’Annoying.’

Elion adjusted his weight at the last moment, earth magic rising beneath his heel in a short wedge of stone. His body turned half an inch to the side, just enough for the flaming spear to scrape across his chest plate instead of drilling into his ribs.

The armour hardened at the point of contact, Adaptive Guard activating right before impact, and the spear slid off in a shower of black sparks, leaving only a heated bruise beneath the metal instead of a hole through his body.

At the same time, he caught the jagged blade with Kurogoroshi, redirected it downward, and drove his boot into the demon’s chest.

Crack!

The demon flew backward, crashed into a pillar, and left a spiderweb of cracks through the stone.

But the opening was gone, Maya had already retreated.

They didn’t immediately move to attack after that exchange; it was only a moment, but it was enough for him to consider the implications of what Maya had just done.

She had just used a speed and strength buff on that swordsman they called Manfred! He had assumed she was only a mage. Elion realised she had not shown him nearly enough of herself, just as he had suspected.

And she probably had more surprises waiting for him. More so since she seemed to be the leader of this little cohort, which meant they had all acknowledged her ability as a leader.

’Was her shy personality nothing but a front she put up to fool us?’ It certainly never felt that way. He was more inclined to believe that she was the kind of person who was capable of taking on a different presence when it came to life-or-death moments like these, kind of like Prince Alexander.

He acted his age at times, but when the situation called for it, he also acted like a worthy prince and future ruler.

"Do not let him rest," Maya ordered. "Uta, try to bind his legs. Yaana, pressure his right. Manfred, stay between him and me."

’Well, at least I know what you are going to do...’ Elion thought as he listened to Maya send out instructions with a calm look on his face.

"With pleasure," Uta said as the dozens of dark, grotesque hands stretched toward Elion from the back.

The long pale fingers divided and elongated like worms made of flesh, every fingertip opening into a small wet mouth lined with needle-like teeth. They came from low and high, sliding between the bodies of the demons, crawling through the air, reaching for Elion’s face, throat, wrists, and ankles all at once.

Elion grimaced in discomfort from the sight as an instantaneous fire spell burst from his palm.

The first cluster of hands shrivelled instantly, their mouths shrieking in thin, disgusting voices as the flames blackened them to the wrist. But more came through the smoke. One wrapped around his left ankle, another reached for his sword arm, and a third snapped its teeth inches from his cheek.

’Ew!!!’

Kurogoroshi flicked once.

Shk! Shk!

Two invisible hands fell to the floor, but the bodies continued writhing like severed snakes.

"Still disgusting, no matter how many times I see it," Elion muttered with a dirty scowl on his face.

Uta smiled thinly from behind the others. "And you are still rude."

"Big one!" Maya called out, and the Archmage demon moved. Elion saw it coming from the corner of his eyes.

The hulking demon crossed the distance in one monstrous stride, its fist pulling back, muscles swelling beneath black armour-like plates.

The air compressed in front of the punch before it even arrived. Elion raised Kurogoroshi with both hands and reinforced every muscle in his arms, shoulders, and back.

The fist landed.

Boom!

The blow struck the flat of the blade and drove through his guard like a landslide. His elbows bent, his shoulders screamed for mercy, and the force travelled down his arms and into his chest, and for a moment, his bones felt like they were ringing.

He was launched backward without suspense, crashing through one of the chained pillars hard enough to shatter the skull ornaments wrapped around it. The pillar cracked in two, and the chains wrapped around it snapped.

The fragments of stone and bone were scattered around him. Elion landed in a crouch and spat blood to the side.

The Archmage demon grinned.

"Little hero strong," it rumbled. "But not strong enough."

Elion slowly stood, rolling his aching shoulder.

’Fuck! I should have dodged that instead of trying to take it head-on!’

"Maybe we can talk about this? Honestly, I don’t feel like fighting anymore," Elion joked. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

"Do not answer him," Manfred said coldly. "Press him."

Yaana giggled, spinning her scythe behind her. "But he’s funny. Can I keep his tongue after?"

"No," Maya said. "Kill him first."

The demon charged again.

The next few minutes became a storm of movement. Blades, spells, claws, Uta’s hands, and a lot of black flames.

Elion caused far more damage than they did. That much became obvious quickly. Every time Kurogoroshi landed, someone paid for it. One of the five high-mage-level demons thrust too far with its jagged spear, and Elion slipped inside the spear’s reach, cutting three fingers from its hand before spinning away from the others’ attacks before they could reach him.

The demon screamed in horror as black-red cracks crawled from the wound up its wrist, the bleeding refusing to stop no matter how much mana it forced into the injury.

Yaana took a shallow cut across her shoulder when she overextended her scythe, and she laughed cutely first, visibly breathless but delighted. However, that glee lasted only for a second. She looked at her arm in horror when the blood kept flowing down her arm in hot, dark streams.

"Let me heal it for you!" Uta shouted to her as one of his elongated arms stretched out toward her. It split into many fine threads and worked to stitch the wound back together.

’He can also heal his allies with that?’ Elion thought with an exasperated sigh. ’Or maybe not?’

A frown found its way onto Uta’s brow, "Why is it not working!?" He screamed as his head snapped toward Elion with a sharp glare.

Elion shrugged as he dodged a heavy strike from the swordsman. At the same time, he stepped into the attack and delivered two direct strikes at Manfred.

On the first, he groaned in pain as Elion managed to draw a sharp spray of blood from Manfred’s exposed shoulder plate, and on the second, he managed to block the strike with a fast tilt of his shield, but Kurogoroshi still carved a long black scar through the surface of the shield.

On the third strike, Elion was forced into a quick retreat as the others suddenly converged on him.

The battle broke out into a frenzied, but unbelievable exchange, with no side gaining much ground. There were ten of them, and only one of him.

Every time he blocked one attack and tried to counter, two or three more arrived from different angles. If he stepped toward Maya, the swordsman slid into his path with a shield raised. If he tried to punish Uta, Yaana’s scythe curved toward his legs. If he moved to thin out the High Mage demons, Maya’s spell arrived at the perfect moment, forcing him to block, dodge, or stumble into the Archmage demon’s range.

Maya was the worst of them.

She was not the strongest physically, and definitely not the most destructive, but the worst to deal with. Her spells were perfectly timed, every single time. And the worst part was her doing all this from the backline, while shouting instructions.