{Chapter: 155 A Whisper of Wind}
The golden light struck Dex dead-on in the face a heartbeat later—exploding in a blinding inferno of divine fury. The earth shook. Dust and flame engulfed the area. The air trembled with raw energy in a violent explosion.
But even through the smoke and fire… Dex stood tall, unmoved, blood dripping from his claws like ink from a broken quill.
He turned his head slowly, eyes glowing like coals.
"Next."
With the soft rustle of a breeze stirring through the shattered battlefield, a lone figure appeared beside the crumpled body of Emerson. She emerged soundlessly, like a specter of the forest.
She was an elf—tall, regal, and radiant beneath the waning light. Her body was adorned in intricately carved green wooden armor, etched with glowing runes that pulsed faintly with nature's divine energy. Strapped across her back was a bow that gleamed with the luster of moonlit silverwood, its string faintly humming with tension.
Her gaze fell upon Emerson's headless corpse, her emerald eyes narrowing in disapproval as she frowned and muttered, "You haven't recovered yet?"
As if her words carried power, the shell of a corpse cracked apart and crumbled like dust into the wind. From within the hollow husk, a smaller figure emerged—bloodied, hunched, and barely holding on.
It was Emerson.
"Pffft—"
He staggered upright and hacked out a mouthful of black, writhing blood that sizzled against the earth like acid. The expelled rot twitched unnaturally before seeping into the dirt.
"Thanks... for the timely help," he whispered hoarsely, his voice trembling from exhaustion.
Just before Dex's finishing blow had landed, the female elf had launched a sacred death-infused relic into his body. A forbidden artifact laced with both illusion and preservation, it had masked his essence in a corpse shell, buying him the precious seconds needed to survive.
The elf didn't respond with words. Her silence was colder than the breeze. Her bow remained drawn at her side, her focus locked unwaveringly on the looming figure ahead.
Dex.
Still standing upright.
Still grinning.
Still alive.
Smoke drifted in lazy trails around his face, revealing the gruesome damage beneath—his jawbone shattered into shards, lips torn open like flayed meat, his entire lower face mangled beyond recognition. Yet despite the destruction, his corrupted vitality throbbed like a drumbeat, his infernal life force refusing to weaken.
With blood bubbling in his throat, he tried to speak. "You... you…"
Each word came out garbled, strangled by his own ruined throat. Despite his monstrous healing, the divine magic from the elf's arrow was still eating away at him, a radiant venom that refused to fade.
With a frustrated grunt, Dex reached up and gripped his own lower jaw. Without hesitation or care, he tore the jawbone free, ripping away a mass of necrotized flesh and black muscle in one grotesque motion.
Schhhhrrrkk!
The sound of tearing sinew echoed like ripping cloth.
A wet thud followed as he flung the gore to the ground where it twitched violently before melting into a pool of black ichor.
Now resembling a creature out of a nightmare, Dex raised his half-shattered head, blood dripping from the gaping maw of his lower face. Yet in his eyes—burning with abyssal fire—was only amusement.
And then, as if pain were merely an inconvenience, his body began to stitch itself back together.
Crack—snap—shrrrp!
Bones realigned with sickening cracks, sinew and muscle slithered into place like wriggling worms, and flesh molded itself around the new structure. His jaw reformed—first as a raw skeleton, then cloaked in bloody tendons, and finally skinned anew, with freshly sprouted fangs gleaming wetly beneath his lips.
Within seconds, his face was whole again.
And smiling.
Not a feral grin.
But a calm, collected smile—as if none of this bothered him in the slightest.
He bowed ever so slightly and spoke again, this time clearly and politely, "My apologies. I was a bit unclear earlier. That was my fault."
He glanced between the newly arrived elf half goddess and Emerson.
"I simply wanted to ask—do the two of you always work as a team? Your support response time is quite impressive. Frankly, I'm a little jealous."
The female elf—Allison—tightened her grip on her bow. Her sharp eyes didn't blink, didn't waver.
There was something deeply wrong with this demon. He wasn't enraged. He wasn't frightened. Even while divine energy had just carved half his face off, he'd remained composed, almost amused. His sanity, or lack thereof, shimmered just beneath his surface like a drowning man laughing in silence.
