Chapter 36 – Centipede

Some hours after Gravis left the Hunting Guild, he arrived at a destroyed village. All the wooden huts were broken into pieces and piled into a hill. This was The Demon's lair. No one could afford to place a bounty for a medium-grade demonic beast around these parts. So, most of the villagers had fled the village, while only the old, stubborn villagers remained. Sadly, by the looks of the destroyed village, their end was not peaceful.

The Demon had made its nest out of the remains of the village to demonstrate its dominance. Humans had exclusive living space and were the overlords of this world. Only in the wilderness, could beasts thrive. By occupying an exclusive living space of the humans, The Demon was demonstrating its dominance.

Gravis spotted parts of The Demon poking out from beneath the rubble. The Demon was a gigantic centipede, about 30 meters in length. Hooked legs grew from the centipede's segmented body, which they could use to stab and grip their prey. Their relatively small front, together with their many legs, made them incredibly fast. On top of that, every section of its body was encased in thick armor. Their bite was also incredibly venomous.

Speed, defense, power, and venom. All of this made The Demon a fearsome opponent. It was probably very powerful, even for a medium-grade demonic beast. All parts of its body were made to kill. At the start of their lives, centipedes were small and weak, which meant that this specimen had to work hard to get to its current strength. So, its will would also be very robust.

Under normal circumstances, Gravis couldn't even hope to scratch the centipede. It would outspeed him and surround him with all its legs. At that point, only death would await him. There were only two things he could rely on: His Formation Array, and his Elemental Synchronicity.

Gravis quickly retreated to the nearby forest and began his preparations.

About an hour later, he came back to the village. He could not win against The Demon in a fair one-on-one fight. This time, he had to use his smarts.

Gravis slowly entered the village's vicinity. When he felt that he was close enough, he instantly released his Will-Aura and ran away as fast as possible. His Will-Aura would provoke The Demon into attacking him since he had so arrogantly displayed his killing intent in its nest.

Just as he had thought, the mound in the village grew restless, and a big head with two humongous mandibles rose. The Demon felt the direction the Will-Aura was coming from, and sprinted to it, not making a single noise.

Gravis ran with all of his power, but The Demon was about three times as fast as him. If it caught him before he reached the forest, he would die. Gravis felt The Demon coming closer, and cold sweat came rushing down his back. He hadn't been this afraid since his fight with the tortoise, and he felt like he would die soon.

When Gravis went past the forest's edge, The Demon was only 20 meters behind him, and it was gaining ground, fast! Gravis continued sprinting into the forest, and soon, the Demon entered as well.

It quickly reached Gravis and tried to bite him.

"This is it!" Gravis shouted and jumped upward with all his strength. The bite barely missed him, and the centipede quickly surrounded the landing spot of Gravis, its legs ready to strike. "Let's hope this works!" Gravis shouted and threw the jade token with all his strength in the middle of the surrounded area.

The jade token exploded, and many lines and drawings encompassed the surroundings in a ten-meter diameter. The centipede was completely boxed in since it had curled itself into a ring while surrounding Gravis.

The centipede felt something was wrong, and a shrill screech left its mouth. Gravis quickly took the chance, while the centipede was confused, and jumped through a gap between two of its legs. One leg completely bisected his left triceps, while the other one tore a massive gash into Gravis' other side.

Gravis was badly hurt and couldn't release his full power anymore, but that didn't matter now. The deed was done, and the remainder of his plan would not require his combat power.

Gravis quickly ran around the forest and cut down tree after tree. Then, he threw every tree into the Formation Array. The Demon was busy trying to break through the Formation Array and ignored the wood. Over a couple of minutes, Gravis filled nearly the whole restriction with wood.

After he had filled the restriction, he cut some more trees and laid them beside the formation. That took him another couple of minutes.

After a while, he had created multiple "streets" of trees that led to the Formation Array. Now, all preparations were finished. Gravis looked around and saw that a couple of trees had started burning already. In the hour, where he had retreated after initially seeing the village, he had created multiple campfires in the forest. After all this time, some trees had started to ignite. Now, it was showtime!

Gravis quickly controlled the flames and made them burn more ferociously. He expedited their fire, which made the flames grow hotter and bigger. He willed the flames to start burning the "streets" of trees he had created, and slowly, the fire crept to the Formation Array.

It took a little over a minute until the roaring flames started igniting the wood inside the Formation Array. The centipede grew frantic as the heat increased, and started thrashing around its body to throw away all the burning wood. It had some success, but somehow, the fires were still angled towards the Formation Array, even if the wood remained outside.

Just beyond the range of the Formation Array, lots of burning wood was placed, with their flames angled towards the Formation Array, like they were in an intense storm. The Demon  tried everything to throw those logs of burning wood away, but it couldn't touch them since they were beyond the Formation Array's boundary. After a while, it compressed its body into a tight ball and remained in the middle of the Formation Array.

Gravis saw this, and his brows furrowed. The centipede might survive like this. He did not know how effective the surrounding heat was, but the centipede did not touch the flames directly. This could be problematic.

Gravis quickly got another idea and started digging up the dirt around the Formation Array. Just as he had thought, the Formation Array was enclosing the centipede not in a dome, but in a ball. The Formation Array included the top and the bottom.

Using his Elemental Synchronicity, he broke the hard soil and began to move it away in vast swaths. Even with his Elemental Synchronicity and his incredible strength, it still took him about an hour to remove the soil completely. Now, the Formation Array looked like a flying ball. Half of the ball was filled with dirt, and the other half had the centipede.

Gravis quickly willed for the dirt to leave the Formation Array. He had control of the Formation Array, and he could decide what could leave. His newly dug hole was nearly full of dirt again, but now, the centipede was the only thing left in the ball.

Gravis cleared the dirt away again, but this time, it only took some minutes. He had already broken down the earth on the underside, and it was not hard to push the dirt up the slope again. Gravis grew more frantic, as he only had about 30 minutes left until the Formation Array would stop working.

The fire still raged, and Gravis threw more wood into the empty "pot" of earth. When he had finally filled the pot, only 20 minutes remained on the Formation Array. Gravis was breathing heavily. He had used all his strength for over 1.5 hours, but finally, it was done.

Gravis sat down and willed the flames to burn the wood under the centipede. It didn't take long until an absolutely furious pillar of flames was created under the centipede.

The Demon was madly twitching and moving around, but it could not grip or stab the Formation Array, so it could not climb it. This scene continued for multiple minutes.

Finally, after 15 minutes, the centipede lost its strength, and it fully collapsed into the flames. Gravis didn't want to take any chances, so he continued burning the centipede until the Formation Array collapsed.

Five minutes later, the Formation Array collapsed, and The Demon fell onto the burning wood. Gravis watched it, and only when it didn't move for another minute, did he go closer.

Gravis was immune to the flames, so he simply waltzed through them. He took a closer look at the centipede, and saw that its insides broke through its shell on multiple places. The shell couldn't withstand the increasing pressure of its insides and had exploded. The whole body was black and burned everywhere.

The Demon was definitely dead.

Gravis sighed in relief and sat down in the bonfire. He didn't mind the heat. It felt relaxing, actually.

The corpse couldn't be used for anything. Everything was burned beyond recognition and would soon turn to ash. Its head was still relatively intact since it was the last thing that fell to the flames. Gravis quickly cut off its head, by sawing through the weakened armor on its body, and carried it out of the fire. He had to prove that he had completed the mission, after all.

With this, he could finally temper his skin.