Gacha Leveling

Eric roared while swinging his sword in anger against the Marilith who defended herself. However, she was pushed aside by the strength of the man in front of her and the bones in one of her arms shattered with the force.

She retaliated by piercing his shoulder with another sword, but Eric just clenched his teeth and and hacked his sword at her again opening a deep wound on her torso.

Disregarding her own safety, she spat a fireball at him at close range. The explosion sent the raging man away and her as well in the opposite direction.

Eric got up with his skin on fire while Paula used her ice magic to reduce the temperature around him and douse the flames while healing him at the same time.

Kicking the floor he sent himself at high speed at the demoness like a missile. Blinded by fury, he failed to foresee that she could simply dodge him. And the Marilith did, allowing him to pass by her at extreme speed unable to stop.

With Eric flying away and Vanessa inside the house she flew into, Paula and Michael were unprotected.

The Marilith slithered at Paula’s direction. Even when the Ice Witch froze the floor to slow her down, the demoness kept coming.

Michael then took out his trump card. A single mithril arrow he spent most of his income on. He put all his mana into it using his Charge skill to make the mithril head volatile and explode on impact. His Aim skill gave him supernatural senses to calculate the path of his shot. His Bow Focus skill allowed him to pour even more mana into the arrow.

The Marilith was slow on the slippery ice. But she noticed the arrow flying at her shimmering in blue light of the imbued mana in it. She tried to dodge the shot aimed at her heart, but couldn’t as her scales slid on the ice.

Her Vital Shield was already very weakened from the battle until then. The arrow pierced her shoulder and exploded, taking two of her arms with it.

She screamed in pain. Now one of her left arms was broken and useless, two of her right were missing and she was bleeding profusely from her wounds.

She quickly realised she was going to die there. Even if she killed one or two of that party, she would still die at the end.

She tried to run away as fast as she could, ignoring Paula’s ice attacks against her. But the Marilith didn’t get far.

Eric threw his sword from far away, piercing her tail and pinning her against the ground.

The Marilith screamed trying to remove the sword, but it was too late. Eric came in like a missile again, this time he didn’t miss. He came flying in with a punch breaking some of her teeth.

Eric had 167 Strength. Added to it he had the Reckless, the Impotent and the Stand Strength skills. All which reduced his other Stats: Vitality, Magic and Agility to increase his Strength even more. All 3 at S rank. Using all them in combination gave him a Strength that far surpassed the Matilith’s, even though her level was higher than his.

He stood above her and pummeled the half snake demon with all his might. His own fists broke together with the demoness’ bones. He reduced his Vitality to 0 all to increase his Strength, leaving his body unprotected. Without the Martial Artist’s Iron Fist skill, he could not use Imbue Mana on his own body.

His punches bent the steel of her armor. It deformed her face and made another one of her left arms useless when he broke the bones of her clavicule.

Feeling death approaching, she spat a fireball at his chest, sending him flying away with the explosion. But the Marilith herself felt the heat on her skin and the pressure of the explosion pressing her against the floor.

Now with only two working arms, only one eye being able to open, she didn’t have the strength to keep fighting.

Paula rushed to heal Eric who didn’t get up from the last blast.

Michael sat down, he didn’t have any more mana in him to fight anymore. Just enough to keep himself awake.

Vanessa’s condition inside the house was unknown to them, but she was just unconscious by a concussion.

The Matilith, with difficulty, removed the sword pinning her down. She slithered away slowly towards the house they found her in.

"Where do you think you’re going?" Sarah asked, approaching her walking with her sword in her hand.

Her eyes were wet with tears. She did all she could for Sebastian, but if he would live after that was a wild bet.

The Marilith hissed at her and tried to attack with one of her good arms. But in that state, even though Sarah was almost 30 levels weaker than the demoness, even the girl could defend herself.

With quick slashes, Sarah cut off the hands of the Marilith that froze and didn’t bleed.

When the demoness tried to slither away, Sarah quickly pulled her by her hair and brought her down to her level.

"NO!" The Marilith screamed through her broken jaw.

Sarah didn’t hesitate. She cleanly decapitated the demoness with a swift slice pulling her head to the other side by her hair.

She threw the head away from the body with anger while holding in her tears.

"Sarah." Michael called her out of breath.

Sarah approached him looking at his body for wounds.

"I’m not hurt. Just out of Mana." He explained breathing deeply. "Vanessa fell in that house. Go check on her. Quick."

Sarah ran to the house, breaking down the locked door and climbing the stairs at full speed.

She found Vanessa surrounded by broken wood and plaster from the roof, but laying down on a child’s bed.

"Ness!" Sarah called to her and approached quickly examining her body.

Other than a few scratches, she had no apparent wounds. But since she wasn’t waking up, Sarah feared that she had internal injuries that could be fatal. She then healed Vanessa’s whole body not knowing where to concentrate her spell.

After a couple of minutes, a man rushed inside the room.

"Sarah! How is Vanessa?" He asked.

Sarah knew him. He was a member of the Valhalla Riders.

"I don’t know." Sarah said. "She isn’t waking up."

"Help me move her, grab the mattress." The man instructed Sarah while moving to carry the woman. "We came as fast as we could after Paula called. You fought a Marilith and won?" He said surprised while carrying Vanessa with the mattress like a stretcher.

"I would hardly call this a win." She clenched her teeth.

"She’ll be fine. Don’t worry." The man lied to her.

Eric was waiting outside the house, already inside a car with his eyes closed. His skin was red and black from burns. Michael and Paula were also there, each drinking a mana potion.

"Put her in the back seat." Paula instructed while opening the door.

"How is Ness?" Eric asked not turning to see them.

It was then that Sarah realized he was blind.

"She’s ok. Just sleeping." The man that came to help said.

Eric knew it was a lie, and just clenched his teeth.

Paula sat on the back, giving her lap to Vanessa rest her head and the man sat on the driver seat.

"Go!" Michael ordered. "I’ll take Sarah to safety. Just rush to the hospital."

The car’s tires sang while it made sharp turns at high speed going away as fast as they could drive it.

"Are you hurt?" Michael asked Sarah.

"No. I barely did anything." She smiled, but cried at the same time.

"They’ll be alright." Michael consoled her, patting her head.

"And Sebas?" She asked.

"Ayaka already took him. He was the one in the worst shape." Michael explained.

"I shouldn’t have let him come." Sarah regretted it.

"There was no way to know such a powerful demon would be so far away from the city center." Michael consoled her. "We thought we were going to fight imps. Cambions at most." He said, while guiding her through the suburb streets towards the large house they were using as base.

"Why was it here?" Sarah asked. "It makes no sense to attack such a remote neighborhood if they were really aiming for the Tower." She mentioned her brother’s destination.

"I have no idea. The others found and killed an Impiomancer who summoned that thing." Michael said. "But I guess they wanted to just kill people?"

Sarah shuddered. Why? What is there to gain by this bloodshed?

She took a mana potion when they got into base and laid on a couch to rest while Michael sat in a chair and helped coordinate communications with the guild members on the field hunting stray demons.

She hid her face in the cushions to cry and everyone around pretended they didn’t notice.