As the shadow glider demons swam across the dark walls of the hallway, claws stretched from their thin forms and swiped at any candles or lights in their path, destroying them, giving the demons more strength in the low lighting.

  Some were bold enough to cut at the tassel ropes holding the curtains together, cutting off an even more significant light source from outside… The moons.

  “Dang it!” I shouted, trying to catch up to the speedy demons before they continued to darken the home, but I was too late.

  A wall of the gliders built in the middle of the hall. They were literally collecting together to increase their mass and shape, attempting to keep me from passing through. Those little creeps shouldn’t have been surprised when my spear cut right through them like a hot butter knife.

  But I sure was the one surprised instead to see what they’d been blocking from my view. Dozens of shadow gliders piled onto each other to form a lanky looking demon, Thin as cardboard, but tall as a giant.

  -Dire Glider tagged; Foe-

  An eerie grin donned its face as its hand swiped at me, sending a thread thin wave of dark energy my way.

  I quickly leaned to the floor and rolled under the attack. Passively turning back to assess the cut it’d made through the furnishings of the wall.

  A large stone statue had been finely divided in two. Not only that, but my spear was nicked at the head.

  Darn it…” I refocused myself on the enemy, growing a new blade for my spear and fluttering in at full speed.

  The dire glider slashed his hands out multiple times, unleashing a storm of razor sharp shadow cuts that tore up parts of the hallway.

  I folded in my wings and relied on my combat prediction systems to get me on the safest path to avoid being hit.

  Evasion was a lot of back and forth with little reward. I’d gain a few meters on the dire demon, but lose a few, requiring the devastated wall to springboard me back into the action.

  Beams above our heads began to fail as the cuts tore them apart. I flew to my left toward the window to avoid any of them landing on me. The evasive skills of the dire glider were well beyond my own, seeing as it was so thin, so it was never touched by even the smallest debris.

  While it avoided any of its own collateral, it sent out more swipes of dark energy. I was able to avoid any hits, but the windows and drapes certainly took the hit in my stead.

  Cloth that had been blocking the moonlight from getting in now piled on the floor. Lunar light bathed the hall and momentarily stunned the lanky demon combination.

  “Wait, what am I doing?!”

  I internally scolded myself as I flew across this section of hall while it was stunned, cutting down each of the drapes as I passed by. I wasn’t quick enough to get around the dire glider, but that wasn’t much of an issue anymore, as smoke billowed up from its weakening form from the power of lunar albedo.

  “Let there be light! Yaaah!” I shouted as I let stardust light energy erupted across my skin. My Eighth Star Battle Dress aided me and channeled stardust through it, brightening me up even more.

  The light of this stardust flare overpowered everything, even the moonlight! It erased the dire glider from existence without a trace left behind.

  “You’re finished!”

  It took a lot of the shadow gliders to build that fusion of demons, but more came out of the vents and slits in the walls. There had to have been hundreds of them.

  “How many of them are there?” I gripped my spear tightly, glaring at the swarm of shadows as they slid across the hall.

  Many of them took to covering the windows with their bodies, piling on in excessive numbers to reinforce their moonlight blocking wall.

  I attempted to cut through them with my spear, but was shocked to find the sheer density of their many stacked bodies was like some demonic steel, folded in on itself a hundred fold. I couldn’t do much more than scratch their surface.

  “No fair!” I growled.

  Another of the dire gliders appeared, this one more big and brutish, not nearly as thin as its previous incarnation.

  It’s fist began to swell in size as shadow gliders piled over it. Using that uber increase in shape, it sent out a titanic punch that obliterated the wall behind me. More gliders quickly piled up to block the outside.

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  I landed on the ground, winded at the gust that pushed me back several meters.

  While I was in disarray, the dire glider flattened its hands and sent out those slashes of dark energy. A few flips backwards helped me escape those nasty paper cuts.

  “Get out of my way!” I shouted, flying in with my spear pointed forward.

  More slashes came my way. One to my left, which I dodged. One to my right, which only just barely gave my wing a very painful scratch. A hint of blue blood drizzled down to the floor, but the cut wasn’t enough to slow me down.

  I kept dodging everything the demon had until his fist balled up, swelling with many layers of those paper thin demons.

  His punch was so strong, but slow. A huge gust of wind blasted past me and blew away a huge chunk of the ceiling.

  He tried throwing his other hand my way, but I weaved through his offence and slipped right up to his chest, readying my spear to stab into his glowing red heart.

