Six armored guards faced off against Zeth and the demon, weapons drawn and at the ready.

Back behind his summoned fighter, Zeth hid in the foliage as the combatants stared each other down. Maybe he’d be capable of fighting these men if he’d had time to prepare—no, he’d be easily able to defeat six people with enough prep time. That was the strength of his Class, after all. Hellfire Ritual was truly a monster of a Skill. But he only had a single circle prepared on a leaf gripped in his hands. Not nearly enough to fight off everyone in front of him.

That said, he wasn’t too worried about that particular issue.

The demon took a step forward, and simultaneously, the six guards’ faces broke out into terror. Sweat beaded their brows, and they took cautious steps back. Seemed like the fear aura had taken effect.

One of the guards’ breathing became ragged. His voice cracked as he whimpered out, “D-demon?!”

None of the others could even find the nerve to respond. After a moment, it seemed like whatever spiral his thoughts had gone down arrived at the conclusion that the demon was unbeatable. Because he clenched his fists, screwed up his face, turned straight around on his heel, and sprinted away. He headed right back for town, releasing his grip on his weapon and dropping it to the dirt as he ran. Zeth could hear the faint shouts from him as he ran, crying out warnings of ‘demon!’ and ‘run away as far as you can!’

The remaining group steeled their resolve, knuckles turning white on the hilts of their weapons.

“So then, the five of you will be my opponents,” the demon said in a bored tone. “I am not dishonorable. If any more would like to flee, now would be the time.”

Zeth doubted this was any more than an act to scare them off—no way that thing would ever willingly spare a human’s life if it was really allowed to kill them.

The remaining guards’ hands shook. They clenched their teeth, and looked as if they may drop dead that instant. But they did not run.

Kirik, standing in the middle of them, muttered something to himself under his breath. “Cannot…run. Have…to…protect them.”

Ugh, Zeth thought. Looks like the demon is too scary, and it’s backfiring. They think it’s so fearsome, it looks like they’ve accepted death if it means buying time for the people in the town to hide.

He took a breath. It looked like he’d need to do a little bit of acting, himself.

Stepping out from behind the tree he’d been hiding behind, Zeth adopted the most regal pose he could muster, standing up straight and holding his head high. He was sure he looked ridiculous with the shirt wrapped around his face to hide his identity, but it’d have to do.

“Foolish humans,” he spat, voice muffled from the cloth in his mouth. “You know not who you face. You—um, if you value your lives, you will flee this instant.”

“W-why?” Kirik asked, voice shaking. “So you can stab us in the back? Turn us into mincemeat before you move onto your main course of the town?”

Doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be possible to convince them to just run off and forget they ever saw us. Not quickly, at least. And we need this done quickly.

He turned to the demon. “Show them the meaning of true power.”

Instantly, it tore forward, planted its foot on the ground right in front of them, and spun around to throw a kick directly into the chest of the guard on the left. The impact dented his chestplate and sent him flying back, where he hit a tree and slumped over.

The other guards hadn’t even been given enough time to react. Their ally was twenty feet behind them in an instant, with their attacker standing right before them. It slowly turned to look at them.

With a shaky warcry, one of the guards raised his sword above his head and swung it down at the demon. Zeth expected it to dodge with its incredible speed, or use its strength to deflect the attack away, but instead, it stood perfectly still and simply allowed the blade to hit it. But instead of cutting into the demon’s flesh, the sword bounced off the surface of its skin, having done absolutely no damage.

“Such weak weapons,” the demon said, looking at the blade that was now dented from hitting a solid object at full force. “Those puny blades cannot even tickle my senses.”

It reached out and grabbed the sword by the blade, squeezing tight as the guard frantically tried to pull it from the demon’s grasp. But its grip was so tight, the metal folded and collapsed beneath its fingers.

“You are defenseless,” the demon said as it flicked its wrist, instantly yanking the hilt from the guard’s hands and sending the sword flying into the air. “Flee now.”

