Meanwhile, Dietrich wasn’t the only one focused on fighting.

Vivian had been continuously battling the bird-like magical beasts since earlier.

‘I should have brought a longsword instead of a dagger.’

If she had, it wouldn’t have taken this long to fight.

Lamenting, she wiped the sweat flowing on her forehead with the back of her left hand.

Perhaps due to fighting frantically using her ability, her body now felt extremely heavy and seemed to be falling apart piece by piece.

The magical beast was stronger than any she had encountered before.

It should have been slow if it was just mindlessly huge, but even its movements were very quick.

‘It must be the effect of just coming through the portal. Having just been in the demon realm, it’s natural for it to be strong.’

She did well to stop Dietrich when he tried to take down this magical beast in front of the portal earlier.

If she hadn’t, they might have had to fight dozens of these creatures.

‘Even now, so many magical beasts are swarming.’

Vivian leaped high into the sky and sliced the neck of a small magical beast that was trying to attack her.

She couldn’t tell how many minutes had passed in this battle of dodging the giant bird-like magical beast’s attacks and taking down the other small magical beasts rushing at her.

‘I need to check the clock…’

She started to take out the clock that recorded the time left until ability depletion from her pocket but stopped.

The magical beast was flapping its wings, creating an intense gust of wind. She had to dodge immediately.

The chaotic battle that could barely be called a fight continued with no end in sight.

She needed to take care of that magical beast quickly so Dietrich could fight the demon without worry.

As if unaware of Vivian’s urgency, the magical beast wouldn’t allow her to get close.

Whenever she tried to close the distance, it immediately flapped its wings, creating a quick gust that pushed her back.

Vivian grew increasingly anxious.

On average, the maximum time one could use their ability in a day was 5 minutes.

Given that she had been able to use her ability until now, time seemed to be passing slower than she felt, but she must be nearing the end of her usable time.

She had used it in short bursts on the way to the portal too.

Even if that weren’t the case, her legs were proving that they were getting closer and closer to their limit.

She glanced briefly in the direction Dietrich had gone.

There, she saw him engaged in battle with four demons.

‘Not just one demon, but several would be too much for Dietrich to handle. I have to take down this magical beast somehow.’

She needed to aim for its weak point, the heart…

‘Can I pierce through that thick muscle with this short blade?’

However, worrying in advance wouldn’t change anything.

She had to land a decisive blow before her ability usage time ran out.

Vivian charged towards the giant body, squeezing out her remaining strength.

Quickly breaking through its defenses before the wings could block her, she plunged her dagger into the center of the magical beast.

But at the final moment of the strike, her arm lost strength. She had overexerted her body too much.

‘Please, please!’

She prayed with all her heart, but the attack seemed to fall short of reaching the heart. Far from dying, the magical beast writhed in pain and went berserk.

Hit by the wildly flailing wings, she flew backwards and crashed to the ground.

“Sss, ah…”

Perhaps from rolling on the dirt, her arms and legs were bruised.

‘Fortunately, it seems no bones are broken.’

Just as she was about to regain her posture and stand up again.

The magical beast was trying to peck at her with its dark brown beak. If that attack hit, she would surely die.

She had to dodge. Right now.

The instinctive thought that she needed to run away dominated her mind. But…

‘My legs, won’t move…’

The time limit for her ability had ended. And it left behind a massive aftereffect.

In this physical state, forget running away, even standing up was impossible.

Vivian sensed her own death.

In that moment, countless regrets flashed through her mind.

Among them, the regret that remained most strongly was undoubtedly about Ren.

‘If I knew I’d die like this, I should have made up with Ren before coming…!’

She couldn’t even imagine how much that guy would blame himself if she died without resolving their argument.

She tried to call his name in her heart one last time, squeezing her eyes shut.

Crunch, crunch.

Suddenly, an unpleasantly loud noise like thick bones being crushed was heard.

“Lady Vivian, are you alright?”

As she slowly opened her eyes, before her were the magical beast sprawled with a huge hole near its heart, and Dietrich.

After confirming the magical beast’s life had ended, he immediately dropped his magic sword and grasped Vivian’s shoulders.

The fallen magic sword dispersed into magical energy in mid-air.

“Are you hurt anywhere…!”

Dietrich frantically examined Vivian’s entire body. In a state of panic, he breathed heavily.

