Chapter 134 Let Them Fight
Chapter 134 Let Them Fight
Come on… buy it. Buy it. Or at least give me a test… a little challenge… something. As long as we don’t fight you directly, Iryoku thought, watching the demon like a hawk.
He needed to know whether Raksha’latrex reacted anything like Joka’latrex. For all he knew, they weren’t even the same rank—every word he spoke felt like stepping on thin ice.
The demon twitched.
One of her claws snapped forward—dark energy erupted.
Iryoku kicked off the ground, leaping several meters aside.
“Run away!” he barked.
He turned toward Moto, Goka, and Katherine—
and froze.
A massive claw of black energy was already streaking toward them.
The group stared at the incoming attack. They didn’t move—because if they dodged, the people behind them would die.
Iryoku sprinted with everything he had—
Katherine muttered through clenched teeth, “After this… I’m done… Kids, run…”
She threw herself at the attack, sword raised.
“Parade!”
CRASH.
The impact thundered across the island. The demonic claw cracked with lightning as the shockwave tore the ground apart—ice, stone, and dirt exploding upward. Katherine dug in, boots sliding, but she forced the attack off its path by sheer will.
“Riposte!”
Her sword flashed—a clean, lightning-fast movement.
The redirected claw whipped backward—straight toward its caster.
Raksha’latrex’s eyes widened.
Two of the arms sprouting from her back crossed defensively, swirling with dark energy—
BOOOOOOM.
Moto and Goka roared and leapt in front of Katherine, summoning their Ruach into their weapons. Moto’s gauntlets blazed with light; Goka’s greatsword ignited with raw force. Both unleashed their strongest attacks into the incoming shockwave.
A trembling wall of living energy erupted—just strong enough to blunt most of the blast.
Behind them, the demihumans reacted on instinct.
The strongest grabbed the weakest, throwing themselves over the children. Elmer—the elephant-man carrying Christina’s limp body—lunged forward and shielded her and two nearby kids with his massive frame.
Even so, the leftover shockwave smashed into them, blasting everyone backward. Blood splattered across the ground. Some staggered up, trembling… others didn’t rise at all.
Iryoku was thrown too—skidding across the earth before catching himself on his feet, breath ragged and burning.
“Big sister!” Goka shouted, voice cracking.
Katherine collapsed, unconscious.
Her sword crumbled into dust.
Iryoku scanned the survivors—jaw tightening.
Several demihumans staggered upright, bleeding and dazed. Others lay completely still.
“Time to escape!” he shouted. “Go! Run to the other side—find a way off this island! Even if you have to cross the lake!”
Moto and Goka reacted instantly, hauling Katherine up and rallying the group.
Elmer lifted Christina and several children onto his broad back; years of being treated like a workhorse had conditioned him—and many others—to carry the weak without slowing down.
The group surged into motion, sprinting despite their wounds.
Iryoku looked upward and yelled:
“Agnes! Help them! Go with them—meet them on the other side!
And please… I don’t want you or any of the girls anywhere near this demon! I’ll be fine!”
He refused to let any of them get dragged into a fight like this.
High above, Orn screeched in response. The wind-spirit bird hovered for a heartbeat—hesitating—until Iryoku shot him a hard glare.
“Go! Do what your husband says!”
With a sharp cry, Orn dove after the fleeing demihumans.
Iryoku turned back toward the demon.
The dust was finally settling.
He approached the massive crater carved into the earth.
Inside it, Raksha’latrex was driven down on one knee—breathing hard, eyes burning with hate.
“I will kill you, mortal…” she growled, her voice ripping out like tearing metal.
Iryoku bolted straight at her.
He leapt, arm raised—white rope pulsing, daggers glowing with black energy. For a heartbeat he looked ready to strike—
Then something clicked.
If he hit her like this, the weapons would shatter.
He twisted mid-air.
The strike missed—deliberately.
Raksha’latrex whipped around, demonic energy erupting off her body like furnace heat.
Iryoku jumped back, boots scraping over shattered stone, his worried expression twisting into a cocky, mocking grin.
“So it’s true,” he shouted. “You’re weaker than Joka’latrex. Maybe calling you ‘queen’ was a mistake. What was the other rank?
‘Exalted’ demon? General?
Because you’re definitely not the Emperor I heard about.”
