“you guys are sloppy, loud, and extremely arrogant. I feel a little hurt that the demon lord sent you after me, but maybe your forces are spread thin and humanity is close to making the final push… that would be nice.”

Adam, now face to face with Uzan and the other demons, speaks out loud. He ignores the spiteful gazes and painful moans coming from the injured demon on the ground.

“anyway, I assume the big guy is the leader of this little party? What is your name demon?”

Uzan kept silent and only stared at Adam, who stood close enough to be bombarded with magic attacks, completely relaxed.

“you aren’t going to speak? I know you are an incompetent soldier but could it be that you are too stupid to even talk?”

Anger showed on Uzan’s face. His white skin slowly took a reddish hue and his veins bulged out forming a painting of curved lines on his face.

This bastard, how dare he. Filthy animal, I am the next head of clan Ash’ai and he dares disrespect me like this?

“Shiira, get up and help me fight him. It’s dangerous to go unprepared against him if he’s armed with anti-magic weapons. You flank him, while I bombard him with—”

Uzan’s whispering was cut off by Adam’s smug words.

“there is no need to be so worried, that arrowhead was made by the only anti-magic bullet I had. It worked better than I expected since your shields are weaker than I anticipated.”

Ha… hahaha… this idiot just doomed himself, you filthy human got overconfident just because you got one surprise attack over us.

“Stand up Shiira, this fool has no more anti-magic weapons.”

“we can’t, that isn’t the objective of this mission and Bari is too injured, I need to keep applying healing magic to him or he’ll die.”

Shiira was sweating profusely while fighting her own battle against Bari’s wounds. Color was steadily returning to his face, but the finger-sized hole in his chest remained open due to the shards of anti-magic metal nullifying her healing.

“he can hold on for the few minutes we’ll need to kill him. JUST STAND UP AND HELP ME.”

Unable to resist his orders, she stands up to her feet, stopping the healing magic keeping Bari alive.

Bari’s dying breaths and pleas for help cause her to repeatedly flinch and glance back at him; however, Uzan, who is now grinning and preparing his magic, had his eyes locked on Adam’s without a single concern for his injured comrade.

“you know I’ll kill him as soon as you throw out your magic, right? He is the weakest link in the chain after all.”

Adam spoke again in an uncaring voice, completely shattering Shiira with his words.

She slowly backed away and returned to healing the dying Bari in silence.

“y-you… treacherous scum, you dare disobey me?”

Her sudden and quick surrender enrages Uzan.

“don’t you dare call me a traitor!! It is you who is disobeying the demon lord’s orders right now. We were told to bring the human unharmed and be as courteous to him as possible, so why must you even try to fight him.”

Adam made a surprised expression when he heard the last part of that sentence.

What? Bring me back unharmed and be courteous? What is happening here? Are they trying to trick me into going with them willingly?

“fine… I don’t need the help of a coward anyway, he has no more anti-magic. I’ll kill him myself.”

“what a horrible soldier; weak and undisciplined, that is a bad combination. Say, ashen-haired demon, your name was Shiira correct? I’ll make you a deal, and since I feel the stick won’t work on you seeing how scarred your face is, I’ll give you the carrot. If you remain in place while I deal with your angry friend, and answer a few questions afterward, I’ll let you live and take those anti-magic shards out of that guy.”

Before Shiira could reply to Adam’s sudden proposal, a blinding light shone out of Uzan’s hands grabbing her attention.

His magic was fully powered up and ready to fire. White hot flames danced on his right palm, while powerful, heavily pressurized wind, pulsed from his left.

His immense magic power could be felt from miles away, it suppressed any and all others in the vicinity with its intensity. Even Shiira’s healing magic was wavering because of the massive magic pressure he exuded.

“behold human, the special technique known only to those of the Ash’ai clan, parallel dual casting.”

Uzan proclaimed proudly, the heat and wind coming out of his body merged together, creating a typhoon of white flames around him.

The Ash’ai clan specialty, parallel dual casting, was the reason they became one of the top ruling clans, and were given the title of ‘strongest’. The ability to cast two spells of different attributes simultaneously made them a menace on the battlefield, having far more versatility and damage output than a regular magic user.

Shiira watched in awe and horror as Uzan fired the two spells at Adam, completely disregarding the demon lord’s orders.

the wind danced and merged with white flames before shooting out Uzan’s palms, scorching the earth on its way to Adam. Shiira closed her eyes in fear, she knew that if the human were to die she would soon follow. Going against the demon lord’s orders might be survivable for the next head of the strongest clan, but for someone with lowborn blood like her, it meant certain death.

“you think such a basic technique makes you the strongest?”

Shiira, surprised by his calm words opened her eyes, only to be met with an unharmed human standing relaxed, and a shocked Uzan who stared at the sky where his white flames danced against the setting sun.

“you throw an obvious attack while standing still with no thought or strategy behind it, and you expect it to land flawlessly? Hahahaha you demons really fell off, how long was I out for, 20 years? It seems I came back right in time to take part in humanity’s ultimate—"

“you fool, your pathetic species is gone. It’s been gone for 500 years, you lost the war and were wiped out like the cockroaches you are. I’ll admit your petty tricks are impressive, but that doesn’t mean anything. You are nothing but a relic of a weak beaten army.”

Why Uzan? Why would you try to piss him off by spouting lies?

Shiira’s eyes met Adam’s. he had no smile on his face anymore and his arm was now stretched out, almost mirroring Uzan's stance when he was preparing his magic.

“petty tricks? That was no trick, just simple a strategy. I merely suppressed the gravity along the path of your attack causing it to fly off due to its own speed and mass… doesn’t matter now… let’s end this.”

Adam’s arm was enveloped in faint blue light; Shiira and Uzan watched intently as the ground trembled in response to his power.

Suddenly Uzan, along with the ground he stood on and the trees next to him, were hurled toward Adam’s waiting palm.

“w-wait, if you hurt me the demon lo—”

Uzan struggled to finish his plead as Adam’s hand tightened around his neck.

“you don’t seem to understand, I don’t care about what your lord thinks or wants… I hate him—just like I hate all of you disgusting parasites. You crawled out of that cursed gate and annihilated the peaceful civilians of japan unprovoked… do you think I fear the demon lord? No. I will eventually kill him along with every other horned pest I find, but them...them I'll kill, you I'll hurt .”

Shiira watched in horror as Uzan was treated like a ragdoll by the human monster. He was punched, slammed, and kicked around mercilessly.

His magic was countered and redirected the moment he used it, and his combat skills were far too outmatched for him to defend himself physically in any meaningful capacity.

With his magic drained and his body nearly broken, Uzan could only beg weakly. But his pleads for mercy fell on deaf ears, the human cared not and only struck him faster and harder the more he begged.

“stop!”

The sudden coarse voice calling out from far away finally caused Adam to stop his relentless attack.

“why? Why would someone like you be here?”

Shiira looked at the intruded with a scared and pained expression.

“why have you come here master Onvyr… why have you walked to your own death?”