“I’m fine! More importantly, the demon…!”

No sooner had she said she was fine than he hugged her tightly.

His strong arm strength revealed his anxiety.

“Thank goodness, really… I was afraid I’d lose you.”

He kept muttering to himself like someone out of his mind, not letting go of Vivian from his embrace.

However. Though grateful for being saved, now was not the time for this. Vivian urgently asked him.

“What about the demon? What happened to the demon?”

Only then did he come to his senses and immediately looked towards where the demon had been.

In fact, the battle with the demon was almost finished.

Dealing with several at once took some time, but it was just a matter of handling them one by one steadily.

He had been cutting off the necks of the demon that had split into four, and was just down to the last one.

Whether the last one left was the strongest of the five heads, the battle took a long time.

He cut off the demon’s hands that had turned into blades several times with his magic sword, but after some time passed, the wounds disappeared without a trace and kept regenerating.

Regenerative ability. It was an annoying ability to deal with.

But it was just annoying, not a reason he couldn’t defeat it.

Dietrich sliced off the demon’s limbs in one go, then raised his sword high to finish it off.

If he stabbed the neck like this, the demon would soon die.

It was at that very moment. Vivian, far in the distance, came into view.

‘Lady Vivian is in danger.’

From the moment he recognized she was in danger, he couldn’t remember anything else.

Demon or whatever, Dietrich was just running towards Vivian.

The thought that he might lose her dominated his mind.

When he came to his senses, fortunately it was after he had safely rescued her, but…

The demon that had been there until just moments ago was already gone.

‘Did it escape?’

Judging by the complete lack of presence, it didn’t seem the demon was hiding somewhere secretly either.

To lose the target like this.

For him, who had never once taken his eyes off during battle until now, it should have been a cause for self-loathing.

But strangely, he didn’t feel that emotion at all.

Rather, all he felt was relief from confirming that Vivian was safe.

Still, he couldn’t relax yet. He had to stay alert until they left this forest.

From past experience, he knew that staying here too long would drive a person mad.

He couldn’t let that happen to Vivian as well.

“Can you move?”

Dietrich, kneeling on one knee at her feet, asked while extending one hand.

“No, I think I overused my ability. My legs won’t budge at all. I’m sorry. Because of me, you even lost the demon you almost caught…”

“It’s enough that you’re safe. More importantly, we need to get out quickly…”

He had no idea where this place was. It was equally difficult to figure out which direction led outside.

It was challenging enough just to find the way, but to make matters worse, heavy footsteps could be heard thumping from all directions.

It seemed magical beasts were being drawn by the commotion.

‘We need to get out of here for now.’

Just then, something like a cave caught his eye in the distance.

Dietrich lightly picked up Vivian and quickly headed towards the cave.

Bapula, with fatal wounds all over his body, was flying with labored breaths.

‘How dare. How dare a mere human inflict such fatal wounds on me!’

His entire body was tattered like a rag. This was the first time in his life as a demon that he faced such humiliation and disgrace.

Demons basically had self-regeneration abilities.

Although it drained a lot of mental energy, it was a convenient ability that could be used almost indefinitely if one had abundant demonic energy.

Bapula always utilized this ability effectively.

He showed the healing process right before the eyes of humans he had kidnapped as sacrifices when they resisted and attacked him.

Humans generally fell into despair and stopped attacking upon seeing this. The fear induced by an immortal being was tremendous.

But that magic swordsman was different.

Even after showing him the recovery, far from losing his fighting spirit, he attacked more fiercely.

His eyes, full of determination, seemed to warn that he would keep cutting endlessly until Bapula could no longer recover.

As the battle continued, the injured areas increased. With more areas to heal, the regeneration speed slowed even further.

In the end, it became so slow that even when all his limbs and wings were cut off, nothing recovered.

Though he couldn’t admit it, Bapula had been put in a position where it wouldn’t be strange if he died soon by that human’s hand.

But just as death was imminent, the situation changed drastically.

The magic swordsman suddenly stopped fighting and ran far away without even looking back.

Bapula wasn’t foolish enough to miss that opportunity.

He focused all his healing ability on his wings.

As soon as wings sprouted on his back, the demon took to the sky and fled.

‘I must report to the King quickly.’

This current situation.

Still unable to regenerate his limbs, Bapula flew towards the imperial palace of the Agrian Empire where his King would be.