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Path to Prosperity - B3 Chapter 17
🕑 Added 2024-11-03 11:00:07 +0000 UTCPercy sustained a lot more injuries even after the first Thousand-eyed Hellhound was dead. That wasn’t within his expectations, but it was fine as Fiona maintained his state very well. Healing Star, boosted by [Aura of Healing] and what felt like another Augmentation, yet might as well have been a runic enchantment, were powerful enough to mend grave wounds within seconds.
That was enough for Percy to block the Hellhounds and inflict more and more wounds. After killing one Greater Demon, Percy got more greedy. He traded wound with wound while relying on Fiona to heal him all the time. That worked out decently fine, and another Greater Demon died after its canine fangs dug deep into his shoulders. It was a desperate move by the Greater Demon, as it knew that Percy’s blood was dangerous to the demonic creature, but it had to do something to defeat Percy, and the hellfire didn’t work well enough.
The Hellhounds’ hellfire was powerful, there was no doubt about that, but it was also easy to predict via [Hawk Eyes], creating an opportunity to strike the other Hellhound. Percy studied the Hellhounds' attack pattern in the minutes they’d been fighting and learned enough to fight and overwhelm them. If it had been any other Greater Demon, Percy might have suffered a lot more, but the Hellhounds weren’t much of a problem.
They were fast Greater Demons, but their defenses and strategic combat weren’t anything special. Greater Demons should have been a much stronger threat than the reports given in the ancient scripts of the demon wars.
Maybe, they’re not at full power? The Infernal Lair collapsed right after the trio emerged simultaneously. Perhaps they had to use some of their power or Essence to forcefully maintain the Infernal Lair to appear together. That could be the case, and it would explain how I managed to defeat them so ‘easily’...Not that it was actually easy.
If his guess was correct, Percy would have to stay vigilant against Greater Demons. He was already fairly powerful, but that didn’t mean anything against Greater Demons in their prime, or worse, Demon Lords and the Devil. Percy needed more power and continued to maintain vigilance against all enemies, no matter how weak they seemed at first glance.
That being said, Percy killed the second Thousand-eyed Hellhound right after a massive ice block hit the side of its head. The Hellhound’s skull cracked, and it was momentarily stunned, creating the opening Percy needed to decapitate the creature in a smooth swing. The other Thousand-eyed Hellhound pounced on him, but Percy was already prepared for that. He had expected such a move and had thus fueled the Staff of Leech until it was overflowing with mana and lifeforce.
For a moment, he’d also considered using his soul’s highly potent energy, but his mana and blood had been purified and refined via [Dragonblood]. It was strong enough to transform the Staff of Leech’s Energy Blast into an even stronger attack than it used to be.
Percy spun around his axis right after beheading the Greater Demon to point the tip of the Staff of Leech at the other Greater Demon. Nothing happened for a quarter of a second, and Percy’s nerves pulled on him and screamed, but there was nothing to worry about. A pristine white blast burst out of the Staff of Leech a moment before the last Thousand-eyed Hellhound could tear his face apart. The energy blast crashed heavily into the Hellhound’s face and hurled it several meters through the air.
The Hellhound wasn’t dead yet, but half of its face was missing. Still, it couldn’t get up from the ground after landing heavily on the dry soil as dozens of icicles crashed into it. The icicles targeted the Hellhound’s open wounds with deadly precision, bypassing its thick skin to pierce through the Greater Demon’s flesh and shatter, releasing its freezing properties inside the demonic creature.
The Hellhound roared in pain but prevailed nonetheless. It was still alive, however, only for a few more seconds as the Imperials, their runic lances, switched to deadly runic spears – piercing deep into the Greater Demon’s flesh.
The Hellhound writhed in pain, acting like doing so would allow the creature to escape the blades stuck in its flesh and squealed, yet it was to no avail. Melissa joined the Imperials by conjuring more batches of icicles while her mount, Duke, manifested large blocks of ice to crush the Hellhound’s head multiple times until it stopped moving.
