Thirty-three demons were on their way and they were under the influence of the Boorish Frenzy, a dark power that empowered demons, increasing their strength and making them resistant to wounds and ailments for six hours. The timer for this influence to end had yet to finish.
Weaker demons would lose their minds and respond only to instinct, killing with glee.
Arlosse could still feel the effects of the strange power in his flesh. It was the only reason why the poison he had been injected with by that invisible assailant had yet to do him in.
He had almost forgotten that poison existed, and that was just how powerful the Boorish Frenzy was.
With all this in mind, it wasn’t too strange that Castor was hesitant to face the enemies coming his way all on his own.
“You want me to… fight all of them?” Castor said, pointing at himself.
“Yes. It should be as easy as melting butter. They are only Scatter Bloods. And weren’t you saying something about how you aren’t soft earlier? Someone from a good, wealthy family like you must have been trained to handle thousands of Scatter Bloods. We demons are the inferior race after all, right?”
The color stole away from Castor’s face. There was rebellion in his eyes. He looked at the incoming horde and then at Arlosse. He must have been weighing his options. Arlosse saw through him.
“The battlefield isn’t a place for cowards,” said Arlosse sternly. “If you’re considering dying by my hand as the easier path, I promise you, I will make you wish so very dearly you were back home, sipping on your tea and riding your pony before sending you back to the world.”
Spirit Essence rose from Arlosse right then, sharpening the meaning of his words.
He felt he had every right to loathe those who marched onto a battlefield, a bloody prairie for all kinds of clowns, heroes, and kings to flirt with death casually, as though it were a brothel.
Castor had no right to be here.
The young warrior gnashed his teeth. Arlosse would soon know, but the young man had been slashed by more than just dark realization and reality. Irony was also doing a dance above him, mocking him.
“Fine,” Castor said through his teeth and he rose. His luxurious leather armor still looked pristine and new, if only a bit dusty. The only thing that looked even remotely harassed on him – aside from the wound on his neck – was his blonde hair, which had been soaked through with sweat only to become disheveled when he was rolling in pain before.
The young warrior’s downturned brown eyes had all the reluctance in the world, but his body was moving quickly… and also clumsily. Castor produced a dagger from a sheath behind him. He held it desperately.
“That’s your only weapon?” Arlosse asked him. He had noted the blade before, but he hadn’t imagined that it was all Castor had.
Castor nodded.
Arlosse shrugged.
“You must have terrifying powers that go beyond simple weaponry then,” he said with a cool smile. “Show me. The enemies are almost upon us.”
And indeed they were.
What might have been some kind of locust demon, tall and beefy, and draped in steel plates was the first to reach them. Naturally, it had the sense to ignore Arlosse and attack Castor instead.
Castor’s eyes went round and he dived out of the way, barely managing to avoid getting his face chewed off by the locust demon’s sharp, black teeth.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He rolled, stabilized himself, and held his dagger with both hands. He took quick breaths to calm himself, but calm was the last thing he would get.
The locust demon was already pouncing on him again, and what looked like a mess of dry, green vines was following after it.
‘He’s been trained, but barely. He has sense enough to not freeze when facing an enemy, but his posture and his response are amateurish. For all his talk, he might have never been in an actual battle at all. Or maybe today was the first,’ Arlosse thought.
He almost envied the young man, but only because he was still under the impression that Castor had some ace up his sleeve. There was no way he would be here if he was this sloppy.
The young man dived under the locust demon when it pounced, and in that moment when the underside of the creature was left wide open, Castor stabbed it with his dagger. It was a shallow cut, but the locust demon shrieked as potently as Castor had when Arlosse grazed him on the neck. It tumbled on the ground, but by then, Castor had his sights on the mess of vines plowing towards him.
By the look in his eyes, he might not have had the slightest idea how to deal with it, but unfortunately, the creature didn’t wait for him to come up with a solution. It revealed a gaping, barbed mouth from under the dress of vines and hurried to try and devour him.
It wasn’t the only one. Twelve more demons had arrived and they were all eager to feast on Castor.
The young man suddenly cursed loudly and Arlosse was surprised when he pointed forth at the vine demon and cried, “Winter’s Flash!”
There was a sharp eruption of Spirit Essence, a bright flash of light, and the vine abomination was covered in cold, flaking ice dotted with honeycomb patterns.
“Oh,” Arlosse was impressed. “That’s an interesting Kanva.”
He was even more impressed when Castor layered himself in Spirit Essence, reinforcing himself, and rushed to crash into the frozen demon. The creature shattered into ice-cold shards at once.
Castor lost his balance for a few meters. When he regained it, an ugly demon, not unlike a mix between a pig and a sloth, struck him good in the face with a punch. It must have hurt like hell because Castor screamed, fell, rolled on the ground, and immediately started running away.
Arlosse’s positive feelings towards Castor vanished almost immediately.
‘Why would you retreat like that when so many enemies are around you? You have the means to face them too,’ he thought, and indeed, the demons were chasing the poor fellow. The locust demon had risen and had joined the fray.
“AAAAAAH!” Castor was crying as he ran, confusing Arlosse all the more.
The Hollow Demonling was so puzzled that he remembered that he hadn’t appraised the young human warrior. He hadn’t considered him a threat enough to analyze, and besides, it wasn’t like he could see the more crucial bits of information about anyone he appraised.
It took a little time, as always, but soon, Castor’s attributes showed.
===
Name : Castor Von Hide
Race : Human
---
STR : 9
AGI : 11
END : 5
---
Spirit Essence : 10/25
===
‘Well, that makes all the sense in the world then,’ Arlosse thought with a sigh.
Castor was… pathetic in terms of attributes.
His low reserves of Spirit Essence were likely why he didn’t, or rather, couldn’t rely on that Kanva he had just used. It chopped down a sizable chunk of his Essence with just one use.
‘Then did he really have no trump card? Was he just an idiot, after all?’ Arlosse thought, greatly disappointed, and a bit enraged.
Castor was running as fast as he could. He was pretty speedy. He was outrunning most of the demons, not that it was that much of an impressive feat.
It was almost fun to watch, but it would inevitably grow stale after a while. In the next set of minutes, Castor struck another demon with his blade, but the wound was shallow. He paid dearly for landing such a feeble blow. Miraculously though, he survived and continued running away.
‘How long will this go on?’
Arlosse was seriously considering helping him at this point. He decided to in the end, but then…
“BRRRR!” The white horse beside him drew his attention.
The Incarnate turned to his side. The glow around his numb hand died right then, and the ghastly wound on the horse’s chest vanished, leaving behind only the coat of dried blood it had been surrounded by.
The Incarnate temporarily ignored Castor’s ordeal.
The white horse quickly got on its feet and trotted about, as though to confirm that it had been healed in full. It gave Arlosse a sharp look.
“I told you I’d heal you,” he said to it. The horse snorted a cold breath and whipped its tail against the dusty air.
It looked Arlosse deep in the eye and considered.
Arlosse could almost see it.
The subtle glow of loyalty and gratitude.
…But then it faded because the large, white horse turned and galloped away.