The dark bolt of energy flew past Diane’s head faster than she could react, almost perfectly in the narrow gap between her and Clover, before colliding somewhere far behind her, bursting with a deep and heavy *THOOM*. No less than her opening fireball from before, Diane could feel the fierce embrace of the distant shockwave wash over her in a furious gust of wind and debris.

Sayomi covered her mouth in mock surprise.

“Oh my! I seem to have missed with that one! I wonder… should I try again?”

Missed? Try again… ?!

“CLOVER! RUN!”

She didn’t even need to tell the terrified creature. Clover launched himself into a full sprint in the opposite direction from Sayomi the moment after she launched the first Black Spear, ignoring the crunch and spurt of blood out of his front paw with each step. Kristoff hung on tightly while also trying to hold Emily’s limp body in place, while Diane was running desperately in an attempt to not fall too far behind.

Shadow step! Shadow step! Focus, faster! Faster! Fast… !

The air began to crackle ahead of Clover, as the shadow of a nearby tree distorted. Face… arm… hands… with another wicker spear of energy in them. Sayomi laughed as she emerged from the darkness, spreading her wings wide as Clover leapt around her and cut a hard left turn.

“All! Means! All!” Sayomi punctuated each word, as she dramatically reached back, her hand laden with death.

“STAY AWAY FROM THEM! THEY’RE MINE, BITCH!”

Diane grimaced in pain, as she gathered a burst of mana into one of her legs, causing her skin to redden and her body to shudder. As much as she used, more kept flowing in slowly, still devoid of its characteristic rage and laden only with a strange feeling of being stretched across an inconceivable distance.

I won’t lose everyone again! I won’t! I WON’T!

“Reinforced Strike!”

Diane slammed her foot into the ground, launching herself at Sayomi, eliciting a wide smile from the demoness as she effortlessly flipped over Diane’s head.

“Now how can you expect me to stay away, when you’re making all this noise so close to my home? Hmm?”

Landing softly, she twisted elegantly hurled the energy spear like a discus towards Diane, this time cutting a hair’s breadth over top her head.

“Even now, your technique is so pathetic! You expect to tell me, ME, what to do? When you can barely even walk right? When you’re burning yourself alive with wasted mana to the point you might even blow up?!”

The blast hit much closer this time, the immediate shockwave flattening Diane into the ground as Sayomi faded in and out of the shadows dancing around her.

As she struggled to get up, she felt… something slither into her neck! She couldn’t even turn her head, but out of the corner of her eye, Diane could see Sayomi’s slender arm reaching in, and then felt a soft whisper in her ear.

“Do you envy my technique? I’ll let you feel it… just this once. Although we need a target to try it on! And look at that, we still have one… well, actually a few? No matter! They are perfectly in range!”

Diane’s face blanched, a voiceless scream failing to materialize in her throat, as dark energy swirled and gathered into her hand. She couldn’t resist it, the Black Spear as her arm raised and pointed towards Emily, Clover, and Kristoff.

*Thwip*

Sayomi’s tail whipped quickly, reflecting a fast-moving glint of silver, blasting it through a nearby tree. She reflexively turned her head to look at what triggered her reaction.

“Why was a crossbow mounted in… ?!”

Her eyes widened in shock, as she felt something sharp pierce her neck at an angle towards her heart.

She yanked her arm out from Diane, her hand reforming as she grabbed the stake, stopping it only partially in her skin. It was an odd looking one, at a glance. Different from the silver one a moment ago.

“Hahaha! Bold one, whoever you are! But you’ll regret to know that is nowhere near good enough!”

“And I’m glad I can count on your arrogance to at least be just like a vampire’s!”

D roared as he drained the little mana he had just recovered into the stake, bursting the outer shell and ejecting the smaller stake head into Sayomi’s heart!

Black ooze erupted from Sayomi’s wound and out of her mouth, as a momentary look of shock turned to one of ecstasy.

She mouthed a single word, as she stabbed her hand into her body, and ripped the stake out, as tendrils of dark energy radiated outwards, stabbing into anything and everything near her.

Not like a fucking vampire! And not like any demon I have EVER read about!

