Destruction Operation (2)
The Demonkin started running the moment they felt the wave of mana.
The problem was that they were bolting somewhere other than the route we'd anticipated. We scrambled after them to cut them off, but the ones wrapped in demonic power were simply faster.
"They're too fast…!"
At this rate, we'd be stuck chasing them. I turned to Via.
"Fire a mana bolt."
"For real? From this far it won't do any damage."
"Doesn't matter. Shoot."
Via launched a mana bolt at the enemies, half-convinced it was pointless. Mana bolts were the kind of magic whose power plummeted with distance, so by the time it reached them only a glancing touch of force remained.
But the Demonkin struck by that attack whipped around with a murderous glare.
"You vermin!"
"See? It works."
"Huh. It really does."
That was the way to handle Demonkin. They had zero anger management, so drawing aggro was ridiculously easy.
"Wait!"
The dark mage on their team shouted, but the Demonkin charged straight at us without so much as a glance back.
"I'll take that one."
Honestly, I wasn't confident I could win — but with this body's toughness, I could hold out. That was enough. Via would finish it.
Just as I moved to intercept the Demonkin—
"Wait, Hex."
I turned with a puzzled look at Via's shout, and she poured mana into me.
"Strength Enhancement. Healing Enhancement."
That was only the beginning.
"Third Eye Grant. Mental Fortitude Enhancement."
In an instant, more than a dozen buffs stacked onto me and mana overflowed from my body. The Talon operatives who saw it cried out in shock.
"That's…!"
"The heir of the Agra family! Wasn't she supposed to be combat-incapable?!"
So Via was under heavier surveillance from Talon than I'd realized. Learning that, I felt a little bad for her.
Via, you weren't a scrub after all.
I'd written her off as a deadweight just like me. Turns out I was the only deadweight.
Via grinned.
"You've gotten stronger. Charge!"
Power surged through my entire body.
With this…!
In that same breath, the charging Demonkin swung a fist straight at me. Condensed demonic energy writhed around the blow hard enough to make my skin crawl — and yet, somehow, I felt I could stop it.
KWAANG
The Demonkin's fist slammed into my arm and stopped. The released demonic energy scoured the surroundings, but I stood unharmed. Between his fist and my arm was a hairline gap — they weren't even touching. Via's defensive magic.
The Demonkin's face twisted.
"You shameless bastard. A martial artist borrowing a mage's power?"
"Says the guy who took out a collateral loan from a demon."
I swung back. An ordinary punch — except with Via's buffs, it was anything but ordinary.
KWAANG
A tremendous boom, and the Demonkin's body was driven backward. Pride wounded, his face contorted.
"KRAAAH!"
He charged with a howl, and we started trading blows. It was an all-out brawl with defense thrown out the window, but the advantage was ours. Via's buffs halved his attacks, deflected them, and turned them back on him.
This was the moment I understood why she was Layla's rival. A top-tier buffer who raised combat power by several stages!
Her specialty was just different, that's all.
Thinking about how she'd been running for her life simply because she couldn't buff herself was almost tragic.
"Kh!"
Things weren't going well on the dark mage's side either. He teleported over beside the Demonkin.
"Let's work together and take one of them out first!"
"Get lost! Touch my prey and I'll kill you first!"
I could practically hear the dark mage's blood pressure exploding from here. Still, he held back once more.
"Prioritize the objective!"
"Don't order me around!"
Typical of a guy whose demonic energy had soaked all the way into his brain. This was why Demonkin never worked. They had no concept of teamwork. When individual firepower was all that mattered, fine — but the second cooperation became necessary, they were nothing but trolls. Just look at him now, declaring he'd only hit the guy he was already hitting.
"You stupid bastard!"
Naturally the dark mage was at his wits' end. And the Demonkin couldn't have cared less whether the dark mage died of frustration or not.
"I'll kill that one myself!"
The Demonkin roared as he drew up demonic energy. The dark mage, for his part, began releasing pitch-black mana, preparing something of his own.
The Demonkin thrust out a fist stained black.
"Die!"
Demonic energy blasted from his fist and spiraled toward me, shredding everything in its path. This was no ordinary attack.
I should just dodge this.
I started to move — and then:
Whoosh.
The attack was sucked into a hole that tore open in midair. An identical hole appeared behind Via.
A demon's authority!
