The hulking figure tossed the guard he had shishkababed aside and through the wall of the barn like he was tossing scraps to his dogs.

By the sounds outside, the metaphor wasn’t far off.

The creature eyed the remaining men present with hungry eyes.

“I smelled the bloodlust coming from here. Where did it all go?” he said, stepping slowly towards the next guard in line. “Come on! I can smell it on your souls! Show me!”

The terrified guard, who seemed the biggest and scariest of the group, lunged at the demon with his sword, only for it to clang harmlessly against the demon’s plate armor.

The pitchfork that tore through the first poor bastard spun around in the demon’s hand, stopping with its other end, a spear-like head, that soon went straight through the brave but never-the-less under-equipped fighter.

The demon lifted him to his face and smelled him like he was a fine steak. “Ah! The soul of a murderer! Give me all of your sins!”

The demon grabbed the poor man’s head with his massive black hand, and then… drank him.

It was like his very life was drained from his skin and into the demon, leaving only a shriveled husk behind.

The torch said husk was holding dropped to the ground, quickly lighting the hay on fire.

“Fuck this shit!”

“I ain’t getting paid for demons man!”

The remaining ‘guards’ all ran off in the opposite direction and out the barn, leaving me, their boss, and the uninvited guest in a now quickly burning hay and wooden pyre.

One of the three, the one who was tasked with cutting my fingers, was not so lucky, as the spearhead side of the pitchfork came flying into his back and pinned him to the thick wooden door.

The demon stepped casually towards his thrown weapon, completely ignoring the fire and the remaining occupants of the building.

Midas had pissed himself and dropped to the floor the moment his largest guard bit the dust. He was now crawling back in terror, past me, trying to get away in semi catatonic state

“Hey!” I whispered loudly. “Untie me!”

Midas seemed to shake off a bit of the shock, then lunged at me. “You’re favored by the gods, right?! Summon whatever miracle saved you before!” he said, shaking me.

“I don’t think it works like that,” I said, trying to loosen the ropes around me.

“Use your magic then! Something!”

“I sure as hell can’t do anything when I’m tied up can I?!”

Midas wheeled around to the back of the post and began to fiddle around with the knot.

But a certain pair of hungry, red, glowing eyes rested upon us.

“I smell… a stench.” The demon, having finished drinking his second target, stepped slowly towards us. “The touch of the gods.”

“Hurry the fuck up!”

The demon kept coming, surrounded by the flames that were engulfing the barn and were too getting closer to us very quickly.

Death by fire, would probably earn me a respawn courtesy of the goddess of love.

But that… drinking… that looked like a whole other story.

The demon smiled a wide, sharp-toothed grin as he approached.

The hunger in those eyes.

This was not the hunger I liked.

This was a hunger for the literal blood in my veins.

There was no talking my way out of this one.

The demon licked his lips.

“Oh mighty demon, I would not do that if I were you,” I said, staring it right back in the eyes.

But I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to try.

“I like your eyes, god-slave,” the demon said, moving forward. “And your soul too. It smells much better than the others. I’ve never tasted the gods before.”

An opening. You over-talkative little shit.

“Do you know what happens to demons who try to feed on someone touched by the goddess?”

“Oh? What indeed? Perhaps I will become an arch-demon? A general? A divine-demonic hybrid to rival the demon king himself hahaha!”

I never lie.

But I did have the one last tool in my arsenal. The sheer desire to live and experience all the beauty that the world had to offer. That faint call for something over the horizon. Whatever it was Aphrodite talked about. She gave it a name. I only knew it as a feeling.

“Or you might evaporate in a ray of light straight up to heaven,” I said. For all I knew, he actually might.

I did however, project the full intensity of my desire upon him.

The demon paused.

“Heaven. That place with no desire, no passion and no blood. Only an eternity of quiet, serene, boring nothing.”

He was hesitating. The seeds of doubt ever so slightly taking root in his demonic brain.

“Yeah. I don’t blame you. I became an errand boy of a goddess just to get away from that possibility myself,” I empathized. With a demon. It was literally my only chance.

“I think,” the demon began, twirling his pitchfork in one hand. “That I’m going to take my chances, human.”

The pitchfork stopped, its three-toothed head pointing straight at me.

Well. Fuck.

My hands suddenly came free.

Midas finished undoing the knot.

On instinct I threw away the rope and turned to bolt through the spreading fire straight at a large open window I felt was behind me before, from the wind coming through it.

“Use your magic!” the perplexed Midas yelled as he turned to run after me.

 “I don’t –“’ I began.

A blur of darkness zoomed past us, and the wall, together with the window, exploded into splinters as the demon smashed right through it to block out path.

“And where do you think you’re going with these fresh and delicious sins I smell on you?”

The fire was spreading behinds us, the noise of the cracking support beams heralding the upcoming collapse of the whole thing.

And the large black creature in front of us. Its eyes were fixed on me, and so was its weapon.

There was nowhere to go.

I was, literally, a talker, not a fighter. Never even carried a weapon.

And the demon… the demon was clearly done talking.

I could hop back into the fire. Deprive the enemy from its prize. Sending myself back to the pink clouds above.

But Midas. The poor schmuck. He was dead. One way or the other.

True, he literally killed me. Was planning on doing it a second time.

But I hesitated.

The monster raised its weapon to strike.

And then the demon’s head exploded into a cloud of smoke.

A… rocket?

Another one flew straight into the cloud of smoke that was the demon’s head and exploded to add more.

“This is my town, demon filth!” came a shout from the darkness.

Except it wasn’t actually that dark.

Sporadic fires were spreading all over the fields outside Ratia.

Sparks, flashes of magic and fire, all flashed around as what appeared to be the town’s remaining adventurers and guards battled an onslaught of black creatures.

And through all of it, she stood there, a crude Chinese-style fireworks barrel on her shoulder, smoking from a recent shot.

Her eyes were crimson red, and so was her hair. Long and braided into one long knot that went all the way down her toned back and athletic thighs to her feet, it glistened form the surrounding lights.

I’ve seen her before.

The one girl in Ratia I knew I would never seduce.

Pyra, the captain of the town guard.