Janet watched in muted shock as the dart pierced her skin. It was a tiny, dark thing – barely three centimeters long. Yet, there was no denying it. The sharp needle poking into her skin and the fanning feathers that made its flight true identified it as a blow dart.

The demon had just tranqed her.

She knew she was fighting against a sleep demon. She had also been repeatedly warned that the being was intelligent. As the liquid poured into her veins and a dizzy spell hit her like a brick to the face, Janet regretted having underestimated the goblin-looking motherfucker.

For Hell’s sake, the land all around her was dead. Trees, grass, bushes, insects, birds… the sheer corruptive presence of the demon had decimated the ecosystem like a catastrophic spill of a potent universal herbicide-pesticide combo.

Even more, the demon was floating. Flight magic was a bitch and a half to grasp, let alone master. Even birds, born to fly and fully equipped for it, took entire months if not years, to master the art. A creature that could fly surely should have aroused Janet’s suspicion and made her tread with care.

No, siree.

Janet had taken one look at the demon and couldn’t stop herself from descending into paroxysms of laughter. It was too hilarious that a creature that didn’t come up to her waist in terms of height had supposedly put Sylthis to sleep. That woman was gi-gan-tic.

The demon was tiny. An imp, were she to be honest. Its skin was a sanguine red, with a round head and stubby feet. Its arms were thin, gangly, and long, each hosting four fingers that were tipped with long, black nails that shone in the sunrise like obsidian. Were it to stand on the ground, the demon’s claws would drag on the ground.

Protruding from its spine was a long tail that terminated in a hooked barb that just screamed poison. It even glistened with a distinct wetness!

The demon looked dangerous… but its form – basically a naked, bloated, hairless baby with red skin, bat-like ears and a tail – had drawn a long, derisive laugh from Janet’s lungs.

As Janet felt her eyes begin to close in the aftermath, she chided herself for not being more careful.

The demon floated forwards upon seeing that her resistance was breached. Held in the wide, lipless slit that acted as the opening to its maw was a metallic tube. The demon reloaded the gun from an invisible storage – a pan-dimensional invader would obviously be armed with as simple a tool as spatial storage – and blew it right into Janet’s neck.

“What do you think about that, bitch!” a high-pitched voice reached Janet’s failing ears as the added dose of tranquilizing poison addled even more of her faculties. “That will teach you to laugh at the great Iralith!”

Now, that was interesting. The demon could talk? And it had a name? Names were important. That was a detail that Darius needed to hear.

Janet grinned past her drowsiness. It seemed like the fight would be more interesting than she had thought. Still, she reminded herself to keep calm and remain vigilant.

She circulated her mana as she usually did during Darius’ mana refinement meditation sessions, willing her core to cleanse all the poison from her system. When that failed, she just agitated the fire mana within her body, making it burn away all impurities.

Her next exhale was smoky and smelled like rotten eggs marinated in untreated sewage.

“Iralith, you say?” she choked though the noxious stench. “Aren’t sleeping darts from a sleep demon a tad too on the nose?”

The tiny creature lost all its bravado. It sputtered out a shriek as it flew backwards and away from Janet with all haste. “You… How are you awake? That poison…”

“Is useless against me,” Janet stated simply as she let fly a [Shadow Bolt].

The demon easily dodged the projectile. Fighting a flying opponent with the relatively slow-moving bolts was a strategy doomed to fail.

The demon retaliated with a bolt of its own, this one made out of greenish flame. The fire bolt was twice as large as Janet’s, and far quicker. Wherever it passed, the air keened with rejection, hate, and anger. It looked as though the world itself was railing against the demon’s mana.

Janet jumped to the side, not willing to see what damage the demonic flame would cause if it landed. It thus hit one of the dead trees, setting it aflame from root to withered canopy.

Janet gaped. A single bolt should not have packed that much power. She resolved not to get hit by any of the demon’s flames.

“If I may ask, why are you here?” Janet asked in a nonchalant tone, pretending not to see as the demon reloaded its dart gun. “Sorry, let me clarify. What are you doing in the Havenhurst?”

While indeed her mission was to eliminate the demon, a secondary directive was to obtain information on its goals both in the jungle and inside the Realm of Souls. Unfortunately, the demon didn’t seem too eager to chat with her.

