Point-of-View: Kiyana Waller

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"It’s not too bad, your injuries aren’t fatal, I can definitely heal you two. But as for everyone else, I’m sorry...there’s nothing I can do, it’s too late for them," Remarked Serafine, as she healed Leonardo and Elise, their wounds closing up.

I looked around the area with a grimace, clenching my fists in despaired frustration...everyone else is dead. We managed to kill a Demon of Sin, but...at what cost? Leonardo and Elise are the only Category 0s left, with Neo still missing.

All the others, and Mike, are well and truly dead. That’s what it took to kill just one, lone Demon of Sin at full power. It took a total of seventeen light energy bombs to weaken him enough for Mike to kill him, sacrificing himself in the process.

There are still six more Demons on Sin, not to mention thousands upon thousands of other Demons and Devils. And speaking of which...since we just killed Belphegor, many of the other Demons and Devils in the area are returning, starting to surround us.

"Oh, crap, guess we’re not getting much of a break, are we?" Frowned Leonardo, standing back up as Serafine finished healing him.

"I’m out of here, by the way. I brought the rest of the light energy bombs that were stored here, there should be about thirty. But I’m not fighting these things anymore, sorry. If any of you want me to take you with me, now’s your chance to say so," Remarked Serafine, after putting up a barrier to keep the Demons at bay for a while.

"Not gonna lie, that’s a damn tempting offer...but I’m gonna have to decline," Leonardo shook his head in response.

"Yeah, me too," Nodded Elise in agreement, as she picked up a couple of the light energy bombs.

"Same here. Thanks, for all of your help, Serafine. Don’t worry about us," I added as I gave her a pat on the shoulder.

"Never said I was worried, don’t get the wrong idea. Alright, then, I’m out of here," She remarked, as she floated up into the air and then flew off, rapidly shrinking in the distance.

The Demons are starting to break through the barrier she put up, it’s just barely intact anymore...we need to act.

"We’re gonna have to rely pretty heavily on the light energy bombs now, it’s our only shot at coming out of this alive," I remarked grimly.

"Mhm, yeah...that sounds about right. In the end, our rank as Category 0s turned out to be pretty meaningless, huh? Assuming Neo’s dead too, there’s just two of us left. Well, you were on the verge of a promotion, so let’s call it three," Sighed Leonardo with a wry smile, as he manifested a large mass of sand above himself, right as the barrier broke and the Demons and Devils flooded in towards us from every direction, several dozens of them.

We swiftly grabbed and flung several light energy bombs out all around us, the Demons crying out in pain and alarm as the bombs exploded and poisoned their bodies, many of the Devils collapsing, some even disintegrating and turning to ash right away.

We’ve used about half the remaining bombs we had left in this place, so here’s hoping we don’t see too many more reinforcements show up. I then shot forward towards our weakened enemies, firing out sharp water projectiles enhanced with lightning and swirling with wind to augment its penetrative power.

My projectiles pierced through a couple of Demons and a Devil, the latter disintegrating as I hit her core, while the two Demons shot towards me with angered snarls.

However...they’re much slower thanks to the bombs. As one of the Demons fired a Negative Slash at me as he closed in, I narrowly evaded it by turning my body across, before leaping back as the other Demon flew up and swooped down towards me with charged up black lightning in his fist.

His fist slammed onto the ground with a sharp crackle as cracks spread out from the point of impact, before I swiftly combined my Light and Aqua Skills to form a large cloud of light energy-infused water.

This is much less effective than the bombs, but since they’re all already significantly weakened, it’ll hurt them to a minor extent, further weakening them a touch more...this should help make them panic a bit.

The cloud I formed then began raining the water infused with light energy down on the area, and as the Demons and Devils noticed and realized what was happening, they became clearly anguished and alarmed...this rain won’t be doing a whole lot of damage, but it’ll sting them quite a bit, it’s quite literally a toxic rain to them.

I then leapt off to the side as one of the Demons I was fighting came swooping down towards me with his fists balled together and swirling with wind, and as I evaded and his fist began to hit the ground, I swiftly used my Terra Skill to turn the ground to a deep pool of mud.

His fist rapidly sunk into it upon impact, before I hardened the mud and then burst out several earth spikes into his trapped arm, eliciting an alarmed, pained yell from him as he struggled to break free, while I formed a block of earth to my left as the other Demon fired a water blast at me.

As his blast struck my earth wall and bits of dirt burst out upon impact, I swiftly shot straight towards the Demon whose arm was still trapped, and right as he finally managed to break free, I closed in on him and slammed my palm onto his midsection, bursting out an earth spike and having it rapidly branch out inside his body.

The other Demon sprang up behind me right as I hit this one’s core and killed him, before I swiftly spun around and unleashed a burst of wind to knock the Demon off balance. I then used that opening to do the same thing that I did to the other Demon, branching out earth spikes inside him body.

I grimaced as I looked around, Devils and Demons surrounding me as I killed this one...this isn’t looking good, they may be weakened, but they’re still strong enough to hold their own against us. And they’ve got us severely outnumbered.

I then spotted Leonardo zipping around, evading the attacks of a bunch of Devils that were chasing him around, and as they began to close in on him, he suddenly burst out snaking masses of sand which shot straight into their mouths, forcing down their throats.

The Devils began to swell and balloon up rapidly, expanding more and more, until eventually...they burst in explosions of blood, blood-soaked sand, chunks of gore and shards of bone, and as their cores got exposed, Leonardo was quick to engulf them in sand and crush them.

I’m managing to kill a fair number of Devils since their cores are a lot easier to hit and far more fragile as well, but while I am inflicting damage on the Demons I’m fighting, I’m missing their cores. All the injuries I inflict are healing almost instantly, and they’re continuing to fight just as effectively.

And this is after we weakened them so immensely with the light energy bombs...if it wasn’t for that, we’d almost certainly all be dead right now. I then glanced in Elise’s direction as I felt the air grow colder, to see that she’d frozen several Demons and Devils and was currently smashing them to pieces.

As a Demon swooped down at her from behind, she swiftly spun around as he closed in on her and then placed her palm on his chest before he could react. And in the blink of an eye, he was frozen solid. As he plummeted to the ground, he shattered to pieces as he crashed down.

Damn it, there’s still so many of them left...most of the Devils have been eliminated, so we’ve cut their numbers down by more than half. But there’s still over twenty Demons left, and they’re all regrouping, having noticed the number of casualties.

I swiftly backed away and regrouped with the other two, grimacing as I stared up at the couple dozen or so Demons hovering up in the air, their attention firmly fixed on us.

"This is still an uphill battle for us, but...we can do this. They’re not much of a threat thanks to being weakened by our bombs...it’s just their numbers that’s the problem. If we keep taking them out, one by one, slowly but surely...we’ll gain the advantage," Remarked Leonardo encouragingly, as the Demons began to surround us while airborne.

He’s not wrong, but still...that’s gonna be a lot easier said than done...

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