The White Haired Demon Slayer (Part-7)

***Ren Kaizel***

"So tell me about yourself. What's a big, strong monster like you doing in a place like this?"

Ren looked around the throne room while keeping a watchful eye on the Grand Orc. The more detailed and well constructed the architecture of a demon spawn is, the longer it has been developing. The torches were the only source of lighting throughout and walls of the entire monster spawn were still of stone but the construction had taken a proper form. The labyrinth of symmetrical hallways and this throne room itself signified as much.

This monster spawn was in its intermediate stage of development, which certainly isn't good news considering how close it is to Eldaria.

The more Ren thought about it, the more questions he had.

The Grand Orc just stood there, staring at Ren with a permanent scowl on his face. Ren wasn't one to care much about ranks but a Grand orc with this level of corruption would easily be platinum rank or higher.

Ren turned back to the Grand Orc. "Oh come on, I know you can talk. You are clearly an Orc Lord. One of the smart ones for sure. What's your name?"

The Grand Orc roared in anger, being called an orc lord surely hit a nerve. "I AM A GRAND ORC OF THE RHU CLAN! And pathetic human like you isn't worthy of knowing my name."

"Ah my apologies! Wow a Grand Orc, I'm so impressed. So tell me this, whats a Grand Orc of the Rhu Clan doing here, commanding an army of goblins? I thought goblins and orcs never get along together. And here you have all types of rival goblins fighting side by side. Isn't that amazing?!"

Ren continued. "I can only assume it must be your great power keeping them all united under your command. In fact your power has kept them in control so well, you managed to keep your monster spawn hidden from Eldaria all this time. No adventurer until today knew this monster spawn existed."

The Grand Orc didn't say a word, only snarling at Ren.

Ren smiled. "Want me to tell you how you did it? It was a very smart move to set up so close to a human village. If it was in the middle of nowhere, adventurers tend to wander around looking for threats like this. But nobody would go looking for monster spawns so close to a village. We trust the people to report signs of monster activity. You however, terrorised them into staying quiet, didn't you? You held them all hostage and told them that you'll keep them alive as long as no adventurer ever shows up."

The Grand Orc continued to stay silent but his breath was getting heavier.

"You knew your forest goblins were messing around with the humans every night but didn't care. But you didn't expect them to go overboard and kidnap two human kids did you? And you think that's what brought us here. When you found adventurers running around and killing goblins in your forest, you thought the villagers already betrayed you by calling us, so you went ahead and immediately burned down the entire village and took half the humans captive down here."

The look on the Grand Orc's face(not that there was much to look at through all that ugliness) clearly showed that Ren hit the nail on the head with everything.

Ren sighed. "Well we are here to take them back, whatever's left of them anyway. And while we are at it, why don't you also tell me the name of the Demon General who set everything up for you and gave you the power of corruption?."

Ren calmly dodged as a giant club twice his size came flying with a thunderous crash at him. His smile unwavering as he looked at the 30 foot tall Grand Orc raging in front of him.

"Getting to the good part already, huh? Hmm... Well I guess you can do well to entertain me for tonight."

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***Liam Everhart***

The goblins started by wildly rushing at us en masse, but watching hordes of their brethren die to our blades in seconds put a fear of danger in their hearts.

Even then through a mix of courage, fear and bloodlust their assault continued.

We were surrounded, facing innumerable monsters literally from every direction, yet I could say we were doing pretty well in the face of it all.

Keeping Elaina and Sylvie at the center of our formation, me and Luca served as the close range fighters of our group. Fending off any who would try getting close, we both were moving all around the centre, diving into the rushing group of monsters once in a while to kill a bunch and disorient the rest and then returning back to the centre to take close up encounters head on.

No matter what type of goblin it was, none took more than half a second to cut down for either of us, so taking on all the rushing monsters from every direction wasn't much work at all.

Elaina's usual tracking magic worked perfectly well in close range so she used her most mana efficient surveillance magic to keep an eye on everything around us. With this she also took out ranged attackers and particularly troublesome enemies from her place, using her arrows and wind magic. She gave higher priority to taking out threats against me and Luca, as she had Sylvie watching out for her as the other part of our centre.

Sylvie thus was being particularly brilliant in a way only she could. To let Elaina focus on covering for us, Sylvie was effectively deflecting off all ranged attacks towards Elaina with ease. She said she could 'use a rapier' but I didn't expect her to be so brilliantly masterful with it. All the while buffing me, Luca and Elaina with buffs she made specifically for each of us. A buff to increase my speed, lower Elaina's mana consumption and lower Luca's stamina consumption. I could really feel her buffs work exceptionally well. I felt so light and my movements felt so smooth under the influence of it.

Me feeling so happy and motivated was also the effect of her magic it seems. She was using her magic to make our bodies release particular hormones to make us feel more encouraged and light hearted. She called it 'battle happy feelings'.

Apparently she had been using it since the moment the Grand Orc stepped in, to get us back to our senses for the upcoming fight. Makes me really glad to have her with us.

I had already lost track of how long we had been fighting, though we had probably killed close to a hundred goblins already. We didn't exactly have a particular plan about how to proceed with our situation. Ren still wasn't back, amd I assume it will take him some time to do what I think he is about to. For now the idea was to hold our ground and thin the enemy ranks until we come up with an opening to move forward with.

Everything was going really well... until we heard that voice coming from one of the dark hallways above us, now lit up.

"HELPPPPPPPPP!"

The voice of a little girl crying out for help as she was being chased by monsters it seems. But as I mentioned before, the stairs and entrances to the hallways I passed by while falling were broken.

She was about to fall, right into the swarm of monsters below her.