Six-Armed Serpent Demon

Page 22

He was creepy.

She caught up with him! Right behind him!

A flash of lightning tore through the dark clouds, and the sky and earth seemed to shimmer for a moment.

The six-armed serpent demon suddenly accelerated, closing in on Constance, and stretched out her jade-like arms, thrusting her sword straight at his back.

She suddenly sat up and let out a long, agonizing scream.

Just as the tip of the Spellbreaker Mand's sword pierced Constance's neck, a figure darted out from the side and thrust a spear straight at her right armpit!

A chilling, eerie chorus of demonic voices echoed across the playground, a sound that was almost maddening.

The figure who had stabbed the six-armed snake demon was struck by five swords and collapsed to the ground, curled up in a ball, his hands tightly covering his ears.

The adamantite greatsword pierced through the back of Admiral Constance's head and mouth. He lay prostrate on the edge of the muddy drill ground, motionless.

The commotion from the distant parade ground began to move in this direction—hundreds of soldiers had been gathering in the rain for a long time, but had not seen Vice General Cons. Suddenly hearing the commotion, they rushed over to see what was happening.

The half-human, half-snake body writhed on the ground in pain.

Both hands, growing on the lower left side, simultaneously abandoned the sword and forcefully covered the snow-white right armpit. The spear was still stuck in the armpit.

The dark blue-black, highly toxic demonic blood flowed down the spear shaft and gushed out from between her white, jade-like fingers, instantly soaking half of her body.

The six-armed serpent demon screamed in agony as it forcefully pulled the spear from its armpit.

Thankfully, she was no longer human, otherwise this would have killed her.

She trembled all over and turned to look at the person who had stabbed her.

Upon seeing it, he was immediately filled with shock and anger: "It's you again?!"

Firestorm Berserker Tusu was coughing up mouthfuls of blood.

The six-armed serpent demon's severely wounded counterattack nearly chopped him into a pile of pieces.

The intense heat emanating from his body scorched the wound, stopping the bleeding. The flowing blood mixed with rainwater, evaporating into pale red vapor on his skin.

The enraged demons' voices rang in his ears: "So you really want to become experience points?"

Tusu doesn't understand, and doesn't want to understand.

He didn't have time to understand.

The spear, stained with demonic blood, pierced through Tusu's chest in an instant, pinning him to the mud wall of the longhouse.

Chapter 24 The Red Assassin

Adventurer leader Patrick carefully poured tobacco onto a piece of paper, gathered it into a ball, licked it along the edge, and deftly rolled the paper into a cigarette.

A slender finger reached out from the side, a spark burning at its tip.

“Thank you,” Patrick said.

Then he started puffing out clouds of smoke.

The owner of the finger was a woman in her twenties, with the skin tone of a jungle native and the features of a Sanlachi immigrant aristocrat: "What do you think?"

Patrick asked lazily, "Does that even need to be looked at?"

He raised his eyelids, gestured with his chin towards the distant slaughterhouse, and slowly exhaled smoke.

"In my opinion, Lana, no, Countess Boto, your old man is in big trouble."

The group of them stood against the wall under the longhouse, watching the soldiers come and go, carrying away the bodies.

From a distance, there were at least a hundred corpses on the playground that had not yet been cleared away. After being washed by the torrential rain and left for two nights, they had begun to emit an astonishing stench.

The woman raised her hand, snatched the cigarette from Patrick's lips, put it in her own mouth, took a puff, and then handed the cigarette back to Patrick.

“I’ll say it again, Tankred—”

She loathed the mere mention of that name. "Tankred isn't my father. And to hell with the Countess."

“You have his blood in your veins too, and at least he found you a good marriage.”

Patrick mumbled through a cigarette.

"If it weren't for this marriage, you wouldn't have been able to access the Boto family's heritage, and you wouldn't have been able to become a demon slayer."

Lana scoffed.

She wanted to say that it was because her brother was too useless... The Boto family's Summoning Magic Inheritance Scroll was originally prepared by Tancred for that guy. If that guy hadn't been so incompetent, it wouldn't have been her turn, the daughter born to a native female slave, to learn the inheritance scroll.

