As we approached the mountain, we saw a single figure sitting in our way. We stopped in our tracks as the man groggily stood up and we saw that it was the holy knight general we were trying to avoid.

“I must thank you for taking out that band of brigands, we’ve been trying to stop them for a while now. But you’re still criminals and I see you’re trying to escape your punishment,” he slowly said as he opened his eyes. “Now, as a Holy Knight General, I can’t let you get away with your crimes against humanity. And an even worse crime, you guys are forcing me to do my job”. With that said, he immediately drew his two sharp stilettos and started to attack us with surprising vigor.

We quickly dodged all of his attacks but we still ended up getting small cuts on our bodies while I was trying to talk our way out of this fight, “But we’re just passing travelers! We haven’t done anything wrong!”

The general yelled as he made another swipe at us with his two weapons, “Don’t try to lie to me, demon spawn! I know who you are!” Then with a calmer composed voice, he said, “Oh sorry, I didn’t introduce myself, my apologies. I’m General Velox and I’m a master of wind magic. As you traveled around my county, I knew where you demons were the entire time. The wind told me”. With that, he summoned fast swirling winds that surrounded his blades and continued to attack us.

With the facade gone, we tossed our backpacks to the side and turned into our demon forms to go onto the offensive. We tried to keep our distance from General Velox but he had a surprising amount of dexterity for a constantly drowsy guy.

Aldric was swinging with his war hammer but General Velox was able to nimbly dodge the large weapon and even used it as a springboard to boost his attack speed. Oda tried to do his best to block the attacks with his weapons but the wind magic around General Velox’s blades was extremely troublesome.

Even when we dodged his attacks, we still ended up getting hurt. Thanks to our demon blood, we were slowly regenerating our health and our cuts were slowly healing. But our stamina was still being depleted and only food and rest could bring that back up.

While Oda and General Velox were engaged in battle, I would try to sneak in punches and kicks but each time I would be greeted with a gust of wind that would push me away while leaving multiple small cuts on my body. The next time Oda attacked and was blocked, I jumped up from behind Oda and was able to get in a solid roundhouse kick to the general’s face.

The general was furious that we were able to get a hit on him and he summoned more wind gusts to aid him in the fight. With renewed vigor, he unleashed a flurry of attacks with his stilettos.

As General Velox was attacking Oda with furious swipes, I snuck up behind the holy knight general and restrained him by hooking my arms around his armpits. Nonplussed about the situation, he immediately flipped his stilettos and stabbed them into my arms just above where my scales protected me.

Even though I was screaming in pain, I kept my grip on him strong. General Velox saw that his attack wasn’t convincing me to let him go, so he grabbed his holy knight emblem and pressed it into the flesh of my exposed arm. A sharp burning sensation seared itself into my skin as the holy gems in the emblem shined white.

I couldn’t take the pain anymore and I released him while yelling in pain. Pushing up the poncho, I saw burn marks in the places the holy gems touched my skin. Using this opportunity, General Velox was about to stab me in my heart but he was struck from the side by Aldric’s hammer. As the general’s body was flown to the side, I could hear some of his bones break but it didn’t seem to slow him down. If anything, it made him angrier.

My wounds were slowly healing and as Oda was keeping General Velox busy, I went over to Aldric’s side and whispered, “Where exactly is the entrance to the secret underground tunnels?”

Aldric discreetly pointed at a set of rocks and told me that there should be an opening for us to go through.

“We’re going to have to make a run for it, at this rate, we’ll never beat this guy,” I said as I dodged a ranged air attack. Aldric grunted in agreement as he went to engage the general. As Oda was regaining his breath, I told him of our escape plan. Oda nodded and looked towards the rocks.

Picking up some sizable rocks from the ground, I chucked them as hard as I could towards General Velox. He wasn’t expecting that and a few of them hit him in the head. Using the opportunity of him being stunned, we grabbed our bags and ran towards the landmark rocks.

Seeing the slim crack in the mountainside, I quickly went in first sideways carrying the bag by my side, and tried to sidewalk as quickly as I could without getting stuck in the passage. Aldric was next to follow me while Oda was keeping General Velox at bay. Oda took a page out of my book and was hurling rocks at the general. Velox was using his wind magic to protect himself but it seemed that the rocks I threw at his head were making his sight blurry. Velox kept missing his mark as blood dripped down his forehead and that gave us all the chance to flee into the mountain.

Once we got into a larger tunnel, we destroyed part of the ceiling. The falling rocks and debris sealed the entranceway and hopefully that would deter General Velox from finding us.

With that protection set up, we took a short rest as we checked our injuries and regained our breath. Breaking out some of the remaining fruit in my bag, I shared the food with the boys and we ate while we leisurely walked down the tunnels.

I sighed, “I hope we never have to fight another holy knight general. We barely made it out of that fight”.

Oda looked at me with concern in his eyes, “Are you okay? You took some real damage when you tried to restrain that guy!” He grabbed my arms and intently looked at the area that was injured. He frowned when he saw that my burns weren’t healing.

“Looks like the holy stones he had were the real deal, we’ll need to be careful about them,” I said while pulling my arms out of his grasp. I carefully rubbed the burned spots on my arm and winced at the lingering pain. “I’ve touched other ‘holy stones’ but they never burnt me like that before. I wonder what was different about the ones the general had on him”.

Aldric answered my question, “Some of the holy stones are blessed by the Paladin. The blessing gives the stones the power to repel demons. They have to be blessed every six months so only the knight generals and high officers are regularly blessed. The rest of the holy stones out in the market can only repel minor malevolent spirits”.

“And yet most of the populace believes in the power of those stones to protect them from all evil beings, what a farce!” I sharply said with disdain in my voice. “For a holy organization, they sure do some shady things”.

“Sometimes the brightest light hides the darkest secrets,” Aldric replied cryptically.

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