My eruption into the battlefield didn't just turn the scales; it shattered them. My mere presence was a death decree for any invader stupid enough not to flee. I was a horror distilled from the darkest nightmares, a creature that fit no known bestiary, emanating a malevolence that choked the very air.
It wasn't just my magic that was oppressive, but the sheer strangeness of my physiology. My physical strength rivaled that of the most powerful dragons, and my tactical intelligence far surpassed human desperation. My maw seemed to suck the vitality and mana from the environment, leaving soldiers weak before I even touched them. To make matters worse, some enemies simply burst into a scarlet mist which, under my control, transformed into a storm of blood-blades that swept through the invading ranks.
The beasts, both allied and enemy, did not hesitate: they fled in terror, ignoring the orders of their slavers or their bonds of loyalty. In me, they sensed an unstoppable destroyer. The Amazons, though bewildered by my demonic aspect, wasted no time in cheering as they saw their oppressors massacred by this unexpected ally, however sinister he appeared.
The cult leaders realized that defeat was imminent. Desperate, they decided to intervene and play their highest cards. As high-ranking officials, they possessed relics forged in antiquity; some carried artifacts imbued with vestiges of divine power, while others had fused that necrotic essence directly into their flesh as a final energy reserve.
But something unheard of happened.
The moment they drew near, the residual divine power they wielded began to tremble ethereally. It was an instinctive, almost conscious reaction: the echo of their God felt an ancestral panic before the being that had defeated him centuries ago. The clerics, unable to interpret this metaphysical fear, only watched in confusion as their relics flickered and failed erratically.
I felt those powerful auras converging on me, preparing a desperate attack, but I showed not a shred of fear. It didn't matter how much time had passed or what methods these modern mages had developed; after having fought and conquered the true God they worshipped, these poor fragments of his power in mortal hands were little more than broken toys.
Maintaining my facade of a wild beast, I lunged at them to dismantle not only their plans but their very existence. The coalition of traffickers and cultists was about to discover they weren't facing a monster... they were facing their imminent end.
...
The Amazons watched the carnage with a mixture of gratitude and dread. Although the beast was tearing their enemies apart, the aura of horror it gave off was so dense that many feared that after finishing with the invaders, they—or the Occamy itself—would be next on the menu.
However, the tension of the battlefield shifted with the arrival of a new combatant.
A young woman with bronzed skin, wearing the Castelobruxo uniform—which now seemed a bit small for her due to her recent physical development—threw herself into the fray. She was a complete stranger; among the various groups that had come to defend the cave, no one could identify her as one of their own. But her anonymity mattered little compared to the efficacy of her actions.
With movements denoting experience, she moved through the battlefield discretely, avoiding the spotlight but always shifting toward the most critical points of the fight. From a belt full of small spheres, she extracted objects one after another: seeds, coiled vines, small potion vials. At first, her presence was barely noticed, but soon her contribution became evident.
From crowd control techniques to summoning aggressive plants in the middle of enemy groups, her methods were varied and, in many cases, quite original. This young woman fought as if she were a pure-blooded Amazon who had lived her entire life in the jungle, using the environment itself not just as a stage, but as a weapon.
Hannah had joined the fray with a ferocity that seemed intent on proving her worth. Ever since the appearance of the ancient god of death, she had felt terribly useless. But now, this was a war she could participate in, so she decided to give it her all, as if every defeated enemy truly mattered.
It was curious. When this adventure first began, Hannah had been very reluctant to take a life. Even now, knowing that this world was real and not an "imaginary realm" like the previous one where everything would reset, she was still willing to stain her hands with blood.
Of course, these were bad people. They wanted to kill a majestic creature… and more than that. Hannah fought with renewed fury because of all the corpses she saw around her. Those Amazons, those women who had helped them… they were now dead. And she simply couldn't stand it.
Certainly, the challenge was greater. These weren't the primitive mages of the past with slow rituals, but modern mages with standard, immediate, and effective spells. If it weren't for the physical conditioning and combat discipline she obtained under my tutelage, Hannah would have been overwhelmed. Furthermore, she had to fight with precision; large-scale attacks like her pixie dust were ruled out to avoid friendly fire among the scattered Amazons.
Even so, Hannah carved her way through, finishing off any mage who managed to escape my initial massacre. Every now and then, she glanced up at my monstrous form; though she already knew me in this state, she never ceased to be amazed by what I became.
"Who are you?!" a high-ranking Amazon exclaimed, hacking and blasting her way to Hannah's position.
The two stood back-to-back, dispatching a group of traffickers trying to flank them. Hannah didn't respond with words immediately; instead, she struck the ground with her wand, causing a barrier of thorny vines to sprout from the earth, impaling the nearest enemy and creating a protective wall for the wounded warriors.
"I'm Hannah!" she finally shouted.
"Hannah?" the Amazon leader repeated, frowning.
