Land of Demons

She didn’t get much time to answer her own question as she had to immediately go on the defensive. Picking up Yuki, she dodged away just in time as the massive hammer pulverized the rock they rested on.

In the slowed down time of her high reactions, she saw the side effect of the rock being destroyed. Tiny and large chunks of shrapnel shot out in all directions. Whether the creature meant for it or not, it had created a nasty attack that even missed would kill or maim its target. Yumi looked over at Yuki, still reacting to the creature with an oddly calm expression of wonder if she had to place it. Unlike reading other’s faces, she knew most of the expressions of Yuki very well. This one was very familiar, also misplaced for such a time.

The bigger concern for her was Yuki’s safety. He wasn’t using his power as far as she knew. ‘I can survive this, but he’ll be killed by such an attack. I’m going to have to protect him until he can defend himself.’ White barrier shards appeared in front of Yumi deflecting the debris at angles, but it wasn’t enough for all of them. ‘I miscalculated…should have used a full barrier…’ She turned around in the air moving Yuki behind her while she took a large chunk of rock in her shoulder.

Thrown off her planned course, the two crashed into the ground with Yumi losing hold of Yuki. Pain jumped through her shoulder, though duller than she was expecting. Despite that, she could feel blood starting to stream down her arm. But she wasn’t going to get much time to worry about that. Through her mess of hair she could see the creature slithering towards them.

Yumi pushed herself up with her hands feeling new sorts of pain in her wounded shoulder. It wasn’t moving the way she wanted. It felt blocked. She raised her hand to the front of her shoulder and pushed with her power. The shard of rock shot out of her wound trailing blood giving back her freedom of movement.

She turned around to face the snake creature only able to erect a barrier before it was upon them. The hammer slammed with a quaking ring on her barrier. Pulses of energy rippled through the barrier reacting to the hammer. ‘It held…’ Yumi sighed in relief. She only hoped it worked, she wasn’t sure the barrier would have been strong enough.

A cracking noise sounded off from above Yumi. She snapped her eyes up to see lines forming in her barrier. ‘It’s not going to hold!’ Across from her was Yuki, something that she kept in her mind. ‘He can’t take hits like this…’

Knowing that the shield wouldn’t hold for long, she pushed Yuki away from her with telekinesis and jumped from the center where the hammer would land in moments. Her timing on the barrier breaking turned out to be more than a little off as the hammer broke through just as she jumped. The hunk of carved metal and leather narrowly missed her before the blast impact kicked up a thick cloud and pelted her with dirt.

Yumi panted a little from surprise rather than exhaustion. She quickly caught her breath and stood on her feet once more as the snake burst through the clouds swinging in motion. Immediately before it could get any closer, Yumi stretched out her hand as the air around the snake distorted with pressure. It slowed down struggling with the weight pressed upon it now.

Relief didn’t come this time for her. She already felt that it wouldn’t be enough. The snake could still move despite the immense pressure that she applied to it. ‘It’s not normal…’ It seemed like an obvious statement, but Yumi still felt some surprise seeing how strong it was. Even the creatures that roamed their home didn’t possess such strength. This was far beyond what she was used to seeing. ‘What is this monster?’

Chapter 388 – Land of Demons

Her mind tried to work through strategies of dealing with the creature, but it was nothing like she had ever dealt with before. She was used to fighting humans, as terrible as that sounded in her head. Monsters were a completely different sort of fight both in size and tactics. All she could do was use her telekinesis to knock it away before it slipped out of the gravity field.

The snake creature didn’t advance as fast as before. It recovered quickly, but became very cautious seeing that Yumi was no simple prey. It started to encircle her in a wide loop. “What are you?” the man part of the snake asked in a deep and gravel tone. “You’re no human.”

‘It can talk?’ She paused, realizing that it had a human part of it. ‘I guess it sort of makes sense. I was expecting it to be mindless. Can I make it retreat then? Make the fight undesirable for it to continue?’ Now wasn’t really a time that she wanted to be fighting with some strange monster. She was getting hungry and Yuki was tired. It was the worst possible time and she was stuck in some strange world within her own mind.

A worried thought popped up in her head. This wasn’t the sort of battle she was used to fighting. All of her fights had been to survive against people that wanted her dead. They gave her no choice, but to fight. What if this monster didn’t want to fight something that would be a challenge. She never really talked someone out of a fight before. Yumi only hoped she could steer the course correctly.

“I’m more than you want to deal with right now,” she opened without changing her weak stance.

The first response to Yumi was a thump of its tail that made the ground shake and kicked up a cloud of dirt. It didn’t seem to be buying it as she watched. “You think you can beat a demon? I’m not some grunt oni.”

‘A demon? Is that what this monster is? Am I going to find more demons roaming this world? Why is this in my mind? I've never even seen something like this before!’ When she agreed to go into her mind to control her personalities, Yumi had some expectations. She thought that it would be things that would be familiar to her, things that would make sense. Something that she could understand and relate to on some level, but this made no sense. In fact, it made more sense to be from Yuki’s mind rather than her.

