The Saga of Eden

Chapter 1, part 10

The group waste no time and rush inside the building; what lies in front of them is a horrific scene. The entire first floor of the two-story building is one single room, with one door to the outside and another one on the opposite side. Except for that side of the door leading to the stairs, the other 3 sides have two windows each. Each window has an illusion veil that prevents the outside from seeing what the inside truly looks like.

Eden has seen this room from Astraka’s sketches, but now it looks much worse. The red and black color and flame all over the room still remain, but blood is now smeared all over the 4 walls, and the floor, and even the ceiling, in much greater intensity. Replacing the 3 piles of bones are now 3 piles of fresh corpses. Eden recognizes one man from the pile nearest to him, he has seen this man near the wanted poster back at Ella. He must have been a Bounty Hunter or Imperial soldier here to take Narila down and failed. Looking at his barely recognizable face and mangle upper body, this poor man must have died horribly. Seeing the sheer number of corpses and how the demons have treated their victims make his blood boil, Eden cannot forgive them.

“There are 23 of you, 16 sleeping and are about to wake up, 6 are sheeting their weapons, and 1 is eating. Priority target, 6m73 10:44, kill the eating one, then wipe out the sleeping ones, then...” Eden mumbles quickly. 

The smell of gore is disrupting Eden’s concentration, yet he pushes through it and completes the analysis. In less than 2 seconds, his weapon is at hand, and he lunges towards his first target. The demon is using its claws to defend, it is the third most dangerous one in the room, and Eden must finish it off quickly, or else the sleeping demons might awake in time, and they would be at a disadvantage. Eden intended to kill it with a single thrust, but the demon has about 40% chance to parry him, so right at the last moment, Eden reveals that it’s a feint as he stops right in front of the defending demon and thrust through its exposed belly instead of its chest.

Eden quickly pulls his sword out of the demon’s corpse and quickly kills another demon in range, trying to eat a (supposedly) human heart. The demons are sleeping on two sides of the room, and since Eden is closer to the left, he starts killing the 8 demons on the left, trying to wake up. 

[First priority delayed by 6 seconds, changing the course of action. After this move, 14 targets remain, priority target, 7m12 6:12, 8m...] Eden analyzes but stops in the middle of his thought process.

“I got your back, Eden!” He hears Lela shout behind him as he notices, from the corner of his eyes, his first partner is moving through the sleeping demons on the right with inhuman speed. He can also hear the sound of their screams in pain as she passes. 

[Resume to the initial plan.] Eden smiles.

Astraka and Nara are standing at the door, doing nothing. They need to conserve their stamina for the next stage, and Harmani is protecting them. He’s doing well on his own defending his family, but Eden notices Harmani is really holding his punches. It’s Harmani’s first time in the open field, so he’s yet to be comfortable with killing, even if they’re demons. Eden is about to hurry up with his part and assist him when he hears Nara shout.

“Y-you can do this, brother! Don’t hold back.”

“She’s right, Harmani! It’s either them or us. Show no mercy!” Astraka backs his niece up.

This gives Harmani enough boost that his next punch is enough to kill the incoming demon. Eden and Lela finish their sides at virtually the same time and quickly return and assist Harmani with killing the rest. 

The first stage is over... 

Tired but yet to be exhausted, the three of them then sit down to recover their stamina quicker, looking at the c*****e they have just done… More are coming soon.

The stench of both demons and humans’ corpses is unbearable, even for Eden. He tries his best to resist the urge to vomit as he stands up, takes the thick piece of cloth from his pocket, and wraps it around his head to cover his mouth and nose. It was too late for one of his teammates, however. Eden doesn’t need to turn around to know it was Nara who just vomited on the floor, but no one says anything. He’s surprised that it takes them this long for someone to finally vomit. Eden turns around and sees Nara is wrapping her piece of cloth while the rest have already done so. Even then, he can see the painful looks in their eyes. They are also trying their best to resist doing anything excessive that can trigger further vomiting or running away. The plan must continue.

{Ultimate: Summon Leviathan.} Astraka says out loud and summons a 5 meters long, floating blue serpent-like creature. It has sharp fangs, two white horns, two small blue wings, and scales all over its bodies. “Secure the breach.” Astraka points towards the door leading to the stairs, where demons will soon pour down like wine flowing down Lela’s throat. Leviathan quickly flies towards the door, smashes it, and floats behind the now empty door menacingly, expecting an attack.

{Ultimate: Summon Battle Angels.} Nara also says out loud at the same time as Astraka, and immediately next to her are two tall women wearing full plate armor. Their faces look identical to Nara, but their expressions are brave and calm, and their eyes are red as roses. On one hand, they hold a giant rectangular shield, while on the other, they hold a mid-sized hammer. “Barricade the front door and the windows.” Nara also gives a command to her summons. The shyness she showed a moment ago is now completely gone.

