The Third Party - Chapter 56

3rd Person’s POV (12 yrs. and 8 months old)

“Tch, no matter, I’ll have you all kneeling before me.” Rize blinked away from the group as he felt that he could not fight them head on, but if he were to free the other demons then things would be a lot easier.

The question is, how can he do that?

“Klein, why did we not fight him head on?” asked Lana hinting at the fact that she was right there, they could have a fighting chance.

“Even if we were able to defeat them, there’s no telling if we’ll be able to defeat his minions later, they will be our priority first.” replied Klein. “Reserve those blades for later.” He said, directing the message to Coralia, Trunk and Ulysses.

The three nodded and sheathed their blades before sending it back to Ulysses’ cave, the blade’s structure looked similar to regular ones, just slightly curved to the elongated part, but made of black crystal, round at the hilt, while slowly sharpening up to the edge of the blade.

The scabbard was also surprisingly made out of black crystal, as if it was made along with the blade in particular, or handcrafted for it.

“Let’s continue.” The group pressed forward, slaughtering more monsters in their way, effectively thinning out their already small numbers. They didn’t show mercy even with the fact that the spell that immobilized the monsters was still active while killing them.

The last werewolf and ogre fell by the blade and claws of the other high ranking warriors as most of the left out monsters where at the edges, leaving Klein’s group preparing to assault the main force of the demon army.

“Klein, I’m sorry, I won’t be able to hold my spell any longer, the demon lord is forcibly cancelling out my magic.” said Cloud through telepathy, his breath heaving as he took sharp intakes of breath after speaking out the last part.

“It’s okay, drop your spell, or there will be a backlash.” replied Klein, Cloud complied and the magic circle above slowly faded away, while the magic circles around Cloud also faded.

He laid his body abruptly on the ground, Rain quickly went to his side, worried for his cousin whose body and mind took a toll when keeping the spell active.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine, I just need some rest.” replied Cloud, still taking in deep breaths to calm his system. A faint green glow emanated from behind him, revealing Lyn casting a healing spell on Cloud to ease his discomfort.

Rain thanked her by bowing his head towards her, Lyn appreciated the gesture and smiled, nodding in return.

With the spell gone there’s no wonder that the demons will be making their move, and that’s when they all sensed a fluctuation of energy from the afar, they all looked at the direction where the demons were situated.

Rize who thought that he had successfully lifted that damned spell’s restrictions immediately instructed his fellow demons to engage in the fight. Demon slaves hurriedly ran towards Klein’s group, and they complied.

Klein, Ulysses, Lana, Alfred, Vin, Erick, Raze, Trun, and Riven, all but head-butted the demon slaves that came barreling themselves towards them, and with their skills and experience in combat, they were able to outmaneuver each demon slaves that were blindly charging towards them.

Klein still used his hands to slice and dice of the demon slaves before him, this time, he used his ice magic to create blades as his hands, giving him more opportunities to fight more securely, his clothing flapping about in a graceful flow of red and white.

Ulysses on the other hand, had done precise and accurate strokes of his blade that resembles a katana, swiftly slicing through any demon he’d encounter, but since they both know that these demons don’t die by any means, they leave the finishing touches to Lana.

Lana conjured light weapons at any given moment she sees a weakened demon, she used a light blade to finish off demons that were in close proximity, and flung out light daggers to those far from her, to those that were farther apart, well, the others took care of it.

Alfred used arcane magic to pull them like rag dolls and tear through the demon slaves bodies and offered them to Lana, or more like flung them near Lana, Vin also did the same, but by using the momentum of swing his blades, he cut through a demon’s body, then sent them flying towards the location of Lana.

Erick watched as every other demon that were embedded or sliced with light swords or daggers disappear in smoke while some had piled up, slowly fading into the wind, he noticed that the black smoke was gradually covering Lana’s figure.

He jumped to her side and with a quick burst of wind, he pushed out the black smoke so as not to suffocate Lana, while simultaneously slicing off those demons that were slowly regenerating.

