The fight

You weren't afraid. Wasn't scared of ****, or getting captured. This recently found fearlessness made you meet the enemy attack with head held high.

Loud noise of two metallic objects crashing into each other followed Khaj's strike. No normal human could've catch the spike, no, but at that point you were already far beyond normality.

"Thanks, Ishtar."

You're welcome. Give him hells.

You didn't need any more encouragement, and moved on to close the gap between you and the demonic lord in few long steps, all the while shifting your bracelet into a new type of weapon. You knew you needed something to break his armour, and no stabbing or slashing tool would do. So you went for hammer.

In the corner of your eye you saw Carmen carefully circling around, getting ready to do... Something.

But right now you needed to break that nightmarish mix of flesh and metal in front of you.

Khaj was wielding a single bladed axe, and he held it low, like he was disregarding you completely as a proper challenge. That made you even more surprised when he swung so fast, you couldn't catch up with it.

The axe hit you with the blunt side right above your hip. Didn't break anything, but your insides were already begging for mercy.

"Maybe a little help there, Ishtar?"

That was with my help. Dude is fucking fast.

Her words didn't crash your self confidence. You went for a swing in his center, the middle of the armour, to maybe knock out some air of that son of a bitch...

You missed, and the momentum along with him shoving you forward made you lose your balance and fall.

"Who is the clown now?"

Oh great, he's gonna start monologuing again.

Ishtar said when you started to get up, quite pissed at the guy now.

"See, human, this fight is way over your head. Demons and their creations are superior to everything you could ever throw at us. Your artifact means nothing compared to our might..."

He stopped, because he saw you do something unexpected.

"What are you doing?"

"Flipping you off. Also known as a gesture of fuck you."

Khaj was confused.

"What?"

You didn't answer, and instead you turned your weapon into a spear, going this time for reach. It grew in your hands incredibly fast, and you aimed the tip of it for his eye.

You got close, but ultimately missed again. The spear barely scratched his helmet when he started to sidestep. But that little thing made you realize that you are able to hit him.

He tried to grab your spear with his free hand, but you were already changing it, all the while running to him. This time you went for gloves.

You met his swing of an axe with a punch to the handle that changed the direction of his hit, and went to strike him yourself. Right into the...

Throat.

His armour seed a bit weaker there, instead of being a single piece of metal it was a horizontal sequence of smaller plates that were moving with his head. The punch made you feel like you were hitting the concrete, the feedback from it almost left your hand numb. But you managed to make a dent.

He jumped away, while dropping his axe and was touching his throat area, seemingly struggling for air.

In movies, cartoons, books, anime, and every piece of fiction heroes of the story would give an enemy now the time to recover, while gloating or trying to catch their breath.

But that wasn't you. You were about to give this threat any chance. You followed him without a moment of hesitation.

That's what he was waiting for. He got you with his unnatural speed, and strength beyond comparison. Catching you by the wrist, he started to squeeze hard. The armour tried to desperately defend, to hold against the pressure. Without much of a success. In a few moments you started to feel like the metal starts to give up, bending. You couldn't shift it for some reason.

"Ishtar, help?"

I can't do anything! He's got us immobilized. You need to break free!

You tried to kick him, bend just the top of your gloves to strike his face, use strength to maybe overpower him.

Nothing worked. The iron tight grip made your fingers feel numb already.

"I've got you here, human. Just give up."

"Not yet!"

The female voice that belonged to Carmen came out from the side. You both looked in her direction.

She was next to a massive pile of books, pulled from empty now shelves from all of this library.

"Say goodbye to those."

Khaj instantly let you go and shoved you to the side, trying to get her.

He was too far away.

Carmen's eyes had straight pupils, and she looked less like a girl with extra goat, dragon and lion parts, and more like a predator, ready to destroy it's prey. Straight out of her mouth came out a blue fire, that was igniting and destroying the books in mere seconds.