[Third Person POV]
As Cornelio's fireball shot towards the duo, Monet stepped in front of Hajime before releasing a snow wall in front of them to block the attack.
Though Hajime was perfectly capable of handling himself, she knew that this was supposed to be a test for her.
Once the fireball slammed into the wall of snow, Monet flew above it before releasing a blast of cold wind towards the trio.
The wind, once it hit them, immediately slowed them down as snow accumulated on their bodies, just as it had with Stanley moments before.
"Goswin!" Cornelio shouted. "Take care of the runt; we'll handle the bird whore!"
Goswin nodded before breaking away from them, circling Monet's attack toward Hajime. Though she could stop it, she knew they'd keep trying to go for him if she blocked them, plus the high-class stray she was told to fight stayed, so it was fine. Not like they could kill him anyway.
-----
As Goswin reached Hajime, he was extremely cautious. Stanley, despite his degeneracy, was highly competent. Even if that bird lady were the muscle of the team, she wouldn't bring deadweight, not if she had any sense.
From what he could tell from a glance, the kid was an initiate mid-class, three ranks below his advanced mid-class. Judging by that alone, he was confident he could win this.
Activating a magic circle, Goswin was covered in a bluish glow which dimmed with the circle's vanishing.
Seconds later, Goswin stood a foot taller with spines covering his arms and back, while his eyes glowed an eerie orange.
Charging forward, Goswin threw his left arm forward at Hajime using all his might.
Hajime intercepted the fist with a string net, slowing the fist until it stopped a few feet away from him. Upon realizing that Hajime didn't even look tired from blocking his attack, Goswin mentally increased his threat level.
That attack was at minimum an intermediate stage attack, yet it was easily blocked with a simple net. Even without knowing how, Goswin knew that the kid in front of him was hiding his strength.
Goswin, to break through the net, extended the claws on his finger and slashed the net open. Now within range, Goswin unleashed a flurry of blows at each part of Hajime's body in an attempt to cripple him.
Solar plexus, groin, eyes, ears, throat, heart; nothing was off limits to the stray.
He did worse to his king when he left.
Blow after blow struck the kid, yet he didn't move more than a few inches.
Enraged by that, feeling like it was a provocation, Goswin started pouring more magic into his attacks, making each punch stronger than the last.
As he drained nearly a quarter of his demonic power in the fight, he knew this couldn't keep going, though judging by the kid's defenses, Goswin guessed he was using a high level defensive spell, which should be using most of his mana.
Channeling an explosion spell with 10% of his demonic power, Goswin threw his enhanced fist with all his strength, ready to break that defensive spell here and now.
As the attack collided with the child, Goswin took a moment to catch his breath, knowing that even if the kid survived that, he wouldn't be in fighting shape.
Hajime, now covered by a layer of dust stirred up from the explosion, almost felt a hint of pity for the devil. Almost. Honestly, if he weren't a stray, there would definitely be pity.
Creating a string clone in his place, Hajime pulled himself to a nearby tree and hid, waiting to see what the stray would do next.
As the dust cloud started to clear, the stray was alert, not daring to be careless; however, he was shocked to see the kid seemed perfectly fine.
"How'd you do it, you brat?!" He yelled. Goswin wouldn't dare show weakness now, but such a thing rattled him.
For a kid to survive one of his strongest moves unscathed could mean a lot of things. The kid could be much stronger than he could tell, maybe had a rare defensive artifact, maybe someone powerful was defending him aside from that harpy girl.
No matter what, though, it meant he probably couldn't win this fight.
In a final, desperate attack that he didn't think he'd have to use this soon, against a kid no less, Goswin's claws started elongating.
As his claws reached a foot in length, magic circles appeared at the ends of them. Once the circles formed, they started to move backward, covering his fingers in a strange layer of magic before disappearing.
'Hajime', seeing this, attacked with several strings, slicing through the air like whips.
Goswin retaliated by slashing the strings with his claws, each string exploding upon contact and unraveling.
"Do you get it now, kid? You can't touch me without dying!"
Rushing forward to 'Hajime', Goswin slashed at him, but a string net appeared in front of him, blocking the blow.
Goswin easily cut through it, explosions pushing 'Hajime' back a few feet.
It keeps repeating, with 'Hajime' trying to block the attacks, while Goswin knocks him back with his explosions.
Eventually, Goswin hears Hajime speak, but the voice doesn't come from the one in front of him.
"Torikage."
As that word is spoken, several trees and bushes surrounding him turn into strings. Seeing this, Goswin turns to escape, realizing it was a trap, but it is too late. The strings, now connected, form a giant net covering him from the sky, reminiscent of a birdcage.
Slashing with his explosive claws, Goswin is surprised that it barely did anything, only leaving a small amount of soot on the string.
As he slashes at the strings again and again, Goswin sees that he's starting to do some damage, but stops, knowing that he'd be drained if he kept going.
"Hey, kid, why bother fighting us? Huh? At most, you'll get some money. Is it really worth risking your life over this?"
The real Hajime, who had revealed himself, realized this was probably a distraction for something and decided to go along with it for now, knowing he could stop the stray from escaping.
"Well, right now my group needs money. Me and my teammate over there are hunting whatever rogues we can. Your dying to us is just bad luck for being nearby."
Hearing this, Goswin raged internally. 'You bastard! I'll rape that harpy bitch in front of your mangled body before killing you!"
