“Pip, are you… going into hibernation too?” Inside the warm cottage, Elowen Whitestone cradled the Scout Puffcap in her arms and poked its soft body in confusion.

For the past few days, Pip had stopped running outside, which was completely unlike it. At first, she had secretly been delighted, thinking the Puffcap simply wanted to spend more time with her.

It soon became clear that something was wrong. The Scout Puffcap did nothing but sit blankly atop her head all day, sluggish and unresponsive, exactly like Bean when it grew sleepy.

“Where do Puffcaps usually stay when they hibernate?”

In the end, she carefully carried the Scout Puffcap, which seemed to be suffering from mushroom dementia, into the back room. She laid it on the soft bed and tucked the blankets snugly around it. Once her companion was settled, she wandered back into the courtyard alone and stared vacantly at the gray sky.

“I’m so bored. Why can’t something exciting happen…?”

* * *

Boom! Boom!

Deafening explosions ravaged both sides of Frostwatch Bastion’s walls without pause.

Eighteen Resonance Cannons and countless ordinary Spore Cannons wove a symphony of destruction, accompanied by dying wails, desperate screams, and fanatical battle cries. Not a moment of silence remained.

Below the walls, an assault team led by several senior warriors met unexpected resistance as it attempted to force its way up.

“Kynes?! Is that you, Kynes? Why… Why did this happen?!” A Half-Demon senior warrior stared at the former comrade blocking his path. His eyes were bloodshot, and his voice shook with pain and disbelief.

Pale hyphae had burrowed deep into Kynes’s body and fused with his flesh, leaving him almost unrecognizable. He looked away with difficulty, unable to meet his friend’s accusing gaze, then silently raised his staff. Dangerous lightning danced at its tip.

“I… had no choice,” Kynes rasped helplessly.

Those words extinguished the Half-Demon warrior’s last trace of hope. The tears in his eyes hardened into resolve as he clenched his teeth.

“Fine, Kynes! Then let’s settle this… like we used to!”

Steel and lightning collided violently over the next several exchanges. Relying on his extraordinary skill, the Half-Demon warrior evaded bolt after lethal bolt until he finally caught Kynes between spells and surged forward.

A dazzling web of electricity erupted around Kynes, forming a raging cage of lightning to protect him.

The Half-Demon warrior roared and charged straight through it. His body smashed apart the outer lightning arcs as the stench of scorched flesh filled the air. Enduring the searing agony, he broke into the heart of the cage.

His long blade thrust relentlessly toward Kynes’s throat.

At the final instant, however, the Half-Demon warrior’s hand instinctively shifted aside. Years of fighting shoulder to shoulder betrayed his will at the decisive moment.

The blade merely sliced the skin along Kynes’s neck, scattering a trail of blood.

In the next instant, the violent lightning Kynes had gathered slammed squarely into the Half-Demon warrior’s abdomen.

Bang!

The Half-Demon warrior flew backward like a discarded sack and crashed heavily to the ground. Blood spilled from his nose and mouth as his body convulsed, leaving him unable to move.

Kynes stumbled. His staff instinctively turned toward his fallen friend, while his other hand reached uncertainly for the warm wound on his neck.

“Pah!” The Half-Demon warrior spat out bloody foam, his eyes filled with fury and self-contempt. “Damn… old habits! Do it, traitor!”

“No… I can’t…” Kynes’s staff trembled violently in his grip. As he stared at his friend’s anguished face, the mana he had gathered refused to leave him.

Seeing his hesitation, the Half-Demon warrior forced out his next words. “Kynes, come back! Come with me to the Veiled Empire! There has to be a way to free you from whatever’s controlling you! There has to be…”

Squelch!

Without warning, a gray-white mushroom burst from the palm of Kynes’s right hand. He screamed in agony, and the staff slipped from his grasp.

“Kynes!” the fallen warrior cried, his eyes wide with fury.

“Ah… Dear friends turning their blades upon each other. What a heartbreaking sight.” A Voicebox Puffcap had somehow appeared between them, releasing a syrupy sigh. “Look at Kynes. He would rather endure such torment than strike down his dearest friend…”

The Voicebox Puffcap turned toward the Half-Demon warrior on the ground, its voice brimming with compassion. “Can you truly bear to watch a friend who treasures you so deeply die in agony? Lay down your weapon and join us! Once your sins have been absolved, freedom shall surely be restored to you both!”

“Shut up, you devil!” The fallen Half-Demon warrior summoned the last of his ferocity, twisted around, and plunged a short dagger into the Voicebox Puffcap’s body.

An identical Voicebox Puffcap immediately emerged from the mycelial mat behind him and continued, “Devil? You’re the invaders here, remember? Fine. If you won’t surrender, carry on.”

[Parasitic Fusion]

With its attempt at persuasion unsuccessful, the Voicebox Puffcap quickly dissolved into the mycelial mat. At the same moment, Kynes’s agonized screams rose into an inhuman shriek.

Countless gray-white mushrooms erupted one after another from every part of his body. Hyphae and flesh fused ever more completely amid the horrific proliferation.

With one final wet burst, a drab mushroom forced its way out of his left eye.

Then everything fell silent.

“Ky… nes?”

There was no answer.

“Kynes” bent stiffly at the waist like a puppet on strings and picked up the bloodstained staff at his feet.

Mana gathered at its tip once more. This time, it pointed steadily at his immobilized friend.

The eyes that had once held wisdom and emotion were now hollow and lifeless beneath the hyphae, without the faintest glimmer remaining.

