Chapter 43 “Battle for the heaven’s gate.”

Once upon a time, there was an empire, an empire so much powerful than any other. Its territories were vast and its army unrivaled.

The empire was unrivaled not only against other mortal kingdoms but even those of magical origins as well. Even gods did not have the privilege to look down upon the empire because if they did, they might have cause the war against that empire which could lead to their demise.

The army of the empire was not only large in number but it also had many generals and heroes who alone on their own could stand against even gods in one on one fights.

During the pinnacle times of the empire there was even a hero who could conquer the countries on his own and mostly thanks to his effort the empire became as large as it did in relatively short time. The greatest achievement of that hero was that he finished a ‘never ending war’ against ‘the enemy’ that empire was fighting against for millenniums. After that victory an era of peace arrived in the empire and the Hero of legends disappeared on a journey and was never seen again by anyone.

Even since that day, there was no one equal to that of a hero but there were still many who obtained the same title and with their power they defended the empire and destroyed its enemies, generation after generation.

In the time of its greatness there was even the time in which the empire was asked to help out the heaven’s army to defend against demon invasion. The king was promised great rewards for taking part in that battle so he accepted that mission immediately.

There appeared the problem however as the heavens were not easily accessible for the mortal races. Still to solve this problem an appropriate method of transport was created. Following the instructions of angel’s engineers, a teleport gate was built on the lands of the empire. It was a truly great creation that combined the knowledge of both heavens and empire specialists. It was made from so far nonexistent material that was thought up for this occasion, and could be made only because mortals and angels worked together.

The material itself did not look any different than a simple stone but what was special about it was its durability. Even the attacks of mighty heroes of the empire did not leave a stretch on it. With the use of that material the heaven’s gate became truly indestructible building that would last probably till the end of time although but that fact was not as important as its main function of teleportation gate.

With the transport being ready, the king leading thirty mightiest heroes of the empire took the part in the battle for the heavens and won. The cost of that victory was big though as only 12 heroes together with the king ‘returned’ to the empire. Those who died did not regret anything as the death in battle could not be a greater privilege for them.

After the battle was won, as promised, the heavens rewarded the king and the empire richly. There were many rewards for both the empire and heroes themselves but in the end the greatest reward was king’s marriage with the third daughter of the highest first archangel, the leader of heavens. That was because from that moment on, the already incredibly powerful royal bloodline gained even more incredible power that could hold both mortals and angels powers.

After that fact everyone hoped that the day before a new king will be stronger even than ‘the Hero of legends’ will come.

Unfortunately though that day never came as ‘the power’, even though unrivaled in its raw form was also completely uncontrollable for anyone who was born with it and because of that depending on each individual, about 95% of it had to be sealed away on the day of birth for the child of royal bloodline to survive.

Still, even though those powers were sealed the new monarchs and their siblings usually wielded the power that equaled to that of the heroes which was already a great feat. ‘The hope’ also did not die as with each generation ‘the power’ was becoming slightly more stable. In the end though, none managed to control even one quarter of it and so Hero of legends, never had any equals.

-so, so, how do you guys think? Does this “Hero of Legends” is still alive or not?

After sharing the fragment of Solaris empire legends, Haru asked this question.

Currently, the situation in which Arata was did not change much as even though they did walk for some time already, they still did not find any other groups just yet. It was still night time and the mountain where the heaven’s gate was to be in an hour distance from them, given their current speed.

Several minutes ago, Arata ended up explaining what his quest is about after Haru asked him. When he finished, Haru shared some informations about the heaven’s gate that she knew herself from somewhere. Although in the end her story, rather than telling anything new about the heaven’s gate, it was more about Solaris Empire. Those were the stories that were even farther to the past than Arata researched before and the main point on which Haru focused was so called ‘Hero of legends’. The Hero of legends was completely unrealistic being. It said that if he wanted to, he could split the planet in half with a single sword thurst. Well, ignoring this part, there were also more ‘close to earth’ stories in which the Hero was typical ‘ally of justice’ character who with his power saved empire many times as well as won many tournaments and defeated few dragons here and there. In his spare time he was breaking the hearts of all maidens and princesses.

Those legends were really a typical fantasy stories about some hero, and those stories were probably made up and their purpose was to aspire children to behave right. There was even the legend that the better child behaves the closer to the Hero of legends they can become. In essence some of those stories were so simple and classic that they were even interesting to hear and that was probably why Haru shared them in the very first place.

-I doubt it. I mean, ignoring the fact that that hero could never even exist, there is also the fact that his stories were from thousand years ago, right? He can’t simply live that long.

Arata gave the completely reasonable answer to Haru’s question.

-sure but this is EOA world we are taking about. Attaining the immortality and eternal youth for someone like Hero of legends should be a piece of cake. I already meet someone who was 600 years old and used to be human once so it is possible.

Then Haru answered like that, and even though Arata didn’t want to believe in it, in the end, it was the game world so anything could happen. Also Haru really didn’t seem like a person that can lie well, and she would probably be bad at hiding secrets. She would rather say everything the moment someone would asked with complete child’s innocence that was impossible to make on purpose.

-fine, that part with him disappearing on a journey never to be seen again was suspicious, still if he really is alive somewhere then it’s ‘the end game content of end game contents’. You won’t find him unless you reach the maximum level and because there is probably no maximum level in this game then finding him should impossible.

-it’s not like I was going to start looking for some one thousand years old guy, right? Even if I wouldn’t mind anyone five years older or younger than me, thousand years is a little.

-hahaha… .

Arata ended up laughing yet again. He did not understand why but the way that Haru answered was so funny that he couldn’t help it. Her facial expressions as well as change in voice was really hilarious to the point that even someone like Arata who would laugh out loud once a week at best, was now laughing one time after another.

-on the other hand he should have that eternal youth and it’s a Hero of legends we are talking about.

-haha, no, please please stop… also isn’t he only this world character?

-don’t worry I was joking. I am perfectly normal girl who would like to have perfectly normal boyfriend. Still, you don’t want me talk about my love story as it would turn out into me crying, so let’s put a stop this subject.

-sure I definitely prefer to see your smiling face so we better do.

-…

For unknown to Arata reasons, from time to time Haru would end up stopping her eyes on him without blinking for few second.

-sigh…

That occurrence though was always followed with a heavy sigh.

-well I am quite happy to finally find companions to talk with so I won’t get sad anytime soon. Ah, right I forgotten to ask, is my English, alright?

-what do you mean alright?

-I am asking if there is anything strange with how I speak. Naturally after five years of not seeing any other adventurers I didn’t have many occasions to use this language. Sure I did talk with some people of this world but especially in two last years, I am mainly traveling through these lands and my only conversation partner was Torachii who is a ‘tiger of few words’.

“Tiger of few words?”

-hahaha… .

-don’t laugh at me, I am asking seriously.

-yes, sorry. I wasn’t laughing at you though. Still, even if you were traveling for two years in game you still did talk normally with people in real life, right?

-sure but in real life I don’t have many occasions to use English that often. Also because of the time difference anyone who is playing EOA even a little is spending at least half of their time in game and I am from those that play more than a little.

-I see so you are from no English speaking country… hmm I didn’t think that those still really exist.

-well the project to make earth speak the same language was implemented and everyone do speak English but naturally some countries will never abandon their native and will stick to it to their grave as it is the tradition and the part of our nationality. Mine is exactly one of those so that’s why I am asked.

-I don’t see any problems with how you speak. Rather now I understand why you are saying some of words in such funny way.

-ah no… that was simply me trying to make the conversation livelier on my own.

-are you sure about it?

-well probably not everything but don’t tell me where I made the mistake as I don’t like when someone points it out.

-but you won’t improve if you don’t know where you made that mistake.

-yes but I really don’t like it. Ah, right, just so you know, me singing when we first meet was only because I was trying to use my tongue a little, it wasn’t anything special so erase that moment from your memory.

-and how I am supposed to do that?

-I don’t know, just do it. The point is that you should never bring that up if you meet anyone that I know.

-I would say that it’s rather you who is bringing it up for the third time already, my opinion did not change though, even if the song was little sad, it was still a good song and your execution of it was beautiful, so why shouldn’t we spread the world.

-because it’s embarrassing!

So far, Arata conversation with Haru was mainly like that, it was completely anti serious. Even though Arata originally wanted to have more serious conversation with the veteran player of EOA, he soon understood that it was not going to work with this person.

-and here you go again, rather than saying that it’s embarrassing why won’t you try and sing again and ask for peoples opinion.

-you think that I didn’t ask for people’s opinion. Well actually I didn’t but the people still gave it to me and those were mostly, ‘-Haru we are trying to sleep here, could you stop this torture!?’.

The moment Haru brought up ‘the quote’ she also changed her voice a little as if she was trying to imitate someone.

-well if you tried to sing next to sleeping person then it’s no wonder you got something like that.

-yes about that… this comment was only one of many and also one of the least cruel. I didn’t want to repeat the cruel ones.

-auch… but are sure that you heard it right, because my opinion is still that you sing beautifully.

-… Arata I was wondering for some time now but are you perhaps try to hit on me, after all?

-em…? No.

-okay, thanks for answering… in that case do you perhaps have problem with hearing? Or you have bad taste in music?

-I am not an expert but think that I can at least tell when someone is good at singing or bad. Anyway I was serious. Also Levi had the same opinion as me… .

-well I also think that I am not bad but that goes for everyone. So how will you explain all those other opinions?

-hmm… I don’t know maybe you simply learned during those five years how to sing properly. When was the last time someone heard you singing?

-oh!…

Haru opened her eyes as if she saw the ghost for a moment and made the characteristic hand movement for someone who finally realized something.

-that might be right! I did end up singing a lot lately and as people say, training makes the master. Well I am happy that I am no longer the torture machine with my singing but anyway, you still shouldn’t mention it to anyone. Please, please!

-fine, fine, but given the fact of how much you enjoyed yourself while singing, I don’t think that you will be able to hold back on doing so in populated area though…

“She didn’t even realize that we were standing there.”

-not to mention that you start humming anytime our conversation stops. Even if it’s just for a moment.

“That humming is also quite pleasant to hear.”

-did I? Oh well…

It seemed like she didn’t mind it that much in the end. She then looked around and after finding nothing she asked.

-so, do you want me to search for your friends after all, we still didn’t manage to find them even though an hour passed.

“It’s really taking much more than I expected.”

-if you won’t tire yourself by it that much then I would appreciate it.

-okay but once again Arata I am fine, you just took the wrong way what I said earlier on, it’s not that bad. Look I even have my leg back! But oh well, people like you simply love to worry about things, aren’t I right? Anyway I will start right away.

Haru answered and started her ‘magic’. It was the same skill that she used earlier although this time she used it while walking. The wind from around the area ended up gathering and blew through her once again making her long black hair and long blue scarf wave in the air. Anytime Arata saw it, it looked even better and this time he had an occasion to see it up close. He simply couldn’t stop his eyes from following those black silky flying hairs.

About minute later the wind returned and just like the first time Haru gathered the information about the location of other party members.

-oh, it seems like we are slacking off as all other groups become one and are now gathered at the base of the mountain. Given their mental state it seems like they are worried about you all.

She answered like nothing but.

“You can check mental state with that spell as well? Well whatever.”

-and how far are we from them now?

-as far as we are from the mountains, which means twenty minutes distance.

-luckily there are no monsters around so we should be able reach them soon.

-luckily? Oh no, it’s not that this area is empty because of luck. It’s rather because Torachii is still using his ‘hunter dominance’ so every potential enemy in the area decided to hide or run away.

-I see… that tiger is really useful.

-right! I mean if I were to use hunter dominance on my own I would end up with wrinkles in no time.

-hahaha… .

-this time I wasn’t joking. It’s a serious matter!

-hahaha…

Arata really couldn’t help but laugh sometimes. Even though from time to time Haru did say something incredible, her behavior would immediately ruin the image right after.

-la, lalala, la… la, lalala, la.

After being left for five minutes in silence, Haru ended up starting humming yet again, for the time being thoguh Arata simply continued forward while listening to it.

The time passed by quickly and soon after they reached the base of the mountain where the whole party finally regrouped. Unlike Arata’s and Levi’s earlier predicaments, somehow no one died while they separated as Arata could see all people alive and well. Well, given that the ‘fated to die last group’ managed to survive encounter with gaze paralyzing white tiger, others shouldn’t have much problems either, especially given the fact that Torachii’s range of hunter dominance was quite big and there was really no monsters in the area.

Naturally the moment that Arata’s group was getting closer to the rest of the party everyone’s focus was on the white tiger who could be easily seen in the distance as well as unknown girl who was walking next to Arata. Still after feeling the curious gazes Haru decided to take care of it right away.

-hi I am Haru, please don’t mind me I am just Arata’s friend…

The way that Haru introduced herself did ease the suspicious gazes right away because at least she wasn’t an enemy. Arata didn’t comment on the way Haru introduced herself and he really didn’t mind. He also didn’t have time for that as Haru followed up right away.

-and this is Torachii. Torachii say hi.

-hi, I am Torachii but if any of you try to call me that I will kill you.

Torachii’s greetings was still as friendly as ever but naturally the moment he spoke, no one could even interpret what he said as on their minds there was something completely different.

-strange, even though I rested enough today, I feel like I just heard the cat just talking. Bran, are you sure that your yesterday brandy didn’t have any side effects?

The first one to react was Flynn.

-it might have Flynn as I just heard the same thing as well.

Bran answered, still being able to converse at this point was still good. Others for example Shin was frozen in his boots as he probably was trying to find a logical explanation for the occurrence before him but unfortunately there probably was nothing else other than this is not a simple cat but a ancient guardian spirit.

Strangely though there were two people that were not surprised by that fact at all but considered it completely normal. Those were Rin and Julia. Rin in particular didn’t care less about the tiger. She was rather focused on the black haired girl and for some unknown reasons she was holding her hands on the handles of her swords. It didn’t seem like she was doing it on purpose.

-hey Rin! I know, but relax a little. She is not someone you should worry about.

Arata decided to stop that behavior as somehow he felt like she might even lunch an attack at Haru any moment.

“I am not surprised that you acted like that. Despite everything, Haru does have that presence after all. It didn’t hit me that bad probably because I first got her singing version but you would feel that, wouldn’t you?”

-so, I am probably somehow in the way so once again, don’t mind me. You can focus on your expedition without any concern. Torachii, here, here.

After saying that, Haru walked away probably to make it easier for others to talk. She also took her white tiger back and once again started riding it. For a note, Mika was not riding Torachii for some time now and he was simply walking three meters away from the group.

-Shin, the tiger talked, deal with it. We should move on.

After that the first one to break the silence was Hiro who told Shin the words that he probably said to himself many times as well.

Even though, Shin wasn’t satisfied with that explanation it was really not the time for him to start theorizing about possibility of real world’s cats talking as well.

-I guess you are right. Now then… if someone wants to, you can introduce themselves to Arata’s friend later. Right now we should focus on the important matter and that is for some unknown reasons most of the monsters left this area and based on Bran’s scouting all the way towards the heaven’s gate is completely safe. Even though it’s quite interesting occurrence let us skip the matter of answering the question why monsters left this place. We will simply use this opportunity to finally reach our winning condition.

“His winning condition was reaching the gate with the three of us so I guess it’s easy on him. My mind on the other hand is screaming like crazy while telling me things like ‘hahahahaha, you think that this is the only thing that you would need to do to get world first! Hahahaha!’. Shut up, I don’t need to be told the obvious.”

Without delaying any more the party started moving alongside the mountain range. According to the map this was the location of the heaven’s gate but Arata did not see anything that would fit that description. Still, based on the direction that they have taken it seemed like the heaven’s gate was at the eastern side of the mountain so they still had some distance to go.

-who is she?

Before even two minutes passed, Rin came to Arata and asked him this question.

-well, her name is Haru, didn’t you hear her introduce herself.

-I am not asking about that. Don’t play a fool with me.

-fine, fine. She is a veteran player with high level that somehow ended up in this part of the world.

-and?

-well that’s about it, you also don’t want any more information about someone else anyway right? She is not an enemy so that should be enough for you.

-… . fine if you don’t tell me then I will ask her myself…

“What?”

Before Arata noticed Rin turned around and walked towards Haru who was riding Torachii at the very back of the group. Arata went after her right away as he had no idea what Rin would do given the tone she just used or rather because he knew exactly what she wanted to do he wanted to stop her still, he was slightly too slow for that.

-hey you! Fight with me!

Rin ended up standing right in the way of the white tiger and after making him stop moving she challenged Haru with those words and she pointed the red sword at her.

“Aaaaa… why did she had to do that?”

-em… me?

Haru with completely innocent and clueless voice answered while pointing with her right hand forefinger at her face. She probably didn’t have bad intentions but that behavior made Rin slightly irritated. Still, Rin did answer with.

-yes, you!

-arara… it’s the first time in five years that I meet any adventurers and I already have two of them challenging me right away. Hey Arata! Did I did something wrong you did the same after al!?...

Haru asked Arata for explanation but before he even had the time to think up one, Haru continued.

-or wait… don’t answer… I realized it myself…

Proud of herself, Haru then said to Rin.

-you are Arata’s girlfriend that he talked about and you got jealous because I said I am his friend when you don’t even know me. Well, that’s definitely the right reaction as we girls should get jealous to make our boyfriends notice that we like them right. I don’t think you have anything to worry about though as it seems like he likes you a lot as the moment I tried to play around with him a little he immediately told me that he is not interested. Ah… you are lucky girl, it’s rather me who is jealous of you. You should cherish that boyfriend of yours.

-… .

-… .

-I didn’t get anything wrong did I? I mean you two look so nice together and I always felt it when two people had good chemistry.

Well Haru couldn’t be any more wrong but what she said weakened her strong presence for Rin at least as she started to understand her nature as well.

-it’s not like that Haru, me and Rin are… .

Arata quickly tried to resolve the misunderstanding and explain his relation with Rin but when he tired he encountered a problem that made him unable to say anything more.

“We are what? Hmm, now that I think about it, I can’t really put our relation in words. Can I simply say that she is my friend? No, I can’t, as I don’t have the right to it. Our encounter in the game can’t wash away all the memories of the real world that easily. Then what should I say? Party members or teammates doing the same quest? This sounds about right but I don’t want to say just this. What else could I say? Two fellow disciples of the same master? Old classmates?”

-sorry for bothering you, I lost my interest.

Before Arata managed to find the answer to his question, Rin sheathed back her sword and with those words turned around and quickly catch up after the rest.

-ah… this situation got somehow awkward, sorry. Still, Arata if you couldn’t answer me right away then your connection can’t simply be described with a single word, right? In that case is there a need to try to look for the word, which probably don’t exist anyway. Humans’ relations aren’t so simple to describe them with words.

-and yet we seek those words as without them we can’t feel the peace. I still have one sentence to finish so if you excuse me…

Leaving Haru with this answer Arata ran to where Rin went. There when he caught up to her he asked straightforward.

-hey Rin, I have a question. Who am I to you?

-you are someone who is helping me with the quest because I asked you for it…

Rin answered without moment of thought.

“I see so it is teammates who are doing quest together, after all.”

-this is the answer that you can give to her.

But then she followed it with a quote like that.

-then is the real answer different?

-yes but that answer is not something that I can tell a stranger like her or you.

-why can’t you tell me?

-because it’s personal… you should rather be happy that I even tell you that there is something else. Now Arata, I will return the question and ask you, what the current I, am to you?

-I still can’t find the right word but I would like to think that we are closer to friends rather than two strangers that are doing quest together. I already told you everything in the boat, didn’t I? And as to what you mean to me personally then whatever it is current you or past you, you were always someone that I wanted to win against.

-I am not planning on letting you win though.

-well naturally I will need much more than a simple luck… anyway, did you give up on challenging Haru already? Or rather in the first place, why did you even do that? You couldn’t meet her before so, does she looks like someone who stole your cookies?

Thankfully Arata’s and Rin’s relation did not get any worse because of what Haru said and in truth there was no reason for it to do so. Arata’s worry, to make him go after Rin right away was baseless after all.

-it’s not that. I still would want to fight her because I always wanted to see the distance between me and the so called best players of this world. It was always on my mind to challenge someone like that but I can’t do that here, not with her.

-I see but why not with her?

-to put it bluntly, I am not sure that I will be able to push her away if she tries to befriend me. I am bad with that type of people and I already made far too many mistakes ever since this quest started, way too many.

-I don’t think that what you just called mistakes are actually true mistakes though.

-no, Arata, they all are and I will pay the heavy price for them after we are done with this quest. Thankfully it will be ending soon.

-Rin, don’t say it like that. If you assume that it will end soon then it’s like telling me that the moment we reach the heaven’s gate we will immediately lose.

-is there any other possible outcome than this?

Rin asked with the ‘obvious face’.

-there is!

-and what could it be… no wait… I don’t want to hear your stupid baseless speeches anymore. I am well better without hearing them.

-then how about someone else’s speeches.

-what you mean Levi’s one? I talked with him and he is also standing on the earth all right. It’s only you who is crazy to begin with Arata. Still, fine, show me a single person here other than you that believe that we can complete quest of rank three.

After Rin’s said that Arata simple a little.

-in that case follow me.

He answered caught her left hand writs and then he ended up pulling her back to Haru.

-don’t worry about anything and believe in the dream only then the miracle will happen.

After the short explanation Haru ended up repeating her motto.

-see. There is other person here.

Arata also commented as he made his point.

-then this person is also completely unrealistic.

Naturally though Rin was not convinced by that propaganda. After hearing that though Haru started.

-what’s wrong with being unrealistic? Being unrealistic is much better than being realistic. If you are realistic you are simply restricting yourself for no reasons. People often say that something can’t happen. I say who are they to decide me that! I will decide on my own what can happen and what can’t. I have many dreams that are theoretically impossible and many people told me to give up on those. To that though I say that they are not impossible as long as I believe in them! Even if they are really impossible it doesn’t matter to me. Living the life in which you believe in those impossible dreams is much better than living the life without dreams like that.. Your name is Rin, right? Tell me Rin, do you have a dream, a wish that cannot be granted by anyone and cannot be achieved no matter what you do.

-… .

Rin didn’t say anything but he clearly was reacting to Haru’s words, especially to the last sentence that she made.

-you do, don’t you? It’s clearly on your face and even if you managed to keep calm and not show it, I would still know that you have one, simply because everyone has a dream like this. So don’t you think that the world in which that dream can come true is much better than the one in which that dream is a lie? So why won’t you change your world so it fits what you want and live with your dream being possible.

-so, you are telling me that it’s better to live in the world of lies.

-but those are no lies, remember. Just don’t worry about anything and believe in the dream, only then the miracle will happen. Miracles have the incredible power, you know, they can make anything happen and that also includes your dream as well.

-your concept of miracles is a lie as well.

-no one can say if it’s truly a lie or not, I can say that they exist after seeing them happen but someone else may say they do not. In the end though, it doesn’t matter. You asked me if it’s better to live in the world of lies. You know I am not really the best to answer this question and you won’t believe what I say but what I personally think is that it’s much better to live with your dreams being alive rather than thinking that they are impossible. If they are really impossible then so be it but if they are not and you thought about them as such and because of that they didn’t happen then, isn’t that a waste?

-if people didn’t believe in their dreams then humanity as a whole would progress so much slower. Leaving all important examples that currently do not concern you, what about a dream of an alternative world, to which you can go at any time you want? Even few years ago, dream like that was thought to be impossible but now, if we simply look around and we see the world of EOA which is one of manifestation of that dream. Labeling anything as impossible is really limiting ourselves. Your way of thinking if anything is definitely much better Haru.

Arata also ended up commenting on what Haru said because what they both said was the truth. The dreams should be as unrealistic as possible because that is exactly what makes them beautiful.

-… .

Rin did not say anything back to them at this point. After few seconds, Arata who was seeing her back so far, saw how Rin picked up her red hood and started wearing it on her head. Arata didn’t see Rin doing the same since a day now. After that, still without a word Rin yet again walked away, this time however Arata did not go after her as he didn’t know if there was even a need for it as Rin did have a custom of leaving right away when her business is finish. Then there was also the fact that Arata no longer had anything that he could say to her at the current moment.

-Arata, will you let me talk with her one on one?

After Rin left, Haru suddenly asked.

-you don’t have to ask me that but I am not sure if Rin will like it.

-oh, she definitely won’t, still did you know that sometimes, there are things that your best friend will never understand and yet a complete stranger will?

-… .

-oh… I seem to hit a bully eye with you a second ago, didn’t I?

-well, it wasn’t even that long ago but you could say that I did once have a life changing talk with a ‘certain stranger’.

-in that case I don’t have to say anything else. Anyway I won’t plan on doing anything else than listening as I am not really good at giving someone life changing advices but sometimes, just being listened by someone is more than enough. Torachii, I will be walking alone for some time.

With that Haru ended up going after the ‘red hood’ that was now walking in even greater distance from everyone than usual. Unfortunately though the matter did not turn out how Haru envisioned it as Rin didn’t say a single word to her despite the fact that they walked next to each other all the way towards the heaven’s gate, and that walk took all together yet another hour. Normally it would probably take much longer but because there were no monsters in the area at all the party was not stopped by anything. Despite the fact that originally they started the journey at the beginning of the night, now that they finally reached the heaven’s gate it was still kind of dark but the morning would come soon in an hour or two. The time did not matter at all though, as the party finally reached the heaven’s gate. 

The heaven’s gate was located at the eastern side of the Kantraist’s mountain range. The building itself was really enormous. The first part of it that party saw was the stairs. The large and endless stairs that leaded upward and one could barely see their end. Those stairs went up by at least 15 meters.

At the end of the stairs there was a large stone platform on which three other gigantic constructions stood. On right there was the gigantic statue of the warrior in full plate amour which was holding shield and sword. Given the size of the statue, one would assume that it was some grand king or the hero but after looking closely on it, there was no sign of a crown on his head. There also were no emblems on his amour that would signify who that warrior was. The statue did not present a specific person but rather it was a statue that symbolized a human warrior.

The statue of the warrior was holding its swords to the sky, towards the other statue that was on the left side of the platform that also hold the weapon. Both weapons connected by the statues were in friendly manner rather that would symbolize friendship rather than hostility.

The already mentioned second statue was kind of similar to the statue of a warrior. It also showed a person in full plate amour, with shield and sword that was pointed towards the sky. There were few differences though. The statue on the left had bronze armor and while the statue on the right had grey one. Those colors used to be different in the past and those were gold and silver.

Then the other important difference was that the statue on the left had on its back a pair of wings that were stretched to the left and right. And that indicated that that was the statue of an angel warrior. Yet again though, it probably wasn’t a statue of any particular angel but a statue that symbolized any angel warrior.

Those two statues could also symbolize the very existence of this building as it was the border between the world of men and world of angels, as behind those two stood the actual portal gate.

