The vanguard of the enemy forces had finally entered our line of sight.
As we slipped silently through the bushes, the captain of our unit instantly activated an invisibility field, concealing all of us.
Walking at the very front of the massive army were the Demon Lords; a total of twelve Demon Lords were marching a few hundred meters ahead of the main army with exceedingly slow and arrogant strides.
There could not have been a better opportunity to launch a sudden ambush and scatter their lines.
Clad in my heavy armor, my mind was entirely focused on combos that would deal the maximum amount of damage.
Without even waiting for the order from the dragon captain, I focused my mana into my legs and was just about to make a fatal leap when…
massive explosions suddenly went off in the surrounding forest.
The 1st Demon Lord let out a laugh that rent the sky.
“They actually came, just like that elf girl said!” he roared.
Narrowing my eyes, I focused through the smoke on the lords who were looking directly at us.
Realizing we were compromised, our captain completely dropped the invisibility barrier.
Our surroundings had already been encircled with incredible speed by the legendary ‘Spears’ of the other allied races.
Hitting my own head with the hilt of my katana, I thought to myself, “So that’s why the lords were marching at the very front like idiots…
You absolute dimwit!” We had literally walked straight into a trap.
As the enemy spears tightened the circle around us, our captain fortunately displayed incredibly fast reflexes and wove a colossal wall of fire around our perimeter.
To be perfectly honest, the current situation was beyond even the worst-case scenario in my head.
Every second we spent here drew us closer to signing our own death warrant.
Turning my head, I looked at the captain and the elite unit, quickly running a battle analysis in my mind: “The captain and the guys with him can easily handle the spears here, sure…
But what then?” The uncertainty of when and in what numbers the enemy reinforcements would arrive was our greatest problem right now.
Meanwhile, the Demon Lords were watching us with amusement, as if observing creatures in a zoo.
I turned to Velmora right behind me.
“I’ll be back later,” I said.
I leaped swiftly into the air and activated my wide-area teleportation spell.
Just as I caught everyone in our team inside the teleportation circle and was about to fire the spell, Velmora released her own immense mana in a sudden surge.
As her hair billowed upward from the intense mana pressure being unleashed, she began cracking the spell circle I had constructed with her sheer power.
“I will never leave you here al—”
I didn’t let her finish her sentence.
Pushing the amount of mana I was channeling into the circle to its absolute limit, I broke Velmora’s resistance and locked them all firmly within the spell circle.
Looking at Velmora just seconds before the teleportation took effect, I smiled and merely mouthed the words, “Watch out for Ermo.” And the magic activated; they all teleported back to the palace.
Just as I was about to teleport myself right after them, the fire barrier collapsed in the captain’s absence, and the 1st Demon Lord instantly teleported right in front of me.
“Not so fast, human.
We haven’t even had any fun yet,” he said in a sinister voice.
With incredible reflexes, I leaped backward.
Seeing me evade, he threw a lethal kick at me; twisting my torso backward mid-air, I dodged the blow and hurled a heavy spear pulled from my inventory straight at his face.
Reaching into my inventory to draw my katana as I landed, I noticed that the other lords had already encircled me.
As they lunged at me from three different directions simultaneously, I leaped upward to slip past them.
However, using the 4th Lord’s shoulder as a stepping stone, the 5th Demon Lord launched himself into the sky and swung his massive axe, aiming directly for my leg.
Using wind magic mid-air, I abruptly shifted my direction and hastily wove a dense mana barrier on my arm to meet the axe’s blow.
Yet, a barrier formed in such a short window of time was not enough to absorb the raw physical power of a lord; the barrier shattered like glass.
As I watched my right arm severed before my eyes and drop to the ground, my lips parted in agony.
“Well, now we’re completely fucked…” I muttered.
The 1st Lord laughed.
“Our human is still alive, wonderful!
Perhaps if you hadn’t encountered us like this, you could have become one of humanity’s legendary spears in the future.”
While my severed right arm automatically began regenerating from the shoulder down—thanks to the immense recovery ability granted by my game mechanics—I fixed my eyes on the dark forest behind them.
Though the spear wielders over there were not personally participating in the battle, they stood poised and vigilant.
Taking a deep breath, I muttered, “Guess I have to do this myself,” and released all my hidden mana in a colossal explosion.
Standing somewhat apart from the other lords, the 12th Demon Lord noticed me looking at him.
Just as he was about to make a move, I warped time and instantly materialized behind him.
I drew my katana, intending to sever his head from his torso in a single strike, but the 1st Lord teleported behind him with unbelievable speed and delivered a harsh kick to the 12th Lord, knocking him out of my range.
“Idiot!
You almost died!” the 1st Lord barked at his subordinate.
Turning my face to the 1st Lord, I stabilized my breathing.
“Can I ask for a two-minute timeout, bro?” I asked in a mocking tone.
He casually slid his hand into the pocket of his armor.
“I’ll give you exactly 120 seconds,” he said.
He then waved his hand in the air, creating a massive, isolated duel barrier that enclosed me and the other ten lords.
“Let the show begin!”
Meanwhile, I opened my inventory and equipped my armor sets with the highest defense points, the ones best suited for this relentless brawl.
Placing my right hand on the hilt of my katana, I straightened up.
“Thanks, we can resume.”
Ten Demon Lords simultaneously began closing in on me in a lethal formation.