He grinned like he wasn’t taunting a monster that could erase him.
Every word dripped mockery—arrogance disguising pure survival instinct.
Raksha’latrex’s face twisted with fury. Fangs bared, crimson eyes blazing, she let out a deep, vibrating snarl.
The ground trembled—then the entire island quaked as her power surged upward.
Her roar tore through the world, so loud it made the lake shudder and distant mountains groan.
Even though Moto, Goka, and the freed demihumans had gained serious distance, they still felt the monstrous wave of demonic malice slam into them.
Cold fear clawed up their spines—but they kept sprinting westward, desperate to escape as her presence darkened the sky.
“Lowly creature… how DARE you compare me to generals or ‘exalted’ filth?! Those weaklings were GIVEN their power!
I am a TRUE-BORN demon! And you…
you are nothing but an INSECT beneath me!”
Her voice shook frost from stones and cracked the air.
Iryoku stood his ground, breath misting, posture loose.
“Then show me, tough girl,” he taunted, wiggling his fingers at her. “I bet you don’t even have enough juice to ‘exalt’ a demon—or make new minions—like Joka’latrex did.”
Raksha’latrex’s eyes went wide with pure, murderous rage—
She lunged.
A straight-line dash—so fast the air cracked behind her. One massive claw swept horizontally, carving out a crescent of black energy that detonated on impact.
Iryoku hurled himself backward, boots skidding across the frozen earth. The shockwave chased him like rolling thunder. He leapt again, and again—never blinking, never losing sight of her.
His focus sharpened.
“C’mon… is that all you’ve got?!”
He retreated further, buying every meter he could.
Then, with a reckless grin, he jumped backward into the shattered remains of the bridge, landing on a single wooden post jutting from the water—balancing on one leg.
The strange holy light from earlier had completely faded.
And the Dominion squad was nowhere in sight.
Raksha’latrex leapt high—then came down.
BOOM.
A column of water erupted like a geyser.
Iryoku vaulted farther out onto the lake, landing on another lonely post rising like a dagger from the dark water.
“Come on… where is it?” he muttered as the spray fell around him.
He pulled a dagger and dragged the blade across his arm. Blood spilled freely—sinking into the depths like a signal flare.
Something answered.
A cold presence stirred beneath the waves…
But it wasn’t the one he wanted.
Raksha’latrex burst upward from the lake, drenched and furious, claws raised to shred him.
Iryoku dove sideways—straight into the water—his blood trailing behind him like a crimson thread.
The cold swallowed him whole.
Then he felt it.
A massive presence rising fast from below.
That’s it… don’t disappoint me.
A gigantic jaw lunged out of the darkness.
Iryoku kicked hard, barely slipping past the closing fangs, his hand snagging a jagged ridge on the creature’s snout. A titanic reptilian head burst from the depths with a bone-shaking growl.
Using both daggers, he clung to the creature’s skull as it surged upward. The beast thrashed violently, its long serpentine neck whipping through the freezing water until its entire body broke the surface.
It was enormous—
a monstrous turtle body with a spiked, cratered carapace, and a snake-like neck ending in a crocodilian head dripping ancient malice.
GROWWWL—
CRASH.
The creature convulsed—something struck it from behind.
The beast shuddered and turned, its massive head angling toward its own shell…
where a fresh wound was carved open.
Raksha’latrex stood on its back—drenched, furious, her claw dripping with dark energy and blood.
The monster’s jaws opened, light swelling deep inside its throat—ancient energy building brighter and brighter.
It lunged at her with a thunderous roar.
Iryoku seized the opening.
He launched himself from the creature’s neck, hurling his body eastward—toward land.
CRASH!
The explosion blasted him through the air, flinging him even farther. He smashed into the icy lake again and sank beneath—just as a sheet of ice began reforming overhead.
He kicked hard, swimming until his lungs burned.
Finally he reached the shore—dragging himself onto solid ground outside the island. He turned back just as more eruptions of power burst from below the surface.
The battle had plunged deep underwater.
Iryoku had no idea how long the massive beast could keep Raksha’latrex down there…
or how long the lake itself would survive the clash.
He didn’t waste time trying to figure it out.
He sprinted along the frozen lake edge, circling fast—racing in the same direction the escaping demihumans had fled.