He didn’t waste his chance. D grabbed Diane, and ran desperately for his life as everything around the demoness wilted and turned to ash, filling the gaping wounds in her body.

It’s not enough!

Sayomi stared longingly as the black cloak of the man who stabbed her faded into darkness.

But…

“If I don’t kill him now, I could enjoy myself even more later! Ah, I didn’t expect any of these pests to be able to surprise me! I WANT TO ENJOY MYSELF MORE! I NEED MORE, NOW!”

She contorted her body in her mental dissonance.

“As long as I leave just Diane… it should be fine! Or!”

Sayomi clapped her hands together in a fit of joy, as her body finished restoring!

“I know! There’s those other demons! The one’s Baal wanted us to chase! Judging by all the residue they left behind, there is no way they could be finished off yet! Ahn, but I can’t let them feel safe just yet…”

Her smile only grew wider and more demented as she made her decision, spread her wings as wide as she could manage, and blasted herself into the air.

“JUST WAIT FOR ME, I’M COMING!”

She formed a few more Black Spears and coated them in flame, and lackadaisically chucked them in Diane’s general direction, before taking off with the force of a hurricane towards the distant sounds of a raging battle.

It was an absolute bloodbath.

At first, he hoped to lose his pursuers in one of the many demi-human tribes that should have filled these hills. Yet all of them were empty, his time spent crisscrossing these forests was nothing more than wasted energy as he grew weaker by the hour.

Then he grew more and more desperate. He decided to risk everything, and use the human lands to try and shake pursuit. At least he might have a chance then! Humans lacked a Daemon’s stamina and strength, he could escape! Recover! Yet he regretted insulating his kingdom in the north, not bothering to know where a single human village lay. He starved in his desperate flight, as the endless empty, silent forests provided no sustenance.

He was ecstatic when he finally sensed a group of humans, hoping they were a worthy group of adventurers who could give pause to the demons chasing him. Yet he could only despair when he saw they were a group of children. But… that would also mean that a human settlement would be near!

And yet… it wasn’t. Only more forest. He couldn’t make it far before they cornered him. Of course those kids didn’t slow them down more than a few seconds. Surrounded. Mid-ranked demons and that relentless damned noble laughing, as they sent waves of their weaker minions to wear him down. With a little more time, they should have been able to execute him to their satisfaction. And yet…

Another group? If they are going to start suddenly slaughtering each other, I won’t waste their infighting! This moment of fortune shall be mine!

“DO NOT THINK THIS ONE SHALL FALL SO EASILY! FOR I AM GRATH, AND I AM KING!” The wounded Daemon roared defiantly, cleaving wide around him! Faint images of his blade rained outward, slicing through another wave of lesser demons.

Forward! While they are distracted!

Grath launched himself into a Bauther ahead of him, attempting to break out of his encirclement by using the fatty as a meat shield/bulldozer.

His forward charge stopped suddenly, the pressure of his forward drive bursting the Bauther like a wet, organ-and-fat-filled balloon.

“私は彼を長く保持することはできません !”

What language is that?! Is it mad?!

“FOOLISH CHILD, YOU DARE TO STAND IN THE WAY OF A KING?”

Orion braced himself against the coming onslaught from the titan standing before him.

Grath tossed his sword to his off-hand, swinging wide at the shorter red demon, who used the bone plates on his arms to try and deflect the blow.

Its eyes opened in shock, as the blade sent a shockwave through his arms and into his body, temporarily stunning him.

Hah! This child might have a little strength, but it hardly knows the ways of the world!

In the opening, Grath quickly gathered mana into his right hand, and slammed it into the earth.

“QUAKE!”

Shockwaves rippled through the ground, cracking holes into the ground for 100 meters in all directions and uprooting trees!

I can’t even pull a quarter of my strength anymore, damn!

“気を引き締めて！大物が通ります！”

There it is again! That language!

He had his opening, but…

They’re all humanoid small horns! Whose demons are these?! All of them are using that language! Wh-

He couldn’t miss the massive grey bastard charging relentlessly towards him, and the source of all his frustration. 20 meters tall, flesh and muscles like chiseled rock, a large single eye, and an intelligence that defies the common stories surrounding his kind. The Stone Giant, The Cyclopes…

“TORMAC!”

