All those who were the most powerful of the nine armies hovered above the lake, staring at the couple with completely empty expressions. The red-haired demoness emerged from the water in the center, her hair loose and her body glowing in greenish tones, having absorbed the entire essence of the lake all by herself.
"Master, I told you! It was a man, but... he was a eunuch!" Ruri exclaimed, pointing excitedly at the naked demoness. Realizing the looks, the demoness quickly activated her bloodline and covered herself with golden scales.
"See? See? Nothing on the chest! And below? They cut it all off! What a tragedy..." Ruri put her hands on her face, pretending to cry dramatically, but continued, "Poor thing... that’s why she pretends to be a woman. At least the heavens were kind and gave her a pretty face. She can fool... the most distracted ones, of course."
"YOU! YOU BITCH!" roared the demoness, her face contorted with fury. "Just because you have... those two lumps of fat in front, you think you’re superior?! Please! What do they do? Nothing! Do you think anyone’s impressed by that size, almost like a Dwarf? Hahaha!"
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Ruri puffed out her chest and replied without hesitation: "At least my ’lumps’ aren’t just for decoration. They’re perfect for my purpose as a mother, and master taught me to use them in other fun ways. What about you? Bet your ass is pretty sore and tired, huh? It must have been pretty bad. All these men don’t have master’s proper technique, and you must..."
She stopped, feeling Alm and Bruno’s disapproving stares, before saying something filthy that was better kept between the couple.
The demoness, however, understood the provocation perfectly, turning purple with rage, nearly exploding. "Fuck you! You’re not worth my time!" she roared, and then her eyes pulsed with a scarlet hue.
At the same time, the eyes of everyone around pulsed in sync. The demoness made a gesture, and a wicked energy began to flow from her followers.
In seconds, their bodies began to wither, as if all life and blood were being forcibly drained. Soon, only skeletons covered in skin remained, except for a single demon, who remained intact. All the drained energy converged into him.
"It’s time to play, hehehe..." said the demoness, laughing wickedly, as the mutant demon grunted.
All the absorbed energy was channeled into him, and the transformation was instantaneous. His body became radiant and black, with muscles that seemed made of obsidian, emitting immense pressure. The lake began to evaporate rapidly.
The transformation took only five seconds. Alm, Bruno, and Ruri did not move because they felt that any attempt to interrupt it would be futile. That would only make them lose something valuable that was in her hands.
They noticed that the demoness was watching their movements closely, with a spatial ring in her hand, ready to release something – possibly crystals made from the heroic cores she had stolen from all the armies, as well as accumulated weapons.
The demoness snorted and ordered, "Go, darling, kill them all. But the bitch that looks like a dwarf, tear her arms and legs off and bring her alive to me. She’ll regret being born in this world..."
Ruri spoke with disdain: "Oh? Poor thing... I even tried to help, you know? Gave you the chance to start over correctly." Her voice turned sweet but laden with malice. "Must be hard, huh? Living without... well, certain skills. Ah, well, we can end this suffering now. Maybe next time, you’ll reincarnate as a real woman. Or maybe be born with... I don’t know, a big h..."
Ruri interrupted her speech again, feeling Alm and Bruno’s disapproving glares. She smiled mischievously, and silence hung for a moment until Bruno bit his lips, trying to suppress a laugh. He forced himself to be serious; Ruri was now truly saying whatever she wanted, without any shame. But both of them liked this new side of her.
"Humph, I’ll deal with you slowly later," snorted the red-haired demoness, her bloodthirsty eyes glowing. She didn’t want to prolong the discussion – whether because she was in a hurry or because Ruri was too unsettling – she turned her back and moved towards the second world alone.
*ROAR!*
The mutant demon roared like a wild beast in a frenzy. He wasn’t a pure demon, but a hybrid with a beast. He charged forward with destructive momentum. The space around him shattered, and the earth churned with his power and weight.
Alm and Bruno snorted; the demoness’s mutation was now clear. Before, when observing her preparations for battle against the draconic beasts, they had noticed how she connected all the demons around her, as if she were absorbing part of their power.
Now, they saw something similar, but her mutation displayed an even more sinister potential: the ability to dominate the minds of her victims and, if she wanted, remove everything from them completely. Her mutation allowed her to manipulate the natural energies of others’ bodies with terrifying precision.
On the other hand, the mutation of this other demon seemed to align with hers, directed towards combat. He used this power more effectively than the demoness herself could.
For her, this demon was a real treasure that she could use with her techniques. She had worked hard and managed to seduce the most powerful ones... how she did that is a mystery, and maybe Ruri wasn’t so wrong.
When they gave her an opening, she dominated them. With that, she got a supreme warrior, perfectly under her control. And she defeated all the competition, stealing everything valuable they had. Alm could only admit, admiring her ’perfect’ work.
*BOOM!*
The demon, overcome with wild frenzy, attacked with brutal force.