The power to open portals linking one space to another. Via noticed too late and reached for a magic tool, but it was already over. The defenses she wore were specialized for magical defense — a physical-type attack like that would tear right through them.
I threw myself forward, but my head already knew the truth.
Too far!
The next instant, my body was intercepting the Demonkin's attack.
KWOONG
I'd been certain I couldn't stop it without taking damage — and yet I stood unharmed. Even dazed, a thought cut through:
This sensation… I've felt it before.
When I'd protected Layla from the mechanical golem's attack. Back then, too, it had felt like the intermediate steps had simply been skipped. Something flashed through my mind.
The reward for raising my Affinity Level with Kyle to LV 3. The special skill Guardian.
I'd completely forgotten about it, since I couldn't use skills — but because it was an Affinity Level skill, it worked regardless of Synchronization Rate. I'd known Affinity Level skills were good. I just hadn't imagined the performance would be this absurd.
I should put more effort into raising Affinity Levels.
I turned toward the enemy side and found them stalled. The Demonkin had burned through a huge amount of power on that last attack, and the dark mage was reeling from using the demon's authority. With their sure-kill strike failed, the dark mage's face twisted — and the Demonkin screamed at him.
"I told you not to interfere!"
Veins bulged on the dark mage's forehead. He'd gone along because he understood the value of cooperation — but being a dark mage was never a job for people with good temperaments.
"Shut up, you worthless piece of shit…."
"What?"
"I said shut your damn mouth!"
"You son of a bitch?"
A classic picture of a doomed party. And death was already on its way to make them get along.
Via half-lidded her eyes.
"Thank you, Hex."
Her bracelet blazed with brilliant multicolored light. Mana so dense that even the Demonkin and dark mage mid-insult fell silent and turned to look. A treasure of the Agra family — once charged, it could fire a mana cannon of devastating power.
Via pointed at the enemies and spoke the activation word.
"Release."
An enormous volume of mana transformed into a flash of light and swept over them.
"KRAAAK!"
The Demonkin's scream rang out, but it didn't take long to vanish.
KWOOOO
When the light faded a moment later, the place had been reduced to a wasteland. The bare-bodied Demonkin had been annihilated without leaving a single bone. Only the dark mage, who'd raised a magical barrier, still held his shape. The fact that she'd minimized damage to the surrounding buildings even so told me Via wasn't just a noble who talked a big game.
"Ugh…."
Via sank to the ground and went limp. The magic tool she'd used had recoil as fierce as its power. Just as I was about to tell her she'd done well—
"KRAAAAAH!"
A scream tore through the air. An enormous flood of demonic energy was pouring into the fallen dark mage's body.
"What?! Didn't we kill him?"
"Well… killing him was a bit…."
"You stupid bitch! Who the hell leaves a dark mage alive?!"
"That's harsh…."
Meanwhile the dark mage's body began to contort. This was what happened when a demon judged that a dark mage could no longer repay their debt — it claimed them as a servant and remade them into a Demonkin.
Wing bones jutted out. Spines erupted from the elbows. Arms stretched unnaturally long as it rose onto all fours. Even its human form was breaking down — clearly a higher species. That thing took no proper damage from anything but holy power.
Via's magic tool from earlier would work, but…
Magic tools needed a cooldown before they could be used again. No choice. We'd have to hold out until support arrived. Fortunately, with Via's buffs on this body, I could tank even a higher Demonkin's attacks.
I turned to ask Via for support, but—
"I used up all my mana on that last attack…."
Somehow this felt familiar.
"You absolute idiot…."
The higher species finished its transformation and rose. As it opened its mouth toward us, darkness began to condense around it.
A beam!
Fixed damage that ignored both physical and magical defense. Getting hit would be genuinely dangerous.
"Dodge!"
"If we dodge, the civilians take the hit!"
"Not my problem!"
I was forcibly dragging Via down when, at that moment, an invisible force crushed the higher species. The Demonkin that had been radiating tremendous presence was suppressed in an instant.
"Wh…what…!"
Unable to understand the situation either, the higher species rolled its eyes with difficulty to look somewhere. Having found something, its eyes went wide.
"Y…you are…."
Those were its last words.
CRUNCH
Unable to withstand the intensified pressure, the Demonkin was crushed flat.
"…."
As we stood frozen, not understanding what had just happened, a voice reached us from above.
"You should finish the job properly."
Someone was slowly descending from the sky. A woman with breasts as large as Layla's.