"He… he killed Jason," Karen whispered, her voice trembling with horror.
She could not believe what she had just witnessed.
Only moments ago, it had seemed like the lesser demon was finished.
It should have ended there.
The demon had already been brought down, his body pierced by several ice shards, his left arm completely destroyed by her attack.
By all logic, he should have been defeated.
And yet, in the very next instant, he moved and killed their friend.
As if that was not enough, his destroyed arm regenerated within seconds.
No… they had been wrong.
It was not that the lesser demon had been overpowered.
He had allowed it.
He had taken their attacks on purpose, pretending to be down.
He waited for the perfect moment.
And when Jason, the wielder of the holy sword, approached to finish him, the demon struck.
Without hesitation, without giving him even a fraction of time to react, he drove his hand straight through Jason's chest, killing him instantly.
"How… how can he regenerate that fast?" Atsuji's voice shook. "Only noble vampires can do that… how can a lesser demon…?"
While Karen stood frozen in fear at the sight of their fallen companion, Atsuji forced himself to focus on the enemy.
The demon had not only deceived them and killed Jason in an instant, but he had also regenerated a lost limb within seconds.
That alone made no sense.
Yes, demons could regenerate.
At least, the higher-ranking ones could.
But their regeneration was nothing like that of vampires.
For demons, regeneration required conscious effort.
They had to channel their demonic energy and force their bodies to rebuild flesh and bone.
It was neither instant nor effortless.
Vampires, on the other hand, were different.
Their bodies regenerated naturally, rapidly, and with far less energy expenditure.
Even taking that into account, the one standing before them was a lesser demon.
The lowest rank.
A being barely distinguishable from a human.
So how…?
How could something like a lesser demon move and regenerate in such a way?
At this point, Atsuji felt a growing sense of danger from the lesser demon.
"We have to kill him," Atsuji said.
In the next second, a thick light blue energy surged from his body, and dozens of long ice arrows materialized around him.
"Karen, get a grip. We have to kill him now before he kills us," Atsuji screamed as he saw the lesser demon approaching.
Without hesitation, he launched all the ice arrows at him.
Karen, who had been frozen in place from the overwhelming fear of witnessing her friend and leader being killed so brutally, forced herself to regain composure.
She quickly raised her hands toward the lesser demon and unleashed a massive beam of energy, pouring all of her remaining power into it.
Zyel did not even need to move his head.
His eyes had awakened to something new.
A strange power spread through his vision, allowing him to perceive everything within a fifty-meter radius in all directions.
The world around him was painted in a deep purple hue, and within that space, everything slowed down as if time itself had been reduced to a crawl.
Within this perception, he gained something close to omnivision.
He could see everything, from every angle, all at once.
At this moment, his focus sharpened onto every incoming ice arrow and the massive energy beam, each moving as though trapped in slowed time.
He did not move from his spot.
He simply walked forward, even as the storm of ice and the beam of destructive energy closed in on him.
His veins bulged violently, as if they were about to burst.
His muscles screamed in agony.
Every part of his body endured an unbearable level of pain, far beyond anything he had ever experienced before.
Yet his body continued to function at overdrive.
Under the effects of [Battle Instincts], every movement, every action pushed his body to its absolute limit.
Even walking demanded the full output of his strength.
He had entered a world of pure pain.
And yet, he endured it as if it were second nature.
Then, in the next instant, he moved.
His body shot forward at a speed no human could ever achieve, weaving directly through the deadly attacks rushing toward him.
The energy beam fired from Karen's gauntlets was incredibly fast, far faster than the ice arrows.
Just before it could strike him, Zyel's figure blurred and vanished from its path, slipping past it by the smallest margin.
The beam slammed into the ground behind him, erupting in a violent explosion that shattered the earth and sent dust and debris into the air, obscuring the battlefield from the heroes' sight.
But Zyel was unaffected.
Through his altered vision, the dust meant nothing.
He could see them clearly, as if nothing stood in his way.
He knew exactly where they were.
As the ice arrows rained down one after another, he moved through them with precise, minimal motion, dodging each one effortlessly.
In the midst of it all, he reached down and grabbed a piece of broken rock from the ruined ground, roughly the size of a foosball.
In the very next instant, he moved his arm.
Pushing through the pain, forcing every ounce of strength his body could produce, he swung his arm forward at its absolute limit.
Muscles strained, bones protested, and yet he did not stop.
With inhuman force, several times greater than any normal human could produce, he hurled the rock forward like a baseball.
The rock tore through the air like a high-speed projectile. Atsuji did not even realize what was happening.
Neither he nor Karen could see what was coming.
In the next instant, it struck.
The rock slammed into his right eye, obliterating the eyeball instantly, along with the socket and the tissue behind it.
It tore straight through his brain, cracking his skull as it burst out from the back of his head without any resistance, as if it had passed through jelly.
