"Come." I looked at him fierce and cocky gaze.
My goal in fighting Drameur was to prove my strength while fighting barehanded with no mana and weapons. It honestly sounded impossible to beat a powerful hero that way.
The people here haven't developed barehanded martial arts like the humans on Earth, that is my advantage, even without powerful magic abilities or a powerful weapon if I simply make use of my knowledge and bring to life previous martial arts with the insane power that I currently pack...
'I can be unstoppable in a direct confrontation.'
Perhaps if Drameur were fighting for the kill I would lose, but knowing he's an assassin that means he relies on lethal attacks. He won't be using his full arsenal of abilities, and that's my advantage an assassin who fights softly isn't an issue for me.
Drameur drew his daggers and lunged forward with quick jabs. I was ready for his assault and weaved his jabs while grabbing his wrist on the last one and tossing him onto the ground.
Before Drameur hit the ground he caught himself and performed a few backflips. Immediately after his backflips tendrils of shadows wrapped around my arms.
"What will you do without your arms? Blade Demon!" Drameur shouted while encasing his blades in shadows.
Drameur stepped off the ground and became a blur, appearing before me. I watched as his blade approached the hood I wore.
'Bold move brat.' I thought while my vision turned silver.
Right before the blade made contact, I brute-forced through his tendrils destroying them. I then delivered a destructive roundhouse kick to his head which Drameur narrowly guarded with his arms.
I heard the sound of cracking and Drameur got sent away with my kick.
"Incredible..." Ivar's mouth gaped watching the scene before him.
Coughing out blood Drameur got up and looked at me. "What kind of physical strength do you possess?"
"Enough to where your party tricks won't affect me, if you continue holding back you'll lose horribly."
"I understand," Drameur replied.
The entire room became dark as if it was covered in shadows, 'This reminds me of that one demon... Perhaps Drameur could fight against him as equals... The only difference is that it wasn't really dark in the dimension of the demon, it was more like it was made of darkness while Drameur made the room dark itself.'
I looked around not seeing a trace of Drameur in the darkness, despite my enhanced vision the room still seemed extremely dark and I could hardly make out even the people sitting at the table.
'Where is h-'
Breaking my thought process was a premonition of getting beheaded. I felt an incredible bloodlust.
'Is he actually trying to fucking kill me!'
I ducked and a blade slashed by in the air, not letting the chance get away I did a quick back kick striking Drameur right in his solar plexus.
"Grrhh!" I heard a groan from the shadows.
'If this guy hid his bloodlust I would have gotten beheaded... Even for me, losing my head is not something I can survive.'
Drameur charged forward and released a counterattack with tendrils rising through the air behind him. I kept my eyes on him and could make him out from the shadow-covered room, I weaved the tendrils and through a quick jab at him which he blocked with ease.
His daggers came at me from both sides and with the tendrils coming at me I knew it was impossible to catch them all.
'No pain no gain!'
I blocked one of his daggers using my hand, it pierced through my scales which was unsurprising considering the levels of power the heroes had reached, I deflected his other dagger with my free hand by delivering a quick chop to his wrist forcing him to drop it.
"This is gonna hurt," I whispered to Drameur in a low voice. Twisting Drameur mid-air towards the tendrils they all vanished into his body when they touched him.
'As I thought the tendrils can't hurt the user.'
Right as the tendrils vanished I crushed his dagger with pure grip force and broke his hand, the dagger fell now that it was in two pieces and I lifted Drameur up into the air. I then slammed him down on my knee.
My knee landed right into his spine, snapping it and he let out a grueling scream.
"It's not over yet!"
I threw Drameur into the air he had an expression of pure pain and surprise. I charged up my fist for a powerful punch. Right as he landed in front of me I delivered my punch to his gut sending him flying across the room unconscious.
Right as he blacked out the shadows in the room all returned to him, and condensed inside his body.
Everyone sitting at the table was speechless and had a flabbergasted expression excluding Dawn.
"That's what happens when you underestimate your enemy... Heal him, Amelia." Dawn was indifferent while giving her orders.
Amelia rushed over to Drameur and after a few minutes of healing, Drameur shot up from his spot and looked around for a few seconds recalling what had happened.
