At the center part of the forest:

“Hoho, so you managed to block my attack.”

The smoke lifted from the scene and a light barrier appeared from within. Behind it, Mika was barely standing while defending Davidsky, and Sabrine, a healer from Red Ghosts guild.

Around them, the whole area was set ablaze by the explosion. Only their footholds were left intact.

“This destructive power is insane.” Stated Davidsky. “Who are you?” He shouted.

“As a matter of respect to staying alive after my explosion, I’ll introduce myself. At least you can bring this information with you to the afterlife.” He smirked. “I am the leader of the third division of the seventh demon army, Adramelech.”

The talking monster had the head of a horse with reddish horns coming from its sides, the body of a human, a peacock tail, and an orc’s legs.

“It seems you are a light user. Light is troublesome to deal with, so this should be fun, hehe.” He pointed at Mika.

“Davidsky, can you still keep fighting?” Said Mika.

“Yeah, I regained my mana while you were protecting us a while ago.” Davidsky nodded his head.

“Then I need you to cover for me for a bit. I need the time to cast a spell. It’s my strongest move.”

“Okey, I’ll do my best, but I can’t guarantee any safety from his explosion attacks.”

“Don’t worry about that, if push comes to shove, I can protect us.” Mika started absorbing mana from her surroundings and pouring mana from inside her directly into her light orb.

“It seems you’re brewing something there. This is interesting. I’ll play with you and see what you can do.” The demon smirked.

“Stop muttering nonsense. I am your opponent here.” Davidsky launched a fireball.

The monster shrugged off the attack with one finger but was immediately surrounded by five flame spheres that hit him at the same time.

Davidsky continued his barrage of attacks with many spells, and then he used all of his remaining mana to create a big fire punch that he shot towards the enemy.

“Hugh… Hugh… I hope all these attacks will bring him down. I gave it my all. Even the strongest of B-rank monsters can’t survive this barrage of spells.”

Suddenly, something started glittering from inside the cloud of dust left by the fire attacks.

The number of glittering points kept raising exponentially until the figure of the monster appeared, unscathed and with no apparent damage. The glittering dots were coming from his peacock tail.

“Those were not bad attacks. If you hit someone else aside from me, they would have been in serious trouble.”

“This is unbelievable.” Davidsky was surprised.

“I guess it’s my turn now.” The monster turned around himself and shook his tail. Particles came out from his tail and were shot directly at Davidsky.

Before the impact, Mika created a quadruple light barrier to protect her teammate from the attack.

As soon as they made contact with the first barrier, the particles exploded and destroyed everything around them.

The barriers could not withstand the attack, and the explosion seriously damaged Davidsky. He was thrown next to Mika and was all burnt. Fortunately, he was still alive.

“It’s your turn next.” He pointed his finger towards Mika.

“I’m glad that you like talking, and couldn’t notice my attack. My final spell was already finished.”

The orb floating around Mika disappeared, and then it appeared on top of the monster and shot him with a devastating light beam that made a big hole in the ground.

“This is my strongest spell ‘Light Devastating Beam’. There is no way he is still alive after getting hit with the full power of my spell.”

Sabrine run towards Mika and Davidsky and started healing them. Suddenly something jumped out from the big hole that Mika made.

“What’s that?” Mika questioned.

“That was one hell of a strong attack. You could have easily killed the strongest of my followers with that attack. Unfortunately, I am much stronger. Well by your standards, I should be an S-rank.”

***

Shiryuu’s side:

After arriving at the designated place. We hid behind a giant tree and looked at the battlefield ahead. Ken – the scout who messaged us -, Rian – a healer –, and Jennifer – a mage who was part of our pursuit team – were all down. The cloaked creature from earlier was holding Lucas from the neck.

“I know you are there. Stop hiding and appear before me. I let you run away back then because I found my objective.”

We came out from behind the tree and a big eerie smile appeared on his face. “Well, well, welcome back again. I’m exhilarated to meet you again.”

The creature tossed Lucas to the ground and removed its cloak.

I have never seen a monster like that before. His body was all grey and bulky. He was wearing long pants and had bare feet. He had two red horns coming from his head, two long and white needles from his shoulders, and small needles from his hands.

“My name is Marade. I am the leader of the first platoon of the third division of the seventh demon army. Nice to make your acquaintance.”

The demon called Marade kept smiling while we were slowly approaching our fallen comrades. “Since we have most of the cast here, let’s play a game. If you manage to break all four of my needles, before I kill your teammate here, I’ll let you live and go away immediately.”

“Why do we need to trust you? What guarantees us that you won’t stick to your words?” Shouted Ken.

“If I wanted to kill you all, I won’t even waste my time talking to you like this. I would have killed you all and without breaking a sweat.” He smirked.

“Then give us time to make a plan,” I shouted.

“You have five minutes before I start attacking.” He replied.

Akavic brought the badly injured Lucas and we have gathered with the other teammates. “Josephus and the others who fought him, can you tell us what his fighting style is like?” I asked.

“I’ll start.” Josephus raised his hand. “We met him in the valley while we were preparing our trap for the monkey. He appeared from nowhere and caught the fleeing animal. We tried attacking him but he quickly killed the others using some invisible techniques. He just moved his hands and my teammates fell lifeless. I did not have enough time to examine the bodies to see what killed them. I was the only one standing, so I tried protecting myself, but an air slash cut my arm. That was the only skill I was able to see because it reacted with a passive of my gears. Whenever a skill is used against me, I can see which element is used if it is an elemental attack.”

