“Grreeegrouuuuuuuuhhhhh! Ahraaarrrrrrrrg!”

“Grrrrrrrk! Urgh! Gahhhh!”

A thunderclap. Black lightning shot out from my arm as I smacked the demonkin of wrath with my bulky right foreleg, sending him crashing through the fort’s walls to the outside. Before I destroyed the interior of this place with my size, I followed after him before using [Smokey Haze] to blanket the whole area in my shadow smoke.

[“Go all out, everybody! Either we leave now or fight and kill him! Choose quickly! I’ll lead the charge!”] I commanded everybody.

“W-What?! Where da fuck did that thing come from?!”

“Monster! We got a monster in the base!”

“Wh-What is this smoke?! I can’t see! Somebody blow this shit away!”

[“I am for fighting!”] I could hear Ellaine say telepathically before her whipsword swooped past me in the direction of where I smacked the demonkin to.

Activating my heat vision, I saw her sword being deflected by his fire sword. Thetwo of them traded blows in this darkness, purely tracking each other’s position with their respective [Enhanced Enemy Sense]. And, it showed, as most of their attacks were off by a good mark.

“Wow! Why doesn’t this damn smoke disappear?” I heard the demonkin voice his annoyance. “Argk, whatever. Warbringer’s Body! Hiiiiraaaak! Hammer of the Elements!”

Ellaine’s sword finally managed to strike our enemy. However, it seemed he did something to protect his body as he took those hits like a tank, before turning his flame sword into a hammer. With a singular strike to the ground, an earthquake shook Ellaine and me off-balance before I noticed cracks forming around the area.

“Careful!”

I felt a chill around my feet seconds before a large golem made from ice materialized, picking Ellaine and me up in the air as flames burst from the ground like an eruption. The golem was instantly destroyed, but this allowed me to put Ellaine on my back and use [Air Walk] to avoid the remainder of the demonkin’s attack.

With an opening at hand, I channeled mana through my arms to turn them into my stygian lightning. I jumped up and let this surge of power crash right on top of the demonkin’s location with [Voltage Impact], breaking the ground before using [Stygian Lightning] to shoot out bolts of thunder through the smoke.

“Grkk?! How?!” our enemy groaned from this unavoidable attack. As long as he was in my shadow, my lightning will hit their mark thanks to the [Lightning Shadow] skill. “Dammit, is this all from this damn smog? Fuck this, then!”

The fire hammer transformed back its sword form and released multiple flaming waves as it slashed, forcing me to dodge around while releasing more electric bolts. Every single one was hitting him, but I noticed they weren’t slowing him down. He was aiming to escape the [Smokey Haze].

“Wrong direction, lad!”

I saw Grimnir’s heat signature make a superman landing right in front of the demonkin just mere moments before he escaped. Raising his hammer up, his gauntlets suddenly let out sounds of a strong gale, accelerating his downward strike into a burst of ice spikes.

This pushed the demonkin back as he narrowly blocked it with his fire shield. Grimnir suddenly blasted forward, shouting “Ellaine” as he readied his sword.

[“Saori, the smoke!”] Ellaine called out as she jumped off my back and used [Wind Blast] to fly forward.

I did as she said, recalling the smoke back into my shadow to reveal the total state of the battlefield. Destroyed and covered in fire and ice. The moment the smoke vanished, both Grimnir and Ellaine rushed at the demonkin with their weapons ready. Unfortunately, their attacks were easily parried, not by his sword, but by two flaming wings sprouting from his back.

“This is actually a surprise. You four are actually stronger than I anticipated!” He announced with a wide grin, almost as if he was immersed in joy. “But not strong enough. That lightning is nothing compared to Master Vifi’Yok’s!”

An aura of flame bursts from his body as his arteries began to glow yellow, becoming progressively brighter as his [Excited] meter reached 80%. Ellaine and Grimnir were pushed away, and the demonkin took to the skies with his wings of fire. Turning his shield into a sword, he dove down with Grimnir in his sight.

“Freeze!”

Blades of ice rained down at the demonkin, forcing him to block and dodge all of them if he didn’t wish to turn into a pincushion. To my right, Tasianna was floating in the air with [Aifli eir Vintral] active, looking like an angel of ice as she materialized more and more ice blades to attack with. When those didn’t work, she instead chose to crush him with [Kraken’s Destruction].

