his arms, his vital areas saved by the magical armor. The razor sharp claws tore through Jonas’s clothes but could not find his flesh through the armor.
Jonas lay there, blinded by the darkness, his heart pounding with fear. Terror gripped him and he almost succumbed to it until he remembered Kiln’s teachings and once again entered the state of Ty’erm.
The demon hissed with frustration when his front claws could not break through Jonas’s rib cage, his armor shielding heart and lungs from the deadly talons.
“I’ll just feed on your face first,” spit the demon as its maw opened, moving toward Jonas’s face in the darkness.
Jonas closed his eyes, concentrating on the demon on top of him. He could feel the familiar energy in all the air particles around the beast so he focused his mind on these particles, creating a mold of energy around the demon. Then he froze the particles. Suddenly the demon couldn’t move its body, its deadly jaw only inches from Jonas’s unprotected face.
“Feed on this!” yelled Jonas, directing a pulse of energy into the particles surrounding the demon. The demon flew backwards as if it were flung from a catapult, the sphere of darkness surrounding Jonas leaving with the beast.
The Greever reacted quickly, flinging its wings out wide and beating at the still night air. The demon hovered in the darkness forty paces above Jonas.
Jonas stood up slowly, his head aching from the tremendous amount of energy that he was forced to expend to hold the powerful demon. Jonas brought forth his God Light again. The bright light flared powerfully and lit up the area around him. Jonas saw movement to his right. Glancing over he could see Kiln’s form stand shakily, his sword held before him.
Jonas was relieved that Kiln was not dead, but the relief soon vanished as he looked back up into the air just as the demon bore down at him from the darkness. Jonas brought up his blades once again fending off the attack with desperate defensive maneuvers.
The demon hovered several paces off the ground, its long leather wings beating powerfully, sending gusts of wind and dust into Jonas’s eyes. The beast’s claws lashed out again and again trying to bring down the expert swordsman.
Jonas fought with all his strength, relentlessly blocking the deadly claws and attacking with lighting quick jabs and ripostes, scoring numerous hits to the beast. But the Greever was a hunter of another world and its strength and power was nearly inexhaustible.
The Greever then changed tactics; it landed softly, and with one smooth motion sent both spiked wings and both sets of claws in for the kill.
Jonas reacted quickly, spinning his deadly blades in a deflecting barrage of steel, but he couldn’t block both wings and claws. A powerful claw broke through his defenses and penetrated the gaps on his helmet, just missing his eyes. The razor sharp talons cut two shallow lacerations across his forehead. The pain was intense as evil magic penetrated the wounds, but Jonas, in the state of Ty’erm, was able to ignore the pain, and concentrate on the task at hand. Jumping back quickly he tried to focus on the demon, but his face stung and his eyes were filling with blood, making it almost impossible to see anything. Through a haze of blood Jonas caught the blur of a spiked tail before it crashed into his head.
Kiln screamed defiantly as he saw the beast’s tail strike Jonas with tremendous force. Jonas’s head snapped to the side violently and his horned helm flew into the air. The powerful tail had launched Jonas into the air, spinning him around like a top to land on his side.
Kiln ran forward without hesitation, his magical sword in his right hand as he quickly drew his long hunting knife from his scabbard with his left hand.
As the Greever’s tail hit Jonas, the demon pivoted quickly, sensing and hearing the threat from behind. The puny human moved in faster than the demon thought possible. Kiln’s razor sharp blades danced left and right and scored several hits on the Greever’s arms as it tried to swat the deadly weapons away. The demon howled from the pain and shot both its spiked wings forward in attack.
Kiln saw the spikes approach with lightning speed, but Kiln was the warrior of legend and he was able to follow their trajectory as if they were in slow motion. Kiln turned his body sideways just at the last second and both spikes shot