The Lieutenant slowly drew his katana, firmly holding it with both hands. “Leo, I know this is a shameful request, but please assist me in this endeavor.”

  A short glance was all Leo needed to understand his state. Despite firmly holding the katana, he could see the Lieutenant’s hands and legs trembling ever so slightly. His breaths were struggling to stay steady with his exhales being extremely weary, his throat whispering for water.

  Leo looked back to Patrick and Oliver who had both firmly stood up to assist him. A wave of relief washed over him seeing the two doing fine despite the terrible conditions. He glanced back towards the officer and nodded. “Just try not to get too far, Lieutenant.”

  A small smile cracked on the Lieutenant’s cold face. With the confirmation, the Lieutenant rushed forward with an overhead swing. Leo and the others followed beside him, spanning outward in a ‘V’ formation with Patrick and Oliver at the sides.

  Slicing downward, the katana was leisurely stopped by the demon’s jian. Velmior lazily moved forward to see the Lieutenant face-to-face with a pitying look. Grabbing onto the hilt of the katana, Velmior ripped the katana out of his hands, sending it flying across the room as it clattered against the stone wall.

  He frowned, disappointed by his opponent’s weak resistance. As if unable to believe it, Velmior tightly clenched his fists a few times.

  “Really?”

  With sadistic glee, the clone kicked him straight in the stomach, causing the officer to curl forward and gag.

  Leo rushed over, jumping over the Lieutenant to throw an empowered punch at Velmior’s body, causing the demon to lean back to avoid the strike. As if planned out, the demon was suddenly put into a bearhug by Patrick who immediately hardened upon getting a firm hold on the glass fiend, trapping him firmly in his vice-like grips.

  Seeing the immobilized enemy, Leo yelled to Oliver and the recovering Lieutenant. “Go, now!”

  At the command, Oliver charged at the unmoving enemy, slamming his fist into the demon’s face. But he unexpectedly reeled back in pain, waving his swollen fists in the air.

  “This is…disappointing.”

  A crack resounded in the area as the demon broke free of Patrick’s grasp, causing Patrick to retreat farther back and regroup to Leo’s side with blood trickling down his forehead. The demon surprisingly allowed this, watching his captor rush back to the enemy.

  Velmior glanced over at them with a confused look. “Interesting. I’m surprised you ran so far, human. I was expecting a more lively reaction to that.”

  Through labored breaths, Patrick smirked. “What? Never seen a human run before, demon?”

  Velmior slowly shook his head, a small chuckle escaping his throat as his shoulder shook. Covering his face with a hand, the demon did his best to cover his watery eyes.. “Really?”

  As if to address their confusion, he raised what appeared to be an arm.

  ‘Wait.’

  Leo whipped his head to his left only to see empty space where Patrick’s arm should’ve been.

  Patrick glanced down, only to let out a gut-wrenching scream as he clutched the wound with his remaining hand.

  Velmior couldn’t contain himself anymore as he burst into laughter, using the solidified arm as a crutch to stay upright. “That's what I was expecting! Haha! I must say, I was hoping you would be of a different constitution from others. It looks like you only bring disappointment wherever you go.”

  Patrick angrily retorted through the pain, flashing an untimely smirk at the demon. “Disappointment? I may be a disappointment but you sure are sad struggling against us Unchained.”

  Velmior's face turned into ridicule as he heard those words. “Oh please, ‘struggle’ is a very strong word for this small predicament.” He suddenly raised his head as if a thought recurred to him. “Actually, it’s the perfect word. It’s a struggle to hold back enough to devour you peacefully. If I just tore you up now, there wouldn’t be much to consume afterwards, right?”

  He glanced over to the original body where the battle against Claudia raged on in a stalemate, the surrounding area devastated by craters and deep cuts as the two continued assessing one another.

  Behind him, Leo could hear Oliver consoling his armless friend as he ripped his shirt. “Patrick, just keep pressure on it, I’ll tie it up for you. And bite down on this.” He handed over another piece of cloth from nearby.

  “Thanks.” Letting Oliver place the cloth around his mouth, he clamped down hard as Oliver wrapped the torn shirt tightly around the stump of an arm.

  ‘Leo, can you hear me?’

  His head whipped over to the resting group still hiding behind the pillar. ‘Joshua? What’s going on?’

  ‘I was talking to that statue girl for a bit. She wants you all to get out of this room when you see the chance.’

  ‘What? What do you mean get out? I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there aren’t any places to leave from beside the window. And I don’t think we’ll be able to even survive that fall.’

  ‘She said the doors will reappear momentarily, we just need to get ready.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘We can’t really worry about her now can we? If anything, she should be worried about us!’

  It was true, she was probably the strongest out of everybody in this room. Even Leo could see that she was being held back by the survivors in her vicinity. That would be the only reason she would want them out of here.

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  ‘Alright, send the message to the Lieutenant and the others. We can’t afford to let Velmior understand our next course of actions.’

  Leo felt a snap in his head as Joshua disconnected from him. Looking at the others, it seemed they also got the message as they all glanced over at each other. The Lieutenant whispered to Oliver. “Keep watch of the walls towards your resting friends, tell us when that door comes back. Leo, with me.”

  At the command, Leo stood beside him as he stretched his shoulders. “Plan?”

  Knuckles cracked as the Lieutenant smirked. “Just use that Refraction of yours when you get the chance.” He suddenly ripped off the skin on his hand as if taking off a glove and stuffed the bloody cloth into his pocket.

  Leo wanted to throw up at the horrid act. Was the Lieutenant not in pain? How was he so casually ripping off his skin like that? Perhaps a Refraction of some sorts. Either way, he had to focus on what he did.

  ‘Refraction, huh? Alright, let’s try our best. And wait, that woman talks?’

