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"You're confessing your crimes so easily?" Asked Ellergest, surprised over the woman's openness with her crimes. However, Cassandra smiled maliciously back at them.

"Of course, I will have to just get rid of you two and whatever other priest is in here, it's not so hard!" She laughed.

"What makes you so confident?!" Asked Ellergest.

"Do you want to see, old priest?" She asked. "Demons are wonderful beings…" As Cassandra spoke, her aura of dark and black energies began to surge more from within her chest, materializing into large and muscular, red-skinned legs, which slowly formed a torso.

"They come from another world, and only come here to destroy everything. They only know about destruction." She said. "They're resilient, intelligent, and ruthless… I admire demons. Since I was a little girl, I have admired their power… I wanted such power to myself." The aura she generated continued to materialize, until it formed an entire muscular torso, already reaching almost three meters of height, arms as big as logs started to materialize after that, alongside a neck and a head.

"I researched more, and I discovered their powers… I found people that researched them too, and they helped me finally awaken… I have been enlightened by the demons. They're really superior beings to us… I wonder why we fight so much against them? Isn't this world so rotten already? We should just let them lay waste over the entire world… Isn't it?" She said. "My husband was the only man I've ever loved, but he never loved me back, even when I used Demon Sorcery… That Treebark dispelled his curse and made him fall in love with her… Do you know how frustrated I felt?" The demon's arms materialized completely, and then, its head began to grow long and spiraling horns.

"The only thing holding me back was my husband and my son, but now that I know my husband doesn't love me anymore, I will have to be a bit drastic with my approach. The cute Charlotte was a nice supporter, she's still cursed!" She laughed. "With the power of the demons, I can do anything I want. Isn't it wonderful? I don't know how you healed Treebark and Gabriela, but I'll curse them again anyways… After I dig