Page 54 of Daemon Master

He kicked a mound of dirt by his feet, spraying it into the air. An instant later, Heartrender replicated it at a massive scale, flooding the clearing with an illusory dust cloud.

“Really, Adrian?” Kali said, her professional composure cracking. “Whatever game you think you’re playing, you’re way out of your league. Blazewing, bombard them!”

Adrian performed a partial Fusion so he could see through Heartrender’s eyes. The shift in perspective remained disorienting, but he’d practiced navigating like this extensively since his bout with Seymour. He took advantage of Heartrender’s unobscured vision to creep toward Kali.

Above, Blazewing swooped to execute Kali’s shouted order and collided with something in midair. Adrian suppressed a chuckle. Lockrod’sUnbendable Rodhad worked like a charm, its aether practically invisible if you didn’t know where to look.

“How did you do that?” Kali demanded.

He didn’t answer, continuing his cautious approach with Heartrender. When he drew near Kali, he instructed Lockrod to manifest a rod for him and swung it at her head.

The Serenity Corp agent reacted faster than he expected, pivoting to catch the blow on her forearm and shove the weapon aside. The movement threw him off-balance. He recovered quickly, but Kali had already spun left to circle behind him. She jabbed blindly in his general direction, forcing him to retreat and parry. They exchanged several furious rounds of blows. Adrian landed a strike on her thigh and received a bruising punch to his ribs in return.

Spirits below! Even blinded by dust, Kali was more than a match for him. A sudden warning from Lockrod sent him scrambling back right as flames erupted from a nearby fireball. Without Lockrod to harry it, Blazewing must’ve recovered enough to carry out Kali’s original orders.

That gave him an idea.

He searched the ground for a suitable stone and tossed it at Kali, arcing it so it passed above the dust cloud. Sensing his intent, Heartrender anchored aMirror Imageof herself to the rock. As he’d hoped, Blazewing responded by launching another fireball. Kali sputtered a string of expletives as it detonated almost directly on top of her. From what Adrian saw through Heartrender’s eyes, the flames singed her hands and face but had almost no effect on her silver garments. They must possess at least a basic aetherforging to strengthen the material.

“Stop, Blazewing!” Kali shouted. She flared her aether, recalling the daemon.

Adrian didn’t wait to see what she did next.Lockrod, to me! Heartrender, dismiss the cloud!

Trusting his daemons to follow his lead, he charged Kali. By the time he’d reached her, the dust cloud had faded, allowing him to cancel his partial Fusion with Heartrender and focus fully on the brawl. Heartrender stuck to Kali’s flanks. She was joined a few moments later by Lockrod from his treetop perch. Their joint attacks distracted Kali, allowing Adrian to thwack her ribs with hisUnbendable Rodhard enough to break a lesser daemon master’s bones.

Kali staggered back. “I see you’ve been training since our last encounter. Clever, disguising your full aura so you appear weaker.” Her eyes narrowed. “But it makes no difference.”

“Really?” He pressed his attack, landing another solid blow to her thigh that left her limping. “Because by the look of things,I’mnot the one who’s out of their league.”

“Enough!” Her remaining composure melted away as aether enveloped her. Shadowlash materialized at her side an instant later.

Adrian’s chest tightened. He’d hoped to overwhelm Kali before she resorted to summoning her other daemon. Unfortunately, however, prudence had overruled her pride.

Shadowlash lunged forward. Before it could reach him, Heartrender superimposed several illusory copies atop his torso. The enemy daemon hesitated, unable to tell which dodging Adrian was the real one. When it struck, its snapping jaws passed harmlessly through a decoy.

He tried to whack the daemon’s skull with hisUnbendable Rod, but Shadowlash blurred into shifting shadows, and his blow connected with nothing but air. He barely evaded the tentacles that lashed at him in retaliation.

Heartrender, Lockrod, to me!

His daemons swung around Kali to come to his defense. The Serenity Corp agent made no move to stop them. Now that she’d given up on defeating Adrian herself, she appeared perfectly content to relegate the work to her daemon. That suited Adrian just fine.

Unfortunately, Shadowlash didn’t seem to need any help to best them. Its ability to become incorporeal at will rendered their physical attacks worthless while its own thrashing tentacles were almost impossible to avoid.

Retreat, Adrian ordered, frustration weighing on him. They’d already lost whatever initial ground they’d gained via the element of surprise. They needed to fall back, regroup, and devise a new strategy.

Under the cover of another illusory cloud, Adrian scooped up Lockrod and used a partial Fusion with Heartrender to navigate away from Shadowlash. They’d barely gone a dozen steps when Kali recalled Shadowlash and summoned Blazewing. The fierydaemon soared above the cloud and resumed blanketing the area with fireballs.

So much for cover.

Dodging the explosions as best he could, Adrian ran back toward Kali. If he was going to be pelted by fire, he at least wanted to ensure she suffered some collateral damage.

As he drew near, Kali turned to face him. Enough of his shroud must’ve faded for her to track him by his aether. Blazewing vanished overhead, Shadowlash reappearing an instant later.

Adrian skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding a tentacle swipe.Spirits below!If they pulled back, Blazewing could burn them out of hiding, but if they stayed close, Shadowlash would pummel them to pieces. Kali had them at her mercy.

“I can do this all day,” she called, her tone mocking. “You may have grown since our last meeting, but you’re stillnothingcompared to me.”

Spirits take her, she was right. Even with both his daemons manifested, he hadn’t been able to best her while she was fighting alone. With her daemons, she was unstoppable.