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As we got closer to the bazaar, even more of the cheering quickly started to turn to screams, and the sounds of fighting redoubled.

"What's happening?" I asked Silva.

Her brow was furrowed. "I can't tell from here, should we go look?"

I turned around and looked at the former slaves we were protecting. Most of them weren't really battle-ready, and one of them only had one arm... The hyenakin growled at me when I looked at her. "Give us weapons! You look like you're sizing us up, me and my sister can fight!"

"Do you have any more weapons left Mimi?" I asked her.

She frowned, "I only kept your cursed two-handed sword, I gave everything else away."

"You keep a cursed sword?" Kal'daeryn asked me.

"The curse isn't that bad, it just makes you hungry when you use it."

"Whatever! I'll take it!" the hyenakin practically yelled.

Lorriene spun and pointed a dagger to her throat in one fluid motion. "Enough."

The hyenakin froze and lifted her hands placatingly. "Yes, ma'am."

"Hey, none of that," I told Lorriene. I looked at the hyenakin. "Don't test our patience. I'll give you the weapon, just be careful with it. I'm more patient than some of my friends, but we're supposed to be sneaking through here."

A box crashed to the ground behind me and I spun to see a human dressed in a guard uniform being bowled over by a demon that looked like his bones were on the outside. I hadn't seen a monster this disgusting since we were in the demon dungeon. It looked red and veiny with all of its flesh covered in a mucus membrane, its bones held it together from the outside like it was inside out. I drew my sword and turned to face it as an arrow dug into its head and knocked the demon off the guard. He didn't stop to say anything, he just turned and continued to run away.

"That didn't kill it," Torien warned. The monster climbed back to its feet in a hunched crawl before scrabbling at us on all fours like some kind of monkey.

Silva dashed forward and stabbed it through the chest, killing it instantly. "Go for body shots, avoid the bone. Its bone was denser than the rest of its body."

"Sure, got it," Torien replied.

"More coming from the south-east!" Bella's voice called out.

An entire horde of them were running right at us through a gap in the barricade that separated the market district from the southern quarter bazaar. I instantly began to draw a ritual circle on the tip of my sword using [Light Scribing]. The ritual spell resolved quickly and I began to create a wall of solid ice using the cast spell.

"The water fording ritual!" Morrigan called out excitedly. Frankly, it wasn't the best timing to be excited about it but better than despondent by the absolute throng of demons running at us. When the wall of ice finished forming I had managed to lock off a gap that funneled them all into one spot.

"Is it wise to try and fight them, rather than just running away?" Morrigan asked even as she summoned sharp icicles from all the ambient ice mana I created.

"They're low-level, we can handle them!" Silva called out.

"If I made a wall they would just be funneled somewhere else, better we take care of them now," I replied.

"Fair enough," Morrigan said. Without any more fanfare, she shot the icicles into the crowd and they detonated into larger fields of ice, further disrupting the terrain they had to move through to get to us.

"I can help too!" Bella said before purple vines pushed through the cracks in the cobblestones and stabbed into the nearby demons. Flowers bloomed all over the vines and a haze of pollen spread out and disoriented the demons that pushed through the gap I had left them. My two party members working together had crippled and slowed the monsters. Silva and Kal'daeryn stepped forward and easily controlled the chokepoint without any need to be ordered to. They were doing a good enough job that none of the demons were able to push through the choke.

I quickly saw a problem with our strategy though. There wasn't a good enough place for the rest of us to engage so I cast a different ritual to create a platform just under the edge of the wall out of hardened sand using terra magic, complete with steps to reach it. Lorriene and Torien were up there in a flash and I followed behind them. From this vantage, we could see just how many of them there were, a couple hundred easy. Not as busy as the bazaar normally would be, but the crowd was huge with them all concentrated in one spot.

"That's bad!" Morrigan said pointing off in the distance. I blocked out the sun with one hand and squinted at it. "It's a Bone twister demon! It can kill people and turn them into thralls! Be careful, it can cast magic!" Morrigan warned.

The bone demon was crouched and looked around at the demons that were swarming beside it. It looked vaguely like a human skeleton with a bull's skull on a misshapen body that had extra long limbs. Like the other bone demon thralls that were mindlessly throwing themselves at us, its torso was fleshy but covered in a spiked bone ribcage that would make it hard to get a clean hit in.

"Thin the horde out for me and I can kill it," Lorriene volunteered. Right now she was using a sling to pelt the bone demons with stones but it was only somewhat effective. Torien had more luck but one in three of her arrows hit something bone and ricocheted off in the rushing crowd. I summoned a coin and flipped it into the crowd but it didn't activate. I flicked two more and the third one hit them in a conical area in front of where it landed. Not the best luck with that, let's try a [Blackjack].

I drew a hand, seven and three of hearts, a low hand. I tossed the cards out anyway and it made a mild dent in the crowd. A three and an ace, better, but barely. An ace and a two, what is with my luck today? I tossed the measly thirteen into the crowd. One last hand, this is starting to become a waste of mana. Jack and queen of hearts, better! My twenty hand exploded and rippled into the crowd. The four that got hit with point blank basically got vaporized and it threw many of the others around it off its feet.

