The Demon Lord used Extreme Speed

The plan was simple.

Since Soleil or her equipment couldn't be endowed with the holy attribute, the critical strike would be delivered by Matthias instead. The former's role would be to hit the drake hard enough that it would be unable to defend itself from his sword. Once struck with a holy element attack, its recovery speed should, at the very least, be slowed enough for Soleil to completely overwhelm it.

Unlike the undead depicted in popular media in his old world, zombies did not "die" from having their brains destroyed or their heads severed. Because they were reanimated by magic, they could keep moving even when missing their heads. Removing the magic in their bodies was the only way to eliminate them. There were two popular methods: severing their limbs, which would allow the mana to leak out of the stumps, or forcefully depriving them of their mana through the holy spells of clerics.

But an undead drake had such an incredible regenerative ability that the first method would not work as it was. And since a priestess couldn't cast a spell strong enough to work on the drake—because otherwise, they wouldn't have been in that situation in the first place—then Matthias thought a combination of the two methods would work on it.

"Go on my signal, 'kay?"

"Yeah."

Soleil stood ahead of the group and waited. She didn't even turn her head as she asked.

Though the plan's final version required her to beat the drake hard before Matthias went in, she refused to do so while it couldn't retaliate. And that was despite that part of the plan being suggested by her. Even then, she was more concerned about having a fair fight, a show of confidence, sure. It was why she stopped attacking when the monster had its head stuck in the wall. But after watching their battle earlier, nobody could ever doubt her ability.

A minute passed. After some progress, the drake finally pushed itself off. With a painful snap, its horns broke off, and it was finally free. Losing a horn or two did not matter to it. A new one will grow, or the lost one will simply reattach itself within a few seconds. But Soleil did not intend to stay idle and watch. It was already out. It could fight. That was the only thing she needed to know.

She bent her knees and leaned forward, lowering herself until her hands were on the ground. With her hips raised higher than her head and left leg straight behind her, she put all her weight on her right leg. The mana she used to augment her body glowed brightly. Starting from what was exposed from her boots, it traced the veins on her foreleg and ran up to her thighs, turning them bright red. And upon her signal, she kicked the soil hard. A dull explosion followed as she instantly disappeared from her position, leaving behind a shockwave that pushed Matthias and the priestess back. In the blink of an eye, she crashed at the opposite end of the chamber through the hardened scales and bones of the monster.

The dragon fell to its side, roaring in pain. A large hole had been opened on its side. But as expected, the wound quickly began to heal. First were the bones, organs, muscles, and rotten scales. Within a few seconds, it was whole again. That was fine, though. All Soleil intended to do with that attack was to push it to a corner.

He thrust his hands forward and concentrated. Thinking of the spell, the incantation immediately appeared in his mind.

Unlike normal mages, he didn't need to recite the incantation to cast it. Usually, that was when mages were most vulnerable. A mage reciting an incantation became the focus of everybody's attention, as they could perform destructive attacks or cause disruptive effects if they finished. Perhaps owing to his god's blessing, he only needed to recall the incantation for the spell to work. From an outsider's perspective, however, he could instantly cast spells.

"Muddy Water."

Although he still needed to call out the spell's name, which made him uncomfortable as eighteen years wasn't enough to make it feel normal to him.

Mana streamed out of his fingertips and seemingly disappeared into thin air. But from a distance, the ground underneath the undead drake boiled. The area quickly expanded, and as the effect reached its legs, the monster immediately sunk into the earth.

"That's amazing," the priestess remarked with glittering eyes. Matthias smiled in satisfaction with her feedback. After all, it wasn't a regular spell but one of his originals, a compound spell using two elements.

Sensing the opportunity, Soleil jumped to a part of the wall where her line of attack was perpendicular to Matthias'. She briefly removed her scarf to down four vials of holy water at once and replaced the cloth. Then, she charged.

She was like a ball repeatedly ricocheting between slingshots in a pinball machine. Each time she launched herself off a wall, a line of rubble and dust would trail her, followed by a short mess of guts and bone after she scored a hit on the enemy. At first, her attacks were slow. But as the drake became more and more predictable with how it reacted when bound, the interval between her attacks shortened until each jump could be made after one deep breath.

Though it was undead, being a high-rank one allowed it to feel more than just its hate toward the living. The way it could cry out from pain proved it. It struggled to defend itself due to the quicksand under its feet. And as Soleil continued her relentless assault, its roars of frustration and anger became that of fear and desperation.

"Even the undead are scared of the "demon lord," huh?"

