All of them immediately looked up to see who it was. They have only realized the woman was a demon from her wings when she cast a spell.

Seeing what her spell was, Rye almost wanted to alter it, but he decisively dodged back, bringing Freanor and Aerindel with him.

A dark red beam launched towards the group. Ludric knew it was nothing good and swiftly cast a holy barrier just as it was about to hit them. Desmund also reacted and fortified Ludric's barrier.

Boom!!

A rocket hit the demon and exploded upon impact. Once the powerful red beam dispersed, the heroes split up and took their positions.

"Thanks, you saved us," Ludric thanked Ash.

"The credit goes to our dear Rye's teaching," Ash changed his weapon with an automatic rifle on each arm, "is she an archdemon?"

"With that caliber of power? Yes."

Although the demon was flung away, she didn't receive any damage. Looking at the heroes ready for battle she laughed.

"I can't believe Ezgaloth was defeated by these weak puny humans. No wonder he has never been able to go up from his rank," the demon cast three identical magic circles, "this is pathetic. I shall end you all here."

Three clones of the demon emerged from the circles. The four of them moved down to attack the heroes.

"Kyaa!" Nandia yelped when Desmund suddenly pushed her away with unrestrained force.

"Gh!" Desmund blocked the clone's blow with his shield only to be blasted 50 meters away.

"Desmund!" Nandia shrieked in panic.

On the other side, Lilith and Rosetta were also attacked by a clone. Lilith tried to shoot her, but it easily dodged every arrow. Rosetta managed to trap it inside a ball of earth and wanted to crush it by shrinking the ball, but the clone easily shattered it.

Rock and Marissa were having a wild goose chase with the clone targeting them. Marissa used explosive boomerangs to hit the clone, but her barrier was very tough. Even when Rock managed to land a hit, the shockwave repelled him instead.

Ludric and Ash were dealing with the original. Seeing Ludric was able to hold on by himself, Ash went to help Desmund, shooting the clone away from Desmund who was recovering.

Rye assessed the situation and decided to wait a bit more. He didn't know how strong the previous archdemon was, but Ludric and the others managed to defeat it with only the 5 of them. Now that there were extra two people, there was a chance their fighting power was equal.

Nandia hurriedly ran towards Rye and Aerindel, "What are you guys doing standing here!? Are you not going to help!?"

"That is an archdemon. We'll only get in the way," Aerindel explained solemnly. He turned to Rye, "the situation isn't good. They're deliberately separated by the demon."

The original summoned out blood tentacles to attack Ludric. Their movement was nimble and fast, attacking Ludric with their crystalized tip. Moreover, the demon didn't stop her direct attacks with her claws.

The other clones hadn't cast any spells yet except for the permanent barrier coating their body.

Noticing a clone was about to stab through Marissa, Rye timely blocked it and flew up.

He immediately attracted the clones and the original's attention. Seeing the chance, the others moved to attack, but the demon was too strong and easily blocked their attack.

The original flew up, "What's this? A priest?"

Rye fixed his glasses, "You flatter me."

"Rye, stay away!" Ludric shouted as he blocked a tentacle and slashed it down.

The demon raised her eyebrow, "I don't know who you are, but you're apparently important to the Supreme Hero. That means you should die."

A magic circle appeared above Rye. Another circle appeared below it and when the spell activated, it shifted and shot towards the demon instead.

Unprepared for the attack, she was squarely hit and crashed to the ground from the impact.

Before Rye could go and check, a clone appeared next to him and slashed her claws.

Clang!!

Rye blocked it with his metal pointer. He swatted her claws away and delivered a blow with his fist propelled by a compacted wind spell. Once it hit her abdomen, a magic circle appeared and shattered her barrier.

"Ghak!!"

Rye kicked her down towards Ash and Desmund.

The original has recovered in the meanwhile and flew back up, "What did you just do? Why did my spell target me instead!?"

"Even if you ask, you do not really think I will tell you, right?"

The demon cast another spell, "Then I will force you to tell me!"

A dark spear of compacted demonic energy shot towards Rye. It passed through Rye's magic circle and it changed course to fly vertically up instead. Not long after, it flashed straight to the demon's head with the speed of light.

The demon failed to dodge it completely and once again got struck down by her own spell.

This time, the 2 other clones attacked him at the same time. Instead of facing them, Rye flew higher up. The clones chased after him.

He flipped upside down and lunged toward the clones chasing him. A magic circle appeared between them and he dove into it. Instantly, his figure disappeared only for a hand to grip each of the clone's heads and smashed them down with bullet speed.

Boom!!

A small crate formed where Rye landed with the two clones. He already shattered their barrier before touching the ground, so they received significant damage from the fall. But even with that, the clones didn't disappear. As expected, a non-hero wouldn't be able to defeat an archdemon. Not even her clones.

He threw one to Marissa and Rock while the other to Rosetta and Lilith.

He turned to see the original was struggling to stand up with one of her wings completely got cut off, just as he aimed. She was naturally tough without any barrier, so he didn't have any barrier to shatter left.

At least she wouldn't be able to run like this.

He looked at Ludric and saw that he has finished dealing with all the tentacles. He flew back to let Ludric finish the job.

"Rye…" Aerindel was astounded.

That was the first time he watched Rye in battle this clearly. When they were at Torihigen, he didn't have the leisure to see what Rye was doing.

"With this, they'll be able to regroup after the clones are killed," Rye said as he watched Desmund slay the first clone who had her barrier shattered.

Thankfully, he has been taping his glasses since their journey has been quite intense. If not, he would've definitely lost or broken his glasses on that last attack.

Nandia was the most dumbfounded. When Rye glanced at her, she yelped in fear and took several steps back.

Rye, "?"

He turned around and saw Rock smashing a clone's head with his massive mallet, splitting her open. But since it was a clone, it, fortunately, didn't splatter any blood and directly vanished.

He looked back at the cowering Nandia, "Close your eyes if you're not good with gore."

Freanor and Aerindel, "…"

That's not what she was scared about…

Even in an injured state, the archdemon was still very powerful. She created a clone of Desmund to fight the original Desmund while she parried with Ludric and shot consecutive spells towards Ash.

But with the rest coming to help, she was quickly cornered.

Ludric cast his decisive spell and swung his blade down. He then noticed the demon sneering in triumph.

A magic circle suddenly appeared between them, right in front of Ludric's blade. Ludric didn't have time to block it and was hit in point-blank. Red and white light clashed and exploded a powerful shockwave.

Rye cast a barrier to protect them from the chaotic energy in the shockwave.

"Sir Ludric!!" Nandia's eyes widened in shock.

When the light receded, the only one left standing was the demon although she was on the brink of death. Seeing the heroes lying on the ground, she laughed triumphantly and set his eyes on Rye.

Click.

Hearing the crisp noise she froze. She whipped her head around–

Bang!!

Ash pulled his trigger and blew up the demon's head. The demon's headless body fell limply to the ground.

Ash landed down and promptly checked everyone's vitals and checked their condition.

"Sir Ludric!" Nandia rushed towards Ludric's body and was about to cast a healing spell when Rye stopped her.

"Don't. You'll make it worst," Rye turned to Ash, "how are they?"

Ash nodded, "They are only unconscious. No problem in their physical condition, but their mana is going berserk."

Rye frowned.

This was similar to what he did to Der'ete, but instead of completely stopping the mana flow, it made it go berserk instead. While light and dark could tolerate one another in a balanced or controlled state, holy and demonic completely repelled one another.