Viktor advanced, leaving behind the demons who did not dare to attack.
Whether it was the courtyard in front of him or the mansion, everything was completely intact, clashing entirely with the rest of the territory, which at least had some damage.
In fact, just by approaching the mansion, Viktor felt as if he were approaching a pure land, where damage, dirty air, or any kind of impurity was filtered out, leaving only a comfortable and safe home.
"Hey."
Viktor stopped upon hearing a female voice from the front.
When the main doors of the mansion opened, a white haired girl with cat ears and a tail came out.
With an indifferent gaze and calm steps, she approached Viktor.
"You will not go any further than this." Despite how small her figure looked in front of him, Viktor realized it was not her anger speaking, nor was it a threat, it was simply a statement of something obvious.
"A cat defending her home, huh?" Viktor muttered, confident yet at the same time alert at the girl's confidence, "But what will you do without mana?"
Looking at the girl's body, he guessed she was not a physical fighter but someone who depended on mana.
But this time he was wrong.
As soon as he took another step, he found Koneko right in front of him. Due to his large body size, she appeared just below his line of sight, with her legs bent and her fist pulled back.
Seeing such speed, Viktor quickly covered himself with both arms, but even so, Koneko's punch connected, pushing him several meters back with ease.
Viktor exerted more force in his legs, managing to stop after a few seconds, and looked at the girl with extreme caution.
"A physical warrior, to think the strongest subordinate turned out to be physical, it seems luck really is not on our side" Viktor said with irony.
In reality, they had spent several weeks planning this, but not only had unimaginable doubts already arisen, many of their plans, such as the missiles, the territorial bomb, or the energy sealing talisman, seemed not to work.
Not only that, even Fawn, someone capable of resurrecting, Nyx, someone capable of controlling a domain of absolute night where she rules, and Nagumo, an extremely skilled matter transmuter, had been killed with relative ease.
The worst part was that, whether it was artifacts or people, they were not defeated by skill or strength, the other side always seemed to have a direct counter for every situation.
Knowing they could not have prepared for this and had no one who could see the future, Viktor could only attribute it to luck, so much luck that it seemed absurd, but he found no other explanation.
"Anyway, thinking is Jake's job" he muttered, making Koneko look at him without understanding what he was talking about out of nowhere.
Viktor got into position and advanced straight toward Koneko.
"Mine... is to attack."
In an instant, Viktor's fist reached centimeters from Koneko's face.
But before it could connect, she moved. She grabbed the arm about to hit her and, with a quick spin, climbed onto it before kicking him in the face, pushing him backward.
Knowing Koneko would take advantage of that moment, Viktor struck toward where he felt movement.
But his blow did not connect, Viktor opened his eyes recovering from the hit and looked at the ground.
"A stone" he thought, realizing he had been tricked when he felt claws on his back that pierced his clothes and dug into his skin.
"Kughh!" Viktor groaned in pain as he felt the wound.
He immediately turned around, expecting to shake Koneko off, but he underestimated her agility and grip, as she latched onto his back, embedding the claws of her other hand as well.
With her ten claws, Koneko applied pressure, gripping tighter and sinking them deeper.
"Arghhh! Damn it!"
Extending his hand as far as he could, Viktor finally managed to grab her by the head and threw her away without thinking.
Koneko got into a four legged attack stance, gripping the ground to stop herself before advancing in that same position toward him as fast as she could.
This time she did not attack like before, instead, she slid under his legs, scratching the lower part of them, making him fall for a second, a second Koneko did not waste as she kicked the side of his face, pushing it to the other side like a slap.
"Damn cat, stop slipping around!" Viktor said annoyed as he advanced toward her again.
Koneko stopped at his words and ceased attacking, making Viktor advance again with a confident smile.
But when he threw another punch and his strike was about to land, Koneko simply tilted her head slightly to the side, dodging it with ease.
"W-what?" Viktor was surprised for a moment by the dodge, but he did not stop, he continued, with his vast combat knowledge, mixing several blows, from punches to kicks, combining real attacks and feints.
But Koneko did not move from her spot, she simply stayed there dodging all his attacks with the ease of an adult mocking a child, while responding to each one with painful and quick scratches.
