{Chapter: 61: The Bitter Battle}
He turned slightly toward Richard, keeping his voice low but his tone razor-sharp. "Is there a way out of here? My power is too heavily restricted right now. I need time to restore even a fraction of my true might. If I stay and fight, we both die."
Richard blinked, caught off guard by the demon's unexpectedly pragmatic tone. His understanding of demons was based on fearsome legends—uncontrollable beings that revealed in chaos and bloodshed, not ones who asked permission to flee.
"You… want to run?" he asked hesitantly.
Carla narrowed his eyes. "I want to survive. There's a difference. Now answer me."
Richard swallowed, then quickly nodded. "Yes! Yes, there's a passage behind the altar. It was built as an escape tunnel, leads straight to the surface."
Carla's lips curled into something resembling approval. "Good. Go. Take your men and flee through it. I'll follow in a moment."
Richard hesitated again. "You'll follow?"
"Unless you'd prefer I make you go first… by throwing you," Carla said coldly.
That seemed to do the trick. Richard gave the signal to retreat, and his cultists—true believers, twisted and malformed by their faith in the abyss—began fleeing toward the hidden tunnel with muffled prayers and anxious glances.
Carla turned back to the advancing soldiers, eyes glowing faintly with crimson light.
No demon should ever flee with his back turned.
Fine. If I can't eat, I'll at least kill you and eat it.
He raised one hand lazily, then flicked his fingers as though dismissing a fly.
The air before him trembled.
Then it screamed.
A slicing wind surged forward, invisible and fast as lightning, carving a straight line through the battlefield. It was a [Wind Blade], a spell that highly condensed airflow and turns into an invisible wind blade that could slice through iron. The soldiers in the front rank raised their shields instinctively, but it was no use.
Metal shrieked. Sparks erupted like fireworks.
The enchanted wind struck the shields, leaving deep gashes before punching through. One unfortunate soldier was hurled backward through the air, slamming into his comrades like a cannonball. Blood sprayed in arcs as the wind blade continued its deadly path, cutting through armor, flesh, and bone like paper.
A young knight barely had time to scream before his torso was cleaved cleanly in two. Another fell to his knees, gurgling as blood bubbled from his ruined chest.
The human body is like a piece of tissue paper in front of this force that can cut through metal.
Even a powerful knight who could tear a tiger and a leopard apart with his bare hands would be completely unable to resist with his body.
Carla exhaled calmly, his expression bored.
"How weak," he muttered, shaking his head. "You can't even survive the gentlest push of my will."
To Carla, these humans were insects fumbling in the dark, trying to fight forces far beyond their comprehension. The fact they had been able to corner him at all was more a reflection of the world's will and atmosphere than their own merit.
He glanced at the high priests again, their chants growing louder and more synchronized. Holy energy radiated from them like a second sun, oppressive and searing.
He has always regarded the humans in this world who can only use magic in the most rudimentary way as primitive people.
The energy gained from breathing in some air in the bottomless abyss could be equivalent to half a day's meditation here.
"If not for the souls," he muttered under his breath, "I wouldn't even bother with this rotting plane. What is it they call this place again…? Ah yes, the mortal realm."
However, just before Carla could reach out and claim the souls of the freshly deceased—an act as instinctive to him as breathing—his gaze was suddenly drawn to something odd. Something he previously overlooked. The souls, which should have drifted toward him like moths to flame, were being drawn elsewhere.
He narrowed his glowing crimson eyes and focused on the summoning circle beneath his feet. A low, guttural growl vibrated in his throat. The sigils were no longer the same as the ones he had carved into reality during the initial descent. Their shapes shimmered with unfamiliar complexity, and a dark, foreign energy pulsed through them.
The ground, now a vessel of betrayal, gleamed faintly as soul after soul was funneled away into the ether. Somewhere—someone—was stealing from him.
His lips peeled back in a snarl, sharp fangs flashing with fury. "A bunch of imbeciles!" he roared, his voice echoing through the stone chamber like thunder. "They didn't even realize the circle had been altered!"
