NOVEL NEXT CCXXXVIII – At All Costs
Esperanza had expected the old demon to resist. After all, who wouldn’t resist when they were getting literally murdered?
She had not expected him to be so tough to chew on, though. Even during her first strike she had formed several sharp blades to strike at the old demon from the back and sides, outside his field of view, but all of those were blocked before they could even breach his leathery skin by some sort of powerful barrier that her Body stats were not strong enough to forcefully breach with one strike.
In fact, the old demon’s whole body was covered by the same barrier and while Esperanza’s efforts to break through said barrier likely ate up whatever resource the old demon used to maintain the barrier, it was likely going to take a while. She doubted she would even have a while to do it. Already she noticed a couple of the awake [Clerics] being made aware of the struggle, even if they had yet to realize what was going on for the time being.
Meanwhile, Esperanza found herself under attack by the old shaman, though fortunately her having literally wrapped around him tightly likely prevented him from using some of his more physical skills. Instead the old demon relied on Soul-based attacks, which Esperanza gladly welcomed as [Far Down the Deep End] combined with her absurdly high – or low, since it was in the negatives – Sanity stat countered those mostly on their own.
Even so, having to partially defend against the old demon’s attacks slowed her down a bit, whereas her own attacks – the best of which were similarly Soul-based – did little to nothing against the demon’s extremely powerful soul. Her own physical offense was blocked by the other party’s barrier, which reduced her options greatly.
At the moment Esperanza’s best chance of winning the fight was to jolt the old demon’s soul enough so that he failed to maintain his barrier and thus allow her more physical attacks to reach him, but that was proving to be difficult given how the demon resisted strongly against her every attempt at encroachment into his body.
Esperanza even tried to stuff herself in through the old demon’s nostrils and ears, but the barrier extended to cover those orifices as well, which was another annoying thing. The old demon already had an advantage over her in raw attributes, and it was only due to his exhaustion that she even stood a fighting chance at the moment.
As she fought the old demon, however, what she feared came true, and a couple of the [Clerics] noticed the scuffle as it happened. Esperanza reacted practically by instinct, as she had left tendril near the [Clerics]
in question, formed a hardened bone blade at the end of that tendril, and struck out with it before the two younger demons could yell out in warning.
The bone-tipped blade of the tendril – coated with [Soul Armament] just to be sure – tore right through the throat of the closer demon [Cleric], whatever sound he was about to make reduced to choked gurgles as blood from the severed blood vessels flooded down the demon’s windpipe. Then the blade carried on and pierced deep into the second demon’s skull from one side to the other, with a multitude of smaller tendrils splitting off inside the demon’s head to reduce the unfortunate demon’s brain to meat slurry in mere moments.
Unfortunately, even though she managed to kill the two demons before they could raise an alarm, a third demon further away also saw what happened and she managed to scream out before Esperanza could shift her tendril over to silence her. Esperanza did not stop the tendril in motion and allowed it to behead the demon in question before she drew it back, but she refrained from killing more since it was pointless by that time.
Her scream had alerted the guards outside and awakened many of the recuperating demons still in the vicinity and while Esperanza could likely kill many of the clerics it would take away her focus from fighting the old demon, who was by far a more important target.
Instead she redoubled her efforts to assault the old demon both physically and mentally, uncaring about the futile efforts some of the [Clerics] made to untangle her from her target. As it was, she did not even need to resist much as the demon [Clerics] lacked the physical prowess to pry her away from the old shaman.
She had also turned the outermost layer of her “skin” into an armor-like weave, so when the nearby third-tier demon guards came over and tried to use their weapon to pry her off the old shaman, all their efforts were in vain. The ones who tried to push their weapons in to tear her off bit by bit couldn’t even breach her defenses even if she didn’t fight back otherwise.
It was not until the fourth tier demon guards came to the ritual area that the demons had someone capable of actually threatening Esperanza. She continued her assault against the old shaman while wrapping herself ever tighter around him, almost like a second skin, making it impossible for the demons outside to find a seam or the like to peel her off with.
At first the demons tried to pry her off more gently, clearly worried about hurting the old shaman she was cocooned up around, but before long they realized that they were getting nowhere with such an approach. One of the demon fourth tiers brought out a wicked-looking dagger and stabbed at her forcefully, only to widen their eyes in horror as Esperanza opened up a gap right where the dagger struck so that the blow landed on the old shaman instead.
Then she closed the gap immediately afterward, the demons achieving nothing but to further burden the old shaman – that strike failed to hurt him, but likely ate up a bit more of whatever was maintaining his barrier – with their strike. Another of the demons gave a couple tentative stabs, but Esperanza noticed how he lacked the intent to follow through with them and simply ignored him.
In that manner, she played a game of cat and mouse with them, opening gaps where they struck for real and otherwise ignoring their futile attempts to pry her off the old shaman. She taunted them in that manner until finally the one in the back that had made no attempt as of yet stepped forward and brought out a massive maul, clearly gearing up for a brutal swing.
For some reason, Esperanza had a gut feeling that made her feel that the large, bulky demon with the maul was nowhere near as simple as they looked, and definitely would have some sort of trick they planned to use against her. Given the implement of choice of said demon and their obvious focus on the Body attribute, their trick would likely be something linked to their path, so she made a gamble.
Rather than reveal the old shaman to take the blow for her, she kept herself wrapped tightly around him, opening up to pretend that she was presenting a gap only to flow back and close the gap when she noticed that the demon was not stopping. Perhaps the demon was hoping to catch her before she could open a large enough gap, or perhaps they were confident that their blow would not harm the old shaman even if it landed directly on him.
Given the surprised look on the demon’s face when she closed the opening at the last moment which was replaced by a tinge of horror as it was too late for the demon to stop their swing, Esperanza knew that she had guessed right by taking the blow head-on.
She felt the maul slam into her with surprising lightness, almost like a gentle touch, and some sort of waves travel through her body without harming her in the least. Those gentle waves exploded into violence when they hit the next thing behind her, however, namely the old shaman.
The impact was so severe that it hurled both of them across the ritual area, finally shattering the old shaman’s barrier at the same time. Even though she was also being thrown into the air by the blow, Esperanza was not one to waste the chance before her and immediately drilled multiple appendages into the old shaman’s body and eviscerated him before he could recover his barrier.
That Esperanza herself was bodily crushed and sliced into tiny pieces by the enraged demon fourth tiers shortly after she landed and let the old shaman’s corpse go was a painful experience, but it was one she felt was worth the trouble.