“THIS ONE IS MINE, STOP THE INTRUDERS!” Tormac’s deep voice thundered across the raging battlefield, riddled with explosions and bolts of dark energy.

Any semblance of forest or life was quickly reduced to wasteland, as Grath fought desperately to fend off Tormac’s onslaught. It was all he could do to hold out, countering spell against spell and reinforcing his exhausted and injured arms and his sword with mana to withstand each fist-fall.

Then…

His blood ran cold.

Or, more precisely, everyone’s blood ran cold.

Simultaneously, all the demons looked to the setting sun, its last rays disappearing and through the enveloping darkness, they could see the wall of air following the rush of a monster amongst monsters.

For as long as he may live, he will never forget that sadist’s laugh.

There were two other thing Grath knew for certain, if only for the exasperated, yet somehow relieved expressions on a couple of the strange demons around him, and their attempts to separate themselves from the main battlefield. It wasn’t one of Carinthus’ generals, during the war against Sias-Aryn he was at least able to learn who and what Carinthus’ four general were. Second, and far more concerning, it was at least as strong as a general, and it was likely allied with the strange demons.

While infighting can be quite normal amongst equal ranks, a rogue general… is not possible.

“Kirstach…” Grath cursed in the slang of his people.

I managed to run straight into the territory of a hostile demon lord that somehow, everyone missed was even here.

Grath cursed his luck again. It was at times like this that he found himself jealous of the humans, and the support they received from their gods while everything else was entirely on their own.

All attention was on her, and she reveled in it!

Time to show all the accidents what one of his demons should truly be capable of! First… let’s test the strength of their minds!

“Love me! Hate Me! Loathe Me! Serve Me in your haunted nightmares! You are all my toys to play with to my heart’s content!” Sayomi’s words were like a siren song, laced with hidden magic.

Amplify, Allure, Enrage, Hallucinate, and Dominate!

In a hail of debuffs, she forced her will into many of the lesser demons. Imps launched spells chaotically into the sky, while grendels, gaunts, and all manner of other horrors tore each other to shreds. There were even a few of the humanoid demons that Baal had managed to get over by opening a short, temporary gate to Americia.

They were just too slow!

Sayomi smiled deep and wide.

“At least the little giantling can keep his wits about him!” Haste. Lithe.

She spun and twisted around in the air, evading Tormac’s fist as she quickly flew along his arm towards his face and Cyclopes’ triumphant smirk.

“YOU WOULD INSULT ME, PEST?! YOU KNOW NOT THE STRENGTH OF GIANTS!” Tormac roared, amplifying his voice further to shake the air and send a shockwave at Sayomi. His eye glowed black as gathered mana in front of it, unleashing a destructive beam from it a moment later.

Shadow step.

Compared to the monsters from His memories, this would have to be a child though?

Frailty. Amplify, Arch Flame, Black Fire, Pierce, Corruption, Curse!

Sayomi launched herself from the shadows behind Tormac’s kneecap, and proceeded to shoot a long black blade of flaming plasma from her hand, slicing through both the Cyclopes’ knees. Its short-lived triumph careened into horror as its large body collapsed onto the ground, howling in pain.

She flew above the Cyclopes, just out of reach of his flailing arms, giving her lips a nice lick.

“You’re the one who doesn’t know the strength of giants, you know? Although the ones I remember have two eyes. Are you a mutated dwarf child? Hardly a quarter the size of a real giant! Although now, you do seem a teensy bit smaller than that! A cute, harmless little baby!”

The veins bulged in Tormac’s eye, and he slammed the earth with his hands, pumping mana into the ground and launching a hail of stones after Sayomi. Each stone tore through her… flesh?

Her body dissipated into thin air.

Tormac twisted around, the demoness laughing as she stood next to a very miffed-looking demon and Grath, sealed tightly to the ground.

She tapped next to her eye and then pointed at her knees.

Tormac couldn’t help but subconsciously touch his stump leg… and immediately felt an intense burning sensation in his hand! He tried desperately to wipe it off, as it only spread further and further.

“Don’t worry, little mutant giantling! Once your limbs finish burning off, I won’t let you die! I still need you to help me figure out what everything inside you is! I have… oh so many burning questions, haha!”