As the giant tentacle made from water clashed against his fire, the steam it created made the field look hazy. With Tasianna covering them, Ellaine and Grimnir regrouped. Meanwhile, the bandits finally organized themselves, forming a circle around us with their melee fighters while the archers stayed behind, arrows ready.

“Don’t attack the fire person! He’s a VIP!” from the sides of the bandit base, a man in a suit shouted as he was escorted by his guards outside. “The rest are damn intruders! Kill them! Don’t let them escape or our plans are ruined!”

The senators!

Those fiends were escaping at this moment! I couldn’t let them escape like this!

“Ahrwoooooh!” I turned my head around and formed a large black magic circle in front of me. I was taking them out now or never!

Hadaen Dragon Th—!

“I know when I see a powerful lightning attack!”

The demonkin’s flaming hammer suddenly appeared before my eyes. I ducked, but I felt my fur singe from that attack. I didn’t even have any time to breathe as [Foresight] warned me in the next two seconds that a flurry of attacks would happen.

And it did. Transitioning from sword to spear, the demonkin released a flurry of fiery strikes akin to what Hestia could do with her claws, tail, and glaive. I didn’t want to take any of those hits. Luckily, I was extremely nimble despite being around the size of a house. I had my high Agility to thank.

Still…

He’s level 99 alright!

In my fenrir form, I was level eight, which translated into level 88 as a wolfkin. I was eleven levels below this person and, if I had stayed in humanoid form, all my stats outside of Mana, Intelligence, and Agility would have been inferior to his.

To be honest, the Agility gap between us was huge, currently. About 7000. It showed here, as I wasn’t being overwhelmed, but for some reason, the longer we traded blows and the more I damaged him with my attacks, the stronger he felt.

“Hahaha! Yes, come at me with all your got! Show me your strength and I will answer in kind! Hahaha!” As if he was in a berserk frenzy, he kept on attacking me despite his armor being damaged and his body being covered in wounds.

Identify.

Effects: [Excited: 95%] [Anger: 10%] [Fear: 42%]

Dammit. What am I supposed to do? I still remembered Klea’Hatma’s warning to not increase those three emotions too high, otherwise we might put ourselves in a bad situation. The only option really was to kill him befo—

“Shoot!”

[Foresight] and [Danger Perception] sent a chill down my spine. My head snapped around to a cannon at the side, blasting a large blue ball in my direction. There wasn’t enough time to dodge due to my size nor could I [Shadow Dash] into my shadow right now. I was too big and the sun was shining into this area right now.

Humanize!

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

I was forced to change. The ball of mana flew right past me and drilled a hole into the mountain next to the fort. In the next moment, I felt another attack come at me, but I failed to dodge it in time.

“Bloodreaper’s Tearing!”

[Shadow Armament] protected me from the full brunt of the attack but I still felt my blood spilling from my arm. That searing hot feeling made me grit my teeth, only for something to punch me right into my stomach.

“PooooWWWWWERRRRR PUNCH!”

“OooorUUUUUFFFF!”

With incredible force, I was catapulted through the fort’s outer walls and right into the forest. I felt a dent in my stomach for some reason, making me want to puke. My instincts reacted, pushing my body up just as the demonkin jumped forward with his wings, about to hit me only for—

[“Alpha!”]

“““Ahrwkrrrrrrr!”””

“Grrruukraauuugh!”

— my shadow pack to emerge.

“Krak!”

Sarasa and Quatre emerged first at Uno’s command, grabbing the demonkin at his leg and tossing him on the ground. Uno and Song then cast [Dark Tendrils] and caught his wings, holding them down, making it hard for him to move. Finally, Varya shot out, her claws dripping Hestia’s toxin. As a virigress, a venomous tiger, she used her swiftness and slashed through an opening in his armor, injecting that putrid liquid.

“Argh! An ambush?!” He swung his sword and would have hit Varya in the process if she had [Shadow Dash] a second later. In the next moment, swords of ice rained down, only targeting his legs until they turned into a pincushion, stuck to the earth.

“Uwaarrrgh!”

“Power Slash!”

“Pierce!”

“Shield Bash!”

As the demonkin cried out in pain, the sound of people shouting out their weapon abilities came from inside the fort. Ellaine and Grimnir were fighting back to back against the swarm of bandits, immensely outnumbered by them. They were slicing and burning them down together, but the number of bodies they had to deal with was too much.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Ellaine, I’m—” Tasianna wanted to say something but I immediately interrupted her.

