"Perfect timing. Alright, kids get ready for our final lesson- a real experience."
After saying this, Gladius, wearing an excited grin, spat his cigarette onto the ground and assumed a stance with his dual swords. Khazak and Mylia also drew their swords, their gazes fixed on the depths of the forest. After a few seconds of silence, there was a faint rustling in the bushes. The three of them immediately turned toward the sound.
From the bushes, a killer rabbit hopped out, innocently nibbling on a patch of grass. Suddenly, with a swift strike from a bizarrely curved, short sword, the rabbit was crushed into the ground, blood pooling beneath it.
The wielder of the blade revealed itself—a demon. As expected, it bore the classic horns and dark crimson skin, but this time, its face was obscured by a strange black cloak with purple-striped patterns.
With the rabbit's blood dripping from its blade, the demon raised its sword slightly and swung it to the side, splattering the blood onto the grass. The emblem on its cloak was identical to the one Khazak and Mylia had seen in the cave—a strange triangle with an open eye above it.
As the demon emerged from the bushes, more began to follow. Soon, about thirty demons stood before them. They were all roughly the same height, clad in identical black and purple robes that obscured their identities. Yet, each bore the same emblem on their cloaks: the emblem of Pride.
Khazak and Mylia, unnerved by the frightening sight, cast a sideways glance at Gladius. However, Gladius seemed utterly unbothered. In fact, he looked quite relaxed, as if the demons before them posed no real threat.
But after a few tense seconds, larger figures began to emerge from behind the demons: Aragars.
Under normal circumstances, Aragars would never work alongside demons. In fact, they were known for their solitary nature and disdain for all other creatures. Yet, these Aragars not only stood with the demons but had also been armed by them.
After a moment of silence, one demon stepped forward. It was slightly taller than the others and wielded a long, slender blade that gleamed ominously. Pointing its sword straight ahead, the demon spoke in a deep, gravelly voice:
"The one who commands the power here, the longest human in the back—observe carefully as he is executed."
After saying this, incomprehensible words flowed from the demon's mouth. Crimson smoke began to swirl around it, eventually coalescing and concentrating around its blade.
Without turning his gaze away from the demons, Gladius calmly said to Khazak and Mylia:
"That demon you see is a higher-ranked one. Leave it to me. The spell it's using right now is a classic demon magic, but it takes time to cast. The more demons we take down during that time, the better. Don't ask how I know—experience."
After saying this, Gladius took a deep breath, dashed forward at an incredible speed, and decapitated two demons simultaneously. Before Khazak and Mylia could even process what had happened, Gladius had plunged into the chaos of battle, his movements a whirlwind of flashing blades and bloodshed.
Khazak quickly followed suit, focusing his ki and lunging forward to strike at two demons at once. However, his attempt wasn't as effortless as Gladius'. The demons parried his attack with their own blades, forcing him to stagger backward.
Seeing this, Mylia drew her odachi from its sheath and stood beside Khazak, readying her stance. Most of the demons had swarmed Gladius, leaving Khazak and Mylia with about seven demons and one aragar to contend with.
Khazak and Mylia stood back-to-back, their eyes locked onto the circle of demons tightening around them. With Khazak's twin blades and Mylia's long odachi, they could maintain a wide defensive radius, but the circle was closing in with each passing moment.
Suddenly, a demon lunged at Khazak, swinging its blade downward in a brutal arc. Khazak deflected the strike with one sword, throwing the demon off balance. In the same moment, Mylia seized the opportunity, slicing through the demon's raised arm with a single, precise strike.
However, her turn to make the attack left her vulnerable. Spotting the opening, several demons surged toward her. But before they could reach her, Khazak stepped in with his second blade, striking them down without breaking his coordination with Mylia.
At that moment, Khazak and Mylia moved as if they were a single entity, guarding each other's backs flawlessly in the confined space. The synergy and precision of their movements surprised even themselves, creating a momentary standstill.
The demons, taken aback by their unexpected unity and skill, halted their advance and stopped tightening their circle. For a few seconds, they observed Khazak and Mylia intently.
In the eerie silence, the battlefield's atmosphere was punctuated only by the relentless clash of blades and agonized cries from Gladius' ongoing battle. The piercing scream of the demon whose arm Mylia had severed hung in the air, a haunting echo of the chaos unfolding around them.
