Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

“Why did you stop?” the cat assassin asked, coming up behind him.

“We have to wait for someone.”

Mina looked at him confused, but she knew hurrying the demon would not help their situation. After she waited a while the demon lifted his hand for a silent countdown. When he retracted his last finger two additional demons silently arrived beside them.

“ Bebal. Abalam,” he greeted them with a nod. “You two have also been summoned?”

“The Fairy,” Bebal said with a nod.

“The Elementalist,” Abalam answered shortly.

“How are the others?” Minas asked instinctively. All three demons stared into the distance for a moment, but Sperion answered her.

“Your comrades are fine for the most part. Only the hero is having a hard time,” the demon explained vaguely, but this was enough for Mina.

“Good to hear. So? Where is my brother?”

“He will be here in three, two, one-”

A floor cover that didn't look any different from the rest of the street was suddenly blown into the air. With a mighty roar, a giant anthropomorphic lion wielding an aura blade broke out from the demolished elevator shaft below. His eyes were glowing in a red light, as he looked around.

“Mike?!” his sister couldn't help but exclaim, drawing his attention to them.

“Leave it to us. He cannot distinguish friend from foe right now.”

As the giant lion charged at them, Sperion and the other two demons charged forward to engage with the mad Lion. Saving and returning him to whoever summoned them included making sure the package wouldn't struggle during delivery.

“Ab, Bel, engage him. I will try to dispel the madness,” Sperion commanded them naturally.

The lion was overcome by a mystic, demonic, and divine madness, even the demons had never seen before. While the two of them distracting the new chosen of Maahes in a fight, Sperion started chanting in foreign tongues and was surrounded by an ambiguous aura that seemed neither holy nor demonic, but very imposing.

“Hold him down for a moment!” the demon shouted when his spell was ready.

Bel and Ab nodded. Suddenly their speed increased by several times and they grabbed one of Mike's arms each, holding the struggling chosen with iron grips. Sperion pressed his palms on his back and the aura spread to Mike. Afterward, all three quickly jumped away from him.

“What did you do to him?” Mina asked, looking at the lion that had suddenly stopped moving. The aura was quickly spreading across his whole body.

“This is the Aura of Lethargy, a curse that feeds from strong emotions until the only wish the victim is left with is to lie down and sleep and grows from the emotions it feeds on. The best way to dispel such a complicated madness is to carpet bomb all emotions at once.”

Mina was simply speechless. She didn't know what to say. Although the method was not to her liking, it seemed to work as the crimson light in Mike's eyes slowly faded. Surprise and relief also quickly faded until the lion was left with an emotionless stare and turned back to a normal beastman. One wearing stretched sweatpants and a ripped wifebeater. Only then did Sperion step up to him and deactivated the cursed aura.

“Mike! Mike! Are you okay!?” Mina didn't hold back once it was safe and charged at her brother, shaking the man like a doll. Slowly light returned to his eyes.

“M-Mina? What are you doing here? Where are we? Can you stop shaking me?” he pressed out while Mina kept shaking him back and forth.

“You tell me, you doofus! How could they have possibly caught you?” Mina countered but stopped shaking him.

“I don't know. I don't remember anything from when I was captured, but I think I was tortured and put under hypnosis. That's all I could gather after waking up. Then there was... clothes, the ring...Maahes. It's all a chaotic whirl I can't really explain,” he said embarrassedly.

Mina looked at her brother with sorrow in her eyes. After the transformation was undone, it was clear he was missing his ears and tail. Who knew what other wounds there had been? And then there was hypnosis?”

“Sperion, can you?”

“Most demons can't heal, but I can assure you that he is not under any type of hypnosis right now,” Sperion explained as if he read her thoughts. “ With this, I have found your brother and brought him to safety. If you don't mind, I will proceed with the last task left,” he added.

“Yes, please do so,” Mina nodded. She had asked the demon for three things when she summoned him. To find Mike, to save Mike, and to exterminate as many people and creatures from the scene. Sperion was now going to the last one. The other two demons stayed.

“I have to escort Mike back to my summoner,” they said in sync.

“Before that, maybe we should safe the other people down there?” Mike suggested quickly.

The beastman had remembered some snippets of the moment when he rampaged through the prison. At the start, he was still able to hold onto his sanity. He remembered a lot of cells with people, not just his own. “I believe some of them might be quite useful.”

The demons stared at him for a moment without reaction, before they both nodded. With Abalam and Bebal in the front, they descended down the elevator shaft, using the emergency ladder. It was actually quite deep and dark, but it was no problem for any of them.

The elevator door blowing out of its opening was a good indicator of the floor Mike had been held on. They decided to start there. The inside looked like a modern prison, no, not modern, futuristic. All surfaces were clinically clean, except for the splatters of blood and mangled bodies, the lion had left behind on his way out.

Not all corpses were mangled, it seemed like some of them were prisoners Mike had let out when he was still kind of stable. They had tried to fight together with Mike but fell against the wardens. It was one of the factors that triggered his descent into madness. Another was being chosen by Maahes a god of war who had a tendency to fall into a blood rush.

The prisoners were in bad condition, few of them were strong enough to even beg them to let them out. Mina and Mike diligently opened every door, looking for survivors and Mike's items. They couldn't just leave his stuff behind.

After Mike's floor, came a few more, but most cells were empty. Only the previous inmates' body fluids told the sad story of the last days of their life. Many of the people they freed were adventurers who had joined the resistance and had been tortured for information.

“Just why would they keep them all here?” Mina wondered. The scene seemed more like the kind to get rid of people.

“Maybe they resisted the hypnosis too well?” Mike suddenly mumbled.

“What do you mean?”

“What if they are people with information that is too precious to kill them, but willpower too strong to be persuaded or permanently hypnotized?” Mike looked at the demons for confirmation, but neither was as helpful or talkative as Sperion. Mike suddenly halted at one of the cells.

“Wait...doesn't this guy seem a little familiar?” he asked, looking at the malnourished man in the cell, barely more than skin and bones.

“Now that you mention it...”