Regal lingered for a few moments, looking around at the battlefield and noticing the heroes doing strangely well in this situation. It was exactly as he wanted.
He maintained a pleased expression and then turned to the Demon.
"Well then... I suppose I should prepare my attack"
The demon looked nervous as it took a step back and watched Regal.
'I wonder if it will finally show me something interesting. Perhaps it will counter my attack with some sort of unique manipulation of the black sludge. Perhaps it uses multiple powers or has a hidden trump card.
...Or maybe it will simply evade the attack', Regal thought.
Five circles began slowly forming in front of Regal, as if he was purposefully giving time for the demon to think.
The demon itself didn't have much to think about, all it needed to do was somehow survive a single spell. What better way to do that than by using your most powerful attack? Surely a powerful mage can't take a full force attack while holding back...
At the same time as it finished its brief thoughts, it held its hands out prepared in a 'pushing' motion. As if to answer a command, a massive section of the forest behind the demon started moving into a large wave of sludge, the size was no smaller than the outpost itself.
And the outpost wasn't exactly small, in fact, it was of a considerable size, perhaps close to the size of a small village.
All sorts of things were absorbed into the sludge from rocks, trees and debris. It was quickly brought into something like a huge spear the size of a mountain, looming above the demon and preparing to launch some time soon.
Behind the demon was now nothing more than a huge sludge weapon pointed at Regal, the forest looked like it was literally erased, as if the ground took it away, leaving a massive crater.
Regal looked at the prepared attack and any and all form of humour or joy was removed from his face.
He let out a deep sigh as darkness crept into his gaze.
'Why is everyone so predictable... it's like the demons never develop their powers at all'
He was... displeased.
The demon however, took this change in expression differently.
"You were too arrogant thinking you could take my full power while holding back... but I do hope you don't go back on your word", the demon said with a smirk.
"...you don't need to worry about that", Regal replied.
What Regal was about to do was technically cheating, but also not at all at the same time.
Magic circles have a certain capacity for mana which is typically related to their size, this is one of the reasons why mages use multiple circles at once to avoid a drop in efficiency due to size while also increasing the amount of mana the spell can use.
However, regardless of how many circles a mage has, they never fill the circles to their maximum for any spell. This is simply for the reason that they must conserve their mana for the foreseeable future, and also because a spell usually achieves the required result with a smaller designation of mana.
Without mana, a mage is useless. They can't even defend themselves with their body. So why waste it when it is unnecessary.
This also means, that on some occasions, a spell could become more powerful than a spell of the next level simply by filling the magic circles with the maximum magic it can hold.
And that was exactly was Regal planned to do. By filling his five circles with all the mana they could handle, his spell would easily jump a whole rank. It could even end up on the more powerful end of a 6th circle spell, especially with the control and fine tuning of an archmage.
Compared to other mages, Regal could easily achieve a better result through this method. He spent more time on his control than anything else after all, and that meant that he could manage his circles with plenty of mana.
His original spell was supposed to be the 'Water Hijack' spell from earlier, but now he decided to fight power with power instead.
...It was the only way he could make it interesting at all. Perhaps he would lose.
The runes within his magic circles began erasing and changing on the spot, forming another spell instead.
"5th circle: Servant of the Leviathan"
A moment later, an incredible outburst of water flooded out from the spell and formed itself in a stream of water, the head of the stream took the shape of a dragon-like creature and reared its head at the demon.
The spell was large... but it wasn't as big as the compressed sludge tsunami from the demon.
Despite that, the demon went pale to its face. It could feel the sheer force emanating from the aquatic creature.
It fact, it was so shocked that it lagged behind in these few desperate moments, allowing Regal's spell the push forward first.
It snapped back to the battle and moved its hands forward, pushing it's own spell towards Regal, hoping to at least act as a shield.
But, nothing of the sort happened. The demon's spell hardly gave any resistance, the sharp stream of the water beast pierced through the towering lump of sludge and hit the demon directly.
It didn't stop there however.
"Disappointing... I think I'll kill you after all...", Regal mumbled.
The head of the water beast then dragged the demon up into the air, crashing all around the sludge mountain with the demon at the brunt of the impact, all the way until it reached the top of the sludge abomination.
Regal then crushed his hand into a fist, the spell followed suit as it seemed to compress and explode in that very instant, both the water and the sludge burst all over the place like rain.
"..."
Regal did nothing as he watched the droplets of water and mud fall across the outpost.
'That was... boring. What does someone need to do to get a challenge these days...'
He figured that he should watch his disciple and the heroes fight instead, so he turned his head in their direction.
But what faced him was not a horde of demonic beasts, not Kendrick and not the heroes.