“Tasianna!”

My warning was just in time as Tasianna conjured up a [Frozen Shield] in time to block a giant flame sword from the demon. Unlike its previous version, this sword’s size was larger than the fort’s walls. And it apparently had the strength to fully pierce through Tasianna shield and force her to tank the hit with [Frozen Armament].

“Graaaaaahk!” Tasianna crashed onto the ground with blood drenching her clothes.

Blood rushed to my head as I saw her hit, filling my mind with anger at the one who did this to her. After drinking one of Tasianna’s health potions to heal up, I humanized back into a fenrir and used [Voltage Impact] on the demonkin. His sword turned into a shield, one large enough to block my entire paw. If it weren’t for my [Shadow Armament] and [Inferno Resistance Lv. 5], I most likely would have burned my hand.

“GraAAHHHHHHHHH!”

“Grrrrr!”

He bellowed out like a madman and I deduced he had already fallen into a berserk state. Knowing this, I used his shield to jump up and use my tail wrapped into shadows to somersault smack him into the air.

Just Blink. Shadow Descent!

Disappearing from the berserker’s perception for a second, I dodged his wildly swung counter-attack, before appearing above him with a full shadow covered tail, activating [Stygian Blade]. Like an axe kick, my tail descended down with full force, striking the demonkin while he was unable to block the attack.

He shot down into the floor, lodging himself into the ground. My shadow pack shot out their [Dark Tendrils], constricting his limbs and neck. He wouldn’t be going anywhere. I saw Ellaine and Grimnir taking care of an injured Tasianna, giving me the confidence to take our most problematic opponent down first.

While standing in the air with [Air Walk], I grabbed my twin catalyst from my storage and held them in my paw, and began channeling even more mana into them. I turned all that mana into lightning, causing sparks to fly around me like an aura.

[Lightning Revolt (Limited)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

“Ahrwoooooooh!”

I kicked the air, I shot down at the demonkin with my forelegs surging into power. This was the actual one, this was the attack that killed Fulsara while she was fused with her creations!

Voltage Impact!

“Ahhhhhhhrr!” the demonkin shouted only seconds before I landed, and in the next moment my whole vision went black and white…

— as lightning and flames clashed against each other, producing a powerful blast destroying the area around us.

I was protected from the impact by my shadow armor, but the blinding light and the loud thundering shook my head. I felt slightly unbalanced as my ears recovered from the sound, waiting for the dust to settle around me.

But through heat vision, I saw something in the middle. It was so reminiscent of what would happen after Hestia released her [Solar Beam]. That small fire at the epicenter of the explosion… reigniting in power.

Oh shit!

“Nghhkraaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

I dodged back the moment I felt the temperature around me increasing. The dust was blown away, revealing a giant flame sword had cut the ground, searing it. The attacks didn’t stop though, as the flurry pushed me to us [Dark Tendril] to pull myself out of the conflict zone.

There, in the sky, I saw what was going on. That same demonkin’s appearance changed once again. An armor of flames had surrounded his entire body, making him look like a mighty warmonger. His four eyes were literally burning while fangs had grown from his mouth, making him look a bit like a Japanese demon — an oni.

Two arms and a tail made out of fire had appeared on his body. In each of his four hands, he held one of each of the four armaments he had shown today — the sword, lance, hammer, and shield. He held his weapons high and when he roared, each of them flared up and increased in size.

Identify.

Effects: [Excited: 100%] [Anger: 81%] [Fear: 100%]

Shit! How are you supposed to manage those emotions?!

Klea’Hatma told me I should stop him from reaching 100% in all three emotions, but how was I supposed to do that? The moment I tried to kill him, he exploded and turned into a four-armed war general straight out of ancient Japanese folktales.

“Gruooooooaaaaaah!”

And befitting his new appearance, his frenzied warcry was quickly followed up by another clash of might.

Thunder surged around my body as I engaged him in the air with [Air Walk], using not only my stygian lightning and shadow abilities, but also my dark magic to full effect. My shadow pack would help out, of course, serving as my support crew with their disruptions and ambush attacks.

However, the demonkin wasn’t a slouch; in fact, it was starting to get a bit hard to dodge his attacks even with my Agility. The information couldn’t be read from his profile, nor did it reflect on his Agility, but I swore his strikes and movements were faster than before. His endless and ruthless combos mixed together too well, making me feel as if I was dodging bullets.

