With the nephilim girl temporarily disabled by a hit from my mana cannon, Indena and I had a chance to get into the cylindrical elevator, made only of a floor, a main central bar, several beams on the sides, and one ring for a roof. None of us had the knowledge on how to use it, and there wasn’t any sort of computer system here, so hacking it wasn’t an option.

  That meant this thing had some other mechanism that activated it.

  “Oi, figured out how this works yet?” Indena asked Amanda, who'd been spending time analyzing the unnecessarily intricate details all around the cylinder compartment, trying to learn how to use the elevator.

  “It’s a rather archaic system, so I have no idea how it works,” Amanda replied.

  From what I could see, there wasn’t even an access panel or a single button to turn the darn thing on. I would have figured this wasn’t even an elevator if there wasn’t a glass bottom revealing a tunnel and rail system under it.

  While they were skimming over every surface for a way to turn it on, I sat against one of the walls and tried to keep an eye on my map for any danger. That demon girl wasn’t going down for long, and this was the only way I figured I could make myself useful.

  “Come on…” Indena attempted knocking the middle beam to get it working. “How does this work?”

  This quarry was connected to that temple, and we had to use a key to get through one of the doors. I had a tiny hunch that the key might have worked on this elevator as well, but that was a long shot.

  “Guys! Look for a keyhole!” I shouted.

  Both of them nodded to me and began looking for anything that might have resembled a keyhole. I tossed the keys to Amanda as well, since there wasn’t any way I was getting up in my worn out state.

  Enemy movement caused a ping on my radar. It was the nephilim girl! She was back up and heading for us fast.

  “Indena!” I shouted, spawning a stardust dagger and shield with what little energy I had left and threw it her way. “Keep her away while Amanda looks for the keyhole!”

  “Oh, this dagger again?” Indena gave the dagger a funny look before jetting out of the elevator. “I’ll keep her busy. Get this thing working!”

  I hated leaving Indena to do my job, but in this burned out state I couldn’t even move my legs.

  Once Indena was out in the open she stood on alert for any tricks the demon girl might have had up her sleeve. This place was dark, so there were plenty of shadows that worked in the demons favour.

  “Oi, get your shadow butt out here and face me like a man!”

  Indena launched a fireball up into the air and brightened the place up with a flare like firework, significantly lessening the potential hiding spots of the demon girl.

  But no matter how bright things got, she didn’t show herself. My map wasn’t even picking up on her anymore, as if she’d just vanished into the dark.

  “Did she leave?” I questioned, not quite convinced.

  Suddenly The flail head came out of nowhere, heading for Indena. She raised up the shield to block it, but was surprised when the spiky ball missed and arched around her, ramming right into her back.

  “Gahh!” she grunted in pain as the spikes jabbed through her aura.

  “Indena!” I shouted.

  “Don’t worry!” Indena grinned through the agony. “She just told me where she is!”

  Indena jetted forward toward where the chain of the weapon was coming from, brandishing the stardust dagger.

  The demon girl's body contorted slightly to appear spiderlike. She used this form to move around at creepy fast speeds. She reached areas above Indena and used the vantage points to throw down the flail head.

  Indena was getting struck left and right. But each hit helped her learn how to block them with the stardust shield I made for her. Unfortunately, that shield was breaking way too fast.

  “I gotta’ think of something!” Indena grunted.

  The demon girl launched another barrage of attacks, finally destroying the stardust shield, but also opening up Indena’s left hand.

  Indena quickly placed her hand on the ground and shot a pulse of fire energy into the rock. The orange pulse traveled to a mound of stone where the demon girl was heading for and exploded, creating a small volcanic burst.

  “Hell yeah!” Indena cheered. “Finally figured it out!”

  The explosion blasted the demon girl up in the air. Sharp rocks like shrapnel shot all over and stuck into her shadow skin. A mysterious red liquid dripped from the wounds.

  “Is that blood?” I questioned.

  The demon girl caught herself mid air by spawning her bat wings. She turned all around, possibly looking for the weapon she dropped.

