So, here's the third and final installment of the distraction team's misadventures. It's far and away the most straightforward, being essentially one long fight scene, so if anyone was getting tired of the sneaking about and plotting, here's some good old-fashioned ultraviolence for you.
Enjoy and let me know what you think. Every bit of feedback goes a long way toward helping me improve and maintain my work.
Yuugi Hoshiguma dodged another swipe of razor-sharp claws and retaliated with a jaw-crushing uppercut that launched the bear-like creature a dozen stories into the air with a spray of blood and bone. Knocking one of the many hostile avian youkai flying around out of the sky as the body flew through the air.
Not slowing down for a moment, the Oni pivoted around to backhand an attacking fox's head across the field. The King's forces spent a moment gawking at the carnage and gave her gang, used to far worse than this scrap, all the time needed to tear into them.
"Is that all you've got?!" She yelled at the distant figure of the Beast King. Who had yet to budge from his retinue since she had told him to fuck off or see how well his pets did against actual fighters.
Seeing as the once-green plains were now stained red with the blood of his minions, it was fairly obvious how that went.
"Now if only their boss wasn't such a pansy about things…" Yuugi grumbled.
She idly grabbed an attacking wolf by the throat mid-pounce and squeezed. Ignoring the splatter, she turned her thoughts to the best way to deal with the king.
She'd tried chucking stuff at him, but he just had some of his pets take the impact. They weren't tough enough to shrug them off but, given how many minions he had, she'd run out of ammo long before he exhausted his supply of inhuman shields.
Having her boys clear a path might work, but it'd leave the beasts they were already fighting free to swarm them from all sides. Nothing she couldn't handle, but the other oni weren't quite as tough as she was.
Long-range was doomed to fail, calling her subordinates away would just replace one set of problems with another, and even oni would eventually be overwhelmed by enough soldiers, crappy quality or not.
With those issues in mind, Yuugi Hoshiguma opted to fall back on her most reliable strategy.
If at first you don't succeed, punch it harder.
And punch harder she did. With a roar that reminded those who heard it of a monstrous predator bearing down on its soon-to-be-victim, she slammed her fist into the ground before her; not only shattering the surrounding area into dust and fingernail-sized rocks but creating a shockwave that tore toward the Beast King and his minions. The force of the attack great enough to scatter all those unfortunate enough to stand in its way.
With the Beast King's ground forces in disarray, Yuugi reached down and snatched up one of the many pieces of debris left behind from her attack, a boulder a little under twice her size, before lobbing it at the horde and charging toward the enemy leader. The devastated terrain not slowing her down an iota.
Of course, not all of the opposing forces were impacted by the explosive renovations to the surrounding landscape. From their position high above the battlefield, the Deva's actions amounted to little more than a glaring announcement that a target was there.
A call that the myriad airborne creatures were more than eager to answer.
Descending from the sky with a cacophony of wails and screams straight out of humanity's collective nightmares, the horde bore down on Yuugi's position. Some chose to rain down projectiles from the heavens, and others sought to tear her apart with their bare hands, or talons as was the case for quite a few.
Despite the oncoming onslaught, Yuugi refused to slow down. Instead, she increased her pace, bounding across the fractured ground like an enraged hippo.
Whenever one of the opposing troops tried to hit her with a ranged attack, Yuugi would either dodge or barrel right through. Anyone foolish enough to try and enter melee combat with her was quickly reduced to a broken pile of flesh and bones.
Those who tried to keep their distance instead met their ends at the hands of one or more of the myriad rocks available for Yuugi to launch at them, the makeshift missiles becoming a rapid-fire onslaught of supersonic death in her hands.
Her charge was temporarily slowed by several of her foes grabbing her at once, only for her to tear herself from their grip and pulverize them in return before resuming her previous pace.
However, this gave some of the Beast King's ground forces time to recover from the shockwave and prepare to defend against Yuugi. Several of them planted themselves between the Oni and their ruler.
"Bring me her head or hand over your own!" The king screamed at his troops. Who, aware that they had the choice between likely death at her hands or certain death at their king's, charged toward Yuugi en masse.
What followed was Yuugi systematically demolishing everyone and everything in her way, ignoring the steady accumulation of wounds and sniping flying enemies out of the sky with rocks and blasts of air pressure.
As she closed in on the Beast King, he began to panic and ordered his forces to focus on her. This gave the other oni an opening to disrupt said efforts as they were no longer occupied fighting twenty-to-one odds.
