“One down!”
Renya glanced at the others. Rona was prudently preparing a grace for use while Azu was already chanting an incantation for a spell as he searched for his next target. They looked like they could take care of themselves for a while. That left him with only one thing to do: cut that nameless demon down as quickly as possible.
The act of taking a step forward was equivalent to shifting one’s attack range a step forward, and shifting one’s attack range a step forward meant, in turn, having the target within striking distance. What, then, would having the target within striking distance imply? The answer was simple: cut it down.
With his left hand Renya pushed against the handle, unsheathing the blade slightly. Then, he rested his right hand on the hilt and let his body do the rest. There was no need to think. The blade burst from the sheath like a flash of white lightning, cutting a clean rift through the thick, festering air. It flashed again. And again. Three times in one breath. It met no resistance. It made no noise. It parted meat, and bone, and the very sound of its own motion. Renya took another step forward. Three heads hit the ground at the same time.
“I must say, you’ve impressed me again,” said the demon, marveling at the scene before him.
No matter how deformed they were, so long as they were fundamentally human, they could not live without their heads. A decapitated body crumpled to its knees before falling to the ground. Renya did not even spare it a glance. His eyes, showing no emotion, were fixed on the demon in front of him.
Another step forward.
The drawn blade remained unsheathed. It flipped in his hand and reversed its cutting edge before leaping upward. Then, it flipped again and dove back down. Two red lines appeared on two separate bodies, one rising, one falling. From groin to head, then head to groin, two wholes became four halves. Bodies toppled over and spilled their innards onto the ground amidst a widening pool of fluid too dark to be blood. Renya walked past them, his pace steady.
“Well, well. This is certainly unexpected. I might have happened upon a great find.” Seemingly unfazed by the fact that five of his humanoid forms were dismantled in the blink of an eye, the demon was jubilant, his expression filled with the wonder of an exotic discovery. “I can make some splendid works by using you as a base.”
“Too bad you won’t get to.”
The blade in Renya’s hand remained unsheathed. A drawn katana existed to cut. The blade flashed again, a living embodiment of those words, and sliced through two more bodies from side to side. Two tops parted ways with two bottoms. One of the tops kept squirming after it landed on the ground. He rested his foot on its head, then stomped. It stopped squirming.
“That makes seven. Assuming the others take care of the remaining four… I believe there are exactly zero left to protect you?”
Despite his own statement, doubt lingered in Renya’s mind. The humanoid forms, aside from their freakish appearance, possessed no abilities of note. They were mere mannequins. Their outstretched arms and grasping hands were a simple plea for help. The paralyzing toxin in their breath, too, seemed to be of little threat until they were extremely close. Renya himself was a testament to that fact; he felt nothing wrong with his body. In addition, their half-decomposed state left them naked. Meanwhile, the katana’s purpose was to rend and slice. Before its honed edge, their exposed bodies and sluggish speed made them little more than slightly mobile scarecrows. Their value to the demon was doubtful to begin with.
Doubtful or not, though, he had no choice but to defeat the man standing in front of him. The path to his opponent was now clear. Without warning, he rushed forward to close the gap.
“By my power, I summon thee…”
In reaction, the demon began his incantation. Renya had no way of knowing what spell the demon would cast, but he braced himself and continued his dash. He was resolved to either dodge or take it head-on, no matter what the attack, or possibly even two or three attacks, turned out to be.
“Blades of wind, cleave!” commanded the demon, his hand raised.
Gusts of wind, razor-sharp, surged forth from his palm in rapid succession. The number shattered Renya’s expectations, and he was shocked to be staring down a total of twenty ethereal blades speeding toward him. It was too late to dodge. He knew almost nothing about magecraft and, therefore, had no way of gauging how powerful the spell was. Regardless, if he couldn’t dodge, there was only one thing left to do.
“Simulcast twenty times! Firebolt!”
Maintaining the speed of his dash, he quickcast Firebolt against the blades of wind bearing down on him. Fire clashed with wind, each blade meeting a ball of flame. Though their numbers seemed equal at first glance, wind proved slightly superior, winning through raw power and bursting through. He held up his sword to intercept the incoming windblades.
“Fool! You think you can block a wind spell with a kata—”
Normally, this would be an impossible feat. A thick shield, perhaps, could have defended against a direct hit, but magecraft was almost never repelled by swinging a weapon at it. What the demon didn’t know about, however, was the Indestructible property attached to Renya’s katana. This property, which was never supposed to exist in this world, meant that it would unilaterally destroy anything destructible it came into contact with. This fact was not restricted to physical objects; magecraft met with the same fate.
The blades of wind not cancelled out by his firebolts had their spell composition systematically dismantled when they touched his blade. The demon’s words died in his throat as he witnessed something impossible. For the first time, he was no longer grinning.
“Wha—”
Even if he didn’t know why, Renya could tell the spell was gone. The shock of seeing an impossible sight delayed the demon’s reaction by just a second. Renya did not pass that second up. After dispelling the blades of wind, his own blade reversed direction and lashed out again. It traced an arc straight through the demon’s body. An outstretched right arm — the same one that unleashed the spell — soared through the air. One end was perfectly smooth, its cross section cut with surgical precision.
“G-Gyaa… Hnngh…”
It was commendable that the demon did not scream. The cut was so clean that the arm whirled through the air and landed on the ground before a fountain of blood erupted from its severed face. Clutching his wounded stump, the demon glared at Renya with hatred in his eyes.
Renya barely noticed. His mind was occupied with concern about what was happening to their separated rear guard. Seeing that his opponent shrank back a little from the attack, he was more than glad to take advantage of the opening. A swing at the demon’s neck was barely evaded by a twist of his body, and a diagonal slash caught his chest, but the cut was shallow. Before Renya could follow up with another strike, the demon roared at him. The voice, not only loud but empowered by mana, hit Renya point-blank and caused him to stagger. In that moment, the demon quickly put some distance between them, backing away to the wall.
A faint hope flashed in Renya’s mind. Maybe the demon, knowing that he lost in a clash of magecraft, was trying to escape. Renya was not sure how his katana had managed to dispel the wind spell, but this fact had shocked the demon enough to create an opening. In other words, it was not a calculated move on his part; he was simply fortunate enough to land a lucky hit. He tried to press his advantage, but his next two attacks were evaded.
Renya had, therefore, yet to land a single hit on his own merit. This spoke to the sheer strength of the demon and his physical capabilities. While the various surprises and doubts he had to contend with meant that he was not at peak performance either, for someone who had lost an arm, the demon was still proving to be a tough opponent. Renya honestly did not want to keep fighting him. The longer this battle took, the worse things would be for him. His gut told him so.