Fracture activated as the spike lay embedded into the giant’s heel. Spikes of ice pierced out from every possible angle as blue slime oozed out, before suddenly they all shattered and exploded taking half a leg with them. As flesh, hide, scale and bone gored the snow the demon screeched in agony as it fell sideways.

The demon raised both its arms up and crashed them down to hold itself from falling, it glanced down at it’s foot. The front half of the foot was still attached to the leg though some hide and shimmering green scales that lay beneath. It pulled itself up straightening both arms, it continued to move towards the town using its arms for legs.

“Seriously!? Damn bastard!” Kyle cursed as the effects of mana exhaustion counted down, “Sly I’m OOM!” he shouted down.

Sly had been thrown off from the blast and was recovered by his direwolf, Kurt continued to run along with giant with Karnage catching up.

Skill grimaced as he shot another Show Weakness at the demon’s left arm “Fuck that thing’s tough, the legs barely had much for scales but that thing’s a battering ram!” his eyes went wide as he infused mana into his voice “The arms are too tough to break through with our attacks! Kyll can you do that again!?”

Sly was the one to answer “Kyll’s out of mana, he can’t! I’m too low on aura and stamina right now!” he also grimaced as he studied the arm, “How the hell do we bring this thing down?” he whispered to himself.

Suddenly a voice infused with mana filled the forest “Mages begin casting! Warriors prepare to launch! Archers take aim!” Birse barked commands as the army of adventurers took positions in the trees.

The adventurers stared up at the demon in awe, shock or fear.

Death’s mana infused voice followed “Mages cast with me! Chant my chant! We’ll burn that fucker down!” from his position on a high tree branch he raised both arms upwards and began to chant, his voice infused with mana “By the power of mine and theirs, by the magic within us, we chant together as one! Joint casting!” his arms burst into flames as a crimson aura blazed around him.

Death continued to chant as did every mage who chanted alongside him, this time in almost perfect unison “Burn down their flesh, turn their bones to ash, god of life, god of destruction, god of fire. Lend me your flame! Inferno!”.

Ethereal fire shot out from each mage and flowed into the sky merging with the rest, a more physical sphere of fire began to grow at a quick pace above the forest.

The demon roared in frustration at the sight of the flames, it quickened it’s pace.

Barrage after barrage arrows rained on the demon as it approached, it’s hide thick enough to stop the arrowheads from having the force to damage the scales underneath.

“Warriors fall back on me! Prepare the line further back! It’s approaching too quickly!” Birse commanded as the melee fighters fell back alongside him.

“40%!” Death shouted as he continued to concentrate on his magic with the other mages, groups of them casting together all over the forest ahead of the demon alongside a couple melee guards defending them.

“Siegers go!” Zaahr’s voice joined in with his own command as four groups of a dozen fighters dashed through the forest with him, lightweight melee fighters making use of their mobility. They closed in on the demon’s left hand as it landed “Climb!” he commanded.

Kyle seeing this also decided to climb but the moment he tried to pull on the dagger an explosion of force pushed him off “Shitty system!” he cursed as he flew off the demon’s leg, he spun around as he flew through the air. Activating Surge alongside the momentum of the blast he barely reached the demon’s left arm, clawing his way into the hide he took deep breaths as exhaustion set it.

He rested his head onto the tough hide as he thought over his current predicament, out of mana and out of stamina. His mana regeneration wouldn’t set in until mana exhaustion from using Core Overload ran out and his stamina wasn’t in the best shape. He looked up at the arm (“I’ll run out of stamina climbing so many times I can’t count them on my fingers…”).

Kyle glanced at the fire ball forming in the sky ahead, he clenched his claws onto the hide “Am I really useless for now?”. He looked at his hands, claws digging into the hide as the only thing holding him. He struggled to even hold on, it’s all he thought he could do.

“Single demon! No foot soldiers!” Sly’s mana infused voice filled everyone’s ears as he reported the situation out loud. Riding his direwolf he headed towards Birse’s location to join the melee fighters, Karnage followed close by.

“Everyone is doing what they can, why the fuck am I giving up now?” Kyle scolded himself, he focused a stare at the arm he held onto, racking his brain for anything he could think of. “This world…is no game, this is our reality” he whispered to himself “Stop thinking of it as a game, stop thinking of it’s rules as set realities within a sandbox!”.

His claws dug deeper into the hide but no blood came out, the wound not deep enough to bleed. “If only I could use my magic…without it it’s back to the bas-” he stopped himself as his eyes opened wide. Kyle stared at the thick tough hide he held onto “The basics…before I got my magic…my class…” he grimaced “This will suck”.