Janet saw from the corner of her eye as the dart flew forth, going directly for her neck. Its trajectory was so precise and unwavering, she almost felt a bit of respect towards the Hellspawn.

Before it could hit, she dropped and came up in a roll, her dagger held in her palm. A quick application of [Mana Cladding] and [Cutting edge] ensured she was ready to meet the sharp claws that were descending towards her neck, intent on slashing her jugular open.

‘Clang!’ dagger rang against claw. The sound made it appear like the clash had been between two metallic objects. Oddly enough, Janet was the one that was sent stumbling by the impact. The demon came out unharmed, and unmoved from its position midair.

‘Are you kidding me? How powerful is this bastard’

As Janet righted herself and shook her hand to get rid of the soreness from the vibration, the demon inspected its claws. They were black and thus it was hard to see, but Janet noticed a chip in one of the long nails that repaired itself at an alarming rate.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

All thoughts aside, Janet rushed to take advantage of the momentary distraction. She charged another [Shadow Bolt], making sure to dump as much mana as was possible into the projectile, and let it shoot off towards the floating menace.

The demon noticed the bolt, and went to dodge, but this particular one was a bit too fast for it. Its left shoulder was clipped as it shifted to the side, and there was a satisfying thump.

Janet felt a smile steal into her face. She prepared another bolt, only for her sense of danger to spike at that very instant. Quickly, she tucked and rolled. Then she crawled behind a tree, before pumping mana into her shadow and forming it into a makeshift shield construct. It was flimsy, but it was better than nothing.

The demon looked up in anger, its eyes wide with rage. “You dare?!” The screech revealed its rows of teeth to Janet, explaining why its head was so comically round.

‘The screech!’ the demon’s shriek was an attack. The fucker possessed Sonic Magic!

Janet watched in muted horror, as a wave that travelled as fast as sound rippled through the air, and within a blink obliterated the bark of the tree behind which Janet was hiding. She had to slink away and hide behind another as it creaked and fell over.

Another eardrum-bursting shriek, and another tree was torn apart. The demon repeated the attack four times, each ending with a tree keeling over. By that point Janet was covered in splinters but completely unharmed.

She thanked her lucky stars that Pireus’ agility and martial training had prepared her for such challenging maneuvers.

Well, by the fifth blast, the demon was panting in exertion. It looked like the attack had taken a lot out of it, so Janet came out of hiding, her dagger at the ready. She intended to throw it and hopefully impale the crotchety imp, but she needed a distraction.

The trees were already dead. They would not miss their shadows. Janet quickly pumped mana into hers, using [Shadow Bind] to rip away their shadows and add them to her own. More shadows meant more mana to work with, so she gathered as many as she could while the demon caught its breath.

As her shadow began to feel like a tangible weight, Janet created what looked like a spear. She angled it toward the recovering demon… and launched it like a bolt from a spring-powered crossbow.

In all honesty, the construct was just a ruse. Had it hit, it would have felt like the strike of a puffy sponge. Janet needed [Shadow Authority] equipped if she was to assemble constructs that dealt damage.

What the spear-like thing did have, however, was an absurd amount of mana, courtesy of the appropriated shadows. The demon looked on warily as the ‘spear’ headed for its left shoulder. Spooked, it spun away to evade… which is exactly what Janet wanted. She was now in the demon’s blind spot.

She let her dagger fly with all her might, guiding her muscles with mana to ensure her [Throw] was as accurate as possible.

The taste of victory was in the tip of her tongue as air parted with a sharp whistle. Janet kept her eye on the prize, charging a [Shadow Bolt] to finish off the imp if any signs of life remained after the dagger connected.

There was a thud… but it was Janet that fell.

A flaming dart had been released at the end of the demon’s spin. This one was different from the earlier poison-filled varieties. It was completely solid and pierced clean through her belly, leaving greenish flames that somehow stalled her regeneration.

Her dagger had impacted a tree. That had been the thud, Janet realized as despair tagged in for triumph in the confines of her mind.

The demon drifted closer, its grinning maw revealing rows upon rows of teeth. A bigger dart gun that glowed with the slowly dimming light of enchantment was held in its left hand.

The [Shadow Bolt] was still charging. Janet decided to go for broke.