* * *

From his position in the rear, Paine saw the assault force grind to a halt.

The distance made it impossible to discern the details, but the defenders were clearly Half-Demons and Lizardkin. Paine immediately thought of the missing scouts.

Charm? Puppet Magic? Necromancy?

Several possibilities flashed through his mind.

Whatever the answer, Diamond-rank warriors clearly had no hope of reaching the walls on their own.

He turned to the Half-Demon chief beside him. “Bastardos, what are you waiting for? I’ll cover your advance with magic!”

Bastardos’s expression shifted uncertainly.

With the battle turning against them, breaching the fortress quickly and destroying those magic items was indeed the key to victory.

But if they understood that, the Demonborn on the other side certainly did as well.

Bastardos refused to believe they had left no traps inside. There was no telling what dangers awaited him if he charged in.

Worse, that bastard Paine was plainly telling him to test those traps alone while remaining at a safe distance to provide his so-called cover.

On the distant wall, an oversized Puffcap in a ridiculous red cloak continued loudly reciting their “crimes” through a voice-amplification spell.

Bastardos was still weighing the risks when someone else finally lost patience with the incessant noise.

“Disgusting creature! Shut your mouth!”

Yunelle’s shrill voice cut across the battlefield. The blood of countless fallen soldiers suddenly churned, condensing in an instant into a gigantic dark-red spear. Its tip locked onto Marshal Puffcap before it tore through the air with a piercing shriek.

Its sheer size left no room to evade.

Marshal Puffcap had no intention of dodging.

The Puffcaps atop the wall exerted themselves together, raising three enormous Mana Shields in overlapping layers before the fortress.

The blood spear punched through the first two shields without slowing.

When it struck the third Mana Shield, however, its remaining power finally collapsed. The spear burst into a foul-smelling rain of blood that drenched Marshal Puffcap from cap to stipe, making the Puffcap even redder than before.

“Too weak! Too weak!” Covered in blood, Marshal Puffcap swayed smugly from side to side. “Is that all you’ve got, you old hag who keeps herself alive by drinking blood?”

“I’ll tear you apart and boil you into soup!” Yunelle raised both arms, attempting to seize an even greater torrent of blood and shape it into a devastating attack.

This time, however, the forming blood spear shuddered violently. Its shape twisted before collapsing once again.

Someone was fighting her for control of the blood?!

There was a Vampire among the enemy?!

Who?!

Yunelle’s scarlet pupils instantly locked onto the unusually tall figure among the Puffcap swarm.

Louisa.

Yunelle did not recognize her, but she quickly sensed the level of her power.

“Well, now. How rare!” Yunelle narrowed her eyes. “There hasn’t been a traitor of noble rank among the Vampires in longer than I can remember, and today one falls right into my lap!”

The fortress no longer mattered in her eyes.

“Once I’ve torn off your head, I’ll return home and find out which family produced such an indelible stain!”

She clenched her hand. The portion of blood under Louisa’s control was ripped away by an invisible force and swiftly gathered around Yunelle, transforming into countless razor-edged blood blades suspended in the air.

In a battle between two Vampires, the absolute dominance of a higher rank over a lower one revealed itself through this indisputable authority over blood.

This, however, was not a duel.

Just as Yunelle prepared to send the blood blades tearing through the traitor, the floating weapons around her suddenly warped and collapsed again.

Yunelle’s expression changed.

Ten… No, dozens of Vampires were contesting her control of the surrounding blood!

Each was far weaker than she was, but their combined numbers were so overwhelming that even she could no longer command the blood freely.

Of course, neither could they.

But where had so many Vampires come from?

Her senses spread across the battlefield, only to return an utterly bizarre result. Every source of resistance pointed toward the bouncing Puffcaps surrounding Louisa.

What?

“What’s wrong, Countess Yunelle?” Louisa licked one sharp fang. Her claws swept across her wrist, and bright-red blood, entirely her own, welled from the cut before gathering into an orb above her palm. “Weren’t you coming to take my head?”

Dozens of competing forces tore furiously at the blood spilled across the battlefield, leaving no one able to command it completely.

Now, only the blood flowing from one’s own body remained absolutely loyal.

“Do you think I need that mongrel blood to kill you?” Yunelle flicked a fingertip and opened her own flesh. Her blood flowed forth, condensing before her into a slowly revolving scarlet rose with edges as keen as blades.

“Go on! Fight already! I love watching women fight!” Marshal Puffcap cheered them on while discreetly adjusting the angles of several Resonance Cannons, searching for the perfect moment to “break up” the fight.

In the distance, blood threads and razor-edged rose petals clashed furiously in midair, every collision scattering dazzling crimson light.

Even with the Puffcaps supporting her, Louisa remained in constant peril beneath Yunelle’s relentless assault. Yunelle broke through her defenses several times, and only the Puffcaps’ [Mana Shields] bought her enough time to react.

The situation remained precarious until Starfire emerged from the tunnel and lent her magical support. With the Resonance Cannons firing the occasional surprise shot as well, they barely managed to keep Yunelle occupied and prevent her from defeating Louisa outright.

Seeing Yunelle temporarily tied down, Paine swept his staff forward. A massive, searing fireball roared into the seemingly endless sea of Puffcaps below and blasted a charred clearing through their ranks.

At the same time, he pressed the Half-Demon chief beside him once again. “Bastardos! What are you waiting for? Are you going to stand there and watch every member of your tribe die, then crawl home empty-handed?”

