Chapter 069: Shadow Frenzy

The imp quickly chanted a spell. Flames sprang up all over the gnoll.

Instead of retreating, the burning creature went even wilder. It shrieked and swung its club at Jess again. Jess raised his sword, knocked the club aside, and stepped out of the way.

That small deflection almost numbed his entire right arm. His sword slipped from his hand and clattered onto the stone.

The gnoll fighter laughed at the sight of Jess losing his weapon and raised its club to smash his head.

Jess cast Fear at once.

The laughter vanished. The gnoll froze for a moment, its shoulders trembling. Jess drew the dagger he'd bought from Gagin at his waist and drove it upward through the creature's jaw, piercing its mouth and coming out near the side of its lips.

He pulled the dagger free and stabbed again, this time into its eye socket.

The two thrusts were so fast that the gnoll had only just recovered from the spell. It roared in pain and toppled backward off the wall.

Jess hadn't managed to pull his dagger out of the creature's eye.

"My... Hey!"

That dagger was worth good money!

He watched the gnoll fall into the forest. Closer by, another pair of stupid, vacant eyes rose slowly over the parapet and found him.

"Aah!"

The imp screamed. Jess turned to see a gnoll engulfed in flames lifting Saeno into the air.

Jess snatched up his sword, rushed forward, and hacked the gnoll's arm off. A kick to the side of its face sent it tumbling from the wall.

Saeno shook off the severed paw and yelled with delight, "Master cares about me! Master doesn't want me to die!"

"Watch yourself!" Jess shouted.

But the gnoll that had been staring at him was already charging.

Groups of gnolls were climbing onto the watchtower now. Jess and Saeno couldn't possibly hold them all off.

Then Saeno began chanting a completely different spell.

A burst of flame exploded around Jess's right hand. He stared in astonishment.

His sword was on fire!

"Master, you're stronger now! Go get them!" Saeno cackled.

Stronger?

As the sword burned, Jess felt a strange courage swelling in his chest.

The flames howled and blazed bright enough to hurt his eyes. Yet when he looked into them, he almost thought he could see souls moving inside.

Jess gripped the sword with both hands and charged the two gnolls in front of him. When he swung, the one behind the other recoiled from the flames and stumbled straight back over the battlements.

Some gnolls tried to get behind him. Jess turned and swept the burning blade toward them. The creatures that had just climbed up backed away until they were pressed against the stone wall.

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They seemed terrified of the roaring fire. Even those approaching from farther off began to hesitate.

Jess knew why. These weren't ordinary elemental flames. They were corrupted fire, fed and directed by something ominous.

And the sudden bravery he'd felt wasn't necessarily courage born in the face of danger. It was more likely the chaos and bloodlust brought by demonic power.

Every swing of the sword made the flames scrape through the air with a sound like crying. Behind him, Saeno kept casting Immolate on gnolls who were already terrified. The atmosphere atop the watchtower grew more and more unnatural.

And somehow, Jess wanted to embrace the madness.

These gnolls wanted to kill him. They wanted to tighten ropes around his throat, chop off his arms and legs, drive iron bars through his mouth and out the back of his skull, then roast him and eat him.

They wanted Stonewatch Keep. They wanted everyone inside it dead.

Jess would never allow that.

He wanted to kill the monsters, burn their fur, chop their limbs apart. These half-dog, half-human creatures thought themselves clever. They didn't deserve to live.

Hatred surged in his chest. He looked at their dull eyes, deformed limbs, and awkward movements. They seemed like mistakes made by some twisted attempt to breed people and animals together.

He raised his sword. The fire rose around him like a scorching gale. Its wails drowned out even the imp's excited shrieks.

The flames darkened from their earlier brightness to red, with an eerie purple glow beneath them.

"Die! All of you!"

Jess moved faster than he could believe. His blade plunged straight into one gnoll's skull. With a furious sizzling sound, the creature's head split apart, spraying gore. Jess tore his sword sideways and hacked into another gnoll's shoulder. The blade bit all the way into its chest, filling his nose with the smell of scorched flesh.

"You wanted to kill me, didn't you? So who's dead now? Where are your heads? Where are your arms and legs?"

He shouted the same words over and over as he cut the gnolls that had reached the tower into scattered pieces of flesh and charred remains.

He lost count of how many times he swung. When he finally looked around, nothing was standing. The stone beneath him was covered with broken limbs and shredded meat. Frightened gnolls howled all around him.

Then, somehow, it became quiet again.

A growing thunder of hooves reached him. Horns blared louder than the monsters' cries.

The gnolls were retreating, fleeing in a panic. Some were so frightened that they jumped from the walls into the forest. The few remaining in front of Jess ran away too. They'd already been close to breaking.

They're afraid of the cavalry, Jess told himself. They know Stonewatch's main force has returned. That's why they're running.

The body parts around him—severed limbs, gnoll corpses with half their bodies missing—still burned with black flames edged in red.

Jess rushed over and stamped on them again and again until the fires went out.

One phrase kept echoing in his mind.

Shadowflame.

Was this Shadowflame?

In theory, it was impossible.

Shadowflame was the breath of black dragons, scorching lava spewed by creatures tainted with shadow energy.

Jess was only an ordinary human, and Saeno was a weak little demon. How could the two of them create a disaster of fire this evil?

One simple possibility came to mind: the imp had set his sword alight, and the shadow within Jess had corrupted the imp's demonic fire. The result resembled the shadow fire breathed by black dragons.

Before he could consider whether there was any practical use for that discovery, exhaustion struck him. His head throbbed painfully.

His body had never been capable of fighting with such violence. He'd simply forced himself beyond his limits for a short time.

"Master?" Saeno asked cautiously behind him.

Jess rubbed his forehead and turned. He'd never seen the imp behave so carefully.

He leaned against the battlement. Streaks of blood-red color had appeared across his skin, some bright and some faint. His head throbbed with every beat of his heart.

Suddenly, a burning pain shot through his right hand. He dropped the sword.

At some point it had turned black and bent from the heat. Even the crossguard had warped, burning his forefinger and the web of skin beside his thumb.

He watched the skin of his hand darken under the corrosive touch of shadow. He fumbled at his clothing, thinking of wrapping the wound, then realized that a bandage would do nothing against a shadow burn.

"Master! Take this! Drink it!" The imp held out a bottle of Shadow Protection Potion. "It's the last one, Master!"

Jess snatched it and swallowed the entire potion in one go. The sharp, sour burn in his throat cleared his head considerably.

The agony from the shadow corrosion eased, and the evil fire raging in his chest slowly died away.

The potion stopped the ongoing damage, but the burn marks already on his right hand remained.

He stared ahead blankly as the heated night finally began to cool. Human voices in Stonewatch gradually drowned out the gnolls' shrieks.

"Were you the one who sent up that signal?"

Jess jerked his head up. Several soldiers were standing in front of him.

The imp had vanished.