Atop a slope at in the middle of a long pathway stretched through the Lucus forest, was the ruins of a human outpost, wood and stone littered across the floor. Structural supports for multiple buildings and barriers were barely standing, if remaining at all.
Through the... gate? Or perhaps what could once be called the gate for the outpost, there was the visage of a large individual walking, accompanied by strangely reverberant footsteps. The figure seemed... menacing. As if releasing an aura of danger, one that was shackled but was dangerous nonetheless.
The various demonic beasts were immediately alerted by the presence, many which were idle or wandering had immediately shifted their focus in it's direction.
It was Kendrick, slowly walking into the ruined outpost with an almost as ruined sword, a sword which could hardly match up to the standard of one of the strongest swordsman. But then again, wouldn't any sword be useful in the hands of a master?
'Boars... Wolves... Deer... the usual demonic beasts are present it seems', Kendrick sighed, hoping for something more exciting, perhaps a surprise.
But to his dismay, it was just a horde of C-rank demonic beasts.
Nothing more than that...
Of course, it was an incredibly dire situation. Even if an individual was stronger than someone or something, it didn't meant they could handle multiple of them. Sure, maybe a small group was barely within the bounds of possibility. But an entire horde? Hardly.
It wasn't simple Boars, Wolves and Deer either, they were all demonic beasts. Creatures deformed and mutated from the demonic energy coursing through them, making them stronger, fiercer, and... more obedient.
But perhaps this logic didn't apply to Kendrick.
Kendrick looked around as he was slowly being surrounded by numerous, vile creatures. He eventually saw a humanoid figure with slate-grey skin, highlighted by black markings flowing to it's eyes, and then further connecting to two, long horns protruding from it's forehead. And it looked... bored.
It just lay on a broken pile of rubble, not even bothering to look in Kendrick's direction. The creature looked as if it didn't even want to be here, like it was forced to do a job it didn't want to.
'...I can relate', Kendrick nodded, recalling past experiences.
Suddenly a wolf lunged at him.
Kendrick spared it no glance, and with his unarmed left hand, he swung at it with lightning-fast speed, obliterating the skull of the ferocious creature without it even realising what had occurred.
The other wolves hesitated, but the boars immediately begun their charge alongside multiple deer.
At this point, all hell was let loose.
Kendrick stopped lazily dragging himself around and efficiently and fiercely moved through the wave of beasts, leaving behind a path of shredded and battered remains, making use of both his hand and sword to slay them. Boar tusks were flying in multiple directions, a deep red blood stained the underwhelming bland clothing of the sword master. A set of massive and deformed, but extremely sharp antlers was shattered to pieces, more and more similar bits and pieces being parted from their original as time went on.
How much time? Perhaps only a few seconds.
The demon who was seemed to be listless and unbothered, suddenly perked up in surprise from the commotion.
'...was that thing even watching us at all?', Kendrick wondered, as he wasn't even met with an ambush or greeting after entering it's presence.
Kendrick spared the demon another glance and staggered in shock for a moment.
'What is he doing...?', he thought before continuing his slaughter.
The demon was watching with surprise, he didn't expect such strength from the measly presence of a human search party, no less from a single individual.
But what exactly had caught Kendrick's attention? Well, it was the nonchalant, short individual who was standing next to the demon.
"What a sight", Regal said.
The demon slowly shifted it's gaze to the character next to him, changing his expression to a rather displeased one. He raised his hand and waved it at Regal, an abrupt stream of black, sludgy liquid followed his command and shot from the ground near him on at Regal.
It looked dangerous, the attack as wide as Regal's head. The ground it formed from was now missing, leaving a small gap in the earth nearby.
The stream pierced through Regal surprisingly easily, leaving a gaping hole in his chest. But then, the rest of his body turned into water and fell to the floor, a 2-layered magic circle beneath him disappeared a moment after.
"Not open to talk? Though, not that I mind, you gave away your ability so easily.
You can control some disgusting, thick liquid with the exchange of some dirt? Impressive. No really, I mean it", Regal's voice was heard once again from the roof of a half destroyed building nearby, in a pleasantly sarcastic manner.
In a deep coarse voice, the demon rose from it's resting spot and spoke.
"I always end up dealing with the talkers...", it groaned.
Regal grinned. The demon may not be much of a talker itself, but it sure was good at giving away it's weaknesses.
"Who? Me? Yes, I guess I do talk often during fights. It's hard to find another way to entertain myself when the enemy's strength is hardly entertaining as it is. One wouldn't be left with any time to speak if they actually needed to focus on a fight after all.", Regal scoffed.
The demon stared blankly. No hints whatsoever on it's expression of Regal's words having any effect.
But it's actions said enough. It immediately summoned a large wave of sludge from the surrounding ground, creating a sort of moat in its wake. The large volume of sludge split into multiple streams of varying sizes, some as large as Kendrick or even bigger, while some as thin as a pencil.
