RD 4 Ch 41

Hurtling myself into the massive melee, I swung my Bloodiron Blade back and forth like a scythe through wheat. The small, hairy demons fell swiftly beneath my strokes as I bodily shoved and checked my way to the central combat. 

The bigger demon, though still barely coming up to my waist, was a green wolf-like creature. It spun on me, its claws gleaming red.

I stepped back, and the claws passed within a hair's breadth of my gut. I threw a heavy fist into the demon's muzzle.

Only for it to twist with the blow, agilely throwing its weight around to reduce the impact. It cartwheeled back onto its feet and lunged at me with a speed that was difficult for me to match. 

However, regardless of its speed, all I needed to do was keep it busy while dealing as much damage as possible to the demonic army as a whole. This fight was far from challenging. Especially with my Immortal Body repairing any damages I was taking.

I swung my sword around, cleaving through any and every demon that got within reach.

Plenty of them circled around our fight, trying to get a swipe in on me. What little damage they did was healed over quickly, while the sweeping strokes of my blade often left bodies for the system to reabsorb. 

I chuckled, playing with the elite. Any time it dodged, I would simply carve through all of the demons behind it. It was a brutal yet effective strategy, which some may have considered gruesome, but I didn't have enough respect for demons to care if I was playing dirty.

This was war. As they say, anything was fair.

The elite came at me, slashing at my shoulder for a second.

I thought I had somehow moved even quicker than before, only to realize there was a second fast furball joining the fight. I grinned and spun, letting the two of them take turns dealing superficial wounds to my dense body, wounds that would heal a moment later and leave more of my blood on their claws. 

The two elite demons jumped back together after I carved away another section of their allies with a Sanguine Slash that missed them. They glanced at each other in confusion.

I smiled, taking the opportunity. I activated sanguine locking as a second Bloodiron Blade appeared in my other hand. I pinned both of them to the ground with swords through their guts before Sanguine Slashes began racing out in every direction from the two blades skewering them. 

The effect left them twitching and thrashing as edges of the ability escaped from what parts of the blade escaped into the surrounding demons.

The demons around me tried to dogpile me only for their two leaders' bodies to melt off my blades. I grabbed both blades, spinning around, letting loose with everything I had, carving a swath through the pile of demons that had collapsed on me. 

There was an exhilaration of the battlefield that couldn't be found anywhere else. In so many ways, I was in my element. This was far preferred to grousing over my documents and other leadership minutia.

I became a whirling dervish on the battlefield, not too dissimilar from a blender, only with more carnage. My two blades swept across the field only for me to come to a sudden panting halt as a new opponent made himself known, the demons parting around him. 

Unlike the demons I've been dealing with so far, this demon had not come through the hell gates. This was a fresh possession, with half of the human face still relatively normal.

Unfortunately, it was a face that I recognized; a hero from the first demon war, and a man that had gone through the vault, it seemed that even saving him there hadn’t stopped the Demon Lord from getting his hands on him. He leaned leisurely against an overly large and wicked-looking spear.

"It seems you are the source of the anomalies," the demon said in clear English. The demons that had just been trying to swarm me with every ounce of their lifeblood stopped for a moment, mewling and backing off as if terrified of the demon who had appeared.

I suspected this was the newest demon general, a replacement for one of the ones I had made disappear in this timeline. 

"Anomaly?" I asked with a tilt of my head. 

"Our dear leader is very interested in you, Bran Heros," the demon spun its spear back and forth. "I don't suppose I could get you to put down your weapons and come have a meeting with him, could I?" The bubbling black skin did very little to make the request seem even remotely reasonable.

A meeting with the Demon Lord at this juncture would only have one outcome.

"And get possessed like you?" I asked. 

"It's that or die. Personally, I'd prefer this," the demon gestured at himself. "After all, at least this way I get to keep on going, even if it is as a demon. You and I fought together in the vault, does that not get me at least some trust?" 

I realized what the demon was doing and I laughed. "You and I didn't fight together. Me and the body that you currently possess fought together." The demon might have his memories, but to pretend to be the person was disgusting.

The demon general waved a hand back and forth as if I was speaking nonsense. "I took all of his memories. If all his memories exist to me, am I not him?" The newest demon general struck a pose, as if it were a philosophical question.

However, that question struck me deeper than this demon likely realized. Demons weren’t the person, since their motivations and goals shifted so drastically. But, I’d have to be a bit more careful with what I said to people that I trusted, it was easy to forget the infiltration that a demon could cause with someone’s memories.

