“You will regret leaving the safety of that town Dragona! In hell that is!” Trix exclaimed in a hiss and all three of the Imps surrounding them lunged.

Reacting quickly, Erika unsheathed her dagger, pouring mana into their connection and activating it. Like a small breeze, the bladed shards whirled forth cutting anything and everything more than three feet away but no further than five. Like a brief barrier of death, it shredded the three Imps alongside the sides of many a crate.

Then she heard a croaked squeal and the tearing of flesh, right beside her ear, she turned to find Trix choking out Thorn, the Imp’s metal claws slowly sinking themselves into the young Lycan’s throat.

Erika willed her dagger to reform before striking out at Trix, the agile Imp evaded, using Thorn’s neck as a pole to hold onto and slam his body into the crates behind them, before letting go and scampering upwards. Disappearing above.

Thorn fell to his knees, clutching his profusely bleeding throat.

Erika quickly pulled one of his hands away, looking at the damage, two very deep looking tears.

His lycan healing will close it, but he’ll be left with some blood in his lungs…He’ll be disoriented too and…

Thorn tried to speak, but only a croak of pure agony came out as he fell lower.

“Don’t talk, go.” Erika told him, pulling him up, “Run, I can’t fight with you here and you can’t fight without prepared runes. Take your mount,” referring to the bipedal feathered creature still leashed to his hand which she helped him towards. “Take the Shrike, and run to the others, they can’t hear us over their own noise!”

Thorn and Erika then both glanced around as a maniacal chuckle filled the air, all around them Imps rose out of the shadows, several dozens of them rising over the crates and tents.

“They want me, go!” She exclaimed, slapping his mount’s side, the creature hissed before charging off, Thorn holding on with one hand for dear life.

The Imps’ dark eyes simply watched Erika as Thorn left, uncaring for the Lycan, their prey still lay before them.

“It is me who you want, isn’t it!?” Erika exclaimed then.

“Oh, oh yes it is.” Trix mused with a cackle, joined by the rest, as he reappeared before her.

Erika couldn’t even count the number of Imps which lay all around her, many of them still scrambling in the shadows, it was just far too many.

As their pitch-black eyes all settled on her, each grinning widely and licking their lips whilst chuckling.

Trix popped his neck with his left metallic hand, suddenly pulling his face to the side before slowly returning to glaring death at her. A wide black fanged smile across his face.

“Kill her.” He spoke, and a wave of Imps rushed over the tents and buildings, at least a hundred, they flooded towards Erika.

“Hah…” Grimacing, Erika immediately turned tail and ran, dashing in between tents and stacks of materials or storage crates whilst Imps lunged at her from the shadows, leaped at her from above or caught up with her from behind.

Cutting them down one by two by three, twirling her fragmented blade about herself, much of her attack though was blocked by the surrounding terrain as crates and tents took the brunt, there just wasn’t enough space to fight. For a Lycan, naturally strong in hand to hand combat, it was well put together to defend and fight but…For her it was quickly turning into a nightmare against these tiny deadly Imps.

Erika ran, just like Thorn, she ran for her dear life as a horde of Imps gave chase.

Bloodthirsty and salivating for the kill, little crimson demons with pitch-black eyes mirroring the abyss.

Frantically Erika ran, making a break for the forest once managing her way out of the camp, still she ran as a flood of Imps came out after her.

A wicked cackle following after, as Trix stood over one caravan, “You cannot escape, Dragona.”

That, is when Erika paused in her escape.

Out in the open now, the Imps encircled around to surround her.

“Escape was never my plan.” Erika replied, gripping her blade tightly as the shards of metal began to slowly vibrate. “I just needed some space to work.”

Trix’s grin warped into an annoyed grimace, “Just like him, you Dragons always think you’re…So high and mighty.” Suddenly dissipating in a puff of black smoke, Trix reappeared at the front of his minions through another. “You think because, you have the blood of a mighty Dragon, that you are equal to one? You’re just a cub, and we’re predators. Now, enough chitchat, die. Die to the might of the small.”

At his words, the Imps converged on her, rushing in or leaping, demons rained down upon her.

And Trix laughed, wickedly he laughed…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5UOewWqZlM

Until a gleam of golden light escaped through the bodies of charging Imps. The grass suddenly tore asunder as the very air was sent bursting away. Dozens of Imp bodies fell dead to the ground, halting the assault as Erika now stood before them changed.

Her golden eyes glowed fiercely as strands of her hair also turned gold, the patches of blue scales that had grown about her body too, turning dark before slowly brightening into golden.

Her dagger as well, the blade still shattered yet a golden energy held it together, radiating tendrils of blue mana too.

“Come then, just try to kill me.” Erika provoked the Imps, gripping her weapon with both hands then, she took in a deep breath as the convergence of demons continued.

Feeling the raw power coursing through her body, sensing their every movement, every step, every inch risen or dropped, every breath even, Erika felt attuned to both her body and her surroundings.

Erika’s body moved three times as quick as before, slashing her blade widely in an arc before herself, cutting down a hand full of demons with a wave of blue light before turning and spinning the blade with her, facing the ones behind herself where she did the same once more, a quick double slash front to back.

Turning once more, she charged towards them, a quick thrust forward decimating many more with a forward burst of energy before turning her blade upwards and spinning as she slashed up, before descending her weapon down onto the Imps charging into her back, quaking the ground with the same blue.

Not stopping, not even for a moment, Erika immediately turned her blade about once again, aiming the sharp edge upward. She thrust forwards whilst slashing her weapon upwards, sending the blue energy coursing through the ground and suddenly rising out like spikes into the horde.

Keeping her weapon piercing the dirt, she straightened herself and held the sword one-handed, turning her weapon arm about herself, making a semicircle of energy around her right before taking the weapon into her left hand and doing the same.

Until the blade returned to her front, where she gripped it with both hands once more.

Imps now flooding in again, so many that they still surrounded her, scrambling over their dead with little care.

Erika held her sword pointed downwards, and she waited.

Just as the first Imp came within reach, she kneeled down, plunging her weapon into the ground.

The trails of blue which had permeated the air after her every attack… suddenly flowed into the ground, confusing the charging Imps, until they were confused no longer.

As the energy came rushing back up with the fury of the earth behind it, quaking the dirt all around herself and sending trailing condensed blades of mana rising out of the cracks, twirling in tandem and decimating Imp after Imp like a grinder of flesh.

From where she kneeled, Erika’s gaze rose to meet the Imp General’s twitching grimace, whilst she smiled…no, while she grinned widely.

Fangs bared as veins pulsated across his face, Trix’s expression only grew with fury as he flicked his metal fingers. Four Imps came rushing from behind him, bringing him each a piece of equipment.

Two brought him a wicked-looking crimson red and charcoal black axe each, kneeling down on either side of him and offering the weapons, Trix ferociously gripped them whilst one other attached a long-serrated blade to his tail. The last, brought him a cylindrical stone, like a blackish coin with strange inscriptions carved upon it…The Imp pressed the stone to Trix’s back.

“Do you know…how I came to be who I am today?” Trix asked, as an aura of black rage suddenly poured out of his metal limbs. “Your father, chopped off my arms, my legs. He ate them, before me he ate them as he sacrificed my brother to cast a spell.” Trix growled. “Do you believe him righteous? Do you even know what he did during his lifetime?”

“Blabber all you wish.” Erika then said, rising up and retrieving her blade from the ground. “You cannot break my belief in my family. I’m not some simple child whose mind can be messed with…” Gripping her blade tightly, her fierce golden eyes narrowed. “Not anymore.”

Trix chuckled coldly, "Let us see, how unbreakable your bones are in comparison then."