But in the end, she chose to remain silent.

For a moment, they were speechless and fell into silence.

After a while, she asked, "What will happen to him when we go back this time?"

“I don’t know, but being dismissed and escorted back by four Pegasus Knights who rushed from the capital overnight is not a good sign,” Patrick said. “The commander-in-chief sent half of the soldiers and hired adventurers to pan for gold on the riverbank overnight, which led to the breach of the camp and the killing of the lieutenant and the other half of the soldiers. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything so outrageous.”

Lana's face turned very pale.

“Don’t worry,” Patrick reassured her. “If it weren’t for you becoming a witcher and restoring the nation’s important wizarding heritage, he might not even have had the chance to face a military court. Tancred has you to thank if he’s still alive.”

"The Pegasus Knight who came, Gould, is my classmate. He told me that when the news of the defeat reached the capital yesterday, a bunch of elders smashed the tables in the council chamber—Cons is a genuine descendant of the Nimbro Pegasus Knights, not someone like you or me, a Sanlach."

Lana didn't want to continue the topic.

She cast her gaze toward the blood-soaked camp parade ground and muttered to herself, "How did that guy do that?"

"You mean the six-armed serpent demon? That's one of the most skilled demons in combat."

Patrick said, "She killed Cons first here. Right here. Then she was attacked and bled."

He pointed to the white circle at his feet.

Lana looked down and said, "Yes, this black, asphalt-like substance is the blood of a demon."

"Then…"

Patrick, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, closed his eyes and raised his hand forward: "Thump, she used projection magic, and more than one."

When several identical six-armed serpent demons appeared around the training ground, the soldiers panicked and became confused. They spontaneously moved away from the demons and passively gathered in the center of the training ground, crowding together with each other.

Patrick opened his eyes and looked at a pile of corpses in the distance, which resembled a small mountain. "They even trampled each other."

Lana asked curiously, "But why don't they fight back? There's only one enemy, and a few hundred soldiers can easily break out in one direction, right?"

Patrick didn't answer. Instead, he crouched down and carefully examined the damp soil. He squinted and looked ahead, stretching out his arm, making a fist, raising his thumb, and looking at the tip of his thumb.

Finally, he let out a long sigh.

"They fought back before retreating."

Patrick pointed ahead, "See that neat, thick line of blood ahead? That's where the six-armed serpent demon's blade barrier is located."

Blade Barrier: Creating countless rotating blades made of pure force fields out of thin air to form a wall of blades is one of the six-armed serpent demon's signature magical abilities.

The rotating blade of the force field is transparent, with only a faint glow.

On a rainy night with dark clouds and no light, it is almost invisible.

Patrick said, "She was standing right here when the soldiers came running at the sound. Do you see all those tiny holes? Those are javelins the soldiers threw at her. When they finished throwing the javelins, they all charged at her."

"This is the moment she's been waiting for. She watched them begin their charge, and without missing a beat, she deployed her blade barrier. She remained standing there, watching wave after wave of soldiers crash into the barrier, their bodies inexplicably dismembered by the rotating blades of the force field, their lives taken. Notice the thick, horizontal streak of blood; that's the mark left by the soldiers colliding with the blade barrier."

"The charging soldiers were confused and disoriented, but she remained calm."

She grabbed a javelin—perhaps telekinetically—and hurled it over the sword guard at the men maintaining order—there, there, and there, those three men had been pierced through the chest by the javelin—she judged them accurately, judging from their embroidered shoulder armor that they were all mid-ranking officers.

"And so, the morale of the crowd inevitably collapsed, and they began to retreat and scatter in all directions. Only then did she release the several projections I mentioned to surround the playground."

"The six-armed serpent demons were everywhere, and with the sword that had turned into a suicidal barrier during the charge, the soldiers were terrified and dared not break through. So the remaining soldiers gathered in the center, sticking together to protect themselves, and even trampling each other. Their only hope was to hold out until you, old Tankred, returned."

Patrick paused, then sighed. "But Tancred is still panning for gold miles away." He grinned. "Unfortunately, we're panning for gold too."

Lana's face turned ashen.

