CHAPTER 30 ENGAGEMENT 2.2: INTERLUDE OLIVIER
Olivier let out a deep breath before his thin blade lashed out with vicious intent.
The demon he was facing off against was enormous. Even by demonic standards and had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Olivier was a good bit shorter than average.
The demon had a massive sword to accompany its large stature and it wielded it masterfully. Olivier was definitely superior in terms of speed but he was matched in skill, so as his blades flashed out seeming to strike multiple times in the same instance they were all blocked easily although not necessarily perfectly.
The entire fight had essentially devolved into a stalemate.
[Tri-Slash]
Stark quickly launched out one of the skills immediately following his failed strikes against the demon, his blade righted itself and then proceeded to snap as it slashed simultaneously from three separate angles.
The demon deftly moved his large blade, the enormous size allowed it to be positioned to block two of the swings and he calmly moved his body out of the way of the third before following up with an attack of his own.
It spoke in a language Stark couldn’t understand, its blade burst into a raging inferno with heat so intense that it set the ground on fire around them.
The demon jumped backwards to create space so Stark couldn’t easily counter attack him and took a stance and heaved a swing horizontally. A wave of inferno emanated from the blade approaching him with frightening speed.
Olivier quickly took a similar stance the demon did and swung his sword in a horizontal arc to match.
“[Flash Wave!]”
A yellow wave of mana-force was flung from his blade much the same way the demon had and the two forces collided with each other blasting outwards before dissipating.
Stark didn’t give a single moment to rest however before he was back upon the demon, his blade flashing and whirring as he unleashed the full force of his arsenal of skills.
The demon matched him but also utilized his fists along with heavy swings of his blade. Stark had to dodge and move out of the way of the colossal weapon, as any attempt to block it with his sword would leave it shattered and him more than likely missing a limb in the process.
Each time the colossal weapon passed him by Stark could feel the wind force coming off the blade.
He grimaced as he whirled around the demon and managed to get a few strikes in on his unprotected side. His blade carved through the outer layers of the leathery hide the demon had and splashed its toxic blood across the ground causing the grass to hiss, turn yellow, and then wither away.
He immediately launched himself backwards to avoid the backhand from the demon. The demon's fist passed by narrowly missing his head. There was a rush of wind as it did.
Stark landed and hopped back once more to give himself a moment to reset and prepare for his next assault against the beast.
The demon had other plans as it propelled forward bringing its greatsword down in an overhand swing. Stark let out a growl as he propelled himself forward instantly powering himself with several buffs in quick succession.
[Myrmidons Grace]
[Mana Charge]
Two of his buffs instantly powered him forward, the ground crumbling away under his feet, the wind snapped with a boom as he accelerated above supersonic speeds. The demon let out a roar of triumph as he swung down.
Stark allowed himself a somewhat manic grin before casting his third skill.
“[Spacial Configuration]”
Immediately following his words Starks' view changed as his position was swapped with one of the smaller demons on the edge of his field's reach and now had a backside view of his opponent.
The demon was fast. Extremely fast. But at supersonic speeds there was just not enough time to even fully come to terms with the fact that the human the demon had been fighting wasn’t even in front of him anymore before Stark’s blade connected with his back.
“[Skill Combination: Mana-Smite]”
Stark roared out his skill name as he unleashed an explosion of power into the enormous demon’s back sending it rolling across the field and through the engagement that had been happening around them.
People and demons alike scattered as the large beast rolled to a stop and instantly righted itself facing Stark with a face of pure rage.
Stark gave it a smirk before beckoning with his hand.
It may be above him in level but that didn’t mean he was weak. Stark didn’t get to the fifth tier because he was inept at fighting.
The demon kicked off the ground barreling his way towards Stark with prodigious speed. The ground shook and crumbled beneath each step. It got within range of Stark and launched its sword into an uppercut that Stark deftly avoided by hopping to the side and moved to dash forward.
Stark quickly aborted with a swear as the sword came hurtling back down towards him, how the demon has so quickly inverted the direction of the sword must’ve been the result of a skill. Stark's feet quickly carried him backwards out of range.
The sword hit the ground with a massive explosion of fire. Stark hadn’t managed to get quite out of range and was blasted further by the force of the explosion, landing roughly on one knee before standing back up and observing from the safe distance he was at.
The ground was littered with little pockets of blood red flames, the demon extricated its sword from the ground and turned to sneer at Stark before starting to trudge in his direction.
Stark decided that was too slow for his liking and started charging mana into his blade before unleashing it in a thrust that launched forward piercing into the demons sword arm. It did damage, but not nearly enough to truly inconvenience the beast, it roared before charging at him again, tromping across the field.
Stark slid his hand over his blade and a purple so deep it was almost black alighted on it, the edges of the blade alit with a deep crystalline blue. The air around his blade started to vibrate.
