The temperature rose by multiple degrees in a fraction of a moment, and X's knees buckled for a moment. The ash-colored demon stared at him, and the air heated up in an instant. Violent, malevolent heat burst forward, and the cracks in the demon's skin ignited in dark red flames, forming an Armor of sorts around it.
X stood shocked as he took in the sight. Then he noticed something even more disturbing. The sandstorms had returned, and was now blowing between them and the demons, having trapped Brik completely inside it. Brik was covering his face with his hands to stop the dust from getting and affecting his eyesight, but the demons did not waste time to let that happen.
One of the demon's had turned into the storm once more, while the other rushed towards Brik, ready to attack. Brik moved one of his hands to block the attack while covering his face with the other, and almost immediately a trident made of cold water crashed into the demon, giving him a moment of reprieve which he used to escape the storm. The storm itself then transformed once again, turning back into a sand demon.
X was feeling dizzy from the heat, unable to handle the sudden rise in temperature. His hatchet still hung on the belt around his waist, but when he tried to grab hold of it, something unexpected happened.
He lost control over his body and almost tumbled forward, missing the hatchet. The effects of the heat were more than he expected, and more importantly, he seemed to have still not recovered from using Immortal Tree.
But his friends were being attacked. As squad leader, he could not just do nothing. He turned his head and nodded to Aqua.
'Save him. I will take care of the one hiding behind the sandstorm.'
Brik held his own despite fighting two different demons at the same time. The force of their attacks was not great, and their defence was subpar, but the fact that the opponents were made of sand made it much worse to fight them. If he fought them anywhere else, he was sure that he could kill them almost instantly, but here. Not so much.
Brik dodged a punch to his face by jumping up, too high for the demon to reach him, but the force of the storm the demon almost instantly created sent him crashing back into the ground. The demon's could create weaker storms even while remaining solid.
He rolled in the direction of the wind to avoid another attacks, rising to his feet and throwing his fist forward with as much force as he could muster. Bone protruded from his knuckles, crashing into the face of a sand demon. As the demon and its face crumbled away, the other demon pounced on him, using the force of the sandstorm to defeat him.
Just then, a stream of golden flame roared past them, turning the sand floor into sharp glass. A sharp sound was heard, like the air was being cut by a sword. Or a hatchet.
A blue flash appeared next, hitting the demon in the face. Aqua's riptide trident. The sand turned clayey, and at that moment Brik lashed out with his claws while screaming.
'Death vines'
X transformed right in front of his opponent. The heat of Fire Escape or the enemy did not matter. The pain he was feeling did not matter. All that mattered was if he would defeat this demon, or if he would fall first.
His left hand moved forward to land a punch while his right grabbed his hatchet. The demon moved its head to the left to dodge the attack by an inch before throwing a punch back.
The ash-colored hand collided with the swinging hatchet, the force of the collision creating a gust of hot wind, hotter than the average desert temperature. The demon's hand blazed with red-hot flames, but X was not weaker when it came to fire.
Moving his hatchet away to make the first slip past him, X used Fire Escape to turn into a jet of flames, rushing behind the demon as he transformed back into a human being, his hatchet making arcs in the air. X faintly whispered, "Dance of the Dragon".
Five to six superficial slashes cut the demon's back, each one deeper than the next, but it did not bother the demon, as its skin immediately reformed. It turned around and lashed out in rage, the air sizzling from the combat between two blazing flames.
The punch was missed by a hair's length, and using that as an opportunity, X swung his hatchet at the demon's neck. The demon caught the attack with his bare hands, and both of them raised the heat of their flames by as much as they could.
The demon turned around, throwing X. The hatchet clattered out of his hand. X himself landed on his feet, and despite the pain that shot through his lower limbs, he jumped forward while turning into a stream of white-hot flames. The demon, now coated in its dark red flames, rushed forward. Both the combatants clashed, fire against fire, leader against leader.
A hot gust of wind exploded from somewhere, raging through the barren desert and blowing everything it meets into the air. Brik was almost swept off his feet, and suddenly jumping up, he caught Aqua's hand to make sure the two of them did not separate from each other. Fighting these demons one-on-one was way too difficult for him since his attacks had barely any effect on these sandy monstrosities. Although he did not like this, he needed Aqua's help. Turning his head just a little, he looked at Aqua and whispered.
'Help me from a distance, don't come too close.'
The demons had been destroyed by the gust of blazing hot wind, but by now they had started to reform. These demons would be weak in any other climate, but in a land filled with sand, they were close to immortal. And they knew it, so they attacked without caring about defense, getting blown into smithereens multiple times.
