Chapter 99: The Path Is Clear
They had four elongated arms, but instead of charging, they reached into their own forearms, violently ripping out serrated, foot-long bone claws that immediately began to regrow.
Silas made a face. "Eww."
The Demons gripped the bones like fleshy shurikens coated in dripping, corrosive red poison.
Then they hurled them. A volley of fifty bone claws heading straight for the attack team.
"Wall!" Vernon yelled, slamming his foot on the ground. Instantly, a thick wall of flat earth erupted in front of them, forming a barricade.
Dozens of bone claws slammed into the barrier, cracking the stone and digging into the wall.
Evander Nightcross wasn’t so lucky. Two of his summoned winged beasts, caught too high in the air, were struck by the projectiles. They screeched, falling far away. Evander quickly unsummoned them.
But at that same moment, the ground suddenly exploded beneath them.
A 5-Star Descending Bug Demon, three times the size of the first one, erupted from the dirt in a shower of broken cobblestones and Demon miasma.
It looked like a rhinoceros beetle, only uglier with a carapace that oozed a reddish and purple gooey smoke. At the exact same second, a shrieking cry tore through the clouds.
A 6-Star Descending Winged Demon—long and muscular with four leathery wings and talons the size of broadswords—plummeted from the red sky like a meteor.
"A 5 and a 6-Star Descending Demons," Valeria said furiously. "The Demon Head is sending more dangerous monsters."
Thor narrowed her eyes. "As expected. We’re getting close to its hiding place."
The Bug Demon ignored the students entirely, lowering its massive, scythe-like horn and bulldozing straight toward Thor. The Valkyrie planted her boots and swung her hammer in a horizontally, aiming to shatter its skull.
But the Winged Demon intercepted her move.
Diving at breakneck speed, it slammed its clawed feet directly into the flat of Thor’s hammer mid-swing. The kinetic force of the Demon’s dive negated Thor’s momentum, completely parrying the strike.
The momentary stall allowed the Bug Demon to slam its massive horn directly into Thor’s midsection.
Thor gasped as the air was violently driven from her lungs. The impact launched her backward like a cannonball. She crashed straight through the stone wall of an abandoned merchant exchange, sending bricks and plaster exploding outward in a cloud of dust.
"Thor!" Valeria yelled. She pivoted to help the legend, but the street was suddenly flooded with the claw-throwing Humanoid Demons bounding down from the rooftops.
"She’s Thor Stormchild! She’s going to be fine!" Silas Mercer barked. He slapped a glowing gold rune onto Valeria’s back. "Focus on the mob, Val! Go!"
Valeria nodded, agreeing with Silas’s sentiment. Empowered by the 9-Star Gold runes, the Grand Dragoon launched herself into the thick of the claw-throwers.
Starsplitter glowed in her hand, thrumming with demon-burning power. She thrusted the S-grade spear through the chest of a Demon, the star-metal instantly vaporizing its heart, and then swept the shaft around to decapitate two more, their severed, multiple heads rolling across the street, leaking purple ichor.
Behind her, Kaleb summoned a localized supercell, raining concentrated lightning bolts to fry the Demons on the rooftops, while Vernon weaved torrents of flame through the gaps in their formation, incinerating any monster that tried to flank Silas or Evander.
Inside the ruined merchant building, Thor pushed herself up from the rubble.
She coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto the floorboards. Her silver breastplate had a small dent in the center that magically disappeared as she watched.
Thor narrowed her eyes. ’The miasma seems to be taking effect already. My channels are slowly being poisoned. I can feel it.’
The Winged Demon landed perfectly in the hole she had created in the wall, folding its four wings. The 5-Star Bug Demon flanked it, clacking its mandibles in anticipation. They had successfully cornered the legend.
The Winged Demon lunged, swiping its massive, sword-like talons at Thor’s neck.
Thor ducked the decapitating strike, swinging her hammer up in an uppercut. But the 6-Star was too fast. It twisted its torso mid-air, dodging the hammer head, and drove its knee into Thor’s jaw.
As her head snapped back, the 5-Star Bug Demon scuttled forward, clamping its mandibles around Thor’s left arm and squeezing with bone-crushing pressure.
Blood ran down Thor’s chin. The miasma was definitely getting to her system, making her limbs feel heavy.
But as the Winged Demon raised its talons for a downward stab that was sure to kill, Thor caught the monster’s hand, causing its bulgy eyes to widen in shock.
She looked up at it and smiled. A bloody, terrifying, battle-crazed smile.
Battery of Brutality. That was her title. And these mindless beasts had completely forgotten how a battery worked.
Every single ounce of physical trauma and blunt force they had inflicted on her body hadn’t only bruised her, it had been converted into energy deep within her soul core.
Thor’s eyes turned suddenly into white crackling pools of thunder. Her hair raised behind her, sizzling with electricity.
She ripped her left arm out of the Bug Demon’s mandibles, ignoring the tearing of her own flesh, and gripped her warhammer with both hands.
"THUNDER SPLITTER!"
She slapped her palm against her warhammer, and all the stored energy surged out of her.
White plasma in the shape of a giant disc expanded outward from the hammer’s point of impact, moving horizontally at the speed of light.
Like some kind of thunder guillotine.
The expanding ring of lightning sheared straight through the Bug Demon’s head, instantly cauterizing the stumps as the top half of its massive body crashed onto the pavement.
The ring expanded further, slicing the 6-Star Winged Demon clean in half at the waist before it could even flap its wings away.
Next, a vertical pillar of concentrated lightning erupted from the crater, shooting hundreds of feet into the sky and blowing the crimson miasma clouds wide open.
The resulting shockwave of raw electricity radiated down the street. Every single claw-throwing Demon caught within a fifty-yard radius was instantly subjected to millions of volts. Their flesh flashed-boiled from the inside out.
Within a second, fifty Demons burst into clouds of fine, purple ash, their skeletons collapsing onto the tainted street floor.
KRAAAABOOOMMMM!!!!
KRRRAAABOOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!!!
Smoke filled everywhere, and silence abruptly returned to the street. The only noise was crackling lightning sparks and the hissing of Demon fleshed being cooked.
[Heroine, Thor Stormchild, has killed 1 Demon (Rank: 6-Star Descending)]
[Heroine, Thor Stormchild, has killed 1 Demon (Rank: 5-Star Descending)]
[Heroine, Thor Stormchild, has killed 54 Demons (Rank: Fallen)]
Thor stood up slowly from the center of the smoking crater. Her wounded arm was completely healed, her armor was spotless, in fact, the only proof she had been a battle was the leveledmerchant buildings and the dead Demons around her.
She rolled her shoulders, the last wisps of blue lightning fading from her hammer, and looked back at the stunned attack team.
"The path is clear," Thor said plainly. "Stop staring and move."