Yuugi continued her charge, leaving shattered swathes of broken earth and bodies in her wake. In response, the Beast King glared at a member of his personal guard, a canine man who nodded back and jumped into the fray.
With an ear-splitting howl, streams of fog coalesced into dozens of spectral figures, each bloody and mangled in some way. With a snarled command and a wave of his hand, they charged at the oncoming Deva. Their eyes alight with murderous rage.
The spirits quickly proved effective at hindering Yuugi, their grasping claws weren't sharp enough to rend flesh from bone like they might against a human, but they could still draw blood. Slowly wearing the unstoppable Deva down throughout a thousand cuts.
Any attempts at counterattacking led to her fists passing straight through, physical force useless against incorporeal beings.
Yuugi jumped back, seeking to put some breathing room between her and the spirits, but managed to secure a mere moment of respite before two pairs of burning claws dug into her back.
Yuugi winced at the familiar pain but powered through and spun around to deliver a jaw-crushing backhand to her attacker that sent him reeling.
"Yeah, that was infernal fire all right. Guess that makes you a hellhound then?" Yuugi asked.
The guard whimpered through his shattered teeth.
Before Yuugi could finish them off, she felt the telltale chill of a spirit about to strike and was forced to abort her attack in favor of dodging the hordes' claws.
"Sheesh, that's annoying," Yuugi groused. "You really couldn't get anything better than the Netherworld equivalent of a bunch of flies? I get they're attracted to pieces of shit like your boss, but I'm honestly a bit embarrassed to be seen fighting them."
The hellhound twitched.
"Does your master just keep you around to play fetch or something? Fetch his slippers? Because if this is the best his elite guard can do, then I really need to rethink what I'm doing here." Yuugi continued, idly dodging and blocking the continued efforts of the spectral mob
Suddenly, the spirits ceased their pursuit and broke down into streams of wailing mist. The streams all converged onto a single point and gathered together to form a single indistinct shape.
As the screams of the damned slowly faded and the last of the spirits joined, the figure solidified into a towering skeletal figure almost twice Yuugi's already considerable size. Its three pairs of arms outstretched as if to embrace her, the chill of its aura freezing the ground and stripping life from the greenery, and its eyesockets alight with the rage of the damned.
"Howsh tesh por vetter?!" The hellhound snarled.
Rather than be intimidated by the sight, Yuugi stepped forward with a fierce grin on her face.
"Shill er!" And with their master's command, the amalgamation spread its arms wide and screamed. It was the sound of carnage, of a being whose very existence had been stripped away until all that remained was the desire to kill until there was nothing left to kill.
Anyone unfortunate enough to be within hearing range of the noise found their mind bombarded with images of entire cities slaughtered by invaders, travelers being devoured alive by hideous monsters, and countless other horrific deaths. Each and every one was a bloody reminder of the listener's insignificance, that they too were nothing more than prey for those stronger.
Many of the Beast King's forces collapsed onto the ground, their psyches overwhelmed by the experience. Several even stopped thinking altogether, unable to maintain their identity, and became the powerless wretches that they had been declared. Even those strong-willed enough to withstand the assault momentarily wavered against the visage of such concentrated malice.
Yuugi, blood slowly dripping from the dozens of lacerations lining her flesh, simply smiled, took another step forward, and punched it in the face.
Only, instead of passing through, this time the blow struck home. For a moment it seemed as though the two were frozen in place, with the spirit's phantasmal 'flesh' collapsing inward around the Deva's fist. Then the moment passed, time resumed, and the monstrous figure popped like a balloon.
The hellhound, and anyone else who remained coherent, stared at her in utter disbelief. For most, it was the sight of the horrific creature whose very presence traumatized them being crushed like an annoying fly that left them gaping. For the one who had commanded said creature, seeing his pet obliterated by something that had utterly failed every other time Yuugi had tried it left his grasp on reality shaky, to say the least.
"How…?" They gargled, falling to their knees.
"Punched it harder," Yuugi replied blithely.
Yuugi's ability tended to have that effect on people.
Put simply, she was strong. So absurdly strong that it defied reality itself. It didn't matter if it was impossible, if her target was something immune to physical force, or was outright intangible. If she decided to test her strength against something, she could pulverize it.
This wasn't to say that she was guaranteed to destroy anything she aimed for, rather, it's more akin to a secret technique that bypassed esoteric defenses and let physical force affect things it shouldn't. Anything capable of matching Yuugi's raw power could withstand her ability.
Of course, given Yuugi's utterly absurd strength, few things had the innate capability for such a feat.
