“You guys really are annoying, you know?” Kazan Karatengu cracked his neck a little.

“Human disguise will not work on us. Reveal yourself, you foul demon!”

Kazan was currently surrounded by at least 30 Holy Knights, led by three Heroes.

Just when he was about to walk away after spending his free time eating out, mostly relaxing, Heroes and Holy Knights managed to track him down.

Since they were here to confront him, Kazan felt no need to disguise himself any longer, revealing his demonic features.

The Heroes in question were the Knights of Hammer, Scimitar, and Dagger.

Knight of Hammer was a tall man wielding a spiked war hammer in both of his hands. His armor was yellowish in color.

Compared to him, Knight of Scimitar and Knight of Dagger did not have that much of a presence. Both of them wielded their respective weapons and wore sky blue armor.

The three of them relied heavily on their enchanted weapons and their blessings in order to combat their enemies.

Compared to the high tier or mid-tier heroes, they were somewhat weaker low tier heroes, but they were still far stronger than Holy Knights.

In time, they would grow and be able to surpass their limits, rising to new levels of power.

To prove their strength, they chose to confront the demon, as soon as one of their subordinates sensed his presence nearby.

He was a strange looking demon, with coal black hair. The most common hair colors in the kingdom were blond and brown, so his hair color was rather rare.

One of his horns was shorter than the other. But there was no mistaking it, this man was no demi-human, he was a bonafide demon.

Back then, the three heroes couldn’t have known that they picked the worst opponent imaginable….

* * *

After sensing a battle nearby, Knight of Light arrived at the place where the battle had taken place.

What she ended up witnessing was a pure massacre.

There were so many corpses, cut into pieces, scattered all over the place.

Much to her horror, she spotted the bodies of two heroes lying on the ground, motionless.

She only recognized them by the medallion on their armor signifying their status as heroes.

After one becomes a hero, one is given a medallion that would be attached to the armor, enchanted with a spell of protection. The emblem on the medallion was the easiest way to tell if someone was a hero.

However, most heroes preferred to wear their customized armor, while the Holy Knights and knights wore standard uniforms.

So, the heroes usually were the ones who stood out from the crowd with their irregular armors.

While Knight of Light was not acquainted with every hero, she knew that each one was a powerful warrior, worth at least a hundred knights, if not thousand.

Knight of Scimitar was reduced to a torso with only a head attached to it.

Knight of Dagger’s head looked like a watermelon that had been destroyed by a powerful impact.

Everywhere she looked, there were countless lifeless bodies of Holy Knights.

It was truly a gruesome sight to behold. Only a vampire would take delight at viewing a scene of such carnage.

After looking around, Knight of Light confirmed that there were only three surviving Holy Knights, each in worse shape than the other.

One of the Holy Knights, who had lost a leg, asked of her.

“Are you a hero?” he weakly muttered, leaning upon another Holy Knight to support him.

“Yes. I am the Knight of Light. Now tell me, what the hell happened here?”

“It was a demon…We…underestimated him…and then he…”

“Wait, what about the Knight of Hammer?” another surviving Holy Knight asked, he was missing his right hand below the shoulder.

“Knight of Hammer? He is here too?” Leon asked.

“Yes! Knight of Light, Ser, please! You have to save our leader; he is most likely still fighting against that thing!”

“Where are they?”

As soon as they told him the general direction where the hero and the demon were fighting in, Knight of Light rushed to the rescue as fast as her feet could carry her.

But as soon as she arrived, it was obvious that she was too late.

Knight of Hammer was on the ground; face first, with a gigantic hole in his chest.

His majestic weapon was broken into pieces, like scraps of metal.

Standing over him, triumphantly, was the form of a winged man with horns on his head.

The crow demon, a Tengu.

Knight of Light immediately recognized him by his aura.

He was the same demon she once battled and managed to defeat, but he managed to escape with his life.

Back then, when she was at her full power, she could easily take him on, but now, with her blessing damaged, she wasn’t so sure anymore.

Even so, she chose to fight him.

To avenge the three heroes that have lost their lives, she had to destroy this Tengu demon, once and for all.

As soon as they made eye contact, Kazan realized who he was dealing with.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Knight of Light himself? To what do I owe the pleasure?” Kazan talked in a mockingly polite manner.

“Demon! Your reign of evil shall end now!”

Leon immediately attacked Kazan with a slash imbued with light based holy magic.

In response, Kazan activated his demon eyes, allowing him to sprout gigantic crystals from the ground, which blocked the incoming Holy Ray.

But then, Leon proceeded to shatter the crystals with a single swing of his sword, hitting the crystals so hard that they seemed to be nothing more than glass.

Using light type magic to amplify his movements, Leon’s speed was astoundingly fast, but it also allowed him to teleport to any desired location, as long as he could either see his target or had marked the location beforehand.

Teleporting behind Kazan, Leon aimed for Kazan’s head, but his slash was stopped by the sword Kazan was wielding.

“Uhm, not bad at all. As expected of my horn”

After Dark Lord cut off a portion of Kazan’s horn, Kazan chose to use his severed horn as a material for his personal weapon.

The sword that was made from his horn had several unique properties. For one, it could only be lifted by Kazan and presumably those that share his blood.

It had a single special ability, using the mana of the wielder; it could shoot out countless feather-like projectiles that retained the sword’s property. So, anyone struck by those feathers would not be able to lift them.