Fortunately, this got the big guy's attention. The bone twister off in the distance turned and stared at the icy wall we stood on top of before suddenly roaring at us. It stood up to its full height and from the way it was looking, it was drawing in mana. I used Succubus shifting to give myself my succubus eyes that allowed me to see magic. The difference was striking, I could see him collecting mana and converting it to fire aspect mana in the palm of his hand.

"The bone twister is charging a fireball!" I called out.

"Leave that to me!" Morrigan replied loudly. She began to pull water mana towards herself and quickly had enough mana in hand to cast something, but she was holding onto whatever magic she had readied.

The mana draw from [Coin Flip] felt easier on my mana reserve so I decided to stick to those for a while. This seemed like a bit of a war of attrition. Tails, I thought as I flipped the coin into the crowd. Tch, nothing. Again, tails! This time the moment the coin hit the ground a cone of magic popped forward and trashed all of the demons in a straight line from where it landed. Good! Now we're getting somewhere. Heads! Nothing. Heads! Tch, nothing again. Heads! This time the coin landed and took out another large chunk of them. Two out of five coins isn't the greatest track record so far but the damage feels good when it hits.

I felt the monster collapse the mana he had been gathering into a huge fireball. It wasn't as large as the one that hit the slaver's guild earlier but now I know what was shooting those large attacks at the building. There was cheering when this thing got through the barrier, did it turn on the crowd the moment it accomplished its goal? Did all of these demons used to be people?

The fireball arced over the sea of demons right at us, just then a spear of ice shot out from Morrigan and exploded into shards of ice that caught the fireball like a net. The fireball was sliced into smaller pieces that each exploded harmlessly above the crowd. The demon didn't react in any meaningful way, it just began to collect mana in its hand again.

I nearly cheered. "That worked! It's doing it again, can you keep that up?"

"I'm good! This wall you made seems to be generating ambient ice mana!" She replied. This was something we had tested a little but never with a wall this large, we hadn't seen a huge difference but the ambient conversion to ice mana was noticeably stronger with the larger wall.

"We're making headway. A little more and I can go in." Lorriene calmly said while slinging more pebbles at the horde of bone demons.

I nodded. "Good, tell me when."

I turned to the group of former slaves. Other than Kal'daeryn, they all looked scared shitless but none of them were hurt. Bella was looking around behind us, making sure we didn't get ambushed while we held off this chokepoint.

"How are you two doing down there?" I called out to Silva and Kal'daeryn.

"Fine." Silva grunted between thrusts with her spear.

A pile of corpses was forming at the choke which was slowing the demons down further. The only problem was that the pile was starting to reach the edges of the walls. I felt Mimi touch my mind through the bond. -- "I can eat the bodies! It'll get them out of the way!" --

My brow knitted with worry. -- "Is that a good idea? It won't affect you to eat them will it?" --

-- "I'll be fine! I used to eat demons all the time, remember?" -- Mimi replied through the bond.

I turned to Bella and spoke to her through the bond next, -- "Bella! Mimi's going to eat the corpses. Make sure none of the former slaves see her do it. Except for Kal'daeryn, I guess." --

-- "Okay!" -- Bella replied without hesitation.

"Everyone! Eyes on me! Are any of you hurt?" Bella called out to the group of former slaves. All of them were startled by her sudden yelling and turned to face her immediately.

I touched Silva through the bond next, -- "Mimi is going to remove the corpses but she's going to need cover. Push in a little bit and make sure Kal'daeryn doesn't freak out." --

-- "Got it," -- Silva replied.

"Forward!" Silva pushed into the crowd and Kal'daeryn followed her lead, though she did look confused about it. Mimi came in from behind and her belly opened up like a big mouth and swallowed body after body in a matter of moments. Kal'daeryn was so focused on fighting barehanded that she didn't even notice the bodies were gone until Silva started to retreat back into their chokepoint.

"What happened?" The white tigerkin asked in shock.

"Our spatial mage cleaned up the corpses!" Silva called in response.

Kal'daeryn looked just as shocked but it faded as she went back to holding off the horde. That train of thought left me when I felt the fireball beginning to finish forming. I turned just in time to warn Morrigan. "Fireball incoming!" I called out to her.

"Got it!"

Like last time, her ice spell caught the fireball in midair and detonated it into harmless fire mana. "Now!" Lorriene called before leaping forward and disappearing the moment she touched the ground. Lorriene appeared behind the bone twister and stabbed one of her long daggers deep into the creature's back, making it scream and flail as it tried to knock Lorriene off of it. With her hood on I couldn't see her face but her movements made her look unfazed by the demon's thrashing as she continued to repeatedly stab it in the back.

Suddenly, Lorriene leapt off the monster, rolled, and then disappeared in a cloud of shadow only to reappear next to me panting and out of breath. "I wasn't able to finish it off... too tired." Lorriene fell to one knee.

I turned back to the edge of the wall. We had cleared most of the smaller demons now and the bone twister looked bloodied, but it wasn't over yet.