The Strongest Spellblade

We got two days of travel, including sled rides on the demon, before my Danger Sense began to increase again. There were hints of light for about an hour each day. Not enough to change how cold it was, but it was nice to see a bit better and get some hope that the dark season was ending.

I didn’t say anything to my companions about my Danger Sense increasing once more. I had a choice to make. If I wanted to leave them behind and escape at a faster pace, now was the time. The demon would be distracted when it caught up with the two of them.

It was a coward’s choice, but cowards lived where brave men died. We could try and fight, but I wasn’t optimistic about our chances. To keep up such a relentless pursuit and survive that avalanche was no simple matter.

The demon was strong. It had enough speed to dodge my attacks and enough health to survive a few minor mistakes. While I didn’t know its exact stats, I could estimate by the amount of Mana it gave off along with how fast it was chasing after us.

And the demon didn’t need to attack us. It could wait until we were resting and then attack. Even breaking the igloo we used to rest in would quickly cause us to freeze to death. And with the demon’s superior stats I wouldn’t be able to chase it down.

As for another avalanche, it would be ready. Of that I had no doubt. I noted it wasn’t pursuing us directly, but had offset its route slightly. The dungeon entrance was too far away. The other option besides abandoning my comrades was finding a defensible position. Unfortunately, there were none against a being with the demon’s stats.

It was definitely around level 200. Monsters only gained 10 stats per level. They started with some extra. I hadn’t been thinking about monsters properly. Level 100 for a monster was half as weak as a human legend. I had put demons and other races into the same category, which had been a mistake in estimating their stats based on their level. Skills and stats didn’t make up for bad thoughts unfortunately.

Since they were thinking monsters and emitted as much Mana as a human legend, due to being Mana based creatures, I had just assumed they were at the strength of legends. The leveling the System used didn’t match up between the stats humans used to define legends, since we could increase our stat points naturally, while monsters couldn’t, as far as I knew.

A level 200 demon was an actually around the actual strength of a legend and twice as strong as the demons I had faced. It was a monster, which meant it couldn’t gain stats through training. Similar to Ozy, it depended on its levels to gain more stats.

The only option was to run. The demon was ready for any more traps. I didn’t want to abandon Lanner though. Wild Tail, I was less enthused with. But he had joined the team and was under my protection. My decisions as leader would decide our life and death.

The worst decision was no decision. But fighting was a death sentence, running was clearly impossible, and trying to create a trap for the pursuing demon wouldn’t be effective.

The following morning, I knew what I needed to do. “The demon is catching up with us,” I said. There was silence as my teammates listened in. They knew what this meant. We would be dead soon.

“Are you kicking me out to act as a distraction?” Wild Tail finally asked after a couple of seconds of tense silence.

“No,” I said. The reasoning was simple. Wild Tail would barely slow the demon down from its pursuit. Letting him die like that wouldn’t accomplish anything. I didn’t say that, but I had considered it a possibility before realizing it wouldn’t do anything.

“The only option is a ritual. I have enough Mana cores and Alchemically stored blood,” I said.

“But there no monsters to sacrifice,” Lanner said and I nodded at this.

“I am hoping the Mana cores offset things. I know more Mana can overcome issues with a ritual,” I said.

“What is this ritual trying to accomplish?” Lanner asked nervously.

“Um, what is a ritual?” Wild Tail asked.

“A very dangerous application of Mana that can go horribly wrong,” Lanner said.

“It’s the only way to open a dungeon entrance. We set it up and see what happens. We can lose the demon in the dungeon. We can’t win a fight,” I said. Trying to use a ritual to escape without sacrifices was a very bad idea.

The ritual book I had warned of this. A ritual was a ritual and not a runic circle due to the sacrifices needed. If I sacrificed both of my companions and Ozy, I would have a much higher chance of the ritual to create a dungeon entrance successfully completing.

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The rest of the day was spent leveling a large patch of stone and using Ozy to place the runic symbols and the ritual circle. The demon was closing in. If it kept up its pace, we had one more night’s sleep before it would be on in the morning.

There were three plates that created heat and reduced the wind. They would burn out in an hour, but once they were in place, the demonic blood I used wouldn’t instantly freeze.

My companions and Ozy were far away from the ritual circle. I took an important safety precaution. I pushed my Mana through a plate that had several Mana cores on it, to distort my Mana signature. That was something the ritual book warned of, that it would latch onto the Mana of the person who started the ritual and consume them if they had screwed up using resonance between Mana that had the same signature.

That was why the Mana I used, I made sure went through an array, distorting it as much as possible. As the ritual activated, I dropped the metal plate and ran away towards the igloo the rest of my team was hiding inside, looking out tiny slits at the ritual I was unleashing.

