Chapter 295: The Supreme Commander’s Husband

Vezrath’s violet eyes widened as he finally looked beyond Raven.

The rooftops were covered.

Shadow Corps soldiers stood across the surrounding buildings, their dark uniforms blending so perfectly into the night that Vezrath hadn’t noticed when they arrived.

Others had already positioned themselves inside the alleys and ruined storefronts below, silently closing every path leading away from the street. He turned once, then again, and each direction revealed another figure watching him from the darkness.

He had been surrounded without even realizing it.

Vezrath’s teeth clenched.

Shadow Raven...

Of all the Agency commanders who could have appeared, she was among the worst possible opponents for him to encounter alone.

He had already exhausted much of his poison fighting Yuuta, and the deaths of the other seven Poison Demons had left him without anyone to support him. Fighting Raven herself under these circumstances would be suicidal, especially with an entire Shadow Corps unit surrounding him.

No. I have to leave this area.

Raven didn’t attack immediately.

Elena remained safely held within one of her arms, allowing Raven’s attention to move toward the street below. Her eyes settled upon the remains near the ruined Agency barricade, where seventeen officers had been caught by the poisonous gas.

Their weapons, armor and equipment had been eaten away alongside their bodies until almost nothing recognizable remained.

Raven’s expression hardened.

Those had been Agency personnel.

Her people.

She looked farther down the street and saw what remained of the Poison Demons Yuuta had killed, then the civilians scattered throughout the surrounding area. The entire road carried evidence of what had happened before the Shadow Corps arrived.

Her fingers slowly tightened.

"Shadow Corps."

Every figure surrounding the street shifted almost simultaneously.

"Prepare for attack."

Vezrath lowered his body.

Raven’s eyes became cold.

"Avenge our brothers."

The darkness came alive.

Vezrath barely saw the first soldier leave the rooftop before a blade was already approaching his throat. He jerked backward and felt the edge pass close enough to cut several strands of hair, but before he could retaliate, another Shadow Corps soldier appeared from his right.

Vezrath raised his forearm.

The blade struck the reinforced guard hidden beneath his robe, and he immediately reached for the attacker with his poisoned hand. His fingers came within inches of the soldier’s face before the figure suddenly leaned away and vanished backward into the darkness.

Another blade came from behind.

Vezrath twisted just in time, but the weapon still cut across his shoulder.

"YOU...!"

He swung around furiously.

Nobody was there.

The soldier who had struck him was already retreating while two others approached from opposite directions. Vezrath immediately understood what they were doing. They weren’t attempting to remain close enough for a prolonged exchange, where his physical strength and poison could overwhelm them.

They attacked once and disappeared.

The next soldier immediately replaced the previous one.

Vezrath stepped backward and threw a poison bottle toward the approaching figures. The glass shattered between them, releasing a violent burst of violet liquid across the road, but both Shadow Corps soldiers changed direction before the poison could touch them. One leapt onto the side of an abandoned vehicle while the other disappeared into an alley, only for another figure to descend from the rooftop behind Vezrath.

A blade opened another wound across his back.

Vezrath roared and released poison directly from his mouth.

A thick violet cloud exploded across the street.

This time he smiled.

There was nowhere to dodge.

The poisonous gas expanded through the narrow road, swallowing abandoned cars, broken storefronts and several Shadow Corps soldiers before spreading toward the surrounding buildings. Vezrath knew exactly what that gas could do. He had watched it dissolve Agency officers and even eat through metal only minutes earlier.

"Let’s see you hide from that!"

For several seconds, the entire street disappeared beneath violet smoke.

Vezrath waited for the screams.

None came.

His smile slowly disappeared.

"What...?"

Something flashed inside the poison.

Vezrath instinctively raised his arm.

A blade struck it.

He barely managed to block before the attacker disappeared into the violet cloud again.

Vezrath stared.

Another shadow passed behind him.

Then another.

They were moving inside his poison.