After a while, Viktor was covered in blood everywhere and his body moved much slower. However, despite all the blood, it was due to the number of wounds, so it only caused him pain, not much real damage, and the reason his body moved slowly was simply exhaustion.
Finally, Viktor could no longer endure it and shouted indignantly.
"Why? You have the strength to fight head on, why do you keep slipping around and using these techniques?"
At his words, Koneko stopped attacking and performed a nimble backflip before standing in front of the mansion door.
With both of them standing in the exact same place as when they started, Koneko looked at him and smiled with amusement.
"Because it annoys you more, right?"
At her mocking words, Viktor finally realized.
"Damn it, you... you are playing with me!" he cursed furiously.
But Koneko no longer cared, while they fought, ten full minutes had already passed and the effect of the sealing talisman had ended.
A silver white energy leaked from her body, moving toward Viktor and surrounding him completely.
Once surrounded by that energy, no matter how much Viktor tried to move, he could not resist, he was completely trapped in place.
"Come" she said, looking at the high ranking demons who were watching from afar with schadenfreude due to the earlier humiliation at Viktor's hands.
The demons hesitated for a second before entering the mansion courtyard and advancing to where Koneko and Viktor stood.
"Miss Koneko, do you need..."
"Kill him" Koneko interrupted, giving them an order.
"Are you sure?"
"Do you doubt my orders?"
"It is not that, it is just that if we want to kill him we will have to use large attacks, we do not want to destroy Lord Lucifer's courtyard and his wives' place."
Koneko brought a finger to her cheek as she thought.
"You are right" she said finally.
Then she moved quickly toward Viktor and, using all her strength plus the energy of the nekomatas, struck him directly.
Viktor's body was released from the white energy only to be hit and thrown several hundred meters into the air, outside the mansion courtyard.
Koneko looked at the demons and nodded.
"Kill him!"
"Of course!"
All the high ranking demons present responded in unison with respect, but even so they could not hide the malice in their eyes as they thought about taking revenge on Viktor and the earlier humiliation.
They immediately spread their wings and flew toward him.
"No! Kill me! I do not want to die at the hands of these weaklings who depend on external forces! It is not fair! Only physical strength..."
"An old man stuck in the past, insulting someone for using their strengths" Koneko said with disdain as she watched Viktor being caught in the air by the demons, in less than a second he had already lost both arms and Koneko stopped watching.
...
In the distance, Jake sighed, having a connection with all the members on his side in this battle, he could know their states.
"...It seems Viktor also failed" he said with resignation.
"Well, at least we learned quite a lot, and I am sure we wore them down, I do not think the fairy queen only made a single move out of laziness" he analyzed.
Jake took a deep breath and looked around, the fewer than twenty thousand men that remained from the initial two hundred fifty thousand, the total devastation of the entire area and, worst of all, the almost intact territory of Lucifer.
Because aside from a small straight line of destruction formed by Viktor as he advanced, everything else was almost intact.
If it were not for the fact that those killed in Gaia simply lose a life or, in cases of having no lives left, are permanently expelled from Gaia, Jake would be sure he would only see bodies no matter where he looked and the stench of blood would be enough to make anyone vomit just by approaching the area.
But all those bodies would be from his side.
Such disparity in damage made Jake furious, but he quickly calmed down, because this was not over, in fact, from his point of view, it was only just beginning.
"Single use" he said, taking out an elegant wristwatch from his inventory. "Delivered personally by the leader of the Union, whether we win or not, just by using it we are already suffering losses... but there is no other way."
With equal parts resignation and frustration, Jake pressed the button on the watch. Instead of opening like any other, it began to spin backward inside its closed casing.
Whether demons, beastmen, or Kaito's subordinates, everyone was surprised to see how the people on the human side moved backward as if they were in a reversed video.
Not only that, but where humans had previously died, they reappeared following the same reversed motion.
Despite trying to attack this, their attacks passed through them, as if it were some kind of projection.
Jake, being the one who activated the device, was the only one aware of what was happening on his side, he saw his body move backward like the rest, but his mind kept processing everything normally.
In the end, he rewound to just after crossing the portal that brought him to hell, here the only difference occurred, because unlike before, this time his body on its own took out the watch and pressed the button again to open the lid.
The lid opened and the watch stopped, beginning to move normally, along with everyone around him.
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)