The conflict in Bastardos’s eyes vanished, replaced by a vicious resolve.

The air around him began to distort. Eerie violet flames kindled deep within his eyes as immense power surged from his body.

He had barely taken a single step when a grief-stricken voice came through the wind and snow behind him.

“Chief! Chief!”

Bastardos spun around. His pupils contracted, and disbelief sharpened his voice. “Sergio?! Weren’t you supposed to remain with the tribe? What are you doing here?”

“Chief, the tribe is gone!” Sergio, the Half-Demon warrior who had brought the news, collapsed onto the ground. Frostbite marked his face alongside streaks of tears and naked terror. “Only three days after you left, hordes of monsters came charging out of the river! They can turn invisible, and there were so many of them. Too many! We couldn’t stop them!”

He pounded the frozen earth, his voice raw with anguish. “My brother led everyone who stayed behind and held them back with their lives, just to give the rest of us a chance to escape! The tribe scattered in every direction! I nearly died trying to find you!”

“Wh… what?” Bastardos reeled as if struck by lightning. The towering Half-Demon swayed, and the violet flames that had just ignited in his eyes immediately faded.

“Chief, hurry! You have to go back and save them!” Sergio screamed through his tears. “If we wait any longer, they’ll all freeze or starve to death out on the plains!”

Paine spoke coldly from beside them. “Go back now? It’s already too late. Those destined to die are long dead, and anyone capable of surviving can endure a few more days. Destroy the Demonborn before us, then take your remaining tribesmen to the Veiled Empire with me. There you can recover and rebuild. That is your only way forward, Half-Demon chief.”

Bastardos’s eyes reddened as he stared at Marshal Puffcap atop the distant fortress.

With Yunelle occupied, the warriors locked in battle, and Paine’s fireball tearing through the enemy ranks, a gap had somehow opened amid the chaos. It appeared to offer an unobstructed path straight to the foot of the fortress walls.

There it lay in the middle of the battlefield, like a shortcut to victory.

When Evan realized they intended to leave, he naturally tried to convince them to stay…

The opening was so tempting that Bastardos nearly charged into it.

Yet instinct warned him of danger.

Looking more closely, he realized that the Demonborn who had stood atop the walls were nowhere to be seen. Only Puffcaps remained.

“Retreat!”

A shrill whistle erupted from Bastardos, piercing the clamor of the battlefield.

The signal meant complete abandonment of the attack. Shock, frustration, and resentment flashed across the faces of the Half-Demon warriors still fighting desperately, but they immediately began struggling free of their opponents and withdrawing toward the rear.

Several Half-Demon warriors were hopelessly entangled by a swarm of Puffcaps and moments away from being overwhelmed.

Bastardos swept past like a phantom. His claws ripped through the air, reducing the Puffcap swarm to a storm of flying hyphal debris.

He no longer hesitated. Racing across the chaotic battlefield, he used his overwhelming strength to tear open gaps in the Puffcaps’ encirclement, rescuing more tribesmen and covering their retreat.

Paine watched coldly without saying a word. Bastardos had chosen to reject the Veiled Empire’s “gift,” which meant Paine had lost the leverage needed to control him. There was no longer any point in speaking.

The situation changed in an instant. As the Half-Demon force began an organized withdrawal under its chief’s command, all the pressure shifted onto the leaderless Lizardkin.

The Puffcaps clearly noticed this as well. They deliberately allowed some of the Half-Demons to escape and concentrated their forces against the Lizardkin instead.

As for their strongest combatants, Paine’s side still had him and Yunelle. Whether the enemy had a hidden Paragon-rank combatant remained unknown.

Even if they did not, taking on thousands of enemies directly with only himself and Yunelle after losing so much expendable manpower…

Victory was not impossible. The risk was simply too great, and there was no reason to take it.

Graeme’s original intelligence had proved to be an enormous joke. The enemy’s demonstrated strength far exceeded every expectation. Merely returning with what they had learned here would be enough to satisfy their superiors.

That was precisely why Paine had continually urged Bastardos forward without charging in himself. There was no reason for him to risk his own life.

Even if they failed to defeat the Demonborn this time, the Veiled Empire would lose nothing.

If these tribes fulfilled their assignment, the Veiled Empire would naturally honor its word.

By the same measure, they could not expect rewards merely because they had made sacrifices. The Empire cared only about results.

Which meant…

Paine swept his gaze across the battlefield and settled on Graeme, who was fighting several Puffmechs.

It was time for them to retreat as well.

* * *

Flames engulfed Graeme, yet his fighting spirit only burned hotter. Every punch carried a wave of scorching air that shattered and melted through the biological armor around him.

Fire was his innate skill. It was this ability that allowed him to move freely through the bitter cold of the North despite lacking [Cold Resistance].

His fist punched through a Puffmech’s breastplate. The Demonborn inside instantly went up in flames and was blasted backward by the savage force of the blow, screaming as it flew.

Graeme was about to finish the enemy with a kick when a mana bolt came hurtling toward him.

He twisted sharply aside. The mana orb skimmed past his shoulder and exploded against the frozen ground, leaving a deep crater.

Another of those living suits of armor. This one looked slightly different, but that hardly mattered.

The things possessed considerable firepower, but the Demonborn inside could not react quickly enough to keep up with him. Power meant nothing if they could not bring it to bear.

Graeme charged back in, evaded two more mana bolts, and successfully closed the distance. His burning fist hurtled forward with enough force to incinerate anything in its path.

