Auror tensed his muscles, his body rippling with force as it began to enlarge. Priscilla readied herself and smirked. She looked back momentarily and saw Sharazz approaching the one called Banshee. Part of her was worried about Jensen and the others, but the best way to protect them was to deal with the demons standing in their way.

  "Truly an arrogant beast." Priscilla quipped as the wind swirled around her arms. "I've heard Divala's name before from some bugs. Is the master as ugly as his servants?"

  Auror's eyes flared with bloodlust as he lunged across the sand, punching out at Priscilla. "You foul-mouthed wench, I'll rip you apart and feed you to the rabble."

  "You can try," Priscilla smirked before pulling back her body and sending a forceful gust of wind at Auror's arm, deflecting it. "You're hardly as intimidating as the big insect you buried in Blackthorne."

  The man scoffed at her words, "Blackthorne? You dare compare us to an insignificant Skriythe—to mere foot soldiers." Auror's sinister grin intensified, and he slammed his fist into the sand, raising a blinding cloud to obscure Priscilla's vision. He then lunged forward, sending his shoulder burrowing toward Priscilla's midsection.

  Priscilla couldn't react in time, with the sand obscuring her vision. The force of the collision caused her body to ricochet backward across the sand. She raised her head with sand raining from her ruffled hair. "Bastard," Priscilla spat with blood dripping down her lips. Fragments of ice crumbled and fell onto the sand from her torso. The thin barrier of ice dampened the blow slightly, but despite it, she still felt the sting of the man's monstrous strength.

  Auror laughed and rushed at her again, his strikes aimed at Priscilla's vital points, viciously assaulting her where it would be hard to defend. His fists flew like a flurry of rabid beasts, crackling against the air with every strike.

  But his bestial fury wasn't enough to force Priscilla to panic. She had seen countless beasts in Zae-Rin's manifestations. She had battled them and survived their bitter onslaughts more times than she could count. Auror was just one of them, no matter how human his current form was.

  Priscilla ducked underneath his fist and pushed herself forward with a jolt of wind. Her fist blazed with power, and she struck out, sending a condensed pillar of flame toward Auror's midsection. She wanted to return the favor for his own attack, and return it she did.

  Auror grunted as the flames pierced in between his rib cage. His flesh sizzled, and he was forced to leap back, sending the sand quaking with the force of his jump. "This is absurd. It's impossible there can be such an adept young witch alive in the world." Auror hissed as he held his hand firm against his wound.

  "So I've heard, and yet here I am. Your great and holy demon god doesn't seem so great, does he?" Priscilla mocked. She continued antagonizing him for the sake of everyone present. The more the brute was angered and fixated on her, the less likely there would be mass casualties. As long as she and Sharazz could defeat their foes, everyone would fare well.

  "Again, you dare insult the might of Divala," Auror huffed through clenched teeth. "Uneducated wench, I'll teach you in place of your worthless parents."

  His muscles began to bulge and ripple, and the metal armor surrounding his limbs creaked as the flesh broke through their restraint. Metal thudded against the sand as they fell onto the ground, and his form doubled in size as the muscles on his body engorged themselves with power. Even Auror's face quickly disfigured into something monstrous, with blackened beady eyes and a flattened snout.

  "Ugly bastard, now you look the part of a demon's dog," Priscilla said icily, her words laced with venom. She may not have had a good ending with her father, but insulting her parents meant insulting her mother more than anything.

  While Priscilla and Auror were engaged in a war of words and fists, slightly further away from their battlefield, Sharazz and Banshee fought a uniquely different type of battle.

  The two women stood separated by a stretch of sand. In front of Banshee stood a grand grouping of demons howling and trembling, eager to attack. Banshee cackled madly, each note of her voice sending the demons into an uproar, their bodies growing more agitated. "Come, you cute little sand witch, dance with my pets!" Banshee chuckled and waved her arms forward, sending the demons racing toward Sharazz.

  Sharazz whipped around, her gown fluttering as she sent the sand weaving through the space like miniature cyclones of death. The currents snagged onto the demons at the forefront, cutting them into ribbons of flesh and gore, splattering across the ground. She moved forward with graceful steps, rebounding off the sand and pulling her closer to Banshee. "You're a twisted relic of the past, demon. Cease your foolishness and submit," Sharazz said with a chilling calm.

  Banshee cackled madly, her shoulders quivering as her body reclined in on itself. "A relic of the past? Us? It's your kind that are relics! Your time has ended, so why must you struggle in a world that does not belong to you?"

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  Once again, she ordered her pets to attack with their madness on full display. They snarled and clawed, bouncing off one another's bodies to bridge the gap between them and Sharazz. The sand proved to be a cruel mistress. It simply would not let the beasts come close, no matter how they offered their bodies to it.

  Sharazz dodged to the side and twirled her leg up, causing the sand to jut out and stab at two demons that pounced from behind the backs of their allies, using them as meatshields to avoid the sand, but even that was not enough to deter her.

