Kapitel 15: Demons!

In the camp Ark had just fallen asleep when something happened, all of a sudden there was a mass influx of purple Mana gathering at an astonishing speed not far from where they were. Ark instantly noticed this and woke up immediately. He felt his hairs stand almost straight on his back, he was shivering, and he didn't even know why. He didn't know what was going on since he wasn't really sure what those purple Mana particles actually did, he only knew one of the functions. He wasn't the only one who noticed though since Annette also ran out of her tent.

"DEMON ATTACK!"

Ark suddenly heard her and multiple guards who had been woken up start shouting, he was very confused, but he could guess that there were demons who was the cause for the disturbance of the purple Mana. Since that purple Mana was supposed to be able to manipulate space, Ark had a guess, he thought that they might be warping it to teleport, but he didn't really know if it was possible or not. If it was then it would be pretty awesome, but also kind of terrifying.

"Get ready for battle!"

"Get into formation!"

After seeing them get organized and get into formation Ark started go get ready himself, at first he didn't really know if he should help them, but at the same time he still wanted to go the palace, and he didn't know if they were able to beat these demons, and he still didn't want to see them die. But he would probably bail if the fight was impossible to win, since he didn't want to die, and he didn't know them good enough to fight to the death with them, he barely knew them at all.

The princess had a total of 12 guards and 2 assassins, the 12 guards strength was not that great, but at the same time, they weren't weak, at least by the palaces standards. The 2 assassins, however, were 2 masters, and they were both incredibly powerful. Ark had tried to inspect them all earlier but he couldn't inspect the assassins at all since they were too powerful, the guards, however, had a level range from about 19-24.

Even though that's not too bad, they weren't that powerful since they didn't have much magical talent, good skills or a bloodline. So Ark would probably be able to beat a single one pretty easily. It would be a whole other story though if a person who was around level 20 had any of those skills, or all for that matter since your power would grow a lot more each level if you had any of those. If that was the case then Ark was not that confident in his abilities.

Both Ark and Annette had felt the Mana fluctuations, but not one of them truly knew what they were getting themselves into. After a second everything suddenly turned quiet, and then there was a massive explosion of Mana in the place where all the purple Mana had been gathering. When the group felt this Mana explosion they all turned pale, this was an entire squadron of demons! A squadron of demons usually had about 500 soldiers, with one commander. This was far beyond their current capabilities.

Even though Ark had called those assassins masters, they were nothing compared to the Mana that was being emitted right now. It was like comparing a dog to an elephant, whilst Ark was just like a cat. He would barely be able to do anything to the dog, let alone the elephant. The worst part about this whole ordeal though was the fact that they couldn't run away, this wasn't because of some stupid ideals or anything. They just couldn't run because of the pressure that was being emitted from the squadron up ahead.

...

Annette would have never guessed that this would be the way her life would end. She had unexpectedly run into a demon squadron, and in this backwater place at that! She had decided to travel the country to gain experience since it would benefit her a lot if she truly knew what the country looked like, and also try to gain some insight into the commoners' life since she would probably have a position in the future were she would affect a lot of their lives.

On top of that she had suddenly found a possible divine creature, and it wanted to come with her to see how the humans lived, this was great news since her father and her siblings would praise her and be astounded that she had managed to do something of this magnitude. She, however, had managed to make it wary of her since she was too irresponsible and tried to charm it with magic. But none of that mattered right now since she would die anyway. She had already given up hope. Demons were not weak, in general, they were more powerful than humans, the reason why they weren't dominant was because of their lower number, as well as the fact that the empire had summoned heroes from different worlds in the past that managed to turn the tide.

But those heroes soon left after having achieved their goal, the Aries plane consisted of 2 layers, the upper layer, and the lower layer. They lived on the lower layer, but the heroes from the past had already ascended to the upper layer. The power level of the people was supposedly on another level, but Annette didn't know a lot about that, in fact, most people didn't even know there existed an upper layer. She had heard however that the people on the upper layer didn't have levels, she couldn't comprehend how a world would work without levels but that doesn't matter right now.

...