The downside of such an ability was that it was strictly short-range, limited to within three steps of Yuugi, and repeated use tended to wear her out. Leaving it less than feasible against large numbers of foes. Hence, her decision to conceal it until she had the chance to wipe out all the ghosts in one go.
With his spectral support vanquished, the hellhound was left to stare down the malevolently grinning Deva.
He had just enough time to conclude that mistakes had been made before the strongest Oni's fist slammed into him and buried him so deep in the ground that many onlookers would swear that he'd been launched straight through Hell's roof.
Idly backhanding a bear foolish enough to try and attack her from behind, Yuugi turned to face the Beast King.
The monarch hadn't taken the sight of one of his personal guards getting a one-way trip back to Hell very well. His visage was matted with nervous sweat, his eyes wide open in shock, and his hands trembled with a mixture of terror and rage.
If before he had viewed Yuugi as simply another foe to crush, now his heart burned with pure unadulterated hatred toward her. For those looking at the tyrant's eyes, it was clear that he wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than Hoshiguma's bloody and drawn-out demise.
Yuugi, ever the diplomat, simply met his rage with a smug smile.
"Ah, crap. Don't tell me that mutt was your best?" She waved at the crater where, moments ago, a hellhound had been. "Me and my boys came all the way out here to have some fun, work our way up through your little zoo".
She leaned forward, features schooled into a disappointed frown. "Taking out the biggest game now would throw the score chart off something fierce you know?" Yuugi waved back at where her subordinates were figuratively and literally disassembling the king's army.
"What, am I going to tell my boys that the fun's over all that's left is cleaning up the rest of your losers? They'll throw a fit and I'll be stuck with a couple dozen sulking Oni. Do you have any idea how big a pain in the ass those guys are when someone ruins their fun?" Yuugi asked, throwing out her hands with a grave look on her face. Ignoring the way that the Beast King was beginning to turn purple.
"Hell, I'll probably have to go kick another army's ass to wash the disappointment out of my mouth. And where am I gonna find one of those around here!"
She probably would have gone on for longer, but that was the moment that the Beast King snapped
"Shut your mouth already, you worthless hag!" He snarled, his fists clenched so lightly that blood dripped from them. "I've conquered dozens of creatures like you before, what makes you think you and your rabble are anything more than another set of trash to crush beneath my heel?!"
And just like that, Yuugi's expression flattened into cold disdain and she slowly turned her head to meet the monarch's gaze.
"Trash, huh?" She asked softly, her tone uncharacteristically calm. "So that's what you think youkai are?"
The prince flinched back at the sight of those red eyes boring into his soul before regaining his composure.
"Of course that's what you are." He stated, derision dripping from every word. "What else would you call beings who exist only to be used or overcome by humanity? You exist so that we might climb to new heights atop your corpses, to claim otherwise is nothing more than the delusion of a beast."
"This is the truth of your kind." He waved at the two remaining members of his personal guard: a towering ursine creature and a fox youkai with mystical patterns burnt into his skin, their body language radiating subservience. "Either bow down or die. Those are the only fates creatures like you deserve."
"Bow down huh…" Yuugi repeated venomously. "You know, we Oni aren't afraid to admit when someone's got us beat. But victory is something you've got to earn. Not something you get handed." Her eyes narrowed intently at the Beast King.
"But I guess that's not something someone who had to backstab their brothers to get the throne would know much about. Is it?"
To say those words caused a stir would be an understatement. The remaining members of the royal guard flinched back in terror, their heads turning almost against their will to look at their master.
His head was tilted downward, his crown framing his features in shadow as his body shook in rage. What could be seen of the king's face was twisted into a hateful grimace, slitted pupils glaring at Yuugi as if he could slay her with the force of his stare alone.
"What did you just say to me?" he snarled through gritted teeth, his fangs bared to the world.
"You heard me." Yuugi glared back, undaunted by the immense killing intent emitting from her foe. "You think that people don't talk when three princes go off hunting, only for the youngest to come back with their pets, a witch, and news of his brothers' deaths? You couldn't hack it yourself, so you let someone else get them out of the way. How pathetic can you get?"
"I earned everything I own!" The Beast King shot back, slashing his arm through the air. "Conquered every foe in my way, brought every creature to heel. If my brothers were too weak to do the same, then that was their own failing."
"And look at you now," Yuugi deadpanned, gesturing at his clearly inhuman features. "Halfway to being a Youkai yourself and getting your army wrecked by a couple dozen Oni. Really winning there champ."