Despite this preparation from the demon, Regal simply continued his mocking.
"What, nothing to say for yourself? I suppose by my own logic, I'm too much of an enemy for you. Funny really, I haven't even done anything yet."
The demon glared at Regal, as if waiting.
'Is this mage... powerful? The magic circles from before, he used two... I've killed humans who could use six of them. How many can this one use?', the demon tilted it's head, emanating an eerie vibe.
The demon seemed strangely wary, perhaps sensible enough to maintain the rationality of not underestimating their opponent.
Regal wore a smug face as he waited for the demon to make its move.
The demon was getting more and more obviously displeased with the arrogant individual facing him, letting it show vaguely on his face.
'Haha! It's hardly an interesting ability, but it's always the simple ones which have the most variety', Regal thought as he looked at the streams of sludge. He hadn't seen anything yet, but was expecting something unique, something to surprise him. An application of one's ability which he had never seen before.
A moment later during their peculiar staring contest, the corpse of a wolf was sent flying past them and splattered against the rubble, sending a small cloud of dust up between them.
The demon didn't miss the chance and send this countless streams to attack Regal.
Regal sighed as he summoned a 4-layered circle.
"4th circle: Water hijack"
A large stream of water gushed out of the circle and split into multiple strands which collided and combined with all of the incoming streams of sludge.
The streams then acted strange, moving in a strange pattern, as if being forcibly moved from their path. Each and every one of them missing Regal, some swerving off into the horde of demonic beasts, leaving only splatters of blood behind.
This was a more... humane use of this magic. It was a magic which was originally designed to be consumed by the opponent one way or another and hijack their movements. A death sentence for the enemy.
But, Regal didn't really like that. It seemed a little too far in the wrong direction, the idea itself of entering and being controlled within the body was interesting, but felt that it was unworthy in battle.
One of the particular streams of sludge was quite small in size and had most of it's control seized by a large amount of water, perhaps by plan. This stream was then sent directly at the demon.
"Tch!", the demon panicked for a moment and surrounded himself with a sludge shield. The stream was unable to pierce it as it expected.
The demon expected the enemy to block the attack, or dodge, similarly to how he had done originally. But his attack was used against himself instead.
He quickly released the barrier and checked on his opponent.
Unfortunately for the demon, Regal was currently right in front of him with a large smile plastered across his face.
"5th circle: Sea beasts cage"
Making use of the small moat around the demon from its ability, Regal created a small water vortex around them, digging under their own platform through the dip in the ground. The ground was then shredded away into the vortex, leaving both Regal and the demon unaffected.
The result? The demon was left face to face with the Archmage. No ground in sight, and completely surrounded by water.
The demon started to sweat. All it took was one move to turn the tables on the opponent, and the demon knew that. But it also never had the upper hand in the first place, it was simply being toyed with, not even giving its enemy any resistance.
The demon looked above the vortex to see 5 magic circles layered on top of each other.
'But... I've killed humans with 6 of them... so easily', the demon thought, it's slate skin growing somehow pale.
Regal smirked.
"Well? What now? The main source of your power seems to be earth... but I doubt that's all you can do.
A Majin like you has enough power to destroy a town easily. I bet you thought you were just testing me out with a few attacks, but now you're stuck, right? Not even an opportunity to fight properly, no less go all out."
The demon faced him warily.
He pointed his hand out at Regal, as if prepared to send out some form of attack.
"Actually...", Regal interrupted, causing the demon to stop for a moment.
"Why don't we talk for a moment? If you answer a few of my questions, then I'll dismiss this barrier and give you another chance to fight properly, how about it?", Regal suggested.
The demon smirked.
"...you, your maximum is 5 circles, isn't it? I bet you can't do anything else within this barrier since your using them all to maintain it...", it uttered.
"...", Regal didn't show any change in expression as it stared at the demon.
Turning its smirk into a smile, the demon manifested a sphere of black sludge from a black aura seething from its hand. It didn't hesitate before sending the sphere flying at Regal.
However, just before he fired the attack, Regal loosened his control over his magic causing the barrier to move uncontrollably, shifting both their feet and making the demon lose its balance.
The sludge sphere shot at the ceiling of the barrier and managed to break through to the other side, the barrier quickly repaired itself in response. But, it didn't matter. The sludge ended up hitting the magic circles, causing the spell itself to collapse.
Regal caught himself on his feet as the spell was broken, the demon fell on it's back, but comfortably in the embrace of a pool of black sludge.
'...quite the lucky one', Regal thought.
The demon sunk into the sludge and peered out of the pool with just it's horns and eyes.
"I will not make the same mistake", he said before submerging himself once again.
Regal grinned.
'That's more like it...'