Currently I'm facing two one-eared and very pissed off demons. And I'm yet to tell them that we actually need to cut off their heads too.

"... You don't happen to regrow heads?"

"Are you even using yours?"

Haaa... There never was any chance for this to end in neat, simple way, was there?

I'm not sure who restarted the battle, but one moment everyone was standing ready, and the next rushing to kill each other. Celica leaps at the gremlin-demon like a star football player doing a penalty kick, the green little monster himself suddenly looks like he just experienced a premonition of painful things and runs away screaming, while Azara... well who cares, the half-ton of armor and muscle about to charge at is more important matter.

"Celica! Stop playing around with that runt and..."

...Aaand she's getting further and further away, chasing the demon-gremlin-imp-thing with no concern for anything else. And Azara is nowhere to be seen too. ...Those bastards, they left me fighting this behemoth all alone!

"Why does it always-- ACK!"

I barely dodge as the ogre-demon slashes at me with his crude but dangerous looking two-handed sword. I thought it was just another spike in his spiky armor, but he actually had a giant sword strapped on his back?

He keeps on making heavy attacks at me that cut as much as they smash, while I make more distance by jumping around pools of swamp water. I glance at the spot he just hit. There's a crater in the peat...? Swords aren't supposed to make craters!

"Hey, thanks for letting me work out my long-time annoyance with you succubus types! It'll be therapeutic to cut you in two."

"Work out your issues in a more constructive way. Knitting perhaps?"

"Killing annoying succubi is plenty constructive!"

Uhhh... Pretty much every demon I've talked to has disliked succubi. ...I have a feeling Celica has done her share for that.

While we got here much faster than the human competitors, if this drags out they'll join in sooner or later. There's no way this brute doesn't blabber that I'm a demon too - to sow chaos among his enemies or just because. Also, if I attack him with hellrime, that'd be too suspicious to explain away. Even if I'd go with story that it was case of friendly fire, this in addition of our proximity to the murder case earlier would be one coincidence too much for the druids.

Also, as succubus my raw battle strength is inferior to a wrath demon's. I need all the mobility and reach I can get to have a chance to win. I hastily reveal my wings, that I had been too carefully - again - hiding.

"Oh sure. Fly away while you can!"

My opponent thinks I'm about to turn tail and flee. Right, I could have chosen to retreat too. He probably could do serious damage with single hit, so it would be prudent. I'm not going to do that though. You can blame conditioning by RPGs, or just plain old stubbornness, but running away from fight without killing anything just feels wrong.

As he's running at me faster than anyone that big has any right going, I begin a S-shaped maneuver mid-air and approach him from above one of the biggest fetid swamp pools. He readies to cut at either me, or at my weapon's shaft, but instead of hitting him I scoop and splash half-rotten water plants at his face with my feet, and follow the feint by lunging at him from an angle.

The execution wasn't exactly the elegant osprey-like move I envisioned, but it was enough to allow me to stab his side through the armor. It's only for a moment before I have to disengage to avoid his counter-attack, but I manage to drain some of his strength too with the special enchantment I have had little chance to use so far.

"Urrrgh! That hurt!"

"That's the point."

"You butterfaced bitch! I'll cut you in three!"

Did he just say 'butterface'!? Sure, I'm trying to kill him and cut his head off as a trophy, but that's just rude. Also, the number of pieces he wants to cut me seems to be rising.

"Disguise, it's a disguise. My real looks are-- Ew! What the hell?"

The wounded demon conjures and throws a ball of foul-green fire at me. Dodging it isn't too difficult, since I'm hovering in air, but a trail of stinging, sulphur-smelling smoke follows it. It's acrid enough to make me half-choke, half-puke, even with my poison resistance bracelet.

"Enjoying my balefire?"

"...I like my minty fresh variation better."

It spreads into a wide cloud that forces me to either gain more altitude or land. Since I can't do ranged attacks right now and time is a limited resource, I choose to land. However, instead of charging at me like before, he continues tossing smaller doses of his foul hellfire variation at me, forcing me to dodge repeatedly. Changing his fighting pattern after taking damage... what is this, a boss battle?

