Chapter seventy-five - One-man Army

"Sometimes it's better to be quiet… Not celebrating or partying until you're sure it's over is really the better idea" was the only comment the fairy made through the mindlink.

Locke didn't respond, even if he wanted to, he didn't have time for it, the attacks just came from all directions.

Facing four of the demons was easy, they were stronger than most things Locke had ever fought, but Locke had gained a lot of levels and was able to fight the four without difficulty.

Fighting thirty-two of them was not being easy at all.

Each of the demons carried different weapons, a pair of swords, axes, hammers, etc, f*ck, there was even one of them with a giant scissors!

The demons also had a unique sync, their attacks were flawless and they covered each other, it was like they were connected.

But the worst was a couple of demons that weren't attacking along with the others, one of them had a huge rusty metal ciborium and the other was holding a blood-colored flag with a black embroidered crow, the crow was eating the flesh of a corpse.

Every time Locke hit an attack and dealt damage to one of the demons, which was quite difficult with him being attacked from all sides, the raven demon with the ciborium would open it and scream in is hideous tongue, then a purple shadow emerged the ciborium and ran to the wounded demon, regenerating it, this was making everything more difficult for Locke.

The demon with the flag was also causing him problems, since the beginning of the battle he chanted spells and from time to time he cast them, his flag emitted a horrible purple light that enveloped the other demons, under the effect of that light the demons gained more power and their strength increased, and they were starting to press Locke into a corner.

"Sh*t!" Locke spoke when a demon with a huge broadsword and he was measuring forces, a demon carrying a bident tried to hit Locke's unprotected back, the attack was successful, the demon was clearly aiming for his wings, but the wings were more resistant than than it expected and instead of piercing the bident just scratched the leather, drawing blood but not going as deep as the demon wanted, Locke responded with a flick of his tail, the bony blade at the tip hit the demon and pierced him, but due to the situation Locke was in, the attack was not fatal.

The wounded demon with the bident escaped Locke's control zone, before he could finish the job, the demon with the ciborium healed it instantly and soon the demon with the bident returned to the fight.

'Holy sh*t!' was Locke's only thought, every millisecond was an exchange of blows and Locke's movements were faster than his own thoughts, the demons kept trying to encircle Locke and he didn't stop move to avoid it, the fight was intense.

"It's not too late, young man, we can still work together!" Matthias commented in a worried tone, it seems he was really interested in having Locke by his side.

Locke didn't respond, he continued to face the demons head-on, he exercised everything he learned in his martial arts training, blocking each attack against him, but even with everything he had learned, it was impossible for him to fight so many enemies strong like that at once, and soon the attacks against him began surpass his defenses and cuts opened up all over his body.

His draconic body had a supernatural regeneration and the wounds closed at a visible speed, Locke then started trading damage for damage, landing powerful blows while being wounded back, he even performed a 'suicide attack' passing through all the demons while aiming at the healer demon, unfortunately when he was almost fulfilling his objective another demon got in the way of his claws, giving his own 'life' to block, the other demons responded to Locke's attempt with a joint attack, and in the end he he was forced to walk away with his body covered in wounds.

"Holy sh*t Locke! Stop kidding and just go with all!" Tia yelled through the mental link.

Locke listened to the fairy's message and felt strange, she wasn't wrong, Locke wasn't giving it his all, he was trying to avoid ruining his mana and stamina as much as possible, and so, although he was exercising his physical abilities while maximum he had reached a limit, the truth is that Locke wanted to defeat these demons without needing to 'cheat', he wanted to use the maximum of his natural abilities, since the only way to improve was things like this, to be forced to go through your own limitations, but the fairy was right, this was not the time to be thrifty or to lose time.

Reluctantly, Locke activated his Dragon Force ability, his entire body filling with power and energy as he felt his strength double and his mana erupting as if on fire. Locke roared angrily as violent mana surged through his whole body and his scales were covered by the dark sea of ​​magic, the shadow magic enveloped his entire body forming heavy armor and Locke became a perfect black dragon knight.

