The Spearmaster and the Black Cat

The night sky was dyed by a cold, silver light. Demons bustlingly gathered underneath the spearmaster and the black cat as if to transform the night sky into the same kind as it could be seen in the Spirit World.

Those demons were hostile to each other. They were in the middle of showing off their individual might and prowess.

One of them was a plant-based demon who moved around, repeatedly using the clouds for cover. That demon glared at the twin moons that flooded the area with their glow. It wasn’t as though the demon particularly loathed the twin moon gods.

The two bulges at her chest betrayed the demon as a woman. Repeatedly swaying her plant arms, she remembered the god-slaying flash triggered by the spearmaster. She harbored deep interest in that tough spearmaster of Sela.

While pondering whether she should try to destroy him, muttering, 『Maybe I should test him out with a strike of ancient magic?』, she created pebbles and wooden stakes around herself, before beginning a charge. She kept creating vortexes of pebbles and stakes while swallowing up countless demons within.

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“Vaa-chan’s favorite spearmaster, I’m going to back you up――”

The gigantic, black rabbit Shaysad fought against a freaky wakame demon with countless wakame stalks growing out of its body as if to cover me. The two swords swung by him moved very quickly.

Something similar to shark fangs protruded out of the wakame body, but he bisected its body alongside the fangs.

At that moment, another wakame monster approached me as well.

“Sacrifice, sacrifice! Devour, devour――” It babbled with a rough tone.

Rollodeen dealt with that monster.

“Nyagoaaa――”

Widening her muzzle, she suddenly spat out terrifying, crimson flames. Their tremendous heat was even passed onto me, the one holding her tentacle rein.

Monsters with wakame stalks or huge moth-like objects growing out of their bodies were enveloped by the flames, vanishing. The scent of baked seaweed spread into the vicinity.

But, they burned down so quickly that I couldn’t even confirm their carbonization. My partner’s flames were just that powerful.

――Yet, the number of enemies was huge.

A demon closing in from the right entered my visual field. A horned demon? It was a demon with its wings and hands fused.

It drew closer at high speed, but got counterattacked as I had swung Baldok from the lower right to the upper left while twisting my right hand. As soon as the red ax blade struck its right flank, it cleaved its body open all the way to the left shoulder, resulting in its torso being sliced apart. Blood and intestines sprayed into the sky as if forming a circle.

Moreover, I heard a strange “Girelmo girelmo――” squeaking from above as a demon charged at me. The demon’s appearance was as weird as its voice. It looked disgusting with its accumulation of long tongues. Violet red tongues extended in all directions from its body while at the same time coiling around themselves as well.

I’m not sure whether you can actually call that a body in the first place.

Up in the sky, I also happened to spot monsters or demons consisting of a single arm like Sabeed Kenziro of the demonic labyrinth, but…I think it’s my first time to see a demon made out of nothing but tongues.

It scattered mucus, melting the earthworm-like demons around it. And while revolving around its own axis, it charged at me who was right below it.

That mucus is acidic, huh? That’s why I don’t intend to let that huge tongue cluster get close to Rollodeen.

Ice magic would have been fine as well, but I first activated three instances of <Shining Chain Lance>. Even the sudden appearance of the light spears didn’t cause the tongue bastard to stop its descent.

But, once all three spears stabbed the core of the tongue cluster, it came to a halt.

It’s a light-based spear skill, so I guess it works well against some tongue abominations.

And then, just as usual, the rear part of the spears squirmed and transformed into light nets while revolving. But, the tongue monster was huge. Even the three light nets couldn’t cover all of its body. Even so, a part of the nets clung to the monster, and cut its tongues apart in a mesh pattern.

Several net-shaped wounds were created in the tongue flesh, and a part of the divided tongues turned into cubes before dropping down towards the ground.

Alright, its movements have completely stalled.

Shifting Baldok from the right to the left hand, I rolled Baldok’s handle around on my palm for a few milliseconds, then changed the angle of its butt end, and finally thrust the Magic Dragon Gem out at the tongue bastard.

While glaring at the tongue demon, I passed mana into Baldok through my left hand. My rich mana reached the gem, triggering a synchrotron-radiation-like, dazzling flash of light from within the Magic Dragon Gem in the next instant.

At the same time as light energy, which would probably look differently depending on the angle of observation, was generated, a broad, ice blade extended in a straight line from the dragon gem. Ice Claw had activated.

The point of the ice sword stabbed deeply into the center of the demon’s crowded tongue cluster. I added my right hand to the handle of Baldok, shifting to a two-handed hold while adjusting my gripping locations.

It might now look as if I’m wielding a huge two-handed sword.

“It can’t cut space, but chopping up tongues is a piece of cake!”

With that declaration I swung Baldok as if severing space right in front of me, diagonally to the right. As soon as the ice blade bisected the upper half of the tongue monster, I cut off my mana supply to the Magic Dragon Gem. It caused Ice Fang to vanish in the next moment.

While feeling a cold wind grazing past my head, I shifted to a one-handed hold of Baldok. I whirled around Baldok on my right palm as if playing with a pencil. After I let Baldok roll across my forearm, I arrested the violet, metallic handle under my right armpit.

I didn’t check the final moments of the tongue monster. Instead I leaned on Rollodeen while being careful about not injuring her with Baldok’s ax blade. As I pressed my body against her fluffy black fur on her back, Rollodeen dashed straight ahead while releasing explosive flames as if creating a burning path in the air.

At that point…

“Shuuya-sama, I might be late, but I shall participate in the battle!”

“Sorry for keeping you waiting――”

Rotalz and Kisara had arrived. Instinctively I checked the sky above me.

