Garashist swings his claw in an overhand arc, cleaving through one angel’s wing. Before the angel hits the ground, his other arm stabs forward, ripping into the angel’s throat and sending it to whence it came.

Two spears plunge into his body and leave two gaping holes, but the demon doesn’t care. He hardly bleeds. His fearsome regeneration can fix any tissue not fully severed. Garashist trades wounds for kills with impunity. As long as he lives, he can heal; as long as he lives, he can kill.

With a flick of his armored tail, he destroys another angel’s face, sending it back to heaven. With four opponents left, he can take on the offensive.

Or Garashist would, were it not for him.

Garashist glances at the masked man who leisurely walks towards him, spinning his cane and whistling a tune that puts Garashist on edge.

The demon is not sure why, but the masked man does not feel correct. It may be that his [Demonic Sight] skill cannot see the man’s class, or possibly man’s incongruously relaxed posture, but something is very off. To gain time, Garasshist leads the angels away from the man while he ends their lives.

______________________________________________________

Aiden groggily regains consciousness, feeling as though he has been asleep for the past day. He groans and props himself into a sitting position. He’s tired, exhausted. Every part of his body hurts and his brain feels like sludge.

He looks around, trying to remember why? His eyes land on Jess as she leans over Brando, her hands aglow. He barely registers Brando’s new stump before the hand begins to regrow. Aiden watches in silent awe, trying to understand just what exactly he’s seeing. It only takes a few seconds for his eyes to bug out of his head when he watches the palm start to form.

So shocked is he that he doesn’t notice Brando’s screams until the hand is finished and they’ve ended. The sloth-kin passes out.

“How, that, arm,” his cousin Shina stammers in amazement. Aiden can understand her surprise; anyone with the ability to regrow limbs could earn more than most [Mercenaries] ever could. [Kings] and [Emperors] would pay a fortune to have someone like her on retainer.

The [Priestess], if that’s even her class, slumps to the ground with a tired sigh. “Are you alright?” his cousin asks.

Jess nods. “Yeah, just tired. Regenerating limbs takes a lot more effort than healing wounds. I just need to rest a bit.”

Timid, desperate, hopeful, Elly moves to Jess and presents her broken bow. “Can you heal this?” she asks, distraught.

Aiden frowns at the item. Wasn’t that bow an heirloom from her family?

Jess shakes her head. “That’s a bow, not a person. You’ll have to ask Bone to fix it for you,” she says, pointing to her partner.

Aiden realizes the battle is still ongoing. His eyes follow Jess’s finger. He sees a demon beating down three angels at once while Bone watches and waits.

“We have to help him,” Aiden says, forcing his body to stand up, only for a piercing headache to force him down.

“Aiden, stay still and don’t move. Your body is still recovering.” Jess says, “Bone will be fine. He’s just,“ she sighs, ”being [Gentleman]ly.”

_________________________________________________________

With ease, Garashist dispenses with the last three angels, all while the masked man silently watches.

If Garashist is being honest, that does not put him at ease. On the contrary, it leaves him worried. While he was busy with the angels, it would have been a perfect time to attack. With his level restricted, Garashist doubts that he could have properly defended against any attacks sent his way.

Garashist, done with the angels, turns towards the masked man. Again, his [Demonic Sight], equivalent to an [Advanced Analyze] skill, fails to even properly activate. The man’s aura alone should not be capable of keeping his class hidden.

In any case, Gara should avoid confrontation for a bit. His master is almost done raising the undead. Once he finishes, then the contract will end and Garashist will be able to use his full might.

“Human, you did not interfere with my fight against the angels. For that I, Garashist, promise to make your death painless.”

The masked man stops spinning his cane. “Why do people always only offer those two options? It's either painless or painful with you people.” The masked man spreads his arms. “Why does nobody ever offer a pleasurable death?”

He sighs and slumps. “It’s overused. The first person to come up with it may have been creative, but the rest of you copycats have rendered it cliche. If I had a milligram of morphine for every time I heard it, then I would have already had a painless death. Even enough for that one time I was summoned as that giant four-armed gorilla thing. Now that was a weird summoning, filled with way too many sticks up asses.”

The masked man shakes his head. “That species talked so much shit. ‘You’re courting death’ or ‘You fool who cannot see the peak of the mountain’ before inevitably threatening to rip out your organs and feed them to you one by one. But, occasionally, you get someone talking about swift and painless deaths. Anyways, those guys were always threatening you about something. It was practically an hourly occurrence. You go to buy groceries and one of the fruits don’t look too good? Death threat. Someone makes eye contact with you? Death threat. That tree you tried cutting down is sturdier than usual? Fuck you tree, death threat.”

The masked man chuckles. “Someone gives you a death threat? Well, you have to reply in turn. Always with a more painful version. It’s like a yo mama joke battle, except more poetic, less clever, and oftentimes more bloody. Weirdly enough, combat was very rare. I believe it had to do with the likelihood both sides could end up maimed. You don’t want to lose an arm over killing someone. Or an eye. Or both. So, you threaten people with death till they back off.”

The masked man scratches the side of his neck while Garashist does his best to understand what in hell’s ever-burning flames the idiot is monologuing about.