“I’m a predator” he told himself “This, my prey” he focused on his claws and then his mouth, he pictured them. Their shape, their use, their make. Suddenly he felt pressure on his gums as his teeth changed, replaced by two sets of carnivorous fangs. Kyle gave a toothy smile before opening wide “Thanks for the food” he chuckled before digging into the hide.

It was easy to bite into but tough to tear away, using his new fangs and one clawed hand he tore out pieces of hide before beginning to chew on them. “Bleh, tastes like old heated up pork” he noted as he chewed on more and more hide until he held a mouthful, he swallowed.

A sudden piercing pain in his chest made Kyle shudder in agony “F-fuck…bad…b-bad…ide-a…” he stuttered as he spoke, the pain flowing through his whole body. Kyle began to lose his grip onto the hide as the pain worsened, as if liquid a flow of red went through his eyes joined by another flow of black. The two colours covered the white as the red surrounded the silver and spiked outwards while the black over took the rest.

Demonic energy flows through your body fuelling it;

All debuffs removed

All skill resource cost removed

[Demon’s Toll] curse gained; Sudden death within 10 minutes

Kyle laughed like a mad man as he read the notification, he looked up the arm “A deal with a demon huh? I’ll take it” he mused. He took off his hood revealing his white fox ears tinged with a crimson red at the tips, his tail also lost the tinge of blue and it was replaced with the same.

He glanced at the crossed pitch black bones to the top right of his vision, he tried to focus on them and a timer appeared.

Sudden explosive death in 9:56

It was counting down but Kyle continued to smile “Works for me” he chuckled, “Alright, let’s get to the top” he leaped up and continuously activated surge until he appeared above the demon’s shoulder. He landed on the shoulder and momentarily glanced at the left head, the demon was too busy glaring at the giant fire ball to notice him.

Kyle glanced downwards at the climbing adventurers “Looks like they need a hand” slime exploded from his arms and rapidly flowed downwards, once the slime reached the adventurers they panicked and began hacking away at it. Kyle grimaced “Oi stop you idiots! I’m helping you up!” he shouted with a mana infused voice, they looked up after hearing him, the slime quickly flowed around their waist. He started pulling them up as the excess slime built up on his arms.

Little by little he pulled them up until every single one of them was standing on the demon’s shoulder, Zaahr glanced at Kyle “You still got that much mana remaining?” he asked while staring at the demon’s head.

Kyle grinned “Not really, but I can still go for about eight minutes” he walked towards the head, a couple gallons’ worth of blue slime engulfing his arms and shoulders. “Death how much longer on the fire ball?” he shouted while mana infusing his voice, he glanced at it, twice as large as it was the last time he checked.

“70%! Like four to five minutes?!” Death responded back.

“We need to act fast before we end up barbeque!” Zaahr stated as he continued staring at the demon, “Corn, Rogers, Casey start chanting, everyone else defensive positions!” he barked out commands.

“Yo broccoli what’s the plan?” Kyle glanced curiously at the Apok guildies setting up their formation.

Zaahr glanced back at him but then immediately turned back to stare at the demon “To inflict as much damage as possible on the shoulder, the plan is to dislocate it as a minimum. After that the melee combatants will focus on the head once its down, our rangers say it’s armour is too thick around the head so it will take a while. It’s shoulder is thick but between the neck and shoulder there’s openings, we’ll focus our attacks there.” He explained thoroughly.

Kyle smiled “Cut through those scales and leave the rest to me” he noticed the demon’s head turned to look at them “In the meantime, drop your formation. I’ll deal with it” he surged forward quickly as the demon’s mouth opened “Fuck that smells”.

Black energy began focusing around it’s fangs and formed a sphere within it’s mouth, the pressure released was enough to make Zaahr and his members fall to their knees.

Kyle felt the pressure but before it could drop him down he surrounded himself with slime from the waist down and froze it “Nice try, what’s next fuck face?” he raised his arms in front of himself and they exploded with even more slime, gallons over gallons of slime began forming a wall between the demon’s head and shoulder.

Zaahr shouted “Freeze it quick! It’s about to release!” his tone panicked.

Kyle chuckled “Where’s the fun in that?” he continued to supply the wall with slime, instead of expanding it now kept thickening.

The demon’s mouth curved into a smile as it expanded further, the sphere of flowing black mana released and immediately crashed into the wall of slime.

Kyle laughed with eyes wide “Welcome to class dumbass!” the black sphere shot through the wall of slime pulling it forward with it ”The subject? Physics!“. The sphere suddenly stopped moving after almost reaching Apok, ”Today’s topic? Elasticity” he declared. The wall of slime around the sphere had solidified further stopping the mana from bursting through, the rest of the slime pulled back.

