The Heavenly Martial Empress Returns: An OP Xianxia Returnee LitRPG

Chapter 120: The Demons Unleashed

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(A few minutes ago.)

“CHARGEEEE!”

With the mighty roar of Mursha leading Bing Xue’s troops, the cavemen of the Children of the Flames and the Hawkeyes charged forward. In front of them were Mursha, Urbosa, Merkite, Peperina, and Fiery Hair.

In numbers, they were less than a hundred, yet they fought thousands of foes and had yet to lose a single fighter! The mighty orcs, beast-kin, and thralls of Elios couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw these half-naked humans overcome their tremendous physical powers or magical abilities with their bare fists and kicks!

The cultists of the Barbarian God gathered together, led by their leader; they were roughly ten thousand strong. Although more of them were gathered around the entire world, right now within the camp, this is their highest number.

“Don’t let them ridicule us anymore!” roared the cultist leader, a very tall red orc with demon-like horns coming from his forehead. “Kill these bastards!”

Thousands of foes charged against the cavemen and their leaders, as explosions and clashes of weapons and elemental magic erupted everywhere—less than one hundred allies surrounded by thousands of foes!

“There are way too many now!”

Merkite complained, jumping around the air as she pierced the bodies of several cult members with her spear imbued with winds. Each of her blows unleashed several spiraling storms of emerald winds, blowing away her foes from left and right.

“Just keep fighting; most of these were low-level anyway!”

Urbosa tried to cheer up her sister as she imbued thunder ki into her entire body, moving at lightning speed, evading weapon techniques and spells, and piercing the heads of her victims with her spear, killing dozens in a few seconds.

“Don’t give up…! We’re almost there! This will never end unless we take down the entire cult!”

Peperina roared as she fought bravely. Merkite and Urbosa, who knew her from before, could hardly believe this was the same cute and adorable little rabbit-kin receptionist from before.

Not only was she unleashing devastating hammer and axe techniques using her shapeshifting blazing weapon, but her entire body was set ablaze, burning and tearing through her foes with her bare blazing claws.

“Hahahah! Fiery Hair loves to fight to the death! Let us see who is more superior in strength, orcs or humans!”

As she roared, Fiery Hair rushed like a blazing meteor across the thousands of foes alone; her body was near indestructible; any physical or magical attack that hit her barely did any damage; and her flames easily burned through foes as she punched and kicked them, generating blazing explosions. She alone singlehandedly killed over a hundred foes already!

“Hah, without a doubt, that woman’s a monster!”

Mursha smiled as she saw Fiery Hair fighting with all her might. She felt inspired. Rapidly swinging her axe as she imbued her body with her newfound and stronger Spiritual and Primal Powers combined together with Ki and Mana, she didn’t like to admit it, but she had become a catastrophe of her own close to Fiery Hair herself.

Her giant axe cleaved through foes from left and right, dozens dying against her powerful abilities with her weapons. Her rapid movements and her amazing reaction speed allowed her to easily evade incoming blows.

And above all,

“We got her! Kill Mursha!”

As she was surrounded by over thirty warriors at once, who released their weapon techniques and spells at her, Mursha’s body glowed with a black, dark aura of shadows.

Several shadows encompassed her entire body, suddenly dragging her into the ground and making her disappear. All the warriors ended up hitting each other, confused about where Mursha was!

FLUOSH!

She appeared behind them, smiling.

“I am still getting the hang of it, but this power is pretty damn useful!” she said. “Thank you, Bloodfang Wolf Spirit, for this last gift of yours!”

Before the warriors could react to her, Mursha swung her axe after charging it with both shadows and blood aura, swinging it and cleaning through all thirty cultists at once, splattering their sliced bodies into the grasslands.

CRAAASH!

Not only did the shadows help her evade lethal blows, escape from danger more easily, and move faster too, but they also helped her expand the range of her attacks! An attack that could at most target three foes now could easily cleave over thirty by expanding its range of power through the shadows themselves.

“Obsidian’s power was sure a complete cheat, that bastard…!”

Mursha’s new power originated from Obsidian, the half-orc  and half-thrall she had slain, a powerful dark sorcerer and the self-proclaimed strongest avatar of the Barbarian God. It was actually not just a magic power but a Developing Lesser Divinity he was cultivating.

Through the powers of the awakened Bloodfang Wolf Spirit, Mursha was able to devour his soul and also gain this Developing Lesser Divinity for herself, giving her a tremendous boost in her battle performance.

The giant red orc leading the cultists squinted his eyes, yet he smiled even when anybody would think that their foes were too ridiculously powerful to win.

At the end of the day, he still had thousands of soldiers on the battlefield, and Mursha’s faction had barely killed a bit over a hundred! He was willing to sacrifice all these pawns to wear them down, exhaust them, and then take them down himself.

“With troops of less than a hundred, and right after fighting in a War Game…” he smiled. “You’re just waiting for your deaths! Watch, my god, as I slay these foes in your name and—Huh?!”

Unfortunately for him, they weren’t exactly less than a hundred either; there were friends with them, entities summoned by Bing Xue to aid them.

“Come on, we’re on the same side this time, my fellow demons! Let us aid our master’s friends!”

A coquettish and cute demon led a group of over a hundred demons to battle, who appeared out of thin air in front of all the orcs, beast-kin, and thralls. Her blue-skinned face, different from the rest of her body’s color, was because she was wearing a mask.

