Chapter 68: Volume 1- [ - 69 ]
CRACK. CRACK. The bullets hit the Demon’s legs, the arms, the torso. Each one drew blood. None of them stopped it.
The Demon walked forward. Through the bullets. Through the gunfire. Each step deliberate, unhurried, the patience of a creature that knew it could not be hurt by the weapon in my hand. The bullets were bee stings — annoying, painful, but not lethal. Not nearly lethal enough.
‘His weapon — it is not working,’ Mirra’s internal voice was a shriek of terror. ‘The bullets — they are not penetrating deep enough — the hide is too thick — we are going to die — we are going to—’
Elwen raised her wand. A bolt of green lightning — chain lightning, the Wand of Storms’ basic attack — struck the Demon in the shoulder. The electricity crackled across its skin, dancing along the chains of its hammer, and the creature roared, swinging blindly.
“RRRRAAAAGHHH!!”
The swing caught the wall. Stone flew. The anteroom shook. A crack ran up the ceiling.
I reloaded. Fired. Reloaded. Fired. The rhythm was mechanical — the Serpent’s Fang barking, the bullets hitting, the blood flowing, the Demon not stopping.
“We are dead,” I whispered, and the thought was not performed. It was real. The fear was real. I was going to die in a dungeon because a blonde woman could not handle being horny.
Elwen’s hands were shaking, but her voice was steady. “Mirra — buffs. Both of us. Now.”
Mirra’s hands came up. The buff was instinctive — the green glow washing over me, enhancing my speed, my strength, my reflexes. Elwen’s followed — a second layer, the effects stacking, the dual-healer buff turning my body into something faster, something sharper, something more.
My speed doubled. The world slowed. The Demon’s next swing — a horizontal arc that would have taken my head off — moved past me like a wave in slow motion, and I was under it, inside its guard, the Serpent’s Fang pressed against its knee.
CRACK.
The bullet hit the joint. The knee buckled. The Demon stumbled.
I rolled. Came up. Fired again — CRACK — the bullet hitting the other knee, the joint, the weak point where the iron-hard skin thinned to accommodate movement.
The Demon lurched. Did not fall.
I opened the Level 1 shop. My point balance — one thousand five hundred now, the twenty-five from the dagger-handle fuck plus the anal giving me exactly enough — stared at me.
I purchased Knight’s Bane. One hundred and twenty points.
The dagger materialized in my left hand — slim, coated, the blade gleaming with a faint oily sheen. The coating was a muscle-weakening compound, slow-acting, requiring a cut to deliver.
Then I opened the Level 2 shop. Purchased Boots of the Wind. One thousand points.
The boots materialized on my feet — light, supple, the leather warm against my skin. And the world changed.
I sprinted. The speed was — there was no word for it in this world. The Boots of the Wind accelerated me to eighty kilometers per hour in a single stride, the stone floor blurring beneath me, the air screaming past my ears. I was not running. I was flying. My feet touched the ground and left it, each step a launch, each landing a redirection, the trajectory changing with each contact.
I threw the Serpent’s Fang’s shots from different angles — left, right, behind, above — the bullets hitting the Demon from directions it could not predict. Each one drew blood. Each one was a sting. The creature swung, and I was gone, and the hammer hit empty air.
“GRAAAGHHH!!”
I closed the distance. The Knight’s Bane came around — two cuts, fast, shallow, across the ankle where the skin was thinnest. The coating seeped in. The Demon’s leg twitched — the muscle weakening, the joint loosening, the creature’s balance shifting.
I fired. CRACK. The bullet hit the wrist, and the hammer hand spasmed, the grip loosening. I fired again. CRACK. The bullet hit the other ankle, and the Demon dropped to one knee.
“RRRRGHHH!!”
The roar was pain now. Not rage — pain. The creature was bleeding from a dozen wounds, the muscles in its legs and arms weakening, the compound spreading through its system.
I jumped. The Boots of the Wind launched me — ten feet into the air, above the Demon’s head, the Serpent’s Fang pointed downward. I fired.
CRACK. CRACK.
Both bullets hit the eyes. The glowing red — the furnace-eyes — shattered, exploding inward, the black blood spraying. The Demon screamed — a sound that was not a roar but a shriek, the high, piercing cry of a creature that had been blinded.
“KUUUARGGHHHHH!!”
It swung blindly. The hammer caught the ceiling, and stone rained down, and I was already moving, already landing, already running.
I looked at my points. Vanishing. The purchases had consumed them — twelve hundred for the boots, one hundred and twenty for the dagger, leaving me with one hundred and fifty-five points. Not enough for the Strength Gauntlets at one hundred and fifty.
Wait. One hundred and fifty-five. The Gauntlets cost one hundred and fifty.
I purchased them.
The gauntlets materialized on my hands — tight, warm, the enchantment flowing through my fingers, doubling the gripping and striking power of my hands. I could feel the difference immediately — the stone wall I brushed against crumbled under my fingertips.
I landed on the Demon’s chest. My legs straddled its torso, my feet finding purchase on the iron-hard skin, my hands — the gauntleted hands — finding its face.
And I punched.
“DIE, YOU BASTARD!”
The first punch hit the ruined eye socket. The gauntlet’s enhanced force drove my fist through the orbital bone, into the skull, the bone shattering, the black blood spraying.
The second punch hit the other eye socket. The third hit the temple. The fourth — the jaw, the bone breaking, the teeth flying.
The Demon’s hands came up. Found me. I dodged the right hand, took the left on the shoulder — the impact sending me spinning, the gauntlet absorbing the force, my arm going numb but not breaking.
I punched again. And again. And again.
The Demon fell backward. The hammer dropped. The floor shook. And I was on top of it, punching, the gauntlets shattering bone and pulping tissue, the face — once a bull’s head, once terrifying — becoming a ruin of blood and bone and meat.
“YOU — STUPID — BITCH — I AM GOING TO — FUCK — YOUR — BRAINS — OUT—”
The words came with the punches, each one a curse, each one directed not at the Demon but at Seraphine, at the woman whose embarrassment had caused this, whose horniness had sent her into a boss room without armor, whose incompetence had cost me twelve hundred points and nearly my life.
‘Why is he so angry?’ Mirra’s internal voice filtered through the fog of combat. She was behind me — both healers were, their hands raised, their buffs flowing, the green glow sustaining my speed and strength and stamina.
‘His emotions — the rage — it is not just combat fury,’ Elwen’s internal voice catalogued even as she channeled her magic. ‘It is personal. Directed. He is cursing someone — Seraphine? Why would he—’
I punched for half an hour.
The Demon stopped moving after the first ten minutes. The last twenty were — unnecessary. Vandalism. The face was gone, replaced by a crater of bone and brain. The body lay still, the warhammer cold, the iron-hard skin cooling as the corruption bled out of it.
I fell backward.