“Now that I think about it, the society was actually very peaceful. I mean sure, there were constant death threats, but wars? Almost none. The few that there were didn’t even come to blows. Just two armies talking shit and threatening death for days on end until they got tired and both just dicked off into the sunset. Funny that the guys that could benchpress fucking oak trees were so nonviolent. Hmmm, maybe it helped that they’re all herbivores… actually. Fuck, they remind me of centaurs. Those fuckers have too much muscle. Like, where do they get protein? That shit just doesn’t make sense. How much grass would they need to eat to get that level of beef? Or, no, they’re not cows. Is there a horse adjacent meat product to describe that? No? Well, they’re strong as fuck and kick as hard as the rest of them. Like, there was this one time…”

______________________________________________________________

Shina frowns, witnessing the standoff between Bone and the demon. She is still tired, and could probably move now, but she would barely be able to do anything at all. Her mana is just too low.

“What are they talking about? The demon looks annoyed?” she asks Jess, who only shrugs relaxedly.

Shina frowns, “Maybe he’s delaying him for us to escape?”

Jess snorts. “Heh. No, Bone wouldn’t need to, not with someone so weak.”

“Weak?” Aiden asks in confusion. “Then why aren’t they fighting?”

Jess sighs. “I’m not sure, but he usually has a reason.”

“Like?” Thresh asks.

Jess rubs the sides of her face. “It could be anything from experimentation to showing off.”

“Showing off? What do you mean?”

“CEASE YOUR PITEOUS YAMMERING, MORTAL! I WILL RIP YOUR LIMBS OFF AND FEED THEM TO YOU!”

Everyone turns back towards the apoplectic demon.

“Really? I’m pretty sure I told you about the ‘ripping out organs and feeding them to you threat’. Come on, you’re older than me! Be a bit more creative in your shit talk.”

“I WILL REND YOUR BODY AND BURN YOUR CORPSE WITH HELLFIRE.”

“Oy, Gara, your following death threats have to be worse than what you said before, otherwise the whole effect is moot.”

The demon’s eyes blaze red and his claws alight. He rushes forward, raises his arm, and slashes. “DIE!” he roars.

Bone replies by half-assedly raising his cane towards the strike.

Shina’s body tightens as cane and claw connect. She closes her eyes before the impact… but hears nothing.

She cracks open her eyes to see Garashist’s claws exactly where she last saw them: against Bone’s cane. The demon’s expression is one of bewilderment, mirroring Shina’s own.

Jess sighs. “This is what I mean by showing off.”

_____________________________________________________________

Angry, confused, and quite humiliated, Garashist glares at his opponent who effortlessly halted his attack. He didn’t even feel vibrations from the impact. No, something is very wrong here and Garashist needs to rein in his anger or-

The masked man loudly yawns and taps his cane on Garashist’s claw.

The rage he was so trying to calm engulfs the demon at the man’s sheer audacity. He is one of the most powerful elites of Hell! To be insulted by a human is unforgivable.

Garashist slashes with his other hand, only for the same thing to happen when it touches the cane. With anger still roiling, he releases an onslaught of attacks, even using his tail, but to no avail. Each movement just seemingly stops at any contact with the cane. He can’t even grab the cane as the human merely pulls it away before he can.

Stopping his attack, he glares at the young man and takes a moment to assess the situation. His eyes fall on the group being tended by the [Abess]. He smiles, fomenting a plan.

“Oi, dumbfuck,” Quasi jabs at the demon with his cane.

Garashist snorts and grabs the offending cane in a powerful claw.

“[Kinetic Release].”

________________________________________________________________

An explosion blows off the demon’s arm and sends him flying out of the burned battlefield and into, nay, through the trees.

Four pairs of eyes stare dumbstruck at what just happened, while one pair rolls at the sight. Jess knows of what Quasi is capable of, and what he did is the barest portion of the crazy things he can do.

“Bone is amazing!” Aiden calls out, his expression bordering on hero worship. He kinda reminds Jess of herself when she first met Quasi. She was enamored and amazed at how he saved her from slavery before repeatedly breaking her worldview. Oh, the pedestal she put him on. She blushes just remembering how much of an idiot she actually was.

_________________________________________________________

I watch the demon stand up from where he landed, impressed at how little damage he actually took considering he just got hit by the energy equivalent of a speeding truck. That much energy should have destroyed his body. Instead, his arm is in smithereens, but his body is relatively undamaged.

“You,” he seethes.

“Me,” I seethe back.

He blinks, angry, nearly as irate as earlier. Apparently, the loss of an arm is enough to keep him cautious.

He glares silently at me. I do the same, but only for a moment as I realize he can’t actually see my eyes because of my mask.

“Mortal, you are powerful,” he says slowly. A smile forms on his lips, “but you have wasted too much time.”

I chuckle, sensing a massive undead come to life below ground. The [Necromancer] down there really took his sweet time.

Then, the demon starts laughing maniacally for some reason. I raise an eyebrow, unsure why, but it is made clear the next moment as black fire emerges from his body. His horns grow longer, two additional tails sprout from his behind, and his damaged arm regenerates instantly. Power and mana emanate from the monster in front of me. Every chuckle of laughter releases a pitch-black flame, the color of pure Hellfire.

The demon’s contract has ended with the resurrection of the big guy below.

Fuck yeah!

“Perfect,” I say, spinning my case, “All according to plan.”

The demon continues to laugh as he starts walking towards me, his long strides made longer by his increased frame.

He stops several meters from me and raises one of his spiked and enhanced tails,” Any last words?”

“Yes,” I answer.

He waits, and I wait as well. We stare at each other for a long moment, gazing deeply, longingly into each other’s eyes. He really has some good-looking eyes, very intimidating with that squint. He’s been staring at me for a while. Could it be? Is this true love?

Oh, looks like he realized I was messing with him. His eyes burn darkest black as he attacks.

As usual, I raise my cane and stop the tail as it touches my cane.

With it unmoving, I raise my free hand and remove my mask.

I smile at him. “Git gud. [Kinetic Freeze].”