And actually, every demon here was wearing masks; their colors varied depending on their Level of Power among demon-kind. Demons had no true form; they were the embodiment of Malice and all Evil Things that manifested from mortals’ desires, curses, and wishes.

Born from the Deepest Darkness, something that Bing Xue learned as she obtained her new Skill, the true nature of Demons varied; it was always different from demon to demon, but inherently, they all answered the call of “masters”.

There were no demons without "masters."  This didn’t mean that they would always obey them and would only be servants. Demons might have “masters”, but they’re mostly used by them to obtain physical form and materialize.

These masks, materialized by Bing Xue’s own Skill, allowed these demons to take on a physical form. They were “catalyzers” for them, demons had no true faces, therefore, they wore masks to be like mortals.

This also meant that demons could not truly die; even if they were “killed” they would simply disappear and merge back with the Deepest Darkness before being reborn once; otherwise, they would roam the “World Between”, a space of ethereal origin that connected all worlds and planes.

The prison created by the Seven Archdemons was something similar to the World Between, but even more restrictive; it imprisoned demons they hated and would leave them there for eternity, until their masks would wear down due to their hunger for souls, darkness, and negative emotions from mortals.

It was a slow torture until they were to be forcefully pulled back into the Deepest Darkness, with no recollection of their past…

Yet Bing Xue’s Skill changed everything; her power gave them a new chance to escape their prison and once again do what demons do!

“Slaughter! Kill, kill, kill!”

“Gyahahaha! So many souls to eat! This is a buffet!”

“Screw the Seven! We’re back, baby!”

“Gerororororor!”

“Guuehehehehe! Give me your blood, fuckers!”

“I’m going to impale your ass with this spear I found!”

The demons leaped into the air and jumped over their foes’ heads, biting them with their big and strong jaws, tearing their ears apart with their claws, cursing them all, and weakening everyone.

“W-Wha… ACK!”

“My body can’t move normally?!”

“Who are these things?! Demons?!”

“Dammit! Aaaggh! Don’t impale my ass!”

The cultist leader’s eyes widened as he saw these one hundred mischievous creatures quickly sending half of his army into an uproar! Demons were one of the few species that could turn completely incorporeal with ease, simply appearing and disappearing from the view of their foes with ease and cursing them from their backs.

The dumb and big warriors that were easily brainwashed by the cultist of the barbarian god weren’t the smartest either, easily being deceived by the petty tricks and curses of the demons, beginning to fall on their knees, scream in horror, or even begin fighting one another in confusion.

“W-Wha…?! How is this possible?!” screamed the cultist leader. “Demons?! How come that woman can command demons?!”

He had not seen them before because the Demons mostly decided to remain incorporeal while eating their foes’ souls. But after Bing Xue allowed them to, they finally showed themselves to the world, and started fighting directly instead of taking down what was left behind.

“Fufufu~ You see quite confused, dear cultist,” suddenly, a demoness appeared behind the huge orc, his eyes widening.

“I wasn’t able to even sense her coming!” He panicked internally, facing the woman in front of him.

It was nobody else than Belze, with her long black hair, adorable and mischievous smile, and her blue-colored mask face, along with her big, golden eyes. He had to admit that her petite body and adorable appearance made her look very beautiful, but he couldn’t be deceived! She was a demon!

“Y-You! How were you able to infiltrate my defense troops?!” The man screamed, pointing his staff at her, and firing a red beam. “Die, demon!”

“Oh my, what’s that-”

BOOOM!

The ray of crimson light engulfed Belze entirely. The cultist smiled as he could swear he saw her being disintegrated by his powerful beam! He was one of the very few Warlocks in the Tower that could wield the Element of War and Bloodshed that his God wielded as pure magic.

This meant that his magic could deal much more damage than other elements, and even more damage while being surrounded by a war or battle, making it extremely lethal.

“She’s dead, nothing but- Hm? A mask?”

The cultist leader grabbed a blue-colored mask from the floor, wondering if this was some sort of dropped item from the demon once it was slain.

However, the blue mask suddenly smiled as its eyes glowed bright red.

“Heheheheh~ It's been a while since I’ve fought someone as strong as you~”

“Eh?!”

The cultist immediately dropped the mask on the floor, as he saw a large quantity of darkness, shadows, and blood gathering around the mask; this even contained the blood and flesh pieces of his soldiers.

FLUOSH!

And within mere seconds, Belze was “reborn”. Her petite and cute body was back in the world of mortals, now with a new pair of arms, three tails, longer golden horns, and a second pair of crimson eyes above her golden eyes, resembling eyebrows in a way.

“Fufufu~! Fuahahaha!” She continued to laugh maniacally; the cultist instinctively gave a step back. Not through his entire life had he fought a demon before, so he had no idea what they were truly capable of. “This is fantastic! Usually, our contracts are based on the strength of our master’s souls. And can you guess just how powerful our master’s soul is? This contractor… She’s sure a keeper! I want her all for myself! Aaahhh~! I want more! More of her Mana and that other energy… Ki, was it?”

Suddenly, the demoness smiled as her claws glowed brightly, gathering golden-colored Ki, a power that Demons had never wielded before but that she could now wield thanks to the contract with Bing Xue.

“Master didn’t have that much Mana, you see… but she made up for it with this other, much more robust and richer energy…” Belze licked her lips, as her long black hair waved from the pressure winds provoked by her growing aura. “Shall we give it a try?”

“Hah! To think I would have to fight a demon from all things!” The orc smiled, quickly throwing away his cloak to reveal two more pairs of muscular arms. “Bring it, spawn of the Deepest Darkness!”

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