?875 Devilsbane Dagger
Compared to the enormous throne, Lex seemed like an ant. The devil sitting in the throne seemed both grand and menacing as it looked down on Lex. The surrounding darkness wrapped itself around the devil's face, so only his eyes were visible, but the rest of his figure could easily be seen, as if it was fully illuminated.
The devil clearly seemed to enjoy the feeling of Lex looking up at it, and even leaned forward so that it could bring its face right above Lex, forcing him to arch his neck even further. But while the devil reveled in his sense of superiority, Lex was indifferent to the size difference.
Once one had stood atop a dragon, the size of things hardly seemed to matter anymore.
"You…" the devil began to say, stretching out his words as if building anticipation. "...are distracted."
Outside the mind of the devil Lex was invading, the devil had quietly and secretly healed! Although he was not back in his prime, it was enough for him to move his tail.
The tip of his was sharper than a sword, even, and stabbed Lex right in the heart… or tried to. All it managed to do was ruffle his suit a bit.
Within the mindscape, Lex continued to look at the devil indifferently. Clearly his plan did not have the effect he sought.
"Are you the one behind all of this?" Lex asked, though he had already made his own judgments.
"Why do you hope to know, dragon tamer? Do you think you can conquer me like you did the dragon? Do you think you can hide your identity behind such pathetic masks? Do you think you are more than just a pawn in a game of giants?"
The devil's voice rose into a deafening scream, shaking not just Lex's mind but the mindscape he was in as well. Outside, the devil's tail continued its feeble attempts at stabbing Lex until the once sharp tail turned dull, but it could not even tear a single stitch of Lex's suit.
"You are trying to intimidate me, to threaten me. That means you are afraid. Good. You should be afraid," said Lex, before leaving the mindscape. He was not going to learn much more than the fact that there was a group of devils intricately linked to this assault on the Midnight Inn. But who they were specifically was still a mystery.
Lex would have liked to spend more time investigating, but he did not forget that time was short.
The moment he was done trying to look into the devil's thoughts, Lex brought out the dagger he had used earlier and stabbed it through the devil's eye!
Unbelievably, even with an injury on its brain the devil was not dead yet, and continued to scream. Lex had to stab the devil numerous times before he succumbed to his wounds.
He pulled out the dagger one last time and wiped the blood off from the devil's clothes before taking a good look at it. The silver blade was straight, serrated and eight inches (20 cm) long, making it look fairly ordinary. It was instead the handle, made of an unusual black material that perfectly adapted itself to the shape of Lex's hand. The top and bottom edges of the handle had some sharp spikes pointing outwards that actually looked more dangerous than the blade.
But looks were deceiving. The blade was made from a rare metal that had the durability and sharpness to cut through the skin of an ordinary immortal. Of course, to actually perform the task one would need a lot more than just a sharp blade.
Besides that, the blade was also enchanted, so that it would suck out the vitality of anyone who touched it. The handle was made of a special material that protected the user from the blade's enchantment.
This ludicrously sharp and deadly knife had a very contrastingly simple name of Dagger, but considering his first kill with it, Lex decided to rename it Devilsbane Dagger.
Devilsbane Dagger would not have worked on the zealot or the statue which was why Lex had not used it earlier, but the devils who had incredibly resilient bodies were prime targets for it.
He turned back to Z, who was still sending away his remaining allies.
"We have sent away anyone we could, and we can thwart the enemies by sending a powerful rocket their way. Now the only thing left is to figure out how we are going to access the place that you felt a connection from. Any ideas?"
"I can feel it. The place is nearby, but it's hidden or… or just out of reach. Every time space tears I can feel its entrance, but the space tears always open up to the Void. The opening is somewhere in the cracks, where space is splintered, but not quite all the way to the Void."
Z's explanation reminded him of the sensation he had earlier,where he felt that the space here was stretched over something, as if to hide it.
"Although I understand what you are saying, I have no way of reaching the place. Read the manual I gave you and see if you can figure something out. Since you're the only one who can feel the connection, you are the only one who can open up a door to that place. I'll protect you as long as I can, but I don't know how long that'll actually be."
In the distance, he could see that more and more divine energy was accumulating in one point: the statue. The devil besieging the zealot had not slowed the accumulation of divine energy in any way. Instead, it had sped up the process, no doubt due to the collateral damage from their fight.
As if sensing that the situation was about to get much worse, Lex took off his blazer and dropped it on Z's shoulders.
"Here, put this on."
The young man was quite strong, but was not strong enough to casually tolerate the defensive blazer that had been designed from Lex. His knees buckled and he fell to the ground, but fortunately, he had caught himself before he face planted.