"Impossible..."

He released another concentrated breath directly toward one of the figures, pouring enough poison into the attack to obscure the soldier completely.

Vezrath expected the figure to collapse immediately, yet the Shadow Corps member slipped through the edge of the cloud and emerged several meters away without any visible injury.

Not even his clothing had begun dissolving.

Vezrath’s eyes widened.

"What the hell are you people?"

He didn’t understand what he was seeing. The Shadow Corps weren’t simply immune to poison; whenever the gas appeared to engulf one of them, their bodies shifted strangely through the darkness before emerging somewhere else untouched.

Vezrath couldn’t tell whether they were moving before the poison truly reached them or whether something about their shadow techniques prevented direct contact entirely.

That uncertainty frightened him more than an explanation would have.

His greatest advantage wasn’t working.

The Shadow Corps attacked again.

Three figures entered almost simultaneously, but none approached from the same direction. Vezrath blocked the first blade and immediately threw poison toward its wielder, only for the soldier to disappear from his reach.

The second struck his ribs before retreating, while the third descended from above and opened a cut across his upper arm.

Vezrath spun violently and released another wave of gas.

Again, the soldiers scattered through the darkness.

Again, nobody screamed.

"They’re avoiding all of it..."

His breathing became heavier.

Vezrath threw two bottles toward the rooftops and immediately breathed poison across the street below, attempting to cut off both levels at once.

The bottles burst above while violet gas spread below, briefly covering nearly every obvious approach to him.

For an ordinary combat unit, it would have been enough.

The Shadow Corps simply changed the battlefield.

Figures disappeared from one rooftop and emerged from another. Others slipped behind buildings before appearing through completely different alleys, never allowing Vezrath to determine where the next attack would originate.

One soldier even seemed to sink into the shadow beneath an overturned vehicle before appearing from the darkness cast by a building several meters away.

Vezrath barely turned before a blade cut across his chest.

"ARGH!"

He retaliated with a poisoned fist, but struck nothing.

The soldier was already gone.

Another attacked his leg.

Vezrath blocked.

A third immediately came for his neck.

He ducked, released poison upward and forced that attacker away, only for someone behind him to drive a kick into his back and send him stumbling several steps forward.

Vezrath finally understood their rhythm.

There wasn’t one.

The Shadow Corps fought like a pack of hunting raptors deliberately exhausting larger prey. Whenever he focused on one, another attacked. Whenever he released enough poison to control one side of the street, they abandoned that side entirely and came from somewhere else. Whenever he thought he had finally trapped one of them, the soldier vanished before the poison could make contact.

Worst of all, Raven still hadn’t moved.

She remained above the battlefield, watching.

Vezrath’s breathing became ragged as blood ran from several cuts across his body. His poison reserves were disappearing much faster than he had expected, while the Shadow Corps showed almost no sign of exhaustion.

They’re making me waste it.

The realization made his stomach tighten.

Every bottle he threw, every cloud he released and every poisonous breath he used was being deliberately baited out of him. They weren’t merely trying to kill him.

They were stripping away everything that made him dangerous first.

"No..."

Vezrath clenched his fists.

"I can’t die here."

Another shadow moved along the rooftop.

Vezrath immediately prepared his poison, but stopped himself before releasing it.

Think.

He couldn’t defeat the entire Shadow Corps. He certainly couldn’t fight Raven after exhausting himself against her soldiers. If he continued like this, they would simply keep cutting him apart until there wasn’t enough poison left to defend himself.

He needed something they couldn’t dodge.

Something they would be forced to protect.

Vezrath’s eyes moved across the ruined street, searching desperately for anything that could create an opening.

Then his gaze stopped.

Yuuta was still lying where he had fallen.

The red-eyed human remained barely conscious on the pavement, too exhausted to stand and too injured to defend himself. More importantly, Vezrath remembered the Demon King’s command clearly.

Capture him alive.

