Chương 80: A Fierce Battle

Ch 80 - A Fierce Battle The Baba Yaga hut lurched through the trees, leaving a trail of splintered trunks in its wake. Within minutes, the camp appeared ahead, and cries of shock and confusion erupted from all sides.

"What the hell!"

"Is that the boss?"

"How is it here?!" Reika stopped above the camp, then swerved at the last moment as the Baba Yaga hut hurtled toward her. It came down hard over the camp, but instead of flattening everything beneath it, a translucent barrier caught the impact, spiderwebs of cracks spreading across its surface.

"Shit! We're under assault!" a man shouted, drawing his gun and firing at Reika as she circled overhead. She twisted out of the way and answered with a lightning strike that weakened the ward further. The other enemies joined in, hurling dark flames at the hut. The barrage barely seemed to faze it, but the repeated strikes clearly irritated the creature. It slammed its weight against the shield, creating more fractures splitting across the surface. KRAAASH! The barrier gave way.

Panic swept through the camp as the hut slammed into the ground, its impact throwing the kidnappers off their feet.

"Leshy! Attack!" a woman in a dark red robe commanded. The Leshy, which had been standing as still as a statue, stirred. Tangled roots exploded from the earth, winding around the hut's legs and anchoring it in place. The monster thrashed against its bonds, and the enemies unloaded on it. But Reika had already dropped low, taking down two of them with lightning strikes. Evan moved as well. Cloaked in invisibility, he stabbed one of the men straight through the chest from behind.

The man coughed up blood and struggled to turn his head. His eyes met Evan's, filled with a mixture of indignation and fear. Evan stared back without a word, then drove his sword deeper before dragging it upward and slicing through the man's shoulder. The man collapsed to the ground. Evan turned his attention to the tent, barely catching sight of Song-hee slipping inside. That was where they suspected the kidnapped children were being held. Hopefully, she could get Hiroto back on his feet soon.

Behind him, the Baba Yaga hut continued to thrash against the ever-growing roots. Then the door creaked open, and a creature emerged from within. She was humanoid, with long, matted white hair and a tattered red cloak draped over a filthy robe. Her downturned nose and large, beady eyes gave her an unmistakably hag-like appearance. She gripped a long, crooked broom in one hand, pointing its bristles toward the Leshy like a sword.

A spectral jaw materialized and chomped at the Leshy, but the creature dissolved into smoke just as the teeth were about to close, then reformed a short distance away. The Leshy bellowed and pointed at the Baba Yaga. Crows flew from the forest and swarmed her, pecking relentlessly. She swung her broom to fend them off, but they kept coming. Evan had no time to watch more. A cloaked woman raised her pistol and opened fire, forcing him to dive and weave between the shots as they tracked his movements.

"I know who you are," the woman said.

"That F-rank who challenged the daughter of the Thunder Wolf. I'm surprised you're still alive. I thought she'd rip your throat out after that humiliation."

"Is this really the time for small talk?" Evan asked.

"If you're willing to chat, how about you tell me why your group decided kidnapping rich kids was a good idea? Oh, and you might as well confess to that Rift Outbreak too. That was your doing, wasn't it?"

"Sharp kid, but that brain of yours won't be enough to get you out of this situation!" A sudden snap sounded behind him. Evan threw himself aside as a demonic dog lunged past, its jaws closing on empty air. Another joined it, and the two beasts kept him on the move, harrying him from both sides while the woman hammered him from a distance with dark flames. Shit, where's Reika when you need her?

Evan glanced around amid the chaos and spotted her farther off, surrounded by the remaining kidnappers, several of whom had their own beasts at their heels. They were too outnumbered. What was Song-hee doing? If Hiroto were here, things would've been much easier. Yet when Evan glanced toward the tent, there was still no sign of her coming out. Evan dropped low, dodging a demonic dog's claws, then pulled out a magic crystal and sent ice crashing into the beast's flank.

He ducked under the second dog's attack, drove a kick into its ribs, and sprinted straight for the cloaked woman. She fired. He zigzagged between the hail of bullets. When a stream of fire came surging toward him, he raised his bracelet's shield and charged straight into it. The woman stumbled back as he emerged from the flames without a scratch, clearly not expecting him to break past the attack. She twisted away from his sword, her hands wreathed in dark fire, and met him with a flurry of strikes.

