Chapter 31

Note: Thanks to Alex for beta reading this!

I blocked the valkyrie’s slashing attacks with my spear. Three blows that rang out against the metal of my weapon. She fought with ferocity, her blue eyes burning with anger. I had touched a nerve in her, and she was pissed.

“How much did you charge for blowjobs?” I demanded.

“You rotten bastard!” she snarled.

“Five bucks, huh? So you’re a cheap whore?”

She slashed in wildly. I blocked her furious strokes with ease, reading her attacks. A spell formed on my lips as our weapons crashed together. “Darkness hides and shadows conceal, let the curse of Lord Zuen fall!”

Inky patches of darkness spilled over her eyes, blinding her. I smiled at that.

“Lord Leo!” Nimhe cried in pain.

I turned to see one of my arachne’s legs being cut off by a stroke of an orc’s sword. Purple ichor spurted from the stump. Then Nimhe lunged in and grabbed the orc’s head with her hands and jerked, exposing the orc’s neck.

Nimhe bit.

Her venom pumped into the orc’s body. the green-skinned monster girl roared in pain, her face twisting in agony. Nimhe released her prey. The orc collapsed and fell on the ground, spasming, froth at her mouth. Then she melted away.

“You okay?” I shouted at her.

“I’m fine!” Her compound eyes fixed on me. Then she gasped, “Watch out!”

The blind valkyrie lunged in at me while I had been distracted. Her sword stabbed me in the shoulder. She hit my breastplate, the point scraping over the side with an ear-splitting screech. It hit the edge of my armor and rammed into my exposed upper arm. Icy cold speared into me.

The valkyrie cackled with mad fury.

Lana Fulmine scanned the room.

It was a mess. Everyone was running around. Fighting. Leo reeled back, taking a wound from the valkyrie. Worry tugged at Lana Fulmine, but it was too chaotic for her to fire into the melee. She could hit someone.

Where are you, Led? rippled through her mind. She didn’t think for one second that the slimy dungeon builder had fled. He was here somewhere.

She just had to spot him.

She winced as an orc threw Hela off her back. The wildhound’s slender limbs spasmed as she struggled to stand. Before she could, the orc rammed her sword through Hela’s breasts. The cute monster girl spasmed and then vanished.

“Where are you!” Lana hissed.

Kibir screamed to Lana’s right. The will o’ wisp collapsed, crushed by another block of ice. Led’s work. Lana didn’t understand where he could be hiding. How he could still be killing her will o’ wisps. She had to find him. Stop him.

“Blossom and regrow with life, let the vitality of Lord Dumazid heal,” I growled, using the Beginner Tier Life spell to heal myself. I didn’t have unlimited mana. I was burning through my reserves. But it was enough to heal the damage.

I blocked the wild attacks from the valkyrie. She might be blind, but that didn’t stop her from flourishing her sword before her as she sought to cut me down. Our weapons clanged together as I considered a plan.

I smiled. “Waves slam into the shore, let the strength of Lord Enki hammer!”

The mace of water appeared and slammed at the valkyrie. Her battle instincts were intense because she whirled and blocked the watery weapon. It struck her sword with a quivering blow. She was open to me.

I rammed my spear forward.

She must have heard the rustle of my robes because she turned at the last moment. Instead of burying my spear into her side, I slammed it into her belly. I thrust it deep. She gasped, her back arching. Then she convulsed as the electric current from the spear arced into her.

She screamed, “Lord Led!”

Her crystalline sword fell from her twitching hands and shattered on the ground. I ripped my blade from her stomach and then rammed it right into her throat. She gurgled, blind hands grabbing the haft, clutching it.

Then she sagged and dissolved into motes.

“Yes!” I hissed in triumph.

Only to see Marwo falling to the ground, spasming, her shoulder bloody from a basilisk’s bite. Venom poured through my wildhound. Her body spasmed on the ground. I felt Gwyllt dying somewhere else, my monster girls dwindling fast.

Garnet squeaked in fright at the icy death hurtling for her.

All she could do was fall limp.

She crashed on her back moments before the chunk of frozen water hurtled over her. The chill of its passage kissed her face. Her heart lurched. This was suddenly so real to her. Battle had always felt like a game to her. Like she was reliving all her favorite Animes. Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z, Demon Slayer, ReZero, Naruto, Sorcerer Hunters, Those Who Hunt Elves, and more. Now ... Now ... Now she had almost died.

She could be hurt.

Her friends were getting hurt. Sure, they came back to life, but there was pain. When the unicorn gored her, she’d felt agony, but it let her pretend to give a dying speech, her final words of love to her big brother.

But she knew she would come back. That death wasn’t the end for her.

Not so long as Leo lived.

