Gonna Be a Demon King!
Chapter 64: Squad Wipe

Chapter 64: Squad Wipe

Xaren had just beheaded the sixth elf he had come across when he sensed five presences rapidly approaching his location.

He didn’t put the corpse in his pouch like he did the last three and left it where it lay. He quickly put some distance between himself and the scene, running behind one of the many boulders that had formed when the bridges the demons had made with earth magic were destroyed.

Suppressing his presence and energy, he carefully peeked out from behind the rock, spotting faint silhouettes of humanoid figures emerging through the thick fog.

They were about thirty meters away, a distance where his superhuman vision allowed him to make out their figures but not see their full appearances clearly.

The group stopped around the corpses he had left behind, standing there for a few moments before one of them pointed in a certain direction.

Xaren noticed that the one who pointed was holding a staff, while among the remaining four, two also raised staves, while the other two wielded melee weapons—one unsheathing a sword and the other lifting what seemed to be a spear.

’No...that’s an axe head, isn’t it? A halberd, perhaps?’

Xaren squinted slightly, trying to make out its shape while making sure not to stare too directly at the wielder in case they were sensitive to gazes.

He then pulled back behind the boulder, thinking about the formation they had taken after the staff-wielder had pointed. The melee weapon users had moved to the front while those wielding staves remained in the back.

’That’s the Standard Warrior-Mage squad formation.’

From the way this group moved, they didn’t seem injured—unlike everyone else whom Xaren had come across so far.

’So they didn’t fall into the ravine? Or are they just tough enough to withstand the damage?

I don’t sense that level of power from them. If they were that strong, they would have noticed me the moment they reached the corpse, but they haven’t.’

Peeking out from the other side of the boulder, he saw them maintaining their formation as they slowly advanced toward his position, their stances guarded and eyes carefully scanning the terrain.

He pulled back again, tightening his grip on his sword as he sensed them drawing closer.

The moment they crossed half the initial distance between them, Xaren activated his gravity magic on the halberd wielder’s weapon, silently increasing its weight.

The man staggered as his weapon’s weight suddenly increased beyond what he could wield effectively. Just as the others turned to him in confusion, a black fireball shot toward them.

The mage in the centre reacted the fastest, conjuring a spear of flames.

"Flame Piercer!"

The fiery spear shot forward, piercing the centre of the fireball and causing it to explode, but the blast threw their formation into disarray.

The sword wielder immediately dashed in the direction the fireball had come from, but just before he could activate a skill to slash through the boulder Xaren was behind, the grey demon burst out from the right side with blinding speed.

His lightened body allowed him to easily dash into the swordsman’s range, striking his open torso and sending him sprawling.

As Xaren landed the blow, a wall of stone rose beneath his feet.

"Stone Pillar: Rise!"

Without hesitation, Xaren quadrupled his weight while simultaneously generating a repulsion force under his feet, shattering the spell before it could even finish forming.

Taking his multitasking even further, Xaren lifted every rock, stone, and weapon fragment scattered across the ground and launched them toward the two mages preparing to cast their spells.

"Arc-!"

"Thund-damn!"

The storm of debris forced them to cut off their chants and raise barriers instead. At the same time, Xaren used the repulsion force from crushing the earth spell to propel himself toward the halberd wielder.

Drawing a second blade from his magic pouch, he hurled it straight at the man’s head.

The halberd user was forced to dodge left instead of reclaiming his weapon, and in that moment, Xaren seized control of the abandoned halberd, lifting it with ease and swinging it at him.

"Gale Rend!"

A violent gust tore towards Xaren’s position as the wind mage retaliated, while the fire mage followed up.

"Flame Javelin!"

Xaren jumped back, dodging the wind blades and fire spears that crashed into the ground where he had stood. Without wasting a second, he retaliated with a Grand Fireball.

While his left hand weaved the spell circle for the fireball, his right pointed his blade at the boulder he had hidden behind earlier. He lifted the massive rock with his gravity magic and sent it flying toward the swordsman who had recovered and was trying to attack him from behind.

Just as the man aborted his attack and stepped back to evade the boulder, Xaren lightened both his body and the halberd in his left hand, then sprang into the air, vaulting over the boulder and the swordsman before landing right behind him.

