Chapter 620: Interference

The pressure descending into the crater changed the battle before either newcomer had even landed. Brad felt the Dominion hammer grow heavier in his hands while Amara’s feet sank slightly deeper into the molten surface beneath her, and even the four Fire Elementals that had spent the last several minutes reforming only to get smashed apart became noticeably more restrained once the two figures above entered the crater.

The Infernal Princes descended through the smoke and heat while the lesser Elementals immediately surged forward, clearly intending to overwhelm Brad and Amara before the two newcomers even needed to act. One of the Princes lifted a hand to stop them, his gaze fixed on the two humans below as though the idea of accepting their help was insulting.

"Do not interfere. I will deal with both of them."

The second Prince barely looked at Brad or Amara before his attention shifted toward Grey, who remained fixed over his Cyber Mat with both hands working through streams of glowing sap.

"Then I will kill the fool."

Brad’s expression tightened while Amara’s calm look sharpened almost imperceptibly, and both moved at nearly the same time. The first Prince crossed the crater so quickly that Brad barely managed to bring the Dominion hammer up before a flaming fist collided with its face, and the resulting force launched him backward across the lava hard enough to make him skip twice before digging his boots in.

The hammer absorbed enough of the blow to keep his arms intact, but pain still travelled through both shoulders and made it immediately obvious that this was nothing like playing whack-a-mole with the weakened Fire Elementals from before.

Amara intercepted the second Prince before he could gain much distance toward Grey, sliding directly into his path and thrusting one hand toward his chest. Her fingers phased through the outer layer of armor, but the moment they entered the dense Fire Energy filling the Prince’s body, the expression on her face shifted and she ripped her hand back before the effect could spread farther.

The problem wasn’t solid matter, it was energy density, and the amount packed into the Prince made maintaining a large phased section drastically more difficult.

That became even more obvious when the Prince swept an arm toward her and released a wave of heat that filled most of the space between them. Amara could normally ignore an attack by phasing whatever portion of herself it touched, but there was simply too much energy here to make her entire body intangible at once, forcing her to concentrate the effect around her brain, heart, spine, and several major arteries while the rest of her body endured the heat normally.

Her skin reddened almost instantly and patches of her clothing began to blacken, but she still pushed through the wave instead of giving the Prince the open path toward Grey that he wanted.

Brad wasn’t doing much better, though Ma Famille was showing its value with every exchange. The first Prince struck from angles Brad probably wouldn’t have managed to read a day earlier, yet the hammer seemed to guide his movements as the new comprehension settled deeper into his Frame, letting him turn broad blocks into narrower motions that wasted far less strength.

Even then, he was being driven backward a little more with every hit, and the Fire Elementals circling around the edges of the battle only made things worse by throwing attacks whenever they thought they saw an opening.

"Did he not tell you to stay out of it?" Brad shouted after smashing one of their fireballs apart with the hammer.

The Prince fighting him glanced toward the lesser Elementals with visible irritation. "I said do not interfere."

The Fire Elementals immediately backed off.

Brad barked out a laugh despite the blood already running from the corner of his mouth. "At least someone around here has standards."

Across the crater, Amara finally managed to get inside the second Prince’s reach, letting his hand pass through a narrow phased section around her throat while the rest of her body stayed solid enough to keep moving forward. She drove her right hand through his abdomen, preserving the phasing only around the exact parts of her arm necessary to reach through his armor and energy, then solidified something inside him long enough to make the Prince jerk and cough out a spray of glowing blood.

The counter came immediately afterward, a backhand carrying enough force to send Amara crashing through a ridge of volcanic stone and leave her lying motionless for several seconds.

The second Prince turned away from her and headed straight for Grey.

Brad saw it happen while still locked against the first Prince and knew immediately that he couldn’t allow it, not while Grey was in the middle of whatever ridiculous crafting process had apparently made him deaf to the entire fight.

He twisted away from a punch, took another across the ribs badly enough to feel something crack, then hurled the Dominion hammer with everything his Linear Frame could compress into one route. The weapon screamed across the crater and struck the second Prince from the side just before he reached the volcanic wall, forcing him away from Grey even though the impact also left Brad’s arms hanging uselessly for a moment afterward.

Amara had already dragged herself upright by then, one side of her body burned badly enough that the phasing around it flickered whenever she tried to spread the effect too far.

She still intercepted the second Prince again, slipping through the edge of another blast before driving both hands into his chest and forcing him to spend precious seconds tearing her away instead of moving toward Grey. By the time he finally threw her aside, Brad had recovered enough control over his arms to call the hammer back and step into his path again.

Neither of them looked good.

Brad’s breathing had turned rough and uneven, blood ran down one side of his face, and his arms trembled whenever he lifted the hammer, while Amara’s burns covered enough of her body that she had been forced to keep her phasing concentrated almost entirely around vital organs.

They had still accomplished what mattered, though, since neither Infernal Prince had managed to get past them and Grey remained untouched above.

That realization finally seemed to burn through what little patience the Princes had left.

The first looked toward his companion, then toward Brad and Amara. "Enough of this."

The second Prince’s flames surged so violently that the lava around his feet pulled away from him in waves. "We kill them first, then the crafter."

Brad adjusted his grip despite the pain in his hands while Amara shifted what remained of her phasing around her head, heart, and spine, both of them fully aware that another prolonged exchange would probably finish them. The Princes stepped forward together, their combined pressure rolling across the crater hard enough to make even the lesser Elementals retreat.

Then a metallic rattling echoed through the volcano.

The sound was faint at first, but it carried strangely through the crater, as though something heavy had been dragged across stone somewhere above them. A second rattle followed, louder this time, and a suffocating pressure began spreading through the air with it until both Infernal Princes stopped mid-step and turned toward Grey.

Brad looked up as well, while Amara’s narrowed eyes followed a moment later.

The chains rattled again.