The man did just that, turning and running off toward town. But as he did, Zeth thought he could hear some sort of commotion coming from that direction. Not just the panicked shouts he’d expect, but a loud voice, calling out as though it were trying to organize and motivate people. He wasn’t sure what was going on over there, but he didn’t like it.

“Hurry up,” he said to the demon. “Knock the rest out and we’ll leave.”

In an instant, it spun and swung its fist downward at the nearest guard, slamming it into her head and crumpling her to the ground. The second tried to thrust his spear at it, but the demon simply leaned to the side to dodge the strike, grabbed the spear, and pulled on it, bringing the guard stumbling forward within arm’s reach. With a single motion, it thrust out its foot, sweeping the man’s legs out from under him and sending him falling backward. As he was falling, the demon lifted its arm up, and then slammed its elbow downward into his forehead. He impacted the ground with a hard thud.

The last one remaining was Kirik, standing there shaking in his boots.

“Wait,” Zeth said to the demon. “Sir, leave. I do not want to hurt you, but I will if necessary. Flee now and you will be spared from harm.”

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With a breath and a nod, Kirik slowly began backing away, keeping the demon in his sight until he was a few dozen feet away, where he turned and ran.

“Good,” Zeth said. “Okay, pick up the chains again and let’s get moving. I think something’s happening back in town; they might be mustering a larger force. And I don’t wanna see what—”

A ray of blinding white light suddenly burst through the trees, shining across the entire area. It turned night to day, forcing Zeth to look away from its source in the direction of town and shut his eyes tight to avoid burning his eyes.

A shout of pain came from near him. Was that…the demon? He barely opened his eyes, squinting so just the barest sliver of light peeked through. It looked like the demon was cowering before the light, holding up its hands to shield its face. Its skin bubbled and blistered everywhere the light touched. Zeth frowned. The light was covering him, too. So why wasn’t he getting hurt?

He shook his head. That was beside the point. If there was someone there capable of harming the demon, he needed to get out of there as soon as possible.

“Demon!” he shouted over its groans of pain. “Grab the thralls and run! Get them back to the clearing.”

It stumbled to its feet, blindly collecting the chains into its hands before it began retreating past Zeth, further into the depths of the forest.

The light shut off, and Zeth finally found himself able to see again. A female voice called out from its direction, “Stop where you are if you value your life, unholy beasts!”

Zeth turned and ran. He didn’t know who that was, but she was clearly too dangerous to fight. As powerful as the demon was, it was clearly not invincible. And if she could hurt it, she would certainly be able to hurt him.

He sprinted through the trees, quickly seeing the demon disappear in the distance—even in its injured state, dragging over a thousand pounds of weight behind it, it was still far faster than he was. If anyone was going to be captured here, it would be Zeth.

Technically, he could’ve ordered the demon to stay behind and fight that woman to keep her occupied while he escaped, but that would’ve also meant leaving the thralls behind. Not only would that mean this entire mission would’ve been for nothing, but the guards would certainly raise security for not only these thralls, but all prisoners after tonight. He would not get the opportunity to kill his father’s murderers again. If this failed, he would never forgive himself.

“Leave me behind!” he shouted ahead to the demon. “Get them to the destination, then stay there with them! If I die…If I don’t arrive in twelve hours, you may kill them all yourself.”

He could practically hear the grin spread across the demon’s face as it doubled its speed to get to the clearing, quickly leaving Zeth’s sight. He was left alone in the forest, the sound of several pairs of metal boots close behind him.

However, as the demon left the vicinity, its aura of fear also quickly left his mind, and rational thought flooded in. He’d gotten better at thinking while under its influence, but he was still far from unaffected, and he could already feel his breathing steady as he ran. They had been able to hurt the demon, sure, but it was clearly still alive—all they’d done was land a single attack. And that attack had not hurt Zeth, meaning it was probably specialized against demons in some way. He may have been in less danger than he’d initially thought.

