Chapter 212: Ash, Smoke and Nothingness

A sharp, wet click echoed from the throat of the injured werewolf Percival had burned. Its jaw unhinged abnormally far, and a localized acoustic shockwave tore through the black trees.

⸢ Devil Howl ⸥

Percival's eyes narrowed. "Fuck."

The air warped into visible, emerald-tinted rings of concussive force, forming a sonar blast that sped right at where Percival and Eristasia were standing.

Percival put himself in front of the noble, taking the brunt of the damage as the noise slammed directly into Percival's ears, vibrating violently against his soul core in an attempt to scramble his senses.

However, with his armor and Constitution, he tanked the effects of the Howl much better than Eristasia would have.

But the Midnight Werewolves weren't going to give him a chance to retaliate. Before the echoes could die down, the remaining two werewolves melted into the darkness and attacked him from both sides with perfect synchrony.

Their long, twisted fingers extended, exposing Acid Claws that dripped with a highly corrosive, boiling green miasma hissing as it fell onto the blood-red ferns below.

"Run!" he shouted.

Eristasia scrambled backwards, falling to ground but using her wind magic to lift herself back up.

Once she had created enough distance, she extended her hand with some frustration and started to attempt the vacuum.

Percival spun the Basilisk and as the weapon came to a stop beside him, the blue flames transformed into purple. He'd upgraded Soulfire to Soulscorch.

The leftmost werewolf lunged out of the smoke, its massive frame descending toward Percival's right flank with an overhand claw swipe designed to bisect him from shoulder to hip.

Percival drove his left boot into the soft dirt, pivoting his weight backward by a mere three inches. The acid-coated talons whistled past the chest plate of his Obsidian Ironwolf armor, sending the Demon skidding to the left.

Before the werewolf could recover its balance, Percival counter-slashed with the Basilisk, slicing clean through the creature's smoky forearm.

"Awwwoooooooooo!" The wolf wailed in pain. Right then, its Savagery trait triggered, physical parameters surging in response to the injury, attempting to stitch the smoky wound back together.

But Soulscorch was more powerful than Soulfire. The violet-purple flames aggressively devoured the demonic essence. The purple fire raced up the creature's arm, turning the smoking spirit form into brittle, black ash before it could even screech.

To his right, a desperate scream tore through the clearing.

The second werewolf had bypassed Percival entirely, throwing its massive weight toward Eristasia. Its jaws gaped wide, strings of corrosive saliva flying from its fangs as its claws lunged directly for her throat.

Eristasia's eyes widened. She stopped creating the vacuum and started sending blasts of wind at the Demon.

But as expected, the gale balls only passed through the Werewolf. Eristasia scrambled backward, her hands extending frantically as she tried to twist her wind magic into a defensive construct.

She managed to pull a localized current inward, but her lack of familiarity with the technique caused the atmospheric boundary to fracture, collapsing the pressure prematurely.

"Why won't this thing work?!" she cried out.

Percival suddenly appeared in a burst of ⸢ Grave Step ⸥. He raised his blade vertically, intercepting the downward claw swipe with ⸢ Radiant Guard ⸥.

Sparks of violent purple fire and hissing green acid exploded outward, splashing harmlessly against the dirt. Percival absorbed the kinetic force through his shoulders, his greaves sinking an inch into the mud, but his stance remained as unyielding as iron.

"Stop pulling the current toward your chest!" Percival barked over his shoulder, his eyes locked onto the snapping jaws of the beast. "You should know how to invert boundaries as a Wind Mage. Just create an isolated sphere around the core of the beast and suck the atmosphere out. Your mana pool is high-tier, force it to obey!"

"I am trying, you arrogant piece of dirt!" Eristasia hissed through gritted teeth, her face pale but her eyes flashing with royal indignation as the Slave Crest hummed softly against her skin.

The alpha werewolf—the one Percival had previously injured—rushed back into the fray, its speed heavily magnified by the lingering effects of its Savagery trait.

It executed a blistering three-hit combination: a rapid left claw thrust, a low horizontal sweep aimed at Percival's knees, and a follow-up lunging bite.