This time, however, the shell did not shatter as expected. His fist was stopped cold by an inconspicuous piece of dark-yellow carapace mounted on the Puffmech’s chest.

The tremendous recoil numbed Graeme’s arm, while his opponent merely slid back half a step before regaining its balance.

“What the hell is that?”

Inside the armor, Norris had no intention of wasting such a perfect opportunity to retaliate.

“Eat drill!”

The elite-rank Burrower Puffcap thrust forward with a violent vibration. Ignoring the intense heat radiating from Graeme’s body, its sharp drill drove into his abdomen with raw physical force.

Squelch!

Flesh tore and blood sprayed. Despite the excruciating pain, Graeme clamped both hands around the Burrower Puffcap’s body like iron pincers.

Using its momentum, he twisted at the waist and swept his blazing right leg around, kicking the Puffmech’s head apart.

Norris’s vision vanished instantly.

Graeme freed one hand and brought his elbow down like a hammer. Several brutal strikes reduced the Burrower Puffcap embedded in his abdomen to pulp.

Before he could launch another attack, a spear lunged in from the side, aimed straight at the vital point beneath his ribs.

Caught at a disadvantage, Graeme tried to evade, but the spear followed him like a shadow. In the end, he had no choice but to block with his arm, and the weapon pierced straight through it.

“You!” Graeme recognized his attacker.

“We meet again, Imperial Northern Envoy.” Hunt’s voice was cold, without the slightest hint of pleasantry.

Before the words had fully left him, the two became a pair of entangled blurs. Fists and spear shadows collided in a furious exchange.

Before either could determine the victor, several razor-sharp Wind Blades sliced into the battle without warning and disrupted Hunt’s rhythm. Graeme seized the fleeting opening and drove a fist into Hunt’s face.

Hunt flew backward in flames, gouging a trail through the mycelial mat.

Paine descended beside Graeme and seized him by the shoulder. “We’re retreating!”

Before leaving, Paine casually swept his staff. A concentrated Wind Blade slashed toward Norris, who had just crawled out of his damaged Puffmech.

Norris’s pupils contracted at the casual attack of a Paragon-rank powerhouse.

It was too late to dodge. All he could do was cross his arms and brace them in front of his body.

Clang!

A bizarre metallic impact rang across the battlefield. The vicious Wind Blade struck pitch-black scales, yet failed to leave even the faintest white mark.

Recognizing that something was wrong from the sound alone, Paine turned with a grave expression toward the short figure that had suddenly appeared opposite him.

“Dragonkin…”

The enemy stubbornly refused to enter Evan’s self-destructing fortress and had begun retreating instead. Left with no other choice, Evan abandoned the concealment and sent Sable out.

The moment Sable appeared, howling winds surged around Paine, lifting both him and Graeme into the air and carrying them away.

The enemy was about to escape, but Sable wanted to check whether Norris had lost any scales first.

“Sable!” Evan shouted urgently through the Mycelial Network. “See that flying one? The one with horns on his forehead! Beat him down and you can eat all the Red Puffcaps you want! Plus an enormous red! Shiny! Crystal!”

“Red shiny! Enormous!” Sable’s dragon eyes lit up.

“Yes, yes! A really enormous one!” Evan’s promise was almost irresistible.

Norris was not going anywhere, but the red shiny might escape. Sable’s clever mind turned this question over only three times before deciding which mattered more.

Her dragon wings snapped open, sweeping snow and dust into the air. She became a streak of black lightning and shot toward the two retreating figures, leaving Norris coughing in the choking cloud behind her.

Once the haze thinned, Norris crawled over to the Puffmech whose head Graeme had kicked apart. He leaned over its chest and inspected the tawny leatherbound codex.

A distinct fist-shaped crater had been burned into its charred cover, but the codex itself was extraordinarily resilient. The blow had neither torn nor punched through it.

“Whew… You can always count on the Elder…” Norris sighed in relief, closed the book, and tucked it safely away. Then he turned and ran toward the place where Hunt had landed.

Meanwhile, Paine rapidly assessed the situation as Sable closed in on him.

The Dragonkin had only revealed herself now, which meant the enemy had been holding strength in reserve all along. They might have more surprises waiting. He could not afford to linger.

Escaping, however, posed another problem. She was far too fast.

Even if he abandoned Graeme, he still could not outrun her.

The odds were slim, but perhaps speed was all she had.

Time to test her.

His thoughts raced. With a sharp motion, he hurled Graeme toward the ground. A fall of just over sixty-five feet would not be enough to injure him.

With his left hand free, Paine swiftly drew another staff from inside his mage robe, this one short and delicately crafted.

He held his primary staff in his right hand and the secondary one in his left. Completely different mana glows flared from them at the same time.

A gigantic fireball wrapped in dazzling lightning rapidly took shape before him.

Lightning and fire intertwined, granting it speed far beyond that of an ordinary fireball.

Guided by Paine’s mental lock, the projectile seemed to possess eyes of its own. Even when Sable banked sharply aside, the edge of its raging energy still struck her hard.

A deafening explosion blossomed in midair. Black smoke and flames billowed outward as Sable tumbled away.

Yet after being thrown back barely thirty feet, she steadied herself. Her dragon wings beat powerfully, tearing open the smoke, and she accelerated toward him once more with even greater ferocity.

“What incredible defenses!”

Paine descended rapidly. Wind magic offered excellent mobility, but it still felt clumsy against an enemy like this Dragonkin. Fighting her in the air placed him at far too great a disadvantage.

