5 Devil Hunters Become The Hunted.
(Funny enough even as big as he is, he is not even the full size of an adult Glavenus. Not to mention the varient Hellblade which is bigger.)
Now that he could turn invisible, Talos observed the 9 Devils who were flying in his direction. He channeled mana into his eyes to increase his perception as he observed his persuaders. In terms of power, these flying people were on the mid-tier of power of his old world's standards.
Overall, they were weak to the current him and they were going to regret hunting him. He leaned forward and got on all 4s as he lowered the heat he was emitting to match his tundra environment. He coated his limbs in mana to not leave footprints with his adaptive evolution helping him out.
Quickly, but quietly he walked away from the area where the flying Devils were looking for him. They avoided landing as he was in that general area and that was just asking to get ambushed. Instead, they began to scan the area he had vanished in together.
They carpet searched the area intending to get a general feel of where he might have gone. The 9 guards worked in unison, while Talos carefully watched. He tensed his tail blade, but it was not the right weapon for this. He took a deep breath as he drew in on his magic.
Lightning magic began to flow from each of his back spikes. The lightning gathered at the tip of his tail blade and began to flow toward his head where it pooled on the horns on his head. He began to condense the lightning above his head while hiding his intentions.
He exhaled as he focused on his Sword Will and used it to shape the lightning spell he was forming turning it into a replica of his tail blade. He spun around and unleashed his attack which burst toward the first Devil.
The man barely had a chance to react as he was struck by the massive lightning blade and reduced to dust. The other 8 Devils noticed the death of their companion and only due to their discipline did they not panic.
The Vice Leader, a middle-aged woman barked orders.
"AMBUSH!"
Talos snorted as he twisted mid-air and attacked a second Devil also killing him. The Devils split apart to deal with the attack while others began to return fire from the general area he had attacked from. Talos calmly walked away not bothering to defend himself from a few stray attacks that struck his back.
This level of wild attack would not go through his tough armor. Up in the sky, the lightning blade seemed to have a will of its own and surged toward the Devils sent to deal with it. The Sword Will be imbued in it gave it a type of sentience as it pierced through any barriers the Devils formed.
It leader of the Devils aimed her hand forward and a burst of supersonic sound struck against the lightning causing parts of it to shatter. However, before it was fully destroyed, the lightning condensed together into a small orb of purple lightning.
After living for 800 years, the woman felt something was off and yelled a warning to her subordinates.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
The orb of lightning burst apart into countless small knife-sized lightning bolts imbued with Sword Will. Like a fragmentation grenade, the Devils were pelted with stabbing and cutting lightning strikes that took the lives of 3 more leaving only 4 alive of the 9 sent after him.
In the distance, Zalister and Lady Baleth were staring in shock as several of the guards sent to guard her were systematically killed off by the invisible Talos. The young girl gulped in fear as she turned to Zalister.
"Call them back."
"On it."
He activated a communication spell to his Vice Leader to return before their numbers were reduced even more. When she picked it up, she was holding up her right hand as she activated her personal Defensive Artifact.
It was out of energy, but it had saved her and 3 more of her fellow devils. When her barrier and artifact fizzled out she sighed with relief. She picked up the Communication attempt from their leader.
"Are you already Zamira?"
"Yes. We survived. However, we won't if we stick around."
Zalister understood that.
"Teleport back to us. Let him go and instead let's just capture one of the Calfs. If the main force can find him they will catch him instead. We won't."
"Alright."
With that, the 4 survivors teleported back to Zalister and Lady Baleth to make sure she was safe. As Talos, he snorted as he continued on his journey. Going after the other Devils would be tricky as there was a massive herd of giant mammoths between him and them.
Plus, he did not think there was much to gain from hunting the Devils. But, just as he thought that he saw something in the ice. He walked toward it and saw that it was a severed hand. He tilted his head as he reached down and pinched the small hand in his fingertips.
He used his Mana Sense to scan the hand and noticed some things. For one, this hand did not belong to a human-derived species. Meaning this species had no relation to mankind which was curious. On top of that, the energy readings of the hand showed that it was not mana that once flowed through it.
It was an energy that kinda reminded him of Demons, but it seemed dirty. Impure almost and the hand had a small ring on it. With his will, he used telekinesis to pull the ring off before tossing the hand into his mouth.
When he swallowed it, his Adaptive Evolution fell on the hand to draw out the energy in it. His body did not react greatly to this impure energy and did not use it to fuel him. Instead, it was analyzed, processed, and used to increase his resistance to Demonic Power.
He looked at the ring floating in front of him curious.
'Was this a spatial ring?'
When his consciousness analyzed the ring he found that it was one. It was a small one as it only had 30 Cubic Meters of Space in it. He tried to put it on his finger hoping that it had an auto-size feature, and low and behold it did.
