A lone figure walked across the vast, grassy plain.
Amidst the endless sea of green, her violet-blue hair and white dress stood out like a beacon. Stell walked alone. Takson was currently occupied, his consciousness dived deep into the "Hell Mode" simulation of the Virtual Combat Arena.
I did not stop to wait for him. My destination was set, and I saw no reason to pause.
The visibility on the plains was excellent. Even without engaging my long-range sensors, my optical units picked up four black smudges on the horizon.
Demons.
They were far away, but the massive, curved horns protruding from their heads were a dead giveaway.
Scan complete. Four targets.
I analyzed their mana signatures. They were strong. Not mere grunts, but "Great Demons." The group consisted of three warriors and one mage.
In this world, demons were arrogant creatures. They rarely bothered to hide their power, flaunting their mana like a peacock flaunting its feathers. This made assessing their threat level trivial.
Analysis: Threat level is moderate.
Comparison: I ran a simulation of Takson fighting them.
Result: Takson would win. It wouldn't even be a challenge.
These four, despite their high rank, lacked the discipline and technique of the simulated "Stell" he was currently fighting. They wouldn't provide enough pressure to be useful training dummies.
Value: Zero.
If they couldn't help my apprentice grow, they were simply obstacles. And obstacles were meant to be removed.
I raised my right hand, pointing my index finger toward the distant figures.
….
"Hey, Rasa. Why do you think Schlacht sent us all the way out here?"
A massive, armored demon with a greatsword strapped to his back kicked at a stone, looking bored. His tone was dripping with disdain.
Beliza was a Great Demon, confident in his strength. He hated taking orders, especially from a mage he didn't respect. But Schlacht, the "Omniscient," was the Demon King's right hand. To disobey him was to disobey the King.
"He said to intercept a human girl with violet hair," Beliza scoffed. "Sending four of us for one human? It's an insult. He's wasting our time."
"I don't pretend to understand him," the female mage, Kries, replied calmly. She held a staff made of twisted black wood. "But Schlacht arranges things for a reason. You know about his magic. He sees the future."
"Tch. That magic is the only reason the King keeps him around," Beliza grumbled. He acknowledged Schlacht's foresight, but he despised the man's physical weakness.
"Don't get cocky, Beliza," a small, child-sized demon named Rasa interjected. Despite her appearance, her aura was sharp and deadly. "Remember who this human is. According to the reports, she's the one who killed Drakul."
"Hah! Drakul?" Beliza laughed. "The 'Blood Knight' lost to a human girl? That just proves he was weak. It's embarrassing for all demonkind."
Beliza smirked, his arrogance blinding him to the reality of the situation. "When we find her, I'll show you how a real warrior handles, "
"Don't forget our mission is to, " another warrior began to say.
He never finished his sentence.
Zzzzt,
There was no sound of gunfire, no explosion. Just three thin, silent beams of golden light streaking across the plains.
Thwip. Thwip. Thwip.
In the blink of an eye, the heads of Beliza, Rasa, and the third warrior were pierced.
The holes were small, neat, and cauterized instantly by the heat. The three demons stood there for a fraction of a second, their expressions frozen in mid-conversation, before their bodies crumbled into dust.
"Eh?"
Kries, the mage, stood alone amidst the drifting ash of her companions.
She blinked. It took her a moment to process what had happened. They were dead. Instantly. She hadn't felt any mana buildup. She hadn't seen a casting circle. Just... death.
But Kries was a Great Demon. Her shock lasted only a heartbeat. Her survival instincts screamed at her to act.
She slammed her staff onto the ground, her mana flaring.
"Restore."
The sudden death of her comrades did not rattle Kries. She was a Great Demon; she had seen death a thousand times.
She slammed the butt of her staff onto the earth.
"Restore."
It was her signature spell, a high-level manipulation of time and matter restricted to biological entities. The drifting ash swirling in the wind suddenly halted. It reversed course, spiraling back into the shapes of limbs, torsos, and heads. In a heartbeat, the three warriors were standing again, gasping for air, their bodies whole as if the golden beams had never touched them.
Kries didn't wait for them to get their bearings. The moment the spell was cast, she whipped her staff toward the horizon, tracking the trajectory of the initial attack.
There.
A bolt of dark, concentrated mana screamed from her staff, tearing up the grass as it raced toward the distant source of the golden light. Simultaneously, she erected a multi-layered barrier around her team, a dome of translucent violet energy.
"Scan for mana signatures! Now!" she barked.
She pushed her own sensory magic to the limit, enhancing her vision to see miles across the plains. But she found nothing. No mage, no magic circle, no lingering aura.
Nothing?
"Is it an ultra-long-range bombardment?" one of the revived warriors shouted, looking around frantically.
Beliza, his pride stung by his momentary death, didn't waste time talking. His instincts screamed of an incoming threat. He saw a blur of motion streaking toward Kries, a projectile moving faster than sound.
He moved.
With a roar, he threw himself in front of the mage, swinging his massive, enchanted greatsword to intercept the attack. It was a strike that could cleave a mountain.
CRASH!!!
The earth shattered.
Beliza's sword, a weapon forged in the Demon Realm and reinforced with layers of hardening magic, snapped like a dry twig.
He didn't even have time to look surprised.
A colossal lance, wreathed in a vortex of wind, punched through his chest armor, through his body, and buried itself deep in the ground behind him. He was pinned to the earth like an insect.
What... is that?
The remaining demons stared in horror. It wasn't a spell. It was a physical object, a massive, mechanical lance of gold and crimson metal.
And still, the attacker was nowhere to be seen.
"A simple puncture wound," Kries scoffed, though sweat was beginning to bead on her forehead. "I can fix this."
She leveled her staff at the impaled warrior. "Restore."
The magic circle formed... and then shattered.
"What?!"
Kries stared at her staff. The spell had failed. It hadn't been blocked; it had been dismantled. The mana she had tried to channel into Beliza dissipated the moment it touched the lance embedded in his chest.
"Why isn't he healing?!"
"My magic... it's been nullified," Kries whispered, her eyes wide with shock. She could feel a strange, static interference radiating from the weapon, disrupting her control over the local mana field. "That lance... it destroys magic!"
Beliza gargled blood, his eyes glazing over. This time, there would be no coming back.
"We can't stay here!"
The other two warriors realized the open plain was a killing field. They were fighting a ghost who could snipe them from miles away with weapons that ignored their defenses and canceled their healing.
"Grab the mage!"
One of the warriors scooped Kries up onto his shoulder. They couldn't afford to lose their healer, even if her magic was currently being jammed.
"To the forest! Move!"
They broke into a sprint, abandoning Beliza's corpse and heading for the dense treeline a few miles away. They hoped the trees would provide cover, break the line of sight of their invisible tormentor.
….
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