Faster than the swordsman could turn, Xaren brought the halberd in his left hand down on his head, splitting his skull and ending him instantly.

The moment the swordsman died, a vortex of wind and flames swirled formed behind Xaren, but he simply turned the halberd—still impaling the corpse—toward it. The vortex instantly sucked the body off, freeing the weapon, which Xaren then tossed to his right hand.

As soon as his Runeblade hit the ground, Xaren pivoted ninety degrees, pulling his arm back before hurling the halberd like a javelin.

It tore through the magic circle, pierced through the shield, and impaled the chest of the mage trying to attack him with earthen spears from the side.

The man coughed up blood as the weapon carved a hole through his torso, and he collapsed lifelessly.

By the time his body hit the ground, Xaren had already grabbed his Runeblade and rolled to the left, dodging a fire spell that obliterated the boulder behind him.

Destroying the boulder proved to be a mistake, as the fragments that should have scattered like shrapnel instead froze mid-air—then suddenly launched toward the remaining three like a barrage of projectiles.

The weaponless halberd wielder had no choice but to coat his body with magic power and cross his arms in defence.

"Tch! Rock Skin Reinforcement!"

Even so, the projectiles moving at around 100 meters per second struck him with the force of cannonballs, sending him stumbling.

Xaren followed up by hurling spears of black fire at the two remaining mages, then abruptly tossed two Gravity Spheres into the mix.

"W-What?!"

"—!"

The sudden appearance of the volatile orbs threw them off guard. Instinctively, realizing the danger, they instantly abandoned their magic shields in favour of dodging.

The fire mage, however, was too slow.

The Gravity Spheres struck his chest, collapsing inward and crushing his ribcage. The man let out a strangled gasp before his body caved in, leaving him motionless on the ground.

With only the halberd wielder and wind mage remaining, Xaren slashed toward the former, his flaming blade cutting through the air in deadly arcs. The halberd user, lacking ranged attacks, could only defend, desperately swinging his fists and stepping back.

The wind mage, watching his last remaining ally struggle, made a split-second decision.

"Damn it! I’m not dying here!"

He turned and bolted, abandoning the fight.

Xaren closed the distance and finished off the halberd wielder with a stab to the chest. Without pause, he extended his sword arm toward the fleeing wind mage and used Gravitational Attraction.

"What is-!? No!!"

The mage screamed as his body jerked backwards against his will. He flailed, struggling to run forward, but the opposing forces kept him trapped in place.

Desperation overtook him as he turned around, firing everything he had at Xaren.

"Wind Cutter! Cyclone Sphere! Die, you demon!"

Xaren calmly sidestepped every orb and spear of compressed wind, closing in rapidly. Before the wind mage could utter another spell, Xaren’s blade swept through his neck, severing his head.

[Level Up]

As the corpse dropped, Xaren dismissed the level-up notification and focused on the clothes of his victims.

’The mages are from the Mage Tower, and the other two were Zlego Army soldiers... Just as I thought, they’ve already started sending squads to wipe o—!’

He abruptly cut off his thoughts, his gaze snapping to the side. Without hesitation, he sprinted toward the river at the centre of the ravine, diving into the rushing water just as a voice rang out in the distance.

"It came from around here!!"

At the last second before he submerged, Xaren flicked his fingers, sending loose rocks flying into the river, their splashes masking his own entry.

Holding his breath beneath the water, he mulled over the situation and concluded the wind mage’s final screams must have drawn this new group to the area.

Not long after, another squad of five mages arrived at the scene of the slaughter, their eyes narrowing at the beheaded and impaled corpses littering the ground.

One of them spotted the corpse lying farther away from the others and muttered, "That must be the one we heard earlier."

The group quickly fanned out, forming a loose circle as they warily scanned the surroundings, with one activating detection and tracking spells.

"I’ve got traces," one of the mages called out.

"Some head west, but these ones... they lead to the—!"

She abruptly cut herself off, lowering her voice to a whisper.

"They lead to the river."

"...those splashes that we heard..."

They all exchanged knowing glances before nodding. Infusing magic power into their staves, they cautiously advanced toward the water.

The one with detection magic activated it again, scanning the area for any presence, but found nothing.

Another raised a hand, casting a gust of wind that dispersed the lingering fog within their circle, clearing their vision as they moved.