"Demon spawns! Stay behind me, my Worship! I'll protect you!"
Asleroc staggered backward, boots crunching against the sharp fragments of his shattered coffin as Astensia and Thor closed ranks in front of him.
A radiant golden aura shone from the orb at the hilt of Astensia's sword, while blue lightning crawled hungrily over the head of Thor's hammer.
The demon spawns advanced, snarling, hissing, dragging their grotesque limbs over the ruined stone with a sound like chains grating through bone.
Their eyes were black voids, glaring right through the Heroines and straight at him.
Lee swallowed hard.
'Their health bars are all full and—' He glanced at Astensia's and Thor's health bars above their heads, both of them nearly half empty.
'Shit.'
He stumbled back another step, trying to make himself as small as possible behind the Heroines' bodies. Then, a sudden chime sang in his head.
Ding!
Before him, a translucent golden interface, styled like an ancient glowing scroll, blinked to life.
「New Quest:」
「Successfully escape the Ruins of Valorend」
「Reward: System Activation」
「Time Limit: None」
Lee stared.
'Okay,' he pondered, his thoughts shaky. 'An interface. That's nothing out of the ordinary. Standard isekai stuff.'
Then he reread the reward, and his jaw dropped.
Lee had been granted a system, which was a good thing, but it would only activate after he escaped.
His eyes widened. 'What the hell? Why not now?!'
He almost shouted it.
What if he died before completing this quest? What then? Would he just respawn in hell? Game over? Main character deleted?
'This system sucks!'
He had no time to rant further, mostly because his thoughts had been intruded by the sound of a repulsive thump near his feet.
He looked down.
A demon spawn's severed head rolled to a stop in front of him, its sliced neck smoking from the heat of Astensia's sword. For a breath, Asleroc was certain that it was dead. Then…
It snarled.
Its mouth opened like a devil flower, exposing rows of sharp teeth as it lunged for his ankle with a shriek like tearing flesh.
"GAH!"
Asleroc shrieked louder, stomping down on it with all the panic in his soul. One stomp. Two stomps. Three.
He kept stomping the head until it was nothing left but demon pudding. A sickening crack and spray of black sludge told him it wasn't going to bite anything again.
Panting, he stumbled back. 'I don't know if that counts as my first kill. Astensia did most of the job.'
Up ahead, Astensia's war cry cut through the chaos. She leaped high from the back of a slain demon spawn and yelled at the top of her voice:
"BLESSED BLADE FORM: SPEAR!"
Her greatsword split and shimmered, light refracting around it before reforming into a radiant spear of gold. She hurled it in a perfect line.
The spear soared through two advancing spawns, impaling them mid-lunge before exploding into a dozen shards of holy light.
The creatures screeched and disintegrated into holy ash.
Astensia caught the spear mid-air as she landed, the golden energy shining as it retook the form of her greatsword just as her feet touched the floor.
At the right flank, Thor had just uppercut a demon spawn with the head of her hammer as she jumped high, elevated by bolts of lightning.
"By my hammer, activate Storm Cycle!"
Thor's mallet ignited with crackling storm-energy. She spun it with its handle then slammed it into the ground.
KRAKOOM!!!
A powerful web of electricity spidered across the broken floor, and the three nearest demon spawns were caught by its charge.
Their limbs locked up, and they began to convulse.
"Hah!" Thor charged forward, dragging the mallet that had suddenly turned to a ball of hot lightning. "Thunder ball!"
She struck it with a swing of her wielding arm, detonating the air itself as the bodies of the demons were flung backward into the others.
After the blinding explosion, shattered teeth, bones and skin rained down around her like hail.
Lee stared. 'I almost forgot how powerful she was. If I want to survive I have to get her on my side as soon as possible!'
But when it seemed like they were finally getting rid of the demon spawns, more came.
Dozens more.
They burst from the walls, fell down from the ceiling. Some even crawled out of the shattered ground below, screeching as they landed in a hunched gallop.
"Argghh!!!" Astensia growled, throwing her greatsword into the air. "BLESSED BLADE FORM: RAINING DAGGERS!"
In a display of light, the sword shattered into tiny, sharp daggers that rained down, sinking into the heads of many demons.
Thor fought more close combat, hitting them hard with her hammer and lightning bolts.
But even with all their might and powers, demon spawns—especially in these numbers—were more difficult than normal beasts.
Asleroc saw the health bars of the Heroines dwindling massively, and they grew weaker the longer the fight continued.
"The demon essence," Astensia muttered, taking down a spawn with her shield. "It's corrupting our mana."
They fell back step by step as the demon spawns advanced. Each time a claw struck, either Thor or Astensia stood as the shield.
"We're surrounded!" The Heroine of War shouted, her blade shifting again, this time into a chained whip-sword. "My Worship, stay close!"
She lunged, slicing five small spawns in one beautiful spin.
Thor stayed beside him, hammer ready, jaw clenched. But even she was breathing harder.