As rage overtook him, his magic surged outward like a tidal wave. The temperature dropped sharply. The ground trembled. Tiles cracked and rose into the air, lifted by invisible pressure. The floor buckled under the violent energy, and ancient sigils—those that had survived centuries untouched—were shattered in an instant.
Carla's clenched fists trembled as debris and dust swirled around him. But the destruction brought no satisfaction. It wasn't cathartic. If anything, it only deepened his frustration.
Because this tampering… it wasn't done by the locals. No mortal in this world had the skill—or the audacity—to rewrite his summoning ritual without triggering alarms in his senses. No, this was the work of an outsider. A foreign entity. A rival.
Someone who understood his language.
Someone who didn't want him here.
And they were good. Very good.
His mind raced. Whoever had hijacked the ritual had done so silently and precisely. Worse, they'd manipulated the circle to funnel the sacrificial souls—the very reason he had tolerated this pathetic summoning in the first place—somewhere else. To whom? And for what purpose?
He didn't know. And that was dangerous.
Moreover, it was obvious that the other party had no good intentions at all.
Being in a weak state and being maliciously targeted by one or more unknown outside creatures was not good news for him.
Even if the other party has not yet taken action, the danger it poses is far greater than the indigenous forces in front of us!
In this situation, will the other party let him leave easily?
Carla thought it was impossible.
And things turned out exactly as he expected.
Even without looking back, he could guess the result by the sound of footsteps behind him that had originally left but were now returning quickly.
Hurried footsteps echoed behind him—ones that had been retreating earlier but were now returning in a panic. Without turning around, he could sense Richard Woz approaching. The man's breath was ragged, his thoughts loud and chaotic.
"The passage!" Richard shouted, voice tinged with desperation. "It's sealed! Blocked off! Some kind of—of hardened stone! It looks like soil but it's like steel! Even weapons can't scratch it!"
'Turning mud into stone? Or something similar?'
Carla didn't respond immediately. He tilted his head slightly and glanced toward the ceiling, his expression blank but calculating.
'They've sealed the upper path as well...'
He could already imagine it: someone had turned the soil behind the stone slabs into an impenetrable mass for his current self. Like a trap closing in around him.
If he guessed correctly, the soil behind the stone slab above his head should have been hardened to prevent him from drilling out directly.
He stepped back, dodging several weapons that were hurled at him.
Still calm.
He turned slightly and addressed the group behind him: a haphazard mixture of cultists and Richard Woz.
"If we can't go up or back…" he muttered, cracking his neck with a sharp twist. "Then we go through."
He raised his voice, and it carried like a war horn.
"Charge! Break through them!"
The cultists reacted immediately. Their eyes shone with devotion bordering on madness. To them, Carla was not just a savior, but a god incarnate. His command was law.
Without hesitation, they screamed their war cries and sprinted forward into the hailstorm of blades and prays.
It was glorious… and utterly tragic.
Only Richard Woz showed a hint of hesitation on his face, and he deliberately hid behind Carla.
For him, if risking his life is to save his daughter, then he has no choice but to do so.
But at this moment, Carla had just been summoned, and things had only just begun. Even the treatment of the disease had not yet begun, so it was obviously the most important thing to take Carla away from this place. It was not the time for him to fight for his life.
Besides, with his own strength, he didn't think he could be of any help to Carla.
As a summoner, he just needs to not hold back.
Thus, the chaotic battle began completely in this basement!
The soldiers were well-trained. The priests were prepared. Formation lines tightened, and shields locked. Spears lowered. Chanting priests hurled divine magic across the chamber.
The cultists collided with them like waves against cliffs.
They died instantly. Slashed, pierced, burned. Some screamed Carla's name as they fell. Others never made a sound. Within seconds, half were dead, their blood soaking into the cracked stone floor.
Although they were crazy and not weak in strength, they still seemed extremely powerless when facing the soldiers and priests who had already formed a formation. They were like small splashes of water caused by stones, and were instantly submerged by swords.