Alm and Bruno immediately defended, applying the maximum of their earthly laws. However, the impact was crushing, forcing them to retreat several steps. The defensive power of their bodies began to fragment.
Behind them, the draconic beasts widened their eyes, gripped by panic. The golem’s defenses, once considered supreme, were destroyed in a single move. The blood golems, specialists in defense, trembled; had they been in Alm and Bruno’s place, they would have been reduced to bloody mist instantly.
Even so, he planted his spear firmly in the ground, stabilizing himself. Then he moved with determination and attacked with Liumi quickly.
*Clang!*
The sound reverberated like thunder. The spear met absolute resistance, as if hitting an impenetrable steel wall. The demon wasn’t wearing armor, but his skin had supreme defense, while his physique displayed an equally unmatched offensive power.
In that instant, the demon roared and punched the whale with a thunderous force. The sound of bones breaking and blood splattering made everyone swallow nervously. He was sent flying backward, crashing to the ground and creating a trench several meters long.
The demon roared again and leapt into the air, coming down toward the whale with a final, destructive move.
But...
The moment he jumped, a violet shadow appeared. The laws of space and mental power erupted with maximum intensity. Then, the katana slashed toward his right leg.
Everyone watched the move, breath held, but no one believed she could do anything...
"Roar!!"
Contrary to expectations, the demon let out a miserable scream as his leg was severed, detaching from his body.
He spun in the air, trying to hit the small dragoness, but Ruri was quicker, shooting to the distant ground. The demonic figure fell to the ground, legless, just a few meters away from the whale, completely enraged.
Ruri, on the other hand, was breathing heavily, and everyone could feel she had burned every last drop of the little Qi she had to execute that strike.
"Damn, she only had one chance. But she couldn’t get close enough to kill him, and just cut off what she could." Hibria said, completely panicked.
Suddenly, blood flew through the air, and everyone saw a bloody leg being hurled toward the demon.
*BANG!*
The blood-covered golem was hitting the demon’s face with a club... made from his own lost limb!
"That’s so powerful and tough, an excellent and effective weapon!" Bruno murmured sarcastically.
The golem was incredibly fast. In one continuous motion, with millimetric precision, it hit the demon in the face with its own member. The demon’s mouth shattered, and blood spurted not only from his face but also from his leg.
*BANG! BANG!*
"So crude and cool! Hehehe," Ruri murmured, smiling slightly.
Was his body tough and supreme enough? Great, turned into a perfect weapon against him.
The golem attacked repeatedly with the severed leg. Each strike made the leg open even more, scattering flesh and blood everywhere, while the demon’s body cracked. The attacks were aimed at vital points with deadly accuracy.
When the demon’s wounds began to open, Alm and Bruno used something they hadn’t used in a long time: the Behemoth’s poisonous blood. The blood covering their bodies began to infiltrate the enemy’s body with ease.
When the leg became soft and destroyed, the golem released it, but the demon had already stopped moving, completely poisoned, and died soon after.
After sighing heavily, Alm and Bruno turned to Hibria and Nayr: "Let’s go, we don’t have time to waste."
The golem, covered in blood, was regenerating naturally due to its physical cultivation, with wounds closing at an astonishing speed. That was, indeed, abnormal and made the distant observer widen their eyes. However, this was the passive effect of its physical cultivation, something neither Alm nor Bruno could nullify.
They put Ruri on their backs, she wrapped her arms around their necks and closed her eyes. Before that, she had burned all the Qi she absorbed in such a short time, and now she was completely focused on gathering as much as she could again. They, however, couldn’t use their tattoos to help her or do anything remotely abnormal; she had to make the most of every opportunity.
The army snapped out of their stupor and moved quickly toward the exit.
In less than an hour, they spotted the spatial channel. Many runes with information surrounded it. There were all the details about the trial; everyone knew they had to reach this point to read everything about the other two places.
The human had indeed told them many things that weren’t inscribed, like the fact that they couldn’t stay in the first two worlds, and that the first ones to reach the third would get a bonus.
Without delay, they all passed through. They found themselves in a spatial tunnel again, but this time it was much shorter than the entrance. Still, the pressure on them was incredibly greater.
That demoness shouldn’t have gained such a huge advantage because of this; her physique wasn’t that strong. So, without hesitation, Bruno turned to the army behind:
"Burn half the dragon’s blood, and the golems use their earth energy too. Let’s run and get to the other side as fast as possible."
He gave an order that seemed completely insane. Burn half of what they had just to go faster? It hadn’t even been the first day yet, how were they going to survive two more days, in a more dangerous place, already having lost so much?
Everyone thought about it instantly, but, in the next second, without needing more words, they all used their powers and burned. No matter what he said, they all trusted him completely now and would follow him wherever he went.
Without the couple, the draconic beasts would probably have been among the last to enter this trial and would have died before even having a chance to enter the second world. Now, they were marching straight toward winning the trial... None of them had died, and even with all the dangers, that couple still seemed calm and collected, as if everything was just a stepping stone for something much greater.