If the Demon King wanted Yuuta, then the Agency almost certainly understood his importance as well.

Vezrath’s frightened expression slowly changed.

"Yes..."

His eyes settled on Yuuta.

Another Shadow Corps soldier launched from the darkness, expecting Vezrath to continue retreating.

This time, the Poison Warden suddenly changed direction.

He rushed straight toward Yuuta.

A desperate smile spread across his face as the answer finally became obvious.

I don’t need to defeat them.

I just need to make them stop attacking.

Vezrath reached toward the helpless human.

"I can use him."

Above the chaos, Raven watched the Shadow Corps continue closing around Vezrath. Every time the Poison Demon attempted to break through their formation, another soldier appeared from the darkness and forced him back toward the center of the street.

Yet Raven’s attention wasn’t completely on the battle anymore.

Her jaw tightened as she looked over the ruined district.

I was too late.

Sara’s instructions had originally sounded strangely specific. Raven had been ordered to enter Yuno City through the rear side of the apartment district near Zion and locate a human male somewhere in his early twenties.

There had been little time to question why that particular civilian mattered when the entire country was under attack, so Raven had simply followed the order.

Instead, she had arrived to this.

Dead civilians lay throughout the streets. Seventeen Agency personnel had been reduced to barely recognizable remains, and traces of corrosive poison covered the road, vehicles and surrounding buildings.

Following that trail of destruction had eventually brought Raven directly to the Poison Demons and to the young man Sara had apparently sent her to find.

Raven’s fist tightened as she watched another Shadow Corps soldier strike Vezrath before disappearing back into the darkness.

If they had arrived only a little earlier, perhaps some of these people would still be alive.

Something suddenly trembled against her.

Raven looked down.

The little girl she had rescued was shaking violently in her arms.

At first Raven assumed it was simply fear. The child had nearly been struck by poison only moments earlier and had just watched her father almost strangled to death. Anyone her age should have been terrified after experiencing something like that.

But the moment Raven properly looked at Elena’s face, something inside her seemed to stop.

White hair.

Pale skin.

And those eyes.

Blood-red rather than violet, but there was something about the child’s features that made Raven stare longer than she intended. For one strange instant, another face seemed to overlap with Elena’s in her mind.

Raven’s eyes widened.

*Supreme Commander...?*

"No... wait."

She studied Elena more carefully. The resemblance wasn’t exact, yet now that the thought had entered her mind, Raven couldn’t dismiss it. There was something unmistakably familiar about the little girl’s face, especially when combined with that white hair.

Raven lowered her voice.

"Little girl, are you related to the Supreme Commander?"

Elena looked up at her in confusion, tears still clinging beneath her eyes.

"Huh? Supreme Commander?"

Raven realized the title meant nothing to her.

"The tall woman with white hair and violet eyes." Raven tried to describe Erza as simply as possible. "Do you know someone like that?"

Elena’s expression immediately changed.

Her red eyes widened with recognition, and for the first time since Raven had rescued her, some of the fear disappeared from her face.

"You mean Elena’s Mama?"

Raven went completely still.

"...Mama?"

Elena nodded quickly.

"Yes! Elena Mama has white hair and violet eyes!"

For several seconds, Raven couldn’t respond.

Her eyes moved from Elena toward the battlefield below.

Yuuta remained collapsed on the ruined street, his body almost completely exhausted after everything that had happened. Even now, his crimson eyes kept moving toward the rooftop where Elena was being held, as though confirming again and again that his daughter was still safe.

Her eyes moved back toward Elena.

White hair.

Pale skin.

A resemblance Raven could no longer convince herself was coincidence.

The Supreme Commander’s daughter...

Then she looked at Yuuta again.

And that’s her father.

Raven’s heart seemed to stop for a second as the final connection formed.

He’s the human.

That was why Sara had given such a strangely specific order in the middle of a nationwide invasion. That was why Raven had been sent personally to Yuno City instead of being allowed to reinforce one of the major battlefronts. Sara hadn’t simply ordered her to rescue some random civilian trapped near Zion.

She had sent Raven to protect Erza’s family.

"Papa!"

Elena’s terrified scream ripped Raven out of her thoughts.

Raven immediately looked down.

Vezrath was moving.

The Poison Demon had abandoned every attempt to escape through the Shadow Corps and was rushing directly toward Yuuta instead. Raven immediately understood what he intended to do. Whether Vezrath wanted to take him hostage or simply injure him to force the Shadow Corps back didn’t matter anymore.

If that demon touched Yuuta...

Raven’s face paled.

For one absurd instant, she imagined Erza returning from the battlefield and discovering that the human she loved had been killed while under Raven’s protection.

Supreme Commander will kill me.

"NO!"

Raven stepped toward the edge of the rooftop, instinctively tightening one arm around Elena.

"STOP HIM!"

Several Shadow Corps soldiers reacted immediately, but Vezrath had already committed everything to the desperate charge. Poison gathered around his outstretched hand, dripping from the tips of his sharpened nails as he rushed toward the defenseless Yuuta.

Raven’s voice thundered across the street.

"DON’T LET HIM TOUCH THE SUPREME COMMANDER’S HUSBAND!"

Several Shadow Corps soldiers visibly faltered.

"Husband?!"

"What?!"

That fraction of confusion was enough.

Vezrath reached Yuuta.

The Poison Warden’s face twisted with desperation as he brought his claw forward, intending to grab the helpless human before the Shadow Corps could reach him. Violet poison dripped from his nails, each drop hissing against the pavement as his hand closed the final distance.

Elena saw it happen from Raven’s arms.

"PAPAAAA!"

Yuuta heard her.

His crimson eyes opened.

Something inside him moved before thought could catch up.

The approaching claw filled his vision, but Yuuta didn’t see Vezrath anymore. He saw Elena crying. He remembered himself crawling helplessly across the pavement while that demon prepared to throw poison at his daughter. He remembered begging. He remembered being unable to stand, unable to protect her and unable to do anything except watch.

And something inside Yuuta refused to experience that helplessness again.

His fist tightened against the road.

Vezrath’s claw came down.

Yuuta moved.

The Poison Warden’s eyes widened.

He didn’t even see Yuuta stand.

One moment the human had been collapsed beneath him, and the next Yuuta’s body had risen directly into his attack. His blood-covered fist drove upward with enough force to distort Vezrath’s cheek around the knuckles before the impact erupted through the street.

BOOM!

Vezrath was ripped from the ground.

His body flew backward and smashed into the pavement, bouncing violently once before rolling through shattered glass and debris. He continued several meters down the road before finally crashing against the remains of an abandoned vehicle hard enough to deform its side.

Silence swept across the battlefield.

Yuuta remained standing.

Barely.

His entire body trembled violently, his shoulders hung unevenly from the damage they had already suffered, and blood continued running from his palms and mouth. There shouldn’t have been enough strength left inside him to stand, much less throw a demon across the street.

Yet his fist remained extended.

Dark Green energy began leaking around his fingers.

It crawled slowly along his forearm like smoke before spilling from his shoulders and wrapping around his exhausted body. This wasn’t the green aura the Shadow Corps had glimpsed earlier. It felt heavier, darker, carrying a pressure that made several soldiers instinctively tighten their grips around their weapons.

Yuuta slowly lifted his head.

His crimson eyes were fixed on Vezrath.

"I am..."

His breathing shook as he forced his damaged fist closed again.

"I’m not that fucking weak."

The Dark green aura surged.

Raven’s violet eyes widened as the pressure reached the rooftop. Whatever relief she had felt from seeing Yuuta stand disappeared beneath immediate confusion, because the energy surrounding him didn’t resemble anything she had expected from the supposedly ordinary human.

Her attention sharpened completely.

What... is that?

TO BE CONTINUED.