He evaded her punches and ducked sideways, circling toward her back as he tried to land a stab. The dogs caught up, jaws snapping at his heels, and he had to go on the defensive. Behind him, the clash between the Baba Yaga and the Leshy intensified. The Baba Yaga summoned a rain of bone spears, hurling them down from the sky. The forest spirit answered by wrenching more roots from the earth, their thick tendrils twisting across the battlefield and converging on the center.

The ground buckled beneath the competing forces, splitting apart and throwing several practitioners facing Reika off balance. Reika shot into the air as lightning gathered around her palm. She thrust her hand toward the ground, sending a bolt crashing down. Thunder boomed across the battlefield as the strike slammed into the earth, knocking four enemies off their feet.

"You bastard!" the remaining survivors shouted, guns blazing. Reika deflected the shots with lightning, but a stream of dark flames came from behind, and she veered aside just in time. Meanwhile, Evan pulled out more magic crystals and summoned a cyclone that lifted the hounds off their feet. Feeding fire into the swirling winds, he transformed them into a blazing vortex and sent it hurtling toward the cloaked woman.

She struggled against the pull but managed to dodge, only to find Evan already within striking distance. He swung his sword and drove the blade into her neck. The woman coughed up blood, her face twisting into a furious glare before a bloody grin spread across her lips. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. Even so, Evan could feel demonic energy surging from her. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Veyrak." Evan caught the Infernal word forming on her lips. His expression went cold. SPLORCH! She burst apart in a spray of blood and gore, splattering Evan's face in the process. He had no time to worry about such a trivial inconvenience, however, because the demonic energy stirred and flew straight toward the Leshy. And it wasn't just the cloaked woman. The enemies Reika had been fighting suffered the same fate, their bodies rupturing as their power converged on the Leshy along with hers.

The combined energy enveloped the creature in an eerie yet powerful aura, causing its wooden body to twist and contort as it rapidly expanded and grew.

"We need to go!" Evan shouted to Reika before dashing toward the tent where Song-hee had gone. Inside, he found her crouching among the kidnapped teenagers, all of whom were unconscious. Hiroto was among them, his eyes firmly shut.

"He's not waking up!" Song-hee said.

"I gave him the potion like you said, but it isn't working!"

"Damn it," Evan cursed as he searched the tent, then spotted a bag sitting on the table. The same portal device Isaac had been using protruded from it. He grabbed it and let out a sigh of relief. At least they had a way out of this hellhole. But as he looked at the unconscious teenagers scattered around the tent, another problem became apparent.

"He's still not awake?" Reika asked as she entered.

"No. The good news is that we've got our exit ticket." He raised the portal device.

"The bad news is that we've got quite a bit of luggage to haul." If Hiroto were awake, they could just dump everyone into his Pocket Refuge, but he was completely out cold. Reika's jaw tightened before she crouched down, grabbed a bundle of rope from the tent, and tied the unconscious teenagers together. She seized the end and gave it a firm tug.

"Let's go."

"You're going to drag all of them?" Evan asked, staring at the ridiculous sight of a young woman towing a line of unconscious teenagers behind her.

"We can't leave them behind, can we? Let's not forget, someone needs to carry Song-hee, and I doubt an F-rank like you can haul all these guys," Reika replied.

"... Okay." Reika took to the sky once more, but she couldn't fly far while towing so much weight. The line of bodies dragged her downward with every beat, forcing her to boost herself back up again and again. It would have been a hilarious sight if they weren't being chased by murderous monsters and running for their lives. Evan, for his part, carried Song-hee on his back, not trusting her clumsy self not to trip while they fled. Not far away, the Leshy clashed with the Baba Yaga in an increasingly brutal battle.

The Baba Yaga summoned bones that punched through the thick roots covering the ground and shot straight toward the Leshy. Above them, she conjured a black cauldron from thin air, tipped it over, and poured a dark liquid that killed anything it touched. Yet despite the devastating attacks, the Leshy refused to retreat. It roared, and from the surrounding forest, more flocks of crows emerged, accompanied by hounds that lunged at the Baba Yaga's hut and snapped at its feet.

The creatures seemed unaffected by the frothing dark liquid that splashed across them, while the crows flew straight toward the Baba Yaga. She swung her broom, whipping waves of bones through the air that tore through the crows, yet more swarmed her without end. The Leshy leaped onto the hut and slammed its hand down, and more roots came from the ground to coil around the structure.

