The cavernous space beneath the town pulsed with malevolent energy as I revealed myself to the demonic horde. My casual announcement—that I, a mere C-ranked adventurer, had come to eliminate them—landed like a thunderclap in the sudden silence. Sixty-five pairs of eyes, or more, fixed on me with a mixture of shock, rage, and the first flickering traces of fear.
"WHO DARES?!" The demigod-ranked mist demon's roar reverberated throughout the underground chamber, its skin rippling like disturbed water as it struggled to maintain its humanoid form. The artifact that had maintained their protective barrier now hummed with my energy instead of his, the abrupt severance of their connection sending waves of pain through its form.
I simply raised my hand with the nonchalant air of a student answering a teacher's question. "I dare! Over here!! Nice to meet you! I'm a C-ranked adventurer, sent to handle you all!"
The absurdity of my cheerful introduction hung in the air for precisely one heartbeat before I moved.
My sword whispered from its sheath with a sound like silk tearing, the blade catching the harsh magical light as it arced through the air. The first three demons died before they could register what was happening—one moment standing in defensive postures, the next collapsing in neatly bisected halves, dark ichor splurting from their severed torsos.
The cavern erupted into chaos. Blade demons—humanoid creatures with limbs that terminated in wicked metal edges fused to their flesh—converged on me from all sides. Their movements were precise and coordinated, a testament to infernal military discipline. Behind them, Dark-walkers phased in and out of shadow, looking for openings to strike. The mist demons hung back, their stolen faces contorting with concentration as they attempted to infiltrate my mind with their insidious powers.
"What the fuck is this human, why is he still moving?!" a mist demon shrieked, sweat beading on the forehead of its appropriated skin as it strained to break my mental defenses.
I turned my head slightly, meeting its wide eyes with a slow, predatory smile. The demon froze, shock rippling across its features as it realized I had heard it's cry amidst the heat of battle.
In that frozen moment, three demons launched a coordinated strike—two blade demons aiming for my head and arm while a Dark-walker attempted to spear my heart from behind. Their timing was perfect, their angles of attack leaving no apparent escape.
For them, I simply ceased to exist, my body accelerating to a speed their eyes couldn't track. Not teleportation—just pure, overwhelming physical superiority. One moment I stood surrounded, the next I materialized before the shouting mist demon, who trembled uncontrollably at my sudden proximity.
"Well, not to surprise you," I said conversationally, as if we were discussing the weather, "but this human sees this incursion as a bit of an eyesore."
Behind me, the attacking demons remained frozen in their strike positions, not a single one daring to move. Their survival instincts screamed danger warnings through their infernal veins—primitive, animal recognition that the slightest provocation might trigger their immediate demise.
Blood dripped from my sword in a steady rhythm, forming a small crimson pool at my feet. The liquid seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat, each drop hitting the stone floor with a sound that echoed unnaturally loud in the tense silence.
"Now then!" I called out, my voice echoing throughout the cavern. "How about you stop trying to get back control in order to escape and come out you two!"
My gaze fixed on a tent at the center of the encampment where the leaders had been hiding, masking their presence. The air shimmered with magical concealment, but to my senses, they might as well have been shouting their location.
A streak of darkness burst from the tent—a blade demon of significantly greater power than its brethren, moving with speed that would have been invisible to ordinary eyes. Its arm-blade, longer and more intricately formed than those of its lesser kin, whistled through the air toward my neck.
CLIIINNG!
My sword met the demon's blade, steel against infernal metal, the impact sending shockwaves through the cavern that dislodged small stones from the ceiling. For a moment we stood locked together, the demon's face contorted with effort just inches from mine, its breath reeking of sulfur and decay.
Then hairline fractures began spreading across the demon's blade-arm, the material splintering as my sword's edge began slicing through it like a hot knife through butter. Realization dawned in the creature's crimson eyes—horror, disbelief, and the desperate need to retreat before it lost its primary weapon.
"No, you don't!" I whispered, my free hand shooting out to grasp the demon's fractured blade just below where my sword was cutting through it. My fingers closed around the jagged edge without hesitation, without fear of being sliced open. The metal should have shredded human flesh; instead, it was my grip that cracked the blade further.
