Chapter 39: New Weapons and Evolution (1/2)

As we left the village, I attempted to track the chipped-horn imp by following his footsteps. However, that plan ended prematurely after two kilometers of tracking.

The footsteps had disappeared at that point. No, rather than disappearing, they were covered up by the large mass of undead footprints.

As for the source of these footprints, they were wandering about in front of me at this very moment. Just as I spotted them, they spotted us as well and charged at us with their signature wailing.

Darkness Arrow! Bone Wall! Flame Whip!

I beat a hasty retreat behind my devils while throwing out a myriad of spells, all the while with my two bodyguards by my side. No.3 and Big 4 were itching to fight, but held back out of concern for my safety.

As for One-eye and the others, they weren’t charged with protecting me at all times; so they charged with reckless abandon towards the undead, swapping injuries for injuries as they viciously attacked. It wasn’t long before the battlefield was a field of properly dead undead.

While it was a complete victory for us, the trail had ended here. Since I wasn’t a hunter or a scout, I didn’t possess the necessary tracking skills to continue the chase. In the mass of undead footprints, all I could make out were said footprints.

Perhaps…she’s beyond us now…

It wasn’t that I didn’t try hard enough to save her, there just wasn’t enough time to do so. That chipped-horn imp was simply too strong for the normal imps to handle. So I decided to handle the rest of the head imps before pursuing that chipped-horn imp. Once our forces were gathered, we could then pursue this stronger target.

If I had recklessly chased after him, the most likely outcome would’ve been that I got captured as well, and the other head imps from the chapel would’ve gotten off scot free.

“Master…” Seeing me stand there in silence, made them worried. One-eye cautiously approached me but just as he was about to continue talking, I glared at him, frightening him into silence.

“Leave.” I don’t even know how a glare was able to terrify a devil, but at least I knew how cold my tone was at this moment. Without waiting for their response, I turned around and left with only the grimoire as my company.

As I slowly made my way to the village, a storm of complex emotions brewed within my mind. Behind my silent figure was my army of subordinates who were just as silent. They knew what awaited them if any one of them spoke up.

As the sight of those damned head imps entered my vision, I pointed at their corpses and said: “You guys can have these corpses, the souls as well. You had better evolve after this…”

“…” The imps looked at each other helplessly. It’s not like they didn’t want to evolve faster as well. That last sentence was definitely uncalled for.

However, it was to be expected. When a person was in a bad mood, they tend to do things that at the best could be explained as [He’s in a bad mood], and at worst be called [Mad].

After resting in the village for half a day, I led the entire army in the direction where the tracks ended. Even though I knew that there was basically no hope that he would continue down this path, I still chose to do so.

Perhaps it was merely out of gratitude or perhaps it was merely to vent my anger, but either way it’s not because I liked her…lower tiered devils had a pretty unique appearance after all. Definitely not my taste. Besides imps were simply too low level for me, after all this brother has even seen a fallen angel and had even teased her.

As we continued down the last known direction of that chipped-imp, the path took us through several detours that roughly formed a triangle.

As we searched, we were set upon by undead from time to time. Whenever their numbers were small, we wiped them out. As for when their numbers were large enough to cause deaths on our side, we avoided them completely and searched in a different location. Logically speaking, that chipped-imp wouldn’t have passed through those areas either. Instead he would’ve avoided them by passing through the opening between the undead hordes.

And so three days passed in the blink of an eye. My determined efforts still have not borne any results. While I was able to make use of this time to craft more equipment, the lack of results still frustrated me.

The only good news that came out during these three days, was that No.3 and Big 4 had evolved into two-star head imps. Big 4 was the first of the two to evolve. It happened last night after a round of feeding.

The skin on his forehead began to split open and two goat-like horns slowly grew out of his head. His body grew larger as well. His stature grew taller while his limbs grew significantly stouter, creating a strange imbalance in his body proportions. He was actually really tall, but thanks to his limbs he looked like a short and stubby imp.

Next was No.3. His evolution was about the same as Big 4, resulting in the two of them looking nearly the same. If they stood next to each other, they would’ve looked like a pair of identical twins.

By now, they were taller than One-eye and the others by more than a head. They stood at a towering 2 meters tall and truly looked like a pair of mountains. If one didn’t look carefully, they might miss the slender me standing in between them.

With their new body proportions, their old weapons were no longer suitable for them. The bone broadswords looked and felt more like toy swords in their giant hands. The bone shield wasn’t much better as well, looking more like a squarish buckler than a scutum.

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And so, I decided to change their shields into a large rounded shield similar to those worn by Spartans on their forearms. I enhanced the overall thickness of the shield along with widening it into a circular shape. It was now 1.5m in diameter and could be secured to their forearm, making it not only convenient but safe as well.

With these new and improved round shields, No.3 and Big 4 were even sturdier than the shieldbearers thanks to their improved defenses.

Their weapons were remade as well into a pair of spiked maces. The entire mace was 2 meters long with the handle being 1.6 meters and the spiked head being 40 cm long. With its hedgehog-like appearance, it sent shivers down one’s spine just by looking at it

The reason why I chose a mace instead of a sword wasn’t because I liked maces, but because of a head imp’s frightening strength. I still clearly remembered that shocking scene were the chipped-imp broke through my bone wall. That scene made my heart jump into my throat.

Besides, for the simple minded imps, sword techniques and the like were clearly not suited for them. A simple but effective mace was better suited to their brute strength.