“How many has it eaten?” One of the men in the back walked forward. He was wearing fairly light armor compared to the others. Instead, he had black gloves on. As he came to Sylvia, he pulled some similar ones out from his pocket and handed them to her. She took them and put them on.

“I have no idea. But I have to say at least eighty. There were sixty hung above its summoning symbol, so it probably got them early.” Sylvia replied.

“Good. It’s much smaller than expected then.” He went and stood beside the larger one who had come before. Then, he told him, “I could handle it alone, I think.”

The other one laughed, “Sure, Kaisel. But let’s all have a bit of fun, why don’t we? After all, he could certainly release some stress and anger.”

He gestured towards the third man, who was already walking towards Sylvia. Once he got there, he gave her a short hug and asked her how she was. She smiled and replied she was fine.

“Well, then.” He took out the bow attached to his back and shot it towards the demon, who was still howling about its lost fingers. The bow hit the middle of the eyes. Without even looking towards the demon, Sylvia raised her hands and snapped. A small spark, just like the one before, made its way to the arrow. And then, another blast.

The demon fell back and started to stumble. Its fingerless hands went to cover its face as it screamed.

“Not there. There are people back there.” Olbert shouted.

“Hess.” The larger one in the front just spoke a single word.

The woman in the back ran forward, and past the demon. As she went, she took out the claymore she was carrying and hit the front of the demon’s foot with its flat side. Already being off-balance, it moved forward ever so slightly. The larger one, who was clearly the leader, laughed. By then, the woman had already disappeared to the back of the building.

The demon was now falling forward, towards all of us. I tried to step back slowly, but the others did not move. I was a bit confused. It made me slightly anxious to see them not worry about the massive demon which was falling on our heads.

The leader kept staring at it. Sylvia was already talking about something with the other person. The one named Kaisel seemed to calculating something. Were they just this confident? Even Olbert wasn’t moving after looking at the others.

“Go on.” The leader whispered.

While falling, the demon suddenly raised its left hand and threw it towards the little remaining parts of the hospital. It grabbed hold of them, and then pulled itself up before falling. It readjusted itself and hit its head with its right arm. The smoke had cleared and the hands were off, which showed that one of its eyes was still fine, while in the place of the other, was a huge crater flowing with purple blood.

It looked at the six of us and roared while pushing forward its head.

“You got them, Hess?” The leader’s shout made me flinch. It almost matched the softer shouts of the demon.

An equally strong female voice came from the other side, “Almost!” That was Hess.

“Oh.” The one called Kaisel whispered.

The demon bent down towards the other side and in one swift move, picked up six or seven of the people who were standing there, wrapped in the three fingers he still had. Accompanying them, however, was a completely new slash on its hand, which caused its blood to spill all over the flailing humans it had picked up. Even with the speed that it had used, Hess had managed to wound it. But still, it ate the humans it had taken.

Slowly, its fingers grew back and its eye returned, along with that creepy grin it had given before.

“Good job.” Kaisel patted the back of the one who was standing with Sylvia, and he nodded with a smile. Then, he stepped forward and his hand started to glow yellow. It seemed like the magic he was going to use was completely different from Sylvia, who had been switching between orange, red and white.

He raised his hands towards the demon and closed his eyes.

“Keep him occupied, please.” He requested.

The others nodded, and the leader, Sylvia, and the one with her moved forward to stand in front of him.

The demon roared once more. A little bit of the blood on its teeth flew our way and landed all over the area. It slowly made its way forward, looking at the four opponents in front of it.

“We should go and join the others.” Olbert said, looking at the other side.

I shook my head, “I want to see this.”

He sighed, “Well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. But we would just get in their way.”

He was right. Sylvia had been fine enough to save herself in the fight, but definitely not enough for the monster. The others who had just arrived, however, were basically on the same level of monstrosity as the demon. Kaisel had already declared that he would be able to take on the opponent on his own. Right now, they were just having fun.

“It has been getting used to the size till now.” Kaisel spoke casually, “I’m guessing it will move faster, since it’s been a bit.”

The guy beside Sylvia replied while laughing, “Yeah, yeah. We got-”

The hand came down in an instant. All four of them jumped back and were suddenly right next to me and Olbert. The place where they had been standing was dust under the hand which now rested there. The demon growled and withdrew the hand. Now, it kept looking at them once more. It seemed like it was getting smarter, calculated.

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I looked back at Kaisel. He seemed unchanged. His hand was still in the air, with the yellow aura being attached to the demon. He smiled at me and turned his attention back to the demon.

“It’s a bit weak right behind the knee. You got it quite nicely, Sylvia. A few more attacks there should stop it from regenerating, even after feeding.” Kaisel said.

“Nice.” Sylvia whispered.

The leader suddenly shouted at the demon, “Are you going to attack, or not?”

Something hit my right side.

My entire brain rattled as if it had disconnected from the skull and was floating around. I felt another impact on my left. I turned to look there and saw the leader with a smile on his face. He was holding me in one of his arms as both of us flew away from the hospital. I looked to the right to see a hand in the place where we had been before. He put me down.

I took a while to get back to my senses, but when I did, I noticed that almost everyone was standing here now. Sylvia’s hand seemed bit damaged, and so did the bow of the archer. The other two were unharmed. Olbert was standing on the other side of the leader, who had jumped while grabbing both of us. But unlike me, it did not seem like he had come back to consciousness yet. Right when I was thinking that, he collapsed on the ground.

“Hey!” Sylvia turned to him and immediately bent down to check on him.

After moving her hand around his neck for a while, she turned to Kaisel, “Can you check him?”

“Just a second.” His hand tightened and the yellow grew darker. After holding it for a little bit more time, he let it go and turned to Olbert.

