Scarlet

I continue running through the continent until I arrive at the Battlefield of Blood and Ruin, and around the same time, the demons behind me all start catching up. But some of them seem to grow more hesitant when they see me entering the battlefield. At least, until the viscount shouts with a sing-song voice, “If anyone turns around, they diiiieeee!”

So we all charge through the massive Battlefield for nearly an hour until the lunatic finally seems to be satisfied with the chase and claps his hands, making a massive wall of miasma form in front of me and to the sides. And when I try to throw attacks at it, the wall simply eats the attacks without even struggling against them.

Then I try to punch the wall, only for my hand to be devoured by it entirely, leaving me having to spend nearly an entire minute just regrowing my hand as I turn around to find all of the demons – a number consisting of hundreds of thousands of demons with the vast majority being undead – catching up to me at last.

And the battlefield around us grows completely silent. As if viscount somehow just silenced everything around us.

“His magic seems to be death magic, just like the ghouls,” Tar points out, making me grit my teeth. “So silencing an area and blocking senses is very much something he can do.”

Damnit.

The demons all glare at me as if this whole thing was my fault that the lunatic decided to force them into his little game. And it doesn’t take long before some of them charge towards me, attacking after having lost themselves to their Sins on the way here. But the majority continue watching, likely due to me being a blood lycan even if they don’t recognize me as the Princess.

And attacking a blood lycan is never a good idea.

“To the winner goes the spoils in this absolutely spectacular battle royallllleeee!!!” the viscount begins shouting as he spins in circles above us all, speaking as if she were some sort of MC for a game show. Then he stops, pointing one hand in my direction as he shouts, “On one side, we have the lovely blood lycan who’s name shall remain unknown based on her own reeeedacted choice!!!” I scowl up at him, but he ignores my anger to instead indicate the other demons. “And here we have one hundred and ninety-two thousand six hundred and one demons! All here to capture the lovely little blood lycan pup!”

His calling me a pup only makes the demons glaring at me grow even more wary. Because if there’s one thing engrained in the demons, it’s that you do not mess with a blood lycan child.

“Buuuut!!!” the viscount says, stopping mid-air with a grin on his face and one hand raised. “How about we shake things up a bit? Wouldn’t you like that?!”

Someone actually whispers no amongst the demons, to my complete surprise. But I’m only able to hear them with extreme difficulty even with my hearing pushed up quite a bit right now.

The demon doesn’t last long though as the viscount throws some sort of bolt of death magic in the direction of the sound, blasting dozens of demons around the one who had spoken and killing them all. Then he tilts his head, “How about we make that one hundred and ninety-two thousand five hundred and sixty-seven demons instead? What about you! Let’s shake things up a bit!”

Okay, I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen someone as messed up as this guy before.

Tar, please make sure I never lose myself to my Sin. Ever.

“Of course,” Tar says from the in-between.

“So to change things up, how about you all…” the viscount trails off as a vicious grin stretches across his face and he lowers his voice, “kill the pup instead?”

Terror runs through the demons so much that I can literally smell it in some cases. Some rather stinky cases that have me lowering my sense of smell.

Gross.

Before any of the demons can say anything about his ‘request,’ the viscount lets out another laugh and waves his hands, spreading them both out to the sides while sending some sort of black and purple dust out all around us. And while the dust seems to ignore me, it immediately latches onto the other demons, making them let out roars of pain before their eyes start flashing with a black light.

“Maybe I should just tell you to do it instead?” the viscount then says as the demons all start turning violent yet empty looking gazes towards me. As if they just had their consciousnesses wiped or something. “So go kill the pup.”

Without a single ounce of hesitation this time, the demons who I’m pretty sure were just cursed to become undead if they weren’t already and to have their minds either erased or controlled by the viscount all rush straight towards me in a berserk frenzy.

Seriously?

I grit my teeth as I jump back, trying to figure out what the hell I can do against an army of almost two hundred thousand demons. Especially since they’re all undead, so my plagues won’t work on them.

Probably why he turned them into undead in the first place.

No matter what I do, I can’t figure out a way to survive this on my own since if I manage to deal with the army, the viscount won’t just let me go.

So the only way to survive is to wait for Gramps to show up.

I know he’ll show up sooner or later. The question is just how long it’ll take for him to realize something’s wrong.

The unfortunate truth is that Gramps isn’t always paying attention to the entire world or even his continent beyond checking out things that stand out. And all he’s seen so far is most likely that I’m traveling across his continent.

My only way to survive is to wait for updates to come to him from the cities we passed by about the situation.

I grit my teeth even harder before letting out a low snarl, still in my quadrupedal beast form.

So to survive, I must stall.

I sprint forwards to meet with the incoming army.