“Finally,” Patrick said, “do you see those hollow circles of corpses in the center of the playground, one after another, forming a huge centripetal spiral?”

"I see it, what's that?"

"Traces of harvesting."

Patrick said calmly, "She just followed this line, peeling an onion from the outside in circles, gradually going deeper until she harvested them all, leaving none behind."

Lana asked, "What do we do next? Go back to the capital?"

Why go back to the capital?

Patrick gave her a strange look. "Didn't Tancred give you the Gem Disc? We've gathered our forces and sent them out to search for her. The Six-Armed Serpent Demon has crossed the mountain pass and headed north, so we'll follow her and, according to Archmage Zaire's orders, capture or kill her. Isn't that why Tancred hired me in the first place?"

"But…"

"Don't worry, this job isn't difficult."

He resumed his languid tone, "That Cons is a decent commander, but he's an amateur when it comes to this. Using a large army and sheer numbers to deal with the Six-Armed Serpent Demon is useless. The more people on the battlefield, the more advantageous she becomes. Hiring an elite squad of adventurers to take her down is the right way. Actually, if it weren't for your old man Tankred's greed and cowardice, insisting on keeping us around as his bodyguards, this would have been settled long ago."

He gave a confident smile: "I'm the Red Assassin. There's no target in this world that the Red Assassin can't handle, as long as you're willing to pay more."

Upon hearing "more money," Lana's eyes became wary.

How much more money do you want?

"Don't be so nervous, Countess Boto, who is newly widowed. Being so suspicious must have been a big blow to you."

Patrick smiled, rubbed his teeth gently with the cigarette between his teeth, and reached out to stroke Lana's waist.

"But since you insist on paying more, I'll have to oblige... What do you think of the title of Count Boto?"

Lana bit her lip, her face flushed, and did not object.

“Let’s take that person with us,” she said, looking at the mud wall. “He’s really lucky; we need that kind of luck too.”

Patrick's gaze followed hers to the mud wall.

On the rough mud wall, there was a pool of dried, dark black bloodstains and a hole that had pierced through the mud wall.

He blew a smoke ring.

"Yeah. He got a hole in his chest and he's still alive. This guy's luck is just too good."

Chapter 25 Parting ways

The earth giant moved large and small stones, completely blocking the narrow tunnel, while carefully leaving countless gaps for air to circulate.

At the end of the tunnel is a stone cave that extends deep underground.

The Deinonychus and the Earth Giant guarded the area near the tunnel in the stone cave.

A massive black serpent coiled up, occupying half of the cave. Around its center was a woman's jade-like body.

The six-armed serpent demon curled up, closed its eyes to rest, its six arms embracing two owl bear cubs on its left and right, feeling the warmth and thick fur of these two large lumps.

This was her first time falling asleep since arriving in this strange world.

In his sleep, his brows furrowed slightly from the pain, and his long eyelashes trembled gently.

The two owl bear cubs nestled tightly in her arms, seemingly sensing her pain, occasionally letting out a soft "cooing" sound.

In her dream, she saw the strange phenomena in her mental world again.

The circular darkness continued to hum inexplicably, while the halo around its edge still emitted a faint purple glow.

The blue-purple disc, which was slowly rotating around the circular darkness, continued to rotate.

Countless points of light on the outside flew away as the disc rotated, while countless points of light on the inside were sucked into the darkness and disappeared without a trace as the disc rotated.

Now, however, the number of light spots that rotate with it seems to have increased considerably, making it thicker and brighter.

The strange visions slowly faded, and scenes of the battle at the Yamaguchi military camp reappeared in her dream.

Seeing that fleeing figure again, she felt a surge of anger rising within her, a strong desire to become stronger.

—I want to become stronger. I want to swing my sword faster, so that with six arms I can make more strikes at once, and then that guy won't be able to escape…

The unusually cold touch of the spear tip sent a shiver down her spine.

Faced with the overwhelming force of the soldiers, she, already severely injured, felt dizzy and exhausted after only casting her Blade Barrier once.

When will this demonic body finally return to its former glory...?

The excruciating pain in her armpit seemed to become clearer, and the terrifying thought of being between life and death caused her body to tremble slightly.

—If only I had a stronger recovery ability…