firmly, she could even feel the beast's own cws cutting into her sides, it was a continuous sharp pain. She was cwing the body of the beast like her life depended on it, but it didn't seem to affect it much. They still kept falling and rolling, and she barely understood where they were anymore. It was just pain and fear and the sound of rocks bashing into their bodies. And then, the falling finally stopped. They reached the bottom. As the manticore got up, it at least released Arabel for a few moments. The succubus was on the border of passing out, but she bit her lips and sat up, resting her back against the rock wall. Her whole body felt battered, and her left leg was broken so bad, she could see a bone poking out.

  “Arabel!” She heard Chio's muffled voice from somewhere above, it sounded quite distant.

  As the manticore regained its composure, it shook the dust off itself, and turned to the succubus again. The woman screamed hopelessly, turning into her demonic form almost subconsciously, summoning fmes in her palms again. And then, someone else moved, a third figure that came out of nowhere. It looked more humanoid than the manticore, but it was rather big too, almost twice the size of Arabel. It grabbed one of the front limbs of the beast with one hand, and cut down it's head with a single strike, using a huge sword. Even then, the manticore's body kept struggling, but the rge humanoid made quick work of it, now sticking the enormous bde right in the body. Then he grunted, and his bde started glowing red, and the manticore's entire body caught fmes and burnt to a crisp in moments. It was over.

  A few moments of silence followed, only broken by the far away voice of Chio calling Arabel's name. The rge humanoid was standing in pce, breathing, still with his back to the succubus. He then started shaking. Arabel wasn't sure why at first, but then she realized it must be a soundless ughter.

  “You are... a demon,” she said hesitantly. She just realized that there is a dim, red light coming from one end of this cave, which made it possible for her to see all this time.

  “Lord,” said the other with a deep, rasp, strong voice, turning to face the woman. “Demon... lord.”

  His head was less human-like then the head of a succubus in her demon form – it had a longer jaw, a wide forehead, and two huge bck horns. His skin was a tone of grey-ish red, cracked, giving off the impression that he was quite old. He wore some armor on his upper body, a breastpte and two bck, spiky shoulder ptes, but even he was bleeding here and there, where the monster cwed him.

  “Demon lord, my bad.” Not that Arabel knew what exactly that means. “Thank you for... ugh,” she really started to feel her injuries, especially her broken leg, “for... killing that thing.”

  “It was a manticore. Brings back memories. And you... I did not expect to see another demon in my life.”

  “Same here. At least... not one like you.”

  “Demon slut. That's what we called your kind.”

  “Fitting, I guess. Ahh... say, can you heal me, by any chance?”

  The male demon shook his head.

  “Arabel, where are you?” Chio's yelling came from above, it sounded slightly closer now.

  But she can. The succubus took a deep breath, about to yell back to her lover, but the demon lord quickly dashed to her, crouched down and put a rge finger on her mouth. “Shhhh!”

  “Why?” she asked quietly.

  “I can sense that thing that cries your name... what's wrong with you, demon slut? Is that thing your friend?”

  “You... wouldn't get it. It's a long story.”

  “An angel...”

  “Fallen angel.”

  The demon shook again in silent ughter. “I am demon lord Tirgraz. I have been ying dormant down here for a thousand years, waiting for my end, or a miracle to happen. You know what's behind that corner?” he gestured in the direction where the dim light came. “The door to hell.”

  “Huh? Weren't those gates destroyed after the demonic invasion?”

  “All but one. The king off demons himself requested one to be left up. If angels can find their ways to the mortal world, demons should have their own way too, he said. It's only fair. The angels agreed, except it was locked shut ever since. It's symbolic. The way still exists, it's just that no demon is supposed to go through it, not for a long, long time. After what we did in the invasion, we are still locked out.”

  “So... why are you here?”

  “For the same foolish reason any other demon stayed. Some of us wanted more carnage still, it's a demon's pleasure. I'm sure you understand. We did not want to give up, to bow down before angels.”

  “And how did that go?” the woman asked quickly. She tried really hard to focus on the words of Tirgraz and not on her excruciating pain. Fortunately, meeting a demon lord WAS kind of interesting.

  “Those of us who stayed were allowed to run around here in the Scorched Lands for a little while. Some smaller armies. It was me and another lord who led them. Then Ruffauzer interfered. He is not an angel, I don't think so. He is something else, above angels. He tricked me. Made me make an oath, which I had to fulfil.”