My size was starting to turn into a detriment. I had to start taking hits to create an opening for myself to attack, but with every slash or lighting bolt I landed, the more his [Anger] rose. The higher the number went, the more Klea’Hatma’s warning occupied my mind.

It also didn’t help that I noticed his Health was regenerating whenever he made me bleed. His damn [Sadism] recovered his Health and Stamina whenever he basked himself in a person’s blood. Afterwards, I would use a shadow attack and heal my own Health with [Stygian Blades]. This process looped and looped, forcing us into a stalemate.

As Hestia would call it, we were vampire tanking or leech tanking or whatever it was called. If Hestia’s toxin was going to finally affect him, now would be the best.

I’ll exhaust myself first!

It was our damn difference in Stamina. Not only did I have less, but he was recovering it when he made me bleed. It felt like he had an endless supply while I couldn’t keep up, slowly becoming tired.

[“Alpha!”] Uno called out at me in worry.

I felt arcane corruption building up but even with my shadow pack helping out, I couldn’t find a moment to drink a dragorade. Still, coordinating with my garms and Varya gave me more or less the edge in this battle. Even if slightly, and even if the demonkin was slowly turning the tide as my resources dwindled.

I just needed some time for a [Voltage Impact] or [Hadaen Dragon Thunder] to kill him. One good opening was all I needed!

… However, I knew that was just my ego talking, driving to defeat him on my own, but I wasn’t stupid enough to continue doing this alone. At this point, we needed to end this quickly and catch the senators, and for that, we needed Hestia.

[“Varya! Use the flare Tasianna made! Call for Hestia!”]

[“Yes!”]

Varya sneaked away from the battle, getting away as I continued preoccupying the demonkin. The moment the flare activated, was when we would win this hands-down.

… But there wasn’t enough time for that to happen.

“Hee’Rlak, calm down.” A woman’s voice came from somewhere followed by a sharp whistle sound, interrupting our fight.

“Urgh!” The demonkin squirmed before the fire around his eyes disappeared. He smacked his weapons together, sending out a huge fire wave at me.

I chose to dodge it and so did my shadow pack. As I did so, I noticed the signal of the demonkin dashing away from me, towards a location with multiple other targets. I didn’t want to lose him, but my only choice was to move through this fire wave at this point. I needed line-of-sight to [Shadow Dash] towards a shadow. Without it, I couldn’t use my spells.

…

As the wave disappeared, having chosen the trees and grass around me as their prey, I dashed back to where I fought the demonkin, only to see bandits escaping the base. I looked down, seeing Tasianna, Ellaine, and Grimnir look at me in confusion next to a floor covered in corpses.

I grit my teeth and turned back to where I noticed the demonkins escaped and was about to dash over there, only for my fur to suddenly stand up. In the next moment, a giant lightning bolt suddenly struck the ground where their signals were, before it turned into a typhoon of lightning. I didn’t know why, but my instincts told me this was where this fight and chase stopped.

Something in the middle of this storm felt wrong.

After this strange phenomenon happened, I ran over (ran over where?), while Tasianna handed the forest fire behind me. The trees were vaporized and nothing but brown earth and black ash remained. I couldn’t even detect where all of them were.

What happened here?

[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]

With the enemies nowhere to be seen, I shook my head and transformed back into my wolfkin form. I sent out my shadow pack to find out where they were before rendezvousing with the others. There, the three apologized to me for being unable to support me more than they could. I looked over their shadows, looking at all the bandits they had to kill and told them it was alright.

Goodness… Kuso!

“Probably doesn’t show after I froze and burned them, but some of the bodies were the slaves the alchemists worked on. Had the slave tattoos and also transformed into those hideous beasts we saw at the bandit ambush.” Grimnir then began pulling up a few bodies, showing the fading blue slave tatoos. Totally unperturbed.

Whether it was from experience or not, he was the only one who could deal with the corpses with a clear mind. I just found the smell and sight too much to bear.

“Good job not using your demon powers, Ellaine.” As such, I decided to change the topic.

“Yeah, I deduced it probably wouldn’t be too good here with so many eyes. Klea has to stay a secret from the demonkins for now.”

I didn’t tell her to do it, but she made the correct choice despite our situation. Glad to see she doesn’t need her demonic powers, although she probably could have ended the bandits sooner if she had assimilated with Klea’Hatma’s blood.