Khazak suddenly shoved Mylia to the ground with one hand, pushing her aside as he leaped over her. With impeccable timing, he swung his blade downward, slashing deeply into the leg of an Aragar that had been aiming a massive axe at Mylia from behind.
Mylia rolled swiftly to the side, avoiding the impact, and sprang back to her feet. As she did, two demons lunged at her with their swords. Reacting instinctively, she leapt high into the air, evading their strikes.
Khazak, momentarily stunned by Mylia's graceful jump, seized the opening her movement created. With both swords in hand, he slashed in a powerful cross motion, leaving deep gashes across the chests of the two demons below. They dropped their weapons and let out agonized screams.
Mylia landed elegantly behind them, spinning fluidly on her heel. In one swift motion, her odachi arced through the air, severing both their heads cleanly.
The act of slaying demons had an odd sensation. Their outer skin felt thick and resistant, almost impenetrable, but once that barrier was breached, their flesh and bones seemed disturbingly soft and frail—almost too easy to cut through.
This realization fueled an unexpected surge of confidence in both Mylia and Khazak. Their synchronized actions left no doubt about their growing mastery in combat. The two immediately returned to their back-to-back stance, their breaths steadied, their resolve stronger than ever.
As they prepared for the next wave, Mylia's voice broke the tense silence, her tone laced with determination:
"Let's see who can kill more demons."
Khazak, with a wide grin on his face, responded:
"Don't think you're going to win."
After saying this, both of them took another breath and charged towards the demons. The remaining demons, seeing how easily their comrades had been slaughtered, stepped back in fear and began muttering some unknown words. After a while, all their swords ignited in flames, and the remaining four demons simultaneously leaped towards Khazak and Mylia.
The first demon to approach was met by Khazak, who swung one sword to the left while simultaneously spinning and attacking another demon behind him with his second blade. However, this time, the demon managed to block the attack with its own sword but was still pushed back about a meter.
Khazak, pleased with himself for managing to knock a demon back with such a clean strike, turned his focus on the staggered demon. Normally, with this level of power, the strikes he landed on Gladius wouldn't even make his sword tremble, let alone push him back.
As Khazak, full of confidence, prepared to attack the staggered demon, a sudden scream erupted behind him. He quickly turned around to find Mylia had skewered a demon that was about to strike Khazak. With a mocking gaze, she looked at him and said:
"I'm the one constantly cleaning up after you."
After saying this, Khazak placed his hand on Mylia's back and jumped off her, decapitating a demon that was behind them while Mylia watched. He then looked at her with the same intense gaze and said:
"Well, what do you know."
The blood of the devil that Khazak beheaded, and the blood of the demon Mylia had impaled splattered on their clothes, staining them with the demon's purple blood. But despite being covered in blood, both of them continued to hack away at the demons with psychotic grins, clearly enjoying themselves.
By the end, amid the bodies of the seven fallen demons, only Khazak and Mylia were left standing. They faced the remaining wounded Aragar. Despite the injury in its leg, the Aragar rose and swung its massive axe at them.
Khazak and Mylia were pushing their limits, both on the brink of exhaustion. With one final breath, they leaped into the air, avoiding the axe that passed beneath them. Together, they spun around and attacked the Aragar's neck. But it was Khazak who reached it first, and with all his strength, he decapitated the Aragar in a single strike. The Aragar's head flew through the air and landed at Mylia's feet, its body spraying blood.
Mylia and Khazak, drenched in the red blood of the Aragar mixed with the purple demon blood, were barely able to stand. They staggered a bit away, collapsing onto the ground, but the battle was far from over. Gladius was still locked in combat with over twenty demons, but strangely, none of them had been killed. Not even a single scratch had been made on them. With incredible professionalism, Gladius was simply keeping them at a distance, never allowing them to come too close.
Khazak and Mylia's eyes could hardly follow his movements; his speed was inhuman. Once Gladius noticed that they had collapsed to the side, he yelled out:
"Looks like you've finally finished your fight, huh? Then I can finally begin. WATCH, LET'S SEE HOW THE BATTLE OF THE GREAT SWORD MASTER GLADIUS GOES."