The demigod-ranked blade demon's expression shifted from shock to utter terror as I lifted it bodily from the ground, muscles tensing in my arm with the casual ease of someone picking up a child's toy.
"Let me show you how useful you can be," I said, the words dripping with mock sincerity.
I spun in place, using the demon like a grotesque flail. Its body whipped through the air, colliding with a cluster of its lesser kin who had finally overcome their paralysis enough to attempt an attack. The impact was catastrophic—demon bodies shattering against demon bodies, bones cracking and organs rupturing. Dark ichor sprayed in all directions as the demigod-ranked creature unwillingly massacred its own subordinates.
"STOP! RELEASE ME!" it shrieked, its voice distorting with pain as I continued my macabre dance.
I paid no heed to its pleas, accelerating my spin until the blade demon became a blur of motion. Each impact sent more demons flying, their bodies crumpling against the cavern walls with wet, sickening thuds. A blade demon's severed arm-blade embedded itself in the stone ceiling. A Dark-walker's head exploded like an overripe fruit, showering nearby demons with fragments of skull and brain matter.
The cavern floor became treacherous with spilled ichor and scattered viscera. The air grew thick with the stench of demonic blood—a coppery tang undercut with sulfur and rot. Still, I continued my devastating spin, the demigod-ranked blade demon now sobbing in pain as its own body began to come apart under the strain, joints separating and skin tearing at the seams.
On the fifth rotation, I sensed the buildup of powerful magic to my left—a spatial flame spell crackling into existence in my momentary blind spot. The concentration of energy was immense, characteristic of a Class-2 demigod's full offensive capabilities.
Without breaking stride, I pivoted and hurled the battered blade demon directly into the spell's manifestation point. The timing was exquisite—less than ten microseconds before the spatial flames fully materialized.
FWOOOOSH!
The cavern blazed with unnatural light as the spell detonated, consuming the blade demon in flames that burned across dimensional boundaries. The creature's scream transcended sound, becoming something that raked directly across the soul as its body was simultaneously burned in multiple planes of existence. The fire cast everything in stark relief—the terrified faces of the remaining demons, the slick sheen of blood coating the cavern floor, the gradual collapse of their military discipline into panicked disarray.
From the center of the encampment, a high-pitched screech cut through the chaos a declaration of defiance, or something else?. The mist demon leader had reverted to its true form—a massive, pallid worm-like creature standing three meters tall, its segmented body gleaming with mucus, multiple mouths opening and closing in discordant patterns as it shrieked in horror. Its pseudopods flailed wildly as it attempted to regain control of the artifact that had sealed them all in this underground tomb.
I moved toward it with deliberate slowness, savoring its growing terror. With each step I took, it frantically erected magical barriers between us—translucent walls of force that shimmered like heat mirages in the charged air.
"Please," it gurgled through one of its many mouths, "we can offer you—"
I didn't wait for the rest. My sword, now glowing with an ethereal blue light as I channeled spatial mana through it, sliced through the first barrier as if it were no more substantial than smoke. The second barrier shattered with the sound of breaking glass. The third simply dissolved as my sword approached, the spell collapsing under the pressure of my overwhelming will.
The mist demon's shrieks reached a fever pitch, its body contorting in ways that defied anatomy as it prepared a desperate final attack. Before it could complete whatever it was attempting, I sensed movement behind me—the blade demon had somehow survived the spatial flames, though its body was now a charred, twisted mockery of its former self. Only rage and demonic resilience kept it moving as it lunged at my back, its remaining arm-blade aimed at my spine.
Without turning, I brought my sword behind me in a reverse grip, blocking the strike with minimal effort. The impact sent tremors through the blade demon's already devastated form, cracks spreading through its charred exoskeleton. I pivoted smoothly, the same spatial mana still coating my blade, and executed a single, precise cut.
The blade demon came apart diagonally, the separation so clean that for a moment both halves remained standing. Then reality caught up, and the pieces collapsed with a wet, meaty sound. Its essence, unable to maintain cohesion after such catastrophic damage, dissolved into sulfurous mist that quickly dissipated.
I turned back to the mist demon leader, who had witnessed its last hope die in less time than it took to draw breath. All its mouths gaped in silent horror, its mucus-covered body trembling so violently that droplets flung in all directions.
"You know," I said casually, stepping over the fragments of its final barrier, "you really should have stayed hidden. This commission was a mistake."