The sudden increase in Locke's strength caused the demons to back away, even though they were no more than copies of a larger demon and had little intelligence other than battle instincts, they could feel that the situation had just changed in an uncontrollable way.

"What? You... were you hiding your strength?" Matthias questioned in disbelief, he soon realized that his secret's weapons would be insufficient, he ordered all the demons to attack together and the erupting aspects, along with thousands of imps, rushed at Locke ready to tear them apart.

The potent golden light that escaped through the gap in the shadow helmet was the only colored point in all of Locke's figure, he moved so quickly that the momentum created a shock wave, plunging through the demons he initiated the kill, attacking left and right, his body and mana moved in tandem, and soon the room was covered in explosions, flashes of black light, and the smell of ionized air.

Locke threw black balls of fire that exploded and burned everything in their path, created chains of lightning that fried a whole row of enemies at once, their shadow spears moved as if they were alive and 'swam' among the demons, piercing through everything in they path as they spun violently, all while Locke roared and shattered every thing he can land his hands.

Locke had become a perfect one-man army.

The thirty-one larger demons moved among the smaller ones, trying to escape Locke's murderous fury as they tried to break through his defenses, but the shadow armor easily blocked their attacks.

The demon with the broadsword tried to attack him from above, descending on him in an exaggerated move, Locke responded with a high blow, his fist covered by the shadow gauntlet hit the sharp blade of the sword, the intense shock formed a sonic explosion in the air and the demon was sent flying, with the blade of the sword cracked.

The bident demon took aim at Locke wings again, the only part of Locke's body that wasn't covered in shadow armor, but Locke opened the wings and spun them with the force of a tornado, the wings always had a sharp edge and now with the dragon force they were tougher and more powerful than ever, the demon tried to pierce Locke but was caught by the movement and torn apart like a fruit in a blender.

'Locke, keep an eye on your mana and stamina! You need to get this over quickly! The main target is the motherf*cker who's healing and the b*tch that's buffing!" Tia yelled.

The fairy was right, although Locke was doing great now that he played the cards up his sleeve, he couldn't keep up that pace forever, his eyes traveled with extreme speed through the demons, searching for his two main targets as he continued to slaughter everything which came too close.

It didn't take long for him to find the two, they had both drifted away and were in completely different parts of the room, they were surrounded by the lesser demons and were guarded by two of the bigger ones, they tried to go unnoticed as they continued to fulfill their roles.

Locke realized that the broadsword demon had been healed again when he saw one of those purple shadows come to it, Locke then decided that the healer would be the first, he kicked the sword demon in the chest with all his strength, turning it into a cannonball, snatching the sword in the process, he then launched the sword towards the demon with the flag.

His attack caught the attention of all the demons that had banded together to block the threat, hitting the furiously spinning giant sword with their own weapons, they barely managed to deflect it before realizing that Locke's focus had already shifted elsewhere.

Locke made his way to the healer like a hot knife in a block of butter, the little demons between the two were trampled, destroyed by the impact generated by the impulse of Locke's flight, he got in front of the three demons and created a spike of shadows at both hands, throwing them at the chests of the two guards.

The guards managed to avoid a fatal attack, but the impact of the blow was strong, throwing them both a few meters back, he grabbed the unprotected demon's neck and black flames came out of his hand consuming the monster's head with ease, the rusty ciborium fell on the ground, Locke was about to pick it up when he felt a bad sensation coming from the object.

'Argh, destroy it, this thing stinks of hell!' Tia screamed through the mental link.

Locke didn't deny the fairy's solution or think twice, a fireball flew from his fingers and the object burned completely, a cacophony of screams sounded from the ciborium as it burned, but Locke didn't seem to mind.

With the loss of main support Matthias realized that at the rate things were going it would only be a matter of time before Locke defeated the rest of the demons, he also knew it would be difficult to get away from Locke, as Locke proved capable. of feeling him, as much as he wished to keep such a specimen alive he valued his own life more, so he decided it was time to use his last card.

The ex-priest started chanting Latin words, his voice sounded cruel and profane, the little demons started screaming and the eyes of the crow demons turned red, Locke turned away as he watched without understanding what was happening, much to his surprise, the crow demons started attacking the smaller demons and devouring them, it wasn't long before they started attacking each other too, soon the room became a scene out of hell itself.

That's when Locke started to realize, the more the crows ate, the stronger they got, each one's mana was rising at an intense speed, he didn't think twice and started attacking the demons, aiming to decrease their numbers.

The lesser demons, despite screaming as if they had a fork up their ass and were being devoured, did their best to block Locke's attempts, using their own bodies as a shield for the crows, which continued to devour the little ones and theirs. 'brothers'.

Still Locke managed to finish off six more of them, he was ready to continue when Matthias screamed again, the remaining crows responded to the scream and dove together to the same spot, the smaller demons too, forming a sphere of protection with their own bodies.

Locke attacked the sphere with violence, each blow he made deeply and slaughtered a huge number of demons, but he could feel a hideous and disgusting mana gathering in the middle of the sphere.

"Damn it, I'm going to go all out!" Locke undid the shadow helmet as he concentrated the mana in his chest, the mana rose in his throat and out of his mouth, a dragon's breath made of pure black mana was hurled at the sphere, penetrating cleanly, consuming the bodies of all the demons in the way, he could see a huge black egg in the center of the sphere, the egg had a hole where its breath had passed, but it closed like it was nothing, although the egg shrinks a little.

Locke was ready to fire again when all the lesser demons stopped screaming, their bodies were pulled into the egg and consumed within a millisecond, the egg then cracked.

A single figure emerged from the egg, a raven man like the rest, but much taller and with a different air about him, he had a muscular body and a huge pair of black wings, he was dressed in a nice purple suit and had white gloves on his hands, a hat over his head and a gold monocle in his right eye, held by a thin gold chain to a detail on his suit, in his hands he held a black-shaped cane with a raven's head made of gold at the tip, he looked at Locke for a few moments.

"How interesting..." The creature spoke.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 75 Extra - The Heralds of the New World

Little is known about the origin of the heralds, it is known that a group with a similar name was known to exist around the 1700s to 1800s, but it is debated whether they were really the same group or just share the same name.

This first group consisted of humans with knowledge of magic and magical creatures, and aimed to help common people and non-humans using their magical abilities, they preached a non-violent approach and sought to take people back to 'the natural ways' , obviously the Church did not look kindly on them but, due to their little threat, they were left alone.

Sometime after 1800 this group was completely eradicated, the reasons are not very clear, some suspect the church's work, but some swear on their feet that they were killed when they tried to help a group of violent monsters.

Almost a hundred and fifty years later the second group was created, but although they claimed to have the same goal as the original, they were known to use violent tactics, yet they were known to work in a gray area, it is known that they, by Along with many other smaller groups, they were responsible for aiding the escape of many races during the purge.

Almost a hundred and fifty years later the second group was created, but although they claimed to have the same goal as the original, they were known to use violent tactics, yet they were known to work in a gray area, it is known that they, by Along with many other smaller groups, they were responsible for aiding the escape of many races during the purge. It is known that this group was also annihilated at some point, although it is not entirely certain whether it was the work of the Nazis or the Allies.

The third group, 'lovingly' dubbed the cultists of the apocalypse, completely diverge from the first two, although they claim to have the same mission, which is to return humanity to the natural ways of magic, but they can clearly be framed as just another of the many extremist magic groups born at the end of the past millennium.

The biggest difference from this third group was their main motto, they believe that they need to end the modern era, that since industrialization humanity is on a path of destruction and that the only salvation is controlled destruction.

Obviously, they were treated as a joke for a long time, being bullied and taken to a corner, the change came when the current leader found a method to perform invocations bypassing the seal of the world, he got in touch with a higher dimension and signed a contract with a self-level existence, all this behind the back of the Church and the BPD.