"Greetings... human"
A creature with smooth, slate-like skin stood ahead of him. It's eyes were a deep crimson colour and black markings covered the majority of it's face and body, extending down through its chest before eventually stopping at a pair of comfortable looking trousers.
Atop it's head... there were three horns.
The battle around them froze, the demonic beasts were shocked with pressure, the heroes and adventurers in a similar state. The heroes weren't even sure what this feeling truly was, all they were sure of... was that they should not move, else they might lose their life.
Regal was unfazed in this face of the abomination, his gaze instead moved to a different creature being held by the three horned Majin.
"I guess you win...", Regal stated.
The two horned Majin was safe and alive, saved by the new guest.
A sudden crash occurred nearby.
"Regal...", Kendrick said with unease, standing near the creature ready at any moment.
Despite the single difference in a horn between the current demon and the previous one, there was an immense difference in power. If Regal had to guess, he would need a 7th circle spell to handle this one, or at least to finish it off.
Regal didn't respond to Kendrick and simply glared at the demon, who seemed to be in some sort of good mood, a pleasant smile on its face.
"Who are you?", Regal asked.
The demon responded without any malicious intent, seemingly satisfied with simple conversation.
"My name is Legion"
Regal tilted his head, a hint of confusion on his face.
"The demonic general? Why is a general all the way over here... this is essentially the very front of the front lines for you lot. I don't suppose you intend of fighting on behalf of your soldiers?", Regal questioned.
"Fight? I wouldn't dare to come here to fight, I was just here to collect a servant of mine who ran off", it replied.
'Ran off huh...', Regal thought with scepticism.
"I suppose I should rephrase that. I have no intention of letting you leave, so I don't suppose you plan of fighting me to save your dear servant?"
The demon laughed awkwardly. It's stance was wary.
A demonic general could certainly sense the strength of someone like Regal. Perhaps with some planning he could win such a battle, but there was also Kendrick, who had quite the aura of strength himself.
"Even still, you were suspiciously close to this area... would you risk your own life to save a servant?"
Would the demon do so? Of course not.
It doesn't matter who the demon is, they all have the similar trait of prioritising their own lives. There is nothing wrong with this trait, many humans are the same. But it is far more prominent in demons which are the embodiment of selfish desires.
The demon was silent for a moment, but eventually spoke.
"It's not that I was nearby... I just happened to sense danger near my dear servant, that is all. I have no intention of fighting-"
"That's too bad", Regal cut in.
He sighed and pointed a hand at the demon.
The demon flinched, but didn't panic.
He instead pointed towards the heroes and adventures, not giving any further words to elaborate on this act.
Regal was confused as he looked over, but a swarm in insects appeared out of nowhere and started surrounding them. He could also feel that they weren't ordinary insects, they expressed power which suggested that they could easily tear through flesh.
Regal frowned and looked back at the demon.
The demon still had the easy smile on his face.
"I suppose this is more of an exchange now...? If you let me and my servant leave, then I shall also retrieve my swarm from your friends", the demon suggested.
Regal scoffed.
"My friends?"
He then created a spell with six circles and sent out a fast and powerful snake-like form of water. It constantly changed shapes and moved through the air in a stream of water.
It quickly brushed against the insects, expecting to collect them in the body of water, but the force alone ended up splattering them as it moved past. Once it was done, it shot itself at the surprised three horned demon.
The demon moved with excellent speed, but before its feet could fully leave the ground, Kendrick caught its leg. At that moment, the leg seemed to split into multiple black pieces before reforming itself onto the main body.
The demon made no attempt to look back and instead focused entirely on escape, a body of powerful water quickly approaching it.
However the water was faster and ended up hitting the demon... or at least something that looked like the demon.
The body instead splattered into many pieces as the main creature flew ahead of it, managing to escape.
Kendrick and Regal watched it fly away into the distance.
"...so that was a demonic general? Seemed pretty weak", Kendrich mentioned.
"That's only because it was trying to escape, I imagine it didn't think it could beat the two of us... if it was fighting us with the intent to kill, using all of its power, even I would struggle. Even if I held back for the fun of it, a single mistake could cost my life.", Regal reasoned, but didn't seem as worried as his words made him seem.
'I could shoot something even faster his way... but something tells me that it won't damage him in the slightest'.
Regal sighed and looked at the remaining horde of demonic beasts which were looking at him and Kendrick in concern. Now that their commander was gone, they didn't really have much reason to continue their needless suicide.
"...leave", Regal ordered.
And so they left, almost like they actually understood his words.
Many of them were injured and scurried away, the packs of wolves and deer left together in different directions while the boars left almost randomly.
The heroes and adventurers were breathing even heavier than before, like they were holding their breath all this time. Each and every one of them fell to the floor.
"Pamel"
And by Regal's command, Pamel soon appeared nearby.
"Take us back to the estate..."