They shielded him like bodyguards escorting royalty, dragging him backward inch by inch. But it wasn't sustainable.
The demon spawns continuously increased in numbers and they were quickly getting overwhelmed.
"Stay behind me, my Worship! I am bound by duty to protect you even at the cost of my life!" Astensia declared, resetting her blade into its greatsword form and holding the line with conviction.
Thor's eyes narrowed. She didn't say it, but her tightened jaw screamed her refusal to die here. Not for a hero who had abandoned his world.
Lee's brain raced with numerous fleeting thoughts. He watched the demons draw closer, snapping their jaw-faces and striking their claws.
'There's no way I'm going to just die! I just got here!'
His gaze snapped to Thor.
Her face was angry and frustrated, sweat dripped down her body and fell on her glimmering silver armor.
That was when an idea hit him.
He remembered something.
A specific scene in the Heavenly Hero lore.
In the first arc, during a desperate battle, Thor had used an escape maneuver for the first time.
It was called Star Crash Descent; a powerful AoE mobility Skill that let her collapse the battlefield under her own divine gravity, then launch her party skyward in a shockwave of momentum.
It wasn't meant for battle advantage, it was meant for strategic retreat.
But at this point, Thor wouldn't even know she was capable of such an ability. Lee only wondered for a second if it was cheating to use things meant to happen in the future now.
But since the game and the novel were completely different storylines, he had no problem with breaking canon.
Especially when it came to saving his life.
He leaned forward. "Lady Thor! You have no reason to trust me except that all our lives are presently at stake. I have an idea that I think might work."
Thor's narrowed eyes flicked toward him. And then at Astensia before replying, "I'm listening."
"We're on the highest floor of this building. So raise your hammer to the ceiling and summon as much mana as you can into it, when you sense a click in your chest, strike the hammer on the floor as hard as you can!"
"What?"
"You must trust me, Thor! That's the only way we leave this place alive."
The demon spawns snarled, lunging at them.
Thor hesitated.
"DO IT!" Astensia shouted fiercely, blocking three demons with her shield. "If the Heavenly Hero believes it, then I believe it too!"
Thor locked eyes with Asleroc, and her gaze turned serious. She turned toward the horde, raised her mallet, and whispered, "As you command… Heavenly Hero."
Crackles of lightning started to fill the air, building around her lifted hammer.
'Thor's powers capture mana in its most destructive form; raw and unfiltered energy,' Asleroc thought as he watched her.
'Letting her wield one of the most powerful elements: lightning. Once she gathers enough mana on her hammer, hitting the ground compresses gravity and sends her and her selected party into a vertical launch channelled from the rebound.'
"Haaaahhhh!"
Thor slammed the hammer down with celestial force and it struck the ground like a meteor.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The earth cracked into pieces around them, but lit up at the same time with bright blue runes. They detonated. Upwards.
A cylindrical force field of lightning surrounded them, and the earth beneath their feet compressed like a trampoline, just before it—
WHOOOOSSH!!
All three were shot up the cylinder force with a burst of energy. Wind pulled at them. They could feel mana crawling on their skin.
Astensia grabbed Lee's arm tight. Thor hurled her hammer hand upward, shattering the ceiling on top as the force pulled them skyward like arrows from a divine bow.
The demons below fell as the earth shattered beneath them.
Lee and the Heroines exploded through the broken spire's upper rim, soaring into the open sky.
For a second, he thought he was flying. Below was the ruined castle of Valorend, and surrounding it was a vast ocean of green.
The Forest of Fyll.
Then they started to fall.
"Stay close, my Worship!" Astensia yelled over the rushing air, guarding hers and Lee's fall while Thor used her hammer to control her own.
They plummeted past the castle and the blackened earth and caves around it, until the forest floor broke their fall.
Astensia landed softer, careful not to shatter Asleroc 's leg bones. Thor's landing was louder, causing the earth to cave in.
Not long after they composed themselves, a loud shriek erupted from the castle, and a hole shattered through its wall.
"That sounds like a demon dragon," Thor whispered, gazing into the sky. "We can't stay here."
Asleroc gulped. He knew how deadly demon dragons were after reading some of the bloodiest battles in the novel.
Astensia stepped forward, relief in her voice. "The ambient mana here… is clean."
She reached into her dimension pocket and withdrew a shimmering cube etched with sigils.
A Portal Box.
SCREEEEEEEE!!
The dragon's cry filled the air.
"Hurry!" Thor shouted. "It's seen us!"
Astensia quickly slammed the Box into the ground and a ring of light burst outward.
"My Worship! Inside, quickly!"
Asleroc took one final glance at the demon dragon, seeing how its scales glistened from the distance with a corruptive purple. Then he dove inside the circle.
Thor followed swiftly, and finally—just as the dragon descended with jaws wide open—Astensia leapt inside.
The dragon's jaws snapped at that same moment, but it only took a bite of an empty forest as the portal withered into mana particles.