Before anyone could act on the demon-kin standing not even twenty feet from them, it vanished into the ether with a hissing growl; Dei hadn’t so much as laid eyes on it.

  ‘That thing… Its stealth rivals that of Whisper if it can evade Clever’s time detection. I can’t let it get away.’

  Turning his eyes inward with Meditation, sifting through the karmic ribbons, he attempted to latch onto the fleeing form, finding a strange evasion about it.

  He used Meditation to anchor Void’s teleportation every time he used it, becoming more proficient with each use, but no matter what he tried, it flowed like smoke through his fingers, utterly intangible.

  He threw one look at the karmic curse placed on him, involving concepts of Iora, his family, and demons, and realized it would soon come to fruition. He hadn’t seen how they were related before, but it was undeniable now.

  Planning out the next steps, he sent out two quick Meaningfuls, one to his family the other to his friends

  He didn’t know whether Iora would use them as hostages and he didn’t trust her to keep them safe. More than that, he wasn’t going to fight against a prophecy and have it become self fulfilling in a way he couldn’t control, he’d lean into it.

  “I’m jumping head-first into the battle with the demon-kin, but I can’t do that if I’m distracted protecting all of you. There’s a pocket dimension created by Fendrascora in my bloodstream right now, please don’t fight against her hiding you all away. If it gets too dangerous, she can easily slip away.”

  None of them had abilities that could communicate fast enough, leaving them unable to respond before Fendrascora washed over them and they disappeared. He was sure they’d speak their mind in a second, but every moment counted.

  The simultaneous message to his friends was, as expected “Fendrascora, pull my family and Thadria into your garden; Clever, wrap around my neck and hold on; Thadria, run if you want but you’ll be safer with Fendrascora; Perumah, you have better crowd control but stay close in case there are elites; and Jacob, you’re a distraction, just walk as deep into the army as possible to keep their attention on you, grab an elite demon if you can to ensure it doesn’t get away, do your thing in general.”

  Perumah exploded into a ball of roots, stabbing into both the dirt and Dei. He felt her begin drawing on his blood stream and removing the concepts from it so as not to damage his soul; in response to the drain, Fendrascora balanced his nutrients so his body recovered as quickly as it was consumed.

  He began to grow, teeth sharpening, claws lengthening, and Connection running free from within him until his World that Walks form solidified, and he floated into the air.

  Grabbing Jacob by the collar, flew through the tunnels.

  He could’ve teleported, but he’d already proven that Void could be intercepted, and he had no spells dedicated to countering interference. It would be safer to fly there, and he had yet to speak with Aloran, doing so now.

  “Aloran, demon-raid incoming to my home village. Can you call for backup from the council? I know Oura’s about to be executed and everything but I think that can be put on hold for a moment.”

  “The council is informed already. This village is not the only one being raided, and yes, the trial is put on hiatus. A warning though, Oura will be taking part in the defense, you will see him at some point.”

  Irritation flashed through his mind, but he could understand why they allowed him to fight. Tyr was willing to surrender himself to judgement after his failure, it must be customary for a failed Shaman to give their existence for one last battle.

  “It’s been ruled that this village is most likely to survive since you’re here, so they’re placing its defense in your hands and allocating resources to places that need them more.”

  “What?!” Dei shouted mentally, “How did they know I was even here?”

  “...Sorry, I told them the moment the alarm went off. Not only do I think you can handle it, you really will be saving tens of thousands at minimum if you can take even a single village off their mind. If they can defeat even a single raid, it will snowball towards overwhelming success. Spreading them too thin will only leave Gem-Dwellers dead.”

  He grumbled, but there was no heat in his thoughts. He understood.

  More than that, he knew he could handle this. He would handle it.

  This was his first time facing a real army of demon-kin, something he’d only seen in Aloran’s memory.

  It made his heart race. He was scared, true, but that’d never stopped him before.

  ‘What if I have to face something like Aloran did? What if there are level seven hundred demons out there waiting for me?’

  But he knew there wasn’t. Aloran’s raid was a dedicated effort to specifically put Aloran down because he’d represented an existential threat upon the demon’s hold of the mortal plane.

  “I will try to end the raid early and help with the others,” he said firmly.

  “Don’t rush it. Take your time. I’ll be behind you every step, and even if the Shamans won’t step in, I will if you’re in trouble. Do this right, Dei.” Aloran spoke with the grim guarantee of experience.

  Dei put their connection to the back of his mind, leaving it open for further instructions but focusing on the current moment.

  His family’s minds finally caught up, as Fendrascora said “Your parents want to be let out. They want to fight.”

  “No. Can they see out?”

  “I’ll show them.”

  “Simply tell them to watch. If they think it’s too much for me don’t stop them from escaping- you won’t be able to- but give me a chance to fight first.”

  Perumah disconnected from him, her roots creating a tangling ball of thorns that ran alongside him as her hive matured. They were almost on the demons, just a mile below the Wilderness Convergence.

  Based on the mental-map granted to him by the beast king, the demon-kin were going around the Convergence, closing in on the general location of the village. He wasn't sure if he’d get help from the beast king, but he wouldn’t count on it. Not just that, but there was a certain range to the beast king’s detection, implying this might not be all the demons.

  His face twitched. There were a hundred and one things to consider, but his God would take care of the rest.

  He was a Slaughterer, he’d do what he did best.

  Coming up on the wave, his arm cocked back with Jacob in it. The Snap energy building inside him released at once as the concussive blast alone was enough to knock down the nearest walls.

  Jacob had allowed Dei to move him, but the rest of the world didn’t have that luxury. Stone encountered an unstoppable force traveling faster than the speed of sound, and in a single attack, fifty demon-kin were instantly killed with many more having had the limbs too close to the blast site torn to pieces.

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  ‘He’s a shockingly effective projectile. I might have to do that again.’

  Through Dei’s soul detection, he could sense how most of the creatures here were soulless husks, only a few of the most powerful having stolen from actual living creatures. No wonder he couldn’t see them before.

  Of those with stolen souls, three of them surpassed four hundred, though none went over their fifth evolution.

  No God-level demon-kin here, he could do this.

  He sensed that Perumah’s emotional control was severely stunted, as they simply couldn’t think, but she tore through them nonetheless, grabbing and draining them of blood.

  She immediately spit out what she’d taken from them.

  “Immeasurably poisonous,” she said, voice tinged with disgust as she instead began de-limbing them.

  Dei let her, focusing on the more relevant opponents, the elites.

  Recognizing Dei as the biggest threat, two went for him while the third led a force of demon-kin towards Jacob. Dei reserved a piece of his mind to keep an eye on Jacob and ensure he really was invincible against demon-kin attacks.

  He was worried he’d hear pained cries considering the first time Jacob was thrown (out of the sun), but he could faintly hear his haughty laugh and spoken mockeries against the grayed out Races around him. Dei even saw several drop dead, burning their existence to blast Jacob with Phantom-Plague-affinity attacks that would normally incinerate even the most powerful of creatures, but Jacob wasn’t even remotely phased by the black smog.

  He reached the first elite and fired off a Wrath-empowered Identify, noting that it looked like some kind of lanky insectoid creature vaguely resembling a person and a stickbug. It dodged away from his mana, then right back into it, and he imagined a grin forming on its neutral face, as if he could picture its internal dialog mocking him, saying it allowed him to Identify it.

  [Demon-Kin - Estimated level 480 by normal standards. 370 by yours.

  Utilizes Acceleration, Snap, and Evasion affinities]

  “That’s a Skittergore,” Aloran said quietly in his mind, “Very fast monsters, near-impossible to hit, die quickly if you land even a single blow.”

  Wrath flowed through his flesh, the cracks in his skin glowing red as he punched out rapidly.

  True to his expectation, the Skittergore flowed around his fists, twisting at impossible angles before blurring to punch a hole through his shoulder.

  A puff of Soul Strength exploded into the air; the punch hadn’t pierced his defenses, but that dealt non-negligeable damage.

  The second elite was on him quickly, and he hit it with an Identify as well, seeing that it was an atrocious mixture of several familiar animals.

  Its head resembled an angler-fish without the lure, body made of some porous mushroom material with vague, finger-like appendages at the end of its arms, both of which split like branches unevenly.

  Its lower-half was serpentine, and a shell sat on its back.

  [Demon-Kin - Estimated level 430 by normal standards. 325 by yours.

  Utilizes Endurance, Bulk, Kinetic, and Sword affinities]

  “Aloran, what the fuck is that?” he asked as the information of its level filled his mind.

  “Deepscrawler. One of the more unsettling Sapient Races that reside in the darkest parts of the ocean. Weak to Fire or Fire-adjacent affinities.”

  ‘That thing is supposed to be Sapient?’

  Ignoring the Skittergore for a moment, he launched an attack at the Deepscrawler, seeing it not even attempt to dodge.

  His fist sank into its chest, and he was shocked when it didn’t so much as budge.

  Dei’s Connection flowed freely to ward off the Skittergore for a moment while he focused his all into the creature in front of him. It could not move quickly, leaving it open to his attacks in a way the Skittergore just wasn’t

  Fire exploded from under his flesh as Snap and Convection pushed themselves to the limit to match the speed of his muscles, and the resulting flashes singed the Deepscrawler.

  Punching it hundreds of times over the course of several seconds, Dei saw tiny blades extend from its fingers, its attempts at cutting him easily dodged.

  By the end of his flurry, its body was littered with small craters, but its movements were utterly unhindered.

  “Dodge,” Clever commanded into his mind, and Dei let Clever’s unique way of conveying the path to take puppeteer him briefly as he moved down and to the side.

  The Deepscrawler’s fingerblades abruptly exploded outwards, far faster than it’d been moving before. Several demon-kin died around them, the affinity smog they emitted normally so slow now being channeled through the Deepscrawlers attack to enchant its strike.

  He could feel the danger radiating from the monster, but he was slated to dodge it by a wide margin due to Clever’s early warning.

  The Skittergore dove through the net surrounding them, easily bending through the most miniscule of gaps and arriving at the edge of the Deepscrawler’s fist instantly, nudging it to the side at impossible speeds.

  It wasn’t much force, but it was enough. The attack clipped Dei’s arm, and he felt a sickening burn crawl into his body.

  Clever growled, immediately conveying “That was not supposed to happen. Something is altering the timeline.”

  The Skittergore flashed away, and Dei made no attempt at stopping it. He’d already been taken off guard, it would be best to not waste the effort when he knew it would get away.

  Clever offered to end the Deepscrawler now with an incinerating blast, but Dei told him to hold off, planning his trap.

  He went back to beating the enemy in front of him, understanding its powerset far more easily.

  Endurance kept it upright, Bulk allowed it to absorb the energies of its fellow demon-kin easily, Kinetic let it absorb the shock from Dei’s fists and channel them for short bursts of speed, and Sword kept its attacks lethal and controlled.

  Ashvorn rushed to the demon infection in his arm, and shocked Dei by releasing controlled blasts of entropy, decaying it more rapidly than it would have before. His System kept it contained, and he even sensed it taking a few points into itself… Hopefully, it knew what it was doing.

  He began teleporting around with Void, using Connection as his anchor, to move in unpredictable ways. Connection was a closed-circuit, leaving no room for interference.

  When Clever told him the Deepscrawler was charging up for another attack, Dei plunged his Connection into its body, grimacing as he knew what was to happen next.

  Seeing the perfect vector for an undodgeable attack, the Deepscrawler used Kinetic to attempt its physical attack, but it no longer imbued it with the demon mana, instead channeling that through Dei’s connection, directly into his soul.

  Dei made sure it only linked up to his forearm rather than a part of his core. He would have to tank the shot for success.

  Despite not directly seeing it in the timeline, neither he nor Clever were surprised when the Skittergore appeared, nudging the Deepscrawler’s fist- its first and last mistake.

  Linked with the Deepscrawler’s, Dei’s Connection reached through and attached itself to the Skittergore, effectively sticking it to the Deepscrawler.

  The Skittergore kicked off the ground, fleeing back the way it came- when its arm went taut.

  Dei expected it to snap backwards and begin thrashing, but he overestimated its durability. Its lower half went one way, the upper half stayed rooted, and it was ripped in two.

  The legs stumbled and fell to the ground while black blood poured free from its body, and it quickly went limp.

  He didn’t get a notification as his System was not fully up yet, but he sensed its fragmented soul dissipate and die.

  ‘God damn.’

  The flesh on his skin rotted and blackened as the demon mana filled him, but that was the calculated sacrifice.

  “Clever, vaporize this thing,” Dei asked of his little buddy, and Clever slowly charged up his [Blazing Breath], the low hum filling him as the skin touching the Korgonda heated up and…

  Was unaffected?

  Rather than burn, Dei felt a soothing warmth fill him, despite knowing it was enough to melt him.

  The concentrated plasma that resulted from Clever’s small mouth felt hotter than anything Dei had ever experienced from the young lizard, but it was also less dangerous.

  To Dei, at least.

  There wasn’t enough left of the monster’s body to even shield the army behind it, and Dei saw how several hundred demon-kin were snuffed out as simple collateral.

  He didn’t let Clever’s new flames surprise him, moving towards Jacob and the last elite demon-kin he was distracting.

  * * *

  Near the edge of the battlefield, a tyrant sat assessing the results of Dei’s battle, then it began moving away.

  It was far more intelligent than its brethren, it was, after all, supposed to be the commander of these raids, if only it could slay and consume its target.

  It knew just the demon-kin to counter this one’s powerset.