Matthias smiled wryly. Perhaps, that was the secret to Soleil's strength; she truly believed herself to be the demon lord and was thus able to bring out a kind of strength unsurpassed by her peers.

As Soleil's attacks became more and more brutal, Matthias guessed that the time to act must be close. He turned to the priestess and nodded solemnly. She nodded anxiously in return.

She brought her hands together and murmured a silent prayer. A faint glow once again enveloped her body. At the same time, a vague sense of comfort and warmth overtook Matthias. An inexplicable power burst forth from within his chest, filling his arms and legs with renewed strength. As the process continued, the priestess' body glowed more intensely. At the same time, Matthias' sword also started to release light. It wasn't as intense as Demon Culling, but there was no question of its divinity.

He brandished his sword and prepared himself. At Soleil's signal, he would run the undead drake down as close to its body as possible. The more wounds he could inflict, the more they could suppress the target's regeneration ability.

Confidence tightened his hands on the sword. Even though the finishing blow would be made by Soleil, there was no doubt that their victory would be due to their combined efforts.

"If only Manna could be here," he thought regretfully and blinked.

But then, as he opened his eyes, the illusion of a majestic line of church bells manifested above his head. They rang once like divine thunder, scorching his ears and consciousness with their holy peal. Their presence lit the entire room, surpassing the dim, eerie glow of the ground. An ethereal illusion of a grand cathedral replaced the dark dome, and a red carpet flanked by orderly rows of pews spread from his location to the enemy.

The priestess declared the blessing endowed to him by the gods.

"Holy Order!"

Matthias choked.

********************

"What the hell," he complained internally. "She's actually a high priestess? What are a bunch of newbie adventurers doing with a church idol?"

While it was true that the strength of a blessing depended entirely on one's faith, only those canonized by the church as priests and above could call upon more comprehensive blessings and miracles.

Anyway, "Holy Order" was a decently high-ranking blessing that, as far as Matthias knew, could only be endowed by high priests and above among the clergy. It not only enchants a recipient's weapon with the holy attribute but also strengthens his body slightly and protects it from certain "evils" such as zombification.

"Is something wrong? D-did the blessing fail again?!"

The look of panic on her face snapped him out of his thoughts. He immediately shook his head and reassured her, "It went fine! You did a good job."

Well, there were always geniuses and particularly favored individuals among the masses. Perhaps she was one of them.

He decided to pay it no heed. There were much more pressing concerns at the moment.

Endowed with a high-tier blessing, Matthias placed his focus back on the enemy. Its movements had become erratic. Desperation was palpable in its cries as it continued to resist Soleil's attacks in vain.

Then, during a moment that seemed to be the one they were waiting for, the drake suddenly opened its mouth towards Soleil. Matthias wondered why since Soleil had only just crashed onto the wall. She was too far to bite, and she could quickly launch herself somewhere it couldn't reach. A split second later, his question was answered. The spines at the end of its tail started glowing an ominous violet. It traveled quickly up to its head, and its horns released a billowing plume of black smoke.

With an ominous roar, it released a beam of energy and noxious-looking gasses straight at her!

A second after it did, Matthias immediately understood why it used that ability only at that moment of desperation. As it spewed the beam, its scales, and innards started to fall off its body. The putrid stench of burning rotten flesh filled the entire dome. Despite its strong limbs, the drake struggled to stay erect. Inadvertently, Matthias' spell helped it to remain standing.

"No!" the priestess screamed. The attack razed the part of the wall where Soleil was. The rocks melted and flowed to the ground like purple lava. Dark violet smoke billowed upwards from the hole. There was a gruesome sound, like cement being dropped and bones being snapped.

Matthias watched in horror. What happened to Soleil? He didn't see her get out of the hole before the beam of unholy energy struck it.

After the attack ended, the undead drake's body had been reduced to a barely-recognizable arrangement of bones and patches of flesh. All of the spines on its back had disintegrated and weren't recovering. The other parts of its body did start healing but at a prolonged rate.

Perhaps that was the moment to take action? But Matthias' mind was preoccupied with concern.

Half a minute passed, and there were still no signs of Soleil. The drake had barely recovered but had at least collected itself well enough to stop its erratic movements. Content with what it had done, it turned its attention towards Matthias.

If Matthias hadn't seen everything, he would have thought it was an entirely different monster they were facing. Previously, its eyes only held an indifferent disgust, like the drake was looking at insects on the ground to be crushed. But after what Soleil had done to it, those eyes had developed a burning rage behind its rotten lens.