But that didn’t mean this was a game. The enemy didn’t just let her monologue. They didn’t care that she was playing. This was life and death. She had to take this seriously. She had to stand up and defeat the yuki-onna.

“Yes!” she cried and pushed herself to her feet. “I’ll...”

Her words trailed off as a blast of lightning struck the yuki-onna. The icy monster girl pitched forward in a flurry of frosty hair and hit the ground. Then she dissolved into light. From the balcony, Svyte stood proud.

“Okay,” Garnet said. “I’ll take the next fight seriously.”

She looked around and winced as Daant, one of the werebears, was gored by a unicorn. Nasty bitches! Garnet didn’t like them. Not only were they Light monsters, the antithesis of a Dark monster like the succubus, but they liked to ram their horns into people.

“Unicorns are supposed to be graceful and beautiful!” she hissed. “Not big meanies!”

But the unicorn darted off, not caring that Garnet was offended.

Still, she had the vicious satisfaction of spotting Havas and Khur goring another unicorn, the two satyrs ramming their shorter horns into the nasty monster girl’s flesh. Garnet’s wings fluttered in excitement at the evil being slain.

However, it was Ziamili that really caught Garnet’s eye. He threw a fist at Usiku. She blocked his blow with her sword, retreating before him. He was like a boxer, throwing haymakers left and right at the fomorian.

Time to dominate a guy, Garnet thought and charged at him, her whip at the ready.

An icy ax spun through the air and slammed into Gintaras. The will o’ wisp’s body of roiling, blue plasma split in half from the force of the blue. Incandescent fog spilled from her injury. She screamed as she collapsed.

Then she dissolved away.

“This ends!” Lana Fulmine screamed. She was tired of her will o’ wisps dying. She threw herself off the balcony, her wings spread wide. They carried her over the battlefield. She would find the bastard. She would murder Led.

Mrs. Zoe Baldwin fell to the ground, her eyes burning from the fairy’s attack.

The dryad blinked her eyes, tears spilling down her woody cheeks. Her vision blurred. She couldn’t see anything clearly. But she heard Iaidas scream in pain as the yuki-onna’s sneak attack struck. The quetzalcoatl’s hissing agony tore at Mrs. Baldwin’s heart.

Then it cut off and the dryad knew Iaidas had perished.

Mrs. Baldwin had failed to protect another member of her surrogate family. Another of her children had been hurt. She screamed in fury as she staggered to her feet, blinking to clear her vision. Everything looked distorted through her watery vision. Blurred and blotchy.

In the air, a smudge of purple and pink whirled around and soared right over the dryad. The obnoxious giggling rose over the battlefield. Something sparkled and swirled.

The fairy brandishing her wand! screamed through Mrs. Baldwin’s mind.

A beam of white-hot light lanced down at the dryad.

The valkyrie dead, I glared at two basilisks. They had just killed my wildhounds. They were the reason that Marwo and Gwyllt had died. I had felt both their deaths. Now they were staring at me, blood on their plump lips. The reptilian monster girls advanced.

“The thick night falls, let the enmity of Lord Zuen smother!”

Choking night fell on the two basilisks. A crushing darkness that would suffocate them. I turned away from their deaths, taking grim satisfaction in avenging my monster girls. I would protect as many of them as I could.

The feathery tendrils of freezing water reached for Maya and touched her flesh.

She screamed in pain, fighting against the swimming red cap. The crystals formed in her liquid body. They tore at her. The pain rippled through her. The five yuki-onna floating above her all had vicious smiles on their lips.

“CUNTS!” Maya roared, the agony spreading through her as more of her body froze.

She reached into the water around her. The liquid that shared her essence. She was an undine, made of water. The element wholly made up her body. She had no organs. No muscles or veins. She didn’t even have a brain. She was an awareness that animated the water into the form of a young girl.

An awareness that could control water.

Maya poured her rage into the liquid around her and sent a wave rippling through the surface. Unseen until it tore into those delicate branches of growing ice. Shards ripped for the current that rushed up at the yuki-onna.

It struck them, but they held tight, clutching each other’s hands. Their blue hair whipped around them in the current. Shards of their own ice struck their bodies, cutting them. They didn’t care. They kept freezing the water.

More ice spread.

The red cap thrashed harder to escape Maya’s grasp as the ice surged down and stuck the undine body again. She screamed in pain, holding tight to the monster girl as the crystalline death spread through her. The five yuki-onna smiled.

They know they’re killing me, Maya realized, helpless to stop her body from freezing. Her one attack had failed. Her last chance to survive. Sorry, Leo.

All she could do was hold onto the red cap and hope the enemy drowned first.

Mrs. Zoe Baldwin dove to the ground and rolled hard, the impact bruising her flesh. The beam of light from the fairy’s wand slashed across the stones where she had stood. The dryad’s heart pounded, the sap flowing through her veins chilled with fear.