The human soldiers were confident, but I wasn't. Although we had won the previous battle, we were far from victory.

However, I didn't want to ruin the mood, as it was better to have high morale than no morale. It was better for an army to be overconfident than scared.

The demons spilled over the mountains in the distance, just like they did before. The ones in the back started shooting long projectiles, using formations like the humans did last time.

They were more organized overall.

In my previous life, it was common knowledge to take out the commander first. But here, that would be a bad decision as Shuten Doji's commanders were ultimate class demons. No living human could go that far into demon territory and kill someone at that level of power while surrounded by other demons.

A lone figure rode upon a two-headed horse in the distance, and my heart stopped. Just seeing him on the battlefield was enough to jumble up my thoughts.

He didn't look any more unique than any other demon and at first glance seemed like a high class demon at best. He was a red-skinned ogre twice the size of a human with two large horns protruding out of his forehead and pointing at the sky. In one of his hands was a spiked bat made out of metal, and a malicious energy was emanating from the weapon.

This was Kidomaru Doji, the 2nd commander of Shuten Doji's army and his son. Unlike most ultimate class demons, he was born weak in comparison to his father. Because of this, he had a good head on his shoulders and never underestimated anyone.

A dense fog descended on the battlefield, and I couldn’t even see Carpy who was right next to me.

"Carpy!" I called out.

"Yes, master?" he answered, confused.

I breathed out a sigh of relief, he was still here. "Can you sense this mist?"

"What mist?" he asked, but then seemed to realize what was happening and grunted. "The other humans have started acting strange and panicking, master."

Since Carpy couldn't sense or manipulate it, then it must be some kind of ability that affected only humans, and not a real mist. That was going to be rough to deal with. Abilities like this weren't that useful in one-on-one battles as any opponent with sensory abilities could easily take them out. But in a war situation, it was devastating!

"I'm going to rely on your senses and guide me to move around. Keep an eye out for anyone who might look like the one controlling the mist," I ordered him. "Also, take me to Anika."

Carpy's serpentine tail wrapped around my midsection, and he guided me around the mist. Soon, human screams rang all around me, but Carpy kept shooting out water blades, and not long after, even the sound disappeared, making it impossible to hear any orders from our superiors.

As we approached what I assumed to be Anika, Carpy suddenly stopped and said, "Master, the girl is attacking everything around her. Her strings are moving like whips, breaking the sound barrier and killing any demon who gets within a ten-meter radius close to her."

"Don't worry about it, Anika is a good Blaster," I said. He hummed in realization.

As we got closer, the swishing sounds of the strings got louder. When we got near enough, the whip-like strings stopped and made way for us. But even as we walked within her zone, strings kept moving all around us, showing that she was still cutting up enemies like a whirlwind of razors.

"Why are you here?" she asked, and kept repeating the question several times. “Why are you here?”

"We can hear you," I responded. It seemed like she had been asking that question repeatedly until we were close enough to hear it, showing that while she had noticed the strange muffling effect on the battlefield, she didn't know its exact parameters of where it took effect.

"Do you have any orders from the Headmaster?" she inquired.

"Nope," I shook my head. "I have something better."

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Though we were standing right next to each other, we couldn't see each other, even though sometimes I could feel her breath on my neck as she turned toward me. She touched my shoulder and said, "I know how you never escape and want to be the hero, but we should get the hell away from here. We aren't fighting against someone who is underestimating us in any way. There could even be an Ultimate Class demon amongst them, and we wouldn't know because he would probably be hiding himself."

Smart, she already assumed there was an Ultimate Class demon on the other side.

"Master, I’m starting to think that demon on the two-headed horse might be Ultimate Class. High Class demon’s shouldn’t be able to kill an elite rank exorcist with a boulder from a kilometer away like that," Carpy said. There was a trace of worry and fear mixed together. It seemed like this kind of enemy unnerved even him.

"If we run now, humanity won't have a better chance any time soon," I put my hand on Anika's shoulder and got close and whispered in her ear. "We need to take down the demon with the mist ability, and you're the best Blaster I know."

I felt her heartbeat increase, and she started breathing rapidly.

Despite how selfish she usually acted, Anika was a good person. Though she had the wrong image of me from that one time during the Demonic Exorcist's attack on the forest.

"H-How do we know who is conjuring up the mist?" she asked, her voice stuttering every now and then.

Anika, being just a fifteen-year-old girl, was understandably scared. "Carpy will look out for demons since they don't seem to be affected by the effects of the mist. You must try and sense anyone who seems to be exuding a lot of Ord. An ability like this at such a wide range will cost a lot of Ord for the demon casting it."

Carpy started concentrating, and it didn’t take him even a second before he said, "Master, I can sense some minuscule foreign Ord inside of you and everyone else. By coordinating that with the signature of someone in the back of the demon army, I think I know who it could be."

Holy shit! He found out that fast?!

Also, I have foreign Ord inside of me? That wasn’t good.

I closed my eyes and concentrated internally, but there was nothing. Maybe this was one of the effects of the ability, and the victim wouldn’t be able to sense the Ord inside themselves.

If I couldn't sense anything, then I had to go all out.

{Perfect Me}

A couple of seconds after activating my special ability, the mist disappeared, and the battleground was horrific. I heard people screaming while demons laughed and ripped them apart.

People kept begging and calling out for their families, while a man with only his upper body left and his intestines spilling on the ground clapped his hands and kept praying. "Please, God, my wife–"

But whatever he was about to say got interrupted by a minotaur-like demon using his hoof to step on the man’s head and smash it to bits. Parts of the brain got stuck on the minotaur’s leg as he charged another man and used a giant ax to cut the guy from shoulder all the way to groin in one swing.

Horrific couldn’t even begin to describe this battlefield; it was something straight out of a nightmare!

My first thought was to charge ahead to save as many people as I could, each of whom had a family that would miss them. But I knew doing that would expose that I wasn’t affected by the mist.

If there was one thing I knew about the commander of this battle, it was that he wouldn't let someone like me live for long. He might think that I had some kind of ability that canceled the mist, and might be able to do that for other people too. He would target me, and with the other exorcists in this state, none of them would be able to help me.

Instead of doing the right thing, I did the logical thing and addressed Anika. "Carpy will form an arrow to show you where to aim."

As long as Carpy pointed in the right direction, Ord wasn't affected by the laws of physics, so it would shoot in a straight line until it hit the target.

"How much power should I put behind this attack? Does the guy look durable?" Anika asked.

I didn’t know which demon Carpy thought was behind this, and it didn't matter. "Put as much Ord into the attack as you can."

She nodded and didn’t question my decision, pointing a finger in the direction of the arrow. Although she couldn't see it, she could sense it.

A small sphere of Ord, the size of a grape, manifested on the tip of her finger. As she put more Ord into it, it grew to the size of a basketball, then a bouncy ball, then a car, and then a truck.

A whistling sound ripped through the air, and the ground shook a bit with the dust rising.

I backed off to avoid the blast.

Anika usually slipped into the background compared to her teammates. But moments like these reminded me that she was the most talented Blaster of this generation!

She shot out the blast, which engulfed a couple of flying demons, disintegrating them, and headed straight for a humanoid, hooded demon who was pointing his hands at the sky. The blast had moved at speeds that in only a couple seconds it had reached its target.

The space around the blast twisted, and then it hit the demon, exploding in a deafening boom. The blast was so intense that it felt like a volcano had erupted, and the aftermath even reached us all the way here as a strong wind pushed me back a couple steps.

Damn, Anika was a lot stronger than her manga counterpart.