Two armies stand facing in a barren wasteland, hatred, hunger, and fear remains palpable between the two armies. One uniform, dull yet full of life, the other a disorganized cluster of colors with a purple Demon Lord, covered from head to toe with violet purple and black rusted steel armor, with the skull of a black dragon acting as his helmet, slowly empowering a deep purple orb.
Just as the Demon Lord unleashed the orb, a flash of yellow crashes against the purple beam severing it as it continues to charge towards its creator.
With a slight tilt of the head, the Demon Lord casually dodges the yellow blade as it arcs into the mountains. A soft thud is heard far away.
“So, it seems you wield the Judge’s Blade…” He narrows his abyssal black eyes “foolish if you think only one is enough for me.” The Demon Lord bellowed in a deep scratchy voice as he unsheathed his dark crimson blade.
“Well…”, twirling the holy sword as if it were a stick, “I’ll be the judge of that…” the Hero felt several cold gazes stare him in the back, “uh, seriously no one liked that joke?” The Hero clad in shiny mithril armor, his blonde hair blowing through the air, a charming smile if one looked closely, took a carefree step towards the 10ft tall Demon Lord. His hard-earned blade unsheathed and polished like a mirror, the hilt adorned with jewels.
“Oh well, come on you big purple mannequin.”
The Hero summoned and flew with his glowing angelic wings towards the Demon Lord who took large strides to close the distance and soon the two clashed. Followed closely from behind was the Hero’s party; consisting of two mages of fire and ice; a priest of the life faction; an expert thief; an Elvin archer; and warrior with two large siege shields.
The warrior protected the four ranged girls from any stray attacks or rubble from reaching them while the thief and Hero climbed, jumped, and stabbed the Demon Lord from all angles like an annoying fly.
“Wow,” with the largest shit eating grin, “what’s the use of that big ol’ sword if you can’t hi--“
BoOm
The ground with a pit in the silhouette of a young man came a groan.
"You have a hand, noted… ugh”
With a bright flash of blue, a glacier surrounded the Hero as though caressing a child. “PROTECT HIM!”
“SIR HERO HERE!” the priest yelled as a light-yellow glow enveloped the Hero.
“Thanks! Time for round two purple guy!”
As the battle raged the two armies weren’t idle either. The clatter of steel on steel, arrows flying, fire blazed, ice froze, earth bend, air flung, light burned, darkness swallowed, it was chaotic and casualties on both sides began to pile up.
Deep in the allied army a green tent was deployed while two captains spoke in hurried tones. One a burly 7ft tall man in steel armor with a magnificent mustard yellow mustache, contrasted heavily against the blond, thin, pale skin, clad in leather armor, and the distinguishable pointed ears and bow.
“Due to the fight in the very center, our army has split into two group, you 20000 brutes with the support of dwarven magical weapons on the left and 5000 elves and 30000 humans on the right. We have an addition 10000 human mages and soldiers that can be allocated to either side with the most elites.”
“Why can’t we just… yknow… split it in half?” the orc asked confused.
“Have you NOT listened to what I said for the past 30 minutes? We must have units in reserve in order to—”
“CAPTAIN! CAAAPTAIN!” a soldier barged into a text yelling.
Swearing profusely the elf turned. “What do you WANT now?”
“Sorry captain, it seems theirs a fire elite charging straight at us and we couldn’t stop him, even our ice and water mages couldn’t slow him down.”
*Sign* must I do everything myself around here, wish they had some competent captains they could lend me
Walking out of the tent he draws his bow and aims at the raging flames. {frost} the elf murmured.
As the arrow is released it soars straight into the heart of the fire yet immediately melts and evaporates.
“Heh… that’s all your snowball can do to me?”
Fweew fweeew fweew
Dozens of frozen arrows launch at the fire giving pause to the demon’s rush. He ducked, weaved, and dodged the arrows and pounced at the elf seeking to end the source.
Before the elf could retreat, the orc waltzed in and pushed the elf aside. “Otohm got this” and cleaved his great sword down, splitting the demon in half.
“you oaf, you can’t kill an ethereal being with physical weapons stay out of my way!”
Before the elf could fire another arrow, the flames surged and flowed deeper into the encampment recking havoc.
“God dammit!”