As the whole squadron started getting closer to them, the forest in front of them was set ablaze. When they were about 50 meters away Ark could clearly see the facial features of their leader. This commander of theirs was very awe-inspiring as he was slowly walking towards them with everything burning around him, he looked like a devil straight out of hell. What was even more intimidating was the fact that he had a hoard of soldiers in black steel armor, these warriors stood a little taller than the average human soldier and they were quite muscular, they also had some pretty menacing black horns. Their horns looked like they could be a weapon just by themselves.

The demons had seen Ark and the group of humans a while ago but now that they were getting closer they were starting to grin disgustingly. Ark was really tense, he was scared for his life at the moment, what he had noticed though was that he was starting to get used to this pressure after having withstood it for a while. What ark didn't know was that this pressure didn't come from Mana as he had assumed, this formless pressure was actually just the demons killing intent that was directed against them.

If people weren't used to killing intent then it could do some pretty devastating things, if you were weak-willed and your opponent had a really powerful killing intent then the person could be killed from just the killing intent. Ark, however, had a pretty strong mind so he was slowly getting used to it already. The demon commander looked a little baffled when he saw a wolf standing by the humans, this was mostly because of the fact that the wolf looked really majestic, the aura it emitted was also pretty special, it didn't seem to be that of an animal.

The demon commander had a very hideous face, his jaw looked like it had been dislocated, his eyes were brown and looked like they had sunk in quite a lot, his face also contained a lot of scars, making his face pretty sinister. Another thing that stood out about him was the fact that his skin was releasing a slight metallic sheen, almost like that of a sword. This was because the commander was a [Iron Metal Demon]. The metal demons were graded according to what type of metal they could enhance their body strength with. Thus the harder the metal the stronger they were.

Even though a squadron was really strong in Annette's and Ark's eyes, they weren't that strong, there was still a lot more powerful forces out there, there was a simple reason as to why they thought that this squadron was powerful. And that was because they were both weak! The princess had also not gotten escorts that were that strong since their country was very peaceful at the moment, and the premise of her journey was to check out the lives of the commoners.

But the closer the demon squadron got, the more fired up Ark grew! Even though he was doomed to fail he still wanted to try! He wouldn't go down without a fight! The light in his eyes was getting brighter and brighter and his breath was getting colder, even though he didn't notice it himself his claws also started to glow an icy blue. The confrontation was getting closer and closer, the atmosphere was getting tenser and tenser. When there were just 25 meters between the 2 groups the demons suddenly stopped.

"CHARGE"

AUTORENGEDANKEN
Tyrone_Bedoire

Hope you enjoyed!

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Kapitel 16: Battle!

After hearing the commander suddenly shout, the group knew they were done for if it was just the demons and no commander then they would probably be able to beat them. But since the commander could boost morale as well as being powerful himself, they were dead meat. But even though they all thought that they were going to die, they would still fight the demons to death. Ark was a little more optimistic than the rest of them but he still wasn't sure whether he would survive or not.

When the demons were only 10 meters away Ark and the rest decided to charge as well, one thing that Ark quickly noticed was that the commander seemed to be interested in him, and wouldn't let him do whatever he wanted. If he went to the right then the commander would go right, if he went left then the commander would do the same. At first, Ark was a bit crestfallen since he didn't want to battle the commander since he didn't think he could win against him. But he would do it anyway, he would test out his strength for real this time. He couldn't run away anyway since the commander would easily catch up to him.

The thunderous sounds of metal clanging and soldiers roaring were dreadful for the weak-minded person. The atmosphere was heavy as the air was slowly permeated by the smell of blood. Everyone here battled for their lives at the moment. The people who had a family to go home to back home was fighting eagerly as they would do whatever it takes to see their loved ones again. The ones who didn't have a family considered the rest of the guards their family and didn't want to see any of them die.

Even though the humans were at a disadvantage, they battled with everything since they had to, the demons were, of course, taking this seriously, but they were sure they would win so they didn't want to risk their lives if it wasn't necessary. The battle was very intense, with neither of the sides giving an inch, the assassins were swiftly moving about in the battlefield picking off enemies, one by one, but every time they did their injuries would grow heavier, and with time they would die as well. Annette was standing in the back raining down destructive magic on the enemies, even though she had taken out staff and tried to be conservative, her Mana was quickly draining.

