Derrick got up slowly and roughly as he tried to shake off the pain. He glared at the demon and it grinned in response, clearly pleased with itself.
The demon lurched at him with its arm spread out to attack. Just before it would reach, a set of thick vines sprouted out of the ground, wrapping around the demon tightly to keep it from moving.
Just as Derrick straightened with a sigh of relief, a set of spears appeared in the air and launched at the demon. Each of them had a small scale explosive so as soon as they came in contact with the demon, they went off, causing a cloud of smoke to obstruct their view of the demon.
Derrick moved away from the explosion in anticipation. The explosion was impressive but his instincts told him enough - that the explosives couldn't finish the job.
Just as he expected, he eventually heard a slow proceeding of footsteps coming towards them from the cloud of dust just as the dust cleared.
He didn't expect the explosives to kill the demon but he also didn't expect what he saw. The demon walked up out of the smoke cloud completely unharmed. Not one scratch whatsoever.
It grinned at them again, enjoying the looks of surprise on their faces.
Derrick hurriedly unsheathe his sword and ran towards it. To confuse it, Rosalind sent two different swords at it - one after the other - as he ran with his sword in hand to attack it.
To all their surprises, the demon moved forward, caught the first sword and used it to deflect the second.
Derrick stopped for a moment purely out of shock. With the sword in its hand, it dashed at Rosalind with the sword pointed forward to stab her. Rosalind tried to move away and avoid the hit but her reaction speed was too slow.
Before she could move away, she saw the sword five centimeters away from her left eyeball. Before it could pierce her eye, Derrick appeared and deflected the sword with his own.
He was breathing heavily out of exhaustion and shock. He had just run his fastest to catch up with the sword. One second later and Rosalind could have lost her eye or worse, she could have died.
"Thank you." She exhaled, equally breathing heavily from exhaustion.
"Don't mention it." He responded, regaining composure.
Before the demon could try using the sword again, large tree stalks came up and wrapped it's hand. A tree grew suddenly with the demon bound on the top, suspended by its thick branches.
"You know what to do." Derrick said with his eyes cemented to the trunk of the tree.
"Yeah." She responded as Derrick dashed towards the tree.
The tree was a bit too tall for Derrick to think of climbing normally. Just before he could reach the tree, Rosalind conjured a set of swords and launched them into the tree alternatively creating two rows along the back of the tree.
Derrick used the weapons as a sort of step and pushed off against them to go higher up the tree. When he reached the last one, he crouched deeper, putting more effort into his jump with the intention of cutting the demon's head off in one strike.
He jumped past, striking through the demon with his sword and all his might as he passed. He twisted in the air, straightened and landed on his feet. He was just about to heave a sigh of relief when he noticed the demon appear behind Joshua and punch him aside.
Before the demon could advance towards Joshua to deliver him a second blow, a spear appeared in the ground just in front of it. The demon turned around to face Rosalind and Derrick and was met with Derrick's face slashing towards its face.
It managed to dodge it by stepping backwards, then it picked up the spear Rosalind had constructed and used it to attack. Twirling the spear with ease, it struck Derrick from various sides but he deflected all of them using his sword.
The demon was clearly becoming even more entertained by their clashing of weapons as it soon became even more intense.
Derrick dodged one of its attacks and used the moment to run past it. Just as he did, Rosalind constructed an RPG launcher and fired it at the demon.
Derrick knew she was probably out of energy as she had used up most of it already. Even still, she used the last bit of it to construct a missile and fire it at the demon.
Derrick hoped he could get far enough from the blast in time but the demon proved to him that he didn't have to. It stretched out, caught the missile, spun around and sent it back to Rosalind.
Joshua, who was now beside Rosalind, constructed a row of trees between them and the missile. The missile exploded on contact with the trees and the effect of the missile still affected them both.
They both flew a couple of feet and landed on the floor bruised and slightly burnt.
"No!" Derrick exclaimed without thinking.
He wanted to run towards them but he forgot briefly about the demon who ran to him first. It punched him in the face and sent him flying back a few feet.
He dropped his sword during his short flight. The demon, while walking up to him, picked up the sword just as Derrick was getting to his feet.
The demon smirked and Derrick knew what was coming. He tried to avoid it, but the demon's movements were too smooth. It had stabbed him before he could react.
He bent over his stomach as the blood escaped his mouth in cupsful. The demon still went on to kick him to the ground. For a brief moment, the thought that he was going to die flashed through his head then he remembered what he promised his sister; that he would come back home alive, no matter what.
He didn't really know how he did it, but he pulled his sword out of his guts and he stood up to his feet though barely. Joshua was shocked as to how he was able to stand after being stabbed.
Truthfully, he didn't know the answer himself. All he knew was that no matter what, he wasn't dying here.
He put his fists up like a boxer and the demon responded doing the same. However, in a moment, he was overcome by a barrage of blows.
It tossed him into one of the pillars, ran up to him and punched his head into the pillar with more and more effort. It didn't take long for Derrick to become unrecognizable, resembling a bloody pulp.
"No! Stop it!" Was all Rosalind could say as the demon continued bashing Derrick's skull in.
The demon spun around to kick him but the moment its foot touched Derrick's face, it fell off.
The look of shock on the demon's face was something to be forever remembered. It stepped back in shock as it grew back its leg.
A heavy aura filled the room coming from Derrick. He slowly got up to his feet with his head bent ; yet, it didn't feel like him.
Slowly, Derrick's voice came from the body as he said; "Joshua…hurry up, get Rosalind and run."