---
Heh, how can their scattered forces compare to… ok never mind our forces are even more scattered but anyways as long as I reck havoc and take their attention away from the front lines they would be too busy dealing with me and ill be rewarded without having to fight any strong people anyways.
“aurgh save me!”
“Help!”
“Stop demon!”
{Icicle storm}!
Shit, why are the royal mages here? Aren’t they supposed to be fighting alongside the Hero?
The demon tensed his burning muscles, and charged right past the royal mages opting to attack the reinforcements however…
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
{Tera’s wall}!
Faced with a sharp and frozen earth ground, the demon decided to turn and stop ignoring the pesky royal mages and deal with them quickly.
{firebomb} the demon spat as several burning spheres made its way to the mages.
{geyser}! a third pesky mage yelled as she counteracted the demon’s bombs, detonating them prematurely.
“Combine magic {glacier crash}!” chanted both ice and water mage creating a large sharp piece of ice continuously growing in size with the water feeding it.
You think I’m just going to stand here and take that?
“Dual casting {Tera’s wall}.”
UNHOLY SHI-!
With no room to dodge the demon was forced into an enclosed space facing the ever-growing shard of ice.
Facing down, the demon was left with no choice but to escape.
{FLAME THROWER}
Propelling himself out of the death trap, the demon landed and galloped even further into the camp to escape the encirclement.
As he ran, frozen arrows whizzed past his face. It was the annoying archer from earlier giving chase, luckily he was much faster than the elf. Suddenly he felt something tug at his soul, something so persistent and enticing it almost made him give up and surrender himself but after slowing down and facing the standstill in the distance he was blasted by a shower of hard ice arrows and jolted awake.
God what was that? Something’s not right here.
---
Riddled with cuts, craters, and bleeding black blood, the Demon Lord stood unevenly on the ground.
The Hero, seeming full of vitality gloated at the at his destined enemy, “You never had a chance, with the 3 holy energies empowering me and my favorite priest of life, Elise, I can take any blow from you unscathed!”
“Okay SHUT UP THEO, Elise is almost out of mana, and you keep running in like an idiot, I swear if I hadn’t convinced Elise to join, you’d be dead 100 times over.” Terrasse yelled exasperated.
“Easy for you to say Ms. I am range.”
“You—”
“ENOUGH OF THAT RACKET, {GLUTTONY}!” The Demon Lord screeched before slowly increasing in size.
All the nearby demons started to charge at the Demon Lord in a frenzy, the others further away walked towards him with a dazed expression.
“What is he doing!”
“Taste my 132nd icicle!”
All confused discussion stopped once Elise spoke out.
“STOP HIM, he’s consuming their souls to raise his magic power and strength!” but stood wide eyed as the Demon Lord grew unhindered. “Why is no one?”
“Can’t my arrows are stopped by the suicidal demons!”
“Selena and Kelle can’t shoot anything because I have to constantly use {AREA BUNKER}.” As he said that a large rock demon pressed upon the barrier.
The Demon Lord’s power rises as his strength, vitality, magic power, and saber grows to match his newfound size.
Around 95% of the Demon Lord’s army was absorbed including the ones who already died from both sides resulting in 8 times boost to his already strong body. Only his top 12 generals and few lucky survivors were not absorbed. However, such an ability has drawbacks for its increased strength, that being sealed for five years every 100% increase in strength. For a Demon Lord, such draw backs mean nothing to his timeless body, but with every age comes a newly raised Hero and for that he often used this ability as a last-ditch effort to kill one.
“Okay Hero,” a deep and gravelly voice announced, “as you say, time for round 37 pip squeak.”
---
The pull is getting stronger! I need to get away.
A frozen net suddenly sprouted from a flying arrow entangling the demon’s legs.
{ice net}
“Nice Shot!”
What do I do, I literally cannot go back towards the army or I’m afraid ill get sucked into what ever the big boss is doing and I’m slowly surrounded by royal mages. Hold on I see something bright green and light blue portal of some sorts? Ah of course they have one opened portal otherwise how would they retreat; I just need to get to that.
“Take my legs loser you can eat my dust!” the demon proclaimed before self-detonating his legs, propelling himself at a fast pace towards the portal.
“PROTECT THE WAY STONES HE WANTS TO DESTROY THE GATE! USE YOU QUICKEST ATTACKS!”