It wasn’t her that dreamed of or knew about any of these things. Only from TV or some literature she might have read in class. That was the extent of her knowledge on demons. They barely even came as a thought in her mind. So this shouldn’t even exist.

In her hesitation, the snake demon saw weakness and struck out at Yumi. Lashing out with its large tail, easily as thick as a several century old tree trunk, it clashed into Yumi’s barrier. She barely had the chance to raise it before the strike. A weak construct made it easy for the demon to shatter it almost immediately and tossed her back.

The human part roared at Yumi taunting her as she dropped roughly from the hit. “A barrier, I’ve never seen a priest or demon hunter cast a barrier without at least a staff. But you’re weak! I’ve seen apprentices with stronger barriers than yours!”

“Ugh…” coughed Yumi, getting back to her feet. Little physical harm came from the attack. Tears in her simple tunic were about all that she took. ‘Demon hunters? Priests? Is it that sort of world?’ Thanks to the little bits of information the demon dropped she started to piece together the world setting. It really was outside of her comfort. This felt like it would be more of a game or something she would see airing on TV the more she learned.

The demon didn’t wait long to resume attacking her. Any bit of hesitation that it might have had about what Yumi could be had been resolved. It already ruled her as something that wouldn’t be much trouble to kill. Slithering over the ground with surprising speed, it bore down with even greater force behind the hammer than before.

It took a double layered barrier and her jumping back to mitigate the damage as much as she did. Despite her efforts, the attack still left a modest sized crater in the ground and multiple minor wounds on her body from the debris and force.

Yumi was still in the fight despite appearances. Blood dripped down her forehead and over her right eye making it annoying to see. But she came to her own resolution with the last attack. ‘There’s no chance for a peaceful end to this. It wants to kill me. That part is familiar. I know this feeling well enough.’ Such a feeling wasn’t one that she liked knowing well, but it was her new life following Yuki. There was no avoiding it.

‘I just have to deal with what’s in front of me and move forward. Just like before…’

Not noticing the difference in Yumi’s eyes, the snake demon charged in for the finishing blow seeing Yumi just standing there. The final blow came in with the hammer parting the cloud of earth hanging in the air coming for Yumi.

However, Yumi lifted her hand up towards the hammer. Multiple barrier shards materialized rapidly creating a cushion that slowed the hammer down until all she had to do was stop it with her bare hand. The dispersed energy from the attack kicked up smoke around Yumi and the snake blew outward.

“Impossible?!”

“You really should have left me alone when I gave you the chance.”

“A lowly little girl like you can’t kill me!”

“Let’s test that theory of yours.” Yumi pushed back on the hammer and then clinched her hand into a fist. The head of the hammer suddenly distorted and shrank in size. The air around it twisted and warped until all that remained of the hammer end was a large sized marble of metal that sank into the earth from the high density.

“What?!” the snake man recoiled in surprise. He only held the handle of a useless weapon completely impotent now. It stared at the ruined handle for a few seconds in disbelief of what happened. Then it looked down at Yumi. It could see confidence in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “What are you?!”

Yumi stepped forward ready to finish things. “Someone not to be trifled with.”

The demon chucked the handle at Yumi like a spear, but it only was reduced to a small ball as well. Clutching its head, it didn’t understand anymore. “I’m a demon! The superior race, I can’t be killed by a little girl!”

Lowering its body to the ground, the human part of the snake suddenly morphed almost completely into a snake. Very little of it remained recognizable as human. The head took on a distinctly snake-like mouth lined with multiple rows of fangs and horns jutted out of its head. It unhinged its jaw, expanding its mouth further as a purple light grew in its mouth.

‘A new attack?’ Yumi could feel the difference just from the vibrations in the air. ‘This is much stronger than anything he used with the hammer… Is this its true power?’

“Die!” the demon shouted as the purple light transformed rapidly into a ball of energy and then a massive beam. Shot out of its mouth, the purple light completely engulfed the area around Yumi. Behind her a hill exploded into a tall pillar of clouds and earth.

As the beam dissipated, all that remained of the hill was raining chunks of earth and no sign of Yumi. The demon raised itself pleased with the results. “You were nothing before a true demon!”

“Somehow I doubt you’re truly that great,” Yumi replied.

“No…” The snake turned around towards the voice to find Yumi completely unscathed by the attack. “How?!”

“You telegraphed your attack so early I had plenty of time to dodge. Such a thing is worthless against my speed.” Yumi then clinched both of her hands together. Suddenly multiple distortions appeared all around the demon’s body ripping its flesh apart into dense orbs.

The demon collapsed to the earth with a heavy thud as it bled out from the holes carved into it. “I can’t…die here.”

Yumi stepped forward towards the head of the snake to stare at it. There was a cold and distant look in her eyes as she looked upon it. “Be glad that this isn’t reality. You won’t suffer in pain for long. I can have no reservations about killing, especially just a demon like you.” Throwing her hand down an arc of white light appeared and carved through the head of the demon. It slumped over dead.

She clutched her arm keeping the shaking down. “I just have to think of it like a game and not reality… No matter how real it feels… It’s just a game…”