'He's a lunatic,' she thought. 'A well-spoken, intelligent lunatic.'
Emerson, still trying to steady his trembling limbs, looked on in disbelief.
Dex tilted his head. When no reply came, he sighed in exaggerated disappointment.
"No answer?" he asked, voice dipped in mock sadness. "Ah well. I suppose I'll just have to read it from your expressions."
Without another word, the long sinuous tail behind him unfurled. Like a serpent of steel, it stretched out—snapping to dozens of meters in length—before hurtling forward at terrifying speed.
Its target: Allison.
A flash of divine light erupted as Allison raised her bow, her fingers already glowing with sacred runes. She released a radiant arrow with the sharp twang of divine tension.
BOOOOM!
Arrow and tail collided in a thunderous burst of raw energy. Dust and debris exploded outward as the earth cracked beneath the force of impact. The sound of cracking stone echoed across the plain.
Light and shadow danced furiously in the collision's aftershock.
In the wake of a violent clash, Dex's tail, like a whip forged in the depths of hell, surged forward with unrelenting momentum. It shattered the radiant arrow of divine light mid-air, scattering fragments of luminous energy in every direction before lunging onward toward the female elf like a coiled serpent striking prey.
But he did not face her alone.
Emerson, despite the agony gnawing at his body from the prior exchange, surged forward in defense. Gritting his teeth and mustering the last dregs of his strength, he raised his gleaming blade, forged from the bones of starbeasts, and met Dex's tail with a thunderous clang that shook the air itself. The impact sent tremors through the battlefield.
The sheer force that surged down the demonic appendage made Emerson's arms tremble, and his face flushed crimson from the exertion. Veins bulged on his forearms as he resisted, barely holding his ground. A snarl escaped his lips—he was a demigod! A warrior who had once lifted ancient dragons by their horns and broken through divine fortresses with his bare fists. And yet here he was, nearly overwhelmed by a tail—just a tail—of a so-called [Middle-rank Demon].
What kind of monster was this?
Before he could dwell on the thought, arrows glowing with divine fire rained from above. The female elf, clad in sacred greenwood armor that shimmered like dew-drenched leaves under moonlight, moved with the speed and grace of a gale. Each arrow she loosed crackled with holy power, whistling through the air like wrathful spirits of the forest, all aimed at Dex.
She was no ordinary archer. She was a Warden of the High Boughs—an elite guardian whose shots had pierced the hearts of demon and shattered corrupted titans. Each arrow could purify corruption and cut through the shadow—but Dex, this thing, refused to fall.
This time, he didn't foolishly absorb the hits like before. The trial had taught him: these arrows, soaked in holy light, were more than annoyances. They gnawed at him, slowed his regeneration, and disrupted his energies.
With a snap of his clawed fingers, burning sigils formed in the air, and blood-red flames twisted into infernal shapes. Dozens of fiery bolts answered the divine barrage.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
One after another, the battlefield erupted into chaos as magical projectiles collided mid-air, detonating in bursts of power that left behind charred craters and plumes of red smoke. Small mushroom clouds blossomed in rapid succession, bathing the wasteland in an eerie crimson glow.
Emerson, still wounded and staggering, found himself locked in a personal battle with the demonic tail. It lashed and weaved like a sentient beast, splitting into three bladed tips—each with its own mind, each testing him with relentless ferocity. They didn't just strike—they dueled, probing his defenses, mimicking his moves, baiting counters with clever feints.
---
Ten minutes passed. Ten long, brutal minutes.
The female elf, Allison, eventually ceased her long-range onslaught. Her breath came in short bursts as she assessed her opponent. Her emerald eyes narrowed in disbelief.
This wasn't working.
She had hoped to grind down his stamina, bleed him dry of magic. But this demon—no, this aberration—fought with boundless energy. He did not falter, did not tire. His magic was as endless as the Abyss, and the fire in his eyes burned brighter with every moment.
In contrast, even with her divine weapon, she began to feel the fatigue biting at her joints. Her bow, once a symbol of death from afar, had become a melee weapon—wings of carved yew hardened into crescent blades. With a spin, she lunged forward like a tempest, carving arcs of searing light into the air.
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