It perfectly fit on his giant clawed finger on his right hand. Once he was wearing it he searched inside and found some gold coins, weapons, spare clothes, food, and some medicine. All in all basic things so he ignored them and continued on his trip.
Now though he was moving faster than before as he no longer needed to take it easy. Plus, he wanted to get as far away from the Devils as he fully expected them to come with more. As such, he began to practically run at full speed on all 4s causing him to cover massive stretches of ground.
As he was still invisible and adapted for it he left no traces of his travel and before long he was far away from the Devils who seemed content to leave him be. Once he no longer could sense them he stopped running and snorted.
He undid his invisibility as he got back to his back legs and walked slower.
"I better be careful with people in the future. They are trouble."
---
In one hour, Lord Baleth had arrived with a large force of 3,500 Devils. He would have taken a full Legion, but he felt that taking so many would be overkill so he chose a smaller force.
When they arrived at the Tundra, the first thing he noticed was his daughter. Next to her was a large mammoth calf which they had captured instead of focusing on Talos. He was happy to see her familiar captured but went quiet when he saw that out of the 10 guards he sent with her, only 5 remained.
"Zalister. What happened here?"
Zalister kneeled down with his head down.
"Lord Baleth, it killed them."
The older Devil was shocked.
"How did this happen? Those were High-Class Devils. What happened?"
His daughter spoke up.
"The Bladed Rex went invisible when he noticed our gazes so I ordered them to track him down. While they searched for him, he ambushed them with a lightning attack killing 5 of my guards."
Lord Baleth was confused.
"Lightning? I heard the creature was a fire monster."
Zalister nodded.
"The few reports we have on him say the same thing. Seems in his migration he developed the lightning affinity and the ability to disappear."
Lord Baleth was even more curious now.
"In your mind, Zalister, is the creature sentient?"
"I believe he is. When he noticed our gaze the first time, he turned in our direction miles away and snorted at us. I believe he was warning us to pursue him when we did not listen he became violent. By now, who knows where he is?"
Lord Baleth thought about it before he turned to his army.
"We will proceed. Use the Hellhounds."
Several of the Devils summoned their familiars which were Hellhounds. At least 20 rhino-sized hounds were summoned. The giant black hounds rushed forward and began to sniff at the ground looking for a scent trail.
Unfortunately for them, Talos had no scent trail as his Adaptive Evolution had made his scent dissipate nearly instantly. He left no trail and trying to look for him when he was both hiding his mana and invisible was hard.
Lord Baleth frowned as the Hell Hounds did not have the scent.
"What is going on? Hellhounds are the best trackers."
A master of one Hellhound spoke to him as he explained what his familiar was finding.
"The monster has not left any scent markers and his mana has already dissipated into the surroundings. They also can't sense his soul which either means he is exceptionally good at controlling it or-"
Lord Baleth finished the sentence.
"Much stronger than they can deal with. This is troublesome."
As the Hellhounds searched for any trace of Talos, Lord Baleth finally ordered them to move. He waited longer as they searched for a trace, but in the end, they did not even find a footprint.
Lord Baleth eventually lost patience with the Hellhounds and waved them away.
"This is pointless. Follow me, we will carpet search for him. Valentina head home."
The young heiress nodded as she did not want to cause her Father more trouble.
"Yes, father."
She teleported home along with her new familiar leaving her Father and his small army. Now that his daughter was safe Lord Baleth too to the sky along with his army.
"Come on, if we can't track him through our hounds, we will use our magic."
As the 3,500 Devils surged forward in search of Talos, he was already long gone. Instead of sticking around the herd of of Mammoth's he instead rushed ahead of them at top speed. By now, he was so far ahead of the herd that the chances of them finding him were slim.
Even then, while still invisible, he began to dig himself a tunnel rapidly while using his magic to aid him. In minutes, he had already dug himself a massive tunnel which he capped with with snow and ice.
He laid down now safely underground and hidden from his pursuers. While hidden the Baleth Devils searched everywhere for him for hours. Meanwhile, he merely slept underground not caring what they did. His aura was fully hidden and his tunnel was masked from their deep scans by him.
After an entire day of meaningless searches, Lord Baleth called off the search. He was a busy man and he already wasted a whole day on this. He decided to bring this up at the next big meeting as Talos was a curious creature. Whoever added him to their peerage or as a familiar would surely benefit from him.
As for the one responsible, when the Devils left, he dug himself out and laughed at them.
'Pff, they couldn't even sense me. Now then, to catch up with the herd. I am feeling hungry.'
He sped up to catch up with the herd of Mammoths. He knew better than the Devils that the next time they met up with him he would be even bigger and stronger. He had not bothered with it before, but maybe he should try to find a way to get a human form. It would be a good way to blend and allow him to enter cities to buy things.