The 1st and 2nd Lords stood casually in the back, watching us.
“Place your bets!
Who dies first?
There’s a grand prize for the winner!” they jeered, making a mockery of it.
The lords circled around me with highly cautious steps.
The 3rd Lord directly in front of me began preparing a destructive, wide-area spell, while the other lords acted as living shields before him to ensure his spell wouldn’t be interrupted.
While forming a powerful barrier toward the front with my hand, I sensed one of the lords sneaking around my back, preparing a treacherous strike from behind.
I didn’t even turn around.
Gripping my katana in a reverse angle, I drove the blade straight through my own stomach, blocking the blade coming from behind with my body and ensuring the tip of my katana pierced right through the head of the lord behind me.
As the fatal wound in my stomach began to heal rapidly due to my regeneration ability, the lord whose head I pulled my katana from collapsed to the ground.
Looking at the body writhing on the ground, I said in a voice as cold as ice, “Pride is the ultimate weakness.”
Enraged by this move, the 5th Lord completely broke the battle formation and lunged at me like a madman.
Just as I was about to evade him and finish the job, the voice of the 1st Lord suddenly echoed across the entire area: “That’s enough entertainment.”
With a single hand gesture, the 1st Lord lifted the massive duel barrier he had erected.
In that instant, everything froze; even the leaves suspended in the air stopped moving.
Rising from the stone he was sitting on, the 2nd Lord complained, “Come on, brother!
We were just getting started, it was getting fun.”
The 1st Lord shot him a sharp, angry glare.
“There is no need to drag this out any longer.
Human…
now it is just you and me.” He reached for his sword and slowly began to equip his dark, colossal armor. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
At the absolute command of the 1st Lord, the other lords bowed their heads respectfully and retreated toward the safe zone where the 2nd Lord stood.
Once the 1st Lord was fully armored, he looked utterly terrifying with the pure, dark mana pressure he exuded.
We clashed.
Since the damage we inflicted on each other healed instantly with every clash of our swords, this relentless and destructive duel lasted for several hours.
Ultimately, I caught a major opening in the rhythm of his fighting.
Just as I was about to bring my katana down into the center of his chest to finish him, his blade struck mine at an unbelievable angle, and his massive tail, swinging from behind, gashed my leg deeply.
I thought to myself, “He’s leaving openings on purpose…
This means I still haven’t seen his true power yet; we’re still testing each other.” Healing the deep gash on my leg within seconds, I quickly fell back.
This time, I wasn’t going to leave things to chance; I began preparing the most massive, destructive offensive spell in my game inventory.
Seeing this immense concentration of mana, the 1st Lord abandoned his counterattack and decided to tank the damage directly.
A wide smile spread across my face.
“Works for me…” I said.
The 1st Lord shrouded himself in layers upon layers of protective barrier spells and took cover behind his legendary, colossal shield.
As for me, I knew that my endurance to sustain this spell circle was nearing its absolute limit.
Consolidating all my remaining pure mana into a single point, I unleashed a massive plasma ball that burned as bright as the sun directly at him.
Simultaneously, the plasma spell I fired pierced through each of his barriers one by one and slammed into his colossal shield with a deafening roar.
Holding his shield tightly with both hands, the 1st Lord was consumed with channeling all his mana into the shield to keep from falling; his surroundings were completely enveloped in smoke and explosions of light.
Right at that exact moment, I exploited the blind spot created by the collapsing barriers.
Unnoticed, I teleported through the magical smoke directly behind him.
I raised my katana, just about to sever his head from his torso when…
Descending from the sky at a speed too ferocious to perceive, a colossal spear impaled me straight through the center of my stomach.
The impact pinned me directly to the ground.
My hands trembled as I reached for the shaft of the spear in my stomach, trying to tear myself free from it.
However, I felt the mana at the impalement site destabilize horribly; my body was rejecting its own mana.
My magic mechanics were completely locked down.
A pained smile appeared on my face.
“Well, now we are truly fucked…” I muttered, ceasing my struggling.
Noticing the situation, the 1st Lord quickly leaped back, lowered his shield, and approached me.
Looking at the spear in my stomach, he said respectfully, “It was a good fight, human.
If this spear hadn’t descended from the heavens just in time, my head probably wouldn’t be on my shoulders right now.”
Just then, a familiar figure gliding down from the sky landed swiftly onto the dirt beside me.
It was Luna…
Without so much as looking at my face, she gripped the legendary spear impaled in my stomach with her bare hands and, causing me agonizing pain, drove the spear even deeper into the earth, pinning me there completely.
Meanwhile, Fairy King Oberon approached us with slow strides from behind the bushes.
Roaring with a disgusting laugh of triumph on his face, he bellowed, “Finally…
Finally we have captured you, wretched human!”
Spitting the dense blood pooling in my mouth directly onto the ground, I managed with difficulty, “No kidding…
We finally get to meet face-to-face, you senile old fool.”
With one final effort, I raised my intact left hand toward him, intending to detonate a lethal offensive spell, when…
Luna suddenly drew the sharp dagger at her side and severed the hand I was focusing the magic with in a single strike, sending it dropping to the ground.
She looked into my eyes with a cold, hatred-filled gaze.
“Don’t even dare, human,” she said in a freezing voice.
Due to the severe trauma, my severed limbs, and the disruptive effect radiating from the spear, my consciousness began to blur rapidly, and everything started to go dark…