  Little did she know, Indena had already gotten to it.

  “You don't need this anymore, right?”

  A small eruption from within the flail head caused it to explode, turning into many thousands of grains of melting iron.

  Like before, the demon girl attempted to use her aura to rebuild the weapon, but Indena hit her with a fireball, stunting the reconstruction effort.

  Instead of using her dark magic to fix her weapon, she took hold of the rod hilt and whipped the chain at Indena.

  The metal chain spiraled around my friend and tangled her up, preventing her from moving.

  “Ah crap!” Indena cursed, wasting her strength as she attempted to free herself.

  The demon girl spider crawled her way on top of the elevator, looking down on us with those creepy hollow eyes of hers. With Indena bound, we didn’t have much of a way to fight her off.

  “Not today, Freako!”

  Indena jetted in like a missile, still chained up, and slammed herself right into the demon girl, preventing her from getting into the elevator.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “My goodness…” Amanda brushed the sweat from her forehead. “Such an unorthodox battle, isn’t it?”

  “I’m pretty used to it at this point,” I replied.

  Both Indena and the demon girl landed and rolled across the bumpy quarry floor. The demon girl was the first to catch herself on all fours, taking cover in the dark environment.

  Indena flipped back to her feet, a vein popping out of her forehead. “I can’t do anything chained up!”

  She girt her teeth and let out a growl, slowly evolving that noise into a yell. Flames burst out of her body and superheated the metal ensnaring her enough to break free.

  “That’s more like it!” Indena proudly took on her Bronze Dragon stance, but instead of a fist at her side, she wielded the stardust dagger.

  “Yeah!” I cheered at Indena’s freedom, but my shout hurt my stomach a lot. “Ouchy…”

  The demon girl didn’t waste anymore time and swiftly dove in at Indena, easily dodging any strikes my friend sent out. Our foe returned the attempts back with some major shadow claw damage, weakening Indena’s protective flame aura further.

  It looked like the wound that the demon girl got on her hand from touching my spear healed back to normal, so she had all her fingers back and was raking those suckers at full force.

  One thing the demon girl was sure to do was keep some distance from the stardust dagger. She hung around the weaponless side of Indena just for endurance.

  “Amanda, can you buff Indena's speed?” I asked. “It looks like she’s not fast enough right now.

  “Not unless you want to take over looking for a keyhole…” Amanda’s eyes widened as she crouched down. “Oh! Saints be praised! I think I've found something!”

  She stuck the key in the hole and twisted, which caused a ring of lights to brighten on the inside of the cylinder.

  A holographic control panel appeared in front of Amanda. Neither of us had any idea what the symbols and shapes on it meant, but she started messing with it anyways.

  Something within the inner workings of the elevator powered up and made a very engine sounding noise. This thing was definitely about to shoot down into that tunnel!

  “That’s it!” I said. “Indena, we got it!”

  “Hang on!” Indena dodged a claw swipe. “Not till Freako here’s out of the picture!”

  Now that she had free hands, Amanda went ahead and applied her speed boost buff, which gave Indena the edge in the battle. No longer was she just barely dodging hits. Now she was on the oppressive offence.

  *Stab stab* went the crystal dagger, cutting at the arms and legs of the demon girl. She fell to her knees, black steam bellowing out from any cut wounds Indena gave her. A little blood trickled down after the steam.

  Indena aimed the stardust dagger at the chest of the demon girl, ready to pierce it right through her dark heart…

  Anxiety spilled into my own chest, as if the decision to kill the demon girl wasn’t the right move. On instinct I shouted for Indena to forgo taking her life.

  “What? Why?” Indena questioned.

  That was a question I was neglecting to ask myself, because I knew the answer wasn’t going to be easy to explain. Maybe it was the blood, or perhaps the fact that she looked more human than the other nephilim, but I had a feeling there was a lot more to this girl than just what we were seeing.

  The best conclusion I could draw was that I recognized her as a human, for better or worse.

  “Look, it’s not worth it,” I argued. “She’s not like the other ones. She seems more like a person! We beat her, let's go.”

