“Galva!” Zain let out an anguished cry.

  Galva, bathed in the black plasma, began to change into a grotesque form. His flesh ruptured and swelled. Strange leg-like appendages sprouted from his body. He wasn’t screaming anymore. The only sounds to be heard were the crackling of the plasma, a bestial growl... and Sherra’s mad laughter.

  Tha-thump! A pulse shot through Galva’s body, and it swelled a size larger.

  Not good! “Run, everyone!” I shouted, instinctively realizing the danger.

  Everyone snapped back to their senses at last, turned tail, and took off running back up the shaft. The growling and the laughter grew distant behind us, but rather than silence—Rrr... rrr... rrrrrmb—an eerie vibration overtook the air. This, too, was growing stronger and stronger. Were we gonna make it outta here?!

  Rrrrrmb! The mountain itself was trembling.

  The vibrations had escalated into full-blown tremors by the time the five of us made our mad dash to the exit. As you might guess, by “the five of us,” I meant me, Gourry, Luke, Mileena... and the man in black we’d picked up. Zain had been our enemy minutes ago, but now we had nothing to fight over.

  Rrrrrrrrrmb! As the earthly tremors crescendoed to shake the very air around us, our newly-formed quintet flew out of the cave!

  “Get clear! Hurry!”

  Just as we got away from the cliff face and dove into the forest—Cra-kash! Bursting out of the mountain around its midpoint, a giant black figure appeared.

  “Hraaaaaaaagh!” The being that was formerly Galva howled up at the moon.

  “What on earth...?” Mileena gasped, her voice hoarse with terror.

  I was finally starting to get my head around what had happened. Of course, I was still missing some of the details, but...

  I’d once heard that demidemons—lesser demons and brass demons—were basically low-ranking demons of the astral plane who’d entered our world by possessing sub-sentient animals, transforming their bodies and abilities in the process. The implication was that, since humans were sentient, it was impossible for such bottom-tier demons to possess and transform them.

  But by extension... didn’t that mean a more powerful demon could do the job? The answer to that question appeared to be standing before us now in the form of a massive black lump of flesh the size of a dragon, held aloft on ten spidery legs.

  “Hraaagh!” A cry halfway between rage and hatred echoed into the moonlit night, and the thing—the term “hyperdemon” seemed apt—began to move. Its destination? Bezeld.

  “Not good! He’s headin’ for the city!” Luke shouted.

  “Well, duh! Let’s stop him!” I responded in irritation.

  I didn’t know how powerful this thing was, but it was pretty easy to imagine it was leagues stronger than any lesser or brass demon. If it cut loose on a city, its draconic size alone would stymie most of the damage the garrison’s non-magical swords and spears could dish out. That meant our only solution was to take it down before it got there!

  I took the cue to jump to action and recite my spell of choice.

  Thou who art darker than twilight

  Thou who art redder than lifeblood

  I swear in thy exalted name

  Obscured, deep in the flow of time

  And make this pledge to darkness here:

  So all those in equal measure—

  Fools that they are to block our path—

  Shall face destruction unconstrained

  Grant me power, and unleash thine!

  “Is that...?!” Mileena exclaimed when she heard me chanting.

  Yup, this was the attack spell that called upon Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu, ruler of all demons in this world—

  “Dragon Slave!”

  Kra-koooooooom! Responding to my words of power, a red light coalesced near the hyperdemon and exploded! The smoke quickly cleared, and when it did...

  “That thing’s still standing?!” Luke shouted. Sure enough, the hyperdemon had survived a direct hit from a Dragon Slave.

  “But it does seem to have taken some damage,” Mileena said calmly, in contrast to Luke’s panic.

  Yup. Though I hadn’t blown it to pieces, my spell had taken a chunk out of the mass of flesh that served as the hyperdemon’s body. It seemed like its demonic power had managed to mitigate the Dragon Slave, but couldn’t negate the spell entirely. In other words, it had survived that one, but I could just keep hammering it with Dragon Slaves until it was kaput.