The instant his feet touched the ground, Paine jabbed his staff forward.

Several vicious Water Serpents formed from ice and flowing water, rising from cracks in the frozen earth and coiling toward the charging Sable.

At the same time, the frozen ground bulged upward. Several sharp stone spears took shape and shot toward her with a shriek.

[Title: Omnimancer (Can use every school of magic; all magic shares one level)]

The man truly was something else. Who knew where he had acquired a title like that?

Yet despite his seemingly endless array of techniques, Paine’s expression grew steadily darker.

He used wind magic to retreat at high speed and maintain his distance, bombarding Sable with a storm of low- and mid-tier spells from every school. On the surface, he appeared to be successfully keeping the beast at bay.

But Paine knew the truth. Her dark dragon scales casually deflected nearly all those spectacular attacks. He could barely leave a proper scratch on them.

To truly penetrate her defenses, he would need high-tier magic that required extended channeling and a lengthy accumulation of mana.

With the black-scaled Dragonkin pursuing him so relentlessly that he scarcely had time to breathe, when was he supposed to cast anything?

Then there were the infuriating Puffcaps. They kept emerging from holes all around him, spraying acid, firing mana bolts, releasing poisonous gas, and even trying to cling to his legs before activating Detonation.

Individually, they posed little threat, but they constantly disrupted his casting rhythm and restricted his movement. They were intolerably troublesome.

He could indeed cast spells from every school, but his mana was finite. If this attrition continued, he would be in serious trouble.

Paine continued searching for a solution while casually conjuring several illusory doubles.

Sable, who had been charging with her head lowered, skidded to a halt and looked from side to side in confusion.

Her [Mana Sense] could easily pierce invisibility, but these illusory doubles were constructs made entirely of magic. To her senses, every one of them was a genuine mana source.

Sable looked back and forth among the six Paines. Boss had said that beating him down would earn her a red shiny. Now the red shiny had become six red shinies!

Unfortunately, when she pounced on one of the Paines, he vanished at once.

Paine’s eyes widened.

He had found the answer.

Without the slightest hesitation, Paine conjured more illusions. They appeared like rising bubbles and instantly transformed the battlefield into a maze where truth and falsehood were impossible to distinguish.

At the same time, both staves lit up as he began preparing two Tier 8 spells simultaneously: Light Prison and Thunder Spear.

One would bind her, and the other would pierce her. Everything depended on this attack.

Sable remained completely oblivious, circling among the illusions.

“Sable, hit the one on your left!” A certain verdant mushroom shamelessly entered the game and cheated, identifying the only Paine with a Status Panel.

Sable reacted instantly. Her fist whistled through the air as she punched an illusion on her right.

“Damn it… Wrong side! The other one! The other side!” Evan’s voice nearly cracked.

Sable seemed to understand at last. She whipped her dragon wing toward the real Paine on her left, its enormous membrane sweeping forward with tremendous force.

Faced with the sudden attack, Paine had no choice but to forcibly interrupt his casting, even though both spells were nearly complete.

The backlash from two high-tier spells churned through his chest, filling him with nausea.

Coincidence? Luck?

More illusions surged forth, with Paine hiding among them. Suppressing his discomfort, he circulated his mana once more and attempted to restart the spells.

“Sable, straight ahead! Charge!”

There was no possible way to get that wrong.

As the Dragonkin charged toward him, Paine could not understand how someone unable to distinguish the most rudimentary illusion moments ago could now identify him accurately among more than twenty doubles.

Had the Dragonkin deliberately pretended to be stupid at first to deceive him?

Whatever the truth, Paine could only abort his spell again and retreat in disarray.

Several Puffcaps brandishing Blade Lashes threw themselves fearlessly into his path, attempting to stop him.

“Get out of my way!” Paine snarled. He casually swept his staff, sending a leaping lightning arc through the Puffcap swarm.

Two Puffcaps toppled over trailing black smoke. The lightning arc continued toward a third.

A magic shield appeared around the third Puffcap and blocked the lightning.

Knight Three!

At point-blank range, a Spore Cannon enhanced to 200% power by [Crystal Symbiosis] fired.

“Damn it…”

Even under those circumstances, Paine barely managed to raise a shield and neutralize the Spore Cannon blast. His retreat, however, had been interrupted.

In the next instant, a dragon claw slammed squarely into his chest.

Paine felt as though a flying iceberg had struck him. He was swatted away like a ruptured ball, blood spraying from his mouth.

Had Graeme not arrived in time and caught him in midair, the impact alone would have sent him tumbling half to death across the ground.

“Yunelle! Hold her off!” Paine shouted, spitting blood.

“Useless!” Yunelle cursed, though she still flew toward him at once.

She had kept Starfire and Louisa firmly on the defensive throughout their battle, but she had wasted far too much time at the beginning eliminating the Puffcaps capable of controlling blood.

The fragile creatures were easy to kill whenever she found an opening. She could destroy several or even a dozen at once. Once they were gone, she would regain control over all the blood on the battlefield and crush the two women with ease.

What she had failed to anticipate was that every time she killed one group, another would crawl out of the tunnels. Trying to eliminate them was pointless.

By the time she realized it, Paine was already on the verge of collapse.

Under Yunelle’s control, blades of blood slipped between the gaps in Sable’s scales and inflicted several minor wounds.

The faint stinging pain drew an irritated growl from Sable. She whipped around, and a torrent of corrosive gray-black dragon breath engulfed the approaching blood blades. The breath corroded them, seized them, and swept them back toward Yunelle.

