Chapter 54: Hero vs Demon

Shizuku backs away as she sees Kouki in his current state. If she goes forward with her plan instead of helping, it might hinder Kouki. So, she decides to group up with others.

Shizuku then went back to everyone and urged, "Everyone be prepared to defend yourself; we can't let ourselves get caught and hinder Kouki." Hearing her order almost everyone nodded in determination.

Ryutarou using her remaining strength took a martial arts stance "Let's go, guys, we have to last until Kouki deals with the demon."

"Yeah!!!" everyone cheered.

"Jugo, please retrieve Meld's body. The demon might use him as leverage against Kouki. All the mages should be backed up, and those who are still able to fight should surround the mages," Shizuku then ordered everyone to come into a circular formation with mages in the middle and vanguards on the edge. Like that, they started to deal with the monsters.

…

Kouki noticed that everyone was still fighting and decided to finish it fast. He then lept in the direction of the demon.

Cattleya sees him coming in her direction and orders, "Go all of you, kill him."

Listening to her a minotaur with a wooden club and a black fox with four tails directly clashed with him.

Kouki, in his current empowered state, could easily see through each and every attack sent his way. He easily dodged the club swing from the Minotaur and the stabs from the black fox. He then swung a horizontal slash cutting both in half.

Right after that two Orcs came in front of him synchronising their movement with a punch and a kick.

Kouki sees this and activates <Heavenrend > with a horizontal slash of light, he cuts down the orcs to cinders.

Kouki's eyes then focused on the demon who was currently hiding behind the turtle monster.

"YOU! I WILL MAKE YOU PAY!! HOW DARE YOU HURT CAPTAIN MELD," Roaring Kouki again used <Heavenrend > and cut down the turtle monster and continuing with the momentum appeared right in front of the demon and slashed.

Cattleya seeing Kouki heading her way tried to back away, but she was too late. Kouki was faster, in last ditch effort she tried to conjure a stone wall to block the attack.

But to her disappointment, Kouki's slash easily sliced the stone wall and continued to slash her chest, luckily or unluckily because of that wall she was still alive.

Cattleya succumbing to the wound fell onto her knees, "You… got me good. Didn't expect you to turn tables like that, how vexing. It feels like I am watching a shabby theatre act." Cattleya accepting her loss took out a pendent.

Kouki remembering Meld's previous attack guessed, "You want to blow yourself up? It won't work, before you can explode, I can easily slash you."

Cattleya ignored Kouki and said her final goodbye, "I am sorry, I will be going ahead… My dear Mikhail."

Hearing those words Kouki who was in the middle of the slash stopped it right in front of Cattleya's head.

"..."

"..."

Cattleya who was waiting for the final strike, opened her eyes and saw in Kouki's eyes hesitation, realisation and strong repulsion.

Seeing the reluctance in his eyes Cattleya understood something, "I see, did you just realize that you were about to kill a person just now?" Kouki hearing Cattleya's words backed away. 

"N-no! I had no idea that…you."

"So, you didn't even consider us demons as a person until now, Huh? Truly, what a fool you are." Cattleya sneered.

Cattleya then ordered, "Achtod! Get up! All of you kill them, kill them all, every single one of them."

As the orders were given many monsters started to move towards others to attack them.

Kouki seeing everything getting out of hand looks to Cattleya with confusion, "W-why are you doing this? If we talk then…"

Cattleya hearing the naive question laughed, "Hahaha… you really don't understand anything do you, little boy? As I thought you are nothing more than a naive brat. This is war, right now I have decided it to be better to finish you all off here that's all. It's too dangerous to let unpredictable elements like you run wild. It is better to just get rid of you."

Kouki gritting his teeth looks back at his friends who are surrounded. He instantly lept in their direction and cut down a few Orcs, but it didn't help much, the number of monsters was just too numerous to affect the battlefield.

Kouki while taking out a few more monsters noticed Shizuku fighting the large horse-face monster which previously captured him. Shizuku somehow managed to fight him, but it was blatantly obvious to everyone she wasn't strong enough to beat the monster.

Kouki notices Shizuku in trouble and assists her by disabling one of the monster's hands, "Shizuku I am here don't worry."

Shizuku also astonished asks, "Kouki, what are you doing here? What happened to the demon?" before she could inquire more Kouki cut her off.

"Don't worry everything will be fine, I won't let anyone die, not on my watch. Right now, I should be…" right then Kouki felt a burst of dizziness and all his overwhelming strength suddenly leaving him, unable to move even a muscle he fell.

"Thud"

[What's going on, I can't move.] Kouki confused thought.