I had put far too many cores as part of the ritual. As I ran away, the Mana behind me spiked massively. The ground shook and I stumbled as I reached the igloo. Ozy let me in and I looked out at the unfolding ritual through a narrow slit.

Multi-color flames shot up from the demonic blood as the Mana cores that were part of the ritual circle, shattered, completely drained of Mana.

In less than a minute all the Mana cores were completely drained. “What is happening?” Lanner asked nervously as the ground shook. Above the dark clouds were getting touched with the light of the flames as they blazed higher and higher.

The heat plates I had set up exploded in giant flaming balls, that were sucked up into the ritual. We were about half a kilometer away, which was quite far from the ritual. Even if things went horribly wrong, I wasn’t worried that we would be caught up in the disaster.

“AHHHHHH!” there was a scream coming from the ritual. Why was the ritual screaming? Was it the dungeon?

Humanoid monsters began to come out of the multi-colored flames. They appeared to have quite a bit of Mana, like Champions of the 10th layer. They were misshapen, with extra limbs, eyes, and other body parts.

They kept screaming and began to run away from the ritual which was still going. “What did you do?” Wild Tail whispered towards me.

“It was meant to open a passage up into the dungeon,” I replied.

“We need to run,” Lanner said.

“Agreed,” I replied. Ozy quickly went under my clothing and created an opening in the igloo. We took off, away from the location of the ritual. Thankfully we were far away from the monsters that they weren’t pursuing us.

The little bit of Mana in the air was completely gone. That would hopefully make tracking us even more difficult. I had us angle our route so that the ritual location would between us and the demon.

While the result wasn’t what I expected, it would hopefully slow the demon down or make it hesitate. Thankfully Lanner and Wild Tail had rested up while I had been working on the ritual. They had enough energy to keep going for a while.

The ritual had burned itself out after an hour. But those misshapen humanoid monsters had spread out over that ridge line. That was good, that meant if the demon wanted to avoid them, he would have to make a bigger detour. The demon would likely run into those monsters. I had no idea how these monsters would react to the demon’s presence. If they started fighting that would be perfect.

The next day, my Danger Sense kept growing. As we climbed up another mountain, I saw that the demon had gone right through the monsters that had come out of the ritual and was in pursuit of us.

It would catch up to us by the time we stopped for the day near the top of the mountain. “We will have to fight,” I said heavily as we took cover behind some boulders. I got out some heat plates and set them up. Ozy made a large igloo and I got to work on making a proper meal before the battle, rather than something rushed and barely warm like the previous days.

“How should I help?” Wild Tail asked.

“Your Forge Fire, how dangerous is it?” I asked.

“A jet of white hot flames just in front of me,” he said.

“You will guard Lanner who will act in support when he sees an opening. Ozy will provide support as well. I will engage the demon directly, attempting to injure it and drive it off,” I said heavily.

“You can do it,” Lanner said. I appreciated his confidence. But this fight would be the hardest one yet. Even more than the bug Abnormal. The speed and reserves of the demon would easily crush me.

My only hope was that the demon was exhausted having to constantly pursue while running into the avalanche and the monsters that had come out of the ritual. After the meal, I got changed into my heavy armor and placed pieces of clothing over the armor, to block out the worst of the wind.

I also switched out my experience blocking bracelet for the Sun Amulet. The heat would hopefully disrupt the demon’s Cold Absorption skill. I took the time to stretch a bit to make sure I would be limber enough for the fight.

Ozy made a slit in the igloo that Wild Tail was keeping an eye on the approaching demon from. “Five minutes,” he said nervously. We continued to wait. “One minute,” Wild Tail said.

Ozy made a gap in the igloo and we exited into the biting cold. I moved forward as I brought up my Reforged Beginner’s Blade. Flames coated the edges, heating up the nearby area and myself.

Taking a solid stance on some snow covered stones, I waited and watched as the demon climbed the mountain towards our position. A shame that we hadn’t been able to get away. Perhaps I should have run, but I wouldn’t abandon teammates, especially since I was the leader of this team.

The demon was slowing down as it approached. I noted that the demon looked like the beastkin but it had pointed horns and stood at twice my height. Its dark blue skin gave me the feeling of cold.

“A human, a beastkin, a pet monster, and something else,” it said as it took up a position in front of me. It was wearing the pelts of several beastkin like the first demon I had encountered.

“Turn back. You will encounter nothing but pain and defeat here,” I declared. I doubted such a declaration would work, but it was the best I had, since I hadn’t expected the demon would want to talk.