The demon roared as it’s own attack burst back towards it, followed by an explosion of black magic, green blood and blue slime. “Well whatever rules of physics this world has” Kyle joked as the black smoke cleared due to the demon still moving forward.

As the smoke cleared Kyle reared back in disgust, a fleshless carapace of black and green stared back with fiery red eyes as green blood, patches of black hide and blobs of blue slime streaked down it.

“I have to say, you were one ugly mother fucker before but holy shit that’s disgusting” Kyle smirked as he glanced back “Zaahr you ready yet?!”.

Zaahr stared at the demon’s skinned face, his expression one of pure terror.

“Dammit Zaahr” Kyle cursed as a tentacle of slime lashed back and slapped Zaahr across the face “Snap the fuck out of it!”

Zaahr did a double take as he glanced between the demon and Kyle “Y-Yeah, we ready?!” he asked glancing back at his platoon.

“Ready sir!” one of the adventurers answered, his arm clad in a red aura while two others having an arm clad in either blue or green aura.

Zaahr nodded “Buff me” he stated as he threw his grimoire up, the book opened mid-air and began to float as Zaahr chanted “Strengthen my weak flesh with fire” a red aura clad hand grabbed his left shoulder “Cleanse my distorted soul with water” a blue aura clad hand held onto his right. He stared at the demon’s burned face in disgust as he ended his chant “Empower my will with life” the third, green aura clad hand pressed against his back.

The three players behind Zaahr reared back as the aura from their arms rushed into him, the grimoire flipped it’s pages before suddenly stopping and facing Zaahr. “Destroy thee blight, burn thy corruption, shatter thou demon!” his eyes burst with white light as his whole body was engulfed in three auras, crimson red, dark green and aqua blue. He rushed forward towards Kyle.

Kyle unleashed his remaining slime and covered the demon’s face “All yours” he exclaimed before falling back to the others.

Zaahr leaped up with his hands held together at the palms “Holy descent” he activated his skill in mid-air and the three auras merged to turn into a single white blazing aura, the aura twisted and twirled as it settled around his right arm.

He raised his right arm as he fell downwards towards the demon’s shoulder, said demon still busy trying to shake away the giant blob of slime eating away at it’s remaining patches of skin.

“Shatter!” Zaahr shouted as his attack landed, a bright white aura clad fist crashing down into the hide between neck and shoulder. Flesh burned away as the exoskeleton cracked, the demon roared in agony as it stopped moving forward for the first time.

“It stopped!” Kyle announced as he chuckled “Was that a shockwave attack?” he studied the area of impact from where he stood.

Zaahr breathed heavily “Yeah…we need to…get off…now…” he was on his knees.

“Gotcha, gather around!” Kyle called out to the rest as they hauled the three players who buffed Zaahr, all three of them also looked exhausted.

“Now don’t freak out, this might get sticky” Kyle joked as he unleashed even more slime, thick blue tentacles grabbed hold of each of them as a large blob in Kyle’s hand froze over and changed into a spike. Kyle connected the spike to the tentacles and stabbed down into the thick hide, he morphed the spike to freeze over along with some hide. “Hope you aren’t afraid of heights, let’s go” he stated as he walked off the edge, pulling the rest with him.

Many screamed while others cried yet some kept their calm, one was grinning from ear to ear. Kyle laughed as he spun around to look at the others up behind him “Wussies” he spun back as the ground approached.

“INFERNO! BURN BITCH BURN!” Death suddenly shouted, voice infused with mana. The giant ball of flames turned blue momentarily as it shot forward, burning bright red as it flew towards the demon.

Kyle and the rest stopped falling as they almost hit the ground, those who were screaming continued to do so. The slime stretched as their descent speed slowed down before they were all a couple feet from the ground, suddenly the slime instantly melted.

“Take cover!” Zaahr shouted as everyone sprinted away except for those helping out the worn out, Kyle grabbed Zaahr’s arm and threw it over his shoulder.

“Hold on” he said before pulled Zaahr closer and activating surge multiple times.

The ball of fire hit the demon’s injured shoulder head on as it burst into a flare of light, a blast of air shook the trees as the explosion covered it in smoke.

Kyle stopped half way between the demon and the melee groups, he glanced back but couldn’t see through the trees and smoke “Did we get it?”.

“L-L-Let me…G-go…” Zaahr stuttered while glaring at Kyle.

Kyle looked back down at Zaahr before raising a brow “Why are you soft th-OH SHIT” he backed away as Zaahr’s face became blood red. “You’re a chick!?” Kyle exclaimed in complete surprise.

Zaahr covered her chest and glared at him “What the hell else did you think I am!?” cheeks still red as she spoke.

They stared at each other for a couple moments before Kyle broke the ice “This is awkward…” he stated stifling a chuckle (“There’s nothing to cover!”).

