Chapter 895: Settlement in Ashes
"...No matter how I look at it, having the reach of a polearm while still being able to slash like a blade and stab like a spear with a spiked tip sounds like the peak of practicality to me."
Glancing towards the Arachne’s bladed limb on the ground, Elaine continued, "It’d be even better if the scythe blade could retract, so it functions like a normal polearm until I want to slash with it, then the blade would extend out."
She continued muttering these justifications under her breath, fully aware that her desire to wield a scythe truly came from seeing a grim reaper character in a movie and thinking the weapon looked cool.
Inferior Sovereign Ancient-Breed godslayer or not, Elaine was still a 17-year-old girl influenced by the ’Rule of Cool’.
Glancing at the half-dead Arachne lying on the ground, she shook her head and scolded herself under her breath.
"Now’s not the time for this. I made too much noise, so other monsters are likely already coming here. It would be wise to avoid unnecessary battles till I understand where I ended up."
With that, she kicked off the ground and dashed into the darkness, leaving the crippled Arachne behind in a condition where it would’ve honestly been kinder if she’d just killed it outright.
It would be left there in its own blood and pain, and when scavengers and other monsters found it, they’d eat it, many of them doing so while it was still alive, dragging out its suffering until the end.
Unfortunately for the Arachne, it had crossed paths with Elaine, someone who carried an aversion to killing, and as a result, the final moments of its life would be filled with nothing but agony.
Elaine’s fear of killing indirectly resulted in greater cruelty as she’d outsourced the death dealing of the monster to nature.
While the poor Arachne’s remaining life slowly trickled out, Elaine raced through the forest, leaping from tree to tree, moving as fast as possible so she could escape the range of anything that might’ve sensed the energy released during her fight, and also so she could get out of the forest as quickly as she could.
As she moved, she began noticing lights beyond the treeline.
"A settlement?" she asked herself, but a moment later, she recalled the strength of the monster she’d just fought and frowned as she internally questioned the kind of settlement that would exist so close to a forest housing monsters like that.
’Maybe the people living there are strong enough not to consider that Arachne a threat...’
That was a possibility that didn’t sit well with her since it meant that said people could pose a serious threat to her.
Still, Elaine didn’t slow down, not until she burst out of the forest. The sight she was met with immediately after emerging from the forest confirmed that the lights she’d seen really did belong to a settlement.
They were the lights of a settlement in flames.
◇ ◇ ◇
Beneath the starry night sky lay a broken wall that opened onto a wide street, the buildings lining the messy street either completely dark with their lights off or lit up in flames.
Overturned vehicles of various types littered the streets, some engulfed in flames, crackling and popping as the fire lit up the street with blazing light.
The entire street teemed with winged creatures, hunting down fleeing, terrified Infernal Devils.
Elaine’s brain instantly analysed the scene, the demonic energy and draconic traits of the creatures making it easy for her to identify them.
She also understood she had no idea what the fight was even about, and, confronted with the scene of carnage, only two words came to mind.
"Yeah, nope."
Without hesitation, she turned and dashed to the side, deciding to avoid the settlement entirely and search for another one to gather information.
Sadly, reality tended to go off the script in situations like this.
*KIEEEAKKK!!!
"!"
That deafening screech made Elaine snap her gaze upward just in time to see one of the demonic-dragonkin dive bombing her, forcing her to leap to the side, closer to the crumbled city walls, narrowly avoiding the massive blast that erupted as it crashed onto the ground.
The shockwaves from the explosion threw her into the air and toward the city, but she managed to flip and land on her feet.
Unfortunately, she landed too close to a group of demonic-dragonkin who had just finished feasting on an Infernal Devil’s corpse.
Silence pervaded as the black-winged, reptilian creatures, each at least 1.5 metres tall with elongated beaks and clawed talons, stared at Elaine with their large slit-pupiled eyes.
Neither of the four parties moved for a moment, but in the next, the demonic-dragonkin roared and spread their wings wide, their clawed hands stretching along the wing membranes like those of a bat.
Screeching loudly, they all charged at Elaine, eliciting a sigh from the teenager as she opened her palm and condensed a sphere of death energy.
"Necrotic Burst."
The sphere detonated into a spread of energy missiles that cut through the air toward the charging creatures, ripping through wings and bodies, piercing flesh and membranes, tearing away some of their legs and shredding their wings, sending them slamming into the ground.
Even so, they weren’t dead, as the powerful life force Elaine sensed within them fought to regenerate their flesh, pushing back against the corrosive nature of her death energy.
