Chapter 414: Another demon
Back on the battlefield ..
The situation had grown utterly desperate for Frey and his companions.
Frey could barely lift his sword anymore, his body stiffening with every motion.
Each step, each swing, felt unbearably heavy.
After that relentless string of brutal battles... His body could no longer fight at full capacity.
Repeated use of the Blood Form, the Ignition, the countless enemies faced ..
All of it had left deep marks on Frey Starlight’s body, stripping away his ability to fight at his peak.
He had only survived this far thanks to Ghost’s help ..
But it was merely a matter of time before both of them fell.
Especially now that their strongest warriors had already been defeated.
The loss of Ser Alon and Millicent had struck them hard.
At this point, Phoenix Sunlight was the only one still holding his ground, wreaking havoc across enemy lines ..
But even he would fall, once enough enemies swarmed him.
Snow Lionheart too, despite using the War King Form ..
Had been completely surrounded by Baylor Moonlight and the Ultras.
Daemon Valerion wasn’t doing any better—barely surviving each minute.
In truth, all of their strongest fighters had reached their limits.
And it was only a matter of time before monsters like Beatrice returned to the field.
At the rear ..
Selena fought with everything she had, supported by Dawn, who had unsheathed his sword once more.
Lara Croft fired arrow after arrow, standing protectively in front of Danzo and the unconscious Seris Moonlight behind her.
Yet despite all their desperate efforts...
They were being slowly, inevitably surrounded.
All of this unfolded before Frey’s Hawk Eyes .. and Phoenix’s burning gaze, as he continued incinerating the battlefield.
At that moment ..
Both of them cried out from the depths of their souls.
Frey, forcing his battered body to fight harder, stronger ..
And Phoenix, pushing forward with everything he had, trying to clear a path to the distant—yet painfully close—teleportation gate.
They had hit a wall.
Tension rose to a breaking point ..
They were all dying, slowly, helplessly.
No matter how hard they fought, no matter how fiercely they resisted ..
No help was coming.
They were going to die here.
And knowing that...
Frey truly began to consider it.
Clenching his fists, blood spilling from every pore ..
He looked down at the strange black mask in his hand.
He was thinking of putting it on again.
If that meant gaining the power he needed...
The kind of power that could turn the tide of this desperate situation...
Then Frey was ready to risk it all again.
That mask might be their only hope now.
But the moment he held it up ..
Frey felt something strange.
He didn’t know why, but...
He was certain that if he wore it again ..
He would never return to being himself.
There was something magical, unnatural about the thought .. But it gripped him completely, leaving his emotions in chaos.
A deep desire to survive .. One that demanded a miracle, an overwhelming strength...
Clashed with the terrifying fear...
That he might lose himself forever.
Frey couldn’t decide.
But that hesitation didn’t last long.
Because in this world, the only thing that decided life or death—
Was power.
And that mask...
Would give him that power.
So Frey made his choice.
He was willing to gamble everything once again.
It was the only path left.
"Frey..."
Fighting fiercely nearby, Ghost noticed what Frey was about to do.
And in that moment, the silent killer remembered something ..
A vision, not long ago.
Hundreds of mutilated corpses...
A shattered battlefield...
An overwhelming aura unlike anything he’d felt before...
All of it caused by a single man ..
A man who wore a black mask... walking toward him through the carnage.
Back then, Ghost didn’t even recognize Frey.
The aura, the presence... it was entirely different.
Almost inhuman.
So now, seeing Frey about to wear that mask again ..
A dreadful sense of foreboding welled up inside him.
But just before Frey could put on the mask...
Both of them .. and most of those still standing on the battlefield ..froze in place the moment an overwhelming pressure crashed down upon them from out of nowhere.
A demonic aura. Immense. Suffocating.
It compelled them to instinctively turn toward the source.
And to their shock... it came from behind them.
From the rear lines.
From where their weakest had been stationed.
A chill swept through them.
At that moment, both of them remembered.. Danzo was still back there.
...
...
...
In the rear lines..
The remaining members of the Elite Class fought with everything they had.
But no matter how hard they tried...
They were going to die.
"There’s no point... We can’t win against them..."
Lara Croft’s voice trembled with complete despair.
No matter how many arrows she loosed, the enemies just kept coming.
Selena, who stood in front, was almost completely drained of aura ..
Leaving them at the mercy of the Ultras.
"We’re going to die..."
Lara’s body shook violently as the crushing weight of that truth sank in.
"Don’t be afraid... We won’t die."
Next to her stood Dawn Polaris—trembling too, with a terrifying smile on his face.
"We won’t die. We can’t... I’m the Last Survivor, remember?"
Even though he barely believed in it himself, the despair around him pushed Dawn to place all his hope in that strange ability of his ..
An ability he didn’t even understand.
"We won’t die... We won’t die..."
He kept muttering, trembling, while Selena had no idea what he was talking about.
But none of that changed the reality.
The reality... that they had already lost.
Surrounded from all sides, swords and spears rained down upon them ..
Lara Croft collapsed to the ground beside Danzo and Seris, shutting her eyes and bracing for the pain.
For death.
But...
The sound of blades piercing flesh never came.
Instead, everything around her suddenly froze.
She felt something malevolent crawl over her body ..
And that’s when her eyes opened on instinct.
What she saw... Shocked her to her core.
Black horns. Long and jagged like obsidian, rising from the forehead of a girl standing above her.
White hair.
Pitch-black eyes.
A woman stood there.
Someone Lara didn’t recognize.
A demon.
A terrifyingly powerful demon who was now smiling down at her with a chilling grin.
And then ..
Without warning ..
All the nearby Ultras soldiers exploded into chunks of flesh and bone.
The demon girl laughed madly, her body trembling uncontrollably as the blood of the fallen rained over her like a storm.
She walked slowly, her steps calm and deliberate .. Passing Lara and Dawn without sparing them a glance ..
Her gaze locked onto the battlefield ahead.
"Ah..."
She murmured softly, a wave of ecstasy rising inside her.
And then—suddenly—
She soared upward into the sky, slowly rising as Frey’s eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of her.
"You..."
He was about to say something ..
But his mouth clamped shut.
Because in the next instant ..
Something slammed into the ground around him at such blinding speed, he didn’t even see it coming.
From every direction ..
Black tendrils of shadow slithered across the battlefield, devouring enemies in an instant and reducing them to mangled chunks of blood and flesh.
The earth trembled.
Darkness spread like a curse, engulfing everything ..
A cursed gloom... and shadows too powerful to resist.
They tore through all who stood in their path.
And the demon kept laughing, her body trembling with every breath that left another corpse behind.
And then ...without warning ...
A new massacre began.
A fresh storm of death and horror erupted in the heart of the battlefield.