The human party was pretty lucky since the opponents didn't have any magic casters, but that also meant that there were more troops nearby and that the demons were probably about to invade the human empire, starting with the Estridsen Kingdom. The reason you could make the assumption that the demons were going to invade and that there were more forces nearby was that a squadron would never come alone. This was because the front line soldiers would be essentially harmless if they ran into magic users without some magical support.

Whilst there was an intense battle to the death going on around them Ark and the demon had started fighting if you could call it that. Ark wasn't going all out in the beginning so the commander was just playing with him at this point. Seeing the mocking smile the commander had on when they were fighting Ark was finally infuriated, he started to gather all of the water and fire Mana in the surroundings, as well as what he had in his body to make an all-out attack. He decided to this since he would still have his ice to rely on if it didn't work as he wanted it to since his ice was his final trump card right now.

As they were clashing against each other Ark suddenly backed out a couple of meters, this made the commander bring up his guard a little since he still felt that there was something special about this wolf in front of him. All the demon did though was to just put up his defensive Mana barrier, the defense might have been his strongest forte, but not making a counter-attack to cancel out some of the force was just insulting. Ark then instantly shot forward and swiped with his claws, the attack was aimed at the commander's chest since Ark wasn't confident enough to be able to hit some other more well-protected places like the jugular vein. The attack was very swift as it had already arrived in the next second, clashing against the commanders Mana Barrier.

Ark was a little excited since he had hit him with one of his stronger attacks, what horrified him a little the next second was the fact that he had barely even hurt him. Even though Ark had fused his fire and water to make an incredibly powerful claw attack, the commander had just gotten three thin lines on the top of his skin, they were not even red since they hadn't been able to draw any blood. This demon had lived up to its name as it was incredibly sturdy and didn't want to take any damage at all.

....

The commander sneered after receiving the attack and seeing the wolfs shocked expression, did this wolf seriously think it could deal any damage to him? Seeing how this wolf thought that it was almighty he wanted to slowly tear it apart, to show it who was boss and that there would always be people that were more powerful than you. Or well, to be honest, he just wanted to see it suffer.

The commander's name was Abaddon, he had grown up as a commoner in Geneha and had enrolled in the army when he was of age, he had to this since he didn't have any form of money to spend on living necessities, and he wasn't good at anything else. In the army he had slowly climbed his way up from the bottom, he was still pretty low ranked but it was still a better position than most. After experiencing numerous wars and skirmishes Abaddon had quickly grown accustomed to killing. When he finally got a break from it however he soon noticed that he had become addicted, he loved the excitement of fighting with his life on the line, he loved the feeling of his sword piercing through his enemies and the look they had on their faces when they were close to drawing their last breath, it was the best!

After a while killing had become the only reason for him to participate in wars, not the glory, nor the wealth and spoils of war. Because of his love for killing and reckless fighting without being concerned for his own life, his troops had quickly grown afraid of him, even though they revered him since he was strong.

....

Since his last attack had failed Ark decided that he would unleash his ice element and fight with his life on the line, or at least he would do that if there was no chance of escaping or retreating. Ark had seen Abaddon sneering and slowly gathered his momentum as he slowly unleashed more and more of his oppressive ice element. The air around him quickly started to get foggy and the temperature was quickly decreasing. This brought some excitement to the rest of the human party as they could feel the power that Ark held, and they sincerely hoped that he had a chance of winning, because if he did, then they might just live through all of this.

Abaddon, however, started to get a little angry, he hated the ice element! It was so strong and bothersome, even if the opponent was weak if it had the ice element then it would still be a bother. This wolf in front of him, however, had actually shown some decent strength when it wasn't using its ice, now when it did it would be on another level, almost on his own, or at least he thought so. This time Abaddon drew the sword that had been hanging at his waist for all this time. The sword looked like it was made of some crude iron, but it seemed heavy as it contained a lot of it and was pretty huge!

Abaddon had a very muscular build and he was about 1,94 meters tall, his muscles were very protruding and well-toned. They seemed like unbreakable rocks, but since they were shining with a metallic luster they looked even more intimidating. Since he had such a build he would easily be able to exert a lot of force, even though he had trained his defense more he was still very strong when it came to attacking.