Escape dumbass
Changing his arms into flaming hot wings, the demon soared over the reinforcements, setting his sights solely on the portal.
{Mother’s Embrace}!
{Thunder Slash}!
{Law’s Order}!
The former protecting the way stones while the other two directly attacked the demon. The demon blocked one with his wings and took the full brunt of the spiritual spell.
Urghe, I can take five more of those attacks safely and a few more of those lighting attacks.
{Thunder Bird}
{Electric Lasso}
Combining the spells, the thunder bird circled the demon’s wing as the lasso tightened.
Lord dammit {detonate}
Sacrificing a wing the demon continued accelerating towards the gate.
“HES GONNA SUICIDE BOMB IT!”
{Law’s Order}! {Law’s Order}! {Law’s Order}!
Spitting out crimson blood, the demon had a stoic expression.
{Mother’s Embrace}
{Law’s Order}! {Law’s Order}! {Law’s Order}!
The demon felt his mind blank under such intense succession of attacks.
“I’m out! Hurry use your lasso on him!”
{Electric Lasso}!
Feeling a tug at his wing he sluggishly detonated it and continued towards the portal at high speed.
A very young soldier carefully looked in the direction of the portal and whispered {Lake’s Reflection}. A clear liquid oval appeared in front of the portal with none realizing it appeared. The young man smiled looking to sever the connection between the demon and his body.
“Okay fine! Protect me after this. {LAW’S ORDER}!” The Girl fainted as she shot one last spell using some of her vitality as fuel.
The demon was rendered unconscious and crashed into a wall of water destroying the body of the demon.
“WHaT? What happened? Whose spell is that?”
The young man smiled mischievously, slowly reaching his hand towards where the demon perished but a sudden shockwave knocked into all the soldiers making them all fall.
“Holy, the Demon Lord is so huge!”
“Are you telling me we are supposed to help fight that?”
“I pray for you Hero, defeat him so I don’t have to go over there.”
Now that the closest problem has been dealt with, all the soldiers and mages focus on the ensuing battle between the Hero and the Demon Lord.
Some mages went into designated spots and started ritually summoning large attacks again against the Demon Lord. The Royal mages and Sages each summon their own magic to fire from afar.
---
It’s so dark, I can hardly see… several stars? Countless of them. Most of them are white or white turning into colors or fully colored stars. I think I died, I took several spiritual attacks to the face and now I am dead. Are my memories going to be wiped away? I was always told to sacrifice myself for the Demon Lord, but I never believed that crap, I’d rather die on my own terms than be eaten by our Lord. To think I died running instead of fighting… how pathetic…
…
What now? I can’t close my eyes and I’m just going forward; I’m bored. Some stars are getting closer, now that I think about it, they look like me when I turn my fire off… wait am I a soul right now? Does this mean I am theoretically alive? I thought ethereal demons fade after our physical bodies are completely destroyed or when our souls are directly killed. Well, how about that? I haven’t eaten a soul since I was taken from Terastin to train new demons, come to papa!
Swimming as hard as I could or I think I was, I drifted to a nearby vibrant green soul, latched onto it and took a big bite.
*clank*
It’s hard… why is it hard? They are usually so squishy and like a jelly slime. Right, I’m so used to my own soul being more powerful than my victims that I can eat hundreds without putting in effort. Now that I’m weak and got blasted in the soul seven times I’m at my weakest, gotta put in effort like how I climbed up the hierarchy to be an elite. I never got any special benefits other than stop doing grunt work and training new recruits. Maybe I’ll take it easy now that I’m basically dead yet alive, maybe kick back, eat a few souls and get stronger. Yup sounds about right.
*rustle rustle*
What’s that? Something in it is moving towards me. It looks like a roo—did it just swing at me? AWWW ARCIER NAW I ain’t gonna take that lying down come at me thy fool.
And just like that I fought a plant for ten years, slowly adapting to its attacks. It adapting to my attacks. Our battle was fierce, painting the ground red and me bleeding green. At some point when I got tired I started eating the remains of my enemy while it licked my blood from the ground. We attacked each other so fluidly it looked as though a dance was taking place, twirling, spinning, and sharp kicks, it could move one to tears. Finally, after 20 years of battling this root, I have achieved victory and rested in the former owner’s house.