"Your attacks are beautiful and fast Blade Demon," Drameur said with a sad look.
"You were also incredible, you would have won if you concealed your bloodlust... You didn't conceal it on purpose. Right?"
"You are right, but I completely fell into your trap... The raw physical strength you have is beyond anyone I've met. I have no doubts about your identity, nor will my companions." Drameur looked back at the other heroes now standing around the table.
"Damn right! Those attacks were impressive! I've never seen anything like them." Ivar smiled. "Perhaps you could instruct me on your martial arts, Blade Demon."
"I could show you a few moves." I smiled not expecting his vulgar language, and also his friendliness."
Everyone began chattering and asking me questions, the entire mood of the room was lightened until Dawn coughed a few times and tapped on the table everyone went silent.
"I would like to welcome you into the hero's party, Blade Demon." Dawn's gaze pierced my eyes.
"I'm sorry, but I would love to help in the upcoming battle but I work solitary."
Everyone in the eyes of the room shifted to Rivena.
I cleared my throat embarrassingly. "Rivena is an uhh, exception."
Dawn tilted her head and looked at me, "Are you in a relationship maybe?"
I looked at Dawn dumbfounded thinking about what to say next.
"Arulwyr is much too young for me," Rivena said with her usual calm look.
"Arulwyr?" Dawn looked at her slightly surprised.
"That's his name," Rivena said.
'God! This woman should just keep her mouth shut.'
"Have we met before... Blade Demon or I should say Arulwyr?" Dawn asked while thinking deeply.
"No, we haven't," I responded coldly.
"I understand then... Well, my offer is still up." Dawn smiled for the first time looking at me.
"Thank you. But I'll accept some other time maybe."
"I see." She sighed and looked out the window.
The rest of the dinner went normally, our conversation topics were more on task. I simply couldn't help to wonder who the murderer was... If a demon got into the camp, well it's a strong one if it can avoid detection from these heroes and me.
I for one can see mana, if a demon was here I would be able to see the corrupted mana they left behind, and the traces of it... But I haven't seen any traces of the mana corrupted by demons, turned to a sort of demonic energy.
'We're dealing with a Prince-ranked demon... That was able to sneak into the camp. The ones I met shouldn't have that ability, that means there's going to be more on the battlefield. This is not a favorable situation...'
[Perhaps we should run away?]
'And leave all these people to die, and Dawn!'
[She seems strong.]
'I can tell.'
[Something also seems to be wrong with her, as if she's placed under some kind of curse.]
'What does that mean?'
[I'm not sure.]
"Well, thank you for coming everyone... We are very satisfied by what went down here, and we hope to see you fight hard in the upcoming battles." Silas gave a charismatic smile to everyone and snapped.
Right when he snapped the doors opened, and a man was standing outside.
"We have another appointment to handle, so you will all need to leave."
The man standing outside the door was Malkeith, the Archwizard who had ripped me off in the past.
'Why is Archon Malkeith here? Fuck... I won't be able to use any of the weapons he's given me. You hear that Altheius?'
[Seriously...]
'Looks like I'm going to be using regular iron swords.'
[Ugh..] Althieus groaned.
I wondered why Malkeith was standing outside the door like that, perhaps he was always there and check for any suspicious behavior.
I soon got up to leave and Malkeith stopped me, holding out a handshake.
"It's great to meet you Blade Demon, although I'm surprised you were an elf."
"You are... Archwizard Malkeith."
"Yes, I am one with strength and I can recognize how powerful you are... Truly known as one that doesn't use mana to fight, I can feel the mana in the air literally avoid you."
My eye twitched at his words.
'That seems like an insult.'
Althieus laughed in my head.
"Yes... Yes." I shook Malkeith's hand and moved along.
Soon after I found myself in my room, lying on a bed. Tomorrow the battle would start, and many lives would be lost... But it seems humanity truly brought out its strongest here, it's kind of strange that we're fighting for the orcs but honestly, if the orcs perish, it allows the demons to attack all of us.
The Scorchlands stretched from the human territory, all the way to the dwarves who were the furthest back... If the demons took over the Scorchlands, they would be able to flank us from anywhere. They would have constant pressure on our allies.