After six of the four-armed Vipers felled by our attacks, the remaining four, two four-armed ones and two six-armed ones felt immediately terrified. It was good though; terrified enemies were the easiest to kill.
"Tch…! Useless garbage! Mid Ranked are really just the bottom of the barrel at the end…!"
"We'll have to take you on ourselves then, shaaa…!"
The two six-armed seemed to be a woman and a man, the two took into some sort of special stance, giving each other their backs as their six arms suddenly summoned magic cursed weapons, they resembled daggers, scythes, and small axes. The other two Vipers remained in the back clearly terrified.
"Don't worry, you two will be a worthy sacrifice!"
The two began to laugh. Suddenly, I realized they might be planning something dangerous, as I immediately fired a [Darkness Blast] against them with everything I had to stop them.
However, the blast was quickly stopped by a surge of demonic energy coming from the floor below them. A demon magic circle emerged in an instant, constantly inscribing countless runes across the floor and then merging together.
The two four-armed Vipers were suddenly consumed by the power the six-armed ones conjured, as they turned completely into energy which was transferred towards them. After that, in mere seconds, their bodies melded together as their voices combined into one.
"Demon Fusion Arts: Lesser Basilisk!"
An enormous burst of power was unleashed, as a Domain made out of Poison Attribute Demonic Energy emerged within ten meters around the two six-armed Vipers.
Their bodies quickly merged into one, which grew up to four times their original size, with an elongated and snake-like body, and a gigantic head with five eyes, the fifth eye being located right between the other four, and being thrice as big, and completely red.
The enormous beast was a High Tier Demon Beast named Basilisk. However, this one wasn't as strong, probably because these Vipers didn't held enough power to actually transform into the true Basilisk. This was a technique high rank demons know named "Demon Fusion Arts", it allows them to merge with one another to temporarily transform into Demon Beasts or higher tiered Demons.
It was invented by an Archdemon in the past, which was troubled about his troops being a bunch of weaklings when he was conquering nations in Hell, so he decided to simply merge them together into stronger Demons. The price for this transformation is usually their lives, however.
There are two types of fusions, temporary ones that kill them after the fusion stops, or permanent ones which take away the former members of the fusion's will and turn them completely into wild beasts. And it seemed that this one was the later.
"T-They fused together?!" Erika asked, gasping in surprise.
"This is insane…" Chris muttered.
"This is bad, this is really bad! We should totally run away now guys! …Err, guys?!" Eric cried, although nobody had the intention to run away.
"Eric, you can run if you want to, but we are beating this monster. If we let it go around in the wild, it might and attack the village." I told him.
"Y-Yeah…!" Elizabeth said. "I'll beat this monster and show papa I am strong as well!"
"Damn it…" Erdrich said, while smiling a bit. "This is getting out of proportion… I had no idea demons could fuse!"
"High Ranked Demons seem to be able to, now, careful!"
The Basilisk immediately attacked, slamming its tail into the ground and shaking it. Countless cracks appeared as a shockwave was unleashed, the ground started to crumble below us as the beast continued to hit the ground with its tail. Was this its primary method of attacking?
The moment I thought this was the only thing it could do, the Monster's fifth eye shone bright red, as a flash of demonic energy suddenly hit me. I immediately generated a barrier of magic around me to defend myself, but the barrier broke in an instant. My Demonic Arm moved automatically, blocking the attack.
It didn't hurt, I didn't felt any pain, but I felt a numb sensation. The Demonic Hand suddenly began to be covered by a coverture of stone, as it slowly tried to reach my body but it suddenly stopped midway through. I see, so this creature can use the Basilisk's specialty, [Demon Eye of Petrification].
However, it hasn't constantly used it, it is probably like any other Demonic Eye, requiring an activation and a necessary amount of demonic energy to use once. It can probably use it a few more times, but it cannot overdo it. So it is trying to choose its prey wisely. Aiming at me was certainly intelligent, as I seem to be the greatest threat.
"Blake!" Erika ran to my side, looking at half of my petrified arm.
"What happened?!" Elizabeth quickly ran to my side as well. Eleanora jumped in front of me as she decided to join the others in distracting the Basilisk.
"Be careful! Whenever its fifth eye shines red, run away from the ray it emanates!" I commanded the rest. "My arm was petrified."
"Eh?!" Erika was shocked. "C-Can I do something?! Priests!"
Suddenly, ten Priest Dolls appeared and pointed their staffs at my arm.
"I can also heal you! …Or I can try!" Elizabeth desperately attempted to help me.
Without any problem, I used my spear to break apart the petrified part of my arm and made it crumble into pieces.
The wound quickly opened, as the red flesh within my arm began to bleed, the two girls felt terrified about what I did.
"Y-Your hand!" They cried together.
"Don't worry, I know a special technique…" I said, quickly invoking my shadows as I took out the three-headed Alpha Gray Wolf I had fought before, and quickly invoked a mass of shadows named [Shadow Net], covering it entirely.
While hiding it from the girl's view, I put my arm inside the shadow net, as the entire arm shapeshifted into a monstrous arm and devoured the entire corpse of over three meters big.
CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH!