36 Keep Your Claws to Yourself

The offending imp had been fascinated by the strange looking creature before it and had finally worked up the courage to poke the powerful creature that had almost beaten their boss. Before quickly retreating in case it suddenly killed it.

Watching the weird demon's reaction, it breathed a sigh of relief when it didn't respond. Then glanced at its own finger which had just touched it's side. It was very curious as the strange imp, despite being covered in blood didn't quite feel the same as other imps. The imp then looked closer and creeped forwards again, becoming a little braver it slid its finger down the side while trying to figure out the indescribable aura it seemed to have around it as the powerful demon looked at the offending imp, making it slightly fearful.

The imp then took a step closer and was met with a withering glare. Making the imp's preservation instincts kick in and jump back while the other imps just ignored it.

Seeing that the demon with a tail was still not doing anything but stare, the imp started walking towards it again, which was met with the demon narrowing its eyes, but this didn't deter it.

The imp got next to the demon and started innocently looking around as its eyes were to the demon.

"Touch me again, and I'll use your skin to make a new sack." The demon stated, its every word frosty and delivered with the promise of violence and pain.

Despite not knowing what a 'sack' was, it could still recognise a threat. Which caused the imp to take a few steps back as the threat made it pale and fearful. Though this state didn't last long, proving the statement that normal imps were forgetful idiots, it quickly forgot the fear that the simple sentence had caused it to feel and started once again creeping towards the demon.

Then it reached out one hand, wanting to poke a different location to see if it got the same feeling and targeted further up the demons body, feeling it's finger once again touch soft flesh, it pondered a few simple things to itself.

Though this didn't last long as an immense pressure gushed out from the demon as it spun itself out of the grip of the 2 imps carrying it while gripping the imps face with one hand and slamming its head into the ground. The imp cried out in agony as it felt immense pain in its head, though the punishment hadn't ended as the demon then stepped on the imps arm and then reached down, breaking it, then completely tearing it off, before chucking away the imp.

The imp fell unconscious from the pain as what was left of its arm gushed blood onto the floor.

Kasdeya flicked the blood off her hand as her body protested at the sudden maneuver and she wobbled a bit as she took a step, overcome with a wave of dizziness from mana exhaustion.

However, she shooed away the offered assistance from the imps as she didn't want a similar situation to occur, instead she started munching on the arm still in her hand and absorbed some of the energy in it to stabilise her own condition.

'That imp deserves to burn in hell, though, that isn't too implausible as I'm half convinced we are in hell and there are lava streams every here and there so chucking it into one wouldn't be hard.' Kasdeya thought as she started walking with the rest of the imps.

Now that she was standing herself she could see the figure of the brute imp watching her, it had already pulled out the long, hard objects penetrating it and looked mostly fine.

'So, it could have finished me off if it wanted, it was just lazy and sent its subordinates instead.' Kasdeya thought with slight disappointment as she had humored the idea that she was actually quite close to beating it and would've won if she wasn't caught off guard by that last power up.

Arriving close to the greater brute imp, but still keeping a cautious distance, it watched her for a second before speaking.

"You've decided to become my slave? Good choice, I have something I want and needed an imp that was relatively strong but disposable to get it for me, that's why I came all the way out here after all. So, follow me." The brute stated in a deep, gruff voice as it started taking great strides away. Though Kasdeya swore she saw it sway a bit on the first few steps.

She briefly considered attacking the brute to take it down while it was caught off guard, but she herself was barely able to walk straight without swaying like a drunk person, and if she failed to take it out in one strike then it might be able to kill her, as she didn't know how tired it was.

So, resigning herself to just following for now, she ignored the comment about her being a slave and made a few short detours to collect any undamaged bones she had used during the conflict, there weren't many.

The group travelled for a long time and the environment slowly became dotted with more rocks and less lava. The group occasionally made brief stops to intimidate some other imp groups with almost all of the imps that saw the brute choosing to join without fighting. Those that didn't became food and experience.

Kasdeya herself gained quite a bit of experience from this arrangement so she was quite content for now.

[Name: Kasdeya Votumea

Race: Runic Devil

Gender: Female

Age: Ageless

Level: 20

Strength: 57

Endurance: 72

Soul: 98

Luck: 3

Assignable Points: 6]

'I've levelled up an additional 9 times, reaching level 20 again. Once again, soul gained the biggest upgrade while strength gained the smallest. It also seems that the amount of levels required for each evolution is increasing every time, as before it was 15, then it was 20, if it follows the same increments then next will be 25. I wonder what will be available for me, I swear, if some variant of a lust demon is available again, I'm gonna kill something. Slowly, brutally.'

Kasdeya had these thoughts as she meandered along with the ever expanding group of imps. It appeared the brute had a destination in mind, but to her, it just looked like they were randomly walking nowhere, as there was nothing worthwhile in sight. Until there was.

'Did I just see the progression between the stone age and the bone age with my own eyes?' Kasdeya thought as she looked upon a slightly messily built fort, but a fort nonetheless.