Seeing the carriage come to a halt, the small group of fiends grew to double the amount in mere moments, all forms of deformed faces and bodies revealed in the torchlight of the carriage.
Momo's tail began to fluff out, forming a fluffy whip-like shape; her eyes were wide, with narrow pupils, as the stress and terror began to build within her.
'No, Momo! You need to be stronger, watch them and don't look away! How can I get strong if these monsters make me so scared!'
Her tail swaying, body trembling, Momo stayed watching them, her hands almost ripping into the metal barrier than protected her legs from the wind and rain.
The former humans had been twisted into demonic fiends, their once-human forms now distorted beyond recognition.
'What are they!?' Momo asked herself, she had seen goblins and orcs, but none were as evil and disgusting as these creatures.
Her tail swaying, she forced herself to watch them carefully.
Their limbs had elongated and mutated, with jagged claws and fierce teeth protruding from their gnarled extremities.
Losing their semblance of humanity, their skin had become discoloured, ranging from sickly greens to deep purples. It was stretched taut over their sinewy frames, revealing every sinew and muscle beneath.
Momo thought they resembled a strange and deformed werewolf. However, she only had books to imagine what a werewolf looked like, never seeing one in the flesh due to their rarity.
She could feel her heart pumping blood as it surged through her body, filled with excitement from the adrenaline, her eyes began almost to glow golden as the fear slowly faded, turning into something else, yet she was not confident enough to act upon this feeling.
Only letting out small, threatening growls at the fiends that slowly crept closer, with a slightly larger one at the lead, her wolf eyes saw around 12 at least.
Once again, she got a better look, as the carriage light reacted to her emotions as they were partially linked, showing them in further detail as they stood five metres away as if scared of the light.
"Eh?"
Once warm and full of life, their eyes had been transformed into cold, unfeeling orbs glinted with cruel intelligence.
All of their hair had fallen out, replaced by coarse, matted fur that bristled and twitched with every movement, each with bulking muscles that were never humanoid, twisted and throbbing despite not moving as if prepared to strike in an instant.
Below their bodies, a moderately good-sized member dangled.
However, Momo had seen a Vincent, so these males still looked like children in their dormant state; if these friends heard this, it might completely crush the last of their human wills.
The moment she relaxed her guard, one of the fiends shot forward, smashing into the carriage before a strange black barrier formed, sending the fiend flying into the distance before crashing into a tree, destroying its thick trunk like chalk.
"!!!" Momo gasped as her fear surged. Yet, she didn't flee and continued waiting, wondering when Vincent and the other women would appear.
The air around them crackled with otherworldly energy, and their presence made the bravest warriors tremble with fear.
A slight click sounded; even the fiends didn't hear it with their monstrous senses, so Momo didn't realise either.
Vincent stood on the top of the carriage, his normal visage now with longer, black horns and two ink-black plumes on his ears, like the bloodlines fused; however, this was just the proper form, his Phoenix blood as the baseline, with a little bit of the dragon mixed.
'Oh? What are these strange, ugly things?' He thought, wondering if any of his cute women would know.
If these fiends were freaks of nature, then Vincent was an abomination of the divine.
[Master, these are inferior creatures, named Voracious Fiends, created when Daemons use their blood to corrupt another, likely that another lesser daemon has done this.]
'I agree, husband; this is most likely not done by a daemon prince or a strong daemon. It's also more like a guiding marker for you, rather than a real warning....' Efrita added, curious about who wanted Vincent to find these things.
She thought this way because there were no other daemons in Vandis, and the only person she could think of was Odette's father, likely in his last tinges of human will; he leaves these clues for Vincent so that he would be on guard in the capital.
Silvari was quiet as she stood a few steps behind him, the cold blue winds of ice forming a strange mantle on her body before countless ice spikes formed, their glistening sharp tips more than twice the size and thickness of her past self back when they fought in the first few floors of the dungeons.
'They move well, though, darling. Don't underestimate them. These things don't move by logic and reason; desire and hunger fuel them!'
Vincent nodded, thanking his helpful and caring women in his heart, his foot stepping on the tails of Zera, who tried to sneak away and attack first; this girl was used to him doing this or playing with them, so although they fluffed up and her ears stuck up straight, she didn't let out a sound.
"!!!!" Zera snapped her head back, with a look half annoyed, with tinges of pleasure and sadness.
