They waited around the area, hunting shadowbeasts and the occasional stray imp. After seeing the spawning method, it was obvious to Johan that monsters and demons were two parts of the same coin. A way in which the power of the demon king perpetuated itself.

Kill demons to grow monsters. Kill monsters to grow demons.

It was a blood ritual.

Whatever blood magic was involved on it, had a level of complexity beyond anything Johan had ever seen on the other world.

No wonder, Johan knew of the five fields, but to think the whole underworld was a magic device of some kind.

“I can save that for later on, right now, i need to take over this place.”

Over the next couple weeks, Johan stalked the spawning pool premises, and determined there were five imps. Tt level twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, thirty and thirty two. All of them sporting a big left claw and simple leather and bone equipment. Whatever ambitions he could have on the pool, the place was completely beyond his reach.

“Unless i play dirty. Of course.”

Using Gruber as a bait, Johan lured and killed the shadowbeasts that often stalked the area. And little by little, drained them of their blood, which he collected in crude leather sacks.

The beast blood was mixed with blood from the pool, then with blood of captured imps. But nothing happened.

Grubber was forced to drink mixed blood until he bloated like a balloon. And nothing kept happening.

“I know there is power in there, but i am missing something.”

If nothing else, at the very least Johan upgraded their equipment to compressed bone. And tested his Regeneration, proving he could regrow one of Grubber’s fingers. And one finger of Johan himself, once he felt confident enough on his skills.

After meditating on the issue, Johan determined the magic in the blood was too faint for him to sense. He would require large quantities, or the blood of stronger imps. And there were five evolved volunteers setting up camp on the bone forest.

A day later, a lesser imp contingent left the bone forest, one imp at the helm. Johan and Grubber tailed them on their route, and once they finished collecting bones and delivering lesser imps, they made their move.

They walked quietly behind the bone sled, Johan, now unarmored like a regular imp, used Sharp Lance and Compression, threw a bone lance at the imp, and jumped among the imps dragging the sled. His left eye almost completely closed to avoid exposing the gold inside.

The lance hit the imp in the middle of the back, and the Compression card threatened to suck in his fulmin, sending him into a frenzy.

Johan screamed in panic, while poking the imps with his claws. They got agitated, and moved disorganized around the sled. Too wiped into obedience to just run away.

Grubber, now wearing Johan’s equipment, ran towards the evolved imp brandishing a club clad in flames. And, to Johan’s astonishment, managed to land a hit on the imp’s shoulder.

The imp countered with his big claw clad in flame, and Johan looked with interest as the claw actually grew in length.

Grubber had reached level twenty, same as Johan, and he was not pure dumb muscle. He was also resistant muscle, and activated two Toughness cards to resist. A trick Johan drilled into Grubber with constant beatings and healings.

The imp repeated the assault with the big claw, and this time Grubber ran away. Very beaten and cut, but still capable of moving, thanks to the combination of equipment, cards and thickened bones.

The imp roared in anger and threw a barrage of bone knives at Grubber. Most of them became bigger upon contact, some exploded, and others were thrown already covered in flames

Grubber’s run had become a tired jog, the weight of his bones and equipment wearing him down.

Johan pushed a couple imps on Grubber’s direction, and, upon seeing their leader going towards the enemy, they followed along.

The imp smirked at seeing the sled-pushers trying to catch his prey. “Grab him,” he grunted. And the lesser imps obeyed.

Johan knew this was his chance. While the imp was focused on Grubber, and the lesser imps walked besides him, he activated a Compression card and formed an orb

When Johan walked by the imp, he activated Flame and Combustion on the orb in his hand, and hugged the imp, shoving the orb on the enemy’s back, on the same spot his lance had struck before.

The resulting explosion completely destroyed Johan’s hand, and the damage to the arm was only stopped by the fact he had hugged the imp as a shied.

Both of them recoiled in pain, but Johan was a veteran warrior, and could push through it.

Still, pain was pain, and Johan disengaged the imp and ran towards Grubber. Incapable of focusing enough for a follow up attack. Giving up the perfect chance to cut the imp’s throat with a Sharp Claw.

Instead, Johan grabbed Grubber’s club, and now, recovered from the initial pain, went back to the imp to continue the fight.

The enemy was six levels and one evolution above himself, but also had a broken back. The Imp could not stand upright, and instead crawled miserably on four legs. Johan lifted the club and struck down, prompting the imp to retaliate with a swipe of his burning claw, but Johan jumped back to avoid it.

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It was not much of a battle, swing the club, retreat to avoid retaliation, rinse and repeat.

Meanwhile, Grubber stood behind Johan, growling at the lesser imps, who were too impressed by his equipment and the situation to do anything.

Finally, the imp died.

Before anything else, Johan looked at the stump on his left hand. The fire had cauterized it, but the pain was still there. He activated Regeneration, and the bone grew back a little. At the very least, the pain receded.

Demons were well known for their regenerative abilities, this had been a calculated risk, and only because it would meant getting magic from an imp.

Speaking of which.

Johan circulated his fulmin on the imp’s corpse, and felt the compatibility could easily restore his cards to active condition, but held back.

Instead, he focused on his Regeneration card, now spent.

The foreign magic restored the card, and Johan immediately spent in on regrowing his hand. Then repeated the process ten times more, until his hand had grown back to half of the palm.

It was not just to restore his body, but to get better acquainted with the magic itself.

After feeling he had done enough studying, Johan injected his fulmin into the corpse, and redirected all the leftover mana into the left hand.

Using his understandings of Regeneration, he allowed the mana to fuse into the hand, following the same method as a regeneration.

The hand grew into a grotesque claw, as bone spurs sprouted all over it. But Johan could feel the magic inside condensing into a more resilient form.

Johan gained three levels. All of which went into making more Regeneration cards, he spent them all immediately, and his hand grew back to the beginnings of the fingers.

Grubber’s contribution to the battle had been to swing a club, to endure a beating, to run away, and to come back and growl, a tactical mastermind by lesser imp’s standards.

The other lesser imps circled him in awe, as Grubber gestured with his hands raised, puffing himself with the poncho to appear bigger, like a flying squirrel.

This is why, that awe transferred to Johan when he stood next to Grubber. Holding the severed head of the imp, just as Grubber deferentially hunched towards him.

“Ok boys, its time for a revolution.”

*****

Another week went by. Johan had already restored his hand, but didn’t really feel like growing his claw like the imps. Instead, he grafted the hand into Grubber, who became the de facto sub boss of the new two imps to have joined them.

There were more, but they died honorably, contributing to Johan’s research until they were only three.

Then, Johan killed another, because he realized lesser imps are more obedient if they had a handler each.

Grubber was already trained to obey simple commands, to stay silent, to move, hold a position or run away. Hopefully, those tricks would be copied by the other imps.

Getting them to copy the toughness cards however, required giving them a repeated series of beatings and healings, which took too much time and magic, but it had to be done.

The imp claw however, had produced a final benefit.

-Bone Lance Shaping.

“But I’m level 24, i must do a full re decking once I’m ready.”

With this new card, transforming the compressed bones into lances became much easier, and with enough training, the two new imps were capable of rushing at the enemy, with the pointy end firmly braced for impact.

Truly the gifted geniuses of a generation.

*****

Another week went by, and the group had killed other two imps, the ones at level thirty and twenty eight. Leaving the enemy with the level thirty two boss, and the one at twenty seven

They had mostly used the same tactic, but with Grubber enduring the beatings while the other two used their spears. They served even better as distractions, and Johan only had to replace one of them.

They received the names Pointy and Pointer

The two recent imps were killed one after the other, in order to prevent any last minute preparation from the bone forest. But the boss imp always kept one imp close to him.

Without a doubt, they would be ready for the next assault.

Which is why Johan decided to take it easy, and camped on the outskirts of the spawning pool. As far as his eye could detect.

Finally, after tree weeks or so, a new spawning happened.

It went roughly the same as the first time, beginning with some shadowbeasts and ending with the larvae developing into full lesser imps.

But this time Johan chose to abandon stealth, in order to force the enemy’s hand. They approached the place where the spawning pool met the bone forest, the four of them fully decked in compressed bone and leather equipment.

Once the new imps awakened, the four armored lessers herded them towards the direction of their base, away from the bone forest.

The two enemies observed them from their hideout, but realized this was a losing scenario. The invaders just had to dominate the lesser imps, and return to attack with numbers. It was now or never, a battle to determine the local order.

It was a four versus two brawl.

The two imps ran towards the four lessers, bone knives in each hand, and once within range they began throwing them in their direction.

The bone knives expanded, but the armors took the worst of it. Moreover, the safest place to aim and connect a hit, was the center of the torso, where the armor was thicker.

As per training, the three lessers swarmed the stronger imp, hounding him with their weapons. The imp responded throwing with a knife that expanded into a lance, and skewered Pointy

Pointer went crazy and jumped at the imp to bite his leg.

Meanwhile, Johan used his lance and a combination of Sharp Lance and Charge 2, to ram into the weaker imp, taking him by surprise and connecting a hit at the hip.

Before the imp could overcome the pain and prepare a counter, Johan used two Flame cards on the lance. The imp took a knife on each hand, and jammed both of them down into Johan’s body.

The knives expanded, and the combination of weight, superior strength and expansion, gave both attacks enough power to cut down into him, creating two large gashes on his torso. Breaking the armor in the process.

But Johan took advantage of the close distance to jam a spear on the imp’s throat, then used Regeneration to close his wounds, and Dash to retreat outside the imp’s range.

The imp thrashed around, bit it was obvious it had little time left.

Johan joined the fight against the boss imp, that had devolved into the boss using Pointer’s corpse like a club to hit Grubber.

Johan landed a hit on the imp’s back with his spear, using Dash and Flame, the imp turned to face him in anger. And retaliated by increasing twice the size of his claw, cladding it in flame and moving the arm at great speed.

Johan used two Toughness cards to resist the attack, and yet, it still tore his torso as easily as cutting paper. Obviously a trump card combo.

The attack also threw his bone lance away. But Johan took his helmet and used Bone Lance Shaping to turn it into a lance, that materialized just in front of the imp’s face.

A simple push was enough to shove the tip into the imp’s eye, while a Flame and Water card burned its interior with steam. Johan used two Regeneration cards to close his wounds, then another one. And retreated outside the imp’s range.

The imp’s eye suddenly grew skin, probably a Regeneration of his own, then blindly unleashed flaming swipes and throwing knives. Obviously too hurt to plan a strategy.

Johan took his lance and used Reinforced Lance to attack, taking advantage of the imp’s thrashing to connect several attacks. When the imp unleashed another empowered claw swipe, Johan was ready, and used his last Reinforced Lance to attack the arm, letting the imp impale himself with his superior force.

Once again, Johan took Grubber’s club, and slowly but surely beat the boss, this time helped by Grubber, who grabbed the imp’s leg and refused to let go.

The imp put up some resistance, but it was of no use. With most of his offensive cards spent on the initial three lessers, and the rest spent on Johan, it was just a matter of brute force and numbers. It slowly lost strength and died.