  “Not good enough!” Indena retorted. “She’ll just come back again, like before!”

  “Then let her!” I announced. “We’ll deal with her as many times as it takes. Just don’t kill her.”

  Indena grunted with dissatisfaction, but trusted in my words. Instead of stabbing her, she just laid a smoking hot fist to her face, knocking her out.

  “This better not be a big mistake…” Indena grumbled, jumping into the elevator.

  Normally, I didn’t have mercy to spare for a demon. But there was more to her than met the eye. That demon girl had to have been part human, and even a drop of human blood was enough for me to enact my first most sacred commandment.

  Thou shall not allow a human being to come to mortal harm.

  I didn’t have a hint of doubt that we made the right call there. But if she came back and ever tried to hurt other people, I’d be right at her doorstep, ready to knock some sense into her again.

  Of course, I preferred to do it on a less busy day! Tee hee!

  ~☆☆☆~

  “Here we go!” Amanda announced, pressing a random button on the holographic display that didn’t do anything. “Okay… What does this button do?”

  *Beep!*

  That didn’t do anything either. Or at least, it didn’t do anything we could see…

  “Blast it…” Amanda cursed. “What about this one…!”

  Suddenly the elevator shot downward, going so fast that our bodies lifted up into the air. It felt like a horrible roller coaster ride! My friends and I had to hold onto the metal frame for dear life.

  “Ahh!” we all shouted.

  I spawned out my wings and flew as best I could down to the control panel.

  Jane! Stop this crazy thing!

  I pressed a triangle button facing downward, hoping that was the deceleration button. There was a lot of relief when the elevator slowed down.

  With my help, the others got back to the ground safely. “Thank goodness!” I sighed, laying out on the ground like a slug.

  “How about we not press random buttons next time?” Indena scolded.

  “I didn’t!” Amanda argued. “Some of those symbols were...an educated guess based on my understanding of Nazalian!”

  For me, I just saw an upside down triangle and pressed that until I got what I wanted. That was my ‘educated guess.’

  Now that we were out of life threatening situations for the moment, we all sat back and relaxed.

  “Oi, Shrimp!” Indena tossed me a half finished drink. “I had half, now you.”

  “What is this?” I sniffed it, realizing it was a stamina potion. “Where'd this come from?”

  “Swiped it from the fridge before we left the house. Was saving it for a special occasion. Happy birthday.”

  It wasn't my birthday! But I sure was glad she was sharing that gift early.

  Yay! Orange flavour! So tasty!

  “Where do you think we're going next?” Indena asked.

  “We’re clearly still in the ruins,” Amanda noted. “I think we may soon find who’s behind all this mess.”

  “You mean, the demon running the factory?” Indena asked.

  “Yes,” Amanda nodded. “My intuition is telling me we're close.”

  Her intuition seemed trustworthy, like a real leader. I wanted to be like that too!

  “How do you learn how to use intuition?” I asked.

  “You’ve had plenty of practice today,” Amanda gave a reassuring smile. “For instance, you sparing that demon. Your heart was telling you that was the correct thing to do.”

  That’s right! I made that call because I believed that the demon girl may have been more human than she looked. But that didn’t mean my decision bore any fruit, nor did it mean it was the best call. But, I trusted my heart and prayed that it wouldn’t backfire.

  “She’s quick in a fight.” Indena said. “Using the Theta Drive to hit that flail was awesome.” Her words gave me a little pride. “Hey, how are you feeling by the way? Still burned out?”

  I shook my head. “That stamina potion helped, but I’ll need to rest for a while.”

  “You might as well close your eyes for now,” Amanda advised. “We may be in this elevator for a while.”

  That was a good call. A Short nap would really go a long way. If anything happened in the meantime, I trusted my friends were going to wake me up.

  I closed my eyes, letting my body shut down for the time being. Thankfully I could force shut down for repairs, or the anticipation of what awaited us was going to keep me awake.

  Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please support me, Taylor The Writer, here on Royal Road! :)