Despite their twisted appearance, there was a terrible beauty to these demonic fiends. Their movements were fluid yet wild, like feral animals, as if every sinew and muscle was perfectly in tune with their wicked will.
And though their forms were twisted and distorted, there was a primal power to their presence that was impossible to ignore.
"Wait a moment," Vincent whispered as he leaned closer to Zera's ear, kissing her cheek gently, which caused her to relax and become like jelly, flopping down and nodding.
'Most people who are unfortunate enough to cross these guys would be ripped apart, their women used as playthings....' Vincent thought, seeing the power of their bodies and feeling their hot mana which warmed the nearby air.
'Interesting!'
The demonic fiends moved with terrifying speed; their jagged claws and sharp teeth could easily tear through flesh and bone; some of them lunged towards Momo, who slowly began to build a sense of confidence and no longer trembled; this was Vincent's plan as he didn't want any weak women or those that couldn't fight at least to protect themselves.
'I don't want any damsels; even if I have to take them into the medallion for an entire year, I'll make all of them strong!'
Vincent watched the voracious fiends who began to circle the front of the carriage before the one at the lead began to move forward and spoke.
"Miiiss, we are not going to hurt you!" His long twisted tongue caused some of his letters to be elongated as the disgusting mass of muscle and flesh began to try to lower Momo's guard.
'Ah, this disgusting thing just spoke to my cute wolf...'
A sense of jealousy and anger filled Vincent as the leader seemed to sway his member as if showing off to her.
His left hand reached out, and the cute Raizel burst into a dim black light, forming the deadly spear in his hands.
"You dare touch my wife!?" He roared, throwing the weapon with perfect aim. The blade cut through the creature's torso without resistance, splitting it cleanly.
Zera jumped up, leaping off the carriage and grabbed the shaft, holding it firmly with both hands as the wound healed instantly.
"Yah! Yaaaah!!" She screamed gleefully as she swung the spear around, using her strength to swing it like a club; the healing fiend was instantly vaporised before Zera seemed bored of smashing them with a club.
This caused several others to dodge while the ones behind rushed in.
"Hm...?"
With a swift movement, Vincent jumped down from the air; behind his body were countless blades of ruina that began to shoot towards Zera.
The black blades tore through the ground and caused the limbs of several voracious fiends to explode; the mere speed and sharpness treated their solid outer shell like butter, stopping all the fiends from supporting the dead sub-leader or ganging up on her as she began to struggle to swing the spear like before, now wanting to drop it for her light and deadly daggers.
"Stupid Bad things!!!! Small!!" Zera shouted to mock the fiends assaulting her, their claws and limbs shooting out like a scorpion's tail, trying to catch her arms or soft flesh areas.
"Here, cute lady, let me!" Vincent said with his charming deep voice.
With the same motion, Vincent swiftly grabbed the handle and turned the spear around, stabbing the closest one through its stomach.
"Unya!? Vincent Cool!" Zera cheered as her twin tails snapped out like a vicious whip, snapping the neck of another friend.
"Wonderful, my cute little cat!"
As soon as the blade touched the creature, it exploded with black fire, burning everything it came into contact with.
The heat was intense enough to melt stone, leaving nothing but a pile of ash where the creature once stood.
But as quickly as the flames appeared, they disappeared, causing the surrounding air to cool, revealing the next demon.
Dark eyes began to glow around the entire forest, like there were more than a hundred creatures, just when Vincent began to feel a little stress and wonder if they could handle them all.
A huge burst of flaming lances and frozen spikes began to spray from the carriage top, bursting into the forest with a relentless barrage of death.
"Darling! Don't just play with the cat; all your other pussies are hungry for praise too!" Silvari shouted, her beautiful blue skin almost illuminated by the sheer amount of ice around her body, with two glowing ice-blue horns.
"Husband, I want to be praised too!" Efrita was a little more modest, yet her cute twin tails were like flames as they swayed from her powerful black and magical red flames, her golden eyes shimmering as she ignored the directions and only watched her beloved.
Despite their huge salvo and deadly volley, it seemed that these monsters had bred and increased to a dangerous degree, more and more pouring from the forest as Vincent's body burst out in a black and purple flame.
"All of you, get out here and help slay these fiends! Let's get some training for the tournament now!"
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