Shizuku seeing Kouki's sudden fall, hurriedly grabbed him and jumped away from the incoming monster's attack. She hurriedly carries him to others.

She then handed Kouki to Kaori "Take care of him. And leave the rest to me…" the last part came out solemnly.

Shizuku looked Cattleya in the eyes and readied her sword.

Cattleya saw the determination in Shizuku's gaze and praised, "As I thought, you truly are the one worthy of being the hero. It's truly a pity instead of you he was chosen." Cattleya while speaking slowly walked closer, but she made sure not to get too close.

Shizuku in desperation finds a slight opening and uses <Ground Shrinker> to get behind Cattleya and tries to slash her head.

But Cattleya's next words startled her, "You fell for it…"

Sensing danger Shizuku immediately backed away.

"Great instincts you have, but I can't say the same for your friends."

Hearing about her friends Shizuku looks back and finds the vanguard has collapsed and it won't take long before everyone has been taken out.

"It can't be…"

Cattleya then smiling sinisterly says, "Where are you looking, is this a time to take your vision of your opponent,"

Shizuku sensing danger instinctively used the sides of her sword to block the incoming punch, which still sent her like a ragdoll breaking many of her ribbes.

"Ugh…"

Kaori saw her best friend's condition and tried to run towards her, but the way was blocked, she was completely helpless what should she do now? Is this how she dies?

"..."

Shizuku saw the horse-face monster striding towards her and thought [I guess this is how I go, not a bad end… dying like a warrior… guess I am not dishonouring the Yaegashi name, But." 

Shizuku saw the monster lifting its foot to crush her, her life started to flash from her childhood to her current memories, both happy and sad memories flashed but, in the end, only one face remained with a lazy helpless smile. Remembering that smile tears started to pour down, "I guess this is the end Rihito," accepting her end she closed her eyes, and because she closed her eyes, she didn't notice that a sudden silhouette appeared before her.

"Boom!!"

…

A few moments back

Rihito, Shea, Hajime, Yue and Endou headed towards the dungeon. Entering the first floor we stopped.

Endou saw us pause and asked, "Hey, why did you stop here, we have to hurry."

I looked at him and said, "Calm down and watch, we have a faster way to get there,"

Hajime then pulled out the Orcus ring and asked, "Which floor."

Endou understood what Hajime wanted and struggled, "Ahh… I don't know, when I left, they were on the 90th floor, by now they should be on the upper floors somewhere."

"Tsk," Hajime clicked his tongue hearing that.

"Guess I will have to find out, give me a moment…" saying that Rihito turned around.

Hajime while observing Rihito asks Yue, "Is he using that…"

Yue, "Yes, he is scanning the labyrinth. It's really astonishing."

"Can't you also do that?" Hajime inquired.

"I can but, not on the same scale as him. I can scan around 20 floors from here. As for Rihito he probably could scan the whole Labyrinth."

Shea hearing them Puffed her chest with a smile, which said, 'That's my man.'

"..."

[Damn, he is a cheater, just how strong has he become'] Hajime cursed and complain in his heart. Only he and the other girls knew how broken of a character Rihito had become.

[I wonder what will the kingdom and church think when they will see his action] Thinking about the despairing face they will make, Hajime smiled evilly.

Right then Rihito opened his eyes, "I found them, they are on the 70th floor."

Getting the proper floor Hajime activated the ring, but for some reason, it didn't teleport.

"..."

I looked at Hajime in confusion, "what's going on."

"It looks like something happened to the 70th-floor teleportation point." Hajime conjectured.

Endou remembering something scratching his head says, "Ahh… you see I was chased by a stealthy monster so to prevent him from following me I destroyed the teleportation circle before I got teleported."

"..."

Hajime didn't say anything and searched for the nearest teleportation point. The ring this time activated, and they then got teleported to the 65th floor.

As soon as we got there I immediately said, "I am heading ahead, you guys follow." everyone nodded.

I then disappear from everyone's sight leaving Endou dumbfounded.

"Wow, did he just teleport?" he astonishingly asked.

"No" Hajime denied.

"He is just moving fast."

"..."

Rihito ignoring everything else headed straight towards the 70th floor, any monster that appeared in his way got pulverised. With his speed, it only took about a minute to get there. As soon as he stepped onto the 70th floor, he looked around and saw most of them were unconscious, a few of his classmates trying to fight back against monsters. Kaori was in tears healing Kouki and then he saw Shizuku about to get crushed by a horse-face monster.

"..."

Rihito seeing this immediately disappeared from his place and appeared in front of Shizuku blocking the attack with his bare hands.

"Boom!!"

…

"Chapter end"

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