The leader turned to look at the orcs. Ashleen’s face turned expressionless and she started observing the leader closely. She needs to be careful with her steps now, after all she already felt her heart skipping beats twice because the normal side of hers started to struggle to come back. The demon wasn't planning to stay out any longer anyways, but he doesn’t want his host to die either so he needs to wait for the leader to finish his tasks before going back in. If the leader passes the test he can be a good ally but if he failed it, he has to die. After this he can rest like he always did. After coming back twice, he realized it’s not that bad to stay inside and enjoy the dumbness of people.

The leader took heavy steps towards the orcs and they all started to freak out. Leader lifted his iconic curved sword and slashed the first one in two, he looked back to see the expression of Ashleen, seeing her poker face he realized he need to kill more, maybe all of the ones present here.

His heavy steps became faster and he started using all his strength in a single go, partially to show how strong he is and partially to finish it off as soon as possible. The pain of killing his people was real but after killing a few he found his long-lost feeling of ecstasy back. He felt more and more pleasure and was reluctant to end this. He looked at his sword, dyed red with blood; this red reminded him of his underlings and their shrieks full of pain and terror, he smiled, and licked his sword. He walked slowly, stood in front of his last victim, lifted his sword, and slash! Instead of killing it in a single go, he instead cut down its arm, feeling a rush of pure joy running through his nerves as he saw the blood gushing out, the screaming of the orc made him feel even more pleased, and he repeated it thrice.

When the orc almost died from the blood loss and pain he lifted his arm for the last time and sliced his neck off. He turned back to look at Ashleen and snorted proudly, but she looked at him dead in the eye, partially because of the heart pain and partially because the orc failed the test very poorly.

“You don’t deserve it, someone who won’t try to protect their underlings with his last breath don’t deserve a life” orc’s expression distorted but the feeling of euphoria and overconfidence brought by these killing still hadn’t worn off and he already noticed Ashleen’s visibly pale face so he went straight for her neck with his sword. She lifted herself out of his reach and with a single lift of hand he was crushed into a pulp. The way he intended to kill Anik was the way he died in the end. Bones, tissues, along with blood and bodily fluids dyed the ground. Everyone saw the scene and a few started cheering. Akansha, the kid, and healer aunt started cheering and the rest just joined in. Some ran away to puke as well.

This demon residing in Ashleen’s body had already lived a few thousand years, and choose several hosts till Ashleen but never once he saw people cheering for it. Most of the time people were shouting out of fear or at other times they just fled for their lives. There were still a number of ones turning white with fear but the majority seemed to be cheering for it.

Demon wanted to enjoy it a bit more but his host body didn’t let it and she started falling from a considerable height. Her dome started falling apart and started to disappear. The demon knows the host body won’t die with this fall but there is going to be a considerable amount of pain so he quickly let the original consciousness take over.

Ashleen came back to her senses afraid of what she'll witness but the scene that greeted her was her falling on her back, of course, she had no idea how high it was she just closed her eyes and prayed to either die or land painlessly. The last time she hurt her abdomen she felt like she might rather die, what would happen if she fell down this time? What if there was something sharp beneath her? Instead of falling and hurting her internals, she landed on something soft, she found herself in a comfortable embrace. Even before she dared to open her eyes, she felt something fall on her. She opened her eyes and saw it was Anik.

“Hey… you alive?” she poked him a little and seeing that he still was able to lift his head from her stomach, she sighed a sigh of relief but he dropped his head down again. For a moment she wished that the demonic side of her would help her lift him from her. Her entire body already felt too heavy to lift, and now Anik was lying there adding to the weight… pain and pain, double pain she thought and dropped her head back to the ground and looked at the sky.

Anik is fine she knows because there is no message for her power fluctuating or something. She turned her head and saw many people coming towards them, in the front was Akansha and the kid followed her closely, healer lady tried her best to be fast but she was struggling to keep up. Ashleen laughed a little and looked at them again, everyone is alive she thought and smiled heartily.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Can you stop moving?” said Anik as he lifted himself and adjusted himself in a better position, with his head still on her.

“Hey, where are your basic morals?”

