The Demon flying somewhat above the ground caught and lifted the player above the ground.

The player was not yet dead... but not too far away actually. Still his feet dangled uncontrollably above the ground.

The Demon tilted its head, studying the trembling pupil as if it were peering through a keyhole into a private room.

It smiled and then pulled out the finger, leaving a bloodied gape where an eye should have been, the man's body spasmed as he screamed in panic... but didn't make the demon flinch in the slightest.

On the contrary the demon bit at his finger and then dropped five drops of blood into the wound of the player. Following that he threw the man back on the ground.

"That should be enough!" he quoted as he looked at the convulsing player in front of him.

The man hit the rubble and rolled, clutching his face, screaming and convulsing in spasms that turned his spine into a bow. He scraped at his ruined socket like he could claw the pain out.

But he couldn't then his sound stopped, his face hung open in a scream but he could no longer speak.

The man went limp for a second and just laid there like a corpse. It was as if the man was dead. seeing it, the demon's expression changed as he spit some saliva out and spoke in a frustrated voice.

"Another failure..."

For a heartbeat, the battlefield paused in disbelief. Everyone present there looked at the ominous event unfurling before their eyes.

Even the Withering Beasts—those hungry, relentless wretches—kept their distance, circling as if the Demon had marked the land around him as some kind of sacred area.

The Demon's gaze drifted from the corpse to Ishiki's direction, almost like a child waiting for applause.

Ishiki shoved himself out of the rubble with visible effort. he was thrown away just by a clash of the pipe he was holding and the demons fist. No doubt the goddamned demon was still, far stronger tan he was.

Even though he hadn't taken a direct hit, his left shoulder screamed every time he moved it.

'I need to look for a way to run away... I can't fight this thing fair.'

Then Ishiki's eyes fell on the corpse and his pupil shrank to pinpricks... a familiar scene was playing before his eyes and it made his skin crawl.

The player was moving again and vomiting green, putid blood. then slowly his fingers started to swell as corruption took root in his very nervous system. Slowly his body started to swell as well.

The player's skin stretched taut, blood vessels rising to the surface in a grotesque topographical map of filled with dark blood.

His spine cracked, dislocating and relocating in rapid succession, the torso expanded and ribs spread apart like the bars of a cage being forced open by invisible hands. Muscle tissue bubbled beneath the skin, writhing and multiplying with the frenzy of cancer cells in fast-forward.

The color changed as well.

The humanly skin, the pale brown color was replaced by something else that looked a sick, algae-green sheen that caught the moonlight and made it look diseased.

The transformation accelerated.

Bones lengthened with sounds like splitting of wood, instead the same was happening with bones.

His arms stretched, shoulders broadening until they became slabs of corded muscle that dwarfed the human frame they'd been built upon.

Soon, the figure that stood there with only one frenzied eye was no longer remotely human.

The Xenon rose to its full height—easily two and a half meters. The ruined eye socket wept green ichor, while the other eye looked around with mindless rage.

Ishiki was at loss of words at the scene. It was more grotesque that anything he had ever seen. At that moment he recalled how he had done the same to survive back in his first trial.

He used a tainted demon's blood to kill the shinobi... the only difference was that the shinobi had been strong enough to resist the demonic blood for long enough.

But the person, no... the Xenon standing before him was not as powerful. A thing became clear to Ishiki that he had been not considering up until now. All that time ago, in the castle where he was held captive.

That was the first time he saw Xenon's. They were all indeed humans than that meant that high tier demons can turn humans into demons as well.

'Was that... what he meant by this being a failure. Because he didn't turn into a high tier Xenon, but just a low tier Xenon?'

The Demon's cunning smile widened and then he spoke with a weird kind of excitement in his voice. "How do you like my present, lucky boy."

Ishiki gritted his teeth and then spat. "Disgusting."

The demon sighed and asked. "By the way... how are you still alive? I am pretty sure i killed you back then." There was a hint of curiosity in his voice and frustration that he didn't let surface.

Ishiki opened his mouth to speak... but he didn't because the Xenon, mindlessly attacked the demo.

The narrowed his eyes and punched the demon right into its face. The mass of green humanoid flesh was sent flying with half of its face mangled.

Ishiki stomach revolted at the scene, but more important than that was the place where the demon had landed.

Ishiki's eyes narrowed as he clenched his jaw. It was not a coincidence that the Xenon had landed just some distance from Kaori and Nina. The demon had deliberately punched in that direction.

'Not good at all. Kaori is spent and vulnerable.'

Ishiki turned around, coiling his legs to run to their aid, but the demon suddenly appeared in front of him. His beautiful eyes were just as Ishiki remembered, deep yellow with three slits running down vertically inside the cornea.

He instinctively jumped back and clutched a broken iron piece from the rubble as a weapon.

"I asked you a question... How did you survive?" The Demon asked with a hint of anger.

Ishiki stood straight and smirked. "Because of a certain princess... that made you bleed remember."

The demon gritted its teeth and then the wings behind its back vanished into air and it landed on the cracked pavement.

Then all hell broke loose.

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