Then suddenly fire erupted from the ground in a solid wall, cutting straight through the blood jaws — teeth dissolving on contact, the construct collapsing as the flames swallowed it whole.
The demon stepped out from behind it, and it wasn't wearing Barry Dort anymore.
The body it had settled into was wrong in every direction — goat skull for a head, inverted pentagram carved deep into the forehead, two horns burning at the tips, the torso human from the waist up and something else entirely below it, legs bending the wrong way at the knee.
It rolled its shoulders like something that had been cramped for too long finally stretching out.
"Now," it said, the voice no longer bothering to sound like anything recognizable. "No one can save you from me."
Ethan looked at the incoming fire wave.
Blood lightning cracked into existence around his fist and he threw the punch straight into it — lightning tore through the wall head on, scattering flame in every direction before it got anywhere near him. He shook his hand out once and looked at what was standing across from him.
Goat skull. Burning horns. Inverted pentagram. Legs that bent the wrong way.
Baphomet. Hard to miss something like that.
Thing had stopped dancing.
"So what are you — some kind of noble demon or hell royalty?" Ethan asked. Better to know as much as possible before this got worse.
"One of the Arch Dukes," Baphomet said. "The most powerful in Hell."
"Yeah, you lot really like talking yourselves up."
Baphomet didn't respond.
A forked spear materialized in his hand and it threw it in one clean motion — the moment it left its grip the whole thing unraveled, splitting apart into a mass of snakes mid-air, all of them angling straight for Ethan.
He jumped back, read the spread, and dragged one finger across the air in a straight line.
Blood fire curled around the line and kept going.
The entire burning forest split apart along it — trees, flame, ground, everything caught in that single arc cleaved into pieces simultaneously, and the shockwave rolled outward hard enough that Baphomet launched itself skyward to clear it, hovering above the destruction and looking down at what was left.
What in Hell is this thing? The thought came fast and unwelcome. It hits like an Arch Duke at full strength, and possessing a vessel should limit what they can manifest, so this shouldn't be possible for something in the human realm to be this strong.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
Ethan looked up at it, fist clenched.
The sky darkened all at once — and a massive fist of blood energy dropped from it like a hammer, driving Baphomet straight into the ground.
The impact carved a crater into what was left of the forest floor, dirt and debris kicking outward in every direction. Baphomet was at the bottom of it, one knee down, the burning horns flickering for the first time.
It looked up.
Ethan dropped into the crater and landed in front of it, blood lightning already running up his arm.
"You came into my town," he said, voice flat. "Possessed a vice principal. Tried to run me over with a car full of gas cans." He let the lightning build. "And now you want to fly away."
Baphomet surged upward faster than its size suggested it could move, the forked spear back in its hand, driving it straight down toward Ethan's skull.
Ethan sidestepped it by two inches and drove his elbow into the joint of its arm.
The crack was loud. Baphomet didn't make a sound but the arm dropped, spear hitting the dirt, and Ethan was already moving — blood lightning discharged point blank into its chest, the impact throwing Baphomet back into the crater wall hard enough to split it.
Silence for a moment.
Then Baphomet laughed, low and genuine.
"You are wasted here," it said, pulling itself out of the wall. "Dealing with minor possessions in a small town. Whatever you are — you belong somewhere considerably larger than this."
Ethan picked up the forked spear and snapped it in half.
"I like it here."
Ethan clenched his fist and the blood realm began pulling inward around Baphomet — walls of dark red closing in from every angle, the kind of place where something could be contained long enough for the realm to take it apart piece by piece.
Baphomet looked at the closing walls.
Then it was gone.
Not fled. Not retreated. Just — gone, like it had never been standing there at all, the crater empty except for the split spear and the scorch marks.
Ethan stood in the middle of it for a moment.
"Second time," he said quietly, to no one. "Second time this son of a bitch has walked out."
Thing offered no comment.
***
On the road about a mile out, Enid had both hands on the wheel, sitting very straight the way she always did during lessons, when she caught something orange flickering through the trees in the distance.
"There's a fire," she said, turning to look. "In the woods, there's actually a—"
"While driving," her instructor said firmly, "you do not look at the surroundings. You do not get distracted. You look at the road."
"Right. Sorry." Enid turned back to the road.
Ethan was standing in the middle of it.
She hit the brake. The instructor flew forward and smacked face-first into the front glass with a sound that was somehow both loud and pathetic.
"Seatbelts," Ethan said, looking at him through the windshield, "are mandatory. And sudden braking is bad driving form."
The instructor peeled himself off the windshield slowly, one hand pressed to his forehead, and turned to Enid with the kind of expression that had already decided whose fault this was.
"That was completely reckless, you do not slam the brakes without—"
"You literally weren't wearing your seatbelt."
***
A/N: It's decided—the next world will be .
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