A smile spreading across the demon’s face as I had an obvious reaction. 

"See? It's really me," the demon tried to adopt the man's actions, accent, and gestures.

I blinked and shook off the strange thought that had overcome me. "You're not him and you never will be. I'm sorry you misunderstood me there. It wasn't that your persuasion was working, I just considered something else for a second." I replied.

The demon's eyes flashed dangerously. "I would advise you not get too distracted while dealing with me. I would hate for anyone to say that I took a cheap shot. After all, I gather you're the leader of this ragtag band behind you." The demon gestured with the roll of his hand. 

"And here I thought we were looking pretty put together," I chuckled before summoning another blade. My wounds had already healed completely from the prior fight while we’d been talking.

"Oh good, you still have some fight left in you," the demon raised his spear. "I'll let you in on a secret. There's a bounty on whoever can bring you in alive. Our dear leader is very curious why you seem to coincidentally act as a wrench thrown into all of his plans." 

"You think you even have a shot at taking me alive?" I asked.

Only for the demon general to hit the back of its spear against a rock behind it.

I hadn't realized there was an almost tuning fork-like butt to the weapon. I had been more distracted with the wicked pointed end.

The second the weapon hit, there was a disorienting wave of nausea that rolled over me as the air rippled with sound.

Using my moment of weakness, the demon general swept up next to me, attempting to sever my arm.

I dodged the nasty blade, only to realize it had been a feint as the spear’s other end came around.

The demon general struck the side of my head with the tuning fork end of the weapon. The resounding soundwaves that went through my head were ten times worse than the initial nausea.

It felt like someone had stuck their hand inside my head and attempted to scramble my brains. The world turned topsy-turvy as I blacked out, and even as my vision returned it was a myriad of colors as I stumbled, blinking. Thankfully, my Immortal Body was working overtime on healing whatever injuries had just been inflicted.

The demon was calm as it approached me.

I stabbed up with my Bloodiron Blade. I must have still been somewhat affected by the hit, because my movements were sluggish compared to what I had expected.

The demon managed to twist out of the way in the nick of time, with the tuning fork weapon coming back around for my head.

It was a nasty weapon, and despite the damage, I quickly processed what I needed to do. I dropped prone, rolling out of the way as the tuning fork whizzed harmlessly over my head.

I knew that blocking that in any fashion was likely to set off the disorienting sonic attack, which was annoyingly effective against me. The sound didn’t need to pierce through my flesh or challenge my spirit to hit me. It went right through my defenses.

The demon general swung again, and I rolled out of the way as the tuning fork struck the ground.

Another wave of nausea rolled over me and blood came out of my nose, before welling up in the back of my throat. I spat out blood as I wobbled to my feet.

"You see? This is the best part," the demon general said, caressing the weapon. "Even if I miss, I hit. It's like, what's the human expression…" he paused, "horseshoes and hand grenades? Yeah, that's the one."

"I think you got them mixed up," I said, staggering backward and wiping away blood that was trickling down my nose.

"Really? You're the one who looks a little addled, not me.” The demon spun the spear while swinging it back and forth.

"If you ask me, you're looking a little unsteady on your feet. Here, why don't I give you a hand?" The demon reached out to try and snatch me while smacking the tuning fork on the ground behind him.

Another wave of nausea rolled over me and my balance faltered. Weaponizing sound was really a terrifying ability. Not to mention he was terrifyingly skilled at timing it with other attacks.

Working through my next move, I decided to let the demon catch me. The second he was in range, I spit some of the blood oozing over my lips at the demon.

Any inscriptionist that's worth their salt would have had to ward rooms against eavesdropping. Functionally, the inscription dampened the vibration of sound waves.

The demon did as I expected, bringing the spear between me and him to block my blood.

"Some cheap trick in there. Perhaps your blood is as poisonous as that monk's?" the demon said, trying to rip through my spirit to inspect me.

At that point, brushing aside an inspect was perfectly natural, and I did it without even needing to think.

The demon general glared at me, and then went to smack the butt of his spear on the ground again.

I smiled as this time the sound that rippled off was much lower, actually within the range of hearing. And though it was a grating noise, it didn't scramble my brain like before.

The demon's eyes shot down to his spear, where hexes made of my blood were wrapping around the shaft. His eyes opened wide, just in time for me to regain my footing, and my fist to connect with his jaw hard enough to snap his head back.

