prompt
Sam wasn't just a meatheaded hunter before he took the throne. What many of his enemies fail to understand is that one of his deadliest weapons is his intellect.
Too soft. Naive. Innocent. Pure. Hunter.
These were all things the demons said about Sam, the twenty-six-year-old boy king of Hell. They knew he was prophesied to be the rightful ruler of Hell, but they hadn't expected something like compassionate Sam, fresh out of college and with only four years of hunting under his belt, not counting his time hunting as a child.
They were disappointed to say the least. And their disappointment manifested in complaints and anger and restlessness, doubting if Sam was the right king for them and if they shouldn't just overthrow him and return Hell to its "former glory."
Sam had other ideas.
He stood at the end of the narrow corridor, the other avenues of the maze stretching out on either side and behind him. One of his opponents, a moderately powerful demon, was smirking where he stood in the corridor in front of Sam. He thought that he had Sam caught, that Sam would go down easy because he looked soft and his only weapon in this game was his demon blade.
His mistake.
Sam darted to the left, hearing the demon's footsteps start up behind him and his ears tuning in to another pair off to his right. He didn't smirk, but he ran faster, until he was a shadow turning the corners to the demon behind him and the footsteps to his right were running directly at him, smug and confident.
A slight change in speed, two steps, three, and on the fourth Sam threw himself against the wall, hearing the wet sound of the blade of the demon that had been behind him sinking into the vessel's flesh of the demon that had been in front of him, both heads turning towards him in surprise. Sam smirked and pushed himself off the wall, thrusting his demon knife in first one demon's back, then the other and running away before the light faded from their eyes.
The next demon went down, and then the next, until the maze was littered with corpses of demons and Sam stood at the center, the only reason he was out of breath because he was running, not because he had to do any physical fighting. No, most of the demons had died because Sam had cornered them without them realizing, or he'd surprised them or shocked them so they were an easy kill. That was the thing about demons; they focused on Sam's brute strength and forgot that he could kill them just as easily with his mind as with his body.
He raised his chin, seeing the audience of demons sat above the maze, and spread his arms wide, a dark look in his eyes, because maybe he'd spent a little too long killing some of the demons and maybe some were lacking in a few liters of blood.
"Do you doubt me now?" he asked, voice raised slightly but still reaching out across the demons. He smiled, but there wasn't any humor in it and he still had a blade in one hand, the demons noted, this time with the touch of fear they should've had all along.
The arena was silent and Sam glanced over as the demon who'd built it waved his hand and the maze walls fell, vanishing into smoke and revealing the doorway out, leaving a smooth, flat concrete floor stained with blood and all twenty-four demons Sam had killed. Sam felt the restraints on his magic fall away, dissolving and letting the demonic energy rush through him, burning and shifting beneath his skin, reacting to the hundreds of demons around him.
Sam's arms dropped and he looked around at the stadium, before walking out, not saying anything more.
They'd figure it out, and if they didn't, he'd be more than happy to show them again.