In comparison to the two statues id didn’t look that impressing. It was a simple rectangular construction made of stone-like material. It was a simple combination of one pillar on the left, one pillar on the right, and then the tops of those pillars were connected by yet another line. The inside of that rectangular was an empty space through which one could see the wall from the mountain. Then lastly it seemed like something was sitting at the top of the gate but right now, the party who was standing before the stairs, could not see it yet.

“That’s some big building but I guess it’s only fitting to the construction called the gate of heavens.”

-surprisingly we managed to reach it in the end.

While everyone was still looking at the construction, Levi ended up walking towards Arata and commented.

-yes we did, see so far everything is going according to the plan.

Arata answered to him.

-plan? But we didn’t have any plan.

-what do you mean we didn’t have one? Our plan was, get to the gate, get to the heavens and then get to the silver temple and now we just completed the first part of it.

-as they say it’s always good to keep the plan simple.

-exactly there is no need to overthink anything. Anyway I think that now we have to activate that gate and go on with the second point. So Levi, how is your experience at using ancient angel gate activators?

-naturally as big as yours.

-you mean you did it at least ten times so far right?

-ten!? I would rather say at least twenty or so. Anyway let’s get to it right away.

And so, Arata and Levi started first to climb the stairs with their ‘perfect plan’ of activating the gate. After all everyone knows that to use ancient angel gate activators, one simply needs to put it on the right pedestal. That was at least Arata’s and Levi’s current plan as in other games that they played, this usually was the thing.

-hey guys, are you two going to simply climb up like that?

Seeing them going up. Shin called out to them.

-well yea, I mean there are a lot of stairs to climb up right?

Levi answered like that.

-but don’t you want to celebrate this occasion somehow? Normally people do that right?

Flynn asked.

-hmm, I am all up for parties but I don’t think that right now it’s the best time, right Arata?

Levi answered.

-yea, I feel if we start parting right now then it’s like asking for death that will caught us unprepared. So, I am not doing any celebrations until we complete the quest. Also it’s not like we need yet another break because the last time we actually fought anything were the toads near the lake.

Arata added.

-not exactly you slept through one battle after we reached the rocky coast but you are right, the original planned break is not needed. Anyway, everyone we reached the heaven’s gate and with that our winning condition is meeting. Now then… to the next point…-

Shin started saying to his friends and once again the fact that there was no leader in this group killed the possibility of an epic speech that would mark their victory.

-Shin, wait a moment, you two as well… .

But then when he started Bran interrupted him.

-guys, we just reached the heaven’s gate in the far west, which means we are awesome. YEA!

Even though it was not grand epic speech, what Bran did was very fitting here.

-yep so before we go anyway forward, following the tradition, lets make the VR-shot of ourselves before this building. Everyone gather here and make of those for yourself…

Vatras continued after Bran. Even if there was no leader in this party, people would still want to have the feeling of achievement and also souvenir of it. In games, that souvenir was usually the screen shot, and in VR games it was VR-shoot. Some from the party would probably go as far as saving the recording of the whole expedition. After all, the events of one month to the back were automatically saved in the VR capsule and one could copy the file and save it. Still in the end there was nothing better than a photo of memory with everyone in it. In comparison to a real photo though, there was no cameraman so everyone was making one for themselves.

Soon enough everyone from the ‘original’ party gathered.

-you there, no slacking off now. The tradition also includes the temporary members.

Vatras called out to Arata Levi and Rin as well.

“We as well? Oh well.”

-hey Arata, you know what we have to do, right?

-yea, yea, let’s get to it right away.

After hearing the call, Arata and Levi quickly understood what they also need to do.

Without saying anything else towards each other, they started walking towards Rin.

-what do you guys want? I hope that you are not thinking that I will be taking part in that stupid picture do you?...

Naturally Rin immediately hated the whole idea but rather than trying to discuss anything with her, Arata catch her right wrist, Levi catch her left wrist and then they started dragging her towards where the VR-shot was going to be taken.

-stop! Leave me alone.

Naturally Rin was trying to resist but that didn’t brought any effect as at this point it was too late. The fact that she didn’t do it in any drastic way, like using her unlimited blade ability, could signify that she wasn’t that against the idea, although in EOA there was a strange occurrence that sometimes people completely forgot that they can use their superhuman abilities and strength and they would simply struggle like they would normally in real world. In this case the small fragile girl was caught by two men who were both at least 30 centimeters higher than her. Rin had no chance on resisting at all.

-you are coming as well?

On the way, Arata asked Haru about taking part in the picture as well.

-I love taking pictures but it wouldn’t feel right when I just followed along for few hours today.

-hmm, I wouldn’t say you just followed along. Your tiger probably did save us a lot of time

-in that case I guess Torachii could take part in the picture as well but unlike me he doesn’t like to take pictures. Anyway, I already took so much of your time while you have your quest to worry about, so don’t mind me, I am just standing on the side and watch what is happening.

-the next time you stand on the side, don’t do it near me!

Rin who stopped struggling and was slowly dragged away by Arata and Levi said those words to Haru.

-I don’t know why but it seems like she hates me. I guess I was a little bit too pushy. It’s really been too long since I saw other adventurers so I don’t behave right just yet.

-no, don’t worry. Rin seem to hate everyone on the first glance but in truth, she doesn’t really hate annoyed. Right, Rin?

-I hate at least you Arata.

Rin commented back to him.

-see.

Arata was not concerned by it as he was already used to it and he believed that what he said was true.

-ah, I see, so she is kind of like Torachii. She keeps saying things that she doesn’t mean. Then, you don’t hate me?

Haru asked her while pointing towards her face.

-I have no reason to hate you, I don’t know you but I also don’t want to know you and much less I don’t want to become your friend. So, just leave me alone!

After hearing words like that said to you, normally you wouldn’t try to interact with the person who said them more than necessary. In the first place there aren’t that many people that can say words like that right towards someone’s face. Actually when someone does it, they usually don’t really mean it. Words like that are not something one would waste on person they don’t want to have anything to do with.

-I see, in that case I will try not to bother you. Also don’t worry I won’t be staying here for too long. Actually if your gate works right away then I will be leaving in few moments. Still, I would want to voice my opinion on what you said and that is that you can’t decide if you become someone’s friend or not. As long as the other person think about you like this then you two are friends.

-so what? Are you saying that you are thinking of me as a friend now?

-no I don’t. I actually value that word quite highly. I can’t call someone with whom I never truly spoke with my friend.

-is that so… good to hear then. Anyway you two wanted that picture right? Let’s get it over with and finish this quest already.

Rin finished the conversation and then it was her who now dragged Arata and Levi away. They quickly catch up to her though, and together with the party.

The VR-shot of surviving 11 members of the party was made and with this ceremony done it was finally the time to climb up the stairs.

“Still, this is some really big building. Hmm, now that I think about it I wonder what exactly teleport gate to the heavens means? It can be either a teleport to a different place that exist in this world that could be reached normally or some crazy, multiple realms theme. Oh, well in the end it don’t really matter. It can be called different realm if it’s wants to but in the end it will still be EOA’s world. If I were to choose I would prefer a version where heavens do exist somewhere in the sky and if someone falls from there they are falling down for some time till they hit the ground… I think that I am slightly getting ahead of myself but those stairs are really long.”

Well Arata was simply sulking too much as in reality the stairs weren’t that long. Naturally it took some time before reaching the height of 15 meters but it always could have been much worse. Also before party reached even the half of that height, their walk was interrupted.

-Shin! Alarm, alarm! Something just moved at the top of those stairs.

The party’s scout Bran was first to report.

-something? Can you be more specific?

-sounds like wings, well we will see it in the second.

“So the quest finally begins. I wonder what kind of monster will be coming out. It’s should be a monster worth of world first after all. Wings should mean dragon, right?”

Arata and everyone one took out their weapons and readied themselves for battle. Soon enough over their heads up in the sky they saw the winged monstrosity.

Although that monster didn’t look ugly, or scary. In fact there was even a person who called it.

-ohhh, I didn’t think I will be able to see dream butterfly in this area. He is as beautiful as always.

Well, only Haru could be relaxed enough in this situation to look at the flying butterfly and call it beautiful. Sure it was beautiful. Having the form of a large emerald butterfly with the dark green design on its wing, it couldn’t be called anything but that. There was also that light green aura gathering around it and lastly a silver horn at the top of its head. Still others couldn’t enjoy the view especially when that silver horn was behaving strange, as if it was gathering energy to attack.

-attack is coming, don’t let it hit you at all cost!

Shin only managed to shout that and second later the attack came. The green energy that was gathering at the end of the silver horn ended up splitting into small missiles and come down at every member of the party, Haru and Torachii included. From the distance it seemed like green lines started falling from the sky even if in reality those were a small green orbs that left the light effect behind them.

“No one has to tell me to dodge the lasers attack that is coming at me.”

Arata moved a little from the place in which he was but the moment he did that he also saw that the green orb changed its direction as well.

“Is this a homing missile? It makes it slightly more troublesome but it seems like the delay is long enough to make the last second dodge.”

The missiles were following players movements but only to certain extend. After realizing that Arata stay put for two seconds to let the missile get closer and after that he made a quick move and the green missile landed onto the stairs and disappeared.

As for other party members. Most of them also managed to dodge the attack, although mostly with much less grace than Arata. Their dodge involved running for the whole time as the missile was coming down. Although there were also people that saw through it and dodged it by other means. Shin for example ended up using his green rune to teleport to a different place second before the attack hit him. Then there was also Haru who did nothing as the two missiles that came at her disappeared on invisible barrier above here. There were two missiles that stopped on that barrier one was for her and second one for Torachii on whom Haru was once again riding.

Unfortunately there were two people that didn’t manage to dodge in time. One of them was Mika who tipped on the stairs and there wasn’t much time to get up from them afterwards. And then there was also Flynn who rather than dodging decided to block the attack following his tank instincts. Unfortunately though, one really should avoid getting hit by dream butterfly.

Mika was already on the ground before getting hit and now Flynn with a single attack ended up falling on the stairs as well. After that they didn’t show any movement at all.

“Are they dead?”

Arata wondered about it for a second but he didn’t have time for that as the fight continued.

The dream butterfly was flying in the sky which naturally disabled any possibility of hitting him with the sword. At least by a normal swords that were held in hands, and that did not count the red flying swords lunching like rockets from the golden mist behind red hooded girl.

Rin was not wasting any time and after dodging she started the counterattack. Because her usual mean of fighting was closed off, she went straight into playing her strongest card and also the only card that she could use to attack someone who was flying about 20 meters above them.

-see Torachii, it was worth coming here, we are already seeing something good.

-meh, it doesn’t matter if it is coming from some low level, not to mention that it’s a waste of mana as this attack won’t work on an enemy like that…

While Torachii and Haru were enjoying the show, the red weapons ended up reaching the height of the butterfly. The butterfly naturally tried to dodge the attacks but as if foreseeing it beforehand the weapons were shot in a way that it was impossible to dodge completely. Therefore the red blades hit the emerald wings of the dream butterfly. The moment they did that though it seemed as if the weapons entered the body of the butterfly and afterwards disappeared without a trace.

-see just as I said.

-don’t be so harsh Torachii, it happens to everyone and also, dream butterfly is immune to physical attacks if I remember correctly.

It seemed like the butterfly also quickly realized that Rin’s attack does nothing to him so he stopped flying around and despite the fact that numberous weapons were keep on hitting its wings, the butterfly started charging another attack.

-attacking that thing is no use! Everyone listen! The tactic to fight against this type of creature is simple, we have to survive long enough for it to run out of energy, if it does then it will fly away and leave us alone.

Shin shouted, although Rin continued to attack regardless, ignoring what he said.

-what about those that get hit, are they dead?

Hiro asked while bending over his sister.

-those who get hit even once will fall into eternal sleep and the only way to leave that sleep is to either get killed or do a ‘log out dead’, either way it’s a lost cause.

Shin explained and his voice didn’t show even a hint of concern for his fallen teammates.

-then isn’t it the same as dying!? Tras can’t you do something?

Naturally Hiro didn’t take that comment well.

-I can’t, they both have status that makes it impossible to cast any spells on them, no matter what kind of healer it would be, we can’t do anything about it.

-Hiro, just as you said, it’s the same as dying so even though they are not technically dead there is not a single thing we can do for them and given the current circumstance, we don’t even have time to talk about it. Anyway, the dead is dead, let’s leave it as that and focus on dodging, we have to look focus on the present.

Shin answered heartlessly. It seemed like the talks about him being able to leave his comrades in the times of need without even blinking were true. Not everyone took that comment well but unfortunately there wasn’t even time for discussion as another attack came from the sky once again.

This time everyone managed to avoid it and there were no more people ‘dead’. After that attack, Rin gave up on attacking as she also realized it was completely no use. On the other hand changing with her it was Hiro who now started to shoot his water spells up to the sky. Unfortunately though the range from which he was shooting made it really easy for the butterfly to dodge all attacks and charge another attack yet again.

“Hmm, if we really only have to dodge the attacks for some time then it’s not that bad. Sure I feel bad for Flynn and Mika but at least we will be able to continue later on.”

-em… I don’t know if that information will be of any use to you but those two are not dead yet and they can be saved alright. The one in the glasses over there has incomplete information.

While everyone was focused on what was happening above them, Haru ended up telling them this information.

-what do you mean that I have incomplete information?

Naturally Shin got interested in what she said and immediately answered.

-well, rather than incomplete… well I didn’t want to say it but it’s completely wrong. You made it sound as if the battle against dream butterfly was about dodging it attack and surviving till the end so its fly away on its own. That is completely wrong because if you let him fly away the people he shoot will never wake up as the only way to wake them up is to kill the butterfly. The difficulty of the fight is actually not letting the butterfly escape and kill it in given time as otherwise your friends who got shoot will be dead. It’s one of time rush fights.

-I see, so it’s like that. Still why did you say this information won’t be useful? In that case we could focus on… .

Shin asked back right away although he stopped second later as he probably also realized what Haru’s answer will be. Because he already asked it Haru still answered.

-it won’t be useful because you won’t be able to defeat that butterfly given what I see. He is nearly immune to most physical attacks and you only have two magicians in your group. Also you seem more of a support type, so in the end you have only one person who can bring out any real magic fire power but then again, not only one person is not enough to even hit into the flying butterfly but also even if he hits his spells will be too weak for boss class monster of 237 level.

Haru gave the full explanation.

-I see, in that case, despite the fact that my information was wrong we will have to stick to the tactic as there is nothing else we can do. So once again, everyone focus on dodging and don’t think of anything else! Two deaths are not that bad anyway.

Shin ended up repeating his tactic. But then.

-Shin, I don’t agree with this one! If there is a chance to save my sister I am going to do it.

The azure haired magician didn’t want to give up so easily.

-you will just waste your mana Hiro. You won’t be able to shoot down that thing on your own. Your attacks are barely hitting it and even if others were to help you, there aren’t that many magic attacks they can use. It’s a lost cause and we should never doing anything that has no chance on working at a... .

-shut up, I will do what I want you third rate magician. If you don’t plan on helping then shut up and let me concentrate.

Suddenly Hiro interrupted him like that as it seemed that he was really not in the mood after what happened in his sister although, even that was probably not enough for him to say things like that.

“Wow, I wasn’t expecting that one.”

-that was a little bit too far Hiro.

-too far Tras? You as well, rather than saying things like that you should start helping me out, you have range magic spells don’t you? Bran, your crossbow gives the magic attack attribute as well. So, stop watching from aside like idiots and start fighting before…-

Before Hiro managed to finish he ended up getting a sudden kick right into the face that came out of nowhere as no one was standing next to him. Still the one did not even touch the ground or make any sound. Although right now she was standing next to his body that fallen on the stairs.

-STOP!...

Haru talked to the one that she just brought to the ground. It was her who despite sitting on Torachii quite away ended up nearly teleporting before Hiro and kicked him into the face. She did not really teleport though but rather she jumped towards him and with and moved in the sky with the strong wind. But now that Haru landed on the ground and looked down on Hiro, she was not the same person.

With the single word she silenced and scared to death everyone who was around. The earlier, clumsy girl was completely gone and now there was the incarnation of death itself, standing there. Somehow even speaking in her presence would take incredible effort and willpower to and no one had enough of it to say anything. Still that occurrence happened only for an instant after Haru said the first words but soon after she continued normally.

-don’t insult your friends only because you are nervous about you sister. It’s good that you worry about her but this is not what friends should do. Or is there a different reason why you said those words?

-ha, whatever you say, an outsider like you has no right to say anything in this situation. Could you stop interrupting me and…-

Still even after what happened Hiro had no intention of correcting his mind and Haru’s words did not reach him at all. But then it happened again.

-stop… right… now!...

Haru said those words with that presence coming back. She said them in separately with pause one after another in a voice that could not belong to her or rather it was completely different kind of tone, one that normally wouldn’t be possible for human to make. After Haru finished those three words, Hiro fainted without saying anything else.

“…”

Before anyone managed to say anything though, Haru once again normally said.

-em… mm, I mean… aaa I am sorry! I really didn’t want to knock out your party mage. That one was outside my control and because I can’t stand by when good friends are fighting each other for no reason. Then because he didn’t listen to what I said at the, I kind remembered something and overreacted.

“Overreacted? You just made him faint with blood thirst alone. Or was it even that I don’t know. It didn’t seem normal.”

-nah, don’t worry, he deserved that one although what happened is nothing unusual. Our mage is always going crazy after his sister dies, and we are used to it already.

Strangely enough despite what just happened there wasn’t that much of an awkward silence and Bran quickly regained his composure and said those words. Although that was also because the second time that ‘Haru become scary’ didn’t have that strong effect on the others, as it was directed only to Hiro.

-beware of the next attack!

Despite the situation that was happening, naturally the butterfly was not waiting idly and after charging it’s power once again, it shoot down with the missiles. The one who sounded the alarm was Levi and it was good thing that he did as because of what happened about half number of people forgotten about the situation.

After the next complete dodge the talk continued.

-ah, it was the first time I was seeing it. So Hiro really has a sister complex.

Julia ended up commenting.

-yes, he is always losing it whenever something happened to Mika. Although… Shin, did you do something to him lately?

Kei unusually asked with a glare.

-I don’t think so, why do you ask?

-well calling each other idiots for us is normal but in your case, it seemed like he really tried to insult you.

-aye, I agree, also when Kei is already pointing it out then it’s true,

Brann agreed with Kei’s comment.

-hmm, I personally didn’t felt like it, I mean I do think myself that I am third rate magician anyway. Stating the truth is not an insult. But anyway I don’t remember doing anything bad, so I guess it must be because his sister died.

-that is probably true. One thing we can know is that you didn’t do it intentionally. Anyway we have to focus on the matter so no more of us dies.

To end the conversation Vatras stated something really important as it was true that right now it wasn’t the time for the chit-chat.

“Yes, there isn’t anything better than a conversation right in the middle of boss fight. Still, I also agree that we shouldn’t stay put and watch those two die. But then again if that thing is really high level boss class monster that is immune to physical damage then there is only one last option we can result towards. And it’s better if I do that before that last option disappears.”

Arata walked down the stairs toward the white tiger and Haru who was getting at the top of him. Even though no one commented on what she done, she was really down, right now and her usually happy face was replaced with face of sadness and Arata felt that if he doesn’t hurry then that face would be the last time that he will be able to see Haru at all.

-you are going already?

Those were the first words that Arata said to her, although they were not the question as he somehow knew that this was Haru intentions.

-yes, I stayed for too long… in the first place I didn’t have the right to join in with you, even if only for a little. It seems like after all those five years, ‘it’ become even worse.

-what do you mean?

-who knows but anyway I think that it’s really time for me to go.

-but didn’t you want to see the quest of rank 3. I think it still didn’t started and we just met a random monster on a way.

-well, I also think that one dream butterfly is not enough for to rank three quest. Still even though I still do want to stay, do you think that it is still right for me to stay after what I just did? No, even if you tell me that it is, I won’t believe you because you will be just acting nice. As that mage just said, I am an outsider here, and even though I said I will simply stand on the side, I still couldn’t stand on side and interfere in important moment.

-you didn’t do anything wrong though. It was true that Hiro freaked out as he wasn’t behaving as usual although it seems like it wasn’t the first time. No one complained to you as well, so you shouldn’t worry about that.

-Arata thanks for those words but I really will be…-

Haru really didn’t feel good about staying here for any moment longer and she still looked quite sad but then when she was about to leave someone else came to her.

-if you are worrying about what those idiots think then don’t worry, your little spectacle did not impress them. Those idiots are so stupid that they can forgive even a person who killed them two times so they won’t feel anything towards someone who looked scary for a second and knocked down their friend when that friend was misbehaving. In the end, even if you kill them few times, even if you scare them to death few times, those people will still behave as if that never happened and what’s more, they are even willing to assist the person who did that to them afterwards. So if you are leaving only because of what happened then don’t bother. If you really feel like you did something wrong though, wouldn’t it be best to repay the debt.

After saying those words, Rin did not wait for any response but she walked away and got ready to dodge the next attack that came soon after.

Arata also dodged the attack and then the next time he looked back at Haru, she somehow seemed like the whole accident never happened.

-ahhhh… I think I got a little over paranoid with it. It’s not like it was the first time it happened but I guess the long break from seeing people took its tool. Anyway Arata, thanks for worrying about me, I am fine now. Tell Rin that I am grateful to her as well.

-you can tell it yourself.

-I will but she won’t listen to me, also I am not sure if there will be an occasion. So you guys want me to help you take down that butterfly don’t you?

-well naturally we don’t see any other way. I mean even Rin’s attack didn’t do a thing and that thing is flying 20 meters over our heads. There is really little we can do.

-well flying enemies are a pain if you can’t fly yourself, especially those that never come to attack in melee. But anyway I will definitely help, especially after what she just said to me. Although I felt like rather than only cheering me up she was actually doing it to force me to help you with the butterfly.

“Hmm, Rin did say few times that she doesn’t want Yume’s friends to die for nothing, so I guess it might be true.”

-maybe but she didn’t have any ill intentions towards you.

-no don’t take it like that, the only thing I felt from here was genuine worry about her friends and I would also like to think that about me, just to feel a little bit better. But anyway, leave it to me I will take care of that…-

-HARU!...

Just as Haru was finishing her sentence Torachii interrupted her.

-didn’t you promise me to not get involved in fights.

-but I can’t back off now, can I?

-then are you saying that you want to risk getting killed later on only because you wasted your powers to help others?

-how can you say that helping others is a waste Torachii! Ah, you are so mean sometimes. Also, to take care of dream butterfly I wouldn’t have to do much.

-even then you would still need to use one big attack, right and that is already more than enough. I will remind you again, right now you are in no position to help others carelessly, open your menu look at your mana and coldowns and stats then…-

-ah you are nagging me too much… disappear Torachii!...

Despite the fact that the white tiger was properly doing his job as the guardian spirit, Haru decided to ignore his words and with simple command she made him disappear.

Torachii first become somewhat transparent and then he was sucked into the medallion on Haru’s neck in a ghostly manner. In few seconds there was no sight of him anymore.

-well then, let’s get to it right away.

With Torachii done Haru said those words like nothing.

-wait, wait, wait. Before you do anything, please tell me if there is any other way than that.

Arata stopped her right away though.

-but this will be the fastest and easiest and… .

-the most dangerous for you way, right?

-ah, don’t listen to what Torachii said Arata. I told you I am fine. Sure I am not at my best right now but killing single dream butterfly won’t be hard for me at all. I can kill it with a single spell.

-oh, I am sure you can but I am asking if there is any other way. Before you tell me the answer I am not letting you do it.

-mhmm, I already told you but I actually like when people worry about me… so let’s see. Well there is one other way that will work just as well and won’t take anything out of me. But there is a need for an extra element in it. Arata, does anyone in this party have a good fire range spell.

-good fire range spell? … Actually I technically have one but what does it have to do with this plan?

-one is the fact that dream butterflies are really weak against fire and they take about three times as much damage as from any other spell.

-even if that is the truth I don’t think that I can one shoot a high level boss class monster with a single spell.

“Hmm, it might be possible if I do the combination of five sword slashes but the main problem is that I am not sure that I will hit, or rather I am sure that I won’t and that’s the reason why I didn’t try it. That butterfly is bound to avoid it.”

-well don’t worry about that. Just shoot out that fire skill in the direction of the butterfly and leave the rest to me.

-don’t get me wrong but I think that there are many uncertainness in this tactic, so are you sure it will work?

-yes, I am. Fire is my greatest enemy but at the same time I am its greatest ally. The wind is what makes fire spread, the wind is what makes fire strong. As long as fire and wind work together there is nothing that can stop them and that’s why, the fire was never wind’s enemy and wind was always fire’s friend.

Haru smiled while saying those words although what she said didn’t explain anything. Still Arata somehow managed to get what she wanted to say and just to confirm if he understood her correctly Arata asked.

-so, by that you mean you have a wind based spell that power ups fire based spell right?

-hmm… ah yes, yes, that’s exactly what we will be doing. So, don’t worry about control or anything like that, just shoot out a good fire spell into the direction of that butterfly and leave the rest to me.

-fine, I will do just that and believe in you. I will start on three… two… one… .

[Sword enchant: fire]

[Sword slash]

Arata swung his black sword upward and the arc of fire escaped it and flied towards the dream butterfly. The light that was made during this attack was really intense especially given the fact that it was still night time. After the arc of fire flied up a little, unnaturally the wind started to blow upward from the ground, despite the fact that there was no indication of it happening earlier on. The intense wind powered up the arc of fire drastically which was visible in both the brightness of the flame as well as size of the fire arc.

The powered up sword slash flied all the way towards the flying butterfly who naturally did try to avoid getting hit but in a similar way that his attack changed its direction the arc of fire also followed after the butterfly. The butterfly was much bigger target it had no chance to escape. It still did its best at dodging and originally only its left wing was set on fire but soon enough that fire spread over the whole body of the butterfly.

The ‘burning’ dream butterfly at this point was unable to do anything and it seemed like it actually started to panic. That was at least what one could tell from its movements as the butterfly started flying there and back again but its torture did not last long as the intense fire did end up burning down butterfly wings a little and that made it start falling to the ground.

The butterfly was originally 20 meters above the party and the party was standing on the height of five meters of stairs so it was 25 meters way to the ground and after the butterfly hit it never stood up again. Also Arata got a confirmation three minutes later as not only Mika and Flynn woke up but also the system messages like this appeared.

[You have leveled up by 40%]

[You have gained a level, current level 112]

[New items collected check the inventory]

“It is done. Also wow, when was the last time I saw leveled up by message. Hmm, It seems that this kill counted as a solo kill by me despite the fact that Haru helped out. So even if there is a lot of exp needed, as long as I find truly overwhelming with level enemy I still get a lot of exp. Also there is a message about new items and that message appears only when there are some really good items appearing. Not crafting or food material. And definitely not some junk, which I can only sell or useless quest items that I guess are also a junk that I can only sell… I probably shouldn’t be doing it right now, but let’s check that item quickly.”

It’s been a while since Arata had good item drop so despite the fact that right now he had to focus on different things, he couldn’t help but peak on what item he just got.

[Ring of dream butterfly

{something}

Level requirement 250]

“Oh well it’s not like I can use it yet but that’s some cool effect. Not really battle useful but still good.”

In the meantime Mika who managed to wake up after the dream started healing Hiro who theoretically didn’t receive any damage. Nevertheless she continued, and after two minutes of her effort, Hiro woke up as well.

Seeing his sister alive did help him calm down but in the end he never said anything to anyone. In a way just like certain someone, he equipped the blue hood of his magic cloak and walked to the edge to the stairs without interacting with anyone, his sister included.

-aaa, seems like getting beaten didn’t help him either, oh well Hiro has sometimes his moods.

To lighten up the atmosphere Bran commented on Hiro’s actions with a joke.

-we were in kind of edgy situation, don’t blame him. Anyway, thanks to Arata’s and our guest interference we managed to avoid losing anyone so let’s not dwell on it anymore and before anything happens we should…

Shin started to organize situation as his position required it of him. Well, the fact that they shouldn’t be standing in the middle of the stairs right next to their last goal was kind of obvious, still before he could tell others what to do his voice stopped because of what was happening before his eyes.

Arata would say that his eyes looked shocked, or maybe even scared, and it was even worse than in the case of seeing Rin who killed him twice in without any effort. This time however there was a true terror in his eyes. Arata also saw that few others from the party who were standing while looking down the stairs. Not all, because Levi and Julia for example were looking down with the interest, but Vatras and Kei had a reaction slightly similar to Shin’s one.

“Hmm?”

Without asking for anything Arata also looked down the stairs.

Despite the fact that the morning was yet to come, the ground seemed strangely bright in somewhat red color. The area of few kilometers before the heaven’s gate started becoming redder and redder. It was a color as if under that ground there was a fire burning, or lava from a living volcano.

Few minutes ago everything was normal but right now it was a false memory as the whole area down the stairs was like that. It was both the ground and the forests. It was visible especially on the trees as they also slowly started to shine with that red lava color as well and then one by one they turned into the ash and disappeared. And then lastly in the distance of about 3 kilometers away from the heaven’s gate, there was a horizontal ‘red line’ that had the most intense red color. Arata was clearly able to see it as was standing nearly the top of the stairs now, and he was also seeing that the earth around that red line behaved strange.

It was not only changing its colors but right on height of the red line the ground started to move. Namely the ground behind the red line started to lift up while the area before it started to fall down. It was holding its flat form and the way it was falling down started to make the gigantic slope all the way towards the red line which was slowly becoming the red wall.

“The red ground and black sky? Are we still on the EOA’s earth?”

Seeing what was happening on the horizon, Arata couldn’t help but joke to himself. What was happening before him was beyond anyone understanding. Strangely though, it seemed like there were people here who knew what was happening and there actually were a lot of them. And they knew it because they already had an occasion to see it one.

-Arata, Levi, Rin…

Shin regained his composure and started talking yet again although the way he said those three names was kind of formal.

-if you want to complete your quest then you have to get at the top of those stairs, activate this gate and hope it charges up fast, otherwise, give up and start running already.

-do you think that we would run away after coming this far?

The first one to answer was Levi and Arata followed after him right away.

-not to mention that it would be pain to get back on this point even if we decided to run which we naturally won’t do. Anyway, I see it seems kind of bad so can you tell me what is happening?

Arata followed it up. To that Shin answered.

-I see, so you are not worried about your life. I will explain in a second but we should start activating the gate right away. For all I know, the gates like this don’t work magically right away not to mention that unused gates charge up even longer than normal ones and from what I know, this one wasn’t active for over 300 years. So, let’s hurry up upward.

Shin said those words and strangely enough he started running up the stairs before anyone else which was quite unusual for him as he always let someone else take the front. Still, that simply showed that there was no time to waste and seeing him run up the stairs like that everyone quickly followed.

After running up the stairs the party reached the platform on which the two statues were standing on the left on right. Still those two statues weren’t the focus of anyone right now as at the end of the platform 10 meters away from the stairs stood the actual gate that was as big as those statues.

-who would bother to build it so big, wasn’t it purpose to teleport humans?

Levi commented after seeing the thing. Only now that they saw it before them, it was much easier to realize how big that gate was.

-I guess that they wanted to make it an ‘universal size’. You saw those giants right? Anyway, I am taking the activator out…

Arata was a holder of the relic and ever since showing it to Wizard it was safely laying in his inventory.

“Hmm, I didn’t think about it so far but if I were to die somewhere on the way it would be the end for Levi and Rin as well as the relic would be lost with me dying.”

While looking through the inventory Arata had a thought like that.

He soon located the item though and it looked exact the same as it was when he first found it on black market.

[Heaven’s gate activator.

Final element of heaven’s gate.

Gift of angels to the king Sarius Six of the Solaris Empire. It was used only once in history when Sarius Six send his warriors to aid angels in defense of heavens. After the battle was won and heaven gate close the activator was never used again and instead served as a token of friendship between Solaris Empire and heavens. Later on this relic from a token of friendship, became a token of betrayal as when it was angels’ time to help, they did nothing and let the demons roam through the lands of Solaris.

During Solaris’s fall, the relic was taken by demon Beelphegor and he kept it since then so the heavens cannot call for mortals’ help once again.]

After reading through the description yet again, Arata materialized the item in his hands. The small golden sculpture of an angel with silver hair and wings was the actual form of the activator. After seeing it for the first time, Arata couldn’t care less how that activator looked like but right now the shape of the activator somewhat bothered him. It wasn’t exactly the shape that bothered him but rather it was the fact that there wasn’t any buttons to click on that sculpture.

“Okay, so where do I need to put it?”

Arata looked around for the right place but strangely enough apart from two giant sculptures and the gate itself, the area on the platform was a flat stone pavement. 

“Hmm, will it work if I simply try to pass through the gate with it?”

Arata started thinking what to do but he didn’t really have a good idea and the one he came up with wasn’t probably going to work. So, rather than trying to do anything strange before the ‘eyes of expectation’ that everyone was now looking at him with, he decided to ask.

-so, does anyone know what should I do with this item?

With this single question everyone nearly everyone looked away avoiding his gaze, despite the ‘eyes of expectations’ that they had just a second ago. There was one person who didn’t though.

-well, from what I read, portals that require special items to activate it are actually quite easy to operate. What I mean is obviously that they are easy to operate if you have that special item with you as otherwise it’s completely impossible to do anything useful with them. At best you can make a portal to completely random location with it. You have the said item though so the only thing that you need to do is to awake it with the touch of mana.

Shin explained what he knew about the subject. As someone who studied magic as a form of knowledge and not power, he knew a lot of things that any other magician wouldn’t have any idea about. In EOA, the magician class was rare enough and on average only one of ten people got a class that can use mana spells. From those who did, only about half is magic strictly oriented but that also involves classes like healers. In the end though even if you add healers to magician group, only one from every twenty people has strictly magic oriented class. But then again the number of people, who are actually studding magic rather than simply using it, is really, really low. After all, in the end, EOA is a game in its core and who would think about spending their time on studding in it when there are monsters to be slain.

On the other hand, Shin was one of those few who actually enjoyed this subject and the magical experiments were something that he spent the most time on while playing EOA and he never regretted a single minute that he spent on it.

“’Touch of mana’?... well I guess I would be able to think up the way to do it if I tried but I am not sure how long would it take so…”

-it seems like you know what you are talking about so I will leave it to you.

Arata walked towards Shin and passed him the statue. Shin caught it in two hands and started examining it. He quickly gave up on doing so as there wasn’t that much to look at as the gate activator did look like a simple sculpture. In the end Shin did what he said was needed, namely he ‘touched the sculpture with mana’. From visual standpoint, for a second, Shin’s hands lighted up in the blue light and two seconds after that the statue started flying and it flied away from Shin’s hands.

-well, I think that’s about it. We don’t need to do anything else…

Shin commented and his eyes followed after the levitating sculpture.

The sculpture flied all the way towards the gate, and it stopped right in the middle of it. There it started to shine with a golden light.

“Hmm, I don’t know what that red ground was about but if the gate is opening then I don’t plan on checking it out.”

Arata though that the gate will open any second and ‘second point of the plan’ will be completed. Unfortunately though, the statue did not change the state of the gate at all, and it simply continued to shine in the middle of it without doing anything in particular.  

-so as I already mentioned, before it charges up it will take some time. From where I see it, it will take at least an hour for the gate to materialize and afterwards another hour for the gate to become stable. So because unstable portals are even worse than no portals at all, it will take two hours before we can use this thing to reach to heavens…

Shin ended up commenting but he wasn’t done yet.

-now then, the good news is that despite what you guys told me when you first joined up with us, the gate is working perfectly fine and after those two hours it will definitely work as it should. Naturally I can’t tell for sure that the other end of the portal will be the actual heaven to which you want to go but given all the facts that we know, I would be surprised if it was not.

-aye, one does not build two statues like this to make portal to nowhere.

Bran also commented.

“I see so the biggest problem is solved. Well I never doubted that it won’t work as killing off epic quests with not working gate is not something that even this evil game would do.”

At the back of his mind, Arata always considered the possibility of the gate being a fraud, although that possibility was getting lower and lower the more he found out about the gate itself. In a way he wasn’t really worried about it.

-so, as long as we will stay here for two hours, we can use it right?

Strangely enough, Rin ended up asking for a confirmation.

-that is so, but that is also only as long as we manage to still stand here after two hours…

Shin said those words with a voice that didn’t have any energy as if the whole matter did not matter to him anymore. Arata was not sure if it was because he already reached his ‘winning condition’, but Shin really had a voice that was devour of energy.

-now it’s time for the less pleasant news. Arata, you asked me what was does the situation down the stairs means right, well some of us already know it as we did saw it once. Not on this scale of course as it wasn’t that bad…

After saying those words Shin had a surprised face, and what he got surprised by was actually his own words.

-oh, I never thought I will describe ‘that situation’ as not bad. But anyway, right now you should already be able to see it with your eyes just walk towards the stairs and look down and there you will see…-

-WHERE ARE YOU!? WHERE ARE YOU!? COME OUT AND STOP HIDING PUNY MORTALS!!

Arata was still seeing Shin’s lips moving his lips but his voice was completely overwhelmed by the demonic voice that came from the east. Hearing it everyone stopped for a second, and then they rushed towards the stairs.

In one way they simply wanted to look at what called them out, but also in a way, they obeyed the command that came to them.

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

-… .

After looking at the scene, all eleven remaining members of the expedition couldn’t say anything. During their journey they saw a lot. Starting with an army of spiders and the gigantic spider queen, followed by different monsters in the savage lands of the west, followed by the forest of the lost souls from which there said to be no escape, followed by yet more monsters and the gigantic hybrid of turtle and octopus, and then lastly followed by the army of gigantic golems and flying butterfly that put people to sleep. One could even say without lying that even the black flame burning mountain looked peaceful in comparison to what the party was now seeing on the horizon. After all the burning mountain was simply burning, many miles away in the distance, this time however the ‘Hell’ was right before their eyes and to reach it they would simply need to go down the stairs.

‘Hell’ that was probably the only correct definition of the lands before them as those lands did not look like earth anymore.

The ground everywhere was black and red. Also there were now three rivers of liquid flames, as if volcano erupted somewhere near, which wasn’t completely impossible given the scenery.

At the place of where the red line used to be, right now there stood a wall but it wasn’t simple wall of earth. On that wall there was a black energy gathering everywhere. It was completely static energy that’s function was quite obvious.

It was a portal.

Anyone could tell that on a single glance, as after all, one by one, or rather hundred by hundred, the demons were pouring out from it, although it was not that easy to see them coming out from where party was staying the view was already interrupted by the army of demons that already managed to get out and marched quite forward.

‘Hell’ how do people image a place like this? For most it’s a place of eternal fire filled with demons, the lava flows everywhere. Place where humans are tortured by those demons in many cruel ways that one shouldn’t even try to image.

“The lava is here, the demons are here, and the souls to be tortured are here as well. This place already deserves to be called hell but soon it will turn into true hell of people’s imagination.”

Flame imps, hell hounds, pit fiends, vile monsters, siege beasts, fire infernals, blood worms, soul defilers, lurkers, golgors, hell berserkers, demon troopers and also in the sky flying, anarchs, demon bats, fallen angels, arch demons, gargoyles, phantom beasts, blood fliers. Those were everywhere in the line of sight up to the ‘black portal wall’ where the red line used to be. They were still about three hundred meters away from the stairs but the marching army of demons would soon fill up that space as well, especially when the one who was marching on the front of the whole army was walking with the fast pace.

The one at the front was not be the biggest demon out there but he had a different feeling than all others. Even if the army was so monstrous, it was easy to recognize this one at the front as its commander. His body also looked different than that of others. Sure the demons differed in shapes everywhere but some of them were similar to each other making them into groups. The leading one was different though and he could not be group up with others.  

Even though he might not be the biggest he was naturally still bigger than a human, even after comparing him to a mammoth he would still won. He was about 7 meters large in height and about 5 meters in width. Truth to be told his body was kind of fat and at the bottom he had eight crabs like legs that were supporting his weight. Those legs looked like obsidian steel that would be able to cut through anything. Higher up though as already mentioned the body did not look impressing as it was fat, at least by human standards. Still it didn’t seem like this demon had any health problems, especially when his arms were incredibly muscular and given his large size, no human could rival them. Actually for human a fat body and muscular arms like that was probably impossible combination. Then lastly there was the demonic head that was completely inhuman like. The creature had four eyes and three black spikes at the top of its head. The whole demon body was black-brown in color, his skin as well although there were few places in which it seemed as through his veins rather than blood, it was the lava that flowed. His mouth and eyes especially revealed that the inside of him was made of fire.

And then lastly, that demon was walking with gigantic giant-greatsword which he was holding in one hand while letting its blade fall on his shoulder. As for the sword, well from afar it did look like sword, black in color with red lava markings runes on it. Still if someone were to get closer to that sword though, it couldn’t be called anything else than a long bar of steel that no human could ever wield it.

At some point the leading demon called out yet again.

-COME OUT AND STOP HIDING PUNY MORTALS, OR IS IT THAT YOU ALL HAVE LOST YOUR OLD HONOR THAT YOUR’S ANCESTORS ONCE SHOWED TO ME!!!

After demon called out, it was clear that the last shout was also made by him, although the demon wasn’t even trying to shout as his mouth was barely moving and yet, this was enough for his demonic voice to echo everywhere.

“Well then, it’s time to hide somewhere for two hours, the question is where.”

There probably wasn’t a single person on the platform who thought about something else than hiding or running.

-oya… and here I wanted to help but after seeing this I think that even running away from this situation will not be easy. Is this the reason why they told me not do quest of ranks three? Was it simply because I wouldn’t be able to do them alone anyway?

While everyone were still regaining their composure, Haru ended up commenting, although that was probably her talking to herself, but second later it turned out that it was not.

-Haru! This is enough, isn’t it? You saw the quest of rank three already so it’s time to run! 

Despite the fact that Torachii was nowhere in sight, his voice came out from Haru’s direction. It seemed that despite the fact that he was now in the medallion he could still voice his thoughts.

-easy, easy, I was joking. When it comes to running there is nothing that can stop me at this point. I mean I managed to run away from ‘him’ right? If the strongest being in the whole EOA world couldn’t catch me then it means that I can run away from anything, so let’s see how the situation will develop and for a little longer.

Out from everyone on the platform, only Haru could even think of surviving what was about to happen because everyone else already searched for hiding places and escape routes and couldn’t find them.

-OH, THERE YOU ARE! I CAN ALREADY SEE THE BRAVEER ONES!...

In the meantime it seemed like the demon managed to notice the twelve people at the top of the stairs to the heaven’s gate. His eyes were now focused on the party as he was getting closer and closer to the gate, naturally with the whole demon army behind him.

The demon army was surprisingly accurate and they were walking in battalions in a solid formation. Those weren’t some scavengers that were grouped together but rather a well-trained and disciplined demon army, but the fact that they were in formation moving like that was even scarier. Also not a single demon, be it on the land or in the sky dared to get ahead the ‘leading one’.

-COME DOWN, SO I CAN SEE YOU ALL, YOU ARE NOT THE COWARDS THAT WOULD HIDE ARE YOU!

It seemed that despite its demonic appearance the demon was complete reasonable being that was able to speak without many problems. He also did not mindlessly attack them right away which an usual monster in games would do. Still, the fact that he did not attack and was reasonable being made him even scarier. After all between the mindless demon and intelligent demon the later one was definitely more deadly.

-Shin, what do we do?

Vatras ended up asking although his voice signaled that he already made peace with his fate and naturally in a game, the death was something that happened to everyone every time, the more you play the more times you experience it and in the current circumstances no one could be ashamed if they died.

-hmm… let’s start with ignoring the fact that the chances of us living do not exist or at least I do not see them yet…

Shin started very encouraging.

-naturally it’s impossible for us to defeat this army and because running away would also involve getting through at least portion of that army, it’s impossible for us to run away as well. Well at least for most for us…

He finished last sentence while looking at Haru.

-in that case the only route in which I can see a ‘hope of hope for surviving’ exist is the route in which we try to survive for those two hours until the heaven’s gate opens and then by using it we hop into the heavens and hope that there is enough space to run away to as those demons will chase us afterwards anyway. Still that way we will theoretically enter the heavens so our new winning condition will be met. So I propose that we will try to go in that direction… is anyone against it?...

Despite the fact that it was Shin speaking his usual tactic that as always followed the reason to the last note, unlike usual, his voice was devoured of energy as if the words that he was saying were made in vain. Nevertheless there wasn’t anyone against it so Shin continued.

-now then, naturally the problem is how we will survive those 2 hours. Truth to be told we won’t survive those as I said, right now there isn’t any hope for us to win, the river of our lose doesn’t even have a small rivulets to which we could try to escape to, at least I don’t see it, that’s why all the decisions that we will have to make at least for now are completely blindly. First decision, do we go down or stay here. Staying here gives us advantage in theoretical hopeless defense as the demons will be able to advance only by stairs, which are still 8 meters wide on and there are also flying demons as well so it doesn’t change much but theoretically it’s definitely better place to make our last stand.

-then we are staying here, right?

Julia asked.

-if we stay here then we will die, unless the heaven’s gate activate itself in spawn of two to five minutes as this is the best we can hope for before the demon lord losses his patience. So if you guys want to bet on possibility that I was wrong with my predicament and the heaven’s gate activates faster, then we might chose this option.

-betting on you being wrong is like asking for a certain loss.

Kei voiced most of people’s thoughts.

-is that so? I would say that there are about 20% chances for that happening, I mean I never saw heaven’s gate activators like that and my examination didn’t last even a minute so I think I could be easily wrong.

-aye, you can think what you want but we think you weren’t.

Bran commented.

-in that case we will walk down the stairs as the demon lord asked us to.

-wait, I am against it. Even if it may seem hopeless, if we will fight anyway we should do it here.

Out of sudden Rin entered the interrupted Shin’s instructions.

-is that what you think? Well it will probably end the same way whatever we choose but there are actually few merits that will come to us if we go down and fighting is impossible anyway so…-

-don’t say it’s impossible. Sure I don’t think that defeating this army is possible but if it’s holding my ground on this platform for two hours, then it might be.

-is that what you think? Well, I for one know that you are strong Rin but the brutal truth here is that even you are not able to slay even a single demon in this entire army.

Shin stated the fact that made chill go over everyone’s spine.

-are you serious ‘white glasses’?

-well don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that every single demon here is stronger than you. On average if we don’t count flame imps who are cannon fodder, the average strength of single demon will be equal to average strength of a single member of our party. Naturally that means that you who is several times stronger than our average, is also stronger than the average demon out there. Still in the end you won’t be able to kill even single of them because of the special demon trait.

-what kind of trait?

-well it’s quite simple. Unless you kill them with a method that works on them they will regenerate to their original form endlessly. They have immortal bodies that are vulnerable only to either angelic or demonic power, unless you attack with those it will be no use…

“Is that why there was only one guild that was said that can fight against demons.”

Arata recalled what he once heard.

-and you don’t have any attack like that do you?

-… .

When Shin asked her Rin didn’t say anything else back anymore.

-naturally there exist exceptions to that rule as there always are. The one I know is that Larisane current elder Hikari’s powers also worked on demons but except that I don’t know of anything else.

Shin started explaining but then someone interrupted him once again.

-there are many more exception that I know…

Despite the fact that Haru was looking down on the army as if the whole thing was completely not connected to her, she started giving an advice, and unlike others, her voice was fresh and completely normal.

-I don’t know about any elders but the usual tactic to fight against demon army is to take down its general. The regenerative powers of demons come from their commander and ignoring the fact that he is generally powerful. The demons are always following demon lord’s orders precisely because he has their lives in his hands. If demon lord decides to kill his subordinates he can do so with a single thought.

-I see, still even then demon lord is also demon with that regenerative power so it doesn’t help us in the least.

Shin answered back to her.

-not exactly. Sure demon lord can also regenerate but the power of his regeneration comes from his core, and that core is physical object that is somewhere inside his body.

-and if it’s physical, it can be destroyed.

Arata commented and for the first time he saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

-yes, if you destroy it then the demon lord will die. Unfortunately though even if by some miracle you manage to defeat the demon lord it doesn’t mean that the demons around him will die out. At that moment they will become completely free beings. Sure they will lose their regenerative powers but there will still be the whole army of thousands to fight.

-so in that case there is no reason to try to defeat him and we should stick to defending. After all whatever they have regenerative power doesn’t matter as any that we slay one he will be replaced by yet another one.

Arata commented but then.

-I don’t want to discourage you but we don’t have much time for discussion left so let’s not waste it on theory. In practice the moment the fight starts is the moment we die, it’s simple as that…

Shin started to state the cruel truth before some forgets themselves.

-no matter what we do, if those demons charge at us we will be dent into the earth. As I said, each individual demon is as strong as any of us and even if let’s say even ignoring their regenerative powers, each of us would be able take on a hundred then there will still another few thousands of them left. And then lastly there is also a demon lord. To completely convince you I will ask our temporary guess. Your name was Haru yes?

-yes it is. Ah, I am happy that someone managed to remember my name without even talking with me.

Shin asked her in serious tone but Haru was still completely unconcerned by the situation and behaved normally, if her usual behavior could be called normal that is.

-tell me, can the ‘lost miracle’ take on that demon lord?

-by lost miracle you mean me, right? Why did you call me that?

-well isn’t that how the people call you now? One of four original members of legendary miracle team and yet the first one to leave the group while disappearing completely from everyone’s sight for years never to be seen again. I think this is the story from what that nickname came from? You are not familiar with it?

-well the story is correct but it’s the first time I am hearing it, still I am surprised that there is still someone who remembers me here despite the fact that I never meet them.

-really, I thought it was kind of obvious, right everyone?

Shin ended up asking but the look of nearly everyone’s face said that they had no idea. Well there was also Rin who didn’t seem to care, and as for Arata.

“Definitely obvious, I knew it the moment I saw her, well after few minutes of talk that is. She was really obvious. Well I guess others might have not realize as they didn’t talk with her, although it seems like Shin recognized her by look alone. Does, people normally recognize those guys on sight?”

-hey Arata, did you realize it?

Before Arata had a chance to ask, Levi ended up asking him with whisper.

-well it was kind of obvious right.

-yea, yea.

The way Levi answered was kind of misleading.

-what you didn’t? Even someone as ignorant as me could figure it out, weren’t you listening to our conversation?

-yea, at that time I was busy with planning my next moves on how to hit on her.

-so what did you think she is so far?

-hmm, hot babe with white tiger guardian?

-… .

-hahaha, I was just joking well not with the last sentence but I simply wanted to check you out. I was actually counting that you with your ignorance of the world wouldn’t even hear of them. Myself naturally I understood it as naturally I do know the legends about miracle team. The fact that most of them is completely unbelievable is a second matter but I do know them so naturally if we meet some player who was doing race to 299 level with her friends it can be only them. I mean in general currently there aren’t more than 30 people or so who have 299 level right?

-good, you got me worried there.

Arata for a moment was worried about Levi’s ‘importance judgment’ but it seemed like he was simply playing around. Still apart from him there were some people that did not realize who Haru was in the party. After all normally one wouldn’t simply assume that a random traveler they met was one from a legendary party, although the fact that it was random traveler right inside the west could point towards it.

-I see so that’s how it is. Personally I thought that no one would remember me at this point. But anyway, if you ask if I can defeat the demon lord then my answer is yes.

After few seconds of silence Haru ended up answering although her answer was not something that Shin expected.

-are you serious?

-well, at the current moment because of what happened to me yesterday if you simply count pure power level then I might lose in that but I would still win nevertheless. It wouldn’t be an easy fight, especially with this many demons surrounding him but I believe in myself. However I am not planning to do that. I did say that I want to help but me killing demon lord does not help your position in any way and unfortunately I don’t think that even with my full powers I could later on take on the remaining army, what’s more if I overdid it with demon lord I could have problems to run away afterwards and currently I have a good reason to not want to die. Unless I find a meaning in it I won’t do anything here.

-honestly I am shocked that you can really claim to be able to do that like it’s not a big deal but I will not argue with you.

-as I said, it wouldn’t be easy but if it came to that I can win.

-whatever it is we won’t be asking anything like that out of you. Anyway guys, let’s start climbing down the stairs as we can’t keep that guy waiting…

Shin pointed towards demon lord who with his army was now a small distance away from the stairs and if the party didn’t start go down those stairs before he reaches them, it could end up with dead end right away. While they were already walking down though he once again started.

-if it seems strange to anyone that we are following what he says then let me tell you that given our objective of staying alive for two hours, following demon lord’s wishes is the best way to try it. Namely we can buy a lot of time if we go down talk with him as surprisingly, demon lord’s like to talk a lot. If we are luckily, he might even end up talking for those two hours nonstop.

-really?

Arata asked as he didn’t believe it.

-well, we probably won’t be able to talk for 2 hours but we are sure to get at least ten minutes. That combined with the time that already passed would be the whole twenty minutes of time. It’s quite plenty isn’t it? Anyway whatever you guys do, remember to not try to start the fight on our own, if that happens we are bound to die.

“Our quest of rank three was always impossible to begin so dying on it isn’t strange at all. Rather we should be surprised if we live on later on. Anyway I still don’t believe that each individual demon is as strong as we are, although…”

As Arata was walking down the stairs, he thought like that, still the only reason that he did not believe in demons strength was the fact that there were simply so many of them. Normally in games if there are so many enemies, the player is able to kill one after another with a single attack or with some ultimate spell completely destroy at least half of the army. Still, that was what was happening in normal games. EOA was not normal by any means and also, right now Arata was trying to complete the world first with the party of eleven people and Haru, although Haru wasn’t going to do much as he assumed. Even if she did it would still be 12 people doing world first in a game where to battles you can bring as many people as you can. From what Arata read there were two known quests of rank 4 completed by two strongest guilds and those two quests unlocked two new races. At the current moment Arata believed that there were probably more of quests like that completed and those two were known only because it was impossible to hide information about it. Anyone could find out that new races appeared after all. Still no matter how many quests of rank 4 were completed, the said two as the tale went, involved hundreds if not thousands of players trying to complete a single quest and of a lower rank then the current at that. On the other hand Arata was trying to do a higher ranked quest with less people.

The fact that there were no thousands of players present, didn’t mean in the least that the fight for the thousands of players will not happen and from the look of it, even a thousand might not be enough as the demons kept on coming out from the black portal and each individual, looked like boss-class monster of some dungeon at the very least. There was no way that monsters that looked like that could be a simply cannon fodder.

-so, you decided to stop hiding, just as I expected…

While the party was still walking down the stairs the demon lord said those words to them. His voice stopped being ridiculous loud although it still had its demonic vibe in it. It was still strange for a demon lord to talk with normal humans but the answer to that question arrived quite quickly.

-do not be afraid to speak at least before we start the war. Even though in the long past my opinion was different, right now I respect your kind and I also learned to not underestimate it. Despite your petty appearance your kind always had great power in yourself, and I saw many prove of it during my my lifetimes. Your kind was always strong, there are even cases of individuals that power suppresses heavily even that of mine, one thousand years ago I actually fought fair and square against one of you, he was just a kid and yet he defeated and actually killed me easily without any effort, it then took me the whole three hundred years to revive after that loss. Even since then you have my respect and even though some of you are complete weaklings, the strong ones appear in your bread. In our last heaven’s invasion, it was precisely because of you that we failed, and then when we came to execute our revenge, you fought bravely for many years before finally submitting to our power. And lastly your final trait, despite being simple mortals, no matter how many times we destroy your cities and burn down your villages you will still rise again from ashes. So you have my respect and right to speak before me, also I know you are no weaklings, after all to reach this place with the ancient relic, you had to defeat Beelphegor, who despite not being the brightest, and strongest of us he was still a demon lord just like me…

“We better not mention the fact that we actually bought that item for gold.”

While listening to the demon lord, a thought like that appeared in Arata’s mind.

-now then, before we start the war, the greeting between generals is considered the right manner in for your kind, isn’t it? Allow me to start, MY NAME IS AZMODAN, THE DEMON LORD OF WAR. The one who loves battle, the one who loves death, the one who has respect for his enemies but also the one who is easily bored.

The last information was slightly different from others but in the Demon lord stated his name.

“Oh my! It’s good old Azmi!”

After hearing that name, a thought like that appeared in Arata’s mind. Truth to be told the name Azmodan for a demon appeared in about every second game that had anything to do with demons. Still that was simply because in the mythologies and many religions there always appeared a demon with that name whose purpose differed from legend to legend but the name Azmodan was something that appeared many times. It appeared so many times to the point that Arata every time hearing this name in a new game would give the demon with that name nickname Azmi. Arata was not sure from where that nickname actually came from but at least in his guild in LITC which also had the demon end boss called Azmodan in some raid, everyone in the guild were calling him Azmi so it wasn’t only Arata’s nickname alone, although he was the origin of that name in his guild to begin with.

Unfortunately giving the demon lord a cute nickname like Azmi did not make him any less treating.

“Hmm, I meet Azmi in this game and this game allows players to talk with NPC the way they want, has the chance to call Azmi, Azmi finally come?”

Despite a huge temptation of fulfilling one of everlasting dreams, Arata decided to not do anything stupid because Azmi might not like his nickname.

After Azmodan stated his name, he waited for response from ‘mortal’s ‘army’s general’. Naturally there was no one like that here and also less twelve people could not be called an army but in the end after few moments of silence, Shin as a raid leader answered to him.

-my name is Shin, the magician of the city of Karma and the temporary leader of this unit.

Even in a face of a demon lord, Shin would still not say that he is leader of the party. That actually took some talent and a lot of unwillingness towards that name.

-Karma? Karma? Hmm, where did I hear the name of this city? Ah yes, it’s the first mortal city I will be destroying while we will be making the invasion to the east from here. Hmm, when was the date of that invasion planned though? Ah, I don’t remember…

After hearing the name of the city, Demon Lord ‘Azmi’ ended up revealing some critical information, at least critical for the residents of Karma.

“Hopefully, I won’t be there when it happens.”

Arata didn’t have much attachment to that city so he wouldn’t cry if it gets destroyed. On the other hand there were actually many people in this party that had that attachment with Rin being the first one on the list. Still, getting worked up about the news right now, wouldn’t do any good and everyone still remembered what Shin told them, namely to not start the battle on their own.

-so tell me, is there really only twelve of you here?

Azmi asked.

-… . yes there are.

After moment of thought, Shin answered truly. One could argue about that choice of lying. Saying that Shin has eight thousand followers hiding in the mountains ready to fight at any moment could work but that would work only for at best a minute and when Demon Lord Azmi would found out about the lie he would probably stop the chitchat and execute everyone on the spot. Shin probably calculated that rather than lying and be killed the moment the lie is found out, it is more beneficial to prolong the talk with truth for as long as possible because that gave the highest number of minutes and gathering as many minutes as possible to the pull of two hours was the only way for the party to have any hope of survival.

-I see, only twelve people and their leader say he is only temporary, I see, I see… You don’t have to say anything else just nod to confirm what I think. So, despite the fact that you had the power to bring down Beelphegor your armies suffered too much in that fight as Beelphegor despite his many flaws is demon lord nevertheless. So because so many of you died there, you twelve are the last survivors of your tribe who to honor your fallen, decided to use the ancient relic to make connection with heavens once again.

Demon Lord Azmi started creating some unbelievable stories that came out from nowhere and had no basis but after hearing it, Shin ended up nodding as if saying that was true.

-… .

-hmm… that’s no good, that’s no good. Do you know why we came here on this very day on this very hour? It is because we were already expecting you mortals to come here and activate the gate ever since Beelphegor was defeated. We set the sensor that would inform us the moment some mortals try to climb the stairs. So when it happened we came here to invade the heavens with the very gate that our enemies made, in the most unexpected way. Angels do know of Beelphegor demise and the fact that he lost the relic. Because of that they also know that we don’t have it so we won’t be able to attack from the gate, and this knowledge is something that we exactly planned on using. Before attacking the heavens though, I was planning to entertain myself with the mortals who managed to defeat Beelphegor and because of that I came excited hungry for battle…

Azmi explained his reasons but then he started unexcited.

-but there are only twelve of you and thousands of us, how do you expect to satisfy my army bloodlust. Ah… if I knew it would happen we would have come two hours later when the gate is open, now we have to wait, and didn’t you hear how I introduced myself. I am the one who is easily bored and waiting is one of the things that I hate the most in the world. Ahhhh! I don’t even have anyone to take my anger on! The twelve of you is not enough! Not to mention that I would have become laugh stock for attacking twelve mortals with army of thousands demons…

“So… does that mean that we don’t have to fight them?”

After hearing ‘Azmi’ sulking, a hope like that appeared in some mind, unfortunately though that hope was easily broke as this world was not a gentle world that would allow something like that but rather an evil world that had no mercy on its players. This time however it wasn’t going to be that bad though.

-two hours, two hours, what can I do for two hours…

Azmi continued his lament although currently at least 20 minutes has passed ever since the gate was activated. Surprisingly though Azmi also knew that it will take two hours to activate this gate which highly increased the possibility of that being true.

-ah… it can’t be helped, when it comes to war, I love even waiting for it. In that case I should be a good leader from time to time and let the new blood have their first mortal kills. Then again, there is only twelve of them, if it turns into hunting, no one will want to take part in it as it would be a dishonor… Oh I know! You are mortals so let’s do it in your mortal like style…

While talking, Azmi was touching his chin with his gigantic left hand which signaled that he was thinking hard, although him doing so, did looked grotesque. In the end though, it seemed like he found an idea.

-SHIN OF KARMA! I hope you do realize that you and your comrades’ life depend on my whim.

-naturally I am aware of that. I would be a fool to think otherwise.

Shin answered.

-good, I still asked because some of mortal breed sometimes have really crazy ideas sometime, but then again you are a magician so you have your head on the right place. Then listen… right now I don’t care about mortals especially if they are not able to put up the fight. If there were more of you then I would destroy you all without a moment of hesitation because you would get in the way later on when the true war beings, but with your numbers, you can’t even do that. So I don’t care about you. The thing is though that the gate activation sequence takes some time and I am the one who hates boredom and to counter that I came up with good idea. For those 2 hours we will hold small fights between us, naturally we will limit ourselves with numbers to make it more honorable. This will serve as learning for my new demon troops to understand the powers of mortals as they do not estimate you in high regard like me.

-I see if we can help it anyway we will gladly do so no matter what kind of rules those fight have.

-hahahaha, I like you, you are fast on uptake. Yes, it’s not like you have any choice, apart from dying immediately right away, although I did meet mortals who would chose to do so right away.

-we prefer to hold on our lives but if I understood correctly then if we manage to survive 2 hours will you let us go?

-DEPENDS. If you manage to entertain me for those two hours then you might try to run away, if you can that is, because at that moment the war will begin. In war nothing is certain and that what makes it beautiful. Still after those two hours I don’t care what will happen with you. But I am already bored so LET’S BEGIN IMMEDIATELLY!...

The talk with Demon Lord Azmi turned out to be quite advantageous as during it the party avoided the worst case dead end scenario in which the whole demon army attacks them, still the unknown rules on which Shin had to agree on did not give that better of a situation either.

After Azmi made a loud roar, some of the demons from the army came before him and stand in the line like well-organized army pluton. There were also two demons that came down to this line from the sky. All demons saluted towards Azmi with their hand and then they spited in two groups to the left and right. There were both ten demons on the left and right side of Azmi standing in the line.

Lastly there was one demon that started walking towards the party and he stopped in the area between the party and the demon army. It was the first time that anything passed through the imaginary boundary line.

As for the demon, he was completely red in color and didn’t have head or a neck. Instead his eyes, month and ears were placed on his torso. In a way that demon wasn’t that big as others but he was still about three meters large in height and two in width. Apart from not having head and being red, he had humanoid posture with two hands and legs that ended with hooves.

-the rules are simple, two fighters come in one goes out and I chose the fighters. For starter, I already felt the disgusting presence of this race for long enough so order that elf over there to start fighting immediately!

Azmi was not wasting his time and started the fights right away. While choosing the first person to fight though, he did not even give it a second of thought but immediately pointed with his free hand towards large green haired elf Vatras.

“Does he not like elves for some reason? It’s good that we don’t have many of those as it seems if that were not the case he would killed us asap. Anyway if this is how the situation develops, it’s not that bad. As long as I am not chosen it’s fine to just look, then if I get chosen then I will steal as much time as possible without killing my opponent and then the moment gate appears, it’s time for the run. Meaning, lighting speed and go.”

While the situation was occurring, Arata came up with a suitable plan that gave him the biggest chances not only on survival but on completing the quest. Naturally it was only about his own survival but in the current situation he couldn’t be bothered with others because even if he wanted to, there was nothing he could do. Even with his decision to help out Rin first, if his interference did not change the outcome anyway, Arata was not stupid enough to try. In the current situation everyone had to lookout for themselves.

-Tras, see you in Karma.

While Azmi was looking, most of the people did not say anything because as Shin mentioned that saying anything that they do might cause him to change his mind. Still, after Vatras started to go to the place where the fight was going to be held, Shin said those words towards him. Hearing it, Vatras only smiled and continued forward.

“Hmm, I guess if those demons are immortal anyway, actually no one of us can win. Unless we have angelic or demonic powers but I doubt that anyone here has something like that. Even if my Twilight swordsman class which is kind of evil and has the powers of darkness, those are probably not demonic powers so it won’t work. So whoever goes out there is doomed to lose, and this guy is even in more uncomfortable position. From what I know, druid-like classes have a lot of restrictions on their spells if there are no trees around.”

During the journey Vatras was showing of his skills and from what Arata understood, unless there were trees around Vatras had a lot of spells that he couldn’t simply use. At the current moment, the red ground underneath everyone’s feet didn’t even have the grass as it already burned down. The same went for trees that were in the area before demonic invasion. All of those turned into ashes and were now scattering in the wind making the place look even more demonic.

“Anyway it’s already been 20 minutes since activation of the gate, let’s see how much time we can get from this.”

-LET THE FIGHT BEGIN!

The moment Vatras moved away from the rest of the party and was in a distance of 5 meters from them, Azmi shouted, despite the fact that Vatras clearly wasn’t ready yet. Still that only showed that he was an impenitent person who didn’t like to wait, or maybe it simply showed that he really hated the elves.

-wraaaaar!

On the command Vatras’s opponent started rushing forward. Despite the fact that he was standing on two legs just a second ago, in his run he was also using his log-like arms so his style of running was similar to that of gorilla.

The rushing demon looked overwhelming in every point and it was rather clear that the moment he reaches Vatras it will be the end of the fight. Still, because the fight started earlier than expected the distance between two fighters was greater than it should be normally, although no one could really tell what distance was actually right when it came to duels with demons.

The whole distance between the party and the demon army was about 80 meters so it was quite a lot. For some reason the demons weren’t coming any closer than that, although it was rather that for some reason Azmi was not coming closer than that and other demons simply did not dare to get ahead of him. Still by this act Azmi was probably making a lot of space for the fights to come.

The rushing demon had to run through 60 meters to reach Vatras and naturally Vatras was not going to let this advantage pass by him. It seemed like the demon was some kind of pure brute force type of the fighter so someone who could attack from the distance would naturally get the advantage in the first seconds of the fight.

Despite the fact that Vatras’s skills were mostly connected with the use of trees or in the very least grass, he had one spell that he could shoot out. It wasn’t anything overlay powerful, as it was only slightly stronger than most basic ‘magic bolt’ but even that was better than nothing. In a way, the spell that Vatras started casting was in a way, druid type of basic magic bolt, and the only difference was that it was green in color.

While having his wooden staff on the back, Vatras started casting with his hands the spells. Green light appeared at his hands and second later it flew towards the rushing demon. Also Vatras was not wasting any time and he was shooting one ‘green nature strike’ after another.

The rushing gorilla demon was running in the straight line and even upon seeing the green magic bolts flying in his direction he continued to do so. That naturally that led to him getting hit by one bolt after another and his body was simply taking hits but those hits didn’t even slow him down much less damage him.

The situation didn’t look too well for Vatras and the demon was getting closer and closer, still seeing the effect of his actions, Vatras decided to change his attack method and stopped ‘spamming’ his green bolts. Instead he started gathering energy in a single green nature strike by not shooting it right away but keeping it in his hands. What he was doing was one of the simplest methods of skill manipulation which was to gather more many in one skill to give that skill more firepower.

Truth to be told that method was not very effective as apart from extra power there were no others extra effect involved but against opponent with tough defence it was definitely better to attack with something that can have an effect. Also the biggest weakness of this method which was the fact that it took more time to cast and the fact that opponent could dodge it anyway weren’t Vatras concern right now. He still had few seconds before the enemy reaches him and as for dodging, the demon did not care to do so at all.

When the distance gone down to five meters Vatras shoot out his green bolt that after charging up, changed its color and become slightly darker. The bolt soon reached the charging demon and landed right at the demon’s right arm. When that happened there was a small explosion that finally managed to damage the demon and not only it damaged him but also nearly blow away the arm completely as after the attack it was barely attached to demon’s body.

That explosion made the demon fall to the ground in his run as he was using his hand in that run. After falling the demon started rolling forward to Vatras who immediately moved away from there to the left. Despite the fact that he landed a large blow, Vatras did not relax at all and after making some distance he once again started casting the power up green nature strike and everyone soon learned why.

The demon, who just rolled on the ground stood up like nothing and looked at his right arm which had a damage that revealed its bone, which also become slightly cracked. But then after the second of though, the demon ended up grabbing his right arm with his left hand and pulled it strongly. With that act he actually ended up reaping off his right arm, which despite the damage was probably still in very usable state.

But then again even crazy act like that soon become understandable. After reaping his arm, the demon started to walk towards Vatras this time on his legs and as he was doing so, the arm that he just ripped off started regenerating. The red flesh started to come out from it and after there was enough substance, the flesh became the new arm in the spawn of 6 seconds. It happened so fast that one could think that the arm was never ripped off to begin with. Just to be sure Arata looked towards the place where demon’s previous arm was thrown to.

“It’s still there.”

Unfortunately, the old arm was still there and even blood was flowing out from it. Sure it was a black blood of a demon but blood nevertheless.

In the meantime Vatras managed to charge up yet another green bolt and from a distance of two meters. He shooted it at the demon who was walking towards him. This time the demon did not ignore the attack but rather he punched the green bolt with fist.

Yet another explosion occurred and with it, everyone could see five fingers from demon being blown away, but then after the smoke from the explosion disappeared the hand was completely intact yet again.

After that, it was demon’s turn to attack. His attacks were quite simple. Using his gorilla like body and log-like arms he was making huge blows one after another. His reach was at least two meters while dodging the attacks Vatras couldn’t even dream of attacking back in melee. What he was doing though was mostly backing back. Still the demon was making strikes one after another and he was smashing at the ground and the longer he did that the faster he become.

Vatras had problems with dodging from the very beginning as his normal body wasn’t very agile-like and after a minute of struggling he finally got hit. It was a horizontal ‘gong’ strike from the left which he did end up blocking with his staff but the moment the arm reached him, the staff was split in half giving no resistance at all and he took the full force blow.

Even someone of Vatras posture was blown away in a second but naturally the demon didn’t stop at that and soon once again rushed after him.

“Aaa, this doesn’t look too good.”

After getting hit, even though it probably hurt like hell, Vatras did not give up just yet and decided to use the best tactic that was out there and would give the best result in time gathering, namely running away.

While ‘flying in the air’ from being blown away Vatras was surrounded by green light and soon he changed his form into that of Black Panther. Using that’s form agility, he turned around in the air and without much problem landed on four feet just like all cats do. Then after giving a quick look to his enemy Vatras the Black Panther started to run away.

“Well it probably kind of sucks to simply run away but I guess he wants to buy us as much time as he can. Or rather actually I believe that in that form he is at least twice as fast as the speed that demon showed earlier on so theoretically he could run around for two hours no problem.”

In essence, in this battle of time, running away from enemy was probably the best tactic there was but unfortunately even if at the first glance it looked flawless, there was one huge flaw in it that no one expected.

When Vatras started running away, out of sudden on his way a wall appeared. It was actually a wall that landed right before him and because it appeared so close, in his super speed mode of black panther Vatras had no chance to stop at this point and he ended up crushing with his head right into it.

-HA! ELVES, THEY ARE ALWAYS THE SAME, THE ONLY THING THEY ALWAYS DO IS RUN AWAY IN FEAR. AH, THIS RACE IS ALWAYS SO DISSAPOINTING!...

The demonic loud voice of demon lord Azmodan could be heard right after Vatras crushed right into his sword.

The flaw of ‘running away plan’ was that Azmi was not going to tolerate it and that’s why without thinking for a second, the moment he saw Vatras attempt on running away, he immediately swung his sword and blocked his way. It was just a simple swing but the moment he did that the ground trembled and the lava started to come out from the place of the cut. Still right now it was not important as Vatras who crushed with his head into that sword was not in the best shape and naturally there was no time for him to recover.

His demon gorilla opponent reached him few seconds later and when he did, he began the slaughter. He started attacking with his fists one after another right into Vatras body which turned back from ‘black panther form’ into normal form upon the crash. The blood was scattering around any time the demon hit although it was very probable that even after one or two hits Vatras was no longer alive still despite that the demon did continue to hit and there was no one to stop him.

-HAHAHA, THERE ARE NO BETTER ELVES THAN DEAD ELVES, DON’T YOU AGREE EVERYONE!

=HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

After Azmi commented on the situation his whole army behind him started to laugh with the demonic laugh and because it was the whole army doing so, the sound that they all made was really terrifying.

“And here I thought that they are more of organized army than a savage beast but I guess it’s rather that they are originally savage beasts who were turned into the army. Really can there be anything worse than that.”

In the end Vatras fight didn’t last even five minutes, so it was quite concerning matter as it was still one and half an hour before the gate activates but given the strength of the demons, it was really possible that there wouldn’t be anyone left alive at that point, if any at all.

-GOOD, GOOD. It was fairly entertaining to see the elf getting the beating, you must know that even though I do respect mortal races, the elves were always so disappointment to me and anytime I see them they disappoint me yet again. But I already cleansed your group of that pathetic existence so we won’t see any more of that behaviors…

Azmi said those words towards the party and his words were sending a simple message, ‘the moment someone starts to run away is the moment he dies’. There was also one other message hidden within it as well and that was ‘the moment someone else tries to do that is the moment in which I will lose my patience’.

-so who should be next…

It seemed like Azmi was going to choose another fighters right away. First he looked at his demons in the line and then despite the fact that he didn’t say anything one of the demons stepped forward. This time the demon was a dog, but not any kind of dog but a hell hound. The chosen hell hound had two heads and three tails and in general looked diabolic. In a way though he also looked like a simply big dog but naturally hew was much more deadly than that and he still had 160 meters in height.

-and from your… YOU! DON’T YOU FEEL A LITTLE BIT TOO RELAXED!...

After choosing one of his demons Azmi looked back and the party and second after he did, he saw a behavior that was somewhat, ‘disrespectful’. Well in general it wasn’t the only disrespectful behavior as for example at the current moment, Haru was eating an apple as if nothing was happening, and then there was black bearded dwarf who was waving his hand as if saying, ‘-pick me! Pick me!’ His ever so lasting smile was also on his face all right. But then there was a person who was sitting down with crossed legs and closed eyes.

-OKAY, I DECIDED, IT SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE BORED AND BECAUSE I AM THE ENEMY OF BORDEOM, YOU ARE NEXT, COME HERE MAGICIAN!

The person who was sitting down and meditating was Hiro, and his meditation was not interrupted even after the loud yell of Azmodan. Still it was obvious that it was he who he was calling.

-aaa, brother he is calling for you!

After the call though, Mika ended up running towards Hiro and she started shaking his shoulder.

-so the bastard won’t even let me prepare, oh well I won’t need anything more than this one…

Hiro commented and stood up from the ground.

-guys, see you in Karma, don’t stay in the heavens for too long and remember to take pictures.

It seemed like despite his bad humor earlier on, Hiro calmed down enough to start joking around before ‘going for the death’.

-aaa, brother don’t die!

When Hiro started going forward, his sister called out to him.

-don’t trouble others while I am not here and listen in everything Shin. Also, don’t do anything suicidal, don’t heal up the enemies, don’t jump in front of some attacks, and don’t overdo it with healing to the point where you pass out. Also don’t panic and…

For about another minute, Hiro was listing one after other things that Mika shouldn’t do. The list was extremely detailed.

-there are also the other usual things as well but you should remember them by now, now then here I go before they got tired of waiting.

Hiro was probably already testing Azmi’s patience so making him wait any longer could spell disaster. That’s why right after calming his sister down and also sending her an unusual smile that he would show only to her, Hiro walked way to face his enemy.

-LET THE FIGHT BEGINS!

Azmi yet again started the fight as fast as possible although yet again it was advantageous for the party’s side. This time however Hiro wasn’t going to have that much time though as the speed with which the hell hound started to run was about four times faster than the previous gorilla demon.

Hiro started the firing out his water spinning balls right away and despite the fact that he wasn’t channeling them at all they were still probably stronger than Vatras’s charged green nature strike. In a way he was actually channeling them but his casting speed was just the same as in normal spells.

The power was show right away as the moment the attack reached the rushing demon and one of the heads got hit, half of that head was completely destroyed. Despite that though, the hell hound was rushing forward without stopping, ignoring all the attacks. Its heads and front legs got destroyed few times during the run and because of that the hellhound fall down to the ground but then again, seconds later those broken parts would regrow. At some point though, it turned into Hiro firing at the lying on the ground hell hound who was keep on regenerating. In short one sided massacre.

-wow, is it just me or their regeneration is even faster than the last time?

While looking at the fight, Arata heard Flynn’s comment coming somewhere from the left.

-the closer they are to their general the faster their regeneration is. Also if there is only one demon that is using regeneration power, then all of that power is focused only on him. Really, those ‘one on one fights’ can’t be called more wrongly than that.

Shin answered.

“So the current demon’s regeneration was even greater than usual. So simply put it, if there were more demons regenerating at the time it would work slower. I still don’t see how it would help though. Even if it was slower they would still be able to regenerate from vaporized state.”

Arata though, while seeing that the hell hound that just disappeared after one bigger attack, reappeared yet again.

After firing one ‘water spinning ball’ after another for about five minutes, Hiro naturally started to slow down. It was maybe rather that the speed that he was casting earlier on was insane especially given the fact that there was skill manipulation involved. And then as he started to slow down, one of his attacks did not reach the target and fall to the ground before reaching the target. And in that brief moment of time, the hell hound escaped. It was not that he managed to run away normally but he used some kind of spell that moved his body on its own five meters away from firing range. Before Hiro managed to change the direction of his attacks the hell hound managed to regenerate enough body to start running again and this time he was no longer going straight forward.

He started circling around in a distance of about four meters away from Hiro and given his speed, actually hitting him with that spell was next to impossible right now. After five complete misses Hiro also reached that conclusion and gave up on attacking for the time being.

“Oh, it seems that even though they are immortal they still don’t want to get killed over and over again. And if those guys start to fight in more intelligent way they may be impossible to stop. Not to mention that hound just used a ‘skill’ a second ago.”

Hiro was waiting in the middle of the circle with his hands ready while the hell hound was circling around him, naturally that stalemate did not last long and finally the hound made swift turn but naturally Hiro was prepared for that moment.

-spell seven, water laser.

Hiro pushed both of his hands in hell hounds direction and the high pressure stream of water shoot out second later. In the time of that delay though, the hell hound also got ready, and despite the fact that he was only three meters away from where the spell was casted, hell hound in that one second managed to cast his own spell or maybe it wasn’t even a spell. The two demonic heads of hellhound breathed fire right into the water stream.

Right after the clash of spells, in the reaction of water falling right into the fire, a large amount of white steam appeared that immediately made a large cloud of mist. As one would expect though, few seconds after that at the end of the mist, the water stream came out in a solid line, which meant that the fire spell of the hound was broken, or fire breath of the hell hound simply ended as the hell hound already achieved his goal with it.

In the middle of the white mist, a grey shadow moved and that shadow seemed like a dog.

The hell hound managed to move away from the firing range of water laser and now he was once again attacking at Hiro who was still casting his spell thinking that he just blow away the hound on kilometer.

Unfortunately that was not the case and in the moment the shadow of the dog attacked the hands of the shadow of a man.

Hiro couldn’t move his hands at that moment because after activating the water laser he couldn’t change the direction of attack which would happen if he were to move his hands, still because he saw the hound’s head jumping at him he immediately realized that he had to do something. What he did was slightly reckless but at the same time it worked perfectly. Hiro simply jumped upward a little and the force of his spell pushed him backward and that not only allowed him to dodge the strike but also the spell managed to hit the hound who got in the attacking range. It was only for three seconds before Hiro fell to the ground from the force but in those three seconds the hound did get blown away and fly away and disappeared.

