At long last, they stand before me. After defeating all of my generals and slaying thousands of my soldiers, finally the time has come for us to fight. I've done far too much to give up here, and losing simply isn't an option anymore. I plaster a grin on my face as I look down at them.

In the front lies the heroine. I don't know her name, and I don't even know if she has one. Like a beacon of light in the darkness, it's difficult to take my eyes off of her. I force myself to look at her companions standing to her side and behind her. To the left of the hero stands the wise sage, a master of magic and a specialist in barriers. To her right stands the pious saintess, an envoy of the goddess who specializes in healing and purification.

'I'll have to deal with her first; I can't let her purify my enchantment—not now.'

Finally, behind her stands the agile ranger, an annoyance who can detect danger and distract enemies.

'He won't be able to pierce through my skin, but his ability to detect danger will make my plan rather difficult.'

"Well, well, well. Look who we have here. The Mighty Heroine of the Sun and her lackeys. Perhaps if you entertain me, I will let you live; I could always use some pets."

'I can't afford to exchange too many words; hopefully this will be enough to convince them that speaking is pointless.'

The ranger in the back pipes up angrily, "What the hell did you just say to her, you freak?!"

The sage turns back and rests a hand on the ranger's shoulder. "Stay calm, my friend; not all demons are intelligent; perhaps this one is just repeating a few words it heard. After all, I'm sure it's been called the word 'pet' quite a few times."

'This sage could likely slay me with his sharp tongue alone if I'm not careful.'

I redirect the mana coursing through my veins towards my feet and flavor it with the element of earth. I push it through the soles of my scaled feet and let it spread throughout the ground beneath me. The ranger seems to detect something and urges his allies to stay back, but I simply let the mana lie there as I pull out my blade. A rusty, untrustworthy thing that has supported me far more than anyone else thus far. I push against the ground and appear before the saintess. As I slash down, my blade is blocked by a thick shield of mana, and I quickly step back before the saintess can finish her prayer. A flash of light rains down on where I was standing, and the miasma swirls as it fills in the newly created gap. I take the momentary pause to push more of my earth mana into the ground and duck as an arrow soars over my head. The barrier glows as the two collide, and I hear the sound of glass shattering before the ground is coated in holy water.

'I see they've done their research'

I push some wind mana to my side to propel myself parallel in order to pull myself out of this pincer attack. As I pass, I force a tremendous amount of wind mana through the soles of my feet and jump into the air, narrowly evading the strike of the heroine that passes just under my feet.

'Aiming for my legs? Does she want to take me alive so she can torture me?'

I raise my hands above my head and push wind mana through my left hand to drive myself towards the ground. An arrow carrying a bottle of holy water narrowly grazes my cheek as I quickly return to the earth and pour more of my mana into it.

'It stings; that bastard must have coated it with holy water as well.'

Once again, I hear the sound of breaking glass as more of the ground is covered in holy water. In time, it will be swallowed by the darkness of this land, but in a battle such as this, "in time" is the same as never. I try to leap back in instinct, but a barrier appears behind me as I slam into it. I raise my sword to block my chest before lowering my stance to guard my knees. In the next moment, my arm shakes, and I hear a loud clanging sound as I am forcibly shoved through the barrier, the intricate layers of mana shattering like panes of glass. My sword falls to pieces, but it has done its job.

I look up and meet the eyes of the heroine, but before I can be distracted, I look away and push more mana into the earth. It's faint, but the scattered bits of mana I had shoved into the ground are beginning to link up like a thin piece of fabric.

'Just a bit more, and I'll be able to end this.'

I hear the soft sound of a woman's voice in prayer and launch myself towards the heroine. The heroine would never be hurt by the power of the goddess, but it is for this reason that this is the last place the saintess would predict me to retreat. As I stand next to the heroine, the voice stops, and I realize that I have been fooled.

'The miasma is unaffected, that... that wasn't a prayer'

The heroine stares up at me with a blank expression before her sword slices through my horn. I stumble back in shock before I hear the sound of glass shattering, coating the ground in holy water once more. The saintess softly smiles as she begins to chant, and the holy power contained in the water begins to shine brighter and brighter. I plaster a look of fear on my face before pushing a tremendous amount of earth mana into the ground. I hear the voices of the Ranger, the Sage, and the Heroine all joining in as my skin begins to burn. I cower as the light grows and grows, but at the final moment, the threads of mana I had forced into the ground click into place.

