Nodaba returned to the darkness above.
Although the other demons could not see the battle clearly through the gloom, he did not doubt that the two dragons could.
What stood before him was a wolf far larger than the twelve beast kings that were now facing down Raina. This entity was an enormous, pitch-black shadow twisted in profoundly unnatural ways. The corruption tearing through its form and distorting its appearance seemed to exceed far the absolute peak of what the darkness element was capable of, creating something that could only be described as an eldritch abomination that barely retained the silhouette of a wolf.
Even looking at the creature caused one's mind to warp, proving that its mere appearance inflicted a strange type of mental corruption.
Nodaba had lived for a long time, but even he had never personally experienced this type of mental corruption. If not for the Demon King's warning a long, long time ago, he might have been completely ill-prepared when he sensed it, allowing the corruption to descend upon the others.
It was for this exact reason that Nodaba had refused to let the others get involved. Even he, with his immeasurable strength, could feel his sanity waning at the mere sight of this large beast.
Two eyes, horribly mutated and overlapping in a pretzel of mutated flesh and cartilage, peered down at him with an emotion of twisted madness and sickening pleasure. Its face had deformed, stretching into a sarcastic, almost human-like grin, losing many of its wolf-like features.
Looking at it, perhaps this creature and its bloated body could barely move, and that was the reason it was tucked away here, hiding from everyone's sight.
"Tsk!"
Soon, Nodaba moved.
The old demon vanished from his original position.
Bang!
Each step he took sent violent shockwaves rippling through the cavern. He had retracted his aura to its absolute minimum to avoid affecting the outside world, but he could not hold back his power in this fight. His intuition screamed that this creature was not just dangerous, it was highly unlikely he could defeat it, much less kill it. For such a vile thing to be dwelling in this secret realm, it was a stroke of luck that he had discovered it early. If it had grown any larger, and if there ever came a day when it broke free of the secret realm, it would bring a devastating calamity to the Cross Continent, perhaps even the entire world. Looking at things now, even if he survived a drawn-out battle, he would likely succumb to the mental corruption long before he could deliver a fatal blow.
Regardless, he had to try!
Zwoosh!
A black streak pierced through the twisted chest of the giant wolf, violently emerging from the opposite side of its body. The terrifying shockwave shattered the nearby stone structures, sending a roaring gale sweeping through the cavern.
To cause this level of destruction, Nodaba hadn't even needed to swing his weapon, a single stab through the air was enough. Yet even this absolute destruction, a force that would prove fatal to sixth-order entities, failed to make the amalgamation of wolf-like flesh even flinch.
But for the first time, the Song of Stone faltered, revealing something far darker and more sinister beneath its serene, sorrowful melody. Underneath the music lay a twisted kind of whimpering, a wrath-filled wail. The agonizing sound had always been there, but it had been condensed and masked to warp the senses of those who heard it.
It was only in this brief instance of interruption that one could barely detect the distortion.
The giant wolf staggered forward, attempting to counterattack, but its body was unstable, churning like a mass of fur-covered flesh. In truth, the monstrosity could barely hold its form together. Its chest had completely collapsed inward from Nodaba's attack, but the flesh regrew at a speed that made the old demon's heart to slightly sink.
Nodaba stood calmly amidst the destruction, one hand firmly gripping his spear.
His robes fluttered quietly as the wolf howled furiously in the background.
He needed something more...
Looking up indifferently, Nodaba moved again!
Swoosh!
He thrust his spear forward.
"Ha!!"
A black crescent of blooming light instantly split the giant wolf cleanly in half, but...
* * *
Boom!
Raina's body shot through the darkness like a black meteor, surging directly toward the twelve enormous Wolf Kings that were closing in from every direction. With a fierce expression, she slammed her foot onto the ground, took a powerful stride, and seized the initiative to strike first.
With a black light, the darkness element that Nobada had forcefully condensed throughout the cavern rippled, churning into a violent vortex that wrapped around her small figure.
Her hammer, already swinging downward, erupted with the aura of absolute suppression as the wave of black energy compressed into the weapon.
Boom!
The massive hammer connected, causing the earth to quake and shattering the stone, causing it to shoot outward. The two closest Wolf Kings, sensing the lethal trajectory of the blow, exploded backward on their four powerful hind legs, using a terrifying burst of speed to escape the impact.
BOOM!
As Raina adjusted herself, two long whips tipped with white embers slashed through the air toward her.
Then, with a sharp twist of her body, Raina dodged the first tail, but the second tore through the air from a blind spot. The middle-aged woman frowned and leaned forward, instinctively driving the handle of her hammer directly into the path of the incoming strike.
Slash!
With a deafening crack, the massive tail, possessing enough raw power to collapse a fortress, collided with the handle of the hammer.
The weapon barely shook!
Raina sneered.
How could this oversized dog possibly comprehend the sheer weight of this damn hammer? Raina's hammer was her first elemental armament, and it possessed the weight of a large mountain! What was worse, the sheer volume of elemental energy compressed within this single weapon was enough to instantly catapult her to the seventh or perhaps even the eighth order the moment her seal was removed. It was simply unreasonable!
While adjusting, her eyes swept back and forth, reassessing the field.
In truth, Raina shared a complex love-hate relationship with her elemental armament. She loved it for its long companionship, but she hated it because the weapon had long since reached a bottleneck. Instead of compressing further, it simply grew larger. In truth, this hammer was originally meant to be a small forging tool fit for a blacksmith. Yet, after hitting the absolute threshold of elemental energy compression, she had been forced to reluctantly expand its physical size to store more power. In fact, many practitioners of the Summoner pathway who chose to condense only a single elemental armament faced a similar problem. Normally, it was resolved by advancing their cultivation realm, something Raina was currently incapable of doing.