  Time for take two, then! But just as I began to chant, the hyperdemon slumped. Hmm? Out of juice? I had to wonder, but only for a second. I knew pretty immediately that it was pure wishful thinking. As the hyperdemon leaned... the chunk of flesh my Dragon Slave had taken out began to fill in before my eyes!

  “Huh?!” I found myself rubbing my eyes, and by the time I looked again, the hyperdemon’s wound was completely healed over.

  “You’re kiddin’ me... You gotta be...” Luke’s whisper was carried away by the wind.

  The rest of us just stared blankly. The crater-sized hole gouged out by the explosion had healed in the blink of an eye. That kind of recovery speed would be absurd even for trolls, and they were the poster children of regenerative powers. The hyperdemon stood in place for some time, then resumed its course for Bezeld undeterred.

  “So... what’s the plan?” Gourry asked, scratching at his cheek.

  I looked at him in bafflement. “The plan? I don’t... have one.”

  I’d met creatures that I couldn’t beat with a Dragon Slave before. Some that could even negate it completely. But... one that could instantly heal from its damage? This was a real first! It kind of felt like cheating, you know? How did that even work? Not even a powerful high-tier demon could spontaneously recover from a head-on Dragon Slave, yet this hyperdemon had just done the impossible and barely batted an eye.

  Mileena was the first to collect herself. “Worry about that later. If nothing else, we need to slow it down,” she said and took off running again, quickly followed by Luke.

  “She’s right, Gourry!” I called.

  “Yeah!”

  The four of us could still— Wait, there were supposed to be five of us. Where had Zain gone?!

  Well, I guess from his point of view, his mission was just to get the sword. He was under no obligation to help us put down the hyperdemon, but still... Oh well. Not like I was counting on him anyway.

  For now, Mileena was right. We had to do whatever we could to hold the hyperdemon off while we thought ourselves up a plan! And so the four of us took off after the giant creature.

  “Let’s go!” Gourry charged at the demon’s foot! “Hyah!”

  Swsh! His silver blade glinted in the moonlight, cutting a glowing arc in the darkness. It cleanly cleaved one of the demon’s legs, which was about as wide as I was tall. The severed appendage began to slide apart on the diagonal slice...

  Did he do it?! In spite of my momentary hopes, something like tentacles began to squirm from the upper and lower sections of the cut limb. They knitted together, and in an instant, the leg was back to normal! That regenerative process was honestly pretty gross when viewed up close... Kinda made me glad I hadn’t had a front-row seat for the post-Dragon Slave show.

  The hyperdemon kept walking along at the same pace, not even seeming to notice the brief damage to the leg. We weren’t even slowing it down...

  “It’s no use! I can cut through it, but...” Gourry fretted as he leaped back from the hyperdemon.

  “What about my sword, then?!” Luke charged in next, his blade aglow. He released a blast of wind that sliced at the hyperdemon’s leg!

  ...

  “Yeah, nothin’,” Luke said with an abashed smile, scratching at his head.

  This guy...

  “Freeze Arrow!” Mileena incanted. Her icy bolts scored direct hits on the demon’s legs but didn’t even seem to faze the monster. She was probably hoping she could take out all its appendages at the same time and slow it down, but this level of shamanistic magic clearly wasn’t going to do the trick.

  Okay, my turn again! “Zellas Bullid!”

  The beam of light I summoned scorched through two of the hyperdemon’s legs, which again healed instantly. Hmm, so that won’t cut it either. Shall I try blowing off all its legs at once with a Dragon Slave? I considered it—it would buy us some time, but that was it. I wished I could fire off a chain of big spells to annihilate the demon before it had time to regenerate, but it was healing faster than I could get through chants.

  I also knew a spell even more destructive than the Dragon Slave, but I didn’t really want to use it...

  Hey... wait a minute.

  “Guys, I’m gonna go big! Stand back!” I called, then began an incantation. This one was a souped-up Dragon Slave courtesy of my talismans’ amplification! I honestly didn’t know how powerful it would end up being, but I was hoping it was enough to vaporize the hyperdemon in one blast! I finished the long chant, and then... “Dragon Slave!”

  Kra-kooooooooooom! An even bigger explosion than before rocked the night air. Soon, the flames died down, and...