I snap my fingers, and the earth erupts. The holy water is scattered, and the light fades to nothingness. I force a smile as I assert my power over the earth and lift my mana into the sky. I force the mana into the shape of thousands of earthen spears before staring down at the heroine's party. I plaster a grin on my face and snap my fingers once more.

'The ranger must have exhausted himself laying such a trap, and the saintess must have exhausted herself executing it. This barrage should exhaust the Sage's mana, and the effect of the Miasma should finally set in on the Hero. Finally, I can end this farce.'

The spears shatter into powder as they clash with the barrier, letting out sparks as the wall of mana is battered over and over again. The wall begins to dim, and for the first time in a long time, I genuinely smile.

Suddenly the shield shatters, and I stare in shock as the Sage throws his staff aside and pulls himself in front of the heroine. A gentle light shines upon the heroine as the saintess falls to her knees in exhaustion, and the arms of the Ranger become a blur as he releases tens of arrows to deflect the spears heading her way. The saintess is the first to fall, her once-holy light returning to the darkness once and for all. The Ranger is the second, as his arms finally fall still. The last is the Sage, stabbed through the heart by the last of my spears.

'Choosing victory over their own lives, I can't understand such a thing. If they had held out just a little longer, they could have lived. Is the heroine's defeating me really more important than their lives?'

The heroine pushes the body of her friend to the side as she slowly stands. If before she felt like a shining beacon of hope, now she feels like the cold light of the moon.

She stares at me for a moment with a cold look in her eyes before calmly stating, "It's time to end this."

"I suppose it is," I reply.

She dashes forward, and I hastily raise a wall of reinforced earth to stop her. Sparks fly as an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, and the immovable object crumbles into dust. As her sword falls towards my head, I push out a mass of wind mana to narrowly evade, but at the last moment, she shifts her trajectory and slices into my arm. Thanks to the mana reinforcement of my bones, I'm able to keep my arm, but I'm not going to be able to use it for a long time.

'Let's be honest, I don't have a long time.'

I force my legs to push me away from the ground, using my exposed bone to knock her blade back. I reach out with my uninjured arm to claw her face, but she merely steps back, and I fall to the ground. I try to stand, but I have nothing left.

'Shit, shit, shit, shit, stand up! If you don't move, you'll die here! All of this will have been for nothing! All of those people will have been killed for nothing!'

As I lay on the ground, panting and desperately trying to muster a burst of strength, we locked eyes.

'After all of this, there's not a smidge of hatred in her eyes. A hero indeed.'

Suddenly, I feel my enchantment begin to unravel as the last vestiges of my mana run dry.

'No no no no no no no'

My denial doesn't change the reality. As the spell crumbles, my body begins to shift back to the form I had always despised. The horns on my head crumble into dust, and my body begins to shrink. The pointed ears on the side of my head begin to migrate upward, growing larger and fluffier. My devilish tail is covered by hair, and my impressive claws shrink back to barely more than fingernails. I lay there, completely and utterly exposed; the shell that I had worn was shattered.

'In the end, it was all for nothing. Should I have even lived at all?'

I feel something warm trickle down my cheeks as I avert my gaze from the hero. I pull myself up into a seated position and stare down at the ground as small drops of water fall to the ground.

I manage to choke out "Con-con-gratulations. H-hhero. Yo-u've won. End this farce."

'I deserve this. If it weren't for me, all of those humans wouldn't have had to die. If it weren't for me, such a kind person wouldn't have had to lose her friends.'

I hear the hero approach, and as her shadow reaches over me, I flinch.

'Even now, I still don't want to die.'

Suddenly, I feel something warm resting on my head. Despite everything within me screaming and warning me that this warmth will only hurt me, I can't bear to push it away.

'It's ironic that I would only get to feel this at the moment before my death'

I sit there, waiting for her to grab my ears, pull my hair, and crush my head, but the pain doesn't come.

Hesitantly, I look up, and through the film of tears, I see... I see her gently smiling.

'Is this what the sun feels like?'

"Why?" I mutter.

She doesn't say a word, but she begins to gently stroke my head.

"After all this, why?" I manage to say, just a little bit louder.

She doesn't respond. She looks... sad?

"Why don't you hate me?!" I shout out, bringing up my uninjured arm to try and push her gentle touch away to correct this cosmic imbalance, but I can barely reach her hand before my strength fails me and I lay limp on the floor.

As I struggle to keep my eyes open and as blackness finally takes me, I hear the hero whisper into my ear.

"It's because I don't want to."