When Ark's momentum had reached its peak he started to create an attack, this time however he didn't put all of his power into one attack since he thought that it would be smarter to wait for the right opportunity. Having said that Ark rushed out, his cyan eyes looked as though they could pierce through the void itself, looking down on the whole world. Since the very beginning, he had started to move, Abaddon had done the same, he had accumulated both his strength and defense to their peak before Ark had come. He had also gone into a stance, waiting for Ark to make the first move, which he did.

When Ark was about 2 meters away from Abaddon he shifted his weight and applied a lot more force to his right paw, bringing him to Abaddon's left side, he then quickly slashed at Abaddon's waist. Abaddon, however, wasn't that easy to fool, he quickly tried to meet the attack head-on. Which unfortunately for him didn't bring him the result he wanted, Ark's ice element had slowed down Abaddon's movement a little since the temperature had suddenly decreased, even though it was just a little it was very crucial in a high-speed fight.

During the tiny amount of time he had earned, Ark's attack had already reached Abaddon's waist, Abaddon's sword had gotten in the way a little which reduced the piercing power of the claw since it didn't directly hit, and Abaddon's sword wasn't as sharp as Ark's claws. The attack had still drawn some blood though as Abaddon's sword had stabbed into his waist a little since he wasn't able to put out enough force in such a tricky angle, especially when he was a bit slowed down. This wound, however, didn't do much to Abaddon's overall combat efficiency, but he was enraged nonetheless since he had been injured by some lowly wolf!

When Ark's attack had landed he used the bit of counterforce that Abaddon had used to propel himself away from Abaddon, since he didn't want to be that close in case of a counter-attack. Which turned out to be a very wise move as Abaddon was enraged, he charged at Ark at full speed, he concentrated all of his Mana on his muscles, throwing away his defense for a much more powerful offense. At this point Ark noticed a very crucial thing to both this fight and just magic in general, it was something which he had never thought about before. You could strengthen your body with Mana, this was what Abaddon was doing when he abandoned his defense since he concentrated all of his Mana in his muscles they gained tremendous power, but he also infused Mana into his bones and his skin, since they wouldn't be able to bear the tremendous burden otherwise.

Since he had concentrated his Mana in his muscles, Abaddon appeared in front of Ark in a split second, Ark didn't have much time to defend at all, he had put up a wall made of ice in the last second though. However, it didn't even take Abaddon a single second before it was already completely broken. But during this time Ark had conjured an icicle, so when Abaddon had broken the wall, what was waiting for him was an attack. The icicle didn't contain that much power though since Ark didn't have much time but it still managed to penetrate one of Abaddon's eyes.

Slumping to his knees Abaddon released a maddening howl towards the sky, when this howl was released everyone else suddenly stopped their fighting and looked towards Abaddon, seeing their leader on his knees, clutching his eye and screaming made the demons lose all of their morale, on the other hand, the humans were ecstatic seeing the wolf hurting Abaddon to this extent, without taking any damage at that.

Ark, however, upon seeing his attack dealing such critical damage he instantly rushed forward. He aimed to instantly kill Abaddon whilst he was in extreme pain and disoriented. On the way towards him though he suddenly turned quiet. Ark felt that something was wrong but chose to attack anyway, since he wouldn't be able to gain another opportunity like this. This however proved to be a fatal mistake as he suddenly felt a sharp pain from his abdomen, Abaddon had disappeared from where he was earlier and was now suddenly in front of Ark. Since Ark had suddenly gotten punched out of the blue he didn't have his magic defense activated.

He was sent hurtling through the air until he crashed into a huge boulder that stood about 50 meters away from the battlefield. Seeing this everyone grew quiet, the demons then started to cheer loudly as they assumed that their leader had won, the humans, on the other hand, had lost their only hope, so they looked quite devastated.

Ark had never felt pain like this before, this wasn't even comparable to the pain he had felt in the battle with the stag earlier. Because this time he had broken a multitude of bones, one of his lungs had even been impaled by the shard of one of the bones that made up his rib cage. Right now Ark had no idea what he was supposed to do, the only idea that came to his mind was to try and surprise Abaddon with his strongest magic when he wasn't expecting it. He couldn't run away since he couldn't even manage to stand up right now.

Whilst Ark was lying in agony on the ground Abaddon had started his slaughter, none of the humans stood a chance against him and were instantly killed. Both Annette and Ark could only sit and watch as Abaddon madly laughed as he slaughtered everyone...