Stark smiled, anyone who made it to where he was in strength enjoyed combat to some degree, and despite all the people dying around him and the fact that he knew he would mourn those losses of his friends later, in this moment? Here and now? He was relishing what was going to come next.
Stark had no doubt in his mind he was going to win this fight, it was just a matter of how hard he had to fight to achieve it. Stark had fought enemies in his tier that didn’t even remotely compare to his strength, so he hardly ever went all out from the get-go. No sense in wasting strength on someone that didn’t deserve it.
The more he fought against this demon though the more he realized that this truly outrageous beast deserved its levels. It wasn’t weak and it wasn’t necessarily stupid either. It was simpleminded maybe, but it still had experience on the board and knew how to develop strategy and recognize patterns.
Which is why when Stark swapped behind it again the demon instantly rotated, locking on to his new position and bringing its sword down to cause another explosion.
Stark thrust his hand out and a purple barrier from his spacial class appeared in front of him taking the brunt of the explosion and counteracting the heat.
Stark burst out the otherside of the explosion of the inferno based explosion and for the first time saw another emotion on the demons face other than rage and disdain.
He saw surprise.
Stark roared out his skill swinging his blade.
“[Skill Combination: Mana-Space Distortion Blade]”
As this happened the demon roared something out in his infernal tongue that sounded like the crackling of flame and the enormous sword he was using moved far faster than it should’ve, the inferno seemed to concentrate into a beam that arced into several lances that met with Stark blade.
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For an eternal moment nothing seemed to happen before space contorted, expanded, contracted, before ripping apart and snapping back together with an explosion of pure force. Both combatants were launched backward.
There was no heat, no cold and no magic in the attack. It was just pure force. Several of Stark's ribs cracked under the pressure and he had multiple deep cuts and bruises. But he wasn’t incapacitated.
Looking over the Demon looked as worse for wear as Stark did. In fact it looked like the demon's non-dominant arm was broken. It was twisted at an awkward angle. It wouldn’t stop it from using its blade but it would make it that much easier to deal with.
Stark smiled, he definitely came out of this exchange on top. Now he just needed to capitalize on it.
He launched himself forward once again to press his advantage. The demon let out a growl as he approached and readied itself to take his blow head on.
As if he’d give it that respect.
He used the decreased vision it had from its defensive stance and ducked to the side, curving around and letting loose a storm of blows. Immediately after he began moving again, continually curving around the demon to avoid its retaliatory strikes and to make sure he was constantly sitting in its blind spot.
Eventually it grew agitated enough and slammed its sword into the ground causing another explosion of infernal flames, causing Stark to leap backwards out of range.
Once again they stood opposite each other staring the other down. The demon had a look of barely contained hatred. It surely hadn’t expected someone two-hundred levels below it to give it such a hard time.
But Stark had spent long years working towards the highest rarity of classes before ranking up into the fifth tier. It’s only natural that he was then given the strength to compensate for that.
So if the demon hadn’t put in the same effort to work on his classes then it was to be expected that he’d be weaker than Stark even if he was a higher level.
As he tensed his legs to prepare his next frontal charge into the demon, suddenly there was a massive explosion of wind magic in its face and was immediately peppered by arrows slamming into the side of its face.
Most of the attacks did superficial damage but they served enough of an annoyance that the demon turned to look at what was happening.
Stark didn’t do that and instead rushed forward so quickly he appeared to be teleporting to the outside observer.
[Myrmidons Smite]
He launched a purely physical attack against it, putting all his strength into the attack. A deep gash opened along its leg as he allowed his momentum to carry him past the demon preventing him being open to a counter strike.
The demon turned once again to face him, no doubt annoyed by the constant flitting around He was doing.
As it did Stark heard a voice cry out a skill
“[Close The Gap!]”
Garrus instantly closed in from behind and let loose a devastating slash before instantly backing away trading places with the shielded warrior behind him.
The demon retaliated swinging his heavy blade towards them, Stark pushed himself forward even though he was too far away to assist from here. He had to at least try.
The large blade immediately came to a crashing halt against a golden barrier tinged with blood-red.
The barrier shattered after the initial impact, but it completely halted the blades momentum. The demon was immediately blasted with another volley of wind-magic and arrows before the group retreated further away.
Stark grimaces, ‘you idiots…’ he thought to himself. But still took advantage of the opening they gave him to land some more devastating blows against the oversized demon.
This battle was going well, it might take a while but he was slowly whittling the demon down. Sooner or later it would keel over from its injuries and he’d be able to help clear out the rest of the forces and clear out the remaining demons around the area.
That was when the large demon stopped holding back.
Its large body burst into a raging inferno, the ground around him started bubbling and melting into a magma stew that somehow managed to still support the beast standing atop it.
And suddenly it wasn’t there anymore.
Stark reacted off of purely honed instinct.
[Spacial Fold]
The world around him folded between where he was standing and his intended destination across the small clearing the rest of the engagement had provided them to avoid getting caught up as collateral between the two fifth tier combatants.