Its intense hatred rooted Matthias to the ground. An uncontrollable trembling overcame his hands and feet. He wanted to run away. Perhaps it was a curse that made him overreact. It had bypassed the protection from Holy Orders and attacked his psyche.

A white light snapped him out of his delirium. He faintly heard the murmurs of prayer behind him. Matthias was familiar with the blessing being endowed to him. "Lionheart" made the recipient immune to fear. But while it did so, it could not stop his uncertainty.

"Go!" he heard someone scream. In his tense state, his body couldn't help but react according to what he needed to do, and his brain didn't even register who had yelled. He ran towards the drake.

He soon realized that it was the priestess who urged him forward. But it was too late. He was already at a full sprint by that time. Regardless of what happened to Soleil, he had to take the chance.

But then, he saw something dangling on the ceiling. The white light from a high priestess' blessings and the brightly-glowing lava was enough to barely illuminate the entirety of the dome. And through the smoke, he saw Soleil — smiling in approval.

The sight of her being alive gave him strength. He quickly narrowed the distance between him and the drake. He put power into his legs and ran even faster. He might not be able to reach Soleil's blinding speed, but he was still a hero (to-be).

Soleil dropped from the ceiling silently. Her falling speed was significantly slower than the speed she could achieve by kicking off the walls. But with gravity's help, she could still arrive at the side of the drake's head before Matthias did.

As it raised its forearms to intercept him, Soleil dropped right next to its eyes.

"Your breath stinks," she half-jokingly said.

Her body twisted to the side in midair. Despite her downward momentum, her spinning kick still delivered so much upward force to the drake's chin that it managed to lift its torso slightly. The air trembled from the impact, and Matthias heard the disconcerting sound of several bones breaking. Its chest, still in the process of its slow recovery, was just a few steps away, exposed by Soleil's brutal blow.

The drake tried to drop its forearm on him to defend itself. It was stopped mere inches away from its body by a light barrier.

It did not give up. In desperation, its tail tried to pass through its own shoulder blades to impale Matthias with its sharp tip. He braced himself while running so he could try to deflect the attack with his sword. But it was also stopped before it reached him. A gigantic arrow the length of a human whistled from out of nowhere and hit the tail right where the last segment connected to the next, breaking it off.

It couldn't move its other limbs, and its head was still being carried upwards from Soleil's kick. Being familiar with death, it knew it would experience it again. And at that point, there was nothing it could do. All it could do was roar… or rather, cry out in fear.

Matthias' sword passed through the middle of its chest, creating a deep three-meter-long gash before it hit the drake's bone and broke. Instead of ending the wound, the broken tip remained lodged in its chest and continued to scorch the surrounding flesh with its holy property. The drake screamed in pain. It could no longer recover fast enough to negate the damage. And since the divine energy was being injected from the inside, it couldn't close the wound to stop it.

Then, it froze. A chill that penetrated its bones gripped its mind. The drake knew something was underneath it—something even scarier than its impending death. But amidst the crippling fear, its fight or flight response had completely vacated its instincts. The only thing it could do was tear itself between the two and ultimately freeze up.

Soleil landed gracefully despite falling a few tens of meters. Her lips twisted into a vicious smile as she drew her right leg back to its limits, scarring the ground, and bent her left. Red, veiny light glowed vigorously through her veins. She put power into her left knee with a heave and launched her right leg into a high-sweeping kick.

It was the final blow. So, Soleil thought she better end it with a bang.

"Demon Lord Kick!"

"That's so bad!"

Her right foot collided with the undead drake's ribcage so hard that the air, blood, and guts on the other side of its body were also blown away. The boot on her right leg and her thigh-highs exploded from the impact. At the moment of contact, the magic from her leg instantly concentrated where her foot met the bone. From there, the destruction followed.

The red energy flowed from her foot to the dragon's bones like a flash. Unable to withstand the violent power she delivered, the bones, harder than steel, shattered like glass. The damage quickly spread throughout the drake's skeleton, always behind the red mana she had dumped into its body. Eventually, it covered every inch of its body and broke spectacularly into a rain of red and ivory.

Matthias threw his sword down. Any weapon that broke once would break again soon. As he saw the undead disintegrate, an overwhelming sense of relief washed over his joints. The only reason he could remain standing was that the priestess' blessing was still active, keeping his muscles tense and ready.

From a distance, he saw Manna run over to him with a mix of worry and relief on her face. The priestess also stumbled towards him slowly.

Soleil walked up with a smile. She raised her hand with the palm facing toward him. Weakly, he met her hand with his.

They had won.

********************

"It's not a stupid name, by the way. I think it's cool."

"Well, you're wrong."