I really enjoyed a good punch, and this one was satisfying as the demon soared into the air in a graceful arc. I jumped after the demon, going straight up and dropping my elbow, following his slower arc with a plunging drop, one that met the demon’s against the ground.

Instantly, the demon’s body folded upwards around me, and my big fist clobbered him again, hopefully scrambling this demon’s brain.

I grabbed the demon’s spear out of limp fingers and hurled it as far away from us as I could. At this point, I was pissed off at the cheap tricks.

Yet it all relied on his weapon, perhaps he had a few abilities with sound, but I’d just have to beat those out of him.

At this point, I was in the mood for a beatdown. I spat, wiping blood off my nose. Inscriptions began to form on my knuckles, increasing their hardness and weight. I started pumping them back like two pistons with mechanical efficiency, slamming my fists into the demon’s face and chest so hard that the ground around us cracked and sank. I didn't let up even as the smaller wolf demons leapt at me and shredded my back. I had a single-minded ferocity and a calculating efficiency as I reduced the demon’s upper body to mush. I didn't stop until the system began to reclaim the demon’s body. 

Knowing I had just killed someone of value, I brushed my hands along where the demon’s had been, only to find the spatial ring and tuck it into what little remained of my pants.

I looked around, prepared for my next attack. But somewhere between our conversation and me brutalizing the demon, the battle had largely concluded. Demons were hurrying as fast as their little furry legs would carry them, trying to escape the second of our armies that came clashing with their flank.

Women with scyths made of ice, ripped through the demons moving gracefully like they were dancing.

The retreating enemies had no momentum, were being ground by my soldiers and absorbed by the system. 

Winnie stepped over me, a permanent chill surrounding her as she glanced down at all the blood that soaked the area around me. "You don't look so hot," she commented. 

I grunted, pushing myself up off the ground and wiping the blood on my face off with the back of my arm.

"He used sound attacks," I said, as if nothing else needed to be said. "Tricky bastard, but he couldn't actually do more than make me bleed."

I cracked my neck back and forth and rolled my shoulder before standing tall like I was ready for another fight, knowing my people were watching. I knew from countless experiences that the lower ranks would always look towards their leader.

If a leader stood tall, the army would be filled with vigor and a fighting spirit. If a leader looked broken or exhausted, others would be pulled down as well. 

Winnie looked me up and down before nodding. "Sound can be a prickly weapon, disorienting and bypassing a lot of defenses. But I guess for a brute like you, it's not enough to deal with your toughness." 

"Essentially," I said, grabbing onto her reasoning, even if it wasn't perfect. "And why are you here?" I asked, the words coming out more harshly than I expected. 

She held up a rocky talkie. "Recon said there was a large battle, and you said our men needed experience." She waved around us as if the situation explained itself. “They are harvesting plenty of experience.”

That was the moment that Circe chose to sweep in on a gust of wind. "Do we go back to watching from the sidelines or do we let them know that we've been watching their backs this whole time?" 

"Go back to watching. I want them to not feel like we're looking over their shoulder," I gazed at the routed demons, "though I suspect after this we're not going to see a whole lot of them. I think I just fought the leader of the region. If I had to guess, he was a new demon general, though he seemed to know quite a bit about me." My eyes hardened. 

"Turnabout's only fair play," Winnie commented. "After all, you seem to know far more than you're supposed to about the rest of us." 

Circe chuckled, grinning and enjoying being in the know unlike all of my generals. "You don't know the half of it," she said. "Bran, if you would." Circe held out her arm. "I'll take us back to Merlin. You can get out of here to let these two clean up. We're not needed here anymore." 

Before I could even agree, wind pulled at my feet and lifted me up and away from Winnie.

I glanced sideways at Circe. "Are you jealous?"

"Me? Jealous?" Circe let out a strange chuckle. "In your dreams. I simply want to get out of here and take a bath. Something about demons and all of this blood makes me feel terribly unclean."

"I'm sure that's it," I said, trying and failing to hide a smile.

"I'm glad you think my sense of hygiene is funny. I'm always willing to let you walk back," she said, puffing out her cheeks. 

I held her more tightly after that threat. "No need for that. And no need for you to be jealous. You're the lucky woman I have a date with, isn't that right?"

"Why yes it is. A date we should have soon," she said more to herself than to me.