She rose to her feet and fired several more shots into their torsos, then turned and summoned her spear while lifting her gaze to the sky at the flock drawn by the screeches of the 3 she’d just incapacitated.
"Just perfect," Elaine muttered, expanding her Drain Field and coating her spear with death energy, which caused the flying creatures to stumble as weakness washed over them from the sudden loss of life force.
She launched herself into the air, the tip of her spear gleaming as it pierced through the torso of the first airborne dragonkin, and before its body could fall, she pushed off it and leapt toward the next, stabbing into its joints and wings with rapid thrusts, landing on the street before springing toward a nearby building, running along its wall and using it as a ramp to leap upward and thrust her spear through another creature’s wings.
With her Life Ripple active, every strike suppressed their regeneration, stopping them from healing as they fell to the ground one after another, limbs severed and wings torn apart.
By the time Elaine touched down again two minutes later, fifteen demonic dragonkin lay scattered across the street, their bodies twitching on the ground.
Just then, a car behind her exploded, and one of the larger, two-metre-tall creatures burst through the wreckage, charging forward while roaring.
Elaine converted death energy through her heart and infused it into her spear, but before she could attack, she sensed a swell of magical power rising from farther behind her.
It was followed by a streak of light that tore through the air and pierced the creature’s head from behind, breaking it apart into fragments of flesh, and then another that blasted open a gaping hole through its chest.
Right after, a rain of arrows came down on the incapacitated creatures around her, two piercing each head and chest, and Elaine immediately turned toward the source of the arrows with a wary gaze.
Leaning out from a third-floor window of one of the half-destroyed buildings was a devil clad in light armour, waving at her with one hand while holding a compound bow in the other.
"Hey there, little miss. Sorry for kill-stealing, but those ones on the ground were gonna stand back up soon."
Before Elaine could even think of how to respond, someone else rushed out through the building’s front door, and when he saw the arrows lodged in the dead creatures on the street, he looked up at the archer in the window and shouted.
"Dude, I told you to tell her before you killed them!"
"The big one showed up all of a sudden," the archer shouted back. "There wasn’t enough time for me to say anything."
Elaine quietly took a step back while watching them interact, and as though he’d sensed her movement, the one on the ground turned toward her, lowering his spear as he spoke.
"Sorry about the idiot up there. But in case you didn’t know, these demonic wyrmlings have strong regeneration.
If you don’t take out their heads or hearts, they’ll regenerate and get back up."
The information was welcome, though it wasn’t truly necessary, since Elaine had already ensured they wouldn’t recover after sensing that they possessed such an ability.
"Sorry about him stealing your kills," the spearman went on, and Elaine remained silent for a moment before finally replying.
"It matters not. I wasn’t going to kill them either way."
The archer and spearman blinked in confusion, but Elaine didn’t say anything further. She wasn’t about to tell random strangers about her trauma, after all.
That wasn’t the only reason she stopped speaking, however, as she sensed another life sign approaching, one with low vitality compared to the other two before her, but possessing immense magic power.
’At least 1.5x mine...’
As soon as she made that assessment, the voice of the person she’d sensed rang out.
"Guys! I’m done."
Stepping out from an intersection was a staff-wielding female Infernal Devil dressed in black robes and wearing a necklace with a fist-sized round wooden centrepiece, and when she noticed Elaine, the hand she’d been waving at the other two froze, her expression turning to confusion.
"A little kid...?"
Elaine’s brow twitched at the remark, but before she could respond, a fourth voice sounded from behind her.
"We’ve wrapped up everything on our end. Knight’s handling the last evacuations."
Turning around, Elaine spotted another Infernal Devil, one so tall and heavily built that she briefly wondered if giant blood ran through him.
He stood close to three metres tall, a tower shield suited to his size strapped to his back and a short sword held in one hand as he stepped out from the opposite corner, his infernal magic power violently bursting from his body.
Elaine raised her spear right away, channelling magic power into it as she shifted into a combat stance.
Noticing this, the shield bearer blinked, then immediately coated his sword with aura as he scanned the area warily.
"Are there other wyrmlings left?" he asked.
The archer and spearman also raised their weapons, and seeing this, the only female of the group sighed and facepalmed, her long robes fluttering as she turned to the shield bearer and spoke.
"You idiots, it’s us. We’re the ’enemies’."
The three men all turned toward her, clearly confused, and she sighed again, but before she could say anything, another voice rang out.
"Look at your physical positions, guys. It looks like you’re surrounding her or something. Of course, she’d be wary."