"Enough of your prattling!" The king turned to his guards. "Kill her, now!"
They quickly snapped to attention, the bear let out an earthshaking roar as it charged forward, while the fox's tattoos lit up and flames burst to life in their hands.
"Oh really?" Yuugi grinned as she cracked her neck from side to side before slamming her fist into her palm. "Well, calling you on your shit was getting boring. Guess it's time to crack some skulls!"
And with that, the time for arguments came to an end. The two sides charged at one another, the bear youkai making a beeline for the oncoming Oni, while the fox moved to flank his foe.
Yuugi met her ursine foe's charge with her own, fist pulled back and ready to splatter her foe like all the others.
The bear man, aware of this massive difference in strength after almost twenty minutes of watching her crush his lord's army, opted to try and force the oncoming blow away with a powerful swipe of his claws.
He timed it almost perfectly, the blow slammed into Yuugi's forearm as she released her punch and forced the strike off-track as the blades tore crimson strips in the Oni's skin. The blow struck his side and left the bear-man with a handful of shattered ribs rather than the exploded organs that would have come from a blow to the torso.
However, he powered through the pain, bracing his back foot against the ground as the force of Yuugi's fist threatened to send him spinning through the air. Were it not for the claws on his feet digging into the ground and anchoring him, he surely would have been launched away from his foe.
But, through instinctual rage and desperation, the bear endured and only slid back a few millimeters. His legs bent and threatening to buckle, he forced himself to rise with everything he had. He drew the hand that had remained by his side back for an upward swipe, his claws glinting menacingly in the sunlight.
The message was clear. Even if his own strength might not be enough to break through the thick hide that oni like her were known for, he could still turn her own power against herself.
This was someone who could actually kill her if she let her guard down.
Yuugi's eyes narrowed minutely at the realization that her foe, unlike the rest of his army, could actually fight and use his head at the same time. His strength might be a far cry from her own, but he had effectively leveraged it to take advantage of her confidence and set up what could be a devastating counterattack.
Rather than try to abort her charge, she kicked off the ground and hurled her body forward. With the added speed, Yuugi's forehead slammed into her foe's nose, pulverizing the orifice into a bloody paste and disorienting the ursine enough to further throw the attack off track.
Though the Deva's plan allowed her to avoid potentially gaining a new airway, the claws still struck home. The sharpened points tore through her clothes and gouged thin strips out of her stomach, leaving behind bloody trails where they passed.
The bear-man reeled back, clutching his hands to the wound. His mind was thrown into a hectic mishmash of fear and rage which threatened to bury his reason under the familiar tides of instinct.
"Heh, what's the matter furball? Can't take a love tap or two?" Yuugi mocked, a smug smirk adorning her face as she crossed her arms and waited for him to recover.
"That was almost a decent trick there, but it's gonna take a lot more than that if you want to beat an oni."
"Shut up!" he growled, falling to all fours with his teeth bared and blood running down his face. His muscles tensed and ready to pounce at a moment's notice."I'm not done yet!"
"Yeah, I'd hope not. This whole thing's felt like nothing but warm-ups so far and I'd like to get at least one decent fight before everything's said and done."
"So, what do you say you quit posturing and let's get down to…" whatever Yuugi was about to say was cut off when a stream of fire burst out of thin air to her left.
The Deva wasted no time reacting to the threat, spinning around and slashing her arm through the air to redirect the fireball off to the side with a wave of pressure.
"Tch, illusionists are always a pain in the ass," she groaned as she stared at the seemingly-empty space where the attack had come from.
Of course, her other foe was hardly willing to pass up a chance at a distracted opponent and pounced at her. Ready to tear into her with tooth and claw.
Only for Yuugi to catch her by the neck, leaving the youkai suspended in midair and clawing at the oni's iron grip as they struggled to breathe.
Fortunately for the imperiled bear-man, this predicament would only last a handful of seconds. Unfortunately for him, this was because Yuugi promptly hurled him through the air with enough force to break the sound barrier.
The ballistic ursine flew off towards the horizon, only for him to encounter a sudden obstacle when he passed through a section of the area that ever-so-slightly shimmered in the light. The fox's concentration and illusions shattered like his ribs by several hundred pounds of youkai colliding with him at supersonic speeds.
The two royal guards bounced across the rocky terrain, shrieks of pain accompanying every impact, until, after what felt like hours, they skidded to a stop. The bear-man briefly raised his head, blurry eyes straining to make out the distant horned figure who had done this to him, before his body gave out and he collapsed next to the unconscious fox.
