Neo pointed his spear at Zeth. The wooden tip held steady under the dim light of the sealed chamber.
"So you work for those high-rank demons?"
Zeth shook his head. His wooden face stayed calm, but his eyes carried a cold glint.
"No. You could say I’m hired as a mercenary by them. To make them enter this forest easily."
Neo studied him for a moment. The demon’s body looked lean, almost delicate in the way the bark-like skin smoothed over his frame, but the strength in his stance was real.
"How much did they pay you?"
Zeth grinned. The expression pulled at the soft lines of his face.
"Don’t worry. They paid me enough to even kill you and not care about the consequences."
Neo glanced past him at the rows of glass boxes. Dozens of them stood in neat lines, each one holding a frozen figure. Adventurers. Warriors. Mages. All trapped. If he could break enough of them open, he might turn this fight around.
He looked back at Zeth and forced a grin of his own.
"I always thought you were a female demon with how soft your face is. I bet the other demons in the underworld made you their main joking topic."
Zeth’s face flushed dark. The soft features twisted with sudden rage. He yanked a spear from the air—inventory skill—and charged with full force.
Neo cursed under his breath. The demon’s speed had jumped. The ground shook under each step. Neo spun and ran for the nearest cluster of glass boxes, ducking behind them while he kept talking.
"Come on, pretty boy. That all you’ve got?"
Spears whistled through the air. Zeth threw them one after another without pause. The inventory never seemed to run dry. One spear smashed into a box right beside Neo’s shoulder. Cracks spider-webbed across the thick glass.
Neo’s eyes lit up. He shifted his grip on his own spear and drove the point into the same cracked spot again and again. Wood splintered. Glass groaned. Another heavy strike, then another. The box finally shattered.
A minotaur warrior stumbled free, massive axe already in his hands. He froze for half a second, staring first at Neo, then at Zeth. Recognition hit him hard. His eyes burned red with pure hatred.
He remembered. The drug. The trap. The way this same demon had taken him down during an earlier expedition.
The minotaur roared and charged. His axe rose high and came down like a falling tree. Zeth barely got his spear up in time. The impact rang through the chamber. The two of them locked into a brutal exchange of blows—axe against spear, muscle against wood.
Neo did not waste the opening. He sprinted to the next box and hammered at it with everything he had. The glass gave way. An elf woman tumbled out, already drawing her bow. She took one look at the fight, nocked an arrow, and sent it flying toward Zeth’s exposed side.
Zeth cursed as more boxes cracked open around him. He tried to break past the minotaur to reach Neo, but the bull-headed warrior planted his feet and growled.
"You can’t advance."
Neo kept moving. Box after box. Each one he broke freed another fighter who immediately turned on the demon. He checked the system map while he worked. A familiar marker pulsed not far away.
Sakura.
Confusion hit him hard. Zeth was supposed to be busy fighting the growing crowd of freed adventurers. How had he still managed to grab her?
Neo pushed harder. He found her a short distance deeper into the chamber, already free of any box but locked in combat with a pack of evolved slimes. The creatures bubbled and stretched, trying to surround her. She moved fast, cutting them down with clean strikes, but the numbers kept her pinned.
Neo smashed the nearest empty box for good measure, then closed the distance. He pulled a hammer from his spatial storage and tossed it to her.
"Sakura. How did you end up trapped here?"
She caught the hammer, breathing hard. Sweat streaked her face.
"Teleportation trap. It yanked me in before I could react."
Neo nodded once. "Let’s play a game. Destroy as many of these glass boxes as you can. Free every adventurer you reach."
Sakura’s eyes sharpened. She turned without another word and sprinted toward the nearest sealed row, hammer already swinging.
Neo watched the battlefield for a moment. The adventurers he had freed earlier were thinning fast. Zeth moved through them like a storm, each kill feeding something dark inside him. The demon’s frame grew denser. His arms thickened. His height increased by inches with every body that dropped.
Neo called out, "Sakura, stop!"
She froze mid-swing and looked back. Neo’s mind raced. Had the whole plan just backfired?
Zeth finished the last of the original group and walked toward Neo. His body looked completely different now—taller, denser, every line of muscle carved from hardened wood. Power rolled off him in visible waves.
He smiled.
"Thank you for giving me those adventurers to kill. I forgot to tell you—my racial skill lets me absorb the karma of those I kill as strength."
Neo’s stomach dropped. Zeth threw his head back and laughed.
"Since you destroyed my plan, I’ll go all out. Let’s see how long you can hold your ground before you die."
The demon lunged. His fist slammed into Neo’s stomach with devastating force. Air exploded from Neo’s lungs. He flew backward, crashing through several glass boxes. Shards rained down around him.
Zeth did not stop. He vanished and reappeared beside Sakura. One brutal kick cracked into her ribs. The sound of breaking bone was sharp and wet. She flew sideways and hit the ground hard, coughing blood.
Neo forced himself up. Pain screamed through his body, but he ignored it. He charged, pouring everything into his strongest technique. The air around his spear heated and warped.
Zeth sensed the danger. He planted his feet and took a full defensive stance. The nuclear-force strike slammed into his crossed arms. Wood splintered. The demon skidded backward several meters, but he held.
Then he pulled his arms free and drove a fist straight into Neo’s face. Bones in Neo’s cheek and jaw shattered. He flew again.
Even while Neo was still in the air, Zeth blitzed forward and drove a kick deep into his stomach. Blood sprayed from Neo’s mouth. The demon followed with a relentless barrage—fists, elbows, knees—each hit precise and crushing. Neo lost count of the fractures. His vision swam. Ribs. Arms. Collarbone. Everything felt broken.
He hit the ground hard, tasting iron. Through the haze he managed a grin. His hand found a healing potion. He downed it in one swallow. Warmth flooded his body. Bones began to knit. He rolled backward, putting distance between them, and drank a second potion while his mind raced.
He needed a plan. Something that could actually put this monster down.
Then he noticed it.
Every time Zeth stepped farther from the pile of adventurer corpses, the force behind his blows dipped. Just a fraction, but it was there. The absorbed karma seemed tied to the bodies themselves.
Neo’s eyes narrowed. If he could get rid of those corpses, Zeth would drop back to his original strength.
But the moment Neo turned to run toward the bodies, Zeth would take his back. One solid hit from this powered-up version and Neo would die before he reached them.
His gaze snapped to Sakura. She was still down, clutching her side, but conscious.
Neo’s voice cut through the chamber.
"Sakura! Use your pyro mana. Burn as many of those corpses as you can. I’ll buy you time."
Zeth’s head jerked toward the pile of bodies. Danger lit his eyes. He spun and sprinted straight for the corpses.
Neo lunged. He caught Zeth’s arm mid-stride, twisted, and hurled the demon the opposite direction with every ounce of remaining strength. Zeth crashed into a wall of unbroken boxes.
Neo planted himself between the demon and the dead adventurers. He raised his spear.
"Fight me."
He did not bother with tricks. He poured everything into the nuclear reactor move again, driving the strike forward with lethal intent. Heat and force exploded from the spear tip, aiming to tear through Zeth’s reinforced body.
Zeth blocked it cleanly, slammed Neo to the ground with one heavy counter, and kept running toward the corpses without slowing.
Neo pushed himself up, breathing hard. He needed something better. Something that could actually stop the demon cold.
He opened the system interface, scrolled through available skills, and bought one without hesitation.
Heavy Like a Mountain.
The shortcut appeared in his mind as simply:
(( heavy ))
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter