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For two seconds, Hiro’s water laser was being shot up to the sky and afterwards it ended.

“Hmm, he bought some more time with that action.”

A thought like that appeared in Arata’s and some of party’s minds as those fights weren’t even about winning. Unfortunately it couldn’t be any wrong.

Out from the white mist the ‘hell hound’ jumped out and with its head he bitted at Hiro’s still stretched arms and all it took was a second of time for those arms to be separated from Hiro’s body. The hell hound made this attack on a single sprint so when he stopped three meters away from Hiro, he still had two hands in its mouth.

There was a difference in look in this hellhound in comparison to before and that was that the number of heads. The previous one had two of them but this one now had only one. The same went for number of tails being reduced to two from three.

-aaah, it seems like RIP Hiro.

Seeing the armless mage on the ground Bran commented, still that comment couldn’t be any more wrong as in the first place from the very beginning the fight was completely one-sided. One-sided in a way that one side did never have any chances at victory.

“Can he even cast spells like this?”

Naturally being ‘handless’ greatly lowered one fighting potential, although rather than worrying about casting spells right now Hiro had problems even with standing up.

The ‘one headed hell hound’ was not going to give him the time to learn how to stand up without hands though. The hound split away the hands he had in his mouth and once again started attacking. This time he was not rushing but the distance of three meters wasn’t much. He soon reached to where Hiro was struggling and then right away he bite at Hiro’s head, still the only thing that hell hound managed to bite was the flash of Hiro’s spell.

Hiro teleported few meters away.

He appeared in the air still in lying position but while he was in the air, before hitting the ground he managed to cast another spell. It wasn’t a shooting spell as even if Hiro wanted to cast something like that he didn’t have ‘the medium’ to do so anymore. Instead it was a sort of a summoning spell. Hiro’s body was soon surrounded by water and after three seconds he started floating inside the large water elemental. Well large only from human standpoint as demons in the distance were so much larger.

“Ah that spell. Well, hopefully this time it will work better as his last card.”

Arata remember Hiro casting this spell in his fight against Rin but at that time the spell was completely broken in second with a single range attack. It seemed that despite the fact that the water elemental seemed strong given his size in truth it wasn’t that strong of a spell.

The water elemental started shooting the normal water balls at the hound who this time yet again did not bother to dodge and started taking the hits. The water elemental attacks were not only slower but also much weaker but despite that the hell hound was taking them and was not rushing forward anymore. The hound might have simply been waiting for Hiro to bleed out as especially now that he was floating in the water, it was viable how much blood was coming out of him. It was enough blood for water elemental body to slowly turn red. Unfortunately though ‘that was once again not the case’ and soon everyone found out why ‘this’ hell hound didn’t bother to attack anymore.

-brother, behind you!

Mika shouted to her brother who was fighting while trying to ignore the pain, unfortunately thought, her shout was not heard by him, and even if it were, it was already too late.

Out of nowhere, behind the water elemental a second ‘one headed hell hound’ appeared. Its black fur was now surrounded by red energy and because of that his speed was greater than even that of two headed hell-hound.

Hiro didn’t even see the second, and also he couldn’t expect anything attacking him from the back as it was after all ‘one on one fight’. Still the second hell hound kept on rushing forward and then two meters away from the water elemental the red light around him exploded and the hell hound flied like an arrow into water elemental and Hiro.

Without any resistance, Hiro’s body became separated into two parts. And both of those parts soon landed on the ground and the moment it happened signaled the end of the fight.

The two victorious hell hounds walked towards each other and then they yet again combined into one being that they originally were. Naturally in this fight there weren’t anyone interfering and the two hell hounds were nothing else than two heads of one hell hound which were running around separately. It seemed like they possessed ability to do so and using that separation technique in the right time could completely foul the opponent, especially when the separation was made in the very middle of white mist.

In the end though, what tactic did hell hound used did not matter as after all, his opponent couldn’t make any real damage to him. If one can’t damage their opponent they are doomed to lose eventually.

There was still one occurrence that happened at the end of the fight. After combining into one, the two headed hell hound ended up growing yet another head and now he become the three headed hellhound.

-HAHAHA, THAT WAS WORTHWHILE. HE EVEN EVOLVED INTO CERBERUS CLASS!

Azmi ended up laughing out loud after seeing the ‘puny mortal struggling against his fate just to end with nothing’. If there was one thing that Hiro managed to earn though it was the time as his fight lasted about 15 minutes and now it was 50 minutes since the start of gate activation and only 70 remained.

As for Azmi’s comment, it seemed like after winning the battle the hell hound become even stronger and now with three heads he might even start to split into three from now on as if only one wasn’t enough.

-no… .

After seeing the fight and her brother dying Mika ended up falling to her knees out of sudden and it seemed as if she was going to scream a second later. Before that happened thought, Julia ended up running towards her and shut her mouth.

-now, now, we don’t have the time to mourn the dead. Also you can meet him again if you simply log out so don’t go into hysteria without a reason.

Julia tried to calm her down but naturally that didn’t have much effect. In the first place if the words had any effect on her then there wouldn’t be need for shutting down her mouth. Still, that simply showed that people in this party did knew her way too well.

-rule number six, similar to rule number five, any time Hiro dies, Mika goes crazy so countermeasures are advised. You learn it fast Julia…

Bran ended up commenting.

-but when will be my turn! It’s about time for Bran the demon slayer to show you it how it’s done.

He also followed it up with something like this, still no matter how one looked at it, they would think that it was a joke as from those two fights one could easily tell that there was no force to fight against demons. Despite that fact though, once again Bran ended up waving his hand up towards Azmi to show that he wants to fight.

“Well he is a good guy. Sure we will probably all die anyway but because he would go first there are higher chances that we will live till opening of the gate.”

-now, the next battle…

Azmi yet again started choosing the fighters for next battle. From his side this time it was a brown demon who had quite human like appearance. He was brown in color, had two horns and a tail but his build was that of a human. He was also wearing leg armor. Then he was also wielding a weapon, a long red spear.

As the demon reached the front of Azmodan he stuck that spear into the ground and waited for his opponent to be chosen. 

-hmm… who should be next?... You dwarf! I see that you want to fight and I understand you, we all seek battles after all. Your effort to take part in the fight earned my respect for you but that’s given, dwarves were always the best from all mortal races after all. Still you will have to wait one more turn as this time I would like to see somewhat closer combat…

Azmi said to Bran and it seemed that his tries to get the appeal actually worked and he was booked for the fight after this one. Before that though Azmi started to look for a suitable melee fighter but he soon reached the conclusion.

-hmm… ah it doesn’t really matter. You there leader, send one of your melee fighters over here, I don’t care which one, you all look all the same to me. Still send someone who will fight like a men and not run away or shoot some puny spells, I got bored of those already.

When it came to melee fighters there were many to choose from as there were still alive and well the great number of them. Those were, Arata, Levi, Rin, Julia, Kei, Flynn and maybe Haru. Truth to be told, one couldn’t tell her fighting style from just looking. She wasn’t wearing any weapons and her armor or rather clothes didn’t fit any type of fighting equipment either. Thin blue shirt with long wide sleeves, blue scarf, black and blue checkered mini skirt, black tights, and black sneakers. Those clothes really didn’t tell much. The only thing that Arata had to go on currently was the fact that Haru was wearing a heavy plate white-gray leg armor when he first meet her, although no matter how he looked at her, she didn’t seem like someone who would fit well with those, starting with the fact that her body wouldn’t be able to stand the weight. At least in real world as this was the world of EOA in which the look of the person had nothing to do with their strength so in a way it didn’t matter completely how one looked.

-so, is there anyone who…?

Before Shin managed to ask for volunteers Kei ended up stepping forward and without saying anything or asking for permission he decided to take part in the next fight.

Unless it was a fight, Kei usually didn’t have much presence in the conversation and that was simply because he didn’t say much. That was his nature and from Arata learned, he was always like that. On the other hand, when it came to fights, Arata would say that Kei was the best from the whole party in fighting and as the expedition progressed he was getting better and better, although Julia explained it to him as him getting back into the shape after the break. Everyone would get little rusty after not fighting for some time but that rustiness couldn’t last long in the middle of expedition to the west. Arata didn’t have many occasions to fight alongside him and also he nearly didn’t have a single conversation with him, but if there was a chance he did see a lot from him.

Kei was yet another example of person who is wearing the clothes that aren’t meant for combat. Through the whole expedition he was keep on wearing his sleeveless black shirt and blue jeans. Still with the result of surviving without any larger problems up till now, no one could really complain to him. Even now that he was walking towards his enemy, he didn’t seem to care about changing his equipment at all.

He took out his sword that had the chain at the end of it and he started to tie that chain around his right hand.

-LET’S THE BATTLE BEGIN!

Yet again Azmi didn’t wait for far too long before the fighters got ready, although the demon spearman was ready for the fight for a really long time. In comparison to the other two demons before him though this one didn’t start running but he simply picked up his spear and started walking forward. Kei was also walking forward while adjusting his chain and the grip on the handle of the sword.

The battle seemed static at first but that was only up to the time where they were three meters away from each other, in that moment both fighters got in the fighting position.

Kei was holding his sword in both hands stretched forward and the demon spearman was holding his spear low ready to strike at any time.

The difference between the sword and the spear is naturally its range. In general the spearman is always advantageous in fights as it is really easy for them to attack the other while swordsman needs to find a way to get closer. Naturally though coming closer is incredibly hard and a skilled spearman is usually able to stop the attacker from coming at any close range.

The fight began and the fighters were two meters away from each other, Kei had to control the distance not to get to close although at this range a swift move forward could reach him right away. On the other hand for him to get anywhere in range he would need to make at least three steps.

The demon spearman wasn’t going to wait in a stalemate for far too long though and he right away started moving forward and made one attack after another. To that Kei was blocking it to the left and right while at the same time he was moving backward. It seemed like it will take some time before anything plays out, especially when Kei’s main purpose was to buy time. But then after two minutes later the simple fight between spear and sword ended.

The demon activated some skill and his spear lighted up in red light and second later, ‘the illusion of that spear’ flied forward at Kei. Kei immediately activated his own skill and his sword shined in blue light that managed to reflect the illusion of the spear. Second later though another illusion came this time Kei dodged it to the left and afterwards he jumped away a little just to see the occurrence from the distance.

The spearman started sending illusions strike one after another and Kei was dodging them while backing off still he couldn’t let this situations stay for too long like that so he finally decided to go forward. He moved right next to one illusions strike and once again reached the distance of 2 meters there he attacked at still shining red spear that the demon was using. To that though the spear moved and soon counterattacked, with illusion still activated. Still when it was in the closest melee range, the illusion didn’t even have a space to appear. The spearman though still controlled the distance and didn’t allow Kei to step forward at all but then after another exchange, Kei let go of the sword with his left hand in protector and with it he shoot out the fireball right into the spearman.

Demon spearman seeing it immediately moved to the right and dodged the fireball completely still in his move he didn’t have the time to control his spear properly and it was exposed for a second. Kei didn’t lose on this opportunity and cached the spear with his left hand and afterwards he moved forward to slash with his sword. In that moment though the demon spearman let go of his spear and moved backward to avoid it. Kei rushed after him right away and didn’t let him get away. He had advantage of moving forward so he did catch up to the demon in four steps and there with blue lighted attack ‘strike’ he attacked. To that though, the demon spearman blocked it with his right hand, although calling that hand ‘a hand’ was not right anymore. The hand transformed in some sort of fang, black in color and incredibly durable given the fact that Kei’s attack didn’t do anything to it and what was worse, the demon had the second arm transformed into that fang as well.

The demon attacked with the second arm but seeing it Kei simply jumped back a little and avoided it completely as despite the fact that hands turned into fangs their range was still that of a hand. The fight turned around and now it was Kei who had advantage in reach, which he wasn’t going to waste. He started making attacks and the demon was blocking them while moving backward, but naturally Kei wasn’t going to just swing his sword at him allowing the opponent to block.

Second after one swing, the demon ended up punching forward with his fang arm and second later, that fang ended up firing away from his arm, right at Kei. Still Kei managed to catch that attack with his left hand protector few centimeters before it reached his heart.

After that attack the demon followed up with the second one from the other hand. He wanted to use the window that the last attack made, unfortunately thought there wasn’t any real open spots for him to attack there but rather it was Kei imitating one to cheat the demon into attacking. The demon took the bait and in that second Kei made a fast maneuver downward and his sword appeared right underneath the exposed hand of the demon. Still he didn’t attack that hand but with another step he went for demon’s belly and there he made a fast cut which split the demon in half

The two pieces of demon fall to the ground but Kei turned around with the sword pointed at those pieces.

Despite the fact that getting cut in half should normally end the battle, it wasn’t going to be the case here as the enemy wasn’t normal. The demon ‘no longer spearman’ started regenerating soon from his upper part and then he started to get up on his feet. Naturally though Kei wasn’t going to wait and let him do that. Rather than that he already had his ‘ultimate’ ready to strike.

The dark energy was gathering at the tip of Kei’s sword and the moment the demon was getting up Kei pierced with that sword in the middle of that demon which immediately brought a shocking effect which made the demon unable to move. The demon’s body started to fall into the pieces but then it’s started regenerating yet again. Still against that Kei was simply not ending his spell and while the sword was still right inside the chest of the demon, the energy was damaging him.

Yet another battle took the outcome where the demon was ‘dying’ and regenerating yet again just to ‘die’ afterwards. Still, Kei stopped his skill after about 30 seconds as it seemed that he simply couldn’t hold it for that long. He also didn’t attack the demon right away when he started regenerating. Even if without a skill, a simple sword attack would have a good effect.

Kei simply moved away and waited for his enemy to regenerate. It took only 30 seconds before the demon was fully regenerated with his fang arms ready to attack as well. They also changed a little and now they were much longer which destroyed Kei’s advantage in range. Still after Kei saw that the opponent was ready for the fight, he rushed forward at him. The demon attacked with his fang hand but to that Kei simply avoided them by letting that attack go by his right and without even stopping he reached the demon and cut him again. This time it was the full cut from the right side of belly to left shoulder. The demon was yet again on the ground in pieces, and then yet again Kei turned around and waited for him to regenerate.

This situation ended up repeating itself about 10 times and with each new time, Kei’s kill was even cleaner than earlier one. He completely grasped the demon’s ability to the point where he even let him pick up his spear again. Still that didn’t change the fact that each of Kei’s ‘rushes’ ended up in single cut that would kill a normal person.

Also because Kei had a moment to rest after each kill, he wasn’t particular tired by the fight right now and in essence he would be able to continue this ‘training’ for a long time. The time might have been even long enough for the heaven’s gate to activate, unfortunately though a scenario like that was not going to happen.

-WILL YOU KILL HIM OR NOT!? IF YOU CAN’T KILL HIM THEN SIMPLY GIVE UP! From now I will be adding one rule to those fights. They can’t last more than ten minutes. If they do then it means that both fighters lose. This fight is already 20 minutes long so… because rules changed only this time you have five additional minutes to finish this fight!...

Even though it was a kill after a kill, Azmi ended up getting impatient as the sight of his warrior getting destroyed one time after another was probably not pleasant to watch. Azmi’s tournament, even if he considered it honorable was in truth a completely unfair set of fights in which only his side can win. In the first place for him it was a simple game to kill the time before ‘his real war starts’. On the other hand for party it was the fight for their life.

Unfortunately though if Kei had a way to kill the demon, he would have probably used it long time ago so the situation in the following five minutes did not change and after those five minutes.

-TIMES UP!

With his gigantic sword, Azmi attacked at Kei’s position, as naturally the loser of the fight was meant to die. Still, seeing that attack coming, Kei made a fast movement to the right and ‘the steel wall’ landed next to him. But just as he avoided the attack, somehow the sword ended up pulling him towards it not letting him escape, so despite the fact that Kei was trying to get as far as possible from that sword, he could not.

Then his feet were soon covered by lava that was made after the strike landed on the ground. That lave wasn’t coming from anywhere in particular but it simply appeared on the ground. After about a minute both Kei and ‘no longer spearman demon’ were completely killed off by Azmi as both of them disappeared in liquid fire never to be seen again.

“How is this fair? I ask again, how is this fair?”

Arata would want to scream at the absurd of the situation and the result of people’s hard work. Despite the fact that Vatras, Hiro and Kei actually ended up killing of their demons opponents many times at that, their fate still lead them to their deaths and no matter how well they fought they still got killed off as if they were a pebble on the road although that was what the party was to the demon army. A pebble on the road that they were using to entertain themselves while waiting.

Still Arata couldn’t say anything to that, in the first place it was his fault for trying to do the quest of rank three and the fact that he involved others in it. The world where one can achieve everything simply because he believes that he will is definitely not EOA’s world. If someone is completely unprepared for things he wants to do, then this world will not be gentle with him but rather it will threw it right into the middle of oblivion that the path he chosen was meant to bring.

-ah, that was really disappointing, killing off that loser only one time was not enough. How dare he stains the name of demons so much and lose to a mortal who cannot even damage him. Eh… that’s what you get for recruiting in third circle of hell…

Azmi was clearly disappointed with the performance of his subordinate, enough disappointed to burn that subordinate alive and from Azmi’s attack that demon never regenerated himself again.

-ANYWAY, NEXT FIGHT, ARE YOU READY DWARF! COME AND SHOW ME THAT YOUR BRAVERY IS WORTH SOMETHING!

Probably because quite a lot of time has passed Azmi was not wasting any more time. Surprisingly this time it was the party side that had its fighter chosen first. In the end though.

“No matter how you look at it, the best result he can do is reach a draw, which still isn’t that appealing. I mean there already were three quite good fighters who got killed no matter how hard they tried.”

After the three fights, Arata was already on the notion where the moment someone is chosen to fight is the moment they die. It was simply that it couldn’t be anything else as even if you manage to overwhelm your opponent it still didn’t mean that you can win and if you take too long the Demon Lord himself will make the execution and as it seemed, making any resistance towards him was a completely futile. Azmi was really on completely different level here although that was what one would expect from someone called Demon Lord, who is leading a gigantic army to make an invasion on heaven.

Still, despite the fact that his lose was already decided, Bran did not lost his everlasting simile.

-finally!...

Bran said and then he reloaded his crossbow which was actually a move as if reloading a shootgun.

-it’s time for Bran the Demons Slayer, watch and learn kids!

With a comment like that he started walking fearlessly forward.

-hey did Bran just lose it?

Julia commented on his behavior.

-well it may be still the aftereffect of the trunk that we drunk the last night.

Flynn answered to her.

-I think he said it like this so we don’t bother with a goodbye talk like.

Shin also ended up commenting. It seemed like Bran’s friends also couldn’t understand where Bran’s confidence was coming from, which meant that what Shin said was probably correct and that Bran was just trying to look cool before dying, which would be so very in his style.

“Well I guess it’s better to do it that way. Still it’s really incredible how very few of us are left now.”

Without counting Haru and Bran who just left to be killed, there were only seven people remaining alive from the original 18 who went for the journey. Still there were only about 45 minutes left before the heaven’s gate was going to be activated and by how it went so far, there were high chances that some people will be alive up to that point. What will happen then though was completely different matter because surviving till the heaven’s gate opening didn’t mean anything as at that moment it happens the demon’s army will march forward.

After Bran took his position, one of the demons also came from the demon line. The first thing that one would think of after seeing that demon was “he is gigantic”. His height was rivaling Azmi’s one meaning he had about 9 meters in height. It was probably another type of brute force demon but in this scenario the one that Vatras fought against was actually small.

The giant demon had two elephant like legs on which he was standing and three muscular hands that were coming from his back and sides. Then at the top there was egg like head which didn’t have mouth or ears. There was only one eye in the middle that was now looking down on the small dwarf in a distance, although for the giant it was only few steps away.

“As if it wasn’t unfair already with their regenerative powers.”

Arata could only think like that after seeing the giant. No matter how one look at it, Bran was completely overwhelmed without chances at all to the point where if someone were to start digging a grave for him, it wouldn’t have been that strange.

Strangely though Bran was completely unconcerned about his opponent. He already had his black-red crossbow in hands ready to fire at any second.

-LET THE FIGHT BEGIN!

Azmi signaled the start of the fight and somehow it turned out to be the fastest fight of all as it lasted only a minute.

‘Boom, boom, boom!

As the giant demon walked, the earth tumbled with each step. Bran on the other hand was standing without moving with his crossbow resting on his shoulder. He was waiting for the giant to come closer and then when he did.

‘puf, puf, puf’

Bran made three shoots with his crossbow with his target being the left feet of the giant, on which was in the middle of the step. The second it stepped on the ground the bolts landed on that leg and then that feet got shivered to pieces the moment those bolts reached it. The three bolts were flying in the line and at the height of that line there was a large wound as if someone cut through the leg completely.

Because the hit happened right in the middle of the walk, the giant started to fall right away.

‘boom!’

The giant fallen onto the ground and his head ended up being two meters away from Bran. That fall though was so big that it force made Bran lift up by half a meter but afterwards he landed without any problems. Still the fallen giant right away used his side arms to smash the fly that was standing before him. To that thought, Bran simply shoot twice once for each arm. This time the moment the bolt reached the arms there was immediate explosion that pushed those hands away while damaging them highly in the process.

Still that wasn’t the end of demon giant attack as after that attack did not work he ended up glaring with his eye at the dwarf and then that eye started to change the color to red, which seemed as if some laser would be coming out from it any second. Still no one found out if there will be that laser coming or not as.

-not so fast brother…

Bran reloaded his crossbow while saying those words and then he shoot right into the ‘glaring eye’. This time as the bolt flied through the air, there was a visible effect of it starting to glow in first yellow then orange and then red color. The red color was the last to be seen as the bolt ended up hitting the glaring eye right in the middle, which interrupted the effect of what was going to happen.

-hasta la vista baby.

With this quote, Bran turned around from his enemy and let his crossbow on his shoulder and when he did, right behind him yet another explosion happened and that explosion blow up the giant’s head. All that happened while Bran was standing like boss with the flames scattering behind him.

=… .

In general everyone were quite quiet during all fights because rumbling around while demon army is watching wasn’t the most intelligent thing to do. Still after this occurrence, no one would probably be able to say anything.

“Well, good job you killed him once but that doesn’t change anything. He will just regenerate second later and this time he will squash you for sure. But I guess that is how one dies with a style.”

Arata’s logical thinking kicked right away as in other fights, others also more or less won. Kei for example killed his opponent about twenty times and even though his kills weren’t flashy they were really effective. Here however Bran just once destroyed the giant demon’s head and now that he even turned around and was showing his back to his enemy, which was naturally the most stupid thing to do. At least in case where that enemy was still alive because as it turned out, the demon did not start regenerating like others and even his feet that was first damaged never started regenerating either.

-WHAT TRECHERY IS THIS! CAN YOU KILL THE DEMON, DWARF!

It took him another minute to realize what happened but naturally Azmi realized that he just lost one of his demons and as one might suspect, he wasn’t too happy about.

-aye and people call me Bran the demon slayer, so bring on another one!

Bran answered loudly without fear.

-em… I never heard anyone calling him like that, did I miss something?

In the meantime Julia ended up asking the question.

-nah, he just thought it up just now to make it sound cool.

Flynn answered to her right away as it was the truth that no one called Bran like that ever before.

-still he did slay a demon just now didn’t he? How did he do that?

Julia followed with yet another answer.

-hmm… no idea, hey Shin, care to give us some insight.

-I am also surprised, you saw that Bran use the same skills that he always had. Well if you want a good guess then it has to do something with his crossbow as it is a weapon of demon lord, of the very same like the one before us and that weapon is second only to legendary class.

“I see so this crossbow should have some effect that works on demons.”

Arata started thinking like that as well, also his thoughts were probably the truth as when Shin guesses something he is usually 99% certain of his answer, so taking it for granted wasn’t wrong choice.

-ANOTHER ONE YOU SAY?…

At the same time Azmi’s and Bran’s conversation continued.

-GREAT! There aren’t that many of you and you are the first one that made things interesting. I should have expected it from the crafty dwarven race. You can fight as many times as you want, Bran the demon slayer, show me that you are worth of this title.

Azmi accepted Bran’s ask and at the same time he also became the first one to actually call Bran by that name.

Despite the fact that another fight might bring him death, especially when demons already knew they had to be careful, Bran still had his everlasting smile and simply reloaded his crossbow. The way he was always doing that thought was more as if he was reloading a shotgun because was only moving his hand back and forth to do so.

The body of the giant was still on the field so it would get in the way. Because of that, Azmi himself caught the leg of the fallen demon with his free hand and then he threw that gigantic body like nothing, hundred meters away right into the lava river.

-… .

Afterwards, Azmi was also not playing around with choosing his next demon and this time he chose the one that was standing on his left.

In size, the demon was about as large as an average human, still his get up signaled that fighting against him will not be easy.

The demon had magical like items all over him. Dark black red magical robe and demonic looking staff that anyone who would want to role play the evil magician role would kill for. Then there was also a head with three horns going left right and to the back on which a red crystal ball was resting on. And then lastly to add to the demonic appearance there were two red glowing eyes.

After seeing his opponent Bran immediately started aiming at him even before battle began. He didn’t have to wait for that for too long though.

-LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!

At the signal Bran right away fired out two bolts in the direction of his enemy. The bolts flied the distance of 100 meters and reached the demon mage who didn’t move at all at least until those got closer in the distance. When they did though, he waved his demonic staff before him and a dark ‘line of magic’ appeared in places where his staff went through. Bran’s bolts ended up crushing into that line and when they did they exploded immediately. Those explosions didn’t even break through the magic black line though, although that black line disappeared soon after it was save.

Bran’s attack ended up being futile but despite that he simply smiled even more and started shooting again.

This time the demon mage wasn’t standing by any longer. He pointed his staff forward and second later two circles of magic appeared in front of him on both left and right. Afterwards from those circles some black creatures started to crawl out. One from each circle, those were beings without consistent form. After crawling out they started to move in Bran’s direction.

In the meantime other bolts were yet again blocked by demon mage.

The attacks stopped for a second as both fighters decided to close down the distance, after walking for a half a minute though Bran yet again shoot with his crossbow into the black creatures and the moment the bolts reached them they exploded, eating away the black creatures with it.

To that thought the ‘demon summoner’ simply summoned two other without any difficulty.

The fighters now stood 20 meters apart from each other and that was the place on which they stopped and then for about three minutes the battle turned into demon summoner summoning new creatures and Bran one-shooting them with his crossbow. After those three minutes though Bran stopped shooting out of sudden and that was probably because he realized what was this opponent strategy.

“So it was a drain mana prefight.”

Arata also realized it at some point that the battle simply turned in who will be the first one to reach their limits and it seemed that the demon was not getting too tired from his summoning while on the other hand Bran had a limit on how many times he could use his ‘explosive shot’.

After realizing his disadvantage Bran broke into run forward to his enemy. Even if he himself wasn’t that of melee fighter his opponent didn’t seem like one as well. On his way Bran jumped over the hands of the black creatures with the high for a dwarf jump and without much problem he reached his enemy who immediately shoot out a large fireball forward with his demonic staff. To that though Bran quickly rolled away and avoided the attack and when his roll ended he yet again shot at the demon mage. Demon mage yet again blocked with his line of magic and second after he did he hit with his staff to the ground.

When he did that a magical circle appeared underneath Bran but naturally Bran jump out from that circle immediately. From that circle this time a small creature appeared but this time it wasn’t black but rather orange, and that creature looked like some of those that were standing in the demon army namely a flame imp.

The flame imp after getting out started right away to generate a fire around his hands and three seconds after challenging it he shot it out in a form of a small fireball.

From now on Bran had to worry about yet another thing even if he already was busy enough with the black creatures and attacks from the demon summoner. The fight turned into scenario where Bran was now running in circle as new creatures and imps were summoned and he had to avoid even more attack.

The demon summoner was not going to stay on only small creatures only though. When Bran was completely occupied with what was already summoned the demon channeled a gigantic summoning circle from which a ‘living flame rock’ came out. The flame rock soon took the form of four meters in height golem that would probably squash anyone the moment he came up with him.

Despite the fact that originally it was ‘one on one fight’ it soon turned into one dwarf running away while a small army was chasing after him.

While running away Bran also had to kill of some of summoned creatures that stood on his way but luckily his shots were able to one shot them with the exception of the rock flame golem which soon after he appeared he became a huge trouble for Bran. Golem’s attacks, the moment they hit the ground they also squash out green lava around. It wasn’t on the same level as Azmi’s attack but those were still troublesome. In time Bran didn’t even see his opponent behind the wall of the creatures that his opponent summoned.

In the end Brans started to run away in the opposite direction of the army while shooting with his crossbow as they came, still it was probably slightly too late for that. There was also the fact that Azmi was not really pleased with the fact that Bran is using such tactic so running away for a long period of time was not recommended.

Bran also was completely aware of that and that’s why his running away was only temporary. At some point he stopped running and looked back at the enemies that were crawling at him, the summoner was nowhere in sight still that didn’t mean that Bran did not know where he is.

-mhm…

Bran shoot with his crossbow upward to the sky, and then when the bolt reached the distance of 50 meters it exploded. From that explosion yet another bolt came out and this one went straight ‘somewhere’ the small army.

From the place where Bran was it was not visible but from the place from where Arata was looking he saw the scene completely.

The flying bolt ended up hitting right into the demon summoner skull. The demon didn’t even see the attack coming as his minions obscured his way. On the other hand Bran knew exactly where his opponent is as he wasn’t using his eyes to see him and even if there were explosions blowing up everywhere, Bran could still easily locate people and demons by hearing alone.

The moment the bolt went through the demon summoner head he ended up dropping dead without any resistance as Bran really snipped him down with that shot while executing a ‘head shot’.

The minions that the summoner summoned also ended up disappearing with their master death. The moment the summoner died the magical circles draw back the summoned creatures right away, along with the fire rock golem who was a step away from killing Bran.

The battle yet again had an unexpected winner although this time there were many close calls in his actions and probably his mana pool in this fight went down greatly as well. Still despite that, after standing up from the ground, Bran one again said.

-bring on another one!

-ah, as always he doesn’t know when to give up doesn’t he?

In the party line, Shin ended up voicing his comment because normally anyone at this point would back off. There was a limit after all of how long one can fight, although if one were to count, the two battles that Bran fought jut now took only 15 minutes and that included all preparations and walking around, still by asking for yet another opponent, Bran was really asking to be killed especially when Azmi’s mood wasn’t increasing after seeing on of his better new recruits getting killed in such pathetic fashion.

-it seems that the fresh blood is not enough for you, in that case, what will you say about fighting someone more experienced dwarf?

Despite his irritation Azmi still had quite calm voice.

-Bran the demon slayer is not afraid of anyone.

Bran answered to him like this although the party made only one comment.

-idiot.

-idiot.

-idiot.

The most surprising thing was that it was Rin who was one who commented and even though she said it in a low voice, Arata still managed to catch it. If Arata had to voice his comment though it would be slightly different.

“There should be a limit on how much you want to do to buy us some time.”

How much getting some extra time will actually help out, no one could tell but currently it was the only thing that people could focus on and probably because it was the last thing that one could be useful at, people here decided to gather as much time as possible as after all, in the current situation with the demon army before them, no one could image a situation where they would end up staying alive afterwards, Arata included.

In his third fight, Bran’s opponent was no longer the demon from the front line next to Azmi. This time it was one from the skies that was so far simply floating in the sky. It was a winged demon with whose wing looked like those of the bat. At his back he had a quiver full of spears in a shape of tridents. They were all red in color. The demon was also holding two of those tridents in his hands ready to use at any moment.

While he was floating down all the way to the ground before Azmi, Bran also took his usual position where he originally started all previous fights, and then when both of them reached their positions, yet another fight began.

Naturally the winged demon wasn’t going to fight on the ground and the moment the signal to battle appeared, he took the skies right away.

Before that Bran immediately shot out few bolts but naturally given the distance at which they were apart from each other those bolts missed completely.

As the battle progressed though, it didn’t become anywhere easier as the winged demon was moving in the skies and also he could change his position in multiple ways

Even though the fight only just started Bran immediately found himself in a quite desperate position as an ability to fly gave one incredible advantage. The winged demon’s attacks were also quite spectacular.

So far he threw only one of his tridents down and even though it flied at the great speed, Bran did manage to easily avoid it. Still that was only as far as getting in physical contact with it. The moment red trident hit the ground it made the ground around it explode in many directions which made ‘aoe rock wave’. One of those rocks hit Bran and he was pushed away by this attack by two meters and landed on the ground.

After first attack gave such result, the winged demon right away shot out another trident and at that time Bran was still in lying position face first to the ground. Still despite the fact that he didn’t even see the attack coming he did knew about it and he started rolling away.

The trident attack yet again hit the ground and made the rock wave but this time those rocks went over Bran who was keeping his body close to the ground. After those rocks flied over him though he stood up like nothing. But at that time he didn’t even have the time to do anything else which proved to be catastrophic.

The winged demon dived down to the ground and this time he wasn’t going to throw his attacks anymore. It took him mare three seconds between starting the dive and coming close to Bran and that was too fast for someone who was already barely keeping up. Bran managed to only make a small step to the left and that allowed him to avoid the fatal wound but still the red trident went right into his right arm, and second after his whole arm got ripped off as the winged demon finished his dive and went back to the sky.

-ah, that what he gets for getting to overconfident.

Flynn ended up commenting as it seemed that the fight will be ending quite soon. Fighting against higher class demon was probably simply too much.

-well, as he likes to say it, RIP Bran.

Julia also joked around. In the end, everyone here were already prepared for the unavoidable. Strangely though the fight didn’t end up that fast, and even with one arm Bran was still putting up with fight.

From now on Bran started to run around and by doing so he was avoiding another attack after another. At the same time he tried to shot upward at flying demon but without the second arm he didn’t have any aim at all and the bolts simply flied up to the sky and were exploding there like fireworks. Him reloading his crossbow with teeth did look quite funny.

Somehow the fight did went into the stalemate yet again, even despite what just happen, but naturally the winged demon wasn’t going to wait for too long as for him killing of one dwarf shouldn’t take that long.

Once again he started to dive down and this time he was going to finish the dwarf once for all, there was one thing that he didn’t expect though and that was the fact that ever since the first dive Bran was waiting for this moment.

When the winged demon started his dive, Bran voiced the command and before him, already standing on two legs, Bran’s brown companion appeared. The demon crushed into the standing bear but that crush ended up with bear pushing the demon down to ground and afterwards holding him back there with his weight.

The demon and the bear were struggling in competition of strength for some time but Bran wasn’t going to stand by either. He jumped at the top of his bear’s head and from there with one arm he pointed his crossbow right into the demon’s head.

-from here, I don’t even need to aim.

He said to him and pulled the trigger, the bolt went into winged demon’s skull and yet again, by some miracle, Bran won yet another fight as his attacks were deadly enough to demons that even a higher class one would get one-shooted.

-HAHAHA, SPLEDID, if you managed to win even against that one you now earned the honor of meeting me in combat. Come and fight me, Bran the demon slayer.

After this fight Azmi started laughing out loud and then he decided that Bran’s next opponent will be he himself. To that though, Bran who was fearlessly asking for more and more this time he answered.

-nah I will pass, I need to let others have some fun as well.

His answer was still completely fearless but this time he decided to step down. Even if he wanted to fight, with his arm ripped off and still bleeding he would meet his death immediately and even if dying at the hand of demon lord didn’t seem as that bad of a death, Bran didn’t seem like he was interested interested any of those.

Strangely Azmi didn’t stop him, or say anything but in the end his respect for the dwarven race yet again increased.

-see guys. That’s how you do it…

As Bran came back to the party line he commented like that, in the end though his efforts didn’t actually bring more time than Kei’s one but the fact that he now returned victorious after three ‘I am dead for sure’ battles, no one would ever mention that fact.

-Mika! Heal me up will you, I am still up for the fourth round afterwards.

Before anyone managed to say anything back to him Bran walked towards party’s last healer and asked for healing. Because it was already sometime after Hiro’s death, Mika managed to calm down a little as naturally one couldn’t be completely calm down in this situation especially when dying any moment wouldn’t have been that strange.

After Bran asked her, she started to cast her healing spells right away but strangely despite the fact that the bleeding stopped, the arm didn’t show a sign of regenerating at all as it should normally be the case. Rather than that there was now a black demonic mark on Bran’s wound.

-if you want to heal this one up you will need anti demonic heal. Normal healing spells won’t work on this curse. Health will get back to full sure but the actual wounds will not disappear.

While Mika and Bran were looking at the wound and wondering why it didn’t start regenerate, Haru who was still busy eating apples explained to them from the distance.

-anti-demonic heal, what’s that?

Shin ended up asking.

-in general, it’s known as one of most useless healing techniques as usually no one survives fights against demons. Be technically it’s a heal that removes the curse that comes with demon’s attacks. As to how to fight against that curse you need to find a healer with anti-demonic heal which isn’t easy. In the end, the easiest way to get rid of it is simply to die and respawn just like in case of any incurable wounds.

Haru halfassly explained although her explanation was quite clear and that was that Bran’s arm isn’t going to get healed up anytime soon which also meant that he won’t be of much use should the fight broke out, so even if he did managed to survive, most of his fighting potential disappeared as a range who can’t aim would only get in a way. It seemed that Bran also understood that given his expression as he heard the news as after all the ever so smiling dwarf really rarely did not smile.

“So, not only demons are nearly immortal but also they have attacks that can’t be healed up with normal heal. Yes, definitely very balanced.”

Still no matter what was the end result, Bran survived and won three fights where others fell. He bought a lot of time so one couldn’t ask for more out from him. After all the fact was though that there were only 25 minutes left till two hours pass.

-now then!...

Azmi yet again started.

-those fights took much more than I expected and we have probably about thirty minutes left. Here I thought that all of you will get a fight but we might have no time for that as when the war starts, I won’t have the time for you. In that case let’s change the rules a little…

It seemed that even though so far everything was going in favor of surviving till opening the gate, there might appear the change as Azmi got little impatient.

That was probably what some thought but it turned out that the change in rules was actually not that bad.

-so because we won’t have time for all I will give you a choice of who will get the honor to do so. You there temporary leader! After each fight you have one minute to decide the next fighter, just like I do and after that minute the fight will start right away. The counting for next fight begins now so I hope you already have the candidate.

Azmi ended up letting Shin decide who will be ‘sent to death next’. Even if what Bran did was quite incredible it still didn’t change the fact that everyone else can’t do anything about regenerative powers of demons.

But then no one expected that letting the party decide on their own would lead to a problem right away as the second Azmi explained the rules, the most inappropriate person started walking forward.

-I will go.

After saying that Rin started walking forward right away as if everyone already agreed to her decision.

-Rin, wait if you…!

Arata who was standing not that far from her managed to stop her by catching her by the left shoulder although the moment he did so.

“Oo, that was the wrong move…!”

The moment he did so though Rin on instincts caught him by that arm right away and second later Arata flied over her shoulder and hit the ground hard.

“Auch.”

-ah, Arata I am sorry.

-don’t be, in this world it doesn’t hurt that much. Still saying stupid things like it’s your turn to go next because if you go next everything we have done here will lose its meaning. You know what the meaning of going there to fight means.

-there already were so many people who ended up dying and naturally the next person who goes will die as well.

-yes, I glad you see the reason so you shouldn’t go there and simply wait patiently till…-

-no, in the end it doesn’t matter who goes next, we will all die eventually.

-no, it’s not decided yet! We still have a chance if the gate opens and we will sneak inside before anything big happen.

Arata continued to explain it to her but that made things only worse.

-if there really a chance then great. Go and use it. I will buy the remaining time so everyone who survived here can have a chance on going inside as well. I should be able to stay alive for next 25 minutes at least.

-didn’t you hear the rules, if you don’t win the fight in ten minutes then Azmi will get you and you can’t win the fight as you can’t kill the demon right?

Arata was trying to reason with her from lying on the ground position while holding her leg from going forward but it didn’t seem to go well, and the reason for that was the difference in Arata’s and Rin’s objectives.

-then after those 10 minutes I will fight that demon lord for the remaining 15 minutes.

-and what about the quest!? Shouldn’t we as the quest holders survive till the end?

-I don’t know why you think like that. Arata I don’t know if you are excited about the quest or not but personally I would prefer to have a good battle than some stupid quest. I told you didn’t I, quests don’t mean anything to me. They simply tell me where to find strong opponents. So Arata, go and do that quest without me. Personally I am already tired of it and if this quest expects me to fight the whole immortal demon army then I won’t be able to complete it anyway, so this is our good bye Arata.

-wait Rin, you can’t just.

-I can do what I want.

With that said Rin ended up kicking away Arata’s hand and she managed to slip away from his grip, but then when she was about to go forward to the battlefield she encountered a problem as while Arata was holding her back, someone else sneaked away to take part in next fight.

“Safe.”

Arata thought after he saw Rin stopping as it weren’t for a person to step in Rin would really go and fight to death. Still he was really surprised by who actually stepped out there. Also with that person stepping out, there was someone really furious for that selfish behavior. Before even Arata managed to look in the direction of the battlefield he immediately knew who went there as soon enough, a shout even louder than that of Azmi could be heard.

-HARU! What the hell do you think you are doing!!!!

It was ‘medallion’s shout’ or rather it was a shout of Torachii who was inside the medallion, and naturally he was yelling at Haru who ended up sneaking to the front while everyone were looking at Arata and Rin.

-auch, don’t shout to my ear like this Torachii, I can hear you perfectly if you whisper.

-but whispering to you doesn’t work. Haru I was waiting patiently but now you are going overboard! Summon me and we are getting out of here.

-hmm… okay.

-I know you will not agree but stop complaining and… wait you agreed?   

Even Torachii was surprised after Haru suddenly agreed.

-under one condition though.

-whatever it is I agree. Now then let’s go!

-but we can’t go now.

-why?

-hmm…? Didn’t you just agree that I will stay here for next 25 minutes and stretch a little. Strange Torachii, strange.

-when did I agree to that?

-just a second ago.

-… .

-nihihi.

-you don’t mean that the condition was.

-nihihi.

-eh… .

After Haru ended up laughing in strange and playful manner twice, Torachii gave up as there was no longer anything he could do as Haru got him good while he let his guard down.

-hey Rin, while you are already going back this way, can you help me stand up.

While Rin was walking next to Arata’s body he called out to her like that but she just gave him annoyed look and walked pass him. In the end Arata stood up by himself and then he started watching what ‘the lost miracle’ was going to show.

-okay Haru, just don’t overdo it ok? So… how are you going to kill them, even if they are weak they are still demons.

-I will simply use ‘ebondale’.

-what!? You are going to draw your legendary weapon here?

-but that will be the easiest and at the same time simplest method right? Also unless we go after demon lord it’s not like I can hold myself back with any other demon killing spell to kill only one demon right?

-okay, I will give you that, be sure to equip your armor as well.

-NO WAY! You know I hate armors and there is no need for it so I will pass on that. Anyway I will be slaying some demons now so be quiet, Torachii.

If anything, Haru definitely didn’t lack in confidence, although not using her items while she could, should be rather called overconfidence.

-so they sent the civilian?

Azmi said to Haru as he saw her walking in his direction, and as to why he called her civilian it was probably because she wasn’t wearing anything that would be suitable for battle.

-I don’t want to be rude but I am already coming and there is no demon for me.

Haru wasn’t offended at all but she rather answered like that.

-oh, I see that you don’t want to prolong your death, very well.

After Azmi finished, one of the demons from the line came out. It was a demon who was twice as large as human and who was holding two demonic orange whips in both of his hands that probably served as weapons.  

-LET THE FIGHT BEGINS!

Said Azmi but unfortunately no matter how one looked at it, it wasn’t even going to count as a fight. Although Azmi couldn’t even tell that beforehand.

-come, ebondale!

After the fight started, Haru stretched her hand forward and said those words. Few seconds later a black weapon appeared before her. From one side it was a simple long black rod which ended with a spike which could made one think that it is some kind of spear, still it was the other side that had the actual blade, and it’s form revealed that it was a scythe. Still it wasn’t any scythe that a farmer would use to harvest his crops. It was rather a death looking scythe whose size even though wasn’t that big and its presence made Azmi’s gigantic black-red demon sword look small from the distance.

Despite the fact that it was only one weapon appearing, with only that Haru’s general appearance changed from that of happy and clumsy girl into a death god that could suck away someone’s soul with a single thought.

That was at least how it looked from party’s side as they were looking at Haru’s back where her long black hair added to the image.

After catching her weapon, Haru started to spin it around and she was doing so not only at the front but also around her body. The black circle that appeared in the effect of spinning scythe was moved all around her body and it wasn’t even disrupted the moment Haru changed her holding hand.

Before the battle started Haru already closed most of the distance so whip holding demon didn’t have much to travel and after ten meters he could already attack with his whips as they gave him additional 10 meters in range of attack. Still when he got in range of 15 meters Haru stopped spinning her weapon without purpose. Instead she started a long horizontal slash backward which made her body spin as well but then when that slash was going to finish its 180 degree spin, Haru disappeared from that position, but it was not exactly that as she appeared right away only in different spot and that was namely 15 meters behind her demon opponent. There she made yet another spin and second later she once again appeared in her previous spot from which she was gone for about three seconds.

The demon with whips made another two steps as if nothing happened but then his upper side of the body ended up slipping down left and right. The legs followed soon after and three parts of the body were now all lying on the ground.

Despite the fact that it seemed as if the demon was cut by invisible force, there wasn’t a single drop of blood coming out from him, rather all the areas on which he was cut become somewhat darker to the point where the ‘inner flesh’ was not visible.

-next one, please.

Haru said to Azmi without a single change in the tone of her voice although even if she sounded normal, from party’s perspective with her scythe in hand, she still had a death god image.

Azmi waited for a minute and he was looking at his death brethren, to see if he was really dead but despite the fact that the demonic regenerative powers should start working right away, there was absolutely no sign of that from the dead demon.

-hey civilian, what’s your name?

Still after confirming his death, rather than sending new demon to fight Azmi asked for the name.

-it’s… no I won’t tell you, you are not my type.

To that question however Haru gave him as much unfitting answer as possible.

-very well, we will fight without knowing each others name.

-hmm… but I do know your, Assmoron wasn’t it?

-… .

-nihihi, once someone introduce themselves I will remember their names forever as I am quite confident in my memory, tell me I got it right didn’t I? But Assmoron, I don’t think that it’s a nice name, so how about this, I will give you appropriate nickname hmm…

Unfortunately before Haru could think of any nickname, Azmi lost his patience and he swing with his gigantic sword at her, to that though Haru simply took her scythe’s blade above her head and blocked the blow.

‘boom!’

There was a loud clash of steel but that was only that.

-hey! Shouldn’t I fight two other demons before you? You wanted to fight the dwarf only after three wins.

-SHUT UP WOMAN AND FIGHT!

The tone that Azmi had while saying those words was really furious, he took his blade back and attacked again and again and again, Haru on the other hand was blocking those attacks as they come.

-don’t call me woman, it make me feel old. Also I am not married and I never even had a boyfriend so it makes it even less appropriate…

The fact that Haru was saying things like that while defending against Azmi’s attack made him even more furious so his attack become even bigger. Anytime he attacked the tip of his blade also hit the ground behind Haru which made lava come out from there. That did not apply however to places where his weapon was above the ground which meant that correct way to defend against his attacks was to block them.

-ah I see, I didn’t give you my name so you can’t call me by my name… hmm but I really don’t want to tell my name to someone like you. Tell you what if you manage to lose some weight I might consider it.

-WHAAAAA!

As Haru continued to spit nonsense, Azmi decided to go into another gear, he lifted his gigantic swords, roared and then swing it down. Seeing that though, for the first time, Haru rather than blocking it, she ran away to the left. Before the sword hit the ground she was already 20 meters away from it so she escaped completely unharmed, still that couldn’t said for the ground that Azmi hit.

After the sword hit the ground, the ground started splitting in half and in a spawn of ten second a large ten meter in wide crater appeared. The crater started at the end of Azmi’s sword and ended at the base of the stairs to the heaven’s gate that strangely enough withstood the attack completely and even stopped it from spreading further. Still that simple swing made the slot which was deep for at least 40 meters and ended with lava deep inside.

-hmhmhmhmh, muahahahahahahaha!...

After Azmi finished his attack and pick up his sword back on his arm, he suddenly made a demonic evil laugh and in his case, it was actually quite appropriate to do so as after all he was a demon lord, unlike all others ‘demon lords wannabes’.

-you ran away, didn’t you?

When he finished the laughter though, he pointed out the fact that this time Haru didn’t block the attack anymore.

-of course I did. Find me a girl who won’t get scared when a fat old man tries to swing at her his long stick. Not to mention that you shouted like crazy.

-hahaha, I don’t know if you are doing all that to deceive your enemy but it won’t work on me, didn’t I mention that I never underestimate mortals, no matter their personality or gender. Now then we still have more than 20 minutes left, I didn’t think it will be possible but let me warm up on you…

With that said Azmi yet again started to attack with huge swings and Haru yet again started to block them.

-HAHAHAA, THIS IS IT, PLEASE ENTERTAIN ME FOR AS LONG AS YOU CAN!...

Azmi was laughing and enjoying the battle, on the other hand though, Haru was silently blocking each attack one after another. It actually looked unbelievable for someone her posture to block those gigantic blows but Arata was already used to the unnatural nature of EOA which obviously had its own laws of physics.

-HAHAHA, what’s that you are already overwhelmed, is defending the only thing you can do, come at me! It’s not a battle if only I am attacking. WHORA!

Azmi once again roared and second later his swing become so much more powerful.  Haru naturally saw that as well and yet again she run away from that attack. This time she ran to the back as it was a horizontal swing. Still the moment the sword flied few meters before her, Haru was immediately pushed away by invisible force and with an incredible speed she flied all the way towards the stairs of heaven’s gate, into which she was about to crush. Before Haru crushed into those stairs though, a strong wind started to blow in the opposite direction in which she was flying which completely neglected her flying speed and at the end she stopped ten meters above where the rest of the party was and afterwards she safely landed on the ground right next to the party.

-hey, if you can’t continue then simply run away, no one will blame you for that also no one expects you to waste your few months effort here.

Because Haru ended up landing quite close to where Arata was he immediately said those words to her.

-does it seem like I am losing?

-you just got blown away all the way here and before you simply take blows one after another so at least you are definitely not winning.

-haha, you know I actually like when people get worried about me.

-yes I know as you mentioned it but it’s not the time for joking.

-I guess it’s not, with only half of my powers and opponent this strong it really is not going well. As suspected of demon lord of war…

Despite what Arata said to her, Haru still was talking like usual.

-truth to be told I have only one chance on kill him as I am now as against demon lords it’s either you kill them in one attack or you won’t kill them at all as they are nearly immortal. Not to mention I don’t even know where his core is. Ahhh… why did I get involved in something like this at times like this… sigh.

With that complain added, Haru yet again started moving forward towards Azmi who was already coming quite close.

-I told you, you don’t have to…-

-rather than worrying about me you should start thinking up some plan. Regardless of outcome you will have an army of demons charging at you after my fight ends as after all, demons turn into truly savage creature the moment they lose their general.

Haru left him with those words, although no matter how one looked at them, it didn’t seem like she for a second considered actually losing.

“She is right on that point though rather than standing and looking at those fights we should have come up with something for later.”

Arata looked back in the direction of his not so big anymore party.

-hey, we should have come up with something just in case. I also think that no matter what happens, Azmodan will get bored with everything else and decide to attack after this fight stops. Not to mention that he will want to have a strategic position the moment the gate opens to invade the heavens right away.

-well, in the first place the fact that we managed to buy this much time already is a miracle. As of now it shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes left before the gate activates and become suitable for teleportation. Still as for the plan, the only thing we can really do is to try to survive at all costs, namely keep you, Rin and Levi alive at all cost. So I was thinking of something along the lines that everyone else will stop the incoming charge for as long as we can while you run up the stairs and go through the gate the moment it opens. Realistically speaking, the demons will catch up to you quite fast but from there on, you just have to survive for few minutes and I believe you all three can do it.

To Arata’s ask though, Shin already had a prepared answer.

“Hmm, I thought he will say something like that, still even if that plan works out and we three actually manage to slip into heavens, I won’t feel any good at all.”

-unfortunately I can’t agree with this plan.

Arata decided to answer like that.

-it’s not like we can come have anything better, our opponent will be the whole demon army.

-exactly and the moment they charge at, marksman who can’t aim, two cloth wearers who don’t have much attack capability and a tank who at best can block one tenth of the stairs, they will steam roll through you in second. Not to mention that they have flying demons as well so, I don’t really see anyway that you can do to stop that charge even for a little while…-

-get down!

‘boom!’

Out of sudden while Arata was having a discussion with Shin, Levi called out to everyone to get down. That was actually not need as the object that flied over their heads was eight meters above them. Then second later the object hit the stairs. Nothing happened to the stairs though as it once again was confirmed that the construction was truly unbreakable.

Arata quickly looked in the direction of the stairs but luckily it wasn’t the black haired girl that crushed into the stairs just now. Rather than her it was actually black-red, gigantic greatsword of demon lord Azmodan along with his hand still holding. It seemed that Haru managed to cut of Azmi’s hand at the height of wrist and afterwards send this sword all the way over here.

Then afterwards Arata take a quick look at the battlefield where Haru and Azmi with his hand completely healed still going at each other. The fight slightly changed though as Azmi no longer had his weapon with him. Because of that he switched to fists and magic but even though still devastating his attacks become somewhat less powerful.

“I see, so even if you can’t damage him, you can still weaken him by taking his blade away.”

-so you are saying that whatever we do it still will be meaningless. Well I can’t really argue with that. Even if all of us were still alive it would have change nothing. In the first place with quest of rank three, we can’t do anything meaningful anyway.

Despite the fact that Arata just shot down his plan, Shin wasn’t really angry and his voice was still tired as it become ever since he saw the red line on the horizon.

-you know us Arata, we would like to help but just look at that fight…

Where Shin stopped, Flynn decided to pick up.

-you can see probably the highest grade player of EOA over there and she is successfully feeding off a freaking demon lord on her own, not to mention that she just disarmed him. But then again even she the member of legendary miracle team never completed the quest of rank three. If someone with her power didn’t complete it, what can power of our nearly destroyed party can? Sure we are better than most players our level but we are simply not someone who can get a world first.

Arata listened to Flynn’s words but then he did he realized that those words weren’t actually for him but rather they were meant for ‘someone whose head was overheating from thinking up strategies that will fail anyway’. Arata also saw it and so he finally decided to share the tactic that he came up with. Well one couldn’t call it a tactic though.

-in that case it will be my time to do something rather than letting you guys sacrifice yourself.

-oh, you have something in mind?

Shin immediately asked him.

-yes I do but telling it is quite complicated and we don’t have time for that so you will have to do with hearing only your part. Anyway the main point is that you all guys go upward the stairs and try to survive near the gate while I hold back anything that will try to come by stairs.

-and how exactly are you going to do that?

-well, that is the part of my complicated plan which I don’t have time to share. Anyway if it comes to the horde of demon charging at us just run up the stairs as fast as you can and don’t worry about what happens here. Rather than doing something meaningless you should focus on doing something useful but you won’t find here anything else than meaningless death so search for usefulness up the stairs.

-… I see… I can’t think of anything else so if that is what you think is best, I will follow your plan. Everyone if this fight ends before the heaven’s gate opens we all run up the stairs without looking back, is that clear?

In the end without other options available Shin decided to agree with Arata’s plan and he probably also realized what was the truth behind the ‘complicated part’.

-in that case I will be staying here as well.

Still after Shin and Arata finished, Rin voiced her desire to stay as well.

“Well I was waiting for this one.”

Naturally though Arata did expect it to happen.

-sorry Rin but you are the crucial part of the ‘upstairs operations’ so you can’t stay here.

-I don’t care about any upstairs operations but if you want me to be part of them then you have to come up there as well. If you are staying here I am also staying here, if you are going up then I am also going up, you have those two options, chose one Arata.

-I don’t agree to those, I want don’t want to be in the same group as you for our next ‘operations’.

-then I will stay here and you go upstairs.

-I was the first one who said I will stay here so you don’t have a choice. I was first.

-and are you going to use a stupid reason like that?

-yes I will. If you wanted to stay downstairs you should have say so earlier, now it’s too late, the fastest is always the winner, that’s how the world works.

Because Arata didn’t really have any good explanations, he decided to go with the most stupid ones.

-you can’t stop me from doing what I want though. I am staying here.

It seemed like it wasn’t going to work though, still Arata didn’t finish jus yet.

-oh, Rin I didn’t know that you are like that?

-what do you mean by like that?

-you know, that you like to cheat.

-… and what does cheating has to do with me staying here?

“Hahaha, I got you.”

-you know we have that fight planned right? Still it would be unfair if you spied on my abilities before that fight and if you stay here you are doomed to see them and I think that this time I won’t be able to keep them hidden.

-even so I will also be using my skill so we will be even.

-no because some of my skills can work only if my opponent doesn’t know about them and they are the core parts of my tactic for my next fight with you.

Naturally something like tactic for the next fight didn’t exist yet but Arata didn’t had to mention that fact.

-… Arata, you can’t! I know you are lying right now? Also you told me that you did go all out in our fights, in that case I do know about your skills already anyway, or is it that you were lying then?

-no think back on that Rin, we still didn’t have that full out this world skill fight did we?

-but I did saw your fight with the champion, I am sure that you weren’t holding back there! Arata, stop with those lies, you know I hate liars!

-I do know that so I would never lie to you, think back to what I told you in the boat, do you still think I could lie to you after all that I said. Remember, you are the dear person to me and the ‘rude guy who tried to push you away’ is really not here anymore. 

-don’t bring that up when it’s convenient for you! Also how can, you say things like that with other people around us!...

Rin ended up shouting back at him although her usual collected voice disappeared completely, and her face also turned into the color of her hairs.

-also I know you are lying.

-I am not even if it’s true I did use most of my skills in the battle against the champion there are still new ones like the ones that I got just recently.

-I know about those as well as I saw you how you were testing them in the expedition you have nothing hidden from me!

-then how many new skills did I got?

-three. That black hand to punch with, the bounce back spells skill, and the electric strike that you tested on toads.

-haha, and here you are wrong because there is still one more which I didn’t use yet because there was no occasion to. Also apart from that spell I also got one new just few hours ago.

-and you are asking me to believe you that you got so many new skills in such a short time.

-you already saw the other three right and as for the one I just got it was a present from Haru, she just gave me a perfect skill to learn from scroll that will work perfectly against you, just you wait till you see it. Hahahahaha.

Arata was coming up with anything that sound reasonable as right now he didn’t care about later as he simply wanted to put her at the top of those stairs.

-… .

-anyway as you can see you can’t be in the same party as me when the fights broke out so because I already called this spot you have to go upward.

-… .

As Arata tried his best to convince Rin to go upward, she suddenly stopped saying anything but rather looked in his direction and continued to glare.

-if you want a confirmation you can ask Haru about it later on, or if you want I can even show you my skill book.

-… fine I get it, I will go upward just as you wanted. We will all die anyway so I don’t want to waste my time arguing with you. Also Arata, you didn’t thought it through, if I were to look into your skillbooks, the reason for hiding skills would disappear as I would read about them.

“Well it’s not like she would find anything there as the whole thing about the forth skill and skill from Haru was naturally a lie. Also I know you enough that you wouldn’t want a proof anyway.”

-if it helps I can confirm that Arata did get four new skills because I was there when he meet the requirement to unlock them and it was exactly four skills that he was going to get. Namely it was two for each class but as we know he has two classes so by multiplying it by two we receive four.

Despite the fact that it was already said and done and Rin already agreed to Arata’s lies, out of sudden Shin decided to made that lie more trustworthy.

-I can also confirm that Arata indeed got a spell scroll from that girl as I was with him at that time.

Then following after him Levi also added the trustworthiness to Arata’s lies although if there was one thing that people should have learned from playing ‘card game Moloch agents’ with him it would be that Levi wasn’t someone who one should trust on word. Still, the thing was that Rin didn’t know that as she never decided to play with them, not even once and even if she had the occasion to see the game, she probably wasn’t paying attention at that time.

-I already said that I will go. You don’t have to add anything else...

After those two comments, Rin once again repeated that she is going although there was a slight chance for better in her expression, but then she yet again looked at Arata and her expression become once again incredibly sad and what was worse, she yet again said those words that Arata didn’t want to hear.

-I am sorry… .

“…”

The way Rin said those words completely silenced everyone who would want to say anything else at this point and the silence came soon after.

Because that silence didn’t seem to end any time soon, Arata decided to look away from that scenery and looked back at the battlefield where the fight between Azmi and Haru continued to heat up, although it also seemed like it was going to end soon.

-MUAHAHAHA, what is it? Is that all you got!

From the distance it seemed like Azmi was going to win this fight. He was now standing few meters before Haru who unlike him didn’t seem to be in the good condition anymore. She was now crouching down with bended knees and her face was blocked as her face was looking down. After laughing at his close victory Azmi threw a punch at her and his punches even if he wasn’t even hitting the earth were making a small tunnels in the ground just from invisible force. There were already many ‘holes’ like that around.

Azmi’s punch did not reach Haru though as even though she was crouching, she still managed to perfectly avoid the blow by incredibly high jump backward. She actually jumped up all the way to Azmi’s height and then with a somersault in the air landed few meters to the back where she was staying. Still everyone knew that by dodging and running away one can’t win.

“I see, so I guess she was simply buying time from the very beginning. In the first place she did tell me that she has half of her abilities on some unreasonable coldown. I guess she was acting then, or simply underestimated Azmi or something, whatever it is though she will probably start running away soon.”

Arata also started thinking like this but then he realized an important detail although what actually made him do so was Levi’s as inappropriate as possible comment given the situation they were in.

-black!

While Arata was thinking about Haru’s situation his thoughts were interrupted by Levi’s loud shout. Still because Levi said it in somewhat excited voice Arata decided to ask.

-what are you screaming black? Did you come up with something?

-haha, I see that you are interested Arata, in that case I will tell you…

Levi ended up walking towards Arata to whisper to him, so others does not hear him.

-during that last somersault I finally confirmed, she is wearing the black ones.

-ha? What is it about?

-naturally I mean ‘that’! You know when she was flying in the air her skirt flipped up and I had the perfect angle…

“…”

-say I am good right? I was able to see it all the way from this distance. Unfortunately I couldn’t confirm the design.

-Levi could you get a little more serious in a moment like this?

-relax, rather than that I tried to give you a reward for your soon to be noble sacrifice, you hero wannabe.

-I don’t know what you are talking about and I am definitely not planning on dying any time soon. As soon as you guys enter the heavens, I will follow after you so be sure to call out to me when the gates open.

-oh, I am so thrilled that you will defend my escape, I didn’t think that you cared so much about me.

-if anything I don’t care what happens to you, when you die I will simply laugh at your corpse.

-ah, your words hurt so bad, aren’t we friends?

-even so I would not jump into the fire simply to help a friend, I am not that good of a guy.

-oh, you finally said that we are friends?

-I wasn’t meaning you in last sentence.

-whatever it was it’s not like I didn’t know it as after all there is only one reason why you want stay down here and it’s definitely not to help out a ‘friend’.

-then what are you telling me that I am doing it for self-satisfaction.

-who knows, but still as your friend I will tell you just this. Because I know you, I know that you would prefer to actually die today rather than continue this quest as otherwise… nothing but regrets is what will await you.

With those words Levi left him and walked away.

“I am not sure what he meant but if anything I definitely would rather regret dying here and losing my world’s first.”

In the end, Arata didn’t understand what Levi tried to tell him and he once again looked at the battlefield. There the first time he saw Haru yet again, his opinion on the fight changed right away even despite the fact that what ignited that thought was Levi’s comment on Haru’s underwear.

“Wait, she is still not wearing her armor!”

It was true that Haru was still fighting in her ‘civilian clothes’ which naturally meant that she didn’t fear for her life even once despite the fact that she was fighting against demon lord.

From afar it would seem that Azmi is winning by a lot as after all it was only him who kept on attacking, and Haru was only defending and dodging. Also it didn’t seem like that only from afar as Azmi himself kept on laughing, completely sure of his victory.

“Oi, oi, she didn’t even dirt her clothes yet and you are thinking that you are winning, Azmi it’s not good! You have no right to be overconfident.”

Unfortunately Azmi couldn’t hear the thoughts of Arata who out of sudden putted himself in his position, probably because he was relating to him or maybe it was simply an advice for himself in the future as Arata did have the same overconfidence problems.

-HAHAHAHA, you are already barely keeping up, so how long do you think you can survive, from the look of it you won’t even survive the remaining five minutes to see the heaven’s gate opened.

“Is this the time already?”

Actually right now the party had no way of telling if the gate was already activated, although in this very moment the party also realized that problem, although finding the solution to it wasn’t that hard.

-Julia go quickly upstairs and call us if the gate was to stabilize.

Shin said to her.

-how can I tell if it will be stable?

-currently the gate should look similar to water surface on which the drops of waters keep on purring, but the moment the gate become stable will be the moment in which those drops will disappear and it will be completely flat area.

-so if it’s already flat it means that the gate become stable right?

-yes exactly so if that will be the case call us immediately, otherwise don’t call us at all as we don’t want to let the demons see our movements. If anything you can simply whisper and Bran will hear you.

-okay!

With instructions ready, Julia quickly run up the stairs and disappeared from everyone’s sight. It was probably already quite worrisome do move from their positions on the watch of demon army but because it was only one person, there was no common from demons, also no one would probably dare to interrupt Azmi’s fight.

-FINE, if you don’t plan on showing me your attack then I am going to finish it right now, I still have my speech to tell to my armies before the war starts…

With that said Azmi prepared for the last and finishing blow. His body started turning from black to red color and at the same time it was becoming bigger and bigger, and it wasn’t that he was becoming fatter but rather his muscles were evolving and growing. The biggest grow could be seen at his right arm which he now was pulling backward preparing for the blow. That arm also had an unusual glow as if something was surrounding it although the color his heating up body was completely overwhelming that glow.

-thanks for the warm up and now, good bye!...

With those words Azmi ended up throwing the punch and the moment he did everything before him become surrounded by the force. Also it was not only before him but also around him, as even if in slightly lesser effect the demons that stood on the front line or were flying in the sky also got blown away, then even the party who was standing over 100 meters away from the fight and weren’t in the direct line of the punch felt the shockwave coming all the way towards them. On the other hand though, if Azmi was going to punch in their direction they would already all die immediately because after seeing the damage that he did on his front, no one in the party had any hope of surviving that. 

The distance of few kilometers in front of Azmi which was far to the right become completely devastated in few moments and even the the small mountain that used to stand over somehow disappeared as after ‘the punch’ there was nothing left but destroyed earth and also probably many dead demons that have been caught in the blow although because the army kept their line, most of its forces was naturally still intact and only those more unluckily died or simply flied away somewhere. After the blow all that was left was few kilometer in length crater that would definitely put to shame the one that Arata saw in the city of Triangle as the one that Azmi created here just a second ago was at least few times bigger and deeper than that one.

-MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!…

After the attack ended, Azmi laughed out loudly with his demonic voice as he couldn’t see Haru anywhere in sight while just few seconds ago she was in the place where crater began

-HAHAha, how do you like that you … aaaaa!

But then suddenly Azmi’s voice turned into that of yell of pain.

-Aaa, maybe standing here wasn’t the best idea just by listening to you up close my ears hurts…

As it turned out Haru was alright and well and currently she was standing right on the top of Azmi’s head and she just ended up sticking the pointy end of her scythe right into Azmi’s forehead and it was probably that pain that made him yell.

-your voice is really too loud and I am sensitive to sounds so, go die in hell!... hmm, but the hell is your home right? So when you go there you will simply disturb your neighbors with your loud voice, in that case… emmm… ah never mind, bye, bye!

Haru tried to say something inspiring but unfortunately it didn’t turn out how she imaged it, nevertheless it seemed like Haru was finally switching from defending and buying time into actual fighting, even if she still didn’t equip her armor.

She pick up her weapon and over her head, she started to spin it around, in a similar manner that she did the first time she took her scythe to hands.

This time however it wasn’t a simple practice, or maybe it was as what happened two seconds after couldn’t have anything to do with a circling weapon in the hands of single girl. Not to mention that it all started all from the ground.

At first it was just a simple circle on the ground around Azmi’s body but in two seconds, in turned into gigantic tornado that would seem to reach the sky. The moment that tornado appeared Arata lost from his eyes both Azmi and Haru as they were in the very middle of the cyclone.

Then after another two seconds the cyclone started to shoot away something out from it but Arata could not see exactly what those were as they flied away way to fast, although he already guessed what exactly those were namely the ‘black body parts that were cut away from poor demon lord’.

Shooting away Azmi’s elements also didn’t take that much time as the tornado started to disappear about twenty seconds after if first appeared. It started to disappear from the ground to the top and when it did it was clear that the place where Azmi was just a while ago was no longer filled with the demon lord, on his place however there was one human-sized red-blood gem that was floating in the air and nothing else.

As for Haru, Arata soon located her when tornado continued to disappear, it was about 300 meters above the ground high in the skies. Normally one could have a problem to locate her from the distance but right now Haru was quite visible or rather the edge of her weapon gathered everyone attention as that weapon was now soaking up the tornado and taking its power in.

-WHAT’S THE MEANING OF THIS!

While this was happening, out from the ‘black portal’ on the ‘used to be red line’, a gigantic winged demon appeared and he ended up shouting out the moment he saw the scene with demonic voice that could rival that of Azmi. And second later even before he could get an answer he took out a demonic looking black-red bow and started aiming, and his aim was surprisingly on the blood red crystal. He generated a demonic arrow which soon ended up flying towards the crystal.

At the same time, Haru was challenging the power of tornado towards her weapon and then when the tornado completely disappeared, there was a gigantic ‘wind blade’ at the edge of Haru’s scythe. When she finished soaking the power of tornado, she then with that weapon started to fall downward but it wasn’t a simple free fall. At the very beginning two small tornados appeared at her feet’s that greatly increased her falling speed and when Haru got the desired speed she started to spin in the air which made an effect of falling gray-white spinning circle that destroys everything on its way. That spinning circle was going straight in the direction of blood-red gem which strangely started to generate a black flesh around itself.

Before the circle hit that crystal though it encountered the arrow which managed to reach the gem and right before hitting it, the arrow turned upward and went exactly against Haru’s attack, still the moment the demonic looking arrow encountered the spinning circle, even despite it’s great power, it didn’t stop Haru’s attack even for a second and the arrow ended up disappearing in the wind without a notice.

The spinning circle nearly reached the blood red gem but then it was stopped for few seconds by a red barrier that appeared in its way that was generated by the crystal itself, still that only bought yet another few seconds and the spinning white circle broke through it as well, breaking it completely and then it finally landed on the blood red gem.

Despite the fact that it didn’t look that durable, surprisingly the red gem was withstanding the attack quite well, although that meant that it didn’t get destroyed right away. Still the damage was keep on coming and as the time went on, the spinning circle was going deeper and deeper inside the gem which was slowly being cut in half. After twenty seconds of confrontation there were only few centimeters left on which the both sides of gems were connected, but then as if the gem had it’s own will, the gem moved and second later it was pushed down to the ground. With that the gem escaped for a second the spinning circle. After hitting the ground the gem bounced upward to the air and the spinning circle couldn’t follow him anymore as in the first place that attack finished and Haru landed on the ground on her feet.

Naturally though she wasn’t going to let the red game escape and second after landing she made swing with her scythe with released the energy that was still gathered on its blade. In a look the attack looked somewhat similar to Arata’s sword slash, as it was a white-grey flying arc.

Still that attack never reached ;nearly destroyed gem as the demon that appeared earlier on and was shooting with the bow did manage to fly all the distance over here and the moment there was a chance he caught the red gem with his hands and slightly he managed to move it out from the attack range.

It didn’t come without a price though as the moment he did that rescue, the half of his body down the chest was cut off by Haru’s attack and it fallen down to the ground. The demon ignored that detail and he immediately started to fly away over the demon army which made Haru unable to follow after him.

-THE OTHER DEMON LORDS WILL COME SHORTLY, UNTIL THEN THOUGH BE SURE TO SHOW THEM THE MIGHT OF DEMONS. IF I HEAR THAT ANY OF OTHER DEMON LORDS SAW A HUMAN HERE, YOU WILL FIND OUT WHY I AM CALLED THE DEMON LORD OF TORTURE!

It seemed like the demon that saved Azmi’s core just now despite his poor performance which was getting cut in half the moment he tried to do something, was also a demon lord. Still it seemed that rather than fighting his main focus for now become the protection of the red-blood gem and so the ‘demon lord of torture’ ended up flying away back to the black portal as fast as he could.

His appearance and the command that he made, spelled nothing but doom and death for the party as even though Azmodan the demon lord of war was defeated, his gigantic army was still here and those were thousands of demons who were waiting for two hours just for the chance to slay anything.

=wraaar!

=kruaaaaa!

=buraaaaa!

=iciuiuc!

The whole army ended up making a loud shout and second later the first line of the demons started charging forwards.

-everyone, it’s now or never, we are climbing the stairs and following the plan!

The second after the demon shout, Shin called out to his paralyzed party which followed what he said immediately. Naturally with few exception.

One of those exception was Arata who decided to ‘take pleasure of making first blood’ during the war as he would like to call it, apart from him though there shouldn’t be anyone else staying. But naturally there were some. Arata didn’t even have to check but he simply looked in Rin’s direction and as he suspected she was standing there without moving and she was simply looking at him. Still the moment he glared at her and she saw that glare she turned away with sad eyes and run up the stairs like ‘nearly all others’. The other person that stayed behind was Shin, although he was going to do so only for some minute.

-I finished ‘runeing you up’ and also I am leaving the emerald rune here as well. The moment you want to back off just stand on it and you will be teleported up the stairs, hopefully it won’t be long before we call you…

Shin said to him and looked down, his voice for the first time today wasn’t as tired as earlier, before he started running up though, he added one last thing.

-take care of yourself.

“I guess… still for now I have to think up an idea of how to stop this charging horde as otherwise my staying here will also be meaningless.”

Arata looked at the demons that were already fifty meters away from him. When the army started running even Haru gave up on doing anything else and after waving towards Arata, she escaped with the use of yet another tornado. This was slightly smaller than previous one but after summoning it for few seconds Haru started to spin inside it and after reaching a crazy speed she ended up lunching herself from it. She ended up flying east and given her speed at the very beginning Arata wouldn’t be surprised if she were to reach Larisane or Karma just by letting the force push her away for a day. He also wouldn’t be surprised if the speed that he reached destroyed her body as human body wasn’t supposed to withstand such pressure and speed. Luckily though, Haru didn’t have normal human body but rather a body of high level adventurer.

=warrrr!

The demon army was closing in.

“Well then let’s start with this one.”

[Sword enchant: light]

[Sword slash]

For the good start Arata decided to check out how his strongest spell will deal against the horde of charging demons. He unsheathed his black sword, enchanted it with power of light and send out the long arc before him. That arc soon reached the demon horde, some of the demons jumped over it but some of the demons were hit and sliced in half and even though Arata’s attack wasn’t ‘anti-demonic’ without the presence of demon lord nearby, those attack managed to kill of some demons, and not only some but actually many to the point where Arata soon also got a message.

[You have leveled up by 50%]

“Oh! Let’s try it again.”

[Sword slash]

Seeing the result Arata send out another sword slash at the wall of enemies before him and then yet again.

[You have leveled up by 60%]

[You have gained a level, current level 113]

“…well the double usage of my spell managed to buy the whole six seconds, great!”

Despite the fact that Arata just earned a whole level just by swinging his sword forward while activating the spell twice, the result was that the demon charge line only slowed down for barely six seconds and even if one sword slash did manage to kill off some demons on its place, there was always thousands of others.

“Yea… well I don’t have any other ideas so I will simply fight them on the stairs and try to the epic quote.”

-you shall not pass!

Arata tried to shout at the demons but his shout wasn’t even heard by him as the demon army was charging forward with a huge roar.

“Well, it’s not like I was good at shouting anyway.“

Unfortunately Arata didn’t have time for the jokes as the demons on the left side of the crater that Azmi made earlier on finally reached his position and the first demon that did so was a gigantic ‘thing’ with six arms and with each of them he had a large club and with one of those clubs he hit at Arata’s position. Naturally Arata immediately moved backward to avoid it and the club landed at the bottom of the stairs and bounced back from them.

“Those are really durable.”

Arata looked at the stairs that even now stood unscratched. Still it wasn’t the time to admire Solaris’ architecture durability as second after the club landed on the stairs the other first demon reached the stairs. It was one of the hell hound type or rather Cerberus type as he had three heads.

After he appeared and run up to him Arata immediately pierced at the middle head with his sword. The moment he did that though, the two head on the left and right used the half of the body each and went on Arata’s left and right and from there they attacked.

To that though Arata simply jumped upward and dodged the strike and from the sky he pierced the other two heads with his swords. But then while he was still in the air he saw that on the right side of the stair there was another demon that was trying to sneak by.

[Black dash]

Arata used his skill to hurry up falling down and after landing with few fast steps he sliced at the ‘sneaking demon’ belly and after dealing the wound he pushed him downward the stairs on yet another demon that was charging by.

“How am I supposed to block off ten meters of space?”

A thought like that appeared in Arata’s mind when he saw about six smaller demons now getting pass him on the other side from which he came just a second ago.

[Sword slash]

Just to stop them Arata send out the arc that killed them on the spot as well as some other demons that were climbing the stairs. Still second later after he did so, the gigantic demon ended up attacking with two clubs at Arata from both sides.

[Leap]

Arata didn’t even have the time to look on how big the reach of those clubs were and so he jumped up as far as he could, which actually ended up being surprisingly high, at this high Arata would consider landing with black dash but naturally he didn’t even have the time to think about that.

After jumping up, Arata become an easy target for the ‘winged demons’ that also were taking part in the charge. The moment Arata appeared in the air, those of mage type ended up shouting with some red lasers at him. There were about 15 of those lasers coming at the same time.

“Common!”

While in melee, there was a limit on how many enemies can attack him at once, with range attacks there was nothing like that, actually Arata should be luckily that the ‘archers’ didn’t attack him as well, although that was probably because the mages’ demonic lasers would vaporize the arrows

“I don’t even know what element it is so…”

[Reflect enchant.]

With no other choice but that, Arata in the mid-air, swung with both his swords at the incoming lasers. The purple barrier appeared the moment the lasers came close to the swords and at start those lasers were reflected back as intended but unfortunately not all of them and in the end about four ended up hitting Arata and afterwards, they ‘help him to get to the ground faster’ namely they made him crush into the stairs after first hitting him hard.

[You have gained a level, current level 114]

On the other hand the reflected lasers ended up shooting down the flying mages who weren’t prepared for that counter and with those dead, Arata got yet another level.

“I guess it’s already RIP mana.”

Arata stood up from the stairs and thought like this as the reason why some of the lasers were not reflected was because Arata already reached his limit with mana and the last reflects took the rest of what he had because those lasers weren’t some minor spells.

“So it’s already time of lighting speeding out of here?”

After getting the first hit, Arata realized that he won’t last here for far too and even if he does the demons will bypass him eventually which would completely kill the purpose of him staying here. Despite the fact that it might seem like Arata was trying to sacrifice himself to buy some time, which he actually was probably doing, Arata himself didn’t plan to do ‘a waste sacrifice’ that won’t change anything. Still right now he couldn’t really do anything that useful to stop the army of demons not to mention that there were also some flying ones that were sure to slip by as they weren’t even flying above the stairs. Although Arata wasn’t concerned at least by that part as he never considered having a chance of stopping the aerial attack to begin with, so he just had to leave those that slip by to people at the top of the stairs. Still his main goal was to stop the ground forces even if only for a second and currently he already bought about 100 of them so it was a great achievement but unfortunately it seemed like that would be all.

“Okay it’s time to…”

Arata already turned away and was even made first step of his run but then as he looked forward up the stairs he saw ‘something’ blocking his way.

“Hmm!”

That something was eight meters long, black-red gigantic greatsword of Azmi that was send flying here some time ago, although at that time Arata wasn’t looking at the fight so he didn’t see how it happened although he did now barely remembered that the sword flied over his head at some point. Still now that Arata saw this sword before him, the demonic black metal with red demonic letters on it, he immediately though of a certain idea or rather recall something that he once thought up.