Unfortunately for Aqua, she did not possess this level of regeneration, especially not in this stupidly dry land. Aqua raised her hands, and water pooled in it, rushing out of her like a stream that she shaped consciously. Three tridents formed, circling her. She heard a guttural scream of wrath beside her and saw Brik running forward.
Aqua floated up and started moving sideways while keeping her eyes on the fight. Brik landed a punch on a demon's face, which crumbled away due to the force of the attack. Concentrating on the demon, she aimed precisely for its neck and let the trident go. She had trained for this multiple times over back in the Academy, but right now it made no difference where the trident hit.
The cool ocean water collided with the sandy creature and turned it wet and clayey. But the demon reformed back by using other sand available to it in this deserted region. Brik dodged an attack from another demon, before sending his claws out to lash at the demons. Aqua could not hear him, but she knew that he would be screaming "Death Vines" or something else that was equally cringe.
She saw something approaching from the extreme left corner of her eyes, a being barreling towards them. The creature hit the ground once, then bounced up while spitting out red blood. It rolled forward, coming dangerously close to Brik. Aqua screamed out at him to watch out, gliding forward as fast as she could to see what happened, while holding a trident, just in case she got within melee range.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, she knew the creature that had rolled into the battlefield. She saw X lying down on the ground, his traveller's robe tattered to shreds, blood coming out of his mouth and nose. He coughed up some more blood, before struggling to rise.
One of the sand demons rushed to attack the injured prey, and in that moment Aqua threw both the tridents she had, both the one in her hand and the one that floated around her towards it. Three whips made from pure white bone also arched in the air, and both the attacks collided with the demon at the same time.
The demon exploded into blocks of wet sand before reforming just as quickly, although it was only half in size. X managed to get back into his feet and punched a hole in its chest with his bare hands, before turning around to look at the other thing that was approaching them with immense speed.
The fire demon was rushing forward, completely cloaked by the blazing hot dark red flames it created, turning the sand into sharp glass shards wherever it passed. Brik grabbed the trident in his hand, one which had been provided to him by Aqua a moment ago, and as the demon approached, he threw it forward with all the force he could muster.
The demon had gone berserk and tried to grab the trident, but the blast of cold ocean water exploding in its burning face, and due to the force of the throw, sent it tumbling back, out of balance. X rushed forward, grabbed the demon by its neck, and threw it forward.
He jumped forward and felt something familiar approaching from behind him. Tucking his legs in, he twisted in time as three bone whips slashed a cut in the demon's chest. X muttered
'Fire Escape'
The stream of white-hot flames collided with the demon's body right in the wound located on its chest, sending it crashing into the ground at extreme speeds. The demon shrieked in pain as its body was pummeled by a flurry of punches.
X raised his hands and caught the two tridents Aqua had sent, before shoving them down into the demon's injured chest. Rolling aside, he grabbed the fallen hatchet, which had clammered out of his hand in a previous altercation, and chopped off the demon's chest, leaving a blow so deep it must have cut through the creature.
Its ash-colored body stopped moving and slowly, the dark flames spluttered out. He had killed the demon. X wished to scream out with joy, but there were two more demons to kill. So he got up, and ran forward towards the location of his comrades, turning into flames to further increase his momentum. His hatchet drew a definite arc in the air, and one of the demons collapsed, its body turned to glass. Only one left to go. He knew that they had won by now, so he took slow steps to the demon. But there was no need for that since it seemed like Aqua and Brik had killed the demon.
'Well, that was a hard battle.Pretty quick, though. I expected more'
Brik muttered.
'You know, that was extremely difficult for Stage 2 demons. I know that the mission is over now, that is for sure.'
Aqua spoke in a voice that shone with pride.
'I am sorry to say this, enemy warriors, but the battle's not over yet. We have learnt all we need to know, though, so let's make this quick. We have a divine empire to destroy, one involving moving mountains.'
The dead ash demon replied before getting up, its chest already healed completely. All that remained was a new crack on its skin across its chest. Flames burst out of its body, and two other demons formed out of the sand on both sides of it.
'Soldiers, you are expected to follow orders. And my order was to drown... that one.'
The demon pointed its finger at Brik. Just then, a quicksand opened up and swallowed Brik whole. The battle before was just the demons setting up this trap and judging their strength.
X felt uneasy. He needed to save his friend. He needed to defeat the demon. He felt heat rising in his body and ignored all the difficulties he had faced due to it. He had to defeat these demons and save his friend. He turned to Aqua and nodded once more.
'Same strategy, take on the sand ones and try to save Brik, I will be the one to finish...'
X pointed at the ash demon standing in the middle, his finger shaking with rage.
'You.'
'Let's see who dies first. As for why I have to kill you, well... It was a direct order from the Fif...'
X rushed forward to kill the demon, not allowing it to finish it's speech. He had to defeat it. He needed to.