They climbed higher and tightened their grip, squeezing the hut until it creaked and groaned, its wooden frame splintering as the tendrils crushed both wood and flesh. A magic circle blazed to life above the Baba Yaga as she hopped in the air angrily. Before she could cast, the Leshy lunged and seized her, sinking its teeth into her neck. She shrieked and clawed at its wooden face, but the creature held firm. Her struggles weakened until her cries faded into wet gurgles, and her body went limp in its grasp.

Her death brought Evan no comfort. He could already feel that heavy attention shifting toward them. He poured every ounce of mana, but the village still seemed maddeningly far. Reika hurled bolt after bolt of lightning at their pursuers, yet the monsters kept coming no matter how many she struck down. A shout rang out from the shadows, followed by a group of stocky old men emerging from the darkness. Evan recognized the Domovoy who had led them earlier at the front.

He lifted his cane and shouted something in an unfamiliar language, prompting the other Domovoy to do the same. Together, they summoned several stone golems from the earth, and the constructs charged toward the monsters pursuing them. Evan's mouth fell open at the sight. Why were they fighting the Leshy? It couldn't be to defend him and Reika. Revenge seemed far more likely. The ghosts who were supposed to reside in that village had likely been taken and sacrificed to fuel the practitioners' ritual.

Perhaps the Domovoy were furious that those under their protection had been stolen from them. If this was their vengeance, it wouldn't last long. Evan couldn't tell them to stop, even if he wanted to. All he could do was keep running while the Domovoy faced the oncoming swarm of monsters. The sound of stone crashing against flesh and furious screams echoed behind him, but those cries carried rage rather than fear. Reika and Evan pressed forward until they reached the area where they had arrived.

They were only a few dozen meters away when a shadow flashed above them. Twang! The barrier from Evan's bracelet activated, enveloping their group just as the Leshy brought its foot down. The monster recoiled and landed nearby with a growl.

"Shit," Evan gulped as he faced the terrifying monster, its oppressive aura pressing down on him. Damn it. They had been so close. If they'd been even a little faster, they could've already escaped this hellhole. Now they were trapped inside the barrier, and there was no way the Leshy would let them leave. And with Reika carrying the unconscious teens, she couldn't possibly fight at full strength. Several plans flashed through Evan's mind, but only one seemed viable.

"Reika, take this." He dropped Song-hee and shoved the device into Reika's hand.

"Remember where we entered? Shoot this at that spot to create the exit, then throw it back to me."

"What about you?"

"I'll try to distract this thing for a second."

"You're crazy," Song-hee said.

"You're F-rank!" Reika snapped.

"Stop arguing!" Evan shouted. His bracelet's barrier still held, but he didn't dare test its limits. As if sensing his thoughts, the Leshy sent waves of roots crashing against it, only to recoil harmlessly. Evan was grateful the barrier also protected their feet. Otherwise, they might have already ended up like the corpse they'd found in the village.

"I swear I'm not planning to die, but it's not like we can switch roles. I've got to stay here and maintain the barrier while you're fast enough to activate the device and get everyone out. Even if I wanted you to distract it instead, I can't haul this many people. Like you said, I'm F-rank."

"You'll die!"

"I won't. I've got an ace up my sleeve," Evan said.

"Song-hee, climb onto Reika. Reika, go as fast as you can and don't look back. Just throw the device to me once you've opened the exit. I'll hold them off, then join you." Reika studied him for a moment, then relented with a shake of her head.

"I really can't understand you, Whitfield, but I trust you're not an idiot. Come on, Song-hee. Climb up, or do you want me to tie you up with the others?" Song-hee clambered onto Reika's back, all the while shooting uncertain glances at Evan.

"I'll use up all my magic crystals and push them back. That should give you an opening," Evan said.

"Got it," Reika replied, tightening her hold on the rope and bracing herself. Evan pulled out every magic crystal he carried and gripped several mana stones, drawing on them to replenish his dwindling reserves. He activated the crystals all at once. A barrage of magic tore across the area outside the barrier, staggering the Leshy and its monsters. Reika shot toward the Rift's entrance location. She activated the device, tearing a portal open.

At the last possible instant, she threw it back to Evan before stepping through. The Leshy roared and lunged after him. Evan ripped the dark crystal embedded within the portal device free and crushed it in his hand. [Source of Demonic Energy Essence obtained] [You have gained 20 Demonic Energy Essence] [Consuming 100 Demonic Energy Essence] [Activating That's Not How This Works skill]