I ran towards Stella while bodies were falling everywhere around me, but all my focus was on the little girl with tears in her eyes when Stella bent her arm back to make the plunge on the girl, and I managed to grab her arm and wrestle her to the ground and quickly pushed her away from the crowd. I noticed her eye pupils had a weird darker red color, like the same color of blood. Something was not right here when I arrived here. The little girl hid behind me for protection, and Stella looked angry now.
“What are you doing? I AM!” She asked.
“Why are you killing civilians and children?”
“Do you not know what they have done to us during this war? They all deserve to die.”
“Why? This child is innocent; who gives you the right to decide her future?”
“She has black wings and is an angel that will kill our people, the same destiny that my parents had to go through,” Stella uttered with her anger getting worse.
I slowly backed away with the little girl behind me, who was crying, so I could hear it. There was silence all around the village. Everyone was dead, and there was blood all around the Village, some red color, some black color, some green color. They have killed everybody in the Village. I looked to the side and saw the bald Triforce guy trying to make a sneak attack, but I held up my left hand to show it, and I could see what it was trying to do. I picked up the child, held her close to me, and let her bury her face in my shoulder so she didn’t see the bloodbath that had just happened when Stella took a step to the side, and I took a step towards the main road to make a run for it with the child.
“Why are you doing this? I AM. You are with us; you are supposed to kill. Why are you protecting the enemy?” Stella asked. “Yeah! Why are you like this, IAM? Do you want to get beaten again, like in training camp? Kill the child so we can leave.” Triforce filled in after.
I was disgusted with this whole thing; seeing citizens with their intestines all over the ground with blood everywhere makes me angry, and all the demons here deserve to die.
“If you beat me in training camp, let's do a rematch, and if I win, you will let me and the child go. Do we have a deal? We fight to the death.” I asked the Triforce.
Stella's facial expression changed, and she tried to go in between us, but the bald demon answered quickly:
“Deal”
I still had a burn mark on my stomach, but it wasn’t painful at all. From a time perspective, I wonder how long it has been since training camp. My burn mark was there, but it had healed, so it must have been a while. Stella had much longer hair than she had in training camp. Stella walked up to me, and I backed away, trying to protect the child, but her blood-red color had disappeared from her eyes. It was only light red now, and she showed calmness towards me and reached out with her hand in a friendly manner.
“It is okay. I do not understand why you are doing this, but we have been together all this time. I promise that we will keep our part of the deal. You know I care about you, IAM.” Stella said.
I put the child down, and with no shirt on me, damn it! But Stella understood and handed me a long handkerchief. I covered the child's eyes and sat her on a small rock.
“Listen! Sit here and rest a while; whatever you do, never open your eyes until you hear my voice. Promise me that?” I asked the child, and she just nodded without responding. The nod was enough for me.
My wrists caught on black fire, and I turned around and sprinted towards Triforce with a right hook, which it managed to block easily. It made me regret not using all the power on my right knuckle. It responded with a left hook, and It scraped my chest and made a line of blood after it, so I backed away a couple of steps. Another demon assisted it with a sword, and I knew I could use the fire to block it, but I needed to focus so it didn’t hit me fast enough to channel the powers. We leaped toward each other, and I made a bad faint to the left, so it tried to strike with the sword in that direction and quickly stepped to the right side, trying to keep my balance to hit with my right knuckle, but it blocked me with the sword making it hard for me to succeed to get a punch on it. It swung the sword in the right direction, and I bent my upper body backward so it missed. I quickly tried to hit him, but he grabbed my wrist, and I flew high up on the roof of one of the cabins, making me realize it was a one-sided fight. I slowly got up, and Triforce laughed at me.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Do you think a puny human can defeat a demon? I noticed that you were a human. You smell like a demon, but your behavior is like the disgusting humans.” Triforce uttered.
I looked at the child and knew what I had to do; there was only one thing to do. I channeled all the black fire into my right knuckle and jumped from the roof. I needed to attack it from the middle, and we started to leap toward each other. The demon held both hands on the sword and plunged right through my stomach, and I got the punch on the right side of its face. The blood splattered in both directions as we clashed simultaneously, making it fall, squealing on the ground with bones sticking out of its face. I knew the sword was in, but I had to finish it quickly to save the girl, so I sat on the demon and kept punching it on the right side so the bones started to crack.
“Do you know they call me the crazy one from where I come from?” I said and kept punching it until there was no movement left on Triforce, my breathing becoming worse as I slowly got up, but I knew that it was over for me also. The demons started to run towards me; Stella reached out her hand towards me while trying to reach me before the demons.
“No, IAM, wake up! Please, you are everything I got.” Stella said, and I opened my eyes, seeing that she had caught me in midair.
There was some commotion in the background, but I didn’t have strength and didn’t care anymore. I did see the little girl still sitting on the stone, waiting. Stella started to cry with tears dropping on me, but I didn’t mind; maybe this was her real side and not that devil look she had when I came here.
“Please! Get up, IAM!” She uttered.
“It is okay, Stella! Please take care of the child!” I told her.
I saw a couple of feet surrounding us. Was it demons here to finish me?
“Let me kill her, Tindra, just say it!” A murky voice said.
“No! She shows empathy; she cares about that dying citizen. Let's take her back to Gandor so he can decide what we should do with her and see if she is worthy. I will take in the child.”
I tried to get a clearer picture of who the ones around us were, but my vision was all blurry. Suddenly, something grabbed Stella away as my head hit the ground, and something took the handkerchief from the little child's head. She tried to run towards me but was stopped and dragged away. My blurry vision from what I thought I saw six of something walk away from the village. At least the child and Stella survived, and everything went black.
I grasped for air and noticed I was in a freaking hole in the grass and quickly tried to get out of it. I managed to come up from the hole and tried to catch my breath as Mejni ran towards me and climbed up on my shoulder. I tried using my powers, and both my hands easily caught fire.
“You made it! You managed to be worthy of holding the power of the 10th lieutenant of the 100th Demon Army. You have made it even if you only have half of it now. I never thought a loser like you would not make it at all.” She said, destroying the whole feel-good moment with her last comment.
I noticed she had tears in her eyes as if there was something that was not right. Was it me who died, or was it someone else who died on her, making her this sensitive?
Meanwhile, on level 4:
A woman was staring at a statue with her grandchildren and smiling for herself when a young woman passed her. She was curious about why the lady was smiling towards a statue.
“Excuse me! I was wondering why you are smiling towards the statue?” The young lady asked.
The older woman couldn’t stop smiling and answered to the young woman:
“I saw her in my dream; it means something good will happen.” The old lady responded.
It made the younger woman curious now that she mentioned a dream of a statue.
“How do you know it will be something good that will happen?” She asked the lady.
The older one started to laugh and responded:
“This statue is the tenth lieutenant of the 100th Demon Army. Even though she saw Evil in her life, she became a protector of the innocent. Her brother died trying to protect me when I was a child, and I have always had a close connection to her.” The lady explained.
The lady's comments surprised the young woman because the army she mentioned had died years ago during the war.
“The 100th Demon Army died during the war. How will you expect something good to happen if they are no more.” The young women tried to be kind and tried to explain.
The older lady shook her head in denial.
“I can feel her soul wandering in The Fallen Kingdoms, but someone is with her, which I think is a Valiantian traveling with her. I am not sure!”
The younger woman smiled at the old lady.
“What kind of Valiantian do you think it is?” she asked.
The old lady responded:
“Princess of Valiant, If I am to tell the truth to you. I think a Villain is on its way here.