  Velmior also saw the odd act and looked in disgust. “Oi, just because I said to give up doesn’t mean to mangle yourself, you know? If anything, that just makes me uncomfortable.”

  The calm eyes of the Lieutenant were replaced with a more maniacal glint as he shouted at the demon. “Uncomfortable? That’s rich coming from a demon!” He charged at the demon, his skinned hands behind his body as he leaned pushed himself forward with an uncaring attitude. Velmior proceeded to slash in the air, causing glass shards to pour out from a mirror behind and above him.

  Unlike his calm and organized attacks with the katana, he now acted as if he had nothing to lose as he threw his body at the demon without regard to his own wellbeing, running through the glass as if they were phasing right through him.

  Wait, they were literally going through him! But despite the barrage of razor-sharp glass, the Lieutenant didn’t stumble nor react a single moment, charging forward at the monstrous enemy with animalistic fury. Leo could hear the bones cracking and the muscles tearing with each movement he made, each attack that landed hit their mark. Yet, the recipient of such brutal treatment showed no signs of pain, let alone discomfort.

  A mix of astonishment and disgust painted Velmior’s face, once the rabid human got near him, he rammed the hilt of his jian into the back of the Lieutenant’s head, but it seemed to have little effect as the Lieutenant reached into his pocket and dropped the two pieces of skin onto the demon’s feet and hugged the demon by the torso.

  Velmior, obviously confused, taunted the Lieutenant. “Given up that quickly? I accept offerings, but not this kin- huh?”

  The demon’s words failed him as he felt the skin at his feet begin to surround the foot, holding it in the ground like glue. The skin began to swell up and pulsate as if a parasite latched onto a new host. Unfortunately, the clone was made of glass as it did absolutely nothing to weaken the demon.

  On top of this grotesque act, the Lieutenant jumped up to land his feet on the demon’s thighs and launched himself off, ripping his two arms out of their sockets along with the acrobatic maneuver. The armless form landed a distance away with no sign of pain on his face whatsoever.

  Similar to the skin, the arms slowly morphed into a fleshy patch surrounding the demon’s torso, the original form disappearing at the transformation.

  “What the hell is this disgusting thing? Get off!”

  Velmior attempted to rip it off, but was met with the flesh on his torso launching up to his arms, sticking onto the demon’s arms and pulling them down to his sides. The flesh slowly began to spread up, slowly enveloping the entirety of his arms. It was as if a fleshy straight jacket was put on the demon, who was unable to escape the disgusting skin prison. .

  “Leo! Get to it!”

  Blasting himself out of his daze, Leo threw himself towards the confined enemy and landed an empowered punch straight into the demon’s chest. Upon impact, the demon’s upper body shot back from the blow, his back recoiling like a spring. A surge of wind followed behind the punch as the second impact took effect, causing his chest to push in.

  Not letting the demon relax, Leo opened his palm and rested it on the demon’s forehead and focused on placing a shockwave onto his palm. Waves began to form as the air around his hand rippled. Velmior let out a retched scream as pain shot into his head. But it was nothing more than a headache as all he did was look at Leo angrier and more ferociously.

  If he didn’t end him now, there would be hell to pay!

  ‘More!’

  Leo put all he could into another empowered punch, ripping through the air as he felt the bones and muscles in his arm shake violently from the inside out, threatening to shatter on the spot. Velmior, as if sensing this, began to struggle even more violently from his fleshy prison.

  Gritting his teeth and taking a deep breath, he pushed through the pain and used all he could and slammed his fist into the demon’s head. The area around him shook slightly as cracks appeared on the floor behind the head. A cracking sound echoed in Leo’s ears as he felt his arm shatter and bend, the only issue was it was unnaturally bent outward.

  Luckily he didn’t have much time to linger on the shooting pain in his arm. His eyes darted around the dormitory, trying to locate Velmior.

  ‘Shit! What about-’

  Answering his question, just below him, cracks began forming all across the demon’s body. The clone angrily glared at Leo as he spat in a distorted voice, “You! No wonder the contractor was so jealous of you! You and your potential…I see it now. .I’ll remember you the next time we meet! And next time, I won’t be in this pitiful state.” With those parting words, the clone shattered from the head down, the remnants of him scattering into dust that blew away from the catastrophic battle beside them.

  ‘Just like that? What was all that talk then?’

  “Luckily it was just a weaker clone of him, or else there’d be bigger issues.”

  To his right, the Lieutenant walked up and lowered himself to touch the pulsating flesh on the ground. As if answering a silent call, the flesh bundles slithered up to the stubs that were his arms and reformed themselves into his arms. The skin on his hand had returned as if nothing had happened. As soon as he was finished, he picked up and sheathed his thrown katana.

  The Lieutenant turned and said to Leo, “That clone was basically just an offensive monster with little to no endurance. As you saw, shattering the clone takes little to no effort, but we should get ourselves ready.”

  Leo looked at the Lieutenant confused. “Get ready for what?”

  “Say, Leo. Where's Anthony’s body?”

  Leo scanned the area and realized he was nowhere to be seen. “What!? Where?”

  “The demon threw the body into the mirror during my skirmish at the start. Based on that, I’m pretty sure I know why he made only one clone for that act.”

  Suddenly, Leo could hear a multitude of cracking sounds coming from behind him. Additionally, he saw ripples appear on mirrors from the ceiling as well as nearby the resting group along the walls.

  He wasn’t the only one who noticed, Connie and the others looked around at the crystal mirrors, unable to determine what it was doing. But they knew it was bad, and that was enough. In silent agreement, the group silently got up into a lower squat in case they needed to bolt.

  The Lieutenant said with a weary tone.

  “Leo, I’m gonna have to say this is far beyond my abilities.”