Suimei peered in as deeply as he could, but he couldn’t find anything. In that case, the demons’ goal wasn’t to quickly take over the capital or to destroy it.
Sitting on the floor with his legs crossed, Suimei steepled his fingers beneath his nose.
“The groundwork to create new demons,” he muttered, thinking. “No. Those demons already exist; they can just use the rest as resources in battle. Use this battle to drill fear into human hearts... That’s also wrong. Doing so will only strengthen their faith in the Goddess. It’ll give them more unity and make the heroes more powerful. Where...? Where is the answer...?”
As Suimei continued to rack his brain over this, he suddenly spotted something concerning through the crows’ eyes.
“Oops, looks like Reiji’s having a hard time. Guess I’ll go lend a hand.”
Suimei stood up and got moving. The Sacrament Reiji wielded was definitely powerful, but he was missing a few pieces to be able to defeat this kind of opponent on his own. That was exactly where Suimei had to step in.
Suimei flung back his jacket, then vanished without leaving so much as a shadow.
“This can’t be...”
Looking at what stood before him, Reiji was at a loss for words. Having gone to the eastern part of the city, his group had been forced into a hard fight immediately. Or maybe it was better to say they had no idea what to do. They weren’t being overwhelmed by the enemy or anything. They weren’t even close to being injured. But they definitely had a hard time making any progress.
“How troublesome,” Graziella said. “We crush it and crush it, but there’s no end in sight...”
“Ugh,” Mizuki grumbled. “Here comes another gross one.”
“I believe this is the demon general who showed up during the battle in the Empire, but...” Felmenia trailed off.
Yes, it’d happened while Reiji’s group had been cleaning up the demons in the eastern part of the city. In the middle of the fight, the demons had performed some kind of ritual, causing this thing to appear out of nowhere.
It was a mountain of pale pink flesh with countless limbs sticking out of it—the exact same appearance of the demon previously named Grallajearus. But this creature seemed to be different. It didn’t speak, and indeed, it didn’t seem to possess any will of its own.
Its flesh just kept bubbling and swelling, multiplying in mass. But therein lay the current issue: this demon was expanding at a terrifying rate, and it threatened to bury the entire city under its meat.
In battle Reiji’s group was only capable of delaying it. They crushed it with enormous boulders, burned it with fire, cut and crystallized it with the Ishar Cluster, but they weren’t getting the results they hoped for.
“Tch. We managed against it somehow before, but now...” Reiji muttered.
“Last time you dealt the finishing blow,” Graziella commented. “I suppose it really is different this time.”
“Mm-hmm. It had a core,” Reiji explained. “By cutting it, I stopped it from regenerating. But this one doesn’t have a core.”
“Felmenia-san! Can’t you do something?!” Mizuki shouted.
“My flames aren’t spreading very well,” Felmenia said. “To defeat an enemy like this... Ummm, what was I supposed to do again?”
Felmenia dredged through her memories but couldn’t find a clear answer. And even as they spoke, the parody of Grallajearus in front of them continued to swell in size. If left to itself, it really did seem like it would grow endlessly. All it did was expand, push against and engulf everything around it, flattening its surroundings. Things were progressing badly enough that Reiji’s group was starting to feel uneasy.
It was a mindless weapon. Grallajearus had possessed emotions and intellect. The simple act of removing those features had led to a ghastly outcome.
“I-I’ll keep its expansion in check,” Felmenia suggested. “We need to at least stop it from engulfing the entire city.”
“Please do,” Reiji agreed.
“White flames run across the fields. Surging over mountains, leaping across valleys, it sets fire to all in its path. My friend, answer my call. My friend, heed my request. Such is a baptism in white fire.”
A magic circle emanated white light as it took shape on the ground. White fire burst out of it, spreading to the surrounding area and forming a field. Shortly after, a part of the fire swelled up and transformed into a white horse—more precisely, the white fire mimicked the shape of a horse. Its mane swayed like a raging blaze, and with each step, more flames burst into the air, moving like a real living creature.
The flaming horse lowered itself, and Felmenia casually straddled it before driving it forward using its reins. The horse left a wave of fire behind it, preventing the mass of meat from expanding any further. The fires burned what flesh it touched to ash and drew a clear line that couldn’t be crossed. Yet this wasn’t enough to defeat it.
That was when Reiji slammed his crystals into it. They buried themselves into the meat and shattered into more deadly fragments, but they were lost to the pressure of the swelling flesh.
“It’s really no good...” Reiji mumbled.
“Gaaah! This is nonsense!” Mizuki cried.
Reiji had tried to crystallize his target. By doing so, he’d hoped to prevent it from regenerating, but the lump of meat was growing faster than Reiji could crystallize it.
Felmenia’s flaming white horse was burning the demon’s edges and keeping it from growing larger by running in circles round it, but this wasn’t ideal. It was no more than a temporary measure.
“Tch. I didn’t think it’d go this poorly...” Reiji grumbled.
“I believe the only plan is to destroy it with overwhelming firepower... but the problem is how to arrange such a blow,” Graziella said.
“Th-Then should we call for help?” Mizuki suggested. “We might be able to manage that way!”
“Seems that’s our only choice,” Graziella agreed.
However, Reiji shook his head. “No, please leave this to me.”
“So you say, but isn’t your weapon unsuited to mitigating the creature’s regeneration?” Graziella countered.