Chapter 168: Dead Psuedo demon
Ren watched the ball of energy gather above Ken’s head, and something about it made every instinct in his body go still. It wasn’t just mana bleeding out of it.
There was some powerful darkness mixed with it, twisted together with whatever the deal had carved into him, and the combination pulsed with a density that promised nothing survived where it landed.
It kept growing. And growing. Pulling more of the mountain’s air into itself, more of the stillness around them collapsing into that single spinning point above Ken’s skull. The ground beneath them seemed to shake in response, small stones lifting and rattling as the pressure built.
Ren didn’t wait to see how far it would go.
He transformed into his dragon form. Bones stretched, wings tore free from his back, and the full weight of his true form settled into the space between the mountains.
Behind him, his subordinates were still locked in deadly battle and could not leave to escape from the blast, still too close to whatever was about to happen, and he was not going to let this attack reach them. Not after everything already thrown at them tonight.
He planted himself squarely between Ken and the others and let the chaos energy surge through him, filling every scale, every vein, until his vision sharpened into something colder, something far angrier than before. Rage mode took him fully, the kind of state where thought narrowed down to one single purpose and nothing else mattered.
He dug one clawed foot into the ground hard enough to crack the stone beneath it, and let his voice carry out low, heavy, and final.
"I will not let you go any further, Ken. It ends here."
Ken didn’t answer him. He didn’t need to.
The ball tore free from above his head with a sound like the sky splitting, screaming through the air with enough force behind it that the mountain walls on either side of the pass began to crumble on their own, chunks of rock breaking loose and crashing down long before the attack had even arrived.
The ground shook hard enough that smaller stones bounced and skipped where they sat. Ren saw the attack coming, he saw the damage that it packed, and it was yet to even land. He needed to stop it no matter what.
Ren met the attack head on.
He unleashed a dragon’s chaos breath, forcing it out in a tight, controlled stream aimed directly into the heart of the oncoming sphere. The two forces collided in the middle of the pass, and the mountain around them paid for it instantly, more of the rock face folding inward, dust and rubble pouring down in sheets thick enough to blot out what little light remained.
Ken’s attack pushed harder, gaining ground inch by inch, forcing Ren’s claws to dig deeper into the stone beneath him just to hold his position. Ren’s flame pushed back just as hard in answer, refusing to yield a single inch of the ground he had claimed.
Neither side broke for what felt like a long time.
Then, slowly, agonizingly, Ren’s breath began to win, chewing through the last of the sphere’s density one layer at a time until it finally gave way entirely. The two forces met in full at last and detonated.
The explosion swallowed the mountain range whole. Rocks the size of houses tore loose from higher up the peaks and slammed down all around them, some missing by inches, some crashing close enough that the shockwaves alone knocked smaller stones loose from the walls. A light bright enough to blind shined outward from the very center of the blast, forcing anyone still watching to throw an arm up and shield their eyes from it.
When it finally faded, Ken was still standing. Chest heaving. Smoke curling off his demonic form, his head lowered. Across from him, Ren stood again in his human shape, having reverted the moment the worst of it had passed, his sword already resting in one hand. Bolts of lightning formed slowly along the length of the blade, gathering there like they were simply waiting for permission to be unleashed.
Ken didn’t wait for anything. He looked at Aren, looked at the blade, he knew he had to attack now.
He charged forward, fast and wild, moving like a monster that had stopped thinking in any organized way and was now simply throwing itself forward on nothing but instinct and hate. He closed the distance in what felt like a single blink and lunged in low, going for whatever opening he thought he saw.
Ren swung once.
The lightning cut through the air and through Ken’s neck in the very same motion, clean and without hesitation, and the head came away from the body entirely.
[You have gained 1000 EXP]x10
[You have killed a Pseudo Demon]
The system message rang out in his mind the instant it was over. Ren looked at the notification for a moment, then down at what remained of the man who had once been Ken.
"A pseudo demon," he said quietly, mostly to himself. "So that’s what you gave yourself up to become." He was silent for a long moment after that, just looking at the body. "I hate to say it, but you’ve earned some respect from me, Ken. Whatever you thought you were fighting for, you committed to it all the way to the very end. But I cannot be sorry for you. You got what you deserved fully."
He didn’t linger on the thought any longer than that.
He turned to check on his subordinates, needing to see with his own eyes that they had made it through everything the mountain pass had thrown at them. None of them had died yet, and there was still a lot of time, so he could save them truly.
What he saw stopped him cold.
The undead, the undead, they were no longer fighting the subordinates. They were fighting against the mercenaries and taking them down.