Zaahr grimaced and glanced back as the smoke began to clear.

A screeching roar sent a shockwave through the forest as the demon’s two heads crashed through the smoke, the ground trembled momentarily as the demon moved forward. It moved and moved until it began to fall, leaving the smoke behind it it’s shattered and burned shoulder appeared as if a big chunk was bitten off.

The second the beast hit the ground cries of victory filled the forest followed by a single mana infused voice “Charge!” Birse shouted as the melee fighters dashed towards the fallen monstrosity.

Kyle and Zaahr watched as the bulk of their forces charged forward, some sticking out more than the rest.

Nakano charged forward with her greatsword in hand, a fiery red aura engulfing it. “You’re ours now” each step she took raised a burst of steam.

Sly sat above Kurt as it crashed through the forest in a frenzy, a violet aura engulfing the both of them “Time to cut ya up” he chuckled.

Karnage dashed through the trees with a sword per hand, the wind whistled around her as she ran “Don’t hold back!” she declared with mana infused in her voice.

Birse calmly stepped forward as every moment his form turned to shadow and reappeared closer and closer to the demon, his were hands clad in black monstrous claw-like gauntlets. “Not so weak as you thought us to be huh?” he mused “Let’s see what demons are really made of” a grin curving his mouth.

The demon roared out angrily as they approached, it tried to crawl back as it desperately thrashed about. It’s left arm was useless and it’s left leg was no longer there, it was a sitting duck.

The melee fighters approached quickly with weapons ready as the two demon heads stared on at them, they began to calm down as an eerie smile took over.

Kyle’s eyes went wide as he dashed forward, arms raised he summoned everything he could muster as his timer ticked down.

Sudden explosive death in 3:11

Slime burst out of his arms forming a wall between them and the demon, it expanded and expanded until he collapsed onto his knees. The wall froze over and condensed as more and more slime was added to it, a notification appeared.

Overuse of mana negatively affected you: Sudden death -3m

Sudden explosive death in 0:08

“Shit not now!” he cursed as his vision began to blur, the frozen wall of slime expanded backwards and surrounded Kyle walling him away from the others as they watched.

The demon head-butted the wall forming small dents as it opened it’s mouths, dark energy formed around both mouths but instead of unleashing it the demon bit down and the ground began to rumble. It started with the heads as they imploded into themselves until the whole of the demon’s body fell on itself, flesh tore, blood splattered and bones crumbled as some unknown force squashed the demon into a ball of meat and bone.

Sudden explosive death in 0:03

The demon’s remains exploded with so much force that the wall of packed ice cracked as pieces flew off, the blast flowed around the wall and into the forest.

The others held on to the trees as the blast wave pushed them back, suddenly the sphere that held Kyle lit up in a bright red light as massive amounts of heat flowed out from it melting the ice which suddenly began turning back into slime.

(Demon’s toll) curse has killed you

You have died!

Death penalty (Level 20 - 1)

You are now Level 19

No bound respawn points found

Respawning at closest spawn point in 2:30

Kyle watched as his wall collapsed, he watched but could not move, speak or hear anything. He glanced around but he had no body, no arms, legs or anything to call his. He watched as his allies got blast away along with the forest, an unending force of power bursting out of where the demon once lay.

Trees uprooted and flew off as the ground lay uncovered from snow and trembling, the slime dissipated as no mana pool held it. Suddenly the waves of wind stopped as a thin layer of red mist covered the area momentarily, as the mist began to clear Kyle searched for the demon.

(“What is…”) if he had a mouth it would lay wide open just as if he had eyelids, where the demon once stood reality seemed to have been scarred. A rift of flowing black stood open about a storey tall and a couple meters wide, black lightening sparked all around it lashing out at the ground.

Kyle stood a couple meters away from it but still felt the pull, as if his body wasn’t there but the strange occurrence hungered for his lingering soul. Slowly he was pulled towards it and there was nothing he could do, he couldn’t pull back, he couldn’t even move except looking around.

(“No…”) he thought due to the absenteeism of his mouth (“Don’t…I won’t! I won’t end here! Not like this!”) his emotions grew in disarray as he approached the rift.

The rift’s surface shuddered as bulges began forming, as he got closer they grew into full arms of pitch black energy. Hundreds of arms lined up towards him as he watched the closer ones grow longer and grab at him, he felt them as if something cold and sharp had grabbed his heart.

(“N-No!”) Fear engulfed him as he was pulled closer and closer to the rift, (“Someone…Anyone…Please!”) he felt the grip on his heart tighten making him screamed internally in agony.

(“Greetings hero, our mistress sends her regards.”) a chilling voice echoed in Kyle’s mind as he stared into the rift.