Not even an instant later the ground where Stark had been standing erupted in a massive explosion easily three times larger than the ones from before.
The demon was moving much faster than before.
“I guess those levels of yours weren’t just for show then were they?” Stark spoke with more confidence than he was feeling.
This wasn’t good, from the looks of it just being in range of the demon was going to make fighting difficult if not impossible for him. Stark was strong but not strong enough to tank being in the kind of heat that could turn rocks into lava.
On top of that, given the speed the demon was moving at, it seemed that it matched Stark speed if not surpassed him in that. Otherwise Stark would just move so quickly the heat wouldn’t even have time to set in, but that could end up being detrimental if the demon could react fast enough to hit him.
As he stood there trying to quickly come up with a plan to be able to deal with the new powers the demon was showing it disappeared again, except this time it was next to the large portal.
It placed its hand against it and chanted in its infernal tongue. The portal turned from a pale green to a deep red. Whatever it was, this wasn’t good.
“Quick, stop it!” Stark yelled knowing that Garrus was still around to hear him.
Surely enough arrows and wind blasted into it. The arrows caught fire as they approached the demon and disappeared before connecting. The wind seemed just as ineffective given the intense amounts of heat pouring off the demon.
After a few short moments whatever the demon had been trying to do it had accomplished as it turned away with a triumphant grin.
Shortly after, Stark's fears were confirmed.
Another demon walked through, this one was smaller, more akin to a human size rather than being a towering monstrosity of muscle and spikes.
[Level 8476]
Oh that was not good. Not at all.
This was definitely out of their league in any capacity.
“Garrus!" Stark yelled, "Garrus, get everyone out of here. I’ll hold them off long enough for everyone to retreat, but we need to get them out of here and send word to the capital. Hopefully they’ll have someone capable of dealing with this. As it stands every town in the surrounding area is doomed.”
Garrus came to a stop next to him looking at the two demons who seemed to be conversing before turning to look at Stark.
“If you stay and try to hold them off you’ll die. If we stay and fight there might be a chance we could pull through.” Garrus said, but if he truly believed what he was saying it didn’t reflect in his voice.
Stark just looked at him, “Don’t be an idiot Garrus. You know just as well as I do if we stay here and try to fight collectively that will just increase the casualty counter. No, the best we can do is minimize the losses we take at this point, if it was just the first one we could’ve pulled through. But that’s not the case anymore.”
Suddenly over the entire field of battle there was an oppressive calmness. The kind of silence one equates with the coming of Death. Completely overbearing and cold.
Standing halfway between Stark and the demons was a figure. How long it had been there he couldn’t have been sure, but his breath caught in his throat.
[Level ???]
Was that another demon? He quickly looked past the figure but the demons seemed just as affected as him. So it didn’t seem likely that it was on their side.
The figure didn’t even spare him a glance; it just turned to the demons and spoke in the same infernal tongue they did, the crackling of flames growing louder as it spoke before silence reigned once more.
The smaller demons face rapidly changed through several different emotions. Terror, anger, disconcerted, before settling on wrath. It didn’t say anything in response, it just charged and roared in fury. There was a sonic boom as it accelerated, destroying the ground and sending the demons and guardsmen behind it flying as they suffered the knockback from the demon's movements.
As it approached the cloaked figure they disappeared and when they reappeared a wooden blade was held in their hand. In the other they held the head of the demon. The body collapsing behind them as they discarded the head uncaringly. They leveled the blade they had in their hand towards the remaining demon speaking once again, this time in a much shorter sentence.
It immediately turned to run through the portal. Once again the figure disappeared, the air exploding with a hypersonic boom as the figure moved with speed akin to lightning. Undetectable and the only way you realized it even happened was the force behind the action and the aftermath left from the movement.
Once again the figure had decapitated the demon going for an instant killing blow.
‘Ping’ [† ᴈϡɣοꞇϡ๏ƿ ϯοꞇѣοꞇᴪοꞇ Level 3215 / † ϯƿ๏ᴦϲ ϶ɣ ϫϲ ᴦ๏ꝩϡοᴦ Level 2705 / † ψөꞆ ϙƞϟοᴦ ŋѯѣ๏ꭾϲ Level 2775] Has been slain - experience divided amongst group
The figure discarded the head again after looking at it for a short moment. They turned and began walking towards Stark and his companions next to him.
He wasn’t sure how to handle the situation, if they were hostile there was unlikely anything they could do. He would be dead before he even realized they had moved. His heart was pounding in his chest as they drew closer.
Once they got within speaking distance, they dropped their hood and he saw quite possibly the most beautiful female in his life. Then he noticed the ears and it did nothing to stem his worry.
She was an elf.
She came to a stop in front of him and for a moment they stood apart from one another, looking at her face it was implacable, unmoving, it almost seemed like a mask. That was before she gave a small smile that set his nerves alight, it seemed almost predatory in nature.
Then she spoke.
“I’m looking for Alexander King, have you seen him?”