  “Okay, that’s progress!” I rejoiced when I spied the hyperdemon through the dissipating dust. The standard Dragon Slave had only been enough to bore a hole in its central mass, but this baby... It hadn’t wiped the hyperdemon off the map completely, but it had incinerated about half of its body.

  Except... Yup, there it goes again!

  “Oh, c’mon!” I clutched my head in my hands as the creature regenerated once more. How can something instantly heal from that kind of damage?!

  Still, there was something about the eerie regeneration ritual that was tickling the back of my mind. While I racked my brain trying to place it, the hyperdemon moved ever closer to Bezeld. As it approached, the sky over the city lit up. I instinctively looked that way to see countless small points of red light hovering over the edge of the city.

  A moment later... they came rushing at the hyperdemon all at once!

  “Flare Arrows?!” I cried. There were hundreds—no, thousands of them.

  Broooooshabooshaboosh! The fiery darts struck the monster with a great explosion.

  “That’s right! The garrison!” Gourry cried as he watched the scene unfold.

  Indeed, there were quite a few soldiers and sorcerers stationed in Bezeld at the moment. After a huge monster erupted from the mountain and a certain someone started chucking Dragon Slaves around, there was no way they hadn’t been on alert. They must have called all their sorcerers together to fire an organized volley of Flare Arrows at the giant creature closing in on the city.

  But as we’d already established, spells of that level weren’t going to work. The hyperdemon just continued its slow and steady march toward the town. Various other attack spells came flying intermittently from its walls, but most did nothing, and those that did deal damage were instantly healed from. Was there no way to beat this monstrosity?!

  The hyperdemon was finally upon the city. Chaotic screams rang through the night-cloaked streets. Even as the sorcerers hit the monster with all the spells they had, it continued unhindered. Of course, the soldiers didn’t fare much better... And upon realizing that the garrison was virtually helpless against the hyperdemon, the townspeople fell into a total panic. The soldiers were shouting orders, perhaps to evacuate, but their voices were drowned out by the screams of the citizenry.

  That was the state we found the city in when we used our flight spells to beat the hyperdemon to Bezeld.

  Still, while it was all well and good that we’d managed to head the thing off, we hadn’t yet come up with a plan. Another Dragon Slave wasn’t going to be more effective just because I hit it from here. There had to be some way to beat this thing—I just didn’t know what it was. There was something, something nagging at my brain... but the hyperdemon wasn’t about to stand and wait while I figured it out.

  The sorcerers’ formation at the edge of town fell apart as the black giant loomed. The hyperdemon hadn’t mounted a single attack, but its mere approach inspired terror.

  “Stay strong! Hit it with all your attack spells! It’s got to work!” a commander-type shouted, not very convincingly, to the cowering sorcerers. But just then...

  Vwoosh! Something tore through the air and the commander let out a scream!

  The sound of chanting paused like time stood still. A tentacle had lashed out from hyperdemon’s fleshy core and pierced the commander’s chest—armor and all—with a long, black talon mounted at the end.

  Vvm. A shudder ran through his body. The blood instantaneously drained from his face, his cheeks now hollow. Thrm. His skin dried up and his hair fell out. The once-young commander was mummifying before our eyes. Yeah... almost like the tentacle had sucked the very life force out of him.

  “Urk! Elemekia—” One of the nearby sorcerers was about to unleash a spell at the tentacle, when...

  Fwip! Another tentacle, this one talon-less, appeared out of nowhere and ensnared the sorcerer! No, it wasn’t just him... Countless dozens of tentacles lashed out simultaneously and snatched up the other casters around him too. Despite each one being only as thick as a child’s wrist, they had to be incredibly strong. The tentacles carried their prey to the hyperdemon’s core, and then...

  Skwish! The fleshly mass shuddered, and grotesque, fanged, snake-like tendrils sprouted out of it to chomp down on the sorcerers and soldiers. Their deathly agonies echoed into the night. Unable to bear the gruesome sight, the sorcerers around me scrambled over each other to flee. But seeing this all for myself...

  “That... That’s it!” I cried out when it hit me. I’d witnessed a similar phenomenon a while back in a city called Atlas.

  Raugnut Rushavna was a curse usable only by demons that granted a terrible sort of immortality to its victim. Humans afflicted with it would be transformed into a clod of flesh racked with endless torment. There was no way out but death... except the afflicted couldn’t die through any normal means. The only way to stop their suffering was to destroy the demon responsible.

  If this hyperdemon had been created by Raugnut Rushavna, that would explain its absurdly fast regeneration. But it also meant our only hope of defeating it was to find and annihilate the demon who’d cast the curse.

  The screaming in the streets grew louder. The people’s resistance amounted to nothing, and at last, the hyperdemon breached Bezeld! Once inside the city, it finally began to reveal its tremendous power. Countless tentacles streaked out of the main body, indiscriminately snatching up nearby people and drawing them in to devour them. The monster’s attacks weren’t particularly overwhelming; its regenerative capacity was the real problem here. All this time, we’d been pressing the offensive...

  “Blast Ash!”

  Frrsh! The strike I unleashed turned the midsection of one tentacle extending from the hyperdemon’s body to black ash, but thinner tentacles sprang from both halves of the burned-through tentacle, knotted together, and reconnected the two.

  Even its extremities have that kind of recovery power?! None of our attacks seemed to be effective in the slightest. On top of that, now that the creature was within the city limits, I couldn’t use big spells like the Dragon Slave. Not that they would’ve done much good either...

  “Isn’t there anything we can do, Lina?!” Gourry asked.

  “Anything at all?” I couldn’t help wincing. If there was, I would have done it already... Someone merely afflicted with Raugnut Rushavna wouldn’t turn into a rampaging giant like this, and your garden-variety demon wouldn’t have this crazy recovery ability. The trouble here was the fusion of the two—

  W-Wait a minute...

  “Everyone! Back me up!” I called, picking up a chant as I charged at the hyperdemon!

  “Hey! Wait, Lina! Darn it...” Gourry clucked.

  “Back you up? For what?!” Luke called.

  Either sensing me coming or just continuing their onslaught, countless tentacles lashed out at me. My spell wasn’t ready yet, but...

  “Rune Flare!”

  “Hyah!”

  “Rah!”

  Mileena’s bolt of light pierced one of the tentacles, and Gourry and Luke cut through the others. And while they had all of the incoming tentacles disabled, I charged onward.

  “Lina! You’re too close!” Gourry shouted.

  I ignored him, natch! I had to find out if my hunch was right or not! The tentacles after me twisted and wriggled, but two or three of them moving at random wouldn’t be able to catch me. Even when two more shot my way, I figured I could handle ’em. I twisted at just the right time to dodge, and just then...

  “Geh!”

  Thmp! My leg was swept out from under me. I’d tripped over a tentacle that had either snuck up on me or stayed low to the ground to go unnoticed. I lost my balance and stumbled, and when I did—Fwip!—another of the tentacles grabbed my left arm!

  “Lina!” Gourry shouted, slashing through the tentacle that had seized my arm.

  It regenerated immediately, but the moment it lost its grip, I shook it off.

  “What are you doing, Lina?!” Gourry asked, but I couldn’t afford to answer him now—I’d lose the spell I’d just finished chanting! I wasn’t ready to let it fly yet either!

  The tentacles heading for us were increasing in number, if gradually. Gourry was defending me with his blade and Mileena was covering me with spells from behind, but I was hitting the limits of what I could dodge.

  All of a sudden—Vwee!—something streaked toward me, weaving through the tentacles! There it is! This was what I’d been waiting for! I finally unleashed the spell I was holding on to!

  “Ragna Blade!”

  Vrummm! Borrowing the power of void itself, I produced a blade of darkness in my hands and parried the coming strike with all my might.

  Ngeeeee! Was the very air around me straining, or was it a cry of rage? Whatever the case, the tremendous sound rocked my world as my dark blade clashed with one of the hyperdemon’s tentacles... More specifically, with the black claw at the end of it!

  Whaaat?! My eyes went wide in shock. My blade could cut through most demons, even pretty darn high-level ones! Yet the hyperdemon’s black claw had blocked it!

 

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