Percival economized his movements. He simply tiled his torso sideways, allowing the left thrust to scrape uselessly against his pauldron. As the low sweep came in, he leaped lightly, letting the claws pass beneath his boots, and spun 180 degrees in midair.

Meanwhile, Eristasia placed her focus on the last Midnight Werewolf. Her teeth were gritted tight, her vibrant red hair whipping wildly around her face as she threw her palms toward the beast.

As much as she hated to, she decided to attempt what the bastard Outworlder had said. She stopped trying to command the wind to move; instead, she focused entirely on the space surrounding the werewolf's torso.

She visualized a rigid, airtight sphere and violently wrenched the atmospheric pressure outward.

Thump.

A sickening, hollow sound echoed through the black woods as a pure vacuum bubble formed around the monster.

Eristasia's eyes widened. It was working! She focused deeper, spending more of her mana in finalizing the vacuum. The werewolf's smoky, green body instantly destabilized.

Without atmospheric pressure to hold its fluid, demonic form together, the green mass began to tear and expand uncontrollably into the void, its limbs stretching and shattering as it struggled to maintain structural integrity.

Percival was locked in his exchange with the alpha. Landing back in a tight crouch, he drove the Basilisk Blade upward with both hands, channeling the roiling purple aura of Soulscorch directly into a devastating vertical thrust.

The blade caught the alpha wolf right under its jaw, tearing through its throat and exiting the crown of its skull. Percival detonated the purple mana at the apex of the thrust.

A violent burst of violet-purple fire erupted from within the creature's spirit form, vaporizing the werewolf from the inside out until nothing but a cloud of scattered, harmless soot remained.

One werewolf left.

"I've done it!" Eristasia exclaimed suddenly.

Percival turned to her direction. She had an expression on her face that he hadn't seen before; an unbridled excitement, a fierce, triumphant grin. It almost brought a light into those villainous, noble eyes of hers.

"Look at that, you wretch! I actually did it!"

"Good," Percival said, stepping past her with slow, deliberate strides. "Keep it pinned."

He approached the thrashing, expanding mass of the trapped demon. Lifting the Basilisk Blade high above his head, the steel crackled violently with the violet flames of Soulscorch.

Percival slashed the blade, activating ⸢Bladewave⸥.

The violet flames instantly blanketed the distortion, incinerating the final werewolf into ash, smoke and nothingness.

Silence rested in the forest.

Eristasia stood still for a long moment, like she couldn't believe what had just happened. She felt enthralled, thrilled by what she had just accomplished. In fact, she was a little letdown she didn't get to kill the werewolf herself.

Percival walked over, kneeling casually to loot the Demon Cores and Demon Marks into his inventory. He stared at the residual, branding-like trails of the marks fading into his system screen.

'Demon Marks... I got some of these back in the Vampire Gate World, but I am yet to use them,' he thought to himself, his expression pensive. 'We'll see what happens here.'

Eristasia walked over to a weeping black tree trunk to rest and catch her breath. Her brilliant green eyes narrowed as she watched him calmly tuck away the loot, completely unbothered and barely breaking a sweat after killing three high-level Demons.

"Why didn't you summon your army?" she asked, her voice sharp with a mixture of fatigue and genuine frustration. "You're a summoner-type Awakener. You have two powerful Knights and an entire battalion of armored skeletons resting in your shadow. Why choose to risk fighting them with a sword on your own?"

Percival straightened up. "I don't send my army into a battle I can handle easily on my own," he said flatly, turning his cold blue eyes toward her.

She blinked at him. "Is that your answer, oh mysterious one?"

"It is." He glanced toward the darkened trees, the ruins, the path beyond. "Besides, this was just the welcome party. I'm not even sure this is the first Encounter Zone."

Eristasia frowned. "Then what was it?"

Percival tightened his hand on the hilt of the Basilisk and swiped the blade to his left, shedding demon blood sway. The silver edge caught what little light there was and flashed coldly through the forest.

He returned the sword into the coffin on his back, then he shrugged, almost dismissively.

"This Gate World sent them to test our power," he said. "And I did the same."

Eristasia stared at him.

Percival gave her a flat look, then turned on his heel and started walking deeper into the dark. "Come on. Let's go."

After a second, she hurried after him.