Ancient ruins

"I guess now you will challenge me for a rematch?"

Ace smirked cheekily and called out, reaching out and pointing at the man he recognized as the leader of one of the groups he took down.

"No! Fuck! Not you again! T-take care of him!"

Alas, Ace's guess ended up being completely wrong, as the bandit leader straight-up panicked at the sight of him and ran back into the only properly preserved building embedded into the foot of the mountain like some sort of entrance.

"...huh…?"

The rest of the bandits looked back at their escaping leader, and honestly, Ace shared their sentiment as the current display was a far cry from what that exact bandit represented during their last meeting.

Even so, all the others didn't seem as traumatized by Ace's sight as their leader and charged the green-haired youth as soon as their initial shock subsided.

…but…

...they turned out to be so disorganized that Ace began to wonder whether they were doing it on purpose, as he was spinning the staff around, inflicting status effects with each hit, sometimes changing the length of his weapon into that of a baton only to extend it then again and ram it into his opponent's chin.

The fight was so one-sided that an uninvolved onlooker would have surely assumed that some ruffian was taking out his aggression on a bunch of toddlers.

Even smacking a weapon out of the enemy's hand would result in them falling asleep or getting concussed and becoming an obstacle for their comrades trying to get to the advancing green-haired young man.

"This King forbids you to get up."

If it weren't for the bandit leader and the potential reinforcement inside the building he ran into, Ace would have tied all of the knocked-out bandits, but with how things stood, he had to settle for using his ability without being certain about its duration.

With the weapon at the ready, the green-haired young man entered the building in pursuit of the bandit leader…

—--

The building was larger than its outward appearance suggested.

It wasn't due to magic or some illusion, though. Simply, its interior extended into the mountain.

There were many uncovered branching hallways, but only a single path was lit up with torches.

The path led to a main room - or rather, the ceremonial chamber.

The bare stone walls had only a handful of torches, most of which were already burnt out.

The whitened floor with intricate golden runes inscribed into intricate magic formation.

Finally, the altar-like construction extends into an arching metal plate with a single amaranth gem bolted into a wall.

It was also a spot where the two humans were having a heated exchange.

"Use the orb now!"

The bandit leader roared at the short woman in a long white robe, who was covering her face with a thick veil.

"No! The instructions are clear. Those runic circles have to be destroyed first!"

She shook her head, clenching the large dark-blue pearl in both hands as if it was the most sacred of relics.

"To hell with instructions! Do you know who is outside?! Adonis family brat! He doesn't kill humans! Do you know what will happen if we get captured and interrogated?! They will hand us to inquisitors! Do you have any idea what kind of torture they will prepare for us if they will find us with that?!"

"Then destroy the runic circles! You have been put in charge here for that specific purpose!"

The bandit scoffed, pointing at the orb, but the woman scoffed back in a haughty voice.

"You're in luck. I was already about to notify you that I managed to break through the mana-blocking barrier. You can use your ability."

"You should have started with that..!"

The woman added, and the bandit spat to the side, pulling up his sleeves.

He rubbed his hands together as he approached the middle of the room, in the center of two intertwining rune circles.

"I swear, if it turns out that this thing isn't a door to the secret passage to Rubia Archipelago after all, I will be the one to kill you before that green-haired fucker manages to capture either of us."

The bandit leader added, glancing over his shoulder with a grim expression.

"The faithful servant of the Demon General Sapiena never lies."

"...sure…"

The woman straightened her back and declared while the man let out a mocking scoff and spread his arms to the sides before kneeling down and placing his palms on the runes.

"Heh… all of those idiots claiming that the ancient Draconids went extinct because they sided with demons would shit themselves. Those are some ridiculously powerful anti-demon defenses."

"Get rid of them."

The bandit leader snickered, unable to hold back the excitement that using his stigmatized ability gave him, but the woman with the orb cut him off in a demanding voice.

"Rune rewrite."

The bandit closed his eyes and breathed out, causing the two runes inside the circles to rearrange their position…

"Done. Form extremely powerful defensive formation into a jumbled mess in less than a minute! Now. Use the orb."

As the runes lost their luster and turned gray, the bandit stood up and rubbed his hands with satisfaction before nodding his head at the woman.

"Huh…?"

*crack*

But then he exclaimed in confusion when he witnessed her clench the orb with all of her might and break it.

"The fuck? Why would you break the key?!"

"KHHHH…!"

The bandit gasped and then roared in anger while the woman gritted her teeth as she fell to her knees. Under the robes, the woman's body began to rapidly change, accentuated by the erratic movement of the fabric of her clothes, which was stretched to its limits.

"...what the…?"

The man called out as he backed off with a disgusted expression.

The woman's limbs elongated, and her fingers spread around like spider legs. Her feet broke through her shoes and transformed into a shape between a clawed paw and a hoof.

"!!!"

Then, the fabric on the woman's back was torn apart, making room for expanding fleshy protrusions growing out of her shoulder blades.

The lumps stopped growing after achieving a length of two feet and immediately began to sprout something.

Dozens upon dozens of somethings.

Not feathers or even hair, but some sort of translucent scales that might have been just straight-up fingernails.

The woman's head wasn't safe from the transformation either.

Although the thick veil somehow stayed in place, it was punctured by a pair of horns sprouting from the middle of the woman's forehead. The horns grew out straight until they arched and then arched some more before intertwining and ending up in the shape of a horizontal crescent moon.