“No it won’t work.”

He also immediately thought that this idea won’t work and if he were to actually try it out, he would certainly pay it with his life, but then again, even though Arata knew it won’t work he tried anyway.

[Shadow hand]

The black hand without a clear form escaped Arata’s right shoulder and stretched all the way towards the handle of the gigantic sword and grabbed it, but then naturally the sword didn’t even budge when Arata tried to pick it up.

“I knew it.”

Arata looked quickly to the back just to see one demon with two handed axe come at him. Currently though Arata was attached to the gigantic shadow hand so he couldn’t even turn around properly. That’s why after dodging the axe attack, Arata made very uncommon for him move and ended up kicking the demon with a high kick that send the demon flying to the left side of the stairs which made him fall down from there as currently Arata was 8 meters above the ground on those stairs.

“I have to let go of it!”

Even though in his mind, Arata had the rational thought of letting it go, his actual actions were quite the opposite and he kept on trying to lift up the sword while he fought of few incoming demons with taekwondo leg kick techniques.

“Hmm maybe I should try out that method here!”

Arata unsheathed his black sword and started holding it horizontally in the same position that the gigantic greatsword was laying.

“The best way to control that thing is to simply give it a simple ‘command’ of following my hand movement. With that there is no imagination involved which makes it much easier. So…”

-perfect connectivity!

Arata actually voiced the name of the method that he came up with for his shadow hand controlling. That method was quite simple and that was namely, after making shadow hand, order it to follow the movement of actual hand. This method had few downsides like both normal and shadow hand had to move now in the exact same manner as well as the shadow hand had now the limitation of human hand and it couldn’t stretch for example. Still when it came to precise control that method was the best as it provided a connectivity to the point where the real hand also had to take into account what the shadow hand was doing, although in those circumstances it backfired heavily as the moment Arata ‘connected’ both hands, his right hand in which he was holding his swords couldn’t move as well, and Arata felt the complete weight of the object that he was trying to pick up right now.

“Ah no good!”

Another demon came and this time he attacked with his four arms at Arata whose right arm become a complete unmovable stone. In that second though actually using the fact that his right arm won’t move, Arata made a small jump caught the head of incoming demon with his feet and then he smashed that head right into indestructible stairs of heaven’s gate construction which naturally hurt a lot. After that though Arata focused back on impossible.

-common you damn useless strength stat! I have a lot of you and you never actually did anything for me! That number is not for show, is it? It should be able to pick up a large junk of metal like this at least!

Naturally though nothing answered to his call and the sword still didn’t budge. Also the problem was that Arata was running out of his time as many demons were already two meters away from him with the ‘charging demon with a horn’ being two second away from sticking his spiky horn into Arata’s back and this time, no human techniques could help Arata to counter it.

Arata didn’t even saw that though as he was trying his best with Azmi’s greatsword so he couldn’t keep on looking behind himself but then when he made a glance towards his back and saw the horn right behind him, there was nothing else he could do as undoing ‘perfect connectivity’ wasn’t something Arata could do in few seconds. That’s why rather than doing anything else, with the attack being a second away from piercing through him, Arata did what any other person would do in his situation and namely he closed his eyes, second before his doom. After all the memory of your own death was something that would hunt you later on so if anything, anyone would like to avoid seeing it.

Strangely though when Arata closed his eyes he didn’t saw the darkness that would soon consume him. It was rather complete different image. Nearly everything before him was white with the exception of ‘one person’ who was standing in the middle of that white space. Arata also immediately realized that that person was about to say something but even if it was just an image in his head Arata didn’t want to hear it as he knew the exact words that would ‘the person’ say to him, that’s why before ‘that person’ managed to say anything Arata opened his eyes once again to escape that.

But then when Arata opened his eyes he saw that ‘his body did what he could not’.

The first thing he saw was his hand holding the black sword stretched forward. That sword just finished the cut through the horn and the charging demon’s head. But then there was also the gigantic demonic greatsword which cut about five other demons that were climbing the stairs.

“Ha?”

Arata still was not sure what was happening but then he saw another demon on his right appearing out of nowhere so with the natural self-defense mechanism, Arata swung at him with his sword in hand and cut off demons left arm and second later he stabbed that demon in the chest with the same sword as he still did not unsheathe the other one.

Still while he was doing it, the gigantic greatsword followed the exact same movement, and in ended up destroying few flying demons that happened to be on the way of the swing.

“No way!”

Despite the fact that Arata did not believe it, ‘what was happening before his eyes’ ‘was happening before his eyes’ and that was namely his full connectivity working as intended and his shadow hand arm being able to pick up Azmi’s greatsword. It was happening even despite the fact that Arata didn’t even feel any difference in his body. His muscles were working the exact same way they were working before, and Arata himself didn’t feel any difference in his strength usage either. Despite that though the shadow hand with the greatsword in it was following Arata’s movement perfectly and because it did at the current moment, Arata ignored everything else. Only a single thought appeared in his mind.

“Time to kill some demons!”

With this thought in mind, Arata run to the middle of the stairs and made the spin. That spin naturally made the gigantic greatsword move in the similar manner which ended up with gigantic horizontal slash that destroyed every demon that was on the stairs to get pass Arata.

After that one swing Arata faced down the stairs and moved his hand with the sword in it before his face. The gigantic greatsword moved in the same manner as well and then while holding it like that, Arata for the first time started going down the stairs.

Whenever he encountered any demons he simply made a horizontal slash to destroy all of them, but it was not only that, given the huge range of this weapon, Arata also started swinging at the enemies in the sky who upon meeting the demonic greatsword were falling down like flies.

[You have gained a level, current level 115]

Before Arata reached the bottom of the stairs he already had yet another level. Because demon’s strongest ability their regeneration powers were not active right now, their general ‘power level’ decreased a lot, but they still gave the same amount of experience as they would normally and because of that Arata could get level after the level with little difficulty. And it was really in little difficulty as right now Arata didn’t even necessary had to use any techniques or perfectly balanced slashed. Right now all Arata needed to do is to simply swing the sword in the air and then Azmi’s greatsword would take care of the rest.

Arata continued to kill all types of demons, the big one with three hands and clubs was especially a good target as the moment he fell down he also killed off a lot of his brethren while at the same time he blocked away the left side of the crater. For some time Arata had to block off only the right side of stairs which given his fighting tactic was quite easy for him. At some point, Arata started to even regret that he has to defend the stairs right now because if he was allowed to run against the demon army and there simply spin slowly while moving forward, the amount of experience that this whirlwind would make would be tremendous. Arata did not forget the bigger picture though but even if that method would have been better, Arata still exp up quite a lot.

[You have gained a level, current level 116]

[You have gained a level, current level 117]

[You have unlocked a new skill]

[You have gained a level, current level 118]

The level was going up like crazy and in the meantime Arata even saw the message about some new skill, after seeing it a though appeared in his mind.

“I see so the twilight swordsman class is about picking up gigantic demon swords and swing it at demon armies if I do that more often I will get new skill.”

Right now Arata had really easy time as his swings not only served as attack but also as a defend because anytime the range tried to attack from the distance Arata simply countered it by swinging his gigantic sword as naturally, the demonic greatsword of demon lord would be much more durable than any type of magic. And because Arata had such easy time he even had a time for making sarcastic notes towards the game system, namely the ‘great new skills unlocking system’.

Unfortunately though just as anytime something is going good, there had to be end to everything. Just as Arata was making yet another swing, the shadow hand suddenly disappeared and with its last movement the demonic greatsword ended up flying away while cutting few more demons on its way, still those were the last ones that Arata could kill with that method as after three minutes of playing around with it, Arata’s stamina run out.

“Ah I thought there will be at least one more minute, I didn’t make it much bigger than during the test but it seems that not only the size counts in stamina consumption. Oh, well I didn’t expect to pick it up anyway so, hey great result. Ah if only I could keep that sword but unfortunately it’s something that is only lying on the ground and it’s not my loot.”

-now then… .

The moment the greatsword flied away from Arata’s hand the look in all demon’s eyes immediately changed, and then two second later, the whole demon’s army artillery that could see him, started to attack Arata all at once. When that happened though, no one hat to tell Arata what to do right now.

-aaaa!

Arata started to run away, and he was doing it very fast, actually he was running really, really fast. Much faster than he normally would, it was simply that every of his steps send him a little farther than usual although right now even that was barely enough to escape incoming projectiles.

Arata was not thinking about anything else than running and his run was so desperate that he even missed the emerald rune that Shin left him to escape with. In the current circumstances Arata had only one goal and that was to get away from the projectiles that were coming at him and those were all kinds of type. Arrows, spears, bolts, swords, clubs but also magical beams, fireballs, magical circles appearing under his feet, and many others which would be hard to count. There was even one gigantic demon that ended up throwing a simple rock that of the size of the car. There were really many things that were coming at him, still Arata’s sprint allowed him to somehow not get caught by any of those and at the current moment he already went by the half length of the stairs. All those attack hit those stairs but yet again they didn’t do anything. Right now though Arata wouldn’t have mind if the bottom of the stairs got destroyed as it would delayed the demon charge.

Arata did not even look behind him though and he continued upward as there was nothing left for him to do and by his count the heaven’s gate should have already been opened, even if no one called him.

While climbing the stairs and looking upward Arata saw something appearing at the top of the stairs, or rather slightly above the top of the stairs as the person that appeared was not standing but flying with the use of wings. It wasn’t any of the winged demons that managed to slip by earlier, it was obvious as the demons simply couldn’t look so beautiful and their wings would never be able to achieve this crystal silver color.

“Well that is an angel if I ever seen on.”

Arata quickly understood the nature of that person as just by simple look it was obvious. Apart from characteristic silver white wings the angel was also wearing a robe in ‘angelic colors’ which were gold, silver and blue. That robe also included a hood that covered the angel’s head but from Arata’s perspective he could see angel’s face. Under the hood there was woman’s gentle smile as well as beautiful golden eyes that for a second looked in his direction. It happen only for a moment though as second later ‘she’ looked at the battlefield and then face expression completely changed.

“So… are the good guys or not?”

Practically ever since Arata learned about angels’ involvement in the quest, he had this question on mind. That was because in essence there were two options that differed a lot. One was that angels are good, friendly NPC race and other that the whole heavens is some kind of large dungeon in which those angels are enemies to fight. Naturally those two were a huge difference as one meant free walk in the park and other another army to fight against.

“This hostility wasn’t there when she looked at me, right?”

Currently the flying angel had really hostile expression but hopefully that was only because she was looking at the demon army that was corrupting those lands. And naturally it didn’t end just on making hostile expression. The flying angel suddenly started to shine in silver-gold light and afterwards in the sky around her about twenty flying silver-gold orbs appeared. The most surprising thing though was that the moment she activated her spell the light in the horizon started to appear signaling the start of a new day. It was truly an angelic entrance that was followed by the light of dawn.

Still right now there was something else on Arata’s mind.

“Wait, is she going to attack that army on her own? Where is an angels army or something?”

The answer to that question soon appeared but before that though, the silver-gold orbs, all at once started to release the lasers beams down on the demon army.

Arata followed the silver-gold lines with his eyes and there on the ground he saw how most of the demons were simply being vaporized the moment they encountered those beams. Seeing that though Arata was somehow no impressed. Although it was for completely different reasons.

“… ah… I had already enough overpowered attacks for one day. I guess that I should be happy that none of those are aiming at me.”

The lasers beams continued for about two minutes and they were holding back the charging in demons away from the stairs. Still even that power could not defeat the whole army as the number of demons didn’t seem to go down by much even with an attack like that. But it seemed that that attack’s purpose was slightly different as while the ‘angel girl’ was using those silver-gold orbs to hold back the army, behind here some other ‘flying people’ started to gather.

In comparison to the first angel those had the amours and weapons ready. Their equipment was mostly in gold and silver color. Nearly all weapons were gold though. About half of them had ‘angelic bows’ with them but even if there were angel archers they still had other weapons as well. Still there was few characteristics that was exact the same with all angels and that was that they all had silver white wings, golden eyes and also silver-white colored hair without a single exception to that rule. The length and the style of that hair did differ but they were all silver in color.

About three minutes after their appearance, the gold-silver orbs disappeared and the moment they did, the gathered ‘angel’s army started flying down, and the great battle between forces of heaven and hell for the heaven’s gate began.

“Oh, this is somewhat depressing.”

Looking at the scene made Arata think like that as for him fighting against one strong ‘flying’ enemy would be quite hard. Here however before his eyes he had two armies filled with men, women and demons, full of flying people who kept on making incredible attacks one after another. Well none of that was on Azmi’s level or on level of the ‘angel girl’ who didn’t join the fight and was keep on flying above the stairs for this whole time.

-oh Arata, are you still alive.

While Arata was looking down on the ‘battle scene from bible’, he suddenly heard Levi’s surprised voice coming from the top of the stairs and after looking up, Levi was indeed there.

-yea, what’s up over there?

Arata answered and started climbing the stairs, while he was still doing so, Levi answered.

-well we had few demons slipping by you but we took care of them with little problem. Apart from that, when the gate opened, first this angel appeared…

Levi pointed with his finger over his head as three meters directly above him the angel girl was flying.

-and after her, bunch of other angels appeared as well and now they are all fighting. But strangely though they all ignored us or rather, this girl ignored us even though we called out to her. As for others they were clearly talking about us but they didn’t answer to our questions either.

“Well, even now she is still ignoring us.”

Despite the fact that Levi just talked about the person who was clearly visible, she didn’t do anything in particular and right now she actually had her golden eyes closed.

While Levi explaining the situation, Arata managed to climb the stairs and there he saw that the party was staying there alright and well. There were also many demons bodies lying around, mostly with wings but there also were few without one.

“Hmm, so I did let few of those without wings slip after all. When did that happened, I was sure I stopped them all?”

Arata did know that he let through the flying ones as he couldn’t do anything about those high in the sky but there were also few types that wouldn’t be able to fly and yet they also managed to get up there somehow.

“Oh, well it doesn’t matter, I am glad everyone is okay.”

Only a simply though like that appeared in Arata’s mind, although.

-hey Levi, where is Julia!

After doing a fast look, despite what Levi said, there was one missing.

-wow relax bro. Sure I can’t say for sure right now but she should be okay.

-what do you mean?

-well after all those angels flied pass by us, we were standing there wondering what to do. Well actually we were betting on the odds if you were living or not and if we should simply leave you.

-thanks… .

-you are welcome. Don’t sound so mean, it was simply an idea that Shin presented, in the end though Rin said that we are waiting and well… no one felt like arguing with her. After that though that guy came up with yet another idea and that was that we should check if the havens gate works alright.

-but the angels come out already so why shouldn’t it work?

-don’t ask me, that guy is simply too cautious for all I know. But anyway after that idea a volunteer appeared and she went inside the gate about a minute ago and she should be coming back to let us know that it work for sure.

-I see, well if it’s already two way teleport then we can try it out just in case. So Levi what about the possibility that angels are our next enemies?

-hmm, I don’t know, the only thing I can say is that girl is nice. Little quiet though, but I am sure that she is simply thinking how to answer my feelings.

“I see so he already used his ‘knight wannabe mode’ on her. Hopefully she won’t think of us as weirdoes because of him.”

After listening to all the details of the report, Arata started walking forward on the platform as because it was so big, he was still quite away from everyone else, and they were mostly staying on the other side close to the ‘portal’.

The closest to Arata, or rather the farthest from the gate and the group was naturally Rin. Then there were the rest chatting together and those were Shin, Mika, Flynn and ‘one-armed Bran the demon slayer’. Still as Arata was coming closer, it seemed that Mika saw his wound on the belly that he got after ‘laser attack’ which he didn’t manage to block out. Still given that Arata tried to block the whole army by himself, in the first place it was a miracle that he survived so a wound like this counted like nothing. Arata didn’t thought of it as a miracle though but rather simply “giant demon lord’s greatswords are good”.

Mika run up to more or less where Rin was staying and from there she started her healing spells. With few seconds delay, the wound was healed, although right now Arata didn’t feel much difference as he himself completely forgotten about that wound and his body blocked away the signals of pain. At that time he didn’t have a time to worry about it. In truth though, it was a serve wound that made his bones being visible from the outside.

Also Arata couldn’t really look how healing was done and that was because Mika was standing next to Rin. The moment Arata saw Rin here again, he averted his gaze as he couldn’t stand looking at her right now. Despite the fact that earlier on she was worried about him, right now, the moment she saw him here alive and well her face was sad, even sadder then usually. She was looking at him with eyes that send a clear message that she didn’t want to see him again. Arata realized that message as well even if he couldn’t tell why still he himself didn’t want to look at that ‘message’ so he averted his gaze. Still that situation didn’t last long as even before Arata managed to reach the party the ‘lie of peace and victory’ was destroyed.

The flat gold gate of the portal suddenly moved and out from it a man came out. It was a man in a completely golden armor that covered him completely with the exception of the head, and his characteristics were the most surprising. The eyes were golden just like with any other angel but his long hairs tied at the back were dark brown. He also had a small unshaved bear. Then another surprise that man did not have the silver wings like all others that came out from the heaven’s gate.

Right now the dark brown haired man was holding single one-handed sword in his hand although it was a strange sword as it’s handle was as long as the sword blade. If the man were to hold the weapon from the very bottom it would become a small spear right away. The sword was gold in color although, the red blood was already staining it, despite the fact that the golden man still didn’t fight any demons and also demon’s blood was black.

-ARIEL! ARIEL!

The moment the man fully emerged from the portal he ended up shouting the same name twice, in the quite loud voice of 40 years old man.

-what is it, your eminence fourth Archangel?

The answers to that call come right away from the flying angel girl that Arata first saw. She on the other hand sounded rather young. The moment she answered though the man ended up stabbing his sword into the ground, although because it was the unbreakable stone that the heaven’s gate was constructed, he didn’t manage to stab it completely. Still somehow his blood stained golden swordspear, still ended up flying in vertical position few centimeters above the floor and then few second later a huge transparent gold wall appeared all around the heaven’s gate portal. Then the man ended up disappearing from Arata’s eyes and the next time Arata saw him, he man was now flying next to the angel girl and even more surprisingly, right now he had the other characteristic of the angel race the silver wings. His hair remained dark brown though.

As to why Arata managed to locate him so fast, it was because the man right away started talking.

-Ariel, what’s with that your eminence fourth Archangel? Didn’t I tell you to call me Michael.

-I think it would have been a dishonor for me to call you that, your eminence fourth Archangel.

-but you are an Archangel now as well Ariel, also is that the way to call your old time friend.

-at best, we could be called old time acquaintances but even that is an old tale isn’t it. So once again, what is it your eminence fourth Archangel?

-…

It seemed like the two angels were either on good terms or on bad terms but it seemed like the former was more probable as the angel girl was clearly sulking before him and despite calling him ‘your eminence fourth Archangel’ her voice didn’t have any respect for the golden armored angel.

-ah, whatever. So Ariel, how many of them there are out already?

-surprisingly at the current time I don’t see any demon lords here.

-none? Strange, but well they will come soon… luckily though because of that we have time to talk so Ariel, what is the deal with you letting someone enter the heaven’s without permission. Or rather don’t tell me that you gave them permission! You should know that the old man will get angry!

-I don’t know what you are talking about? I simply judged the situation and decided that it will be better if someone more appropriate than me deal with interracial affairs.

-and who exactly that someone was going to be?

-who knows…?

With that answer Ariel the angel turned away and flied away leaving the annoyed golden armored angel Michael behind.

-you will have to thank me for saving you reputation here later!...

He once again shouted to her but he didn’t get any other answer than that.

-now then…

The golden angel turned around in party’s direction while still flying in the sky but then second later he decided on land on the platform and when he did, his silver wings also disappeared.

-what I should do with you guys? Ahhh… this will be troublesome but I guess the discussion will go fast. Was the girl with long brown hair that passed through this portal and entered the heavens was one of your friends?

He asked them this question.

“Was?”

-yes she is, did you see her?

Shin answered.

-well then the discussion really went fast… before I start though I guess I can answer your last question. Yes I did see her and you have no idea how painful it was to chase her. Ah I already see those comments tomorrow, the heroic forth archangel has a trouble with catching a single human girl. But don’t worry I did catch her and naturally when I did, I immediately get rid of her. We don’t have quarrel with the human race but she was an intruder, just like you all are.

With those words the golden angel rushed forward. This time Arata managed to see his move but that was only because, the angel passed right between him and Levi with his immediate movement.

The angel passed by them before Arata even managed to catch his sword and if he was to attack at that time, he would probably easily kill both Arata and Levi as in a single move, as while he moved he also draw out two golden swordspears out from nowhere.

Luckily though, the archangel did not attack them as his target was someone else for the moment. After passing by Arata and Levi he stopped between Rin and Mika and there he attacked to both left and right with his spearsword.

‘cling’

Rin managed to unsheathe her swords and time and put up the guard in time, the moment she did that though, both of her ‘original’ swords broke instantly, she on the other-hand ended up being pushed away with archangel strike by about five meters. Still apart from her swords she seemed unharmed and also she immediately threw away two destroyed swords and summoned their exact copies with her skill.

On the other side though, Mika didn’t manage to react to archangel movements and her body ended up being split in half with a single strike, which didn’t actually cut her in half but the moment sword pierced her belly the golden energy was released form it which did the rest.

After his first attack, the archangel looked at Rin and commented.

-ahhh, here I wanted to take care of most unpleasant part right away where I have to kill girls yet here someone with hero attribute appears. It won’t be that easy it seems. In that case before any of you manage to sneak in while I will occupied, I will do this.

After saying that the archangel Michael looked in the direction of the magic portal and second later he stretched his hand towards it. From that hand a golden magical line came out and that line went straight into the middle of the portal where the statue, aka gate activator, aka ancient relic, was still flying. The golden rope reached the statue and attached its end to it. When that happened the brown haired angel caught the rope with his hand and then he pulled it. Without any struggle the relic ended up flying towards the archangel and the moment it left its position, the golden portal disappeared few seconds after, just like party’s hope of entering the heavens.

-… .

-… .

“…”

No one could say anything as just like that, their two hours struggle to survive in the face of demon army was wasted. The first one who once again voiced his mind was the archangel.

-I might be an archangel now but I had my deal of being the guard of gates, portals and multiple other entrances. That experience always says, if you want to defend the gate, lock it and take the key before anyone manage to sneak in. As my Capitan used to say ‘if the intruders are too strong for you, they will kill you and take the key but you will be dead anyway so you won’t hear any complaints from me about letting anyone slip by later’. Ah simple common knowledge but it saves so much time. Now then intruders, are you strong enough to take this key away from me? Just so you know though, even if you manage to do so, Ariel’s job is to simply take this relic and fly away, she didn’t come here to fight the whole demon army just by herself, that’s why even if you defeat me, you will still have to defeat her and then even if you manage to do it, you will still have to survive against the demon army that will come later as even if you put this statue back to its place, it will still take same time it took to activate in the first place.

Just like that, the archangel Michael explained everyone how hopeless their current situation is, although even if there were few glimpses of hope here and there, Arata always knew that if the angels end up not being the friendly NPC race, they won’t be able to do anything even after entering the heavens.

-can I ask you something?

Suddenly Shin asked.

-the last wish of a dead men? Sure go ahead.

-I was wondering. It seems troublesome for you all to come here and defend this gate. Also the fact that the relic was in possession of demons shouldn’t be good for you, as they could use it to invade heavens from here just like they are trying to do so now. That’s why, wouldn’t it be better for you to destroy this gate long time ago before they manage to use it, or is it that you still need it?

-no, we angels don’t need it, we can get to earth and back to heavens anytime we want and yes destroying this gate would be the safest choice but… oh well, just simply look at this…

The archangel Michael ended up connecting his two swords into one dual blade. While he was holding it the weapon started to get surrounded by brightest light that Arata ever saw and when that light stabilized around the weapon, the archangel ended up sticking it into the ground.

‘boom!’

There was incredibly bang and a strong shockwave that ended up pushing everyone from the party to the ground. Still, when everything calmed down there wasn’t big damage done to the platform anywhere despite the big power of the strike.

-wow! I managed to make a stretch on it, seem like I got a little bit stronger in those past few years…

The first one speak anything was yet again archangel Michael who was actually suppressed that his ‘big ultimate attack’ made a small hole in the floor of the platform.

-now then I think that will answer your last death wish, as you can probably realize it is impossible for us to destroy this thing. Well not literally impossible but we would need to gather all five highest ranked archangel and ask them to attack this thing day and night for few years. And I am for one will definitely not sign up for this job…

It seemed that apart from answering Shin’s question Michael also simply wanted to try his power against the heaven’s gate durability still even his attack didn’t do much to it.

-well then shall we continue… it’s been a while since I fought on my legs without wings.

The archangel said that and then he spited his dual blade back into two spearswords. But then before he started attacking, someone’s laugh interrupted him and that laugh made even the great archangel shiver.

-hyhyhyhyhyhyhyhyhy…

The voice seemed to come from far above them and it was exactly the spot in which the two blades of the statue of human warrior and statue of angel crossed. Arata looked up immediately and at the top of those blades there was someone in black clothes. Because of the distance though, Arata couldn’t make anything else out from him as his size was only that of a human.

-demons, angels, adventurers…

After finishing his laugh that lasted for about 20 seconds, the person at the top of those blades started and continued.

-demon lords, archangels and even the child of the wind…

It was a voice of a man but at the same time it was a voice that no man could have.

-ah, it was an enjoyable show and even now there is so much happening, but I can wait no longer…

With that said, the black individual ended up standing up as so far he was sitting with his legs in the air, after he stood up something completely unnatural happened. From his small body a big pair of black wings emerged and those wings were nowhere near with its size compared to the angels one. Those wings were as big as the statues or even bigger than that as it was hard to see.

With those wings ‘the black individual’ started to fly up right away and just the simple movement of those wings brought to the ground everyone who was standing. ‘The black individual’ started to go higher and higher to the sky and as he did, his whole body also started to morph into something else.

-I can wait no longer. This building piqued my interest as if this building was calling me, this building was challenging me and I never run away from the challenge.

As the black ‘creature’ went higher and higher, it’s form developed and soon, no one had any doubts as to what ‘he’ was.

Despite the fact that the day just started, the sky one again become black as the black dragon consumed all light around him.

-it’s been here for so long, and yet only now I found out about it…

Already in his dragon from, ‘he’ continued to speak.

-from this day on though, no one will see this divine construction again as all is nothing before the breath of creation.

The black dragon was already high in the sky and from there he attacked with the ultimate attack that all dragons have.

The black fire escaped his jaw and it came down to the earth destroying everything on its way.

This day, the heaven’s gate that stood in those lands for over 300th years as well as the myth of its indestructability disappear forever as after the breath the only thing that remained on the whole battlefield was the black flame that consumed all.

Next Chapter: Chapter 44 “Hopeless dream.”