“Lela, help Leviathan secure the breach. Eden and Harmani, barricade the windows on the right side of the wall and lightly barricade the window on the left side. Nara and I will have to rest for a minute to regain stamina.” Astraka gives orders, and the other three nod as they quickly get to work. 

A few seconds later, dozens of demons begin barging down from the stairs. The fight is now more challenging as the demons are prepared, and they seem to have higher Levels on average than the previous ones. Still, none of them has higher Level than 40, and Leviathan is Level 70. It immediately blasts several water streams at multiple demons. The water pressures are enough to pierce through their bodies. The few who got through the empty doorway are either bit into half by Leviathan or stabbed by Lela’s dagger. They cannot keep this up for long, however, there are still too many of them. 

Meanwhile, Eden is barricading the left windows while Harmani is barricading the right. They intended to use the piles of bones as barricades in their initial plan. But now, with this reality in hand, they have no choice but to use corpses at barricades instead. Eden quickly comes up with an idea to make his side more attractive to the demons. He makes his corpse barricades slightly thinner than the others and consists of only human corpses, while the rest use demon corpses more. This will likely make the demons more repulsed against the other 5 windows.

[I have been prepared for crazy things after I left home, but this is just ridiculous.] Eden chuckles. [I’m on the verge of losing my sanity just to kill a demon, no wonder the bounty is so high. I’m surprised that the rest are doing so well right now.]

Fates seem to never let Eden be alone with his thoughts. Eden spots a flying demon from the gap of one of his windows. It’s approaching the window quickly and will soon topple his barricade. [No, before that, it will trigger the trap, I can’t let that happen.] Eden opens the window from the gap of the pile of corpses he intentionally left. Then, Eden waits until the demon is close enough and quickly pulls his sword out of the window. His timing is perfect, the demon cannot stop its momentum and is impaled by his sword. 

As he pulls the sword back, Eden accidentally topples the barricade he just formed, leaving the window wide open. 

“Goddammit, Eden! Put the corpses back quickly.” Lela yells as soon as she notices the barricade has fallen. 

“No wait, this is actually good for us,” Eden says while sweating uncontrollably as he closes the window and smashes the glass. “This way, Narila would assume his subordinate used this window to enter, further encouraging him to use this window if he escapes.”

The rest look at Eden for a second but don’t say anything. Only Lela remains staring at him.

“Fine, but if I die here, I’m gonna kill you Eden!” Lela finally smiles half-jokingly and shakes her head as she says so.

[Thank God for my quick thinking!] Eden mentally high-fives himself.

“Okay, now it’s my turn.” Astraka suddenly stands up.

Like a signal, Eden, Lela, and Harmani pull back over to Nara. The youngest member then begins healing them using magic. The Battle Angels also return to Nara’s side. Meanwhile, Astraka walks to the left of Leviathan and begins casting a large lightning ball in front of his staff. 

{Lightning Orb.}

At the same time, he releases the lightning ball towards the remaining demons while Leviathan releases water towards them from his mouth like a fountain. The demons are immediately electrocuted to death under their combined spells.

[Again, why do they have to shout out the Skill’s name every time?]

Finally, there are no demons left to kill, and the five of them sit down to rest while Leviathan and the Battle Angels stand guard near the door. The smell from the outside starts pouring in from the broken window, making the stench a bit less unbearable, but none of them takes off their masks. 

“And now, we wait.” Astraka speaks first and looks over to Eden. “Well done, lad! I was skeptical at first since you’re using a sword, but your skills far made up for it.”

“That asides...how did you know that Narila would not attack us before this?” Lela asks, she was skeptical that Astraka’s prediction would come true, yet here they are.

“I faced it once before,” Astraka explains calmly. “It also did not show up that time, so I concluded that when an attack comes, it will hide in its defensive position upstairs. Even though its Level is high, there are some in Ella who has higher Levels, and Narila knows that.”

“The demon is smarter than it looks.” The old man continues. “It wants us to go to the second floor. I suspected this time it would also stay behind and test the intruders using his inferior minions instead of risk joining the fight itself. But demons are impatience, arrogant, and bloodthirsty creatures, he has to come down eventually if we don’t go up.”

“So you took a risk? We could have died had he come down at the wrong time.” Lela questions him. 

“Yes, and it paid off, didn’t it?”

Lela stares at him and is about to say something, but she stops after they hear footsteps. It can only mean one thing: Astraka is right, Narila is coming.

The final showdown is about to begin.