Devil Ash Deceit (Devil Ash Saga) (11 page)

Those who could move ran to the edge of the canyon where Phoenix stood pointing. Ash dropped from the roof and ran towards the ledge, curious. He pushed his way past the men, staring out into the space above the canyon. The air was clear.

The boy followed Phoenix’s finger to the bottom of the ravine. There he could clearly see the rocks in the valley moving, shifting, rolling around on the ground. Nothing was pushing them, but still the stones moved and formed together into bizarre shapes. Miniature sculptures arose in an instant, and the rocks only continued to pile up until they were taller than the devils.

They formed together into vaguely person-shaped bodies. Rolling on the stones that made up their feet, the stone demons tore through the rock valley heading straight for the cliff wall of West Hell.

“This is not good,” said Phoenix. The man, along with ten others who could still move peered over the edge of the cliff. In the rock valley below, hundreds of living rock demons were forming together into stone soldiers. Most of them tried to resemble the devils in shape and size, but a few odd ones chose other shapes. There were some that looked vaguely like spiders, dogs, or other insects.

“What are they?” Ash asked.

“Rolling stones,” said Phoenix. “They’re usually dormant and docile. It seems all our fighting has disturbed their habitat. It looks like they think they’re under attack and have begun to mobilize.”

“Cool name though,” Ash said. “They can’t actually get up here, can they?”

“I should think not,” Phoenix replied stepping away from the ledge. “I do not believe they can climb. The only slope up here from the valley will be far too steep for them.”

Ash watched as the first of the stone demons rolled up to the base of the steep slope Phoenix mentioned. As he predicted, the demons could not move any further. The wall at the bottom of the valley was nearly ninety degrees. The creatures stood in a jam at the bottom, trying to press onward but getting nowhere.

“Get everyone out of here,” Phoenix ordered the man behind him. With a nod, that man took off and everyone else followed. Everyone except Ash. The boy stood at the edge of the cliff, staring down at the eerie demon activity below.

Shiva appeared from the outpost and ran to Phoenix. After inquiring about Wilhelm’s condition, the man breathed a sigh of relief. The Great Satan was okay, but would probably be laid out for the rest of the day. Shiva took notice of Ash still standing over by the canyon’s edge, staring down into the valley. Phoenix filled her in on the rolling stones.

“What should we do about them?” asked Shiva.

“Nothing,” Phoenix replied. “They can’t do us any harm up here.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Ash. “Look.”

Phoenix and Shiva joined Ash at the edge. Down below, the gathering crowd of stone demons was massive. Hundreds of formations in all shapes and sizes pressed together at the bottom of the ravine. It became difficult to tell the individual formations apart. At the front of the crowd, the rocks that were pressed up against the rock wall started stacking on top of each other.

As more and more of the demons pressed forward, the separate sculptures started blending together. Using the canyon wall for balance, the rock demons piled on top of one another. The pile of demons rose up and continued growing as more of the rocks pushed forward. It wouldn’t take long for the stack to reach the top of the canyon.

“They’re making a tower out of…
themselves
!” said Shiva.

“
Leona
!” Phoenix shouted for his servant. The girl came running out of the outpost, where she’d been looking after the injured Wilhelm and blinded Aura. “Go get Lionel and Dismas at once!” Before the last word was uttered, the girl was gone.

“We can’t wait around forever,” said Ash. “With all of them piling up like that, I can take’em all out at once with one more huge fireball.”

“You can certainly try,” said Phoenix. His face revealed severe skepticism, though.

“Stand back,” Ash said. He lifted his arms above his head and once again gathered flames in his open palms. Like before, he readied an enormous fireball that burned like a mini-sun. Shiva and Phoenix had to take several steps back to avoid the heat it put off. When Ash could no longer fuel the fire, he stepped to the edge and heaved the burning ball over.

The fireball fell for a matter of seconds before scraping against the topmost demon on the stack. The tower toppled backwards and the demons all fell into a pile. The fireball was buried underneath all the rocky monsters. Ash tried to make it explode with his mind, but nothing happened.