Using his wings, Kazan tried to fly away, but Knight of Light teleported above him, forcing him to fold his wings and block her attack with his sword.

“You really don’t mess around, do you?”

“I will destroy you! Your leader, Demon King Draco shall be next!”

“We will just have to see about that”

Kazan and Leon clashed against each other, seemingly endlessly.

Leon used Holy type magic, but Kazan wisely countered it with earth magic, nullifying the effect of Holy Light, with the earth absorbing the Holy energy into it.

Kazan knew full well that if he were to be hit by the Holy Light even once, he would be a goner.

Seeing that Holy magic based attack was ineffective, Knight of Light proceeded to use all five elements and light element that were at her disposal.

Kazan was forced to counter her attacks with his own mastery of fire, earth, and lightning magic.

As things stood now, Kazan had less diversity in the types of magic he wielded, but his mastery over them was greater than that of Leon, allowing him to keep up with her.

Their magic collided against each other, cancelling out.

Neither one was able to make the decisive strike.

‘So it is true’ Kazan remarked.

As their swords clashed once again, Kazan smirked.

“You truly have gotten weak, Knight of Light. It seems like Dark Lord really did a number on you”

“What did you say?!!”

Leon was enraged at Kazan’s statement.

Mentioning the name of her most hated nemesis, the one that inflicted such grave wounds upon her and damaged her blessing; to Leon it was like a rough slap to the face.

“Where is he?! Where is Dark Lord?!!”

“I am not telling ya” Kazan stuck his tongue out.

As they kept fighting, their surroundings, the rocks, the trees, and the general landscape itself was steadily changing.

With their mana clashing against each other, they left trails of destruction everywhere they went.

Due to Knight of Light not being at her full power, Kazan was more or less an equal to her.

As a Demon Lord, Kazan Karatengu was no weakling.

Out of all the Demon Lords, he was easily one of the strongest, with only Demon King being stronger than him.

When Knight of Light was at full strength, she had access to power that could surpass even that of the Demon King, but now that her blessing was damaged, her might had dropped to a point where Kazan Karatengu, a Demon Lord, could take her on.

“I will make you tell me where the Dark Lord is, even if I have to beat it out of you!”

“Good luck with that.”

Kazan made a bitter smile.

‘Knight of Light…This time you had gone too far.’

Activating the power of his sword, Kazan unleashed countless razor sharp feathers in Knight of Light’s direction.

While she succeeded in dodging most of the knife-like feathers, one of the feathers ended up piercing through her left hand, pinning her to a tree.

With a painful motion, Knight of Light pulled her hand off the feather that was pinning it. The feather still remained pinned to the tree.

For some reason, the feathers seemed to be enchanted, making them immovable, so Knight of Light had to let the feather pierce through her hand in order to free herself.

Now, with a bleeding hand, she grasped her sword.

“Like hell I will let you kill my brother”

Kazan attacked Leon with full intent to kill.

But at that moment, Leon’s eyes attained golden glow.

It was time for Leon to use her spiritual form.

A gigantic magic entity, an armored golden avatar with a head of a lion, wielding a longsword, manifested itself around Leon.

The spiritual form: an extremely powerful yet dangerous technique that only a few know how to use.

It allowed the user to manifest his spiritual beast either as a support separate from his body or an avatar-like armor that protected him.

However, spiritual form is linked to one’s body and soul. If the spiritual form is damaged, the body and soul will both suffer. In worst cases, it could be fatal. Using and keeping the spiritual form active required enormous reserves of mana and very powerful mana control.

In short, this technique was not made for the weak of will.

Now the golden avatar, with the Knight of Light inside of it, proceeded to attack Kazan.

Using his wings, Kazan barely managed to dodge the avatar’s gigantic sword.

“Crow Crash!”

Kazan manifested his own spiritual form, but not as armor, but a separate being from himself, a gigantic crow, that proceeded to fly in the direction of Leon’s avatar.

It proceeded to crash into Leon’s spiritual form, momentarily knocking it off balance. But before Leon’s avatar could pierce through the crow, it dispersed into nothingness.

Apparently Kazan chose to use his spiritual form as a distraction in order to cast his teleportation magic. As soon as Kazan teleported himself, his animal avatar dissipated.

Kazan knew full well that even when weakened, Knight of Light was too strong for him to beat, so he wisely chose to retreat.

However, being fooled by a mere Demon Lord was a humiliating experience.

Leon dropped to her knees, battered and bleeding. Nothing to show for her actions but defeat and three heroes dead. It was a complete and total failure.

Demon Lord fled him, of all people, while killing so many of Tazak Kingdom’s prized heroes and Holy Knights.

With Knight of Hammer, Scimitar, and Dagger gone, there were only twenty two heroes left to protect the kingdom.

Clenching her fists in frustration, Knight of Light punched the ground repeatedly, to the point that the ground started to crack open after each punch.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

If only she had not encountered the Dark Lord, then she still would have been at full power.

Back then, she could have easily taken on several Demon Lords and emerged victorious. But now, she was forced to resort to using her spiritual form and even then, she failed to capture a single Demon Lord.

Even so long after Dark Lord inflicted such grave injuries upon her, Knight of Light has yet to regain her true power.

She was like a bird that has lost it wing, a tiger that lost its paw, a sword that has lost its edge.

‘I will have my revenge, Dark Lord. For doing this to me, I will make you pay dearly!’