Stray Soul

“Krone?” I called out to the Shaman, still not being 100% sure if Krone had summoned a demon or not.

But if he did, hopefully the deity would be able to deal with it, as I had little to no hopes of defeating a demon in a fair fight.

Not that a fight with a demon could ever be fair.

“Gram.” Krone then said and continued to stare at me.

...

Then I looked at the deity who was standing at the edge of my eye, I couldn’t see it doing anything so... maybe there was no demon after all?

“Well... here goes nothing I guess.” I whispered under my breath, and then tightened my grip on my mace and pointed it at Krone.

“Krone. I am here to challenge you to a battle of leadership as is my right as the strongest goblin of the tribe! Accept my challenge and ready yourself for a battle or give up your position to me!” I told him, and for a moment everyone was silent.

And then, he started giggling.

“Hehehehe” Then his giggles turned into laughter, and after he stopped laughing, and stared at me, I could see him becoming angry, no matter how much he tried to hide it.

“Gram. I had thought that we’d stand together till the day of our death, but what do I see here?! When you left with my men, I thought you’d see your mistakes before soon, and I had hoped that you’d return back to me, back to your tribe as the honourable warrior you always were!

But what do I see here!? You’ve come to the temple of the gods, bringing with you a false god! Tsch!” Krone spit out in anger to me, and started massaging his temples, and after a few more seconds, he let off a short sigh and looked me in the eyes.

“Gram, if you were anyone else, you’d be dead right now, you know it right?” He then asked me.

“Being dead part is... open for discussion. After all, I came here to challenge you, not the other way around.”

“Hmpf. You have seemed to have forgotten my strength, make no mistake. Even without any undead defending me, I am more than skilled enough to crush you with ease. But that’s not what I want to say Gram, that’s not it.”

“What is it then? Other than boasting your strength in front of my tribesmen that is.”

“Gram.” Krone started and pointed an open hand towards me.

“I am giving you one last chance to redeem yourself, leave your misguided ways, and help me defeat the monster that you’ve brought here.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Well, you’ll see first hand how heathens are dealt with.”

“Hmm... compelling... but I refuse.” I said bluntly.

“Haaa...” He sighed.

“It is sad that you’ve chosen this path, but your path is yours, and mine is mine. And my path will sadly lead to your death.” He said, a hint of sadness in his voice, and pointed an open hand towards a goblin who was holding something obscured by a dark cloth, and removing the cloth, Krone revealed a staff adorned with bones and copper inscriptions.

I didn’t know what the exact inscriptions meant, but I had seen the staff before, and seen Krone use it.

It was an heirloom from his master, a priest directly under the Dark Lord... and something he vowed never to use even if it was a matter of life and death.

“...Krone, tell me before we fight. Did you summon a demon?”

“Yes, I have” Krone then said.

“Haaa... what did it cost?”

“Nothing much, only a few drops of blood from a true dragon.”

“Bastard, don’t you know how many of my ancestors died for those drops?”

“Of course I did, because you never seem the shut up about the valour of your ancestors, but what was I supposed to do? Sacrifice my tribesmen? Ha! Never!”

“You could’ve always opened your eyes and seen that the path you are on—is not the correct one.”

“And how could the path of the gods not be the correct one?”

“... Of course you’d say that... I’d say having a demon on your side is against the spirit of a battle of leadership, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t care how many of you come at me, with the blessing of the gods you shall not win!

Now, stop standing there like a fish or this battle shall end before it even starts, en garde!” Krone shouted, and pointed his staff at me, and I saw the inscriptions on it glow softly for a moment before a ball of darkness started emerging on the tip of the staff, and with haste, I started dashing towards Krone.

I knew that I couldn’t stop whatever spell he was casting right now, but I should be able to stop whatever he casts after this.

*swoosh~*

But contrary to my expectations, instead of a spell flying towards me, a sword flew past me and hit Krone’s staff.

“NOO! MY MASTER’S STAFF!!!”

“See! I fucking told you I couldn’t throw it from this far away!” I said Rifu-san with a bit of anger in my voice as she had been trying to get me to throw the sceptre of the forest at the Shaman, who apparently had a demon inside of it?

I didn’t really understand what was going on, but the staff should’ve been able to banish the demon using Rifu’s divine energies, or at least injure it enough that it would have to escape back to the divine realm.

“Urgh! Just rush at it and stab it with the sceptre. Even a moment of contact with the Shaman will give me enough time to fill it with some divine energy... what are you waiting for! RUN!” Not waiting for her to tell it again, I started dashing towards the shaman with all 3 of my bodies, ignoring the gathering of goblins around us as they were already retreating away from the village centre.

Then with a simple shout, the horde of undead near the shaman started charging towards me, except the shaman’s steed of course.