The pile of stone demons continued to grow as more of them rolled into the valley. Instead of piling up against the cliff wall, the rocks all rolled into the center of the valley where the first stack had toppled over. It looked like they were combining together into one enormous entity now.

“Okay, so fire doesn’t really hurt them,” said Ash. “I’m all out of ideas.”

“What do we do?” Shiva asked, looking to Phoenix for the answer.

“Everyone’s too tired or injured to deal with this right now,” he said. “But if my friends get here soon, we can handle it ourselves.”

“Should I go find my brother?”

“No,” Phoenix said. “That won’t be necessary. Let’s just wait until my strength has returned a little. I should be able to handle this on my own if I’m at full power.”

The three stood at the edge watching the colossal rock monster take shape. It was nearly halfway out of the canyon and still rising as more and more rolling stones continued to build the beast up from below. The rocks knew exactly where to go so that each individual stone fit together like jigsaw pieces to make one big puzzle.

Four giant stone pillars acted like legs, holding up the rest of the stones that clung together forming the beast’s body. A smaller lump of stones gathered at the front of the sculpture, making the demon’s head. Though the body and legs were clearly meant to resemble an animals, the head formed into a bizarre man-like face with no features. Where its eyes and mouth should have been there were only indentations, making for one terrifyingly expressionless monstrosity.

“I told you I’m alright!” Wilhelm could be heard shouting at someone as he limped out of the outpost. “There you all are. What are you doing over-”

The old man’s sentence was cut short as he looked past his friends to discover the behemoth of a demon emerging from the canyon. The next sounds he made were of the stunned, unintelligible kind.

“We may be in more trouble,” Shiva said.

“Nonsense,” Phoenix replied. “I’ve been resting this whole time and Lionel and Dismas are on their way. We’ll be just fine.”

“You’d better be right about that,” Wilhelm said. “I know how strong you are Phoenix, but I must admit this does not look good…”

Aura finally managed to find his way out of the outpost as well, having chased after Wilhelm. He stumbled outside, and having nothing around him to touch and feel his way around, the boy became lost. Only when Ash called out to him was he able to make his way over to the group.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ash asked, becoming concerned when he saw his friend’s odd behavior.

“I don’t want you to freak out, but I think I may be blind,” the boy replied, looking to where he thought Ash was, but actually staring at Shiva.

“
What
! How?”

“It’s my new ability, soul sight. It allows me to see all the souls around me, even through walls and obstacles. Of course, as I just discovered, it sort of takes away my eye sight…”

What an ironic and fitting punishment for me,
Aura thought.
It seems these powers of mine only exist to rob people of their eyes…

“You can’t see anything, at all?” asked Ash.

“No, I… Wait a minute,” said Aura. Since he lost his vision, all he could see was black. Slowly, the black was turning lighter. Blurry shapes appeared, and pretty soon he could make out the vague figures of his friends standing before him. “It’s coming back! My vision is returning!” he said, ecstatic.

As the blurs sharpened, another shape became visible to him: that of the rock behemoth rising out of the canyon.

“Holy crap!” the boy shouted, surprised. “What the heck is that thing!?”

The behemoth demon lurched to life, moving one of its long pillar-like legs forward. The sound of the stones all scraping together as the joints moved was like that of an iceberg breaking apart.

“Wait a minute!” Aura said suddenly. “I was wrong, I’m still blind…” the boy said and laughed nervously.

“Phoenix, we can’t wait any longer,” said Wilhelm. “You and I will handle this. Shiva, you and the boys get out of here.”

“Can do!” said Aura, happily.

“No,” Shiva refused. “We won’t abandon you.”

“Don’t be a fool!” Wilhelm said, snapping at his granddaughter. “Phoenix and I will use our soul power to take this beast down. Without that, you three won’t even be able to scratch it.”

“If you can still use your soul power, you should focus on healing yourself,” Phoenix told Wilhelm. “Don’t worry about me, just go!”