The name sounded familiar, but the accent was strange. Without the enhanced translator from the ancient campaign, Hannah's standard translation was rudimentary, making her sound just like she did when she first arrived in Brazil. The Amazon scanned her with her gaze, incredulous.
"Are you the Flower Girl?!" she exclaimed with a surprise that nearly made her drop her guard.
"Yes, that one!" Hannah replied with a tired smile as she continued to attack without stopping, forcing the traffickers to retreat. "I almost forgot they call me that here too."
"But… how?" the Amazon watched her closely. She had seen her before in the tribe, and the girl she remembered was very different. Physical change could be explained by magic or potions… but her attitude could not. That determination was not that of the same girl. "Where is the bloodthirsty demon?"
"Killing them all," Hannah answered matter-of-factly, pointing forward.
There, my monstrous figure had grown in size and ferocity. The devastation I was sowing was absolute; the battlefield had become a one-man slaughterhouse.
"That's HIM?!" The leader and the Amazons who had managed to regroup around her exclaimed in unison, paralyzed for an instant.
All were witnesses to my immensity and the power emanating from every one of my attacks. The outcome of the war was already decided. Since my appearance, enemy casualties had been so massive that any normal army would have already retreated. The only reason the fight continued was because I wasn't giving them an escape; I was cornering them, hunting them like rats in a cage of blood.
To the Amazons, I was a demon incarnate. In their minds, the legends of the old evil gods that lurked in the jungle began to come to life. Hannah would have laughed had she known their thoughts; not just because she knew I was much more, but because she herself had met those actual evil gods.
...
The battle came to an end. Ninety percent of the enemy forces lay inert in the mud, and more than half of those casualties had occurred in the scant minutes following my arrival. The few cultists and traffickers who managed to escape did so with broken souls, carrying with them a new story of a new jungle horror that would spread like a plague through the region.
The leaders of both groups lay dead on the battlefield. Perhaps the traffickers, who had heads in other parts of their organization, would be in a better position to reorganize. But the cult… it had lost too many important figures. It would be difficult for them to recover, provided that religion didn't end up thinning out in the rivers of time until it disappeared or transformed into something completely different from what they once were or dreamed to be.
With everything finished, I gradually regained my normal form as I headed toward the Amazon forces regrouping at their original positions outside the cave.
With silence reclaiming the jungle, I returned to my human form. There I found Hannah: she was sweaty, covered in someone else's blood and soot, with some minor wounds she had tried to bind herself. She was the spitting image of a wild, bellicose warrior.
I approached her and gave her a kiss charged with post-war adrenaline. My hands, wrapped in a soft healing energy, began to dance over her body to close her wounds.
"You did well," I whispered to her.
"Thanks... but you did most of it," she replied, looking humbly at the surviving Amazons. "Besides, I wasn't alone."
The warriors watched us with an overwhelming mix of emotions: awe, consternation, and a reverential fear. The leader stepped forward, bowing in a respectful salute denoting absolute gratitude.
"Bloodthirsty Dem... I mean... Red. Thank you for saving us," she murmured, her voice raspy.
"Don't mention it. By the way, where is Niara?" I asked, remembering our guide.
The leader's expression darkened. She exchanged a complicated look with her companions and gave a silent order. Shortly after, two Amazons approached carrying an inert body, its torso lacerated and an arm eaten away by magical fire.
"Niara!" Hannah covered her mouth in horror. She couldn't believe her friend had fallen. By my side, she had grown accustomed to no one important dying; my presence was usually an absolute life insurance policy.
"She was one of those who gave everything in the fight," the Amazon leader said with solemnity. "She did not fear death when she threw herself to the front to defend her home and her duty as an Amazon."
Her words weren't just for Niara, but for all the warriors who fell that day.
"Red…?" Hannah looked at me with pleading eyes. She had grown used to looking to me for answers.
"Alright..." I sighed, pretending I was only doing it because I was giving in to her tears.
With a single [Message], Helena emerged from the Fief. Her spectral and oppressive presence startled the Amazons, but I didn't stop. While I restored the tissue and structure of Niara's corpse, Helena employed the necromantic arts she had been perfecting to intercept the warrior's soul before it crossed too far beyond the veil.
Since her death was recent, the bond was still traceable. With great effort, Helena held Niara's sleeping soul and forced it back down into the body I had just repaired. The organism, artificially brought to the threshold of life but still empty, received the spiritual impact. However, it wasn't enough; death would leave its mark, and her life might become something… twisted. Something close to the existence of a living dead, at least spiritually.
Then, I added the final ingredient for an absolute miracle: a pinch of Elise's Divine Power. A pure and neutral essence that acted as the ultimate catalyst. Guided by Helena's spell, a golden glow erupted from Niara's chest as her lungs expanded in a sudden gasp of air.
Her eyes snapped open, full of light and vitality.
"Welcome back to the world of the living," I said with a smile.