Coralia, and Trunk, dashed through in a beeline forward brandishing their twin swords that left a trail of bodies behind them, and as to not let themselves get surrounded, both immediately jumped backwards after noticing that their charge had slowed down to a halt.

Raze, Trun and Riven, used their mastery over the earth to create walls and pillars that would either block a demon slave or flung them high into the air if they deemed to be a nuisance and are ganging up on one of their companions.

The battle was slowly being won by Klein’s side, Rize on the contrary was still able to watch with a calm exterior for in the back of his mind, he was thinking of those demon slaves as expendables.

But his other side says otherwise, as he looked at the situation and thought that he wasn’t quite prepared for this invasion as his demon slaves were of a similar situation as his monster army from earlier albeit a little slower in killing them.

“Join in on the fight.” said Rize a few minutes later while looking at the fight. All the demon vanguards heard his command and in a swift motion, dashed forward to join the fight of the dwindling numbers of demon slaves.

Some demon vanguards appeared suddenly before the nine individuals, each from their blind spots and engaged fiercely, but the nine were unfazed and fought back. Klein having noticed the energy fluctuation from behind him, dodged a blade aimed before him at the last second by jumping forward.

He twisted on mid-air and faced the demon vanguard before him, the physique similar to the one Ken and his group fought, there were other demon vanguards with different physiques, but their buffed bodies and scaly armor certainly stood out, even with those similar to a female’s body.

Klein instantly melted his ice blades hands and took out a sword from under his left sleeve and intercepted the demon’s sword aiming straight for him. The two exchanged blows after blows, and parries after parries from one another.

Klein still unfazed from the sudden appearance of another enemy, while the demon before him seems to be getting frustrated as even his physical strength wasn’t able to make this ‘human’ before him budge.

On the other hand, Ulysses’ ‘partners’ turned out to be two demon vanguards ganging up on him, one swung down with an axe while the other thrust forward with a black sword -black seems to be the motif for their weapons-,

Ulysses calmly evaded both by sidestepping the axe, parrying the sword to the side, watching as the demon passed him by, noting that wielding a large blade causes sluggish and slow movements, he struck forth on the demon’s left arm holding the axe.

The strike drew blood, and with consecutive slices, he rendered the axe-wielding demon into pieces within seconds, the demon he parried had turned just in time to see his comrade torn apart before his eyes.

“*ROAR!!!*” the demon charged blindly towards Ulysses, but he too lost his life as that was the moment Ulysses needed to send this demon into oblivion, Ulysses’ figure appeared behind the demon, and in another split second the demon was shredded into what looks to be of molecular level.

‘Second Phase: hastily kill demon vanguards, still not halfway there.’ thought Ulysses to himself and disappeared in a black smoke before appearing behind a charging demon and slit their throat in one quick motion, then returned invisible again, only to reveal himself several minutes later to do the same movement again.

On the peripheral vision of Klein, he noticed Alfred and Erick whose backs are against each other, and watched as demons were being thrown everywhere. Erick did his best to fend off demons that were trying to tear them both apart, while just like what Klein saw, Alfred did his best to throw any demon with arcane magic that came too close for comfort.

While barely able to cast magic without chanting, Alfred resorted to using his magic like an extension of his limbs to crush demons on the ground or a nearby tree, and throw them away or immobilize them.

Vin passed by them and they saw as he plowed down five demon vanguards before them, hitting one swing at each of the demons severing their upper body from their lower body, he seemed to have gone berserk as he did not stop there and all but charged again only to be stopped by two demon vanguards holding their swords together in an x shape to intercept Vin’s swords.

“ARGH!” Vin propelled backwards from the force of the impact, but he quickly restored his balance and jumped forward, both swords facing down to strike at the two demons, the demons blocked his attack but staggered backwards from the sheer force of the impact.

“Arcane Magic: Teleportation.” Alfred quickly casted, teleporting Vin’s figure behind the demons, Vin quickly slashed forward again severing the demon’s body horizontally. He then jumped forward to position himself near Alfred and Erick’s location, while intercepting a demon slave that approached the two.

