Haru ran towards his comrade, screaming and yelling for him to get up and fight the demons that were about to devour him. But Baron didn’t budge. Not until the last moment. The swordsman had almost given up and he was certain that he was going to watch his friend and mentor be struck down by the abyssal creatures. However, thankfully, his yelling—or maybe it was something else—got through and the Werewolf dashed away just in time to escape the attack from the demons. From then on, it was bloodshed. Haru skid to a halt as he watched Baron bash one demon after another. Sure, he didn’t go unscathed through those encounters. But neither did the demons that came in his way. Some of the things that his mentor did to the demons made him look a lot scarier than the horde of monsters that Haru was fighting. He made a mental note to never anger Baron enough for him to want to show this side to him.
Of course, as much as he would have liked to just stand there and watch his friend decimate their enemies, that wasn’t an option. While Baron dealt with his share of the demons, Haru had to pull his own weight as well. Watching his friend get back on his feet and take the fight seriously had boosted the Knight’s morale as well. He gripped on his sword as tightly as his hands shook with the mixed emotions of fear, anger, and excitement. The gang of greater demons split in two. One group went for Baron, while the other came for him. Haru put his leg forward and got ready to fight.
The demons’ swings were harder, but so was Haru’s. The weapons clashed multiple times and the swordsman realized his mana blade wasn’t going to last for long. He should get ready to fight with his hands like Baron did. Just as he expected, his sword stopped functioning soon enough, but not before breaking the weapons of three greater demons. Both sides expressed their frustration and anger at the lack of a weapon.
The three demons stepped forward one after another and began to swipe at the Knight with their claw-like hands. He dodged two, but the third found its mark. The pointed ends of the demon’s fingers scraped against his armour, tearing it open in the front and leaving three parallel gashes on his chest. Haru didn’t let the opportunity go to waste, however. The demon had left itself open with that huge swiping motion. So, he caught its hand as it moved away from him, jerked the creature towards him and drove his left fist straight into its lower jaw. The days he spent training his body under his master had finally amounted to something. While the powerful punch hurt his arm, the demon had it worse. The impact broke its neck and it fell to the ground, limp and lifeless.
Haru wasted no time after that. He leapt towards the next closest demon, ducked to evade its punch and proceeded to kick him straight in the gut. The monster’s eyes bulged out in pain as it spat blood. It still wasn’t dead, though. Haru wished to finish the job with another attack, but he wasn’t given the opportunity. There were already two other demons about to strike him down. He had to choose between going on the offensive or defend again. Soon, he realised the former would only be a death wish. If he went in with another attack, he would have no way to escape the attacks from the other two demons and that would be the end of him. So, he dashed away. The demons’ weapons landed where he was less than a second ago.
Now. Haru saw another opportunity. He dashed back into the group of three. A kick to the left one to knock it away from the fight. A strong punch to the one he had kicked before to finish it off. And a swerve kick to the last one to- No. That was a bad idea. The last one had a weapon and Haru ended up kicking the blunt end of the giant sword the demon held up in defence, essentially hurting himself. Haru groaned and fell on his knees. A bad position to be in, in front of an angry demon. The abyssal creature lifted its sword and was about to bring it down straight onto his head.
Fight or flight? Flight, in this case. Haru rolled away. The weapon pierced the ground with ease. Haru gulped, imagining what could have occurred if that thing had landed on him. But it was no time to be thanking his fortunate fate… yet. He swiftly got back onto his feet and used the short time it took for the demon to pluck the weapon off the ground to his advantage. As the monster pulled on the weapon, Haru took a step to his side and punched him on his flank. When that made the demon bend, he kneed its face. The monster stumbled back and groaned in pain, leaving its weapon stuck to the ground. Meanwhile, the demon he had kicked away first was making its way back towards him, along with a few other friends of his. Haru swiftly pulled the greatsword stuck to the ground, struck down the demon next to him with its own weapon. The sword cracked its skull open and was stuck there. Haru left it there and got ready to deal with the incoming bunch.
There were four of them and the Knight knew he wouldn’t be able to handle all four at the same time. He needed a way to isolate them one by one or at least force them to split into two groups. He turned to look at Baron to see how he was doing. He seemed to have his hands full. So, that meant this bunch was all his to entertain.
Meanwhile, the rift was releasing a steady stream of the lesser demons that attempted to swarm the two and make the job of the greater demons easier. Haru began to run from the four demons and they chased him. He had no ranged attacks. So, his only chance was to catch the fastest one in the group, strike him down and repeat the process. The goblinesque demons trying to flank him didn’t make this any easy. However, they did help in dodging and blocking the spells that the greater demons were throwing at him. As he ran, he killed the small critters with swift strikes and threw them behind him to stall the chasing group.
One among the four wielded a pair of daggers and was extremely adept at dodging the obstacles thrown in its path. He was the first to reach Haru and slash at his back. The last time he turned to see how far his assaulters were, the forerunner was quite a few meters away. So, Haru had not expected this sudden attack. With that double slash, the Lieutenant’s cloak was completely torn off, exposing his bare body. Upon taking the hit, Haru stumbled first and then skid to a halt. He turned around to catch the dual-wielding demon by its arm and threw it down on the ground. The remaining three were still a few feet behind. But they wouldn’t take too long to catch up. So, he had to end this quickly. With one swift stomp to the demon’s neck, he killed the one that tore this cloak, and began running again.
The demons weren’t stupid. They figured out what Haru was trying to pull. So, the three split up and decided to come at him from three different directions, but at the same time. Two of them still had weapons—not that they needed them, given their strong and sharp nails. Haru turned to see the distance between him and the group but noticed that there was no longer a group. He now had three different locations and sides to keep track of. He couldn’t possibly look at where he was going and also look out for where all three demons were. But he knew one thing for certain. All three wanted to be where he was at the same time. That was one variable he controlled. So, he stopped and turned around, waiting for all three.