Elsewhere, Paine seized the brief respite Yunelle had bought him. He created another group of illusory doubles to confuse Sable, while pitch-black light gathered around his staff.

A cold, chaotic, ominous aura abruptly spread across the surrounding area.

Tier 7 Abyssal Magic: Gate of Transference!

Abyssal Magic!

Evan instantly recognized the familiar aura of that mysterious school of magic.

Of course. If all magic shared one level, that naturally included Abyssal Magic.

Evan had no idea what spell Paine intended to cast, but he had no intention of letting him complete it.

“Sable, diagonally left!”

The target was actually diagonally right, but Evan had optimized the instruction to accommodate Sable’s intellect.

Sable roared, beat her dragon wings without hesitation, and charged at full speed…

Diagonally left.

Evan: “#@%&…!!!”

Could Sable please be a little more consistent about how stupid she was?

It made coordinating with her extremely difficult!

Fortunately, there was still a Knight Puffcap on the field.

It opened with a Spore Cannon blast aimed at Paine, then spun its hyphal Blade Lash at high speed and activated [Blade Storm LV7]. Whirling like a top, it hurtled toward its target.

Graeme moved in front of Paine just in time. His burning fist dispersed the Spore Cannon blast, but the flesh of his entire hand was shredded in the process.

Suppressing the agony, he followed with a whipping kick that sent the charging Knight Puffcap flying.

The Puffcap’s Blade Lash carved several bone-deep wounds across his leg.

It was not that Graeme knew no other way to fight. Right now, however, he had to use his own body as Paine’s final line of defense. He could not dodge an inch.

The burning Knight Puffcap bounced twice across the ground before rising again. The flames quickly died out. Protected by [Heat Resistance LV8], the Puffcap was left with only a few scorch marks.

As the Knight Puffcap charged again, Sable, still some distance away, finally used it to pinpoint their location. Graeme was fairly certain he was about to die.

Then a hand suddenly seized his shoulder.

“Go!” Paine roared.

He had finally completed the strange spell. A pitch-black opening that seemed to devour light abruptly appeared beneath his feet. Dragging Graeme with him, Paine leaped into it without hesitation, and the darkness swallowed them both in an instant.

What was that? A portal?

Knight Three switched to [Thrall Command] and immediately prepared to follow them.

Then something unexpected happened.

Evan had never taken all his attention off the tawny leatherbound codex.

Just moments ago, it had brazenly consumed one of the souls drifting across the battlefield.

Evan had expressly forbidden it from doing that.

Was it simply greedy, or had it assumed all his attention was on the enemy and tried to take advantage of the distraction?

It no longer mattered.

Within the tawny leatherbound codex, Evan’s immense soul immediately closed around it, ready to crush it out of existence.

At the final instant, the codex, which had not yet managed to grow even one complete page, hastily scrawled a line across its sole half-formed leaf.

[Don’t kill me yet keep that Vampire she’ll be extremely useful]

The writing was crooked and hurried, without even a trace of punctuation.

Evan kept his soul poised to crush the codex at any moment and shifted his attention back to the battlefield.

Yunelle had compressed her entire body into an arrow of blood and was streaking toward the black opening at astonishing speed.

She moved too quickly for even Sable to intercept.

Tch!

Knight Three abandoned its attempt to enter the opening, reversed direction, and charged straight at the blood arrow.

Yunelle made no attempt to evade. She apparently intended to pierce straight through the Knight Puffcap.

As if Evan would let her have a direct collision.

[Detonation LV8]

Empowered by Knight Three’s own stats and [Crystal Symbiosis], the resulting explosion was far more destructive than that of a Bulwark Puffcap.

At the same time, the Resonance Cannons atop the walls fired another volley into the area.

The violent shock wave even sent the pursuing Sable tumbling backward.

Yunelle, who had borne the brunt of the blast, suffered far worse. The explosion forcibly tore apart her blood-arrow form and revealed her battered body, which crashed heavily to the ground like a broken doll.

Smoke and dust filled the air. The pitch-black opening on the ground had vanished, though whether the explosion had destroyed it or the spell’s duration had simply expired was impossible to tell.

Either way, the only enemy left on the battlefield was an injured Vampire who still could not freely control the surrounding blood.

Her fate was easy to imagine.

After a fierce but futile struggle, Yunelle was finally captured.

Piglet came over specifically to stomp on her a few times, wearing an expression of satisfaction and delight even greater than when she had drunk her fill of blood.

The battle was over.

The battlefield lay in ruins.

Lizardkin corpses, Half-Demon corpses, and countless Puffcap corpses were piled atop one another as far as the eye could see. The Puffcaps had suffered the greatest losses by far.

Many others had not yet died and lay groaning in agony amid pools of blood. The Pack Puffcaps began dealing with them in an orderly fashion.

Of course, many enemies had fled in every direction as well. Evan had already dispatched Puffcaps to pursue them.

Most would never escape the range of his mycelial mat.

As for the force led away by the Half-Demon chief, Evan was in no hurry to deal with them.

Those warriors might be able to flee, but they could not carry their entire tribe with them. Moving a whole people was no simple undertaking.

Once the Puffcaps finished cleaning up at home, they could track them down and settle the score.

Despite having expendable Puffcaps shielding them at the front, the Demonborn had still suffered casualties. Rescue and treatment efforts were already underway.

Fortunately, the parasitic hyphae and the herbs prepared in advance could save even the severely wounded.