“In our case, He appeared in front of us out of nowhere and started talking about some kind of device that Lucas has, then the battle started. Lucas was the first one to attack him, but he just kept disappearing and appearing like thin air, but I could locate him with my skills, so I teamed up with Lucas to deal with him. When he found out how we could find out where he would appear, he attacked me using some invisible techniques that knocked me down. Then he proceeded on attacking Rian and Jennifer. I faked being unconscious to send you the message, but he found out about it and I felt a painful blow on my back. He was away from me, but he managed to land a hit on me from above. I don’t know how. Finally, he went for Lucas and used the same skills on him, and that’s when you arrived.” Explained Ken.

“From what you’ve all said, I think he can use space magic-related skills,” I said.

“How did you know that? Space is one of the rarest magic types, if not the rarest.” Exclaimed Akavic.

“The master of the dojo where I trained my swordsmanship was a space magic-user. He was able to imbed his sword with space magic mana and use it to overpower his opponents with ease.”

“If that’s really the case, then we’re up for some big troubles here.” Said, Josephus.

“From what I can see, Only Jennifer, Shiryuu, and I can fight him directly. This is going to be really tough.” Said Akavic.

“Even with one arm, I can cover for you.”

“And I can help you with finding him if he disappears.”

“Leave the healing to me. I’m not a B-rank healer for nothing.”

“Okay, then let’s do this. Josephus, create a strong cover around yourself, Lucas, Rian, and Ken. We need you mainly for protection, so just relax and concentrate on defensive spells. Jennifer, use your wind magic to support us and water magic for attacks whenever you get a chance. Shiryuu and I will go for the melee.” Said Akavic.

As soon as we finished strategizing, Josephus created the earth shields, and Akavic and I attacked the demon-like monster.

I went for a step slash and Akavic followed by an assassin skill called ‘dagger shot’, it is an ability that duplicates the used dagger using mana and throws it at the opponent. Upon contact, the dagger exploded.

He dodged both the attacks and punched the air. It was a space-traveling punch. Since I knew what was coming, I managed to dodge barely the attack.

The mage created small water droplets and shot them at the monster. He teleported to avoid the attack, but Akavic leaped behind the demon using an assassin skill called ‘Shadow move’, and used both of his daggers to cut his head using the skill ‘decapitation’.

The demon disappeared before the slash and appeared next to me and kicked me to the back. “On a closer look, that’s a weird weapon you’ve got there, and it’s emitting a strong aura. Could it be…?” A big evil smile appeared on his face. “That’s a Mythological Weapon there. I am lucky. Not only did I find the objective, but also I get to kill a Mythological Weapon user. This is perfect.” Sounding excited.

Jennifer blasted him with a water bomb and Akavic leaped next to the demon and cut his left cheek. “You don’t have the luxury to doze off.”

The monster teleported a few yards back and said, “This is a bad habit of mine. Congratulations, you scored your first hit.”

I injected mana unto my sword and launched a big air slash while the monster was talking; he dodged it and teleported above us and punched the air twice.

With the help of Ken, we knew the trajectory of the attacks and Jennifer countered them using a wind barrier - that nullified the attacks –, and a water shot that hit him on the head.

He looked at the mage, angry and irritated, then he teleported next to her going directly for the kill.

I used a step slash to dash directly between Jennifer and the demon, and used ‘counter and parry’ to counter the attack and transformed his strength unto my sword, and slashed one of his shoulder’s needles.

“Their combo attacks are getting irritating.” The demon muttered. “It’s time to get serious.”

He started teleporting into different places, which made the task for Ken harder, and could no longer follow him; he then appeared next to the scout and destroyed the earth shield. Josephus tried trapping the demon with an earth-binding spell, but he kicked the ground, which sent space-traveling kick attacks that destroyed everything around him.

He extended his arm and caught Ken, but Akavic leaped on top of him and went for another ‘decapitation’ skill that was easily countered by another invisible attack.

“When did he launch this attack?” Akavic gritted his teeth.

The demon took down Ken with a barrage of punches that made him lose consciousness and he threw him to the side. “One down.”

I launched three air slashes at the demon but he teleported next to Jennifer and destroyed the earth shield around her.

On the last struggle, she used a wind spell that propelled her away from the monster, but he caught her easily and knocked her down. “Two down.”

Akavic and I took this chance to launch a simultaneous attack, but something pushed us away from him in a severely damaging burst.

“It seems you managed to get a hang over my space-type skills, but I don’t use space magic only, I also can use wind magic.”

The attack that blasted us away was a strong windblast. We were smashed through several trees and could not stand right away.

He took this chance to attack Rian and Josephus and took them down with several attacks. “Now it’s the time to get my prize. Too bad you only managed to destroy one needle, but the fun time is over.”

He teleported next to the unconscious Lucas, he destroyed his shield and caught him.

I wanted to go back and save Lucas, but my body refused to move. That last blast was devastating. I slammed my sword on the ground. Used all the strength I had to stand up, but I fell down. “Damn, I need to move. If I don’t move, Lucas and everyone here will die.”

I transferred all the mana from my body to the tip of my sword and launched a strong air slash beneath me that sent me flying towards the demon.

Right before I could face him, he teleported in front of me and punched me in the face, then my body was smashed on the ground. “Stay still. Your turn is yet to come.”

Frustration was building up inside of me. I cursed my weakness and inability to fight against this predicament.

.

.

“It seems you’re having a hard time, boy.” A familiar voice rang through my head.