As the blood-creatures opened their mouths and fired their white spears, nearly invisible against the brilliant white of every visible surface, time seemed to slow down.

There was no magic to it, Achilles knew. He had heard about experiences like this.

Faced with certain death, a man’s life flashed before his eyes. His mind sped up to give him some chance, any chance, to save himself and those he cared about.

The monstrous, transformed demon was still laughing. Its Demonic Art was bewildering, transfixing.

“Hard-Boiled Wonderland,” it had said. Like the black night was an egg that had shattered, giving birth to a strange world filled with even stranger monsters.

Yet, as Achilles’s mind raced, he thought he knew what to do.

He and Medea had just found a vital clue. The corkscrew demon had thrown its own body in the way of the titanic tree to protect it from a blow.

Somehow, the tree was the key to all this.

They needed to attack the tree.

Yet, in a moment, both he and Medea would surely die.

No! Achilles thought. Virgil, you can be any weapon, right?

He received an impulse of affirmation.

Be a shield! The biggest one possible! Guard us at all costs!

In a split second, Achilles threw his father’s knight shield to the ground and shoved Virgil before him with both hands.

The eldritch blade warped in a huge greatshield in the split second before the glowing demon-bolts reached them.

Achilles slammed Virgil into the ground, bracing himself against the greatshield. His body rattled as dozens of blasts shook his body.

Yet none penetrated the shield.

Some bolts came from the side, but Medea parried them, crouching behind Virgil herself. She seemed completely unfazed by the blade’s transformation.

Well, she herself wielded some kind of dark weapon. It seemed she was well-acquainted with secrets.

“Now!” Achilles roared.

Time seemed to speed back up.

The demon rose higher and higher. Under the power of its Demonic Art, it seemed to grow larger with every passing moment. “No!” it roared, its voice shaking the trees.

After firing their white spikes, the blood-creatures formed from monkey corpses exploded. Achilles flinched, but this seemed to be a side effect of the Demonic Art, and not a new attack.

Medea sprinted out from behind the shield, leaping to slash at the tree trunk.

The demon formed a crown of spikes and hurled them at her!

Achilles tried to follow behind Medea with the shield, but somehow Virgil had grown in weight as he grew in size, and what Achilles hoped would be a leap was instead a stumble!

But Medea dodged the bolts, rolling across the ground away from the tree trunk. “I need some support!” she shouted.

“I’m trying!” Achilles growled.

Then his heart nearly stopped.

Another huge wave of monkeys, their fur turned bright red by Hard-Boiled Wonderland, leaped from the branches fifty meters up.

They plummeted downward with maniacal screams, preparing to sacrifice themselves for another vicious assault of white spikes.

Medea and Achilles were too far away from each other.

By the time the monkeys hit the ground, Achilles could not protect his new friend.

At this same time, the corkscrew demon was winding up another crown of spikes of his own.

Achilles glanced at his own system information, searching desperately for something, anything, he could do to save them.

Nothing.

No.

Wait.

Achilles’s heart pounded with excitement. “Virgil, can you turn into ammunition, or only weapons?”

He sounded drunker by the minute.

“Then give me proficiency with the bow and become one in my hand!”

Virgil sent him a feeling of puzzlement, but did as asked.

Achilles’s swarming eyes, which had turned bright white in Hard-Boiled Wonderland, now burned black and purple as Virgil activated his abilities. Ten eyes snuffed out as Achilles’s mind filled with the knowledge of how to use the bow which formed in his hands as the greatshield disappeared.

“Weapon Art!” he shouted. “Horde Breaker!”

The ability’s description popped into view.

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Achilles gritted his teeth, pulled back an arrow which appeared in his hand, and released it skyward.

All creatures within range.

A bow had quite a lot of range.

His black arrow split into dozens of copies of itself, each pointed in the general direction of a plummeting monkey. Their contrast against the bright white all around was stunning.

More than a dozen monkeys went silent as they were speared in midair, bursting into blood that fell like red rain.

Achilles ran toward Medea in an instant, turning Virgil back into a greatshield to block the corkscrew demon’s crown of white spikes.

He blocked them all, his teeth shaking at the impact, and smiled.

He hadn’t just attacked the falling monkeys, thinning their ranks.

Most of his shots had gone off course.

They struck the other thing right in front of them...

An enormous, demonic tree.

From the other side of the greatshield, the corkscrew demon began screaming in pain and rage. “No!” it growled, sounding like it was choking. “You didn’t... you couldn’t...”

Monkeys fell to the ground around Achilles and Medea.

Medea leaped up, ready to parry, but there was no way she could protect against all of them.

Yet Achilles heard the anguish in the demon’s voice. He looked up and saw how many of his black arrows had pierced the bark of the giant tree, sending rivulets of blood down its pure white surface. Black cracks were emanating from the points of impact, and he saw single points of damage flashing dozens of times from the arrow wounds.

It seemed the tree was the demon’s weak point, after all. Such a weak point was why his sword blows had hardly done anything to the corkscrew body itself.

Achilles and Medea would surely die here, but they would take two vile demons with them.

All the travelers trying to bring goods to the frontier would be safe again.

Medea met Achilles’s gaze as blood creatures rose from the monkey corpses around them. “It was an honor fighting with you,” she said. Her voice shook slightly, but she kept her gaze firm. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you. You were truly worthy of being an Imperial Knight.”

Achilles nodded. “Thank you,” he said. “You were pretty good yourself.”

The blood creatures opened bright white mouths, spikes forming within.

Then they stopped.

Silence.

The creatures slid silently into pools of blood again, and the white light of Hard-Boiled Wonderland faded.

Achilles frowned. “Can you make me a peephole?” he asked Virgil, who opened a tiny window in the shield for Achilles to look through.

The corkscrew demon was slumped over, the skull fallen from its hands. Its extra limbs had decayed off its body in only moments, and its flesh hung off it in rotting chunks. As Achilles watched, it decomposed into little more than a monstrous skeleton surrounded by rotting pulp.

“We won,” Achilles whispered. He could hardly believe it. “Wow, what a weak point! We really won!”

Suddenly, the skeleton glowed bright white again, and Achilles’s heart nearly stopped. “No way!”

A blinding blast of white light flashed out from the skeleton toward them—

But instead of an attack blasting into Virgil, the light passed through, split in two, and seeped into Achilles’s and Medea’s skin.

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