Lana suddenly landed in front of Vin crushing the demon he was fighting by her feet, she back-flipped and struck a demon slave behind her with a light sword and threw a light dagger on the one she had landed on.

“Light Magic: Barrage of Stars.” A magic circle the color of light appeared above Lana’s head and sent out light spears around her, particularly targeting the demons in a circumference of 40 meters.

All the demons lost their life in that instant, and Rize watched mouth agape at the sudden wipeout of his forces, momentarily forgetting that there were still other demon slaves and vanguards in the area.

“KILL THEM NOW!!!” he furiously shouted, and almost simultaneously every demons lunged, dashed, and or teleported forward to fight the nine individuals.

“Earth Magic: Earth Pulse.” Casted simultaneously by the three mountain lions, as three magic circles the color of brown appeared in front of them, Raze stepped his paw forward then dragged it back in a swift motion causing pillars to cascade down on the approaching demons seemingly appearing in mid-air.

Riven and Trun, did a motion where they both stood on their hind legs and pounded down on the ground summoning earth spears, but this one’s looked to be thin in size, what caught the demons off guard was the sheer speed those spears were casted.

For one second one spear had formed in front of the two lions, and then it multiplied the next, hitting the demon slaves and vanguards running forward, the motion left them staring into silence as they all watched as each and every spear and pillars tore through each one of them.

“Darkness Magic: Blighted Path!” in the next second that all of his forces were going to be wiped out again, Rize casted a spell that fired of a dark beam erasing all the earth spells before him and also hitting the nine in the process.

Smoke rose from the end process of the spell, covering the battlefield, while Rize do know that any other means cannot kill their kind, he was particularly worried of that magical beast that could cast light magic, their only weakness.

He regrouped his remaining forces of 60 demon slaves and 40 demon vanguards, patiently waiting for the smoke to clear up.

“Demon slaves, sacrifice your life force to the gate.” He said, the demon salves looked at their master, but seeing his menacing aura, they hurried up to the chair that was situated behind the demon lord Rize had sat on.

Each remaining demon slave surrounded the chair, creating a black red circle below them, the chair suddenly warped, as if breaking apart and from the center, dark red energies seeped out, as well as dark red energies spiked from the surroundings causing the magic circle to bellow with power.

And in an instant, a demon gate, twice the size Ken and his group had opened where the chair once was, carrying with it an ominous vibe to the surroundings, the demon slaves, caught in a ritual.

Power welled on the demon vanguards as their form transformed, earning them an additional half of their previous height, more scaly armors, and an even more buffed body, their weapons also elongated looking more menacing by the minute.

The smoke cleared, and Klein’s group watched as demons before them had evolved, tattered clothing wrapped around their bodies, while the wounds and bruises that they oh so tried to suppress surfaced on their body, making them look beaten up.

“Witness your fall Continental Snake! Along with all your kin and everyone in this valley!” said the demon lord, laughing in hysterics, as his power too increased, causing a dramatic change to his form, or not so, as he had also risen in height.

But, when he looked at Klein’s group, his eyes shone brightly in red, and a seemingly dreadful power burst forth sending anyone around him flying as the winds howled, the ground cracked, after the force passed, what was left, is the demon lord floating in mid-air,

Crackles of dark red energy swam around him. Klein’s group felt their sense of courage leave them, as the sight before them brought about fear, and despair, some kind of force pressing down on them, making them unable to utter a word, as they shook in place.

The sudden change in power was so drastic, that not even Klein could explain how that was possible, only that his death is near. No, he doesn’t want everything to end like this, he stood on one knee and faced the demon.

“N-“

*BOOM!*

Sounds of broken glass resonated from an explosion causing everyone on the battlefield to halt for a moment and look at the distance of the cliff as they witnessed dark red energies on cracking and breaking, then finally, some kind of barrier was broken,

Revealing a more serene part of the Northern Forest. Bright yellow circular lights appeared on the air, ranging from small to very large ones, and out appeared the figures Klein hasn’t seen in a long time.

“Yow.”

——-