He bent down and took Sylvia’s place as she stood up and went back.

“Other than the knee, you can go for the neck, I guess. Other than that, the only problem is the armor. Sylvia, stay back. We don’t have more explosive arrows, and fire won’t do anything to it.” Kaisel ordered.

She sighed and sat down.

The archer laughed and stepped forward along with the leader. At the same time, Kaisel used the same yellow glow and kept his hand on Olbert’s chest. Once more, he looked at me and assured me that everything was going to be fine. I had no doubt about that.

The demon had now turned towards us. The two walked towards it. From behind, it looked like quite a picturesque scene. The afternoon sun in the background as the two heroes walked towards the big monster.

It got out of the ruins of the hospital and stepped into the ground that we were all standing on. I just hoped that it did not turn towards us. I wasn’t worried about dying anymore, since I knew that these people wouldn't let that happen. But I certainly did not want to move too much. I was getting a bit tired due to all the running around.

Then the fight began.

The demon raised its foot and brought it down on the two at once. Both of them sidestepped it. The leader pulled out his axe and slashed the foot right as the demon withdrew it. The archer had already jumped away, and was shooting arrows. The first one hit the top of the neck. The second hit the chin. The third hit the top of the helmet. After the fourth one, every single arrow went straight to the eyes, and stayed there, increasing in number every second.

The leader ran forward and aimed directly for the other leg of the demon, but it moved it away at the right moment. He turned to the right to look at the new direction it was headed, but the leader was a bit late. The leg came crashing on top of him, and he flew a bit backwards. But before he could gain too much height, he hit the ground with his axe and used it to slow himself down. Then, taking the opportunity, he jumped on the now-still leg of the demon. The archer, on the other hand, was suddenly gone from his original position.

The demon flung its leg around, but the axe was already lodged in its armor. The leader held on to the axe and took out a second, smaller axe from his belt. He hit the armor with the second one, and started climbing the demon like it was a mountain. To counter, it decided to kneel and crush the human. But once it did, the back of its knee was hit with an arrow. The archer had already made its way to the top of the ruins and was shooting from up there. The leader kept making his way up.

Soon, he got to the knees and attacked it with the axe. The demon howled in pain and used its arm to quickly grab the leader before he could take the axe out. The archer hit the demon’s hands, trying to free him, but the leader stayed there without even trying to break free. Right then, the demon screamed one more time.

From its neck, Hess jumped down and slashed right through the wrist of the hand which was holding the leader. The leader fell down, still held by the arm, and got down on the ground. Hess was also right beside him, shaking her leg due to the impact it had just taken.

I had thought of it already. But these people were truly monsters.

Before I knew it, the archer had already jumped down from the rubble and onto the demon’s still-lowered knee. He jumped straight on the axe and pushed it further inside. It went down until the handle and then stayed there. But then, the archer changed his positioning just a bit and pushed the blade of the axe to make it tilt and come out of the knee. As the loosened axe fell to the ground, so did the archer, who landed on his feet and continued to walk towards Hess and the leader. On the way, he picked the axe back up and handed it to its owner.

“He’s gotten a little better.” Sylvia said. She was watching the fight with a smile on her face.

“A little?” Kaisel looked at her with his eyebrows raised.

She snickered, “Yeah. Just a bit, you know.”

Kaisel smiled and turned back to Olbert, who was already starting to stir.

The three fighters were now standing together, talking to each other. The demon took breaths as it watched them, probably also thinking of its next move.

“Is the kid up?” The leader shouted back at Kaisel.

Kaisel sighed and looked at Sylvia. She smiled and shouted back, “Almost. Give us a few more seconds.”

“What does Olbert have to do with this?” I looked at her.

She shook her head and laughed, “They just want to show off in front of as many people as possible.”

I turned and looked at them.

At that moment, Olbert opened his eyes and sat up with a jolt, turning his eyes to the battle.

“He’s up!” Sylvia shouted back and put her face on her hands as she continued watching them.

The three looked at each other once more and nodded. They had some kind of plan.

The demon brought his hand down on them. Even as it came down with extreme speed, the leader found time to laugh first before raising his axe and swirling it around. At the same time, Hess moved her sword just once. As the hand landed, all of its fingers were cut off. The palm too, was sliced in half. The archer then stood on top of the arm, and put his bow back. He pulled out a dagger and started running up the hand. Hess ran towards the legs.

The demon tried to move both of the limbs at once, but lost a bit of balance. Hess took advantage and jumped before coming down to cut off the left leg, right at the ankles. The archer stumbled a bit due to the movement, but stabbed the demon right where its Adam’s apple would have been and held the dagger with both his hands. As it came down, slashing all the skin in its path, he disappeared under the armor. The leader kept watching as Hess made her way towards the other leg.

Right as the archer appeared from below the chest plate, Hess reached the other leg and chopped it off too. The demon fell down at it cried. Through the small gap between its legs, the archer fell down to the ground and stood back up. The demon was face down now, with its neck clearly visible.

The leader jumped on its back and made his way there. From the back, Hess joined too. The archer stayed where he was and sat down with exhaustion.

Then, in a matter of seconds, Hess and leader brought down their sword and axe on the demon’s neck at the same time. And its head was cut. A large pool of blood flew out from the open wound, with some of it getting on both of them. Hess wiped it off her face and gagged with disgust, spitting some blood out. Then, she went back towards the archer and started talking to him. The leader got down calmly and came towards us.

He asked Sylvia, “Wasn’t that quite a one-sided bout?”

“Well, you knew it didn’t stand a chance.” She replied with a smile and stood up and gave him a hug.

He patted her head and laughed, “You did good, kid. Very good.”

And so, that story ended.