With that nuisance out of the way, Yuugi turned her attention to the Beast King. Who stared back at her with unbridled contempt, with not a trace of concern for his personal guard to be found.
"Tch," he clicked his tongue. "I always knew that those failures wouldn't cut it against anything worth a damn, but I'd hoped that even the likes of them might still be able to inconvenience you. I suppose that's what I get for giving a pet the right to make decisions, they always find a way to fail when given the opportunity."
"Oh, and you think you'll do any better?" Yuugi shot back, eyebrow raised. "Your leg's aren't feeling too sleepy from sitting on your ass all day and leaving the fighting to your minions?"
Rather than lash out, as he had previously done when faced with Yuugi's mockery, the man simply grinned menacingly and raised his right hand towards the Oni.
From his palm erupted a torrent of flames, the heat so great that the ground it passed over began to sag and melt.
Reacting with instincts born of many years of having deadly attacks of all shapes and sizes launched at her, Yuugi punched the air. The resulting shockwave slammed into the inferno, stopping most of it in its tracks and leaving the rest to fly harmlessly past her.
Rather than press the assault, the king simply smirked at his foe. Relishing the newfound wariness in her stance and expression.
"I leave the fighting to my pets because dealing with vermin is beneath me," he drawled. "You boasted quite a bit about your own strength earlier. But for all your efforts and pretenses, you're nothing more than a beast rolling around in the dirt."
An aura of flames burst to life around the king as a pair of spectral crimson wings burst out of his back. "You were born with this brutish strength, defined by your purpose as a stepping stone. I earned every last speck of my power through my own efforts and cunning," he stated, his outstretched palm alight.
"Let me show you… the true difference between a tool and a human being." His hand snapped shut like a steel trap, snuffing out the flame and leaving the few remaining embers to fade to nothing while his hands glowed with infused heat.
With that declaration, he threw himself at Yuugi.
Yuugi met his charge with one of her own, fist once again cocked back and ready to deliver yet another earth-shattering blow.
The two met with a thunderous collision, Yuugi's fist slamming into the king's head while his punch drilled into her stomach. The force of the impact was great enough that it reasoned across the plains, shattering the stone beneath them into a thousand pieces.
Yuugi grimaced, the heat from the burning blow seeping into her wounds, shallow as they might be, and cooking her insides. It was far from a fatal blow, or even a crippling one, but the fact remained that she had taken a surprisingly powerful strike to an already-injured area.
The king, on the other hand, displayed no signs of concern or pain whatsoever. Despite taking a blow that would have, and had, obliterated most youkai on impact, his skull was completely fine. Not even a trace of a bruise or broken skin.
His face split in a feral grin, the Beast King sought to capitalize on his foe's momentary discomfort and grasped Yuugi's outstretched arm with his free hand. The moment a strong grip was secured, his hand erupted in flame.
Reacting swiftly, Yuugi reached over and tore his grip from her arm, hurling the man into the ground to her right with a not-inconsiderable amount of her strength.
As she watched the king bounce across the rocky terrain, Yuugi glanced back at her forearm, wincing at the mess of irritated skin where he had latched onto her. The damage was minor, but the fact that he'd been able to burn an Oni, a species who resided within Hell itself and could tolerate its infernal flames, spoke volumes about the power he had brought to bear.
"Surprised at my little present?" The Beast King mocked as he pulled himself to his feet. His clothes were torn and covered in dust, but his body remained unscathed. "I've heard about the famous durability of the Oni, but it looks like I overestimated your kind if that level of effort was enough to mark you."
"Oh, don't worry. It'll take a lot more than some piddly sparks to bring me down," Yuugi retorted darkly as she cracked her knuckles. "Honestly, I'm more surprised that a twig like you is still in one piece after even a half-assed blow like that. Got a magic trick or two up your sleeve?"
"Something like that," he chuckled. "But I think you have more important things to worry about right now." He pulled back his arm and unleashed a wave of fire ten feet high toward Yuugi before launching himself into the air with a beat of his wings.
Yuugi reacted quickly, reaching down and tearing a chunk of rock twice her size out of the ground and hurling it at the king. The rock passed through the flames only slightly melted and continued on a collision course with the Beast King.
Unphased by this development, the king lazily backhanded the rock to the side. Scattering broken stone fragments across the ground below and revealing what had been obscured by its mass.
Peering through the dust, he was greeted by the sight of Yuugi's fist rapidly filling up most of his field of vision. He had just enough time to realize he'd been tricked before he was sent crashing back down below with earthshaking force.