The filaments that had radially expanded from the hole in her witch spear had transformed into blades. Each time the blades swayed, many demons were chopped apart. When she swung its spearhead from the left to the right, a gargoyle-shaped demon, which had approached her, was bisected.

The witch spear caused a big whirlwind.

Kisara looked wonderful in her sleeveless witch outfit. She was confronting a demon with a crown of roses as she unleashed continuous kicking techniques to the left and right as if dancing.

She shifted to a one-handed hold of the witch spear, and immediately after dodging a whip attack by nimbly shifting her body, she exhibited her <Magic Breath>.

Following that, the grimoire at her waist started to gleam as she continued pulling cartwheels. Small, layered magic crests manifested at her wrists.

Crows from her rosaries? Or it might be daggers.

Taking some distance from the rose monster that had unleashed the whip attack, she kept her combat distance.

Rotalz released a diffused light spell, severing a great number of demons crosswise. The demons were slaughtered at the same levels as previously from Rollodeen’s flame breath.

At that point, my visual field quickly changed, triggered by Rollodeen suddenly altering her flight. Rollo took a sharp turn as if to force her way into a cluster of demons.

Even as I felt an intense pressure pushing against my body, I spotted an eyeball demon on my left side. And then a big soil cluster passed the place where Rollo had been moments ago.

Huge! So Rollo evaded that, huh?

Going by the blast power as it blew away a part of the Sea of Trees below, the quality of the clustered mana was extremely high.

Was it ancient magic? It looks like someone is targeting Rollodeen and me from the distance.

I checked the direction from where it came, and could only spot a plant-based demon fighting Shaysad while moving every now and then.

They say the darkness of nothingnessrecklessness is scarier than true darkness, but I guess that rule also applies to some demons. The skeleton mage Hazes was nearby as well.

He had created a magic crest which summoned countless black umbrella-like objects. As he muttered, “I guess I’ll show this child, of the second generation, to Shuuya-san, the new master of the Sea of Trees…” he created a child with flames within its body out of thin air by swinging his wand.

The flame-clad child made rapier-shaped flame swords appear from its hands, and began to fight while dancing through the air alongside Hazes who wielded his wand. Moreover, an eerie cackling could be heard from the skull at the tip of Hazes’s wand.

As soon as he held the wand up, countless golden skulls appeared from it, all flying towards a demon with a caterpillar-shaped lower body.

Those guys are his enemies, huh?

Without minding him any further, I shot <Chain> at another enemy. An eyeball monster was the target. The chain’s tip penetrated the monster which resembled Adombrally, and kept piercing through other eyeball monsters behind it.

I continued manipulating <Chain> so as to make it plunge through the sky, succeeding in slaying dozens of eyeball monsters. But, thanks to all the eyeballs hanging on the chain, the chain itself became somewhat heavy.

Accordingly I erased <Chain>. At the same time, chunks of meat fell down like powdered snow. A spectacle similar to the blood banquet – though I didn’t use the skill – unfolded in the air. Of course, Rollodeen and I enjoyed the blood with our bodies, absorbing all of it.

I perceived lively movements from the tentacles attached to Rollodeen’s neck.

『Prey』『Hunt』『Sky King』『Play』『Prey』『Delicious』『Blood』『Blood』『Play』『Sky』『Hunt』

At the same time, she passed her feelings on to me. They clearly told me that she had a blast. As expected, it might stem from the good affinity. Far from running away upon seeing Rollodeen, the swarming demons came chasing after her as if asking to be preyed upon.

While continuing her high-speed maneuvers, Rollodeen deployed her tentacle bone swords in all directions. Each time my partner passed a flock of demons, countless of them filled the night sky with chunks of their bodies.

Suddenly, Rollodeen targeted a big demon. Swooping down skillfully by folding her black wings, she firmly grabbed the demon with the sharp claws of her forepaws, bit into it, and started to devour its flesh.

She looks like it’s very delicious…

At that moment, Kisara’s fighting entered my line of sight.

“Kisara! Don’t try the impossible! Don’t chase too far!”

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“Okay, I will create a safety zone――”

Kisara was calm. Together with Rotalz, she was aiming for places where Rollodeen and I definitely wouldn’t wreck havoc. As if to create a safety zone in the sky, she continuously mowed down and stabbed winged demons with her blood-stained spearhead, slaying one of them after the other.

Moreover, the battle between the demons had become more intense, too. As it was convenient, we took some distance from them, gazing at the battlefield from a bit further away.

The divine domain’s warrior team, which was fighting Hoffmann and his ilk, was quite powerful. A slender divine warrior, who was releasing a golden aura, deployed rosaries from both arms.

I think it’s the one who introduced himself as Deltabard Buu?

The deployed rosaries formed layered, golden magic crests and flew alongside those crests. The number of those flying crests was enormous. The crests seemed to be explosive spells.

An apparently superb humanoid demon with multiple eyes on Hoffmann’s side tried to cut those crests, but the instant his sword touched one, the crest exploded, blowing the demon into smithereens.

However, even if his friends got finished off, Hoffmann himself was powerful. I happened to watch the fight between him and the Death Butterfly women, and this was just like back then.

Hoffmann’s body had parted into two halves. One maintained its human form while the other had changed into a world of darkness.

Is the darkness world a big, dark mantle? Or a huge aura of darkness? I suppose it’s a wave of another dimension. It’s kinda hard to describe it, though.

The darkness half swayed suspiciously. Meanwhile, there was no change to the human half. The magic swords extending from the five fingers of his normal hand looked classy with their kanji inscriptions.