  Once Sharazz came close enough to Banshee, she used the sand near the woman to strike at her. But Banshee's senses were honed to an inhumane level, and she quickly dodged, using the lesser demons as stepping stones to put distance between her and the witch yet again. "Insufferable. You're testing my patience, witch." Banshee hissed from behind rows of demons.

  "Is running all you know, demon? No wonder your race had to hide across the seas to survive." Sharazz quipped while slaughtering countless demons along her path.

  "Hide?" Banshee laughed. "You foolish, bitch. Is that what your predecessors taught you? That we ran and hid like vermin?"

  "Is it wrong?" Sharazz asked, a playful, mocking smile painting her face. "Divala couldn't defeat the Mother Goddess and your kind was forced to scurry into the Dominion of Death while Divala lays imprisoned in the beyond."

  Banshee silenced her laughs and lowered her head. "Ah, I can't have fun like this," Banshee muttered with her hands across her face. "Really, really, how conceited can your pathetic rabble be. Starburnt losers that buried their heads in the sand to live in a utopia of their own imagination."

  "Ah, no, no. This is ridiculous." Banshee's voice turned shrill as she clawed at her face, her body nearly folding in half as she squirmed. "No fun, it's not fun, damn you!" Banshee shrieked as her body burst with an invisible power, sending the sand and demons flying away from her.

  Banshee's body began to writhe and change. Her face split into ribbons, intersecting with the nail marks she clawed onto her flesh. Each tendril-like ribbon of flesh split further and opened into an eye and mouth that wriggled around and focused on Sharazz. "Little, sand witch, you'll regret speaking so much."

  Sharazz couldn't believe the woman's change. Her monstrous form was beyond human, and worse than anything was the dreadful scent of blood spreading from her. Sharazz didn't know how many people the beast had slain in her lifetime, but one thing was certain, there was no place for the demon in this world. It had to be eliminated for the sake of all life.

  Before Sharazz could overthink things, Banshee vanished before her eyes, only to reappear mere steps away. The fleshy ribbons whipped from her head, slashing at Sharazz's vital points, a cruel, sinister grin spread across the many mouths plastered all over them.

  It would take more than a blitz attack to fool the Parthian's Matriarch, however. The sand beneath Sharazz latched onto her feet, and she twirled, causing it to rise high into the sky like an ever-present sand cyclone. Banshee's attack merely connected with sand, causing it to scatter like a brief downpour.

  "The scent of blood oozes from your being like the flowing rivers of creation itself. The lives you've taken haunt in the shadows, a cycle of end that will come to haunt you instead. This world is not a place for your wicked kind." Sharazz said coldly from atop the sand before strangely moving her hands.

  Foreign chants escaped Sharazz's lips, and the entire sandlands quaked tremendously, disrupting the many battles lining it.

  The sand flowed toward Sharazz like a colony of ants returning to their home. It quickly began to condense underneath Sharazz, pushing her higher into the sky and forming into a giant golem of sand, and then all around her, more golems emerged, like guardians sworn to protect their land.

  "This is your end, demon!" Sharazz said. With her words uttered, the golems attacked, causing the world to tremble beneath their might. They may have been mindless manifestations of sand, but they wielded a power that caused Banshee to quiver.

  Banshee's body contracted and squirmed, her form gradually narrowing into a far deadlier abomination. Her speed increased, and she rushed toward the attacking golem. Banshee's tendrils blinked frantically, a series of low giggles emanating from her mouths. As she passed the golem's extended arm, her body rotated, slicing the arm and causing it to separate from the construct.

  Her efforts seemed futile compared to the dozens of golems surrounding Sharazz. Banshee sliced one arm, but immediately, three fists came aiming at her body. She dodged and cut through them, her struggle intensifying as her mocking gaze turned into one of panic. But again, more attacks assaulted her, giving her no time to rest. Soon, one struck her hard, and her body slammed against the sand, bouncing like a flat stone against water.

  Banshee lifted her trembling body, blood oozing from her broken bones and damaged tendrils. Her head bobbed, causing the bones in her neck to crackle. It looked like she was about to open her mouth, but it quickly turned into a vile smile that spread across every single mouth on her monstrous face.

  Then, Banshee wailed. Her terrible voice spread across the battlefield like thunder, striking fear into the hearts of many. Her body began pulsing frantically, growing larger and larger as the flesh tendrils wrapped around her torso. Her chest ripped down the middle, growing into a deformity not unlike a thousand-year-old tree that split down the middle.

  But even worse was that her voice caused the other creatures to begin changing just as quickly.

  Banshee unfurled her tendrils, her gaze now even with the golems that filled the battlefield with their presence. Her mocking words vanished, replaced by an eerie clicking of teeth and crackling of bone.

  Sharazz's eyes narrowed, and she quickly began chanting something, her hands moving with deliberate motions. While she acted, the golems started to attack once again. They knew their creator's whims at this moment: the monster had to be stopped.

  How do we feel about the name 'Sharazz'?