  “Which was... ?”

  “I was forbidden from hurting mortals, but I had to kill the other demons. Not your kind, of course. The male ones that stayed. It was... not too bad. Still carnage, the type we all knew from hell, demon against demons, except it happened up here. I killed most of them. I think some lesser ones might still be hiding here and there, but eventually I got bored of chasing utter cowards around. The st great moment was when I finally cornered the other lord. It was a good fight. I peeled the flesh off his head and threw his cursed skull in a river.

  That sounds familiar, Arabel remembered Stefan Spring's diary about how the people of Copperdust got mad after they found a weird skull.

  “Ever since then, I was down here, alone.” Tirgraz continued. “Demons are not supposed to live this long... not even archdemons like me. If I was in hell, I would have been killed a long time ago by younger wanna-be lords. I wouldn't have minded that. I have no purpose left, slut. I don't want to die by mortal hands, nor my own. Would be a disgrace. I have to wait here until the door to hell opens again, or until I perish on my own. Or, if something else happens, perhaps.”

  “Huh. Cool story. Now if you don't mind... I wanna call for my friend.”

  “Not so fast, demon slut. Bringer of a manticore, friend of an angel. What are you doing here?”

  “It's... well, she used to be a futanari. The angel.”

  “Huh?”

  “And a nun friend of hers... she summoned archangel Ariel. Using the artifact he left behind, if you know about it. She asked him to turn the futanari into an angel.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. But the futa loved me by then. And so she came back. And now, we got into some other kind of trouble. That's basically it.”

  “A nun. A nun using Ariel's Gratitude. To turn a futanari into an angel. Who then leaves heaven and becomes the lover of a succubus.”

  “Yea, you got it.”

  The demon stared at Arabel with rge, bck eyes, then it shook silently again. “For some reason, I don't think you are making a fool out of me, slut.”

  “Well... I'm gd to hear that.”

  “Who created this manticore?”

  “I don't know. I didn't even know such monsters are created.”

  “Few do. It's a rare and difficult art, even amongst us, archdemons. Hard to believe this was the craft of a mortal.”

  “Must have been that fucking Warren Crown then... uhm... an enemy of ours. An asshole pirate guy.”

  “A pirate?”

  “Look, I'm sorry you're stuck down here and all, but... can I go?”

  “You must have came to me for a purpose, demon slut. I don't really believe in coincidences, not anymore.”

  “What then, you want me to kill you? You said you don't wanna die by your own hands, or by a mortal's...”

  “Stop with your insolence, slut, or I'll take your head off!”

  “Okay, never mind then. Just... I'm kind of dying here. Please, tell me what you want! You want to fuck me?”

  “Demons do not fuck, fool. You sluts take care of reproduction for us.”

  “Then...”

  “Can you open the door for me?” Tirgraz asked.

  “I... don't think so?”

  “Let us try!”

  The demon lord picked up Arabel, paying little mind to her aching body or her broken leg, and he carried her past the corner. They walked down a surprisingly long, descending passage, illuminated by the walls themselves – it was probably all made of a kind of that radiant mineral. Reaching the end of the passage, there was a metal door without handle. It had the satanic star symbol carved into it, a sign so taboo that by now, most of the mortal world forgot about it. But for some reason, Arabel recognized it, and it made her gulp. Following Tirgraz's order, she touched it, commanded it to open in multiple different ways, but of course it was no use. In the end, the demon lord threw her on the ground irritably, making her scream in pain. He then dragged her back up to the darker cave, asking her to not talk about him to the angel for their own sake, then he walked back and disappeared behind the corner.

  “Chio!” the succubus yelled, and she felt tears gathering in her eyes. “Chio, I'm here!” she cried.

  “Arabel?” the angel's distant voice replied.

  “Yes, down here!”

  A few minutes ter, the white-winged figure descended through the hole in the cave's ceiling, guided by her lover's voice. Arabel sighed in relief, and Chio started to heal her at once.

  “Your leg! Oh my god, Arabel...”

  “Please, take me up first!”

  Chio looked around alertly. “Where is that monster?”

  “It's gone. Please, just take me up, you can heal me ter but we should leave, I'll tell you what happened, just please... hurry!”

  “All right, all right. We are leaving.”