- A Crazy Idea

The demon castle was formerly a ruined keep that existed even before Grimley was established.

According to the reports from the various scouting missions from the 3 neighboring kingdoms, Grimley, Hekel, and Maald, the ruins were transformed into a castle within the recent decade.

The scouting missions only began after investigators traced various missing person cases back to the Aberrant Fields.

The structure of the castle was imposing as the design felt archaic yet majestic.

A deep moat surrounded the castle as the drawbridge was raised.

2 major curtain walls separated 2 different baileys with the inner bailey surrounding a tall keep.

Archers were on the battlements of each curtain wall, as two gargoyles stood by each of them.

No scout was able to get a closer look at the interior set-up as they could not get past the first wall defenses.

This was especially so for flyers as the archer defense was extremely deadly. Even if they failed to shoot down a target, those gargoyles would finish the job easily.

In other words, anyone who managed to raid the castle had no information on the interior.

What could they do? Bribe a demon soldier? Send a spy that looks like a demon?

Most castles in this world have already put up anti-disguise wards and with the heightened senses of demons, even high-tier transformation spells could be found out by them easily.

With all these in-tact, it would be a crazy idea to go in blind.

2 days after the incident with Edge...

*BOOOM*

The hustle and bustle of the demons above the battlements constantly shooting arrows and those who have formed behind the gate was suddenly met with a large explosion that destroyed both the drawbridge and the portcullis behind it.

This caused the demons who were preparing for the clash to tighten their grips on their weapons as they stood ready to receive their 'guests'.

As the dust cloud spread throughout the demons, passing off as a smokescreen, 3 shadows quickly swept by the demons making quick work of them.

When the dust settled, all that could be seen were 3 men standing over a carpet of demon corpses.

One of them held two long daggers, another held two identical swords, and the last one held two gigantic curved blades that resembled hand scythes.

A distance surrounding them were demons that held crossbows at the ready.

"Did I say this was a crazy idea?" Falna said as he wore a crooked smile.

"Duck!" The three heard a voice and they instantly ducked down.

Just as they did, swords of light pierced all of the crossbow demons.

4 figures entered the castle gate led by a man wearing a mage's robe.

"It worked, didn't it?" Arissef smiled.

A hand grasped his shoulder. "We are not out of the woods yet." Drago said as he stared at the incoming wave of demons with 9 strange-looking ones mixed in.

"Those guys have strangely huge amounts of mana." Arissef said as he observed the mana fluctuations in the area.

After hearing these words, Drago picked up Avegar and readied Etherguard.

"Proceed as planned!" He ordered before charging through to meet with the demons.

Falna and Edge split and approached the demons from the sides as Caylin charged towards Drago who vaulted him high up in the air with his great shield just as enchantments fell on them both.

After reaching his highest altitude, Caylin threw a hook, pulling himself towards the battlements. He quickly weaved through the demons and the gargoyles, decapitating their heads with his curved blades that burned with flames.

Brius and Hevan were focusing on providing cover for the melee combatants as they targeted the archers on the battlements.

Despite how Brius looked, he was an agile cannoneer and was resourceful with his explosives.

It was his explosives, paired with Arissef's magic, that destroyed the gate earlier.

He was now tasked to watch over their back as demons began to swim over the moat trying to pincer them.

Hevan, on the other hand, was shooting magical bolts non-stop using his oversized crossbow.

The crossbow was the catalyst for his spells, improving their accuracy, range, and speed of travel. It was forged from magic-enhancing material and embedded with runes and mana-absorbing gems that provided Hevan with an almost unlimited supply of ammunition as long as there was mana in the environment.

He had a set of sigils to which he could insert to the crossbow to set which spell and element it would shoot when he pulled the trigger.

Despite being unable to become a full-fledged mage, Hevan's talents passed down from a long family line of artificers and craftsmen allowed him to create such a weapon that enabled him to cast spells despite having trouble manipulating mana.

Drago, Falna, and Edge clashed with the demons on the ground as Arissef was supporting all fronts with healing, enchantments, follow-up spells, and distraction.

The heroes quickly discovered how cunning, agile, and durable the strange-looking demons were as they could quickly change their forms to bolster their attacks and defenses in certain situations.

This was an entirely new experience for them as even the creatures they fought in the past maintained most of their forms throughout the battle.

The closest thing they could compare them to was that of an elemental or a slime.

While the former was rarely a creature anyone could encounter in the present day and age, the latter was too weak and could easily be defeated by a novice.

These strange demons were bad news. If these troublesome creatures were to wreak havoc outside the walls instead of facing them right now, they knew deep down in their hearts that they would lose the war and countless people along with it.

Even Arissef had difficulty hitting them with spells and at the rare times they did, they were only absorbed like they were part of their bodies in the first place.

Another problem was that Elementals are usually weak to their opposing elements.

Fire is weak to Water; Water is weak to Lightning, Lightning is weak to Earth, Earth is weak to Wind, Wind is weak to Fire, while Dark and Light are weak to each other.

As they were demons, Drago assumed that they were Dark elemental creatures but Arissef was bombarding them with light magic since the beginning and they had no trouble absorbing them.

Drago was observing all this as there were three of them mixed in along the demons he was facing.

However, he noticed something peculiar about the ones he faced.

Edge and Falna were also facing three of them each. While he did not expect these demons to overcome him, the three he was facing seemed to underperform in comparison to the other six

Curious about something, he poured in his Qi on Etherguard and synchronized his dragon blood to resonate with the shield.

This made Etherguard release a domain that was effectively destabilizing the mana in its coverage.

As he expected, the strange-looking demons began to squirm and tried to retreat from the domain but Drago was matching their movement, cutting down the normal demons along the way.

'Smart!' Zex, who was watching this, commended Drago. The reason the three demons facing him were weaker than the others was that Etherguard and Avegar were resistant to mana, and they found these weapons to be threats.

In other words, these were not elemental creatures.

"Mana creatures!" Arissef blurted out, confirming what Drago and Zex were thinking about.

However, knowing this information was one thing, finding a way to fight against them was another.

Drago's domain could only weaken them as Etherguard was created not to absorb mana but slowly break down its structure. The mana continues to remain attached to their bodies but will become unusable for their attacks and defenses for a while.

To defeat them, they either have to destroy the mana in their bodies or absorb them.

Zex even wondered if this was the reason why Drago's sword, Avegar, was able to absorb mana in the future.

"Hevan! Do you have more of those mana-absorbing gems?" Arissef shouted.

Startled at Arissef's question, he furrowed his brows as he replied: "Yeah, I have some to spare. Why?"

Drago could no longer hear their discussion further as he struck a mana creature with his blade and bashed another with his shield.

The creatures that were hit stumbled back but recovered easily, retaliating as they found they could not escape Drago's domain.

The battle went on for a while as more and more demons were arriving at their location.

"We need to leave this area soon!" Brius shouted as he continued to bombard the demons that were swarming through the gate.

They were wasting a lot of time and energy at the entrance of the castle. At the rate they were going, they would be exhausted before they could even reach the keep.

It was then that Arissef's voice echoed in their ears.

"Contain! 5!"