Devil's Apocalypse

'Ok, so how am I gonna go about truly taking this thing down.' Kasdeya thought while both she and the greater brute imp circled each other. 'I won the initial bout but since the normal imps haven't interfered I probably haven't actually done any significant harm to this creature, or they are traitorous scumbags which is also a likely possibility.'

Kasdeya watched as the imp remained cautious of her, and, feeling like waiting won't help her, dashed towards the imp while starting to cycle her mana and then imbue it into her various limbs.

The brute tried to punch her but she jumped and ran up its fist while grabbing out a strengthened bone and stabbing it into the brutes neck on the way past before jumping down and spinning around. Using this momentum, aided with a significant amount of mana, she threw a fire bone at the imp which seemed to detonate on impact with its back, making it stumble a few steps forward and wobble a bit without moving.

Taking this opportunity she once again dashed towards the brute while taking out another strengthened bone and jumped up with the intention of skewering the imp. But, just at that moment, it's body inflated slightly with all of it's muscles expanding as it whirled around with it's fist suddenly taking up her entire view.

Not having the time to think Kasdeya moved the bone so it was between herself and the fist and braced herself against it so it would take the brunt of the impact.

As the fist collided with the strengthened bone, Kasdeya could feel the power behind the single strike as her arms shook in pain and exhaustion. Unfortunately for her, the mass difference between the two caused Kasdeya to be thrown backwards as she was already in the air with nothing solid to support her.

Flying through the air, Kasdeya briefly registered the splintering of the bone she was holding.

'Now that is what you call raw strength. To so easily break through a reinforced bloodhound bone.'

Kasdeya didn't have long to ponder this though as the brute launched into a sprint towards her again. This time, she could feel a slight pressure wafting off of this being.

'What the heck did it do? Did it enter rage mode or something?' Kasdeya thought as she tumbled across the ground and desperately tried to right herself by spreading out all her limbs and sliding across the ground on all fours with her tail out behind her, twitching to correct her balance.

The brute imp was upon her quickly and took up her entire vision as she rolled out of the way of it's next strike which instead hit the ground, spraying up a wave of whatever the ground was made of.

Stabilising herself, Kasdeya remained on all fours as she rapidly dashed around the imp, though her options of manoeuvrability were impeded by the fact that this was a wide open plane of nothing, with only some large rocks dotting the surrounding area.

This, however, didn't deter her as she lunged in for an attack aimed at its leg which it was too slow to avoid. Her claws connected with the flesh of the imp, however, they only caused a few scratches to appear on its leg as its skin was quite hard, and she didn't prepare enough mana to deal any significant damage.

'Dammit.' Kasdeya cursed as she immediately got out of its reach and prepared a fire bone to distract it. 'I might've been able to impede its movement with that attack if I had only spent a little more mana, or at the very least, I could've given it more than a few shallow scratches.'

Channelling even more mana, Kasdeya threw the now charged fire bone directly at the imps face as she ran at its legs.

Seeing the flaming projectile, the imp instinctively covered its head while Kasdeya empowered her arms with much more mana and swung them at the imps leg.

This time, she managed to inflict some serious damage as her claws tore deep into the brutes leg. However she wasn't able to avoid the kick from the other leg that struck her dead center, sending her careening backwards into a fleshy barricade that didn't do much to slow her down.

Dragging her aching body back off the ground she saw the large imp start running at her again, however, the pressure it was emitting seemed to have lessened a small amount, though she might've imagined it. Something very definitive, though, was the limp it had as it ran.

'Clearly my attack was effective, though my mana reserves are starting to dwindle. I'm pumping out a lot to strengthen my body and empower my runes so I should try to end this quickly or else I'm not going to come out on top. I could take a bite out of the spectators but I'd rather they not get involved.'

Taking out another strengthened bone Kasdeya took a glance at how many spikes she had left and was disappointed to only see 2.

She started running at the brute right before it reached her, closing the distance quicker than it anticipated throwing off its stride as it rapidly tried to strike her.

Dodging it's clumsy attack, Kasdeya brought the bone around in an ark before stabbing it forcefully into its arm, right as its pressure increased again and its body once more expanded. Its muscles contracted around the bone spike and secured it in place while bringing its arm back towards its body, which also pulled Kasdeya slightly as she hadn't let go, and threw her off balance as its other arm darted for her so quickly she didn't have time to react.

'Oh shit.' Was the only thing Kasdeya thought as a large hand wrapped around her body and lifted her off her feet.

Then, the entire body of the imp, excluding the arm holding her, shrunk back to its original size as Kasdeya tried to squirm out of its grip as she was feeling a significant amount of danger from the imp now.

Through the direct contact, Kasdeya could almost feel the pressure of the imp being transferred to it's arm as the designated arm holding her doubled in size while the skin struggled to contain the massive mass of muscle.

Kasdeya struggled even more as it whipped her behind its body and tossed her like a ragdoll shot from a cannon into a massive rock a distance away from her.

Lying there, her body was unresponsive to her commands as waves of pain travelled through her.

Struggling to stay conscious through the waves of pain she started focusing her remaining mana on the task of healing her, though she knew that the imp would crush her before she had recovered enough to move.

'I've been fighting non stop ever since I started this new life. Waking up in a strange area, confused, hungry, defenceless, and when I finally had enough strength to handle myself I was attacked by some sėx crazed old man, who rudely beat me up and threw me through some portal into a new land so I was back at square one. Then, right as I got a stable method of gaining power, some bulky creature comes and kills me. What a shitty life.'

Kasdeya desperately wanted to get up and continue fighting, but her body refused to move. So she resigned herself to her fate and waited, though she was still trying to heal herself.

'Actually, why hasn't the brute come to finish me off yet? More than enough time has passed for it to arrive at my destination.'

Straining to move her head slightly so she could see, she was greeted by a massive group of imps surrounding her and brandishing their claws.

"Join group... or die." One of the imps spoke.

Kasdeya just stared at them, from both confusion and an inability to comfortably talk right now.

"Boss lenient, he say you strong, need imp for hard job, you chosen." Another imp stated.

'Oh, praise you 3 luck, you have saved me again. So the Brute wants someone to sacrifice for a task? Though can't it tell I'm not an imp? I mean, for starters, I'm way too beautiful to be an ugly imp, and also, I'm white, not red.' Kasdeya thought as she moved her eyes to glance at her body and noticed that she was lathered in so much blood, both old and new, that her original colour was completely obscured behind the red. 'Well I guess that answers one question.'

"Answer, answer, death? Or join?" Another imp asked impatiently.

'Well I guess I'll say yes, since I want to live after all. Plus, I can just flee if I can't complete this task. Though I wonder why the brute didn't just ask instead of sending its subordinates instead.'

"Accepted." Kasdeya said, though she still couldn't move.

The imps, seemingly taking her injuries into consideration, cautiously approached her with one at her head and the other at her legs. They then worked together to awkwardly lift her off the ground and started carrying her, probably towards the brute imp, with her staring into the abyss that was above her. Her tail trailed across the ground along with her sack of trinkets.

'Well this is an experience, though, since I'm still recovering and my mana reserves are really low, I'd probably faint if I tried any excessive movement, so I can cope with this.'

Kasdeya was content to leave the situation as is, when she suddenly felt something lightly poke her in the side.

'You've got to be kidding me.'