Tess watched as the horde of monsters slowed, then came to a complete stop. There were so many different kinds, from enlarged forms of more common beasts like bears and wolves to humanoid-like types like orcs and goblins. She even spotted a handful of powerful looking creatures very similar to those she had just hunted a few weeks ago. Yet even all these monster’s strength combined paled to the aura of strength and power she felt radiating from the demon lord. The monsters directly beneath her parted to create a sort of corridor between herself and their leader.
“Well, I’m here for this reason.”
Tess stepped out of the tunnel, dropping the nearly forty-five meters to the ground without any sort of concern. She kicked in a flight spell at the last second to catch her landing, touching down with but a wisp of dust kicked up. The monsters did not attack, and for a moment she considered simply opening up on them as she made her way to the fight, however she opted to see what sort of invitation the demon lord had clearly designed for her. She proceeded down this corridor, not allowing herself to be hung up by the rubble and corpses. When she stopped about fifty meters from the demon lord, she heard the movement as the monsters closed in to encircle the two, but kept her focus on him directly.
“Who you?” he rasped out in broken language.
“I suppose you can consider me the hero of this world,” she replied.
“Hero?” he said with confusion.
“The one to stop you.”
“You want cause pain. I stop pain. You feel pain, you understand.”
His words made no sense to Tess, but she was not about to get the opportunity to think about them either. He stepped forward, a move that Tess recognized, and would have seemed to disappear from sight to all except her. Strangely, she felt a weird pulse similar to her encounter with Olivia back at the palace as he did so. Reacting to his movement, she drew the Witchblade and there was a clash as the blade caught his hand. His nails were now extended into full blown claws. She marveled that his claws were more durable than anything she had tested the Witchblade against so far. Thus began a furious exchange as the two clashed with blade and claw.
They seemed to almost dance across the battlefield as each seemed to take turns pressing the attack. One moment the demon lord would strike while Tess parried in rapid succession, the next he would bend in the most unexpectedly graceful ways to dodge her own series of attacks. The contest moved rapidly around their improvised arena, even outside of it. It meant a number of monsters were slain without even realizing what had happened to them.
Tess activated the imbued flight spell she had worked into her hat, disengaging and creating some space between the two of them. Both were breathing heavily, not from exhaustion but rather the mere exertion they had just put forth. They each had scored some light wounds here and there, but Tess watched as the demon lord’s wounds rapidly began to close, leaving new scars on his form. Tess felt her own wounds healing, an enchantment she had worked into her cloak given that Regeneration did not function during combat.
“You strong.”
“As are you,” Tess said.
With a mighty leap the demon lord came at Tess again. Now their fight raged above the ground, which if she had the moment to think about she would have wondered just how he was keeping himself in the air during the new exchange of blows. The rapid pace of the battle was far faster than her previous competitions against Hepha or Shadow. His moves were agile like Shadow, yet came repeatedly from various angles like Hepha. It was a real challenge to keep up. It was at that moment that she slipped up. Severely missing a strike from the right, she lost her guard and he took advantage of the opening to kick her in the stomach.
Tess went flying with the force of the impact. She only stopped when her body collided with the flat side of a remaining section of the wall, causing a small crater in the structure. The force of the kick and impact had even knocked off her hat, causing gravity to exert its force on her again and return her to the ground. She hit the ground hard as she fought through the pain she felt. Her cloak was working hard to try and repair the damage. She glanced towards where her hat had landed, but decided that now was certainly not the time to retrieve it.
Spitting out some blood, Tess refocused. The demon lord had surprisingly not taken advantage of her moment of weakness. She swapped the Witchblade into its elongated form and began rapidly channeling mana through it as she started firing off spells.
Bolts of raw arcane energy sprang towards the demon lord, only to be dodged or taken head on. It was not obvious what damage the bolts even did, so she switched up the spell to one of fire. A torrent of orange flames shot forth and engulfed the demon lord. As she poured more mana into the spell, the flames turned blue from the intensity. Cutting the mana flow, she ended the spell after several seconds of the intense blue flames.
“So much pain.”
He was now bald, the fire having burned away any follicle in existence. His simple loincloth that he had been wearing was likewise gone, but his nudity was not what had Tess’s attention. His skin was gone, having been seared off and charred to levels beyond third degree, yet she saw that his healing was already rapidly repairing the damaged muscle and regrowing the protective layer of skin. It was a display that had her stunned into her own inaction. With a fresh skin layer, which strangely still had all the scarring, he looked at her with the same intensity that had preceded their melee.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
“Magic now.”
She felt the mana surge and more of the strange pulses as he began his own magecraft. In rapid succession she cast three defensive spells, Magic Armor, Magic Shield, and Water Bubble, as he continued to channel a powerful spell of some sort. Hoping that her defenses would hold, she fired off her reliable binding spell as she moved. The chains of light sprung forth and wrapped around the demon lord.
“Angry.”
He merely flexed and the chains shattered. Whatever spell he had been preparing was complete, which he unloaded at her. A torrent of water shot at her, which she countered by bringing back the blue flames to vaporize the water as it came. The steam that engulfed the area obscured her vision, yet made the wind blades that came next easier to spot. A few hastily constructed spires of dirt dealt with some of the wind blades, but others crashed into her spell armor and shield, knocking her back.
A torrent of flames cut through the steam, clearing the visual obstruction yet replacing it with a deadly version. Tess leapt to the side to avoid the initial burst, then dove behind some rubble to hide. She quickly swapped her position multiple times to avoid the direct flames, but the fire still broke her bubble and shield spell.
She wanted to counterattack, but while his attacks so far had all seemed to be of various types, she had sensed that this was still just his one spell. If she failed to counter the next part of his spell in whatever form it took, she might not have the opportunity to counterattack. The tremors gave away the earthen element attack as spikes burst forth from below to impale her and slabs slammed together to try and crush her. It was only through the momentary tremors and feats of acrobatics she was certain to never pull off again that she was able to dodge and counter with precise water jets, slicing the earth and rock apart.
“Angry.”
The sky above had darkened as clouds had formed due to the turbulence their battle had caused. Tess felt his mana surge again, the basis of a new spell. She had an opportunity and fired off her next spell. In frustration she even called it out.
“Density!”
The pocket of space around the demon lord suddenly intensified, increasing the force of gravity by multiple magnitudes. The ground he stood on cracked as he was pressed towards it, yet he still remained standing as though the experience were nothing but weight training. This time, his own spell was much quicker.
The flicker of light was the only warning she got. Lightning crashed down towards her as she glanced towards the storm above. The first bolt struck, shattering her spell armor with the intensity and breaking her concentration of the gravity spell. The second bolt struck true and made her lose control of her entire body. Her muscles involuntarily twitched as the electricity coursed through to the ground below. The third followed right behind the second, with the fourth just after.
It was just as he said. Pain was given to her and she understood during the brief moments between strikes. Tess lost count as the lightning continued to hit her. She had fallen to the ground at some point, yet she continued to convulse as her own body failed to respond to her orders.
“You understand pain. You die now.”
The demon lord stood over her. When he had gotten so close was unclear. He had stopped his spell just long enough to say his piece, but the next flash of the lightning began.
----------------------------------------
The servant stumbled into the prince’s chambers. A lot of people around the palace had been stumbling over the past few weeks, which the prince found strange. Yet when he tried to think about it, he found himself wondering what the Champion would say. He would have to ask her about the stumbling. Then he remembered that the Champion did not want to be disturbed, which made him feel funny. For the briefest fraction of a second, he was mad at the Champion, then he felt overwhelming sadness and pity for her. She had lost her family in an instant. No, it was best to leave her be.
“Your Rejectedness!” the servant said, a confused look passing over his face, “I have an urgent message from the Group of Grouchy Old Men.”
The Group of Grouchy Old Men! They were important for… something the prince could not remember. He would have to ask the Champion what the Group of Grouchy Old Men did again, surely she would know. But then he remembered that she did not want to be disturbed again.
“What is the message?” the prince asked.
“The wall has been breached!”
The wall had been breached. That was a bad thing. Why was it a bad thing? Surely the Champion… should not be disturbed. The prince frowned, it was good that he had gotten the message. The Grouchy Old Men had set up ways for such a message to be quick. They had done that because it meant something. The Champion… should not be disturbed.
“The Group of Grouchy Old Men said they would be ready to send the forces we have, Your Rejectedness.”
The prince looked at the servant. That was what was supposed to happen when the wall was breached. The soldiers were supposed to go and deal with it! He had figured it out! He should go tell the Champion that… she should not be disturbed. But she was in charge of the troops. She should only be contacted in an emergency. Was this an emergency? He should ask her if it was… except she should not be disturbed.
“What should I do?” the prince whined, unable to do anything.
The servant seemed just as lost.
----------------------------------------
Elsewhere over Iriea
----------------------------------------
“What is that?!” Oena yelled at the lesser deity.
She had lifted him up and was shaking him back and forth. The demon lord was too powerful! There was no way that her new hero was going to be able to beat it. Its statistics were astronomical in size. It was moving so fast, had so much strength, and was now manipulating mana so vast that it was a wonder that the hero had managed to only be slightly wounded this entire time.
“The System empowers the Demon Lord event to be a match for the hero.”
“A match? How is that even close to a match?”
He had to admit that the demon lord’s strength was immense, but that meant it was a reflection of just how strong the hero actually was. That she was now going against him blow for blow was astounding, without the goddess’s blessing too.
“Why isn’t the blessing helping?” Oena demanded.
“It’s not completely attached yet. I had to extract it from your mistake, which I did, but it’s still coded to be with her. Now it’s binding to the hero, but the same connections aren’t there, so they have to adapt to fit with her profile. Once it’s bound, it should take effect.”
“Should?”
The lesser deity watched as the hero in question started countering the four element spell the demon lord was unleashing.
“It should.”
Both deities hoped it would.