It was tricky, but Haru had a plan. The one straight ahead of him wielded a spear; the one on the right had an axe; and the one on the left was unarmed. All three were the same distance away, but clearly the demon with the spear had the longest reach, followed by the one with the axe, and lastly the unarmed one. With both his weapon and armour gone, Haru had just his limbs to rely on. His plan was simple. To use the demons’ attacks against them.
So, the moment the demon wielding the spear came into his range—which was just a tad bit earlier than the one with the axe—Haru took a step towards the unarmed demon and hit the hilt of the spear from the side towards the monster with the axe. The two weapons clashed and the demons wielding them clambered. The Rune Knight used that moment to duck away from the attack of the unarmed demon and then retaliated with a barrage of swift but powerful punches. The first two attacks didn’t do much to the demon as it had a hard exoskeleton protecting it. But once that armour was broken, Haru’s attack had enough impact to knock it out. The stunt did leave his knuckles bleeding, however.
There was no time to rest. The two weapon wielding demons had gathered their bearings and were about to initiate another attack on the Knight. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to dodge both the swings. Haru managed to escape the skull shattering axe swing, but the spear found its mark. He groaned in pain as the tip of the spear sheared his left hip, making a deep cut. The pain made his legs buckle, but he knew there was no getting up if he allowed that. The demons would rip him apart if he gave them even the slightest opportunity. Haru didn’t wish to die there. So, he held onto the spear that had pierced him for support and yanked it off the demon’s hand. He then used that spear to block the other demon’s axe and thrust the spear into its throat. When that demon croaked and died, it dropped the axe it held in its hand. Haru dropped to his knees, caught that axe before it fell to the ground and hacked the last one’s leg. The demon yelped and fell to its knees. The Knight then thrust his left into the creature’s throat, holding his hand in a claw-like position.
It would seem both he and Baron had managed to defeat the band of demons they were dealing with. Haru took what remained of his cloak and tied it around his waist, using it to stop the bleeding. Just then, Baron asked him if knew anything about closing the rifts and the swordsman shook his head.
“Not sure. They said the rift derives power from the demons around it. So, our best bet is to clear these out,” he said, looking around at the swarm of lesser abyssal creatures that they still had to deal with.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the goblin-like demons that were left. Within moments after they defeated the dozen humanoid monsters that came through the rift, Baron was assaulted by another one that came out of the river suddenly. Haru scrambled up to go help his friend, but the ground under him shook violently, throwing him back.
For a moment, Haru thought something was causing a wide-scale earthquake. He wouldn’t be surprised if one of these demons were powerful enough to do such things. But he noticed that only his immediate surroundings were affected. So, there was something else going on here. And he was right. Something came out of the ground, grabbed onto both his legs and pulled him down, attempting to bury him. Haru tried to kick off from the ground to escape its grasps, but couldn’t. Realizing that if he didn’t do something he was going to be buried alive, he quickly used the power of his ring and transformed into a raven. The sudden change in his form into a smaller being and the capability to fly away helped him get out of the clutches of the demon underground.
Baron was quicker in dealing with his enemy than Haru was. The poor Knight didn’t even know where this demon was. He flew over the area full of dead bodies, trying to find out where this nemesis was hiding. As he flew, the ground under him began to reform and shoot out small rocks up into the sky, trying to hit Haru. It wasn’t easy to dodge them all and several rocks hit Haru, forcing him to cancel his spell. The Knight fell down, rolling. The moment he stopped rolling, the terrain next to him reshaped itself and held him in place, binding him. It even had a tight grip around his neck, choking him. Just then Baron asked how many bowls of noodles he owed him. Haru wanted to respond, saying he would buy him an entire stall if he got him out of the shitty situation he was in right then. But the choking earth around his neck didn’t let him speak.
Convinced that his enemy was bound and unable to do anything, the demon that was behind these attacks finally showed himself. He came out of the ground, right next to Haru and gave a menacing laugh. The monster pointed its palm towards the surface and a long spear made of earth shot up from the ground into his hands. Haru knew what was coming. The demon was going to impale him while he was bound.
Having no other option, Haru decided to rely on his mana. He groaned and began to expel his magical force from all over his body at the same time. While he had lost control over his magic, he still had the energy within. Just as the demon was about to pierce him with the earthen spear, Haru blasted the area around him by releasing a lot of mana, destroying the earth that was binding him. The sudden blast knocked the demon back. But this wasn’t without a cost. The blast also dealt serious damage to Haru. There was no other way, however. Being severely injured was still better than being dead, which was what he would have been had he not done something. Besides, this also gave him an opening.
The knocked back demon was disoriented and was struggling to find its bearing. Haru took that moment to roll towards the humanoid earthen demon. Once he was close enough, he did a sweep kick that brought the monster down to the ground, making it easy for Haru to pin him. Sitting atop the monster, Haru gave his hardest punches possible continuously, straight to demon’s face. After the fifth punch, the demon went limp and was definitely dead. But Haru continued punching. Seeing his ferocity made the lesser demons that were going to swarm him to back off and whimper. Once he was satisfied with the pounding, he got up, limped towards Baron and stood behind him.
“Can’t use my magic…” he said, panting and revealing that he too had lost his magic.
“We just have to keep thrashing these until they get tired and close the rift themselves,” he added, chuckling. The chuckle was a bad idea. It made him hurt all over. While his words were still positive, Haru wasn’t sure if he could continue this fight anymore. And almost as if on cue, the rift began to pulse. The Knight wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Is there going to be more?” he asked, looking up at the rift with dread.
4578/4500
Rolling for boss.