While the group of devils stood around bickering, the rock demon lumbered forward like a titan. It was massive enough that most of its body rose out of the canyon, and in only a matter of minutes it would be crawling over the cliff wall and into West Hell. From far off, the demon invasion siren that everyone was used to hearing started to sound. Apparently, the entire Kingdom now knew the threat of the massive demon. That, or another group of demons was invading somewhere else.

“Just leave it to me,” said Phoenix. The man lowered his head and concentrated. With a flash of power, the white steam-like substance that was soul power began flowing off his body.

“I’m just as rested as you are,” said Ash. “Are you sure I can’t help?”

“Without knowing how to harness your soul power, there’s nothing you can do,” Phoenix told him.

“Hey! Phoenix!” two voices rang from above. The group directed their attention to the sky behind them, where they saw two more people approaching. One was a larger, muscular man. The other guy was of average build and had long hair. They landed before the group and rushed to Phoenix’s side.

“Sorry we’re late!” Dismas, the larger of the two men, said.

“We just like keeping you on your toes!” Lionel, the longhaired man, added.

“Better late than never, I suppose,” said Phoenix. “I’ll take the head, you take those front legs.”

At once, the two men started charging their soul power just like Phoenix did. With a flash of concentration, the glowing steam billowed off their bodies and drifted in the breeze. It felt thick in the air as it drifted past Ash, like a cloud of excess power. Both the boys and Shiva were entranced with what was happening in front of them.

The three men charged their soul power even more, and were soon surrounded by the foggy glowing mist of their souls. Phoenix held out his hands and started gathering flames, and the other men followed his lead. Ash was confused for a moment, thinking they were going to lob more fireballs, which he’d already proven ineffective. But then he saw what they were actually doing.

Flames were not the only things being collected in the men’s hands. As the fire swirled and gathered into the massive fireballs, all the glowing misty soul power was also being funneled in. The resulting balls of flame has a glowing white tinge to them, and felt about a hundred times more powerful.

Without a word, Phoenix brought out his wings and leapt. The other men followed. They flew up about twenty feet into the air as the rock behemoth crawled forward, its bizarre expressionless face only yards away from where the team stood. Ash wondered if it could see them standing there, or if the creature was as blind as Aura had been.

With the rock demon too close for comfort, the three men released their blasts of flame and soul. Phoenix shot his straight for the monster’s head, while the other two blasts from Lionel and Dismas collided with the behemoth’s front legs. Ash expected the fireballs to collide with the stones and stop dead, but he and the team were amazed to see the blasts shoot straight through the monster and keep going.

Phoenix’s blast hit the beast right in the center of its ‘head’ and burrowed through its torso, even going far enough to shoot out the other side. With the other men’s blasts striking the beast’s forelegs, the pillars started to crumble. The stones trembled and shook, trying to stick together. Several stones even attempted rolling into place to fix the holes that had been blasted through it, but to no avail.

The beast fell forward, its front legs no longer able to stand and support the massive body. The rest of the stones vibrated like they were afraid. The demons face transformed, warped with fear and attempting to fill in the giant hole in its head. Stones rained down into the canyon like beads of sweat dripping off the monster. As more and more of the rock demons abandoned ship, the behemoth started shrinking.

After a few minutes of this, the demons were no longer a threat to West Hell. As everything came tumbling down, the remaining rocks that banded together split all at once. The stone demons fell to the ground in the canyon valley, rolling away frightened of the destructive power of the devil’s soul energy.

All was quiet for a moment, until cheers erupted from behind the group. Everyone turned around to see the remaining men who weren’t injured standing there, cheering and applauding Phoenix and his friends. The men who destroyed the demon touched down only to be swarmed by the mob of grateful devils showering them with praise and compliments.

That power…
Ash thought.
I couldn’t even put a dent in that thing, but Phoenix beat it with just one blast! With that kind of power, I might stand a chance against the Prince some day. I have to learn how to do it, too!

“That soul power trick is pretty useful,” Shiva said. It was as if she read Ash’s mind. The girl and her team approached Phoenix, cutting through the crowd of congratulators. Shiva flashed the man a wide smile.