As the two of them waited in silence for a bit, the sound of several people moving came from the forest.
A few seconds later, a group of people appeared. Each wore a black robe with a light blue rose emblem on their shoulders.
"Hey!" Goswin shouted at the newcomers. "You're the Ice Thorns that the boss hired, right?!" He asked with an increased enthusiasm, finally seeing a way out of this situation.
"I need you all to deal with this brat while I get out of this binding and help the boss."
As he finished speaking, the one in charge, though hesitant to believe this man was working for their employer, decided to listen, since if he was, it was better not to leave his subordinate to die.
The boss of the Ice Thorns, as well as a few elites, were all mid-class, while the rest were low-class. Thanks to their combination magic, if all members were together, they could even rival weaker high-class fighters.
While their leader sent most of them to stall the kid, he took a few members to help break Goswin out of the Torikage attack.
With efforts from both sides, he was freed in less than a minute, but had a little more than a third of his energy left.
"You all deal with the kid; your magic won't do anything against his companion," Goswin ordered before running off to where Stanely and Cornelio were.
-----
The Ice Thorns, now stuck in a battle against a child, were livid.
Not only were they completely unable to gain the upper hand, but they were somehow being pushed back despite their numbers.
There were eight elites, each leading seven of their weaker members. Splitting up to surround Hajime, they launched combination magic from all sides, creating a cage of ice and snow, meant to freeze him to death quickly.
Hajime, instead, just launched several strings glowing a fiery orange as each instance of Overheat shattered the ice and melted the snow.
The leader, once he had freed Goswin, finally came over to help, allowing them to unleash their strongest attack.
With nearly 75 ice mages working in tandem, they unleashed an attack capable of almost instantly killing an unprepared high-class.
Hajime covered himself in a layer of armament haki, knowing they wouldn't be able to keep using such a powerful attack for much longer.
As the weaker subordinates started to run low on mana, they withdrew from the fight, not wanting to be a burden. This caused the remaining members to use more mana to keep up the same level of damage, speeding up their own mana loss, and causing more of them to withdraw.
Eventually, the attack power dropped from high to mid-class as only the leader and elites were left channeling their magic into the combination spell before even they decided to stop, feeling the strain was getting to be too much.
"Do you think he survived?" One of the weaker mages asked.
"Of course not! How could a kid survive something like that?" Another retorted.
Their leader and the elites stood still, still staring toward the kid, who was covered in a cold mist. Though they were confident they killed him, they wouldn't rest until they saw his corpse.
As one minute passed, then two, everyone, even the leader, was certain that the kid was truly dead.
Drawing the swords from their waists, the leader and elites prepared to go forward to ensure the kid was dead.
Their subordinates, meanwhile, were busy mocking the kid for believing he could stand up to their combination ice magic.
At the three-minute mark, everyone felt something was wrong.
"Hey, boss, do you feel that too?"
The leader just stood there, facing the frost cloud, sword in hand, completely silent.
At that moment, their leader, along with the elites, turned around, drawing everyone's attention.
"Boss, is something wrong?" A curious mage asked.
Seconds later, everyone was confident something was wrong when their leader leaped forward and cut the curious mage down.
Before anyone had time to process what had just happened, their leader had already cut down another mage, while the elites joined in.
Everyone immediately flew into a panic as they realized the kid must've done something. As the realization struck, everyone felt as if they were doused with water colder than ice, realizing the kid was high-class and somehow had survived their attack.
Drawing their weapons and forming magic circles, ready to defend themselves, they were surprised when everyone stopped moving.
"Wait, hold your fire! We're free!" Their leader exclaimed.
Seconds later, two of the elites that had stopped attacking started attacking once more, while a few lower ranks, seeing this, started attacking as well.
In less than a minute, the entirety of the Ice Thorns were locked in a free-for-all, unsure of who to trust.
At one moment, you could be attacking someone only for them to stop, but whether that was the enemy's doing or not, no one could say, so they could only continue fighting.
Sometimes, a teammate would strike you one moment, but before you could retaliate, they were already apologizing, only to attack you again seconds later.
As the fighting devolved, injuries mounted and the dead piled up.
After nearly five minutes of fighting, most of the group was dead. Over half of their forces, with several elites, were gone. Those lucky enough to still be alive were permanently crippled in some way, and for many of them, it was magically.
It was then that Hajime, who had been watching it all from a tree branch above, jumped down, using strings to slow the descent like Spider-Man.
"I must thank you for putting on that interesting show," Hajime taunted as if he were Doflamingo himself.
"Unfortunately, the rest of you are no longer needed, so you can all join your friends."
"And what makes you think you can beat the rest of us?!" The Ice Thorns leader screamed with an indignant terror. He knew their opponent could probably kill them, but he wouldn't cower to a child.
"Why don't you turn around and see?"
As Hajime spoke, the leader unconsciously listened, and what he saw shook him to his core.
The remainder of his subordinates all had red lines on their necks.
Blood.
They didn't even realize they were dead.
Seconds later their heads flew from their bodies, cut off by the string.
The leader didn't even realize it happened to him as well before darkness overtook him, forever.
__________
Author's Note:
What'd you think about the fight with the Ice Thorns? I did what I could to make him act like Doflamingo, since he's trying to complete the assimilation.
Monet's fight will be next chapter, so be ready!
Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!