The only real disappointment was that the two Demonborn from the Veiled Empire appeared to have escaped. Evan could no longer sense them anywhere within the mycelial mat.

A long-range portal?

As Evan recalled, teleportation magic in this world had severe limitations. It required fixed magic circles at both ends and a tremendous amount of mana.

What had Paine used?

Abyssal Magic… Was it really that powerful?

Why had none of the cultists Evan encountered at the port come to Mushroom Town and established a base?

Evan wanted to study such a powerful spell too.

As for this Vampire…

Marshal Puffcap, still wearing its red cloak, skirted around Sable, who was happily wagging her tail while searching the battlefield for “treasure.” It approached Norris and accepted the tawny leatherbound codex from him.

The Voicebox Puffcap perched atop the marshal spoke. “Go on, then. Tell me how she’s useful. I just had a powerful Puffcap activate Detonation. If you were lying…”

Evan tightened his grip around the codex’s soul.

[Boss! I’ve truly repented! I swear it’s true!]

[The Vampire really is extremely useful! How would I dare deceive you?]

“Get to the point!”

[Yes yes]

[She can help your Louisa advance in rank! Surely that counts as extremely useful?]

“How?” Evan’s interest stirred.

[Naturally… by consuming her!]

[But an ordinary method certainly won’t work. It requires a special ritual known to very few!]

[As it happens… I know a little about it… Heh heh]

“Hmm…” Evan considered the proposal.

Louisa was still stomping on Yunelle in the distance, savoring the pleasure of humiliating Countess Yunelle without restraint. She had not noticed the writing in the codex.

Advancing Piglet’s rank…

That was certainly tempting.

Louisa’s loyalty was beyond question. Evan did not trust her without reservation, but he trusted her even more than most of the Demonborn.

If he could exchange this prisoner for an enormous leap in Piglet’s strength, it would undoubtedly be a profitable bargain.

Besides, Evan was not worried about the tawny leatherbound codex tampering with the ritual. Piglet’s condition would be plainly visible on her Status Panel, and the codex would never risk its own life merely to harm her.

“That is reasonably useful,” Evan acknowledged.

[Then… once it’s done could I perhaps…]

The line appeared cautiously on the page, every stroke brimming with hope.

“Not enough!” Evan rejected the request mercilessly without even hearing it.

[…]

“However…” Marshal Puffcap tapped the page covered in writing with a mycelial tendril. “You may keep this page.”

[Thank you Boss! Thank you Boss!]

The writing instantly became unbearably fawning.

[You are truly merciful!]

* * *

“Cough… Cough!”

The taste of blood rising in his throat jolted Graeme awake. He shook his foggy head and struggled to lift it.

There was no sign of the fearsome Dragonkin anywhere in sight, nor could he find any hyphae or Puffcaps. Only then did the tension in his body ease slightly.

He planted a hand on the ground and tried to rise, only to feel something tugging at his left arm.

Graeme turned in astonishment and found that most of his left arm was deeply embedded in a gray-brown rock beside him.

Gritting his teeth, he gathered what strength remained and punched the rock.

Fragments of stone exploded in every direction.

His entire left arm shattered with them, crumbling into powder that trickled to the ground.

“It… wasn’t embedded. It fused…” an extremely weak voice said behind him.

“Paine!”

Graeme spun around, only to recoil in horror at the sight before him.

Most of Paine’s body had merged with a tree.

Rough bark enveloped and consumed his waist, abdomen, arms, and half his head. Only one limp leg and half of his violently heaving chest remained exposed.

His breath was faint. He looked ready to die at any moment.

“You… were… fortunate…” Paine’s lips twitched with difficulty as he coughed up strands of foamy blood. “I… was just… a little… less so…”

“How do I get you out?!” Graeme rushed to the tree, helpless before this bizarre magic he had never encountered.

He tried to retrieve a potion, only to discover that every vial had somehow shattered.

Paine gave the faintest shake of his head. His unfocused gaze settled on Graeme.

“My… Demon Core… Please…”

The final syllable faded into the freezing air, and the last visible portion of his chest stopped moving.

Graeme sighed. Without a word, he reached carefully into Paine’s chest and pulled free his Demon Core.

Clutching it tightly, Graeme surveyed the unfamiliar surroundings.

He had to find a way back.

Several Lizardkin stumbled desperately across the bitterly cold plains.

They had been among the first to break and flee. Their group had initially numbered more than a dozen, a mixture of Lizardkin and a few Half-Demons. Now only a handful remained.

Thump, thump, thump, thump…

The sound of those terrifying mushroom monsters running across the snow came from all around them, yet not a single enemy was visible.

“Damned invisible monsters! Damn them!” Gora forced the last breath from his lungs and drove his heavy legs onward, caring only that he stayed half a step ahead of his companions.

At that moment, he bitterly envied the Half-Demons he had once despised. When the rout began, many of those with wings had simply taken flight and vanished into the gray horizon. Others possessed joints adapted to snowy terrain and raced across the frozen ground with ease.

Lizardkin like them had almost no hope of escaping this nightmare.

“Ah! No! Help me!” The Lizardkin at the rear suddenly tripped over something invisible, his terrified plea tearing from his throat.

No one spared him a glance. They only lowered their heads and ran harder.

Stopping now would only doom them too.

Familiar screams and muffled thuds followed as his companions were dragged beneath the snow. Gora did not even have the courage to look back.

He had a wife and children. He had to return to his tribe!

He had no idea how long he ran before the sounds around him dwindled until only his own remained.

His strength finally exhausted, Gora stopped and braced his hands on his knees, gasping as he looked back. No one was there. Only an endless expanse of snow stretched behind him.

“At least… at least I escaped…”

Thump.

Thump, thump.

Round footprints appeared from nowhere in the snow around him, one after another.

Despair flooded through Gora. He sank to the ground and abandoned all resistance.

A Bulwark Puffcap approached at an unhurried pace. One of its mycelial tendrils wrapped around Gora and effortlessly stuffed him into its swollen belly, which reeked of Hallucinogenic Spores.

There, Gora was finally reunited with his friends.

When he regained consciousness, Gora found himself in a suffocatingly crowded, foul-smelling dungeon. Large numbers of Half-Demons and Lizardkin were packed into the cramped chamber.

Several strange Puffcaps hung upside down overhead, emitting a low buzz and a faint but steady heat that drove away the dungeon’s bitter cold.

He was no longer in danger of freezing, but the stale air, the crush of bodies with no room to stretch, and the shouting prisoners all left him struggling to breathe.

Some distance away, a Lizardkin and a Half-Demon got into an argument for reasons Gora could not discern. They were on the verge of coming to blows when several Puffcaps flew in through the dungeon entrance and dragged them away without explanation.

When the two were thrown back inside, frost covered their bodies. They were half-dead from the cold and could do nothing but shiver.

Later, the Puffcaps scattered large quantities of mushrooms among the prisoners. Gora was already starving. Poisonous or not, he seized them and devoured them ravenously.

Once his stomach was full, he slumped into a frigid corner. Like the other prisoners, he stared hollowly at the Puffcaps on the ceiling and waited in silence for whatever the future held.

* * *

They were running out of prison cells!

Nearly six hundred prisoners had been crammed into several temporary dungeons.

Half were severely wounded combatants captured on the battlefield. The rest had been caught by Puffcap hunting parties while fleeing.

Not everyone who ran had survived. Some succumbed to their wounds, while many who fled alone into the depths of the frozen plains ended up as statues of ice.

A very small number of fortunate escapees with unusual abilities did make it away. Most of them were winged Half-Demons. When it came to fleeing for one’s life, wings offered an overwhelming advantage.

The Demonborn had also paid a price in the battle. More than twenty Demonborn warriors had died, and over seventy had been wounded.

Evan had instructed most of the Demonborn to remain at the limit of their command range and direct the Puffcaps from afar. Even so, there was no truly safe place on a battlefield. Any number of accidents could happen.

Fortunately, the death toll remained within expectations. The wounded posed even less of a problem, thanks to the repairs performed by the hyphae and the medicinal salves prepared in advance.

Once the wounded had been treated, the Demonborn joined the effort to clear the battlefield and collect the spoils.

They stripped usable equipment from corpses already sprouting mushrooms. The cold bodies themselves were left where they lay to become fresh nutrients for the mycelial mat.

The tribes might have been poor, but searching through mountains of spoils occasionally uncovered a rare piece of equipment glowing faintly with stat bonuses or skills.

Evan also obtained what he needed.

[Sin of Greed triggered.]

[Skill Plundered: Demon Tongue LV8 → LV10]

[Skill Plundered: Physical Resistance LV8 → LV9]

[Skill Plundered: Cold Resistance LV8 → LV9]

[Skill Plundered: Scale Armor LV7 → LV8]

[Skill Plundered: Fire Magic LV6 → LV7]

[Skill Plundered: Water Magic LV6 → LV7]

[Skill Plundered: Sensory Enhancement LV4 → LV5]

* * *

[Skill Plundered: Charm Person LV3]

[Skill Plundered: Seductive Kiss LV2]

[Skill Plundered: Feign Death LV1]

[Skill Plundered: Regeneration LV1]

* * *

* * *

* * *

Studying with Piglet had already raised [Demon Tongue] to LV8, leaving Evan with almost no difficulty communicating. Now, however, he had finally achieved complete mastery of both Common Tongue and Demon Tongue.

That ability alone would be enough to earn him recognition as a scholar in this world.

The tremendous diversity among Half-Demons had provided him with a wide variety of skills.

What left Evan speechless was that he had not seen a single Succubus on the battlefield, yet he had acquired several signature Succubus skills.

Somehow, it felt as though the Succubi deserved half the credit for there being so many Half-Demons…

Not that Evan was complaining!

Just look at how many wonderful things these mongrels despised by the Veiled Empire had contributed to him.

A cursory inspection revealed several interesting skills.

The research could wait, however. Evan had not finished collecting his “spoils” yet.

The two tribes that had lost most of their defensive forces were like feasts abandoned by their guards, waiting for him to devour them.

His mycelial mat would reach them in another ten days or so, but Evan had an uneasy feeling.

A few days earlier, two Kyth Sixclaws had chased a Half-Demon to the edge of his mycelial mat.

The moment they discovered traces of the mycelial mat, they abandoned their quarry and disappeared back the way they had come.

Combined with the reason the Half-Demon chief had withdrawn, this inevitably reminded Evan of the neighboring Kyth colony that had already migrated.

Those tribes were his spoils!

Since the force would be operating beyond the mycelial mat, Evan dispatched a Puffcap army centered around the Demonborn.

Sable accompanied them, while Piglet remained behind to guard their main base.

Unfortunately, when the Demonborn reached the Half-Demon tribe, they found nothing but ruins.

The Half-Demon chief and the hundred or so people he had protected were s