Yuugi landed on her feet, her eyes never straying from the crater the falling king had dug into the ground. However it had been done, the fact remained that he had already shrugged off one of her punches. It wasn't likely that another one would have any more effect on him.
Indeed, when the king pulled himself from the rubble he remained unharmed. Not even a bruise to show for the Deva's efforts.
"I see I'm going to have to be a bit more thorough about your lessons if this is the best you can come up with," he grunted as he lifted himself out of the pit. "Then again, expecting a beast to recognize when it's outmatched is rather foolish of me."
"I don't think anyone who's done the shit to himself that you have has a right to talk about people being 'beasts," Yuugi retorted. "Took me a minute to recognize those flames, but that's phoenix fire. Between that, your weird skin, and those wings of yours, I get the feeling that you're not just channeling some power from your minions…"
Yuugi stared into the Beast King's eyes as if her glare could bore into his skull and reveal his secrets. The smug look on his face at her words was the final confirmation of the thoughts that had been bubbling around the back of her head since that first blow.
"You're absorbing them," she finished, disgust permeating every syllable. "Making their bodies and abilities part of your own. How the hell can you still call yourself a human after all that?"
"Simple," he smirked. "It is the nature of humanity to dominate the unknown, to bend its resources to their will. I might have gone a bit further than most, but my will, my soul, remains pure."
"Right, that's why your eyes keep turning into slits, claws pop out of your hands, and I'm pretty sure I felt fur when I punched you," Yuugi retorted sarcastically. "Stealing other people's power and throwing away your humanity because you couldn't hack it on your own. You really are scum."
"Simple words from a simple mind," the king shrugged, rubble falling off his shoulders. "The fact remains that you can't hurt me. Lady Salem's gift of a Nemean lion cub saw to that."
"Is that so?" Yuugi's eyes narrowed as she nonchalantly cracked her neck. "Then let's test that theory of yours!"
With a roar, she charged at her foe, the ground shattering beneath the force of her footsteps.
The Beast King remained where he was, his face splitting into a feral grin as the Oni approached. His only response to this threat was to draw back his arms and shroud them, and his taloned fingers, in flame. As if readying himself to embrace her.
The moment Yuugi drew within range of his strikes, he lashed out. Slashing at whatever vital areas he could reach with his burning claws.
Yuugi ducked and weaved, slipping around the cutting edges and burning gauntlets by the barest of margins. With the king's attacks evaded, he was momentarily vulnerable, his footing unbalanced by his eagerness to draw blood.
Yet, rather than try to crush the hybrid with another devastating blow, she slipped around his side and firmly grasped his head from both sides. And, drawing upon a not-insignificant portion of her considerable strength, twisted.
The sound of shattered bone rang out across the plain, a haunting 'crack' that would unnerve almost anything living being unfortunate enough to hear it.
With his neck broken, the king went limp and fell to the ground. His vacant eyes stared off into the distance, devoid of the flame that had characterized them moments ago.
It seemed that this would be the end of the battle, with the Nemean lion's innate protection against blows unable to defend against crushing and/or twisting forces to vital areas. The same weakness that had felled the original beast dooming the man who had stolen its spawn's powers.
However, despite her foe's incapacitated state, Yuugi did not relax her guard. A choice that would prove prophetic moments later as his body erupted in flames, the heat melting a small crater in the ground where he lay before the Beast King rose to his feet fully healed.
"That stung," he ground out as he cracked his neck before glaring at the Oni. "Did you really think something like that would work? I've long since left behind my species' weaknesses and, while I might not be immortal yet, I'm certainly close enough for the likes of you."
Yuugi clicked her tongue at the sight, her eyes momentarily glancing over to where her minions were locked in combat with the king's army.
They were doing well enough, but she could tell that they were slowly losing momentum to the enemy forces. Each oni might be taking out at least six foes for every injury they take, but the damage added up and if there was one thing the Beast King had in spades it was reserves.
The king himself was very clearly the keystone of his forces and Yuugi had banked the idea of taking him out to throw her enemies into disarray. Unfortunately, given he had somehow managed to steal regeneration from whatever phoenix he had enslaved without turning his body into a mass of mutated flesh, just beating him to death clearly wasn't going to be fast enough.
However, something that many people often forget about Yuugi was that being a Deva required more than just the ability to launch annoying pricks into the stratosphere. It needed brains too.
She might not have been a genius schemer like Yakumo or Yagokoro, but, when it came to applied force, Yuugi was more than capable of putting together devastatingly effective plans in no time.
