Exiled Prince and His Succubus Army-Chapter 25: New strategy

"They can spew acid!" Renji yelled desperately toward where Aya and Kaede were fighting, his voice cutting through the sounds of combat with urgent warning. "Be careful! The beasts can spew acid!" His heart was pounding with genuine concern for his companions, imagining what would happen if either of them got hit by that horrific green substance.

But when he actually looked over at them to make sure they’d heard his warning, to check that they were being appropriately cautious, his words died in his throat and his jaw went slack with utter surprise.

The two girls had already killed two of the three beasts that had been sent to attack them. Two! In the brief span of time it had taken for Renji to dodge the acid attack and process what had nearly happened to him, Aya and Kaede had somehow managed to take down two of those incredibly tough, fast, dangerous hybrid monsters. The corpses lay sprawled on the forest floor, their severed leopard heads separated from their tortoise bodies, dark blood pooling beneath them and soaking into the earth.

And they weren’t just finished, they were in the middle of killing the third one even as Renji watched. Aya had the beast’s head gripped firmly in her telekinetic hold, her face set in fierce concentration as she kept it extended and unable to retract into its protective shell. The creature thrashed and struggled violently, its powerful legs scrambling for purchase on the ground, its body writhing in desperate attempts to break free, but Aya’s mental grip was like iron.

Kaede was already mid-swing when Renji’s eyes found her, her sword flashing in the filtered sunlight as it descended toward the exposed neck of the trapped beast. Her movements were fluid and precise, her enhanced strength allowing her to cut deeper with each strike than should have been possible for someone of her build.

Even as he watched, her blade bit into flesh and bone, drawing another spray of dark blood. She struck again immediately, not giving the creature even a moment to recover or adapt, her face set in an expression of focused determination.

Renji could only gape in absolute surprise at the efficiency they were displaying, at how quickly and effectively they were dispatching threats that he was still struggling with. His mouth hung open slightly, his own beast temporarily forgotten as he processed what he was seeing. They made it look almost easy, their coordination so perfect that they moved like they’d been fighting together for years rather than just days.

The two girls must have felt his stare because they both glanced over at him even while finishing off their third opponent. Kaede delivered what appeared to be the final strike, her sword cutting through the last bit of the beast’s neck, and the severed head fell to the ground with a wet thud that Renji could hear even from where he stood.

And then, then they had the audacity to grin at him. Completely innocent grins, as if they weren’t absolutely drenched in blood from head to toe. As if they hadn’t just brutally dismembered three monsters in the time it had taken him to deal with... well, with none.

Dark blood splattered their faces, their hair, their clothes. It dripped from Kaede’s sword and from Aya’s hands. They looked like they’d just walked through a slaughterhouse, like something out of a horror story. And yet those grins were so genuinely cheerful, so pleased with themselves, so utterly innocent despite the carnage surrounding them, that Renji didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of it all.

He felt a complicated mix of jealousy and respect churning in his gut, the two emotions warring with each other for dominance. Jealousy because they were clearly outperforming him, because even the damn monsters had recognized them as the bigger threats and sent three beasts to fight them while only one came for him. Jealousy because they made it look so effortless, so natural, when he was struggling and barely avoiding death by acid. But also relief, because they were his companions, his team, and their strength was his strength in a way. Their capability meant they were all more likely to survive, more likely to succeed in whatever challenges lay ahead.

The sound of movement behind him snapped Renji back to his own immediate problem. Right. He still had a beast to kill.

He jumped to his feet with renewed determination, his jaw set and his eyes focused. His hands tightened around his sword hilt as he faced the remaining tortoise-leopard beast that was even now circling him cautiously, those golden predatory eyes watching his every movement, waiting for an opening to either bite him or spray him with that nightmarish acid.

A thought crystallized in Renji’s mind as he studied the creature’s movements, looking for patterns, for predictable responses.

If speed alone wouldn’t work against these things, then perhaps speed combined with deception would be the key. He needed to outsmart the beast, not just outfight it. He needed to make it react in a predictable way and then exploit that predictability.

He took a deep breath, centering himself, and then rushed at the beast with explosive speed. His enhanced reflexes and strength, courtesy of Kaede’s abilities, pushed him faster than he could have moved on his own. As he closed the distance, he raised his sword high and positioned himself as if he was going to slash at the right side of the creature’s leopard head.

Every aspect of his body language, every micro-expression on his face, every positioning of his blade screamed that he was committed to striking right.

The beast reacted exactly as he’d hoped, exactly as he’d planned. It retracted its head with that frustrating speed, pulling it back into the protective shell to avoid the anticipated strike. Renji’s sword swung through empty air where the head had been, completing the feint perfectly.

But this time, Renji didn’t overextend. This time, he kept his balance, kept his weight centered, kept his muscles coiled and ready. And when the beast’s leopard head popped back out of its shell, because it had to eventually, because it couldn’t attack or see properly while retracted, because it followed a pattern that Renji had now figured out, he was waiting.