Fragments of bone scattered.
His body went limp and collapsed to the ground.
Thud!
Karen did not even realize what had happened.
It had all unfolded too fast for her mind to catch up.
Only when Atsuji's body hit the ground did her expression begin to change, a dark, hollow look spreading across her face.
For a brief moment, it felt as though her entire world had frozen.
Her gaze slowly shifted toward him.
What lay there was no longer a face.
It was something unrecognizable.
Empty cavities where his eyes had been.
A skull fractured and collapsing in on itself.
Blood pooled beneath him, spreading across the ground like a grotesque red cushion.
"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh!"
The scream tore out of her without restraint.
That was it.
The breaking point.
Reality crashed down on her all at once.
She was going to die.
Regret flooded her mind, overwhelming and suffocating.
Every decision, every step that had led her here replayed in an instant.
The choice to hunt these demons.
The arrogance behind it.
"You despicable demon… you killed them," she spat, her voice trembling with rage and despair.
She staggered back, her body shaking as fear, fury, and grief tangled together, crushing her sanity.
"Die! You demon!"
Her eyes, bloodshot and wide, locked onto him as she raised her gauntlets and unleashed a relentless barrage.
Energy bullets poured out like a storm, tearing through the air in a continuous stream.
She did not care about precision anymore.
She did not care about survival.
All she wanted was to hurt him.
Zyel said nothing.
His body moved before thought could form.
He surged forward, closing the distance.
His purple eyes remained still, almost lifeless in appearance, yet they saw everything.
Every projectile.
Every trajectory.
Every shift in motion.
With the slightest movements, he avoided them all.
Each step, each tilt of his body, was just enough.
No wasted motion.
No panic.
"Die! Die! Die!"
Karen clenched her teeth, pushing herself further.
The barrage intensified.
Dozens became hundreds as she poured every ounce of energy into the attack.
The air itself seemed to fracture under the sheer volume of fire.
It made no difference.
Zyel slipped through it all effortlessly.
Every missed shot detonated behind him, tearing apart the ground and anything in its path.
Then something changed.
The gleam in his eyes intensified.
No longer content with merely dodging, he started advancing straight through the storm of energy bullets, closing the distance between himself and Karen.
Karen panicked as she realized the lesser demon was closing in on her.
"No… don't come near me," she whispered, her eyes widening in fear.
She immediately stopped firing and poured all her remaining energy into defense, forming a dome-shaped shield around herself.
Light blue energy wrapped around her, enclosing her completely.
"I wonder how long you can keep this up," Zyel's voice echoed, low and demonic.
In the very next moment, he was already standing right in front of her.
Only the thin barrier of energy separated them.
"Let's see how long this can stop me from crushing your head."
He clenched his fist and drove it into the shield with full force.
The impact sent a sharp jolt of pain through his arm.
The barrier held firm, dense and unyielding, but he did not stop.
He struck again.
And again.
And again.
Punch after punch rained down on the same spot without pause.
His bones cracked under the strain, his knuckles splitting apart, yet they healed just as quickly.
Like a machine locked onto a single task, he continued hammering the barrier, each blow carrying relentless force.
Karen's breathing grew uneven and strained.
She stared at him in horror as he continued his assault without hesitation, his expression devoid of anything human.
Her energy was draining fast.
No matter how powerful she was, she was still human.
All of them were.
Their strength came only from the abilities they wielded, and those had limits.
And she was reaching hers.
Each time the shield cracked, she forced more energy into repairing it, desperately holding it together.
But the cost was too high.
Seconds stretched into minutes.
Her reserves dwindled rapidly.
Until finally, she had nothing left to give.
With one final punch, the shield shattered.
The barrier broke apart into fragments of fading light.
Karen did not even have time to scream.
A single slap struck her across the face.
It carried overwhelming force, far beyond what any human could withstand.
Her face collapsed under the impact.
Bone shattered, her skull fractured violently, and her body was thrown sideways like a ragdoll before crashing lifelessly onto the ground.
Silence followed.
It was over.
The intruders were dead.
Zyel's glowing purple eyes shifted away from the fallen body and moved toward his lovers.
Amelia was awake, barely holding herself up on her knees, carefully watching what he had done, a pained expression etched across her face.
Aria, however, still lay unconscious.
Only now did Zyel allow himself to feel it.
Pain.
It surged through every part of his body, raw and unbearable, as if his very existence was tearing itself apart.
His strength faded rapidly.
He released the [Battle Instincts] state.
In the next second, his body gave out.
He dropped to his knees, then forward onto the ground.
His vision darkened.
The last thing he felt was relief.
Amelia was awake.
She would handle the rest.
And with that, he lost consciousness.
...
[Author's Note]
If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider adding my novel to your library and supporting it with Power Stones. It really helps! No pressure at all though. Arigato!