The air smells like rotten skunks and egg farts, while my feet are still damp and slimy from my dip into the swamp water, and now I have to dodge and roll on the fetid ground to avoid being hit. Not loving this.

Deciding to risk suspicious druids rather than being hit by his nasty looking attacks, I launch counter-counter-attack of my own with hellrime. Simultaneously he fires another projectile of his own, and now they're on colliding course. ...Come to think of it, I have no idea what happens when different demonic essences mix. This is supernatural stuff, so anything could happen. I'm ready to take cover in case of magical fission explosion or crackling chaotic energies.

Yet, I wasn't quite ready for this.

My ball of demonic power anticlimactically passes through, while his balefire sizzles underwhelmingly and disappears mid-air.

"Wha...!?"

My essence... neutralized his? No, not just neutralized - completely annihilated it! The bolt of hellrime keeps on going without slowing, and the ogre-demon has to hastily duck and cover onto the damp swamp ground to dodge it. The whole exchange is over in seconds, though it felt longer.

"You too use that kind of power?! Just like--"

He is clearly shaken by this, and is distracted enough to stop to exclaim his confusion. But I'm not one to let opportunities like this pass - following the fog created by the coldness of my power, I swoop right at him.

"No! I will not be defeated! Not by you...!!!"

His reaction is too late to do more than prepare his sword to block my attack. I swirl the swordstaff to make it hard for him to guess where I'm aiming, and am just about to slash at his throat, when the gremlin-demon appears from behind him. Wait, wasn't Celica playing football with him? Never mind that now...!

I quickly abort my could-be finisher move, and prepare to defend against the new attacker.

"About time you showed up! Well whatever, help me nail this bitch before the other two show up."

"Okey-dokey!"

The tiny demon jumps towards me from behind his large companion's back, and I rise my weapon to intercept the attack. However, instead of doing some kind of acrobatic combo move with the ogre-demon, the gremlin...

...Stabs him in the neck?

"NRGGHGH!?"

Taken completely by surprise the large demon falls down limply with a glazed look that is more astonished than pained that he's about to be sent to reform in hell. Instead of loud crash you'd expect he collapses on the soft moss with faint 'whump', but the gremlin doesn't let underwhelming audio experience bother his glee.

"Heeeee! Now you are stupid, ugly, AND dead!"

His voice breaks half-way through as his body shimmers into Celica's. Or into Azara's Celica form, to be exact. And naked one at that, but that's nothing new.

...Damn it, and just when I almost had him! Of course an envy demon would be a kill-stealer. I bet she ninja-loots too.

Seriously though... This was an ogre(-demon) in a swamp. ...Did we just murder Shrek?

***

We return with another set of gory trophies, while our rivals can only dust. Celica had kicked that gremlin-thing (I really should have thought a better name for him) into barely recognizable slab. I didn't even try to find the head from that mess, and just brought the whole thing with me. Maybe druids will give bonus points for extra zealous demon slaying...

Some time after we had returned it was revealed that two more demons were found there, and both were slain by different teams. Still, as the winners of both two rounds now, we are getting lot of attention as the anticipated third round is approaching. As for what the final round will be about, we shall see tomorrow.

Now that this is over, I have time to think back at the battle with that demon. On hindsight, maybe I should have let him say what he was about to say instead of using it as chance to try to cut his throat... Although, surely it wasn't anything useful. The world couldn't be that convenient after all.

Also, the effect my power had on his raises some questions. Initially I thought of its extreme coldness as fittingly demonic, but coldness is also force of purity, in a way. Stuff like diseases and poisons have hard time existing in even a normal winter cold, never mind this liquid nitrogen level coldness of my hellrime. So... Was it really just bad synergy from his part, or is what I've been calling 'hellrime' somehow special?

...Hah. As if. Celica never reacted to it with surprise, so it probably isn't a big deal.

Yeah, special powers are domain of protagonists in crappy fantasy novels. Nothing to do with me.