  The spear of destiny struck the demon's chest, but couldn’t do much as the many layers of gliders created some thick paper mache-like mess to deny it access.

  In a rush, the demon swatted me away and sent his other fist in for another titanic blow to me, smiling maniacally all the while. This one I couldn’t avoid.

  The crushing pressure quickly collided with my outstretched arms, caught in my hands. The Stardust Spear of Destiny shattered to bits, leaving me to face this hulking challenge alone.

  His force was so great that my tiny body couldn’t overcome it. Even with the added benefit of my Combat Mode’s strength increase, I was going to need to go further beyond to match this, or be flattened.

  -Entering False Theta Form!-

  I grappled the incoming heavy weight fist with newfound super strength, granted to me by the False Theta Form. It was like catching a train, but from the front with my bare hands. Light exploded out of me and my hair grew longer to confirm the transformation was a success. White flames twinkled with my aggression as I kept the fist from going any further and crushing me into the rubble of the wall.

  “This is over!” I growled, ferocity in my now sparkling white eyes as determination flooded my heart. “You’re in my way!”

  The brightness from my transformation weakened the strength of this demonic monster, causing me to slowly overpower his obvious advantage. I was able to finally shove his whole body forward, getting distance from him.

  Breathing was difficult, and my body felt like an absolute wreck from using this form three times today. My durability was something else, but it still left something to be desired.

  Contrary to my struggle to maintain power, the dire demon overcame his fear of the light by simply adding more of its comrades to his dark flesh. If I was going to stop this guy, I needed to do it quickly, or the great power granted to me would diminish along with my hope of protecting humanity.

  “One hit…” I breathed out. “That’s all I have left in me, and that’s all its gonna’ take to finish you off.”

  I heard something of a gurgly chuckle leave the demon's mouth. Adding to his taunt, he stuck up a middle finger at me and wiggled it around.

  My wings flared out, blasting me forward with celestial power. The demon grew many thin arms from its body that wildly slashed around, sending swift cuts all over the place in an attempt to hit me.

  Once I got in proximity, those cuts were a real threat. The unpredictable nature had me swerving quickly to avoid taking one head on. On sheer luck, I found an opening to rush in at sonic speeds.

  The dire glider noticed his vulnerability as well, quickly motioning his hand to swat me away. I was hit by his knuckles, but managed to push myself upwards and avoid the brunt of it.

  “Spear of Destiny!” I shouted, spawning my spear and flipping in the air, preparing to come down for another try at his heart.

  The demon stopped his wild motions and melted into a great mass of sludge. Slimy demon water scattered across the floor, reforming in a place further down the hall away from me.

  *CRACK!* went my spear as the tip of it sank into the marble floor tiles, missing the demon by a mile.

  Cut attacks of dark energy came at me again, but I’d had more than enough time to adapt to them. I was able to slip past every single one without fail or worry.

  “I’ve got you now!”

  I blasted in, passing by his attempts to hit me with his great fists.

  Instead of attacking directly with my spear, like he expected, I pumped my chest forward, forcing an orb of energy to pool at my crystal heart.

  “Mana cannon!”

  Hot blue Mana energy blasted out from my core and struck the demon's torso, blowing away its skin to smithereens and opening up a path to its beating heart.

  I brought up my spear while he stumbled and closed the distance, this time piercing right into the center of the dire demon.

  Its cry of pain was fierce, composed of multiple voices of the many gliders composing it. With its heart ravaged and his body withering, I finished him off with a single slice of my spear across his whole body.

  *Fwish!*

  He was nothing left but ash in the wind.

  The other gliders were cautious of me now, more so than normal. Where I walked, they kept their distance. The hundreds of them here could have easily overwhelmed me, but they didn’t have that fight in them anymore.

  “I didn’t scare you all that bad, did I?”

  I was half taunting them. Obviously my feat of destroying two of their dire variants was something of note, but the sudden shift in attitude toward me felt off. Although, maybe I was underestimating how striking my transformation was.

  The form unfortunately did come with an obvious disadvantage of draining my strength, so I had to power it down… But not before sending out another powerful stardust flare that cleared out this portion of the hallway from its dark invaders.

  “I'm tired…” I fell on my knees, breathing heavily for a moment to collect myself. Thankfully I took out all my enemies before this quick rest, or they might have found an opening to attack. “No… I have to get back in the game. Yamin is in danger!”

  With determination, I got back up and flew down the hall, heading for Yamin’s room.

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