The turned dragon host immediately took off in the direction she was facing, which was coincidentally, the direction of the safe village.
Her mind seemed empty to the point where her intelligence was missing, most likely a side effect of the turning process. She ran instinctively like a wild animal in an aimless search for it's prey, and the unfortunate being who came into contact with her first would be her victim.
The demon crow flew discretely above her, gathering information, ready to relay them back to Urusla when a solid result was found.
***
"I feel like someone's following us…" a certain elf muttered as she took several glances behind her at intervals.
"If someone's following us, then I would be able to sense it," Takumi said smiling as he tried to assure the elf, noticing the worried look on her face.
The elf still felt uneasy and kept fidgeting, the dryads noticed and tried a more practical way of calming her nerves, "we'll connect with the earth and survey the land," the male dryad said.
"Wait! You can do that?! That's so cool!" Ichika exclaimed like a child who just tested a new toy.
The dryad nodded with a contented smile as he folded his legs after he got on the ground, he then closed his eyes, the group stopped and observed him curiously.
In a matter of seconds, the dryad's eyes were opened and a peaceful, glowing, green light emmited from them and miniscule rays of light shot out from the ground, a few minutes of this spectacle and it was over.
"There's someone following us alright," he confirmed as he stood up, walking out to the back end of the group, he pointed towards a thick cluster of trees saying, "from there."
The trees began to rustle as soon as the verdict was found and the paranoid elf became even more so, a few seconds later and an arrow of what seemed like water infused with an ominous energy emerged from the trees at a blinding speed and before anyone could react, it pierced the male dryad's head before disappearing after going a meter from the back of his head.
"Taku!!" the female dryad shouted in despair as she witnessed her brother's body fall backwards as he died, leaving a growing pool of blood where his head landed.
"Whatever's following us, they're hostile, Misao intuitively said.
The group had no time to mourn the loss when a blur came towards an elf who was standing closest to Taku's dead body, she flinched and if it wasn't for Ichika quickly getting in front of her and slicing downwards, she would definitely be dead.
The injury inflicted by Ichika managed to stop the speeding attacker, who was revealed to be a female demon, more like half-demon with a massive gash on her upper arm where the water dragon mark was shining profusely.
"What!!" Lancelot shouted from his leading place in front of the group which was now the back, "That's one of the dragon hosts who went missing!"
"She's a dragon host? Of my element? I didn't sense her." Mizuko said, sounding quite astonished.
As before, no time was given to comprehend the situation, the demon's wound healed so fast it could be seen scabbing over and regaining the form of new flesh by the naked eye, she attacked again, this time going for Ichika who had wounded her just now at the same speed that caused her to look like a blur.
"Fast!" that was all Ichika could think as she lost track of her enemy, without even thinking about counter attacking, she prepared herself for impact.
「Bakkureggusuramu!」before the demon could reach Ichika, Takumi appeared next to her, where his foot connected with the demon's face, smashing the bones and propelling her into a tree from the great amount of power that came with the attack.
Misao smiled as she alone could truly understand what Takumi just did, "he put some raw dragon force into that attack along with his ki, I trained him well," she thought.
The group got into a fighting spirit as the demon got up from the hole she was stuck in, made after colliding with the tree. Her face was blooded and crushed into a grotesque figure, with bone fragments sticking out. But, before she attacked again, small rays of jade energy seeped through the cuts on her face and all her wounds were healed, even her crushed face was set back to normal.
"We need to aim for the scarib!" Lancelot warned, "she's a high level demon and they can only be killed by destroying the scarib, it's in her chest!"
The demon didn't seem to comprehend what Lancelot just said but was still standing in place, bearing a look of misguided rage. The group patiently waited for her to attack in consideration of her intense speed but to their surprise she didn't attack, only let out a deafening roar like that of an animal going feral.
This roaring wasn't just that, it caused an abnormal spike in her energy, the pressure was enough to make the very air around them tremble, the power was overwhelming.
"How can she be that powerful?!" Kage shouted as he too felt the power surge, in fact, all the dragons felt the power surge.
"I don't know, but we need to attack before she reaches full power!" Takumi concluded.
Taking out his sword, Takumi held it high above his head, the wild winds that were generated from the demon's never ending power spike caused him to have to squint his eyes. He focused his dragon ki on his blade and made another space-distorting, purple sheet of energy around it, but this time more powerful than the one before.
Takumi was prepared to release his attack when something truly unexpected occurred, the power surge from the demon halted abruptly, her facial expression changed from a look of pure rage to one of fearful shock. She fell to her knees after which she spat up a mouthful of blood.
"Did you do that?" Misao asked Takumi.
"Not me, I have no clue what's happening," he replied after he calmed the energy on his sword.
The group was dumbfounded, they have had their fair share of surprises in the course of hours but this one put the icing on the cake. They watched as the demon rolled over, blood started to gush from her eyes, nose and mouth in litres, her body was shaking and her breathing was hindered by choking sounds. The pain she was in was evident, blood had now started to explode from the rigid veins all over her body, this was truly a brutal way to die.
This went on for minutes, her body seemed to have completly deteriorated but she was still holding on to life by a thread and when it seemed like she was finally going to pass on, she slowly lifted her blooded hand to the group, "h…elp…m…e…pl…eas…e," a soft desperate cry for help came from her mouth, Aiko and Takumi moved from their spot in order to try and use the healing scale to save her life, but were stopped when an almost inaudible explosion of flesh was heard in her head, and that was when she died.
An awkward silence set in after seeing that, every single person present was speechless, even the dragons. The silence was broken when Lancelot decided to speak up.
"I don't understand what happened here, but I suggest we take her body back to the village so we can examine what happened, and also bring Taku's body back for a proper burial."
Everyone agreed with Lancelot's wisdom and did as they were told, the twin nereids encased the bodies in a dense orb of water and the journey back to village started once more, this time at a faster pace.
As the group moved forward, Misao noticed the demon crow flying off from it's perch on a tree branch, she felt a wave of suspicion and threw a ball of flame at the bird, turning it to cinders without a second thought.
"Quit spying on us Urusla!"