But simple undead would be nothing more than a slight speed bump, and I’d reach the shaman soon.

Though if I were to break through these undead... one body would have to be left behind... well, nice knowing you turtle! See you later!

Ordering my turtle body to deal with the undead menace, my lizard body and bear body crashed through the masses of undead, and rushed towards the shaman, but suddenly a goblin appeared through my lizard body, and I had to come to a hard stop lest I turned the poor dude to paste.

Then due to my sudden stop I tumbled down to the ground, and the random goblin, who I recognized to be the spear dude, immediately tried to stab my head again, but of course I didn’t let it be and dodged his attack and grabbed him with some of claws and immediately started cocooning him in branches so he would not be able to escape easily.

By the time I was done with the poor fella, my bear body had reached the shaman... and had been absolutely owned by the shaman who had managed to break quite a few bones in the bear and had encased it in a stone sarcophagus.

And after being freed from the distractions, the shaman had started chanting something and... that went well for him the last time, didn’t it?

But as I started running at the shaman once again, he hit the ground with the bottom of his staff and a wave of mana passed by me, and after the ground shook and sunk by a few meters, and as it sunk so quickly, and over such a wide area, I fell down once again.

Getting up, I tried to quickly rush towards the shaman, but instead of air rushing past me as I ran, a stone bullet bigger than any other I had seen so far came towards my head, and I barely dodged it.

Not the second one though, and as it hit me, my broken lower jaw gave away and flew off, and into a hut.

“...I’ll get that later.” I muttered to myself, as the shaman was not giving me a easy time, and his spells had gotten stronger and were more easily able to penetrate my branches and flesh, and damage my bones, which were the only things I really cared about.

Then I quickly dashed behind a hut, and as the walls of the hut gave me a few moments of solace, I focused on my turtle body, and seeing that there weren’t that many undead left, I assumed that the goblins could beat the remaining undead and made my turtle body just ignore the undead and run towards the shaman.

And after the turtle got close to us, I could just start a battle of attrition, as the shaman didn’t have enough time to somehow kill my both bodies and then defend against the group of very angry goblins that were currently killing all of his undead.

Though I’d have to be careful of whatever spell he used last time, it wasn’t much of a concern right now.

“...Wait, where are the sounds of stone bullets hitting the hut?” I thought for a moment and, realizing the shaman was casting some sort of spell against the turtle, I immediately got out of my hiding space behind the hut and... immediately got hit by a stone bullet.

It was true that the shaman was casting a spell against the turtle using his staff, but he was also casting another spell using a free hand.

Rifu-san had told me that people could learn to cast multiple spells at the same time, but I had hoped that the shaman was not that talented of an individual, but it appears that I was wrong.

Then I saw the shaman getting off of his steed, and using his free hand to touch it and, seeing it as the moment to fuck up with whatever spell he was casting, I left my hiding place and started running towards the shaman and jumped when I reached the edge of the sunken lands, but as I was in the air, jumping, a black mass flew by me and hit my turtle body, and as soon as it made contact with my turtle body, my lesser soul and my mana cloud network got pushed back into the rear end of the body, while I felt the presence of a new soul appear in the body and start to rapidly expand its mana cloud, and start gaining control of the front half of the body.

I of course immediately started fighting back with my lesser soul, but it did not have that much mana, so it was going to take a hot minute for my lesser soul to push back the new occupier, but it was no problem!

As I closed near to the shaman, he turned towards me with an almost bored look, and opened his mouth and a black mist started pouring out of his mouth, but it was not some weird spell as it being an absolute darkness that seemed to break reality helped me understand that it was the demon.

And as I came close to the shaman, the mist coalesced into a hand and an arm, and grabbed me by throat and lifted me up.

And as I was being lifted up, more and more of that weird black mist was being released from the shaman’s mouth, and more of the demon’s body was appearing.

Realizing this was my moment to act before things got worst, my chest flew open and the sceptre of the forest flew out of it, and through the demon’s arm.

And the moment the sceptre left my chest and touched the demon’s arm, the demon flew me to the side, and after hitting a hut, I crushed through another till I eventually hit the wall of the third one and stopped.

Staring at the fully materialized demon, I saw a being that was... very demon like.

It was around 180-190 centimetres tall, and it had a long tail with a spade at the end, wings that were... while not textured whatsoever, I choose to believe looked like a bat’s wings, and 2 horns that were pointed up, jutting straight out of its forehead.

And then I saw the demon touching a pulsating vibrant green spot on its body of darkness.

The sceptre had flown straight through its forehand, and the vibrant green divine energy of Rifu-san was spreading like poison on the body of the demon.

Turning its head towards me the demon... flipped me off???