“You just almost killed me for fun”

“…” “At least you should be the one to support me”

“I can’t miss, I don’t know how I am still conscious, leave alone supporting you”

“…okay”

Ashleen felt a little guilty for what happened, this time she had memories of the fight that happened some moments ago. She doesn’t know the reason but she felt that she can somewhat understand her demon self and maybe it was just a demon, not some demon self.

Everyone finally reached them, the dome Ashleen made was too big and everyone had trembling legs which made their way feel even longer. It was the first time they saw so much violence with their own eyes some people puked and some even passed out after the last death. But they still somehow got to them. Both of them were sleeping soundly when they reached there. Two humans were sleeping in the middle of piles of blood and meat. There was not too much smell yet, but those with a strong sense of smell had troubled breathing. Even the 'mentally strong' citizens were feeling unstable after this scenario.

"Everyone, who lost their houses should report it to us and we'll accommodate you with some livable place until new houses appear here." Akansha quickly announced and looked at the two who should have said this.

"Guys, wake up... You are not expecting us to carry you are you?"

"Hmm" this was all the reply she got from Ashleen, Anik was unconscious now.

Akansha helplessly smiled a little and gestured for her partner to help pick Anik up, she helped him and in a few moments, Anik was on his back. Akansha went to lift Ashleen, healer lady helped her and after making sure no first aid was required, they started moving back to the castle.

Akansha still felt terrible that Ashleen killed the kids so ruthlessly, but after getting an explanation from Anik she felt a little sad instead. Ashleen was the one who got her hands dirty but she must have had no other options without this that she chose to call the demon to help her.

Naturally, Anik chose to trust her. She was the one who stayed with Ashleen even after she was targeted by everyone and in the end Akansha died in vain. But this time Anik hopes to change the way things were in the comic and one of them is not to let Akansha die. And another thing was that throughout the comic he resented the writer so much because Akansha never got to know the truth about Ashleen's situation and she kept deducing stuff.

When Anik was forced back out of the dome he noticed her distorted face staring at him and Ashleen one by one. Changing the course of the story might land him in a completely different storyline than what he can understand given his luck that he read the comic. But of course, he had no plans of letting the storyline stay as it is supposed to be since the very moment he chose Ashleen as her partner; no, he had no intention of letting the story stay the same ever since he entered the selection hall.

…

“Hey, get up now. It’s been a few days now” she said while poking his face. His face looked severely pale when she first saw him, it looks better now but the healer lady said that his internal injuries were not good and it’d take time to recover. Ashleen still waited for him to get up because last time healer lady said it’d take him an hour to get up but he was awake almost just 5 minutes later.

Looking closely, she saw Anik’s face outlined under the setting sun’s orange rays and felt inexplicably calm. He has thick brows with long eyelashes, damn he has longer ones than I have. He had sharp features and his nose was high bridged, Ashleen stretched her arm to touch his face; she just poked his cheek but now when touching it, his face felt warm. Ever since she woke up from her sudden imagination under his jacket, she had been feeling comfortable around him.

Ashleen sat on the chair beside his bed. This chair has been in this place for 3 days now. She got up 3 days ago, after about 5 days after returning from there.

When Akansha told her that she had been sleeping for 5 days, she thought that Anik would come to greet her soon but she later found out he still hasn’t up.

She asked someone to help her put the chair there. She was physically alright but like last time, the places injured in premonition still gave her trouble if she moved a lot. Over that, she was constantly feeling drowsy because of her sole weakness. It seems she’s also the sole person who was given any innate weakness.

She supported her head with her hand, which in turn was supported by the arms of the chair. This chair was too comfortable to not feel sleepy. She stared at him for some time and have no idea when she slept.

She woke up to a slight moment beside her. No matter what the time was she has never slept deeply unless she passed out so she had a very weak sleep naturally. But still, she subconsciously knew that there was no danger around her so she turned around to sleep again. When she tried turning around she realized she was not in her bed. She finally gave up her laziness and opened her eyes. She looked at the ceiling, oh I am in a different world she thought and lifted her head. I slept on the chair… although she slept upright she woke up with her head resting directly on the arm of the chair and her legs swaying down from the other arm of the chair.

She kept staring at the ceiling for a long time almost forgetting about the reason that made her wake up.

Finally, she turned around her head to look at Anik.

He was up and sat on the bed supporting his back with the headboard, looking at her chucked lightly.