In the previous day, Janet had been inflicted with a sealing spell. She had learned to break it after countless attempts and tens of helpful pointers from Darius and Sylthis. The biggest takeaway? To best learn runes, a beginner needed to apply them into mana. They needed to see the characters of meaning and magic in action before they could master them.

Janet remembered well the rune combination she had used to destroy Darius’ spell.

Pissed at herself for failing to see yet another trap, she decided to hit the demon with a feint of her own. She quickly drew out the five runes inside her core, and added them into the [Shadow Bolt] without rhyme or reason.

The result was an abomination of a bolt that sputtered and popped about like it was an unstable alchemical concoction on the verge of going boom.

The first bolt had clearly not injured the demon. Its overreaction had been an act. Janet’s second bolt was obviously poorly constructed. With the horrific grin still central on its face, its bony red arm rose without care to flick away the bolt.

Janet buried her head in her palms, but was still curious enough to look through the gaps in her fingers.

There was a dull whump as the bolt hit the palm. The grin disappeared. Unstable runes and demonic skin met, both erupting and tearing each other apart.

Ding!

[Shadow Bolt] (Uncommon) has evolved into [Empowered Shadow Bolt] (Rare)

You have earned 4 SP!

Janet dismissed the notification, though she allowed herself a short second to luxuriate in the sensation of new knowledge entering her brain.

She then charged an [Empowered Shadow Bolt], enjoying immensely the feeling of her haphazard runes slotting themselves into an ordered template. Before the first bolt was done shredding the demon’s arm, a second flew through the air and added to the effect.

This time when the demon shrieked, Janet could tell that the pain was real. The appendage was ripped apart, leaving only bone and claws. Green blood sprayed everywhere, sizzling and smoking away against every surface it touched.

Since the demon had been quite close, one of the sizzling surfaces was Janet’s forehead. The pain was unreal. Somehow, that single drop hurt thrice as much as the hole in her abdomen that had been cauterized by the flaming bolt.

“What the Heeeeell!” Janet’s scream added upon the demon’s own screech of pain. For a moment, their emotion-filled outbursts harmonized and rattled some leaves.

Janet chortled at the thought that had it not been for all the animal life in that area of jungle being dead, birds would have fluttered away, scared shitless by the pain-laced noises.

Janet struggled to stand. The pain radiating from the hole in her side caused tears to occlude her vision, but she witnessed as the demon’s maw closed, a wrathful gaze directed straight at its opponent. It glanced at its shredded limb, then at the blood sprayed all over the place.

It’s hate-filled glare drilled into Janet’s eyes. “You’ll pay for that.”

Janet felt a chill go down her spine, but persevered nonetheless. She planted her feet firmly on the ground, and with one hand supporting her abdomen, she returned the glare. Shadow, still gathering from the dead trees standing against a placid sunrise, formed into a ball in front of her, ready to erupt into a [Construct Field] if she so willed.

An [Empowered Shadow Bolt] was quickly coalescing on her other hand. Everything she had come to learn about fighting told her that the next move would finish the battle.

She quickly learned of her hubris.

The demon’s shrieks had sprayed bile and saliva all over the battlefield. In addition to that, Janet’s only successful attack had spread a generous amount of demon blood all over the place as well.

The demon’s scowl of hate turned into a smirk. Its remaining hand came up to its chest, red skin colored green by congealed blood. Janet watched in dawning horror as Iralith used that very blood as a spell sacrifice… and ignited every single drop of its fluids with green flames.

Spittle, bile, and blood erupted into heatless flames that sucked all life out of the world. Felled trees crackled ominously in the fire, as did Janet’s splinter-covered hair.

A moment later, all that flame formed streams of green that gathered up into a ball, quite similar to Janet’s ball of shadow. Then, like soldiers with marching orders in hand, all that flame drilled into the still-flaming hole in Janet’s torso.

Janet felt her insides heat up as the flame drilled into her mana pathways. Her consciousness was slowly drowning under by a wave of drowsiness.

Before she succumbed to sleep’s call, Janet activated [Construct Field- Shadow], not giving one whit that her shadows were still binding and incorporating more and more shadows, which would mean an uncontrolled eruption of destructive constructs that would likely scour a large area of jungle before they ran out of steam.

“Let’s see who dies first, bitch!” she spat out with vitriol before a rattling scream of untold pain tore out of her throat.