She shook her head, tossing away the distracting thoughts, and locked her eyes on a massive Wolf King that was already descending behind her back.
"Then come!"
With a roar, she ripped the mountain-like hammer from the earth. She swung it in a devastating arc, carrying the full momentum of her turn. When the weapon collided with the white vortex swirling within the beast's gaping maw, a resounding explosion rippled outward. The clash scattered thick white mist across the battlefield, creating a stark contrast between her elemental energy and the spectral white of the beasts' bodies.
She didn't pause!
After knocking the massive wolf back, she leaped into the air. Gripping the handle tightly, she fell back down like a meteorite, landing squarely on the reeling monster's back.
Boom!
With a flash of pure terror in its eyes, the massive wolf let out an indignant roar before its body was utterly flattened with a pathetic whimper.
There was a brief pause as dust flew up.
Then—Swoosh!
Swinging her hand, Raina cleared away the billowing cloud and emerged completely unscathed. The only sign of the clash was a small tear near the hem of her robe, riding up her leg like a high-cut battle dress.
She walked away from the crushed corpse, flicked her wrist, and slung the massive hammer casually over her shoulder. Her eyes swept across the battlefield, meeting the gazes of the remaining Wolf Kings. Instead of fear, the monsters looked enraged, charging toward her in a synchronized tide of white mist.
Raina chuckled. Rolling her shoulder, she stepped forward and shot ahead like a black streak of light!
In the exact instant before she collided with the eleven remaining beasts, her body flickered and dissolved into a dark fog. The black mist slipped through the approaching tide of snapping teeth and fur like a passing shadow, quickly reassembling behind them with a ferocious grin.
Jumping high into the air, Raina roared, her hammer already descending.
Boom!
Another of the twelve wolves was flattened in a single, crushing blow, driving the remaining ten into a red-eyed frenzy, but with a sneer, Raina's feet seemed to dematerialize. Then, before they could even react, she vanished from sight as the black mist rolled out across the floor.
This was the materialization of the darkness element, an advanced technique that all summoners could naturally perform after reaching the fifth order. Demons were usually an exception to certain pathway rules, but due to the staggering amount of darkness element Nobada had unleashed in the cavern, Raina could temporarily utilize the ability without any restraint.
Reappearing mid-air, she descended with a sudden burst of physical strength.
Following a loud bang, a Wolf King managed to dodge, causing her to crash directly into the cavern floor, opening a massive crater with a violent explosion.
Raina bounded out of the dust cloud, laughing uproariously as she pressed the attack. "Hahahahah! Come on, come on! Today, let me fight to my heart's content!"
The brutal battle unfolded.
-
While this was happening, Gillion and Old Man Hirano watched Raina with a strange expression.
"Is it just me, or does she seem to be more energetic?" Gillion asked with dull eyes.
Hirano nodded. "I haven't seen her let loose like this for a long time. Perhaps there was another reason why Nodaba wanted to set up this fight..."
Boom!
Both demons watched as Raina thrashed around, completely dominating the massive wolves as if they were nothing more than toys to play with.
Gillion shook his head. "She seems even more violent than me. From the looks of it, whatever happened to her in Imai must have changed a lot more than just her body."
Hirano nodded in silent agreement.
"Oh, look, something seemed to be wrong."
"Hm? This is!"
-
Boom!
Just then, a wave of violent and abnormal energy erupted from Raina's body.
Like a veil that clung to the surroundings, it was heavy, black, and omnipresent, seemingly seeking out those without thoughts. Even she didn't seem to realize it, but the changes that had begun to alter her physique were slowly starting to manifest, at least as a shadow of what was to come.
She had originally been quite plump, but after meeting Petra, a massive portion of her body's excess 'energy' seemed to have been drained away. Not only had her physical body suddenly become far more demanding, but her mind had also become sharper and more active, requiring a larger number of daily calories, causing her to suspect that something had changed in her physique's foundation.
In recent days, she had thrown this to the back of her mind, but how could she have predicted that the first signs of these changes would suddenly erupt here and now.
Currently, as she continued to fight, she was completely overwhelmed with a feeling of liberation, allowing her true personality to become completely unhinged and free.
At the same time, a kind of phantom began to overlap with her physical body, appearing both ethereal and terrifying. This avatar was nothing more than an echo, but even so, its appearance brought another layer to Raina's already rampaging presence.
In addition to the two horns that she had snapped off while fighting the angel, two more small bumps had also started to grow, though she had not mentioned it up till now. The other demons only knew that the shape of her normal horns, those protruding from her forehead, had begun to alter as they regrew. They had grown back relatively fast, not because she used any special medicine, but because the darkness element she held in reserve was capable of fueling this rapid growth.
The problem was that this second set of horns, the ones she had kept secret until now, was suddenly revealed in the heat of battle.
Of course, she herself was completely unaware of this!
As the darkness element wrapped around her battle-hungry figure, two shadow-like phantoms of her initial horns began to flicker in and out of existence. They appeared almost as an extension of what they would have been if she had not broken them off during that prior battle. But that wasn't all! In addition to the two horns protruding from her forehead, two more horns, these spiraling like a goat's, had suddenly appeared as two more shadows. They protruded from her temples and wrapped around the back of her head, giving her a total of four horns, each radiating an oppressive pressure.
Raina's eyes flashed with a pitch-black light.
Alongside the dark-type elemental energy spilling from her body, an equally dark, yet utterly unfathomable black light also began to extend outwards.
She roared!
These two distinct black energies swirled together in a violent vortex as she burst forward, blurring toward her next target in a completely half-awake state.
* * *
Lilit looked at Raina's changes and frowned deeply.
"This is…"
Atllin nodded, "This is mental energy, a powerful derivative created by those lunatics. It seems as if our suspicions were correct…"