Unfortunately for her, when she looked back at the king she was greeted with the sight of a flaming palm inches away from her face. The Beast King, who was apparently much faster than he'd let on, had been quick to take advantage of her distraction.
While the blow lacked the raw strength needed to harm her, falling far short compared to the love taps she got taking down her idiots when they did something stupid even by their standards, the sheer speed of the attack was nothing to scoff at. With the addition of literal firepower to the mix, the king dragged her off the ground and into the air with blinding speed. Before Yuugi could raise her arms to rip away the king's, she felt the all-too-familiar sensation of her back slamming into a wall of rock. In the moment since lift-off, the king's charge had already dragged her all the way to a nearby hill with enough force to imbed her several feet within the side.
The king quickly fell back with a flap of his wings, flickering backward a dozen feet in the blink of an eye before unleashing a torrent of phoenix fire toward the buried Oni.
Thinking fast, Yuugi ripped out a torso-sized chunk of rock with each of her hands and slammed them in front of her.
The flames slammed into the makeshift barrier, tongues of heat bursting out through holes in the structure, but the stone endured. The barricade held fast even as the outer layers and the surrounding stone began to melt away under the infernal assault.
As the rock melted, it filled the holes in the defenses, cutting off what little fire had been able to make it through and sealing over the crater. The runoff buried her under waves of molten rock and left her trapped in a makeshift tomb.
The Beast King grinned as the Oni vanished underneath the burning mountainside, no doubt thrashing impotently as she suffocated in her makeshift tomb.
Pleased by this image, he decided to speed up the process and blast the hill with even more fire. It wasn't like he needed her alive, that just made taking the power easier, and he could afford to burn off some chunks here and there. So long as there was enough left to tether her essence, it didn't matter.
Even if she somehow had the strength to move with Basilisk venom coursing through her veins, there was nowhere to run. The creature was trapped beneath what was now literal tons of semi-solid rock, and any breach in her tomb would only serve to expose her to his might.
It was, he admitted to himself, a very pleasing image: one of the legendary four Deva, the pinnacle of oni might, left to writhe helplessly in agony as he took his time tearing her apart. The look on her troops'' faces when he returned with the broken corpse of their beloved leader would just be icing on the cake.
Were it not for the limitations of the rituals that allowed him to make the beasts' essences his own, he might have even torn apart the remainder of those barbaric creatures with their leader's own power. Raw brutal strength wasn't the most impressive of abilities, but it could certainly be useful. Perhaps even enough to help deal with Salem when the time came...
Lost in pleasant daydreams, he paid little attention to the collapsing ruin of what had once been a hill. Already working on how to best capitalize on this victory while the iron was hot.
He was shaken from his visions of conquest and destruction by the sound of rock being pulverized by some unseen force. The noise stood out to his enhanced senses like thunder in the distance.
"Honestly, she's still trying?" he scoffed, his eyes flicking over to the molten hill and the undisturbed cover of the oni's makeshift tomb. "I know her kind can't tell when they're outmatched, but you'd think she'd at least do better than this. It almost makes me think her strength isn't worth taking."
It was, of course, at that moment that the ground beneath him erupted outwards and Yuugi Hoshiguma leaped out of a tunnel to grab him by the leg. Her body was mottled with burns and discoloration, and her expression was feverish, but the determination in her eyes burned brighter than ever.
The Beast King's eyes widened in horrified realization right before he was slammed into the ground like a meteor descending from the heavens.
Before he could retaliate, he felt himself being lifted back up into the air and smashed down a few feet away. And again, and again, and again. While his impenetrable skin and healing factor might have ensured he received no lasting injuries from the experience, it did little to protect his brain from being scrambled by the resulting momentum.
After a minute of this treatment, Yuugi slammed the king's limp form into the ground a final time. His blurred vision was barely able to make out the image of her other arm pulling back in preparation for yet another blow.
The part of his mind not currently grasping wildly for coherency laughed at the sight. Repeating a failed tactic not once, not twice, but thrice even after finding a more effective one? It was clear that the legends about the oni had drastically overestimated their intelligence.
He felt the grip around his ankle released and devoted what coherent thoughts he could muster towards calling upon that inner inferno that had fueled him ever since he first claimed his phoenix. The song of life raced through his veins and he could feel every wound, every imperfection, burn away under its cleansing warmth.
The creature's wrath meant nothing to him. Perhaps once upon a time, he would have found the sight of those brutish features twisted to a hateful snarl unnerving, the oni's will unbroken despite the obvious gap between the two.
