With most of the Ogramon hordes already slaughtered before their arrival, Rowan and D'andre simply continued deeper into the demon lair at a full, unceasing pace. Their current objective was to find the source of the Ogramon's demise.
It had been exactly twelve hours since they entered the lair. So far, the eleven Ogramon at the entrance were the only opponents they had faced. In their wake, they had discovered a total of seven new locations littered with the corpses of dead Ogramon. The exact number of the slain was unknown, but it was definitely over two hundred.
"This is tiresome!" D'andre complained, his voice loud and filled with frustration. "We've been running for more than nine hours! Not only have we failed to find the Ogramon killers, but we keep stumbling upon new sets of corpses."
"Shouldn't you be happy?" Rowan finally asked. "For one, they're taking care of our business for us."
D'andre turned to Rowan, "What the heck are you even saying? Don't you want to obtain skills and treasures? Don't tell me you're not interested in anything this demon lair has to offer."
"My main purpose was to clear the demon lair, thereby removing the danger it poses to this city before I move my people here," Rowan revealed.
"Even so," D'andre responded, clearly upset by Rowan's words. "You shouldn't act like the treasures and skills aren't important! Even if you don't want them, you could easily sell them for millions of evolution points."
"Don't let your greed for evolution points cloud your judgment of this situation," Rowan simply commented.
"Greed? How am I greedy? Isn't it natural to want gain the fruit of your labour? Especially when your labour dragged you out of your comfort zone?" D'andre argued back.
"Greed is natural too." Rowan replied plainly.
D'andre wanted to retort, but he instead took a long breath to calm his temper. Knowing that Rowan would not back down from an argument until he won, D'andre decided it would be best to end the discussion. Still, he couldn't hide his true feelings of resentment and frustration toward their current circumstances.
"If your goal is finding them, I think we'll be meeting them soon," Rowan said. "These corpses don't look older than two hours. They must be nearby, possibly fighting another wave of Ogramon."
D'andre observed the corpses and nodded silently. Without informing Rowan, he activated his flight spell and shot off into the distance. Rowan immediately followed, joining him in the air.
===
Inside the demon lair, a lone figure dressed in a ragged, dark robe moved with unstoppable swiftness, fighting a dozen Ogramon at once. The grunts of the ragged figure could be heard as he swung his dagger with a furious precision, leaving ghastly cuts on the bodies of his opponents.
"You demons!" he cursed as he inflicted dozens of cuts on an Ogramon that attempted to smash him to the ground.
The Ogramon let out a loud cry as the pain flooded its system. Its regenerative ability had been weakened, just like the ragged figure's past victims, and it could not heal itself before the figure disappeared from its field of vision and reappeared atop its shoulder.
Frustrated, the Ogramon began transforming the flesh around its neck into long, spiky thorns that shot toward the ragged figure. But the figure was faster. Before the sharp thorns could reach him, he had already delivered his fatal strike and moved on to his next opponent.
With a final cry of pain and desperation, the Ogramon's head splattered into perfectly cut pieces of gore.
Moments later, the gigantic, headless body, covered in severe cuts, crashed to the ground. Meanwhile, its colleague, who had also been attacked by the crazed figure, was already facing the same unstoppable fate.
Even in the midst of demons, this ragged figure could be considered more volatile. The Ogramon were both frustrated and slightly hesitant about facing him. If their hearts operated like humans', they would be beating wildly in this moment. Even when they ganged up on him to capture him, they were met with even worse injuries.
He would slice through their numbers with a single, precise motion, leaving behind a trail of severed limbs and decapitated heads. The Ogramon's regenerative abilities were useless against him. He was too fast; the wounds he inflicted were too deep, too precise.
One of the Ogramon tried to use its regenerative abilities to heal a gaping wound on its chest. The flesh around the wound began to writhe and bubble, attempting to knit itself back together.
But before it could succeed, the ragged figure reappeared. The Ogramon shrieked in pain as the figure's dagger plunged into its chest, twisting and turning the blade. Its regenerative abilities failed, and the pain from its injuries amplified. The new pain from the gaping wound on its chest bled out profusely.
The other Ogramon, seeing their comrade slowly succumbing to death, tried to gang up on the ragged figure once more. But it was too late. Before they could even attack, their opponent had already collapsed on the ground in its own pool of blood with a loud thud.
The ragged figure grinned devilishly and continued to fight, his movements becoming more and more frenzied. He was like a whirlwind of destruction, delivering death and destruction to the demons.
This continued for about thirty minutes before the last Ogramon collapsed to the ground in a vast pool of crimson. The ragged figure stood in the middle of the carnage, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. The red veins on his dagger pulsed with a vibrant, crimson light.
The light was so bright that it illuminated his face, revealing a pair of burning red eyes filled with pure, unadulterated rage. He looked like a demon himself—a harbinger of death and destruction.
Rowan and D'andre watched the scene unfold from a distance. The last Ogramon fell, and the ragged figure stood in the middle of the carnage.
"Is that guy human or demon?"