I was wondering if this battle today was a win or a draw, or maybe even a loss. Regardless, I think I was starting to understand the entire story of this situation, of this Estralian drama.

The Resurrection, led by Raejaen Resclave, must have some sort of grudge against O’Bloom and his conspirators. Did she know they were demonkin associates? Maybe, since her son was involved with the powers of the Sin of Sloth.

And this antagonistic relationship was starting to climax. The two factions were fighting each other. O’Bloom even tried to drag us into their spiel, nudging us to destroy the Resurrection while keeping their involvement hidden. I did wonder if the attack on the Layavete cartel was the Resurrection’s attempt to influence us, or if they just wanted to clean up their mess since the former had connections with the O’Blooms.

There were still a few holes in my theory, but all we needed to know was O’Bloom’s plan. How should we deal with this? How should Aurora deal with this situation?

I looked at the divine Quest Ilsaphone gave me and sighed. Hanazawa also had a similar one, both directing our attention towards the onnikai imprisoned by the Ressurection.

While contemplating our options, the four of us started to hear the sound of something in the air. Like a rocket. To our surprise, Hestia was in the air, looking at us with a worried look.

“What happened?! Are you okay?!”

It seemed that lightning before was the “flare.”

We explained to her what happened, shocking her when we told her we had to fight the demonkin. She lamented about not just flying over after Daichi told her everything, but the four of us told her not to, saying we should have sent the signal the moment we fought the demonkin. All four of us thought we had the battle after I almost killed him with a [Voltage Impact].

Maybe it was ego. Maybe we didn’t want to bring Hestia along, to prove we could do it without her. Didn’t it also happen against the volchark? I was the one to persuade Tasianna to fight it with Grimnir and me.

In the end, I knew I had to use the flare, but that decision came too late. If I had used it at the beginning, Hestia would have been able to help out and take down all of them. Especially after Hestia lectured me on being reckless, I really shouldn’t have been so competitive.

“Don’t worry about it, Saori.” Hestia noticed my worries. “I know what I said before, however, don’t forget that I have full trust in you. Sure, you make me worry, but it isn’t as if I do that to you four as well sometimes. Saori, you are a B rank monster and you managed to take down that lich almost on your own. It’s all good, at least we now knew what the fuck is going on here. Come on.”

Hestia waved my worries away and pointed at the base’s fort. She wanted to look around. Sighing once more and nodding to Hestia’s kind words, I threw away my worries for now. I could reflect on acting less and less like a responsible adult afterwards.

Inside, we started to search for any clues. Sadly, most of the fort was destroyed. The alchemists were probably involved in said destruction, as they were nowhere to be seen and their tools and papers were destroyed. The slaves they had in the basement were entirely used up to cover for their escape.

I was thankful we managed to acquire the loot they got from the Resurrection before the attack, but even then, it didn’t make me smile. If we had only escaped undetected. We could have stopped them all at once in this location. I had to curse my own incompetence, but how could I have expected the demonkin to go to the woods for his toilet business?

Nevertheless, I could have hidden the tracks. I was getting better at fighting, but was my assassin training not enough? I’ve been training with Muraina recently. I don’t really understand how this could have happened.

At least, we got this…

Quatre caressed his pelt we retrieved from the bottom. Sarasa could only look at him in envy, since she was the only one we hadn’t found the pelt of. Uno was still in the Resurrection’s hands, but we could retrieve it at any time. We had Song’s after I asked the Layavete cartel’s boss for it.

[“Saori, dear, don’t be too disheartened. A demonkin of wrath is made to fight head-on. They aren’t like the others who use other tricks to win battles. They are meant to be strong, but now you have experience. You know how to counter him now.”]

I accepted her advice. I had to return to my roots when I used the tools Hestia made for me to win battles. Maybe I was over-relying on my stygian lightning and shadows too much. I had to reflect on this battle.

We then returned to the city, tipping off a guard about the location of the fort before going back into the RV, where a worried Daichi was waiting for us. After explaining everything, we went to the living room where I slowly pulled out the items we obtained from that Resurrection crate.

After I did so, I excused myself. I needed a shower and some time to look back on the day. I didn’t like the taste of two failures in a single day.

As I was about to leave the room, Hestia and Grimnir suddenly cried out.

““What the hell is this supposed to be?!””

We finally found the remaining mana batteries…

… and what it was used for.