The Hellhounds were dead, and so was the Demon horde.
“Is everyone fine?” Percy asked with a booming voice, and everyone he saw nodded. The Blueflame Hawk scouted the surroundings for escapees but couldn’t find anything. The town was fine, though the townspeople were probably scared to death. That was fine. Showing fear meant that they were still alive. That was all that mattered.
“You’re probably worse off than anyone else. Just look at you,” Melissa wanted to joke about it, but her attention lingered on his blood-drenched clothes. Even his armor was covered in blood, which wasn’t supposed to be possible. Most master armors were polished with a special oil that repelled liquids and dirt. Percy’s blood shouldn’t have stained the armor, yet it did.
“I would love to say that this isn’t my blood,” Percy chuckled, looking down at his body, “But I can’t.”
He looked over to Fiona, who was approaching the group on the Holy Triceratops, and smiled, “It’s all thanks to your friend. If not for her, I wouldn’t be alive.”
Everyone looked over to Fiona and nodded in understanding. Fiona was one of the best Healers in the Kainesh Kingdom, and she was still young and in her prime growth phase. She was said to grow into the most capable Healer of the kingdom long before turning 20 years old. In fact, rumors said she would become the best of the best in the entire mortal realm as long as she didn’t abandon the path of the strongest Healer.
“Percy would have made it without my help,” Fiona said in a matter-of-fact tone, but the nobles thought she was too humble. Percy might have been strong, much stronger than they had expected, but the blood-drenched clothes were a clear indicator of the danger he had been in.
“What are we doing now?” The Imperial with the Purge Ego asked, his attention pulling to Percy, “Your Excellency?”
Percy was about to shrug and let others decide cause he couldn’t be bothered, but that wasn’t something the head of the envoy could do. He was the crown prince, the man who was supposed to rule the Kainesh Kingdom in the future.
“First of all, I would like everyone to forfeit your ownership of the Demons’ corpses. I have an Ego that allows me to consume demons and various objects to grow stronger,” Percy explained, which earned him some confused gazes.
“Do you think we will encounter more Demon hordes like this one, Your Excellency?” Fiona asked, to which Percy responded with a nod. There was not even hesitation in his response because he knew how ‘lucky’ he was and that the Devil could probably sense his location through Devil’s Touch, the Mark it had engraved on his Essence – and the back of his head – when the Synther house was about to sacrifice him in exchange for power.
“I think so. In fact, I’m certain the hordes will grow stronger. That is also what I will report back to the crown. This is not the first Demon horde found in the Kainesh Kingdom but the first horde with Greater Demons. They might have been weaker than the average Greater Demon. I don’t know why, even if I have some theories, but the sighting of Greater Demons cannot be good. It is a bad sign. A warning if you want to put it like that.”
The nobles looked at each other with a look Percy was all too familiar with.
They don’t believe the issues with the Demons are serious. Didn’t they just fight a damn horde of Demons led by three Greater Demons?! Just because we defeated the horde doesn’t mean the threat wasn’t present. Are they tired of living?
Percy was glad that he held the reins in the group. However, it was even better that Melissa seemed to agree with his decision.
“I have forfeited my right to the Demon carcasses. The corpses are better off transformed into power rather than leaving them unused in the spatial storages,” Melissa said, “And if we encounter another Demon horde, we will have a much easier time dealing with them. Even if the horde is larger, we won’t have many issues to deal with. After all, you will be stronger and capable of dealing with more Greater Demons if necessary. Otherwise, the others will have to fight the Greater Demons, and that…”
Melissa left out the last words unsaid intentionally. In fact, most of the things she’d mentioned were said to convince the nobles to get their act together. Fortunately, it worked. Close to 250 interfaces popped up all over the battlefield within seconds, allowing Percy to consume it all.
Nobody wants to fight the Greater Demons. Threatening them like that seems foul, but if it works…it works…
