The world was a canvas, and the sky painted it liquid.
It started as a barely audible whisper, delicate but insistent drops kissing the parched cobalt earth. Then, as if the clouds had suddenly roared, the sound raged. A rhythmic crash of rain began to cascade from the sky, each drop tiny crystalline prisms refracting the fading moonlight into a million diamonds.
Lucian's mouth had flooded with the tangy taste of metal, and his body ached from injuries he was yet to realize. Yet he crawled from the maw of twisted steel that was now the vehicle, his form a bleeding mess, but somehow he made it out.
The rain was quick to soak his clothes and plaster his hair to his forehead. It poured down so heavily it was almost blinding, yet it was not enough to obscure the demon that approached from Lucian's vision.
[Demon brute is in the vicinity]
This one was different from the imp, he could easily tell. Aside from the fact it dwarfed the average man in height, it had a higher level of malice. Each step it took sent a wave of dread through Lucian's bones. His legs were weak, truthfully, his entire body was weak. He shouldn't be standing, but he was.
The demon stopped about two meters away from the frail boy who raised his sword in a show of determination, while the imp that had chased them from the start simply turned and left, as if terrified to interfere. The demon brute, a large mass of reddish skin and muscles, stared down at Lucian as it resumed its approach.
Lucian, blood pumping with adrenaline, dashed towards the demon with his sword cocked. Then, with as much strength as he could muster, he swung his blade at the torso of the brute, attempting to cleave it in two or at least burrow his blade deep into its body. However, his swing met resistance, not from flesh that had been hacked into, but as though he had swung his blade straight at a brick wall.
As he assessed what it was that intercepted his blade before it could find its mark on the demon, the revelation was enough to hitch his breath. Nothing had stopped his swing; the brick wall his blade had hit was simply the bare body of the demon.
The brute looked down at Lucian, its eyes of pure red and malice flashing with disappointment, as though this demon had perhaps expected something from the child, and Lucian had failed him. Suddenly, faster than the young boy could perceive, the hand of the demon wrapped firmly around his neck. The air ceased from Lucian's lungs as the demon raised him from the ground.
The world began to spin and blur for him. Death had never felt so close. He had already expected to be incapable against a demon, but for it to end up this pathetic was not something he had projected. He could not even struggle against his death, nor could he even die after fighting hard to survive. He had used his advantages as a chosen against powerless humans and overestimated his own ability because of it.
'Fight a demon? How stupid.'
Lucian couldn't help but contemplate the foolishness of himself as well as the priests. His consciousness slowly slipping away as he did.
'Are they dead?'
He wondered about the situation of the others who had been in the vehicle with him, not that it mattered or that he cared for them, but because he was selfish enough to hope that a chance they save him was still a possibility. Lucian watched as the demon released its grip on his neck, raised the open palm of its other hand and put it to his pale face, then suddenly a flame roared upon it's reddish hand, a flame he could recognize, a flame that currently burned the city to the ground even as rain poured relentlessly upon it—the unquenchable and eternal flame of hell.
Lucian had already lost control of his limbs, so he could do nothing but watch as the demon moved its hand towards his face, covering it with the flames. What followed was a burn that surpassed any other, painful and slow—at least that's what Lucian expected it to feel like. Instead, he wasn't certain he felt any pain at all. Regardless, his body seemed to have run out of adrenaline, and he was too weak to scream in agony even if he did feel any, so he burned in silence.
The flame engulfed the entirety of Lucian, and through it, he saw a weird expression on the face of the demon, one that bordered between shock and uncertainty. At that point was when Lucian began to feel—the flames and their burn. However, along with it, he seemed to regain his strength, and his limbs felt a part of him once more.
Clearly confused by the situation, the brute raised a hand and recalled the eternal flame.
Then, a blinding white flash, a light so bright it made it seem as though the black night was the brightest of days, although for no more than a second. Lucian fell to the floor, the grip on him released as his eyes fluttered, trying to adjust to the abrupt change in light. As he did, what he saw made his eyes widen, and a struggle between relief and panic stirred within him.
The demon's torso had been vaporized, and the rest of it made a carcass of charred flesh and ash. Lucian's relief did not last as he deciphered that the demon must have been shot with some extremely powerful plasma beam by the military unit they were trying to escape past. Lucian began to look around in an attempt to find where it had been shot from but saw nothing as far as his eyes could pierce through the surrounding darkness.
Suddenly, he felt a sting on his neck. He raised his hand to feel a dart, its needle penetrating his skin.
'Oh cr—'
Lucian fell to the floor, losing consciousness.
— — —
"Each shot of this orbital cannon costs us half a year's worth of revenue. I do not believe saving this child was worth it," the woman's voice laced with skepticism as she looked at Lucian's unconscious form on a large screen.
"Did you not see how he reacted to the eternal flame? That boy is the key we've been searching for," a man mumbled in the darkness.