The Author's POV

Bang— Bang—

'What's going on?'

The sound of something crashing near Smallsnake awoke him from his slumber. With each passing second, the sound became more clear, and it wasn't long before his eyes were fully open.

Blinking his eyes several times, he thought to himself.

'Am I still alive?'

He could clearly remember being on the verge of dying not too long ago.

Did he die? …or was he still alive?

"Shit!"

Bang—!

Immediately after opening his eyes, he saw a figure being sent flying into the distance, before crashing heavily against what appeared to be a large metallic door.

A muffled sound accompanied the figure's crash.

"Kevin, how much longer do you need?"

A female voice shouted.

'Who is she?'

Squinting his eyes, Smallsnake's eyes paused on a female figure that he had never seen before in his life. She had long auburn-colored hair and seemed to be rather beautiful. The way that she moved across the black marble floor seemed extremely nimble, and so were her attacks that looked extremely sharp.

No, rather, she did seem familiar, but he just couldn't seem to recall who she was.

"Just buy me one more minute!"

Taking his eyes away from the female figure, Smallsnake's eyes finally paused on Kevin, and it was then that he noticed a large red hue coming out from his body.

The hue seemed to completely engulf the area they were in, making it extremely terrifying.

'What's going on?'

Blinking his eyes a couple of times, Smallsnake turned his head slightly and finally spotted what seemed to be a demon.

"Demon?"

His groggy mind sobered up and he tried to lift up his body.

"Smallsnake! You're awake!"

Feeling a hand press against his chest, Smallsnake was shocked to see a couple of familiar figures rush in his direction.

"You guys?"

"Smallsnake!"

Before he could speak anymore, he suddenly felt something hug his body tightly.

"Ryan?"

see that the person was Ryan who seemed to have tears streaming from the side of his eyes. As he raised his head, he saw Leopold, Ava, and Hein also staring at him. Their weapons

were clearly trying to protect

moment to process what was going on, a thin smile eventually spread across Smallsnake's face as he lowered his head back down and

still

not have been sure before, but now he knew...He knew that he was still

him felt great relief once he realized

long as he soon heard

Bang—!

"Ukh, shit, hurry up!"

figure who

behind what seemed to be a large transparent

core I'm using is about to run out of energy. So hurry up

"A couple more seconds."

out from his body started

noticed that Kevin was up to something, desperately tried to stop whatever he was doing, but regardless of much he tried, he would always get blocked by either the girl with the

"Ready!"

to fully free himself from their attacks and Kevin was finally

his head, he took a step forward and appeared

solidified. The last thing Smallsnake saw was the look of utter terror on the demon's face as Kevin's attack came crashing down on him and a bright red light enveloped

Booom—!

sounded out and Smallsnake was forced to close his eyes. In the aftermath of the explosion, Melissa took

"Fucking hell..."

heard her curse coming from

Tin. Tin. Tin.

the sound of small rocks hitting against the barrier that was

finally stopped. Opening his eyes, Smallsnake was met with a large cloud

the aftermath of the attack

were a mess. Nevertheless, they appeared

"I…did it…"

weakly murmured as knelt down on the ground, and observed the core in his hand. Taking another breath, he squeezed his hand together and the core shattered into millions

Crack—!

relief and tried to

harder than

echoed throughout

small pieces of the core

strong, I didn't think they would

"Tell me about it."

from a distance as she lay on the ground with both hands and legs spread apart. Not far from her were her

again. If another Marquis ranked demon comes, just know

think I'll

slowly stood up and turned to face one of

we have to do is wait for Ren and the others to come back. He told me that it might take a while, but I seriously think that if he takes too long, things will get quite troublesome

The same went for their mana which was slowly recovering due to the aid of

was still suffering from the after-effects of having used Overdrive. At

hoped Ren would arrive before any

said those words, he was able to hear the sound

"Is it this way?"

The same could be said for the others as they

were confronted with