Before it could respond, I lunged forward with speed that left afterimages in my wake. My sword pierced its central mass, the spatial mana disrupting not just its physical form but the very fabric of its being. The blade exited through what passed for its back, and for a moment, nothing happened.
Then the worm-like body began to collapse inward, folding into itself as if being sucked into an invisible singularity. Its shrieks became distorted, time-stretched, as its physical form imploded into a single point of concentrated matter before vanishing with a soft *pop* that belied the violence of its destruction.
Silence descended upon the cavern, broken only by the dripping of demonic fluids from the ceiling and walls. The remaining demons—approximately thirty or so who had survived my initial onslaught—stood frozen in perfect stillness, as if hoping that immobility might render them invisible to my senses.
I turned slowly, surveying the survivors with a contemplative gaze. Some had dropped their weapons, others had fallen to their knees, a few were visibly trembling. The collapse of their leadership had shattered whatever remained of their resolve.
"Well," I sighed, almost apologetically, "I did promise to handle all of you."
What followed wasn't battle but execution. I moved through their ranks with mechanical precision, my sword rising and falling in a rhythm as steady as a metronome. Some attempted to flee, others to surrender, a few to fight with the desperate courage of the doomed. The outcome never varied.
A blade demon's head separated from its shoulders with a single stroke, its body continuing forward for three more steps before collapsing. A Dark-walker attempted to phase into shadow; my sword followed, cutting through dimensions to find its substance. Two mist demons tried to merge their forms for greater power; my blade separated them permanently, their essence scattering like mist under a hot sun.
Blood painted the cavern in disturbing patterns—delicate sprays across walls, pooling stains on the floor, even fine mists hanging suspended in the air where particularly violent strikes had atomized demonic fluids. The sounds formed a grotesque symphony—wet impacts, breaking bones, dying screams cut abruptly short.
Throughout it all, I maintained the same calm expression, as if I were performing some mundane task rather than systematically eradicating an entire demonic outpost. My movements never faltered, my breathing never quickened, my focus never wavered. This wasn't battle frenzy or bloodlust—just efficient, dispassionate extermination.
When the last demon fell—a Dark-walker who had managed to hide among the corpses of its comrades until my blade found it—I stood alone in a charnel house of my making. The cavern, once an organized military encampment, now resembled an abattoir. Flames from destroyed equipment and magical backlash still burned in patches, casting dancing shadows across the carnage. The air had become nearly unbreathable, thick with the stench of death and infernal energies.
I returned to the center of the now-destroyed outpost, carefully stepping around pools of congealing ichor. The artifact that had maintained their barrier lay in fragments at my feet, crushed in my hand when I no longer needed its services. With its destruction, the spatial barriers containing the demonic essence collapsed entirely, ensuring no residual energy would leak into the town above.
The commission contract in my pocket glowed faintly, having recorded the entire massacre as proof of completion. The sight recording formation embedded in the contract had captured every moment from my perspective—an insurance policy that would prevent any question about my successful execution of the mission.
"My lord, you leaving without an explanation will cause certain misunderstandings," Codex informed me as I prepared to depart.
I paused in my slight jog outside the town, glancing back at its unsuspecting buildings. The residents would sleep soundly tonight, never knowing how close they had come to being completely infiltrated by the demonic horde.
"Meh, not my problem, they can handle it. As long as the commission is complete and the demons are gone, there's gonna be no problem at all," I shrugged and moved forward, keeping note that the operatives tracking me had once again found my trail.
They would have questions, no doubt—how a supposed C-rank adventurer had eliminated a demonic outpost that should have required at least a fully equipped EX-rank team. Their surveillance would intensify, their suspicions grow. Exactly as I had planned.
Let them watch. Let them wonder. Their confusion would only deepen when they eventually discovered what I had left behind—a cavern transformed into a slaughterhouse, evidence of power far beyond what I pretended to possess. Each breadcrumb I dropped would draw them further into the trap I was meticulously constructing.
The morning sun crested the horizon as I continued eastward, my next target—the mysterious dungeon—awaiting my arrival. Behind me, the town continued its peaceful existence, blissfully unaware of the battle that had raged beneath its streets or the lingering eyes of those who hunted me.
The day was young, and I had many more commissions to finish.