Still, with only one ritual circle prepared as a last resort, he was still far from being prepared for combat against several high-Level foes. He’d have to get them away from him somehow, but returning to the clearing wasn’t an option. It was impossible to hide there—not only would he be exposed to plain sight, but so would his ritual circles and the thralls. Sure, the Hellfire Rituals he had set up there were useful against monsters who didn’t know any better, but no reasonable person would willingly step into them and kill themselves. Even if he made it in, they’d simply pepper him from afar with ranged attacks while he could do nothing to defend himself.

What he needed was a real home base. A defensible position that had already been prepared for something like this. But he had nothing of the sort.

“I see him!” A man’s shout from behind pulled him out of his head and back to the chase.

Zeth glanced back and saw the shine of metal from between the trees. They were gaining on him.

He needed to figure something out. Fighting would end badly for him—he knew that. But they didn’t. What was it he’d read about Blood Mages in that library book? Never enter their lairs without prior preparation? Well, even if Zeth didn’t have a lair, how would they know? Wouldn’t it be possible in their eyes that he was purposefully leading them somewhere dangerous? They certainly seemed knowledgeable about the Class, if they had specialized Skills to deal with demons. And he could exploit that knowledge.

He took a sudden turn, heading straight through the forest in a pointed direction, pretending to have a specific destination in mind. As he ran, he scanned his surroundings, looking for anything he could pretend was prepared ahead of time. He just needed something—anything.

As his legs grew tired, Zeth spotted a patch of particularly dense foliage in the distance. Trees and bushes all grouped tightly together in one flat area.

Good enough, he thought, and changed course to head there.

The sound of his pursuers drew closer by the second, and when he glanced back one last time before ducking into the bushes, he finally saw the entire group. It was just three people—a woman and two men. All three were wearing much fancier armor and weapons than the guards before; the woman wore the heaviest armor, with full plate of shining silver, and wielded a greathammer in a single hand—her Strength had clearly been raised quite a bit for her to be capable of doing that. The two men behind her seemed to be magic users, on the other hand—both dressed in light robes and holding staffs to enhance their spellcasting.

Zeth had never seen any of these people before, or even heard of them. And he was certain he’d have heard of anyone who walked around in full plate. Not to mention Sophie would have certainly found out about the magic users and told him about them. Were they newcomers?

He had no time to ponder those questions, though. Once he had fully disappeared into the bushes and left the sight of the three people, he hurriedly bent down and placed the leaf holding his Hellfire Ritual circle on the ground, right in the path of anyone who tried to follow him. He pressed it into the ground as best as he could, making it look like it’d been sitting there for a while, and then dashed off, continuing through the thick bushes.

Of course, even though the ritual circle was there, it wouldn’t actually do anything. He didn’t have the time to give a sacrifice and activate it, so it technically did absolutely nothing to protect him. But they didn’t know that. If these people knew anything about Blood Mages, just seeing a single ritual circle would put them on high alert.

And sure enough, as the three people caught up with him, he heard the woman shout out, “Alfon, Erza, stop! There’s a circle here.”

“Do you think this is his lair?” one of the men asked.

“It’s possible,” she responded. “He’s clearly led us somewhere that was prepared beforehand. No way he could’ve drawn this thing in such a short time. Exercise caution.”

“Are you sure, Rosalie? He’s gonna get away.”

“Yes. Your lives are more important than catching that scum.”

Zeth burst out the other side of the bushes and continued running, listening to them poke around the area and carefully examine every bit of ground before they stepped on it. Even if they realized he wasn’t in there anymore, there was no way they’d just throw caution to the wind and run ahead after him now that they’d seen such a deliberate trap that, according to their knowledge, could kill them instantly if they so much as touched it.

As he ran, the sound of their voices faded out further and further, until he could finally no longer hear them. All that was in the forest with him were wild animals.

He’d escaped. He’d gotten away with it.

Now, he just needed to get back to the demon.