Chapter 117: Nem8

Chapter 117: Nem8

If he pushed the Wing too hard it started to fall apart. James wished the damn thing came with a speedometer. Was he going 200 mph? Faster? He couldnt tell. But as he drove it harder, forcing the craft to blur up the avenues, he felt its components begin to shake apart, its chassis separating, held in place by raw Aeviternum and his will.

He ripped north up Bowery, tearing along between the five and six-story brick high rises, over abandoned buses and burning cars, leaving a wake of shimmering silver behind him. Midtown was a distant, hazy mass of buildings, the demon symbol shimmering over the Empire State, but he had one focus and one focus alone:

Cleansing the fuck out of the streets.

It became a test as to how fast he could drop bombs and burn his divine pool while Ruby strained and fought to regenerate. As he flew he dropped four Heavenly Assaults two blocks over in every direction, not caring for what he hit or how, just unleashing his fury on anything and everything susceptible to his destruction.

Below him, along Bowery, he dragged a net of pure Diamond, a facsimile of Seraphic Web made with Aura Mastery, forty yards wide and trawling the avenue with complex swirls of silver.The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

Demons shrieked and leaped at him, tried to run up-avenue, clambered over each other, howled their fury, and died.

By the hundreds.

By the thousands.

Faster and faster James went, the Wing shaking apart, the silver Aeviternum bonds visible now between the distinct parts. Leaning out wide, twenty yards above the asphalt, James dragged his web along, filled the avenue with pure glory even as he dropped Assaults again and again on the blocks over.

Get the fuck outta here!Screamed Jelly, his panic and elation mingling into one euphoric scream. James, we gotta slow down!

You mean go faster?

Because there was no doubting the scale of the catastrophe that was engulfing the city in real time. Millions had crammed their way into the city the day before, flooding the streets in panicked masses, and millions had died.

Everywhere James looked he saw the dead. Torn, shredded, hurled apart, crushed, gauged, decapitated. The dead were everywhere, and part of James felt that if he could only go fast enough the bodies would blur, lose their individual identities, would no longer stare blankly up at him with projected accusations in their eyes.

James, the Wing!

It was rattling, shivering apart. James grimaced and willed it to come together, to coalesce once more.

It did so, draining more from his divine pool.

Which was slowly dropping. Ruby couldnt keep up with the sheer scale of the shit he was dropping.

Bowery split in two up ahead. James veered to the left, heading more inland, toward Midtown.

Heavenly Assaults blasted the side streets continuously, magnificent, insane, draining his divine pool, his Diamon Aura causing the demons below to shriek and get cheese guillotined apart.

But these demons werent mindless Nem2s, or even the bestial cunning Nem3s. Word was spreading amongst them, and the avenue was clearing up ahead, demons splitting left and right to sprint into side streets even as the Nem7s and Nem8s flew as fast as they could for the Empire State building.

Around which a storm was building.

No, not a storm.

James grunted as if hed been punched in the chest.

Thousands of flying demons swirled around the demon symbol. So many that they looked like storm clouds, great swathes revolving endlessly around the symbols.

The ten Heavenly Assaults hit it like the wrath of a primitive god. The black shield held for a moment, but the demon was hurled down before the electric storm, dropping the thousand five hundred feet in a flash to slam into the avenue with the strength of a meteor.

James dove right after, his hair streaming behind him, head down, roaring his hatred and glee as he filled the block below with Seraphic Web.

But this Nem8 was obscenely strong. James couldnt begin to guess how many hundreds, how many thousands of Nemeses had gone into making it. With a defiant roar it struggled free of the rubble, shattering the walls and windows of the buildings around it, wings knocking over cars and light posts as it rose, its burning black shield fragmenting, the Seraphic Web scrawling deep wounds across its body.

Infernum manifested along the length of its scimitar which lost its form, became a mass of black fire, and which then flew up right into Jamess face.

Split second decision.

Infernum Reaper drew the black flame even quicker to him, converting part of the attack into fuel even as James triggered Demonic Form and Void Break.

He was three hundred feet up when he exploded in size, wings bursting out of his back, the Nem8s form becoming his own, obsidian erupting up his forearms, out of his shoulders, sweeping back from his brow in the shape of huge horns. In seconds he was twenty-yards long from claws to brow, his wings furled on his back, Void Break flooding him with Infernum that hed stolen from the fireball.

The Nem8s eyes went wide in shock and then James hit it like a bat out of hell.

The collision was so powerful it caused every window along the block and halfway up the Empire State to blast out. James drove the larger Nem8 deep into the crater, shattering through into some manner of underground basement or tunnel.

Bones ruptured, demon ichor geysered like a dozen burst fire hydrants. Jamess Angelus Armor yet cloaked him, protected him from the worst of the impact, his Indomitable Resilience causing his wounds to immediately began to heal even as he targeted himself with Healing Grace and began dropping more Heavenly Assaults on the thrashing demon, one two three four, the sky turning blank white with the sheer power of the assault.

The Nem8 tried to teleport away but James activated Terrify which caused the demon to panic; it thrashed, crushing cars with each blow of its fists, other vehicles sliding and tumbling into the growing pit. The facade of the building across from the Empire State suddenly collapsed with a grinding roar, a huge dust cloud billowing up.

The Nem8 fell back, exhausted, depleted, half its skull crushed in. James reared back, clenched both fists together and then drove them down into the demons head just as he unleashed a final Nova, pouring absolutely all of his divine power into the explosion.

The Nova was soundless. The world went blank as it burst outward, consumed the noise of the demons head being crushed inward, the dirt and pipes and asphalt and everything else beneath them compacting another five yards deeper.

The Nem8s body was consumed by the Nova which James felt blow out to cover one block, two, three.

A small hemisphere of burning white light rose to a height of some five hundred feet, halfway up the Empire State, consuming everything within its diameter.

Then it faded away.

James leaped out of the pit, abandoning his demonic form. Up into the air he flew with a single beat of his wings and reaching out with Spiritual Exaltation he found the remnants of the Wing, disparate and scattered across the streets. He burned an Aeviternum and willed the mystic bonds that had held the components together to flicker back into existence, channels of burning white light appearing between them, gathering them together, lifting them out of the rubble, so that the pieces rushed through the air toward him as he hit the apex of his leap in human form and formed beneath him just as he began to fall.

Jelly was there, laughing manically, unhinged. The Animus slotted into the recomposed Wing which sagged in the air under Jamess weight and then throttled forward, picking up speed so violently that the front reared up, the back skidding and swerving from side to side before it settled and James cut a turn to head down the avenue, away from the Empire State whose burning hive had been utterly quenched and eradicated.

What the fuck are you doing?screamed Jelly. Where the fuck did you learn to do that?!

Figuring it out as I go, grinned James.

Ruby was causing his utterly depleted divine pool to regrow quickly. Hed only spent three Aeviternum out of his twenty and taken no damage. In a minute his divine pool would be utterly regenerated.

But all of Manhattan lay before him, with Jersey waiting just beyond. A dozen demon symbols, hundreds of thousands of demons, countless millions waiting to be saved.

James gripped the Wings handlebars so tightly the ivory and silver cracked. He willed the craft to fly faster, and with a roar began to drop Heavenly Assaults again, carpet bombing the city as he went with untrammeled glory and fury.

Run, demon spawn! he screamed as the demons saw him coming and turned to flee. Run! Vengeances coming and it aint never gonna stop!