Even as her fist descended upon The Beast King like a falling meteor, he smiled smugly. Readying himself to tear off the offending limb once it futilely broke against his skin.
Then the blow slammed home and everything changed.
Her previous strikes had felt more like shoves, the force behind the blows incapable of harming him but still enough to force his body to move. Little annoyances that couldn't truly reach him.
What came next was nothing like that.
The moment the Oni's attack smashed into his cheek, the king felt himself be crushed beneath the weight of the world. An inhuman pressure that smashed through his invincible shell and pulverized his very essence.
He could feel the flame flicker as he desperately tried to hold onto the burning warmth in the face of this monstrous storm, something about the strike reaching deep within him and tearing away at whatever it touched.
Time felt like it had slowed to a crawl, every instant a miniature eternity. Despite willing otherwise with every fiber of his being, the king who had conquered countless beasts, who had subjugated the very essence of legends, was falling apart like a crumbling sandcastle.
To his shock and horror, he felt his skin buckle and bones crack. The sheer power of his foe's strike stripping away the additions he had grafted onto himself and leave him defenseless against her wrath.
He, of course, fought back with everything he had. He forced his mind to ignore the unwelcome reunion with mortality and, channeling every last bit of willpower he could muster, fed it all to the flame in the hopes that he might rise anew once more.
Only for the sensation of his teeth being shoved down his throat to shatter his focus and snuff out his last hope. The last thing he saw before the abyss took him was the sight of the beast glaring disdainfully down at him.
And so perished the Beast King of Folkee.
Yuugi pulled back her fist, waving it through the air a few times to clean off the gore, and stumbled to her feet. The venom coursing through her veins wasn't enough to bring her down, but it certainly left her a little woozy.
She shook her head in an attempt to clear it, there would be time to rest later, and looked down. There, at the center of a crater large enough to fit a small home, lay the headless corpse of her opponent.
His stolen abilities might have let him shrug off her punches, but he'd forgotten what she'd shown against his spirits and paid the price. Unbreakable skin and regeneration don't mean much when facing someone who can strike directly at someone's very essence.
The fact that he'd seen her ability and kept treating her punches like a joke was a testament to how much the king's reasoning had deteriorated. Whether from his own megalomania or taking in the powers of multiple youkai, beings ruled by instinct and their innate nature, he'd been little more than a particularly cunning beast. A far cry from the pragmatic prince who had once leveraged every advantage he could lay hands on to cement himself as king in the wake of his brothers' 'disappearance.'
"What a waste," Yuugi scoffed, looking down at the corpse of the man who had crowned himself the king of beasts. "Did you really think this sort of crap would make you strong?"
No response came, no lingering will rose from its earthly remains to answer the question. All that greeted the oni's words was silence.
She turned around, idly calculated which way led back to the battlefield, and leaped off to rejoin the fray. Her idiots tended to get carried away easily and, as much fun as that was for parties, they needed some of their enemies alive to spread the story they wanted told.
"Honestly," she muttered as she flew through the air, the sight of the Beast King's army struggling against the oni horde visible off in the distance. "What a buzzkill…"
And that's that side story done. For anyone who hasn't figured it out, the Beast King is meant to be a version of the second Prince of The Three Princes And Their Beasts who chose to leave his brothers trapped in stone so that he could take over. I'm pulling from a lot of fairy tales to populate the Old World, so if you recognize anything don't be afraid to speak up about it or ask a question. I'm always happy to talk about worldbuilding when it doesn't outright spoil anything.
Yuugi's canon power is purposefully obscure, so I've given her an interpretation I particularly liked from a doujin I forget the name of. It was about Sakuya time-traveling to when Yuyuko was alive in the hopes of finding vulnerabilities for Remilia to exploit but escalated into a full-on AU with a massive battle against the Saigyou Ayakashi and the spirits making it up.
The gist of Yuugi's ability is that she's just too strong to be bothered by stuff like 'physics' or 'logic.' If she wants to punch something, she can punch it. The limitations are that she needs to be within three steps of the target, closer is better, and that ultimately she's just punching something in a different way. Her ability would be useless against something like a barrier capable of withstanding her full strength or someone/thing with more metaphorical muscle for example. She can break a lot of things, but it's ultimately just an all-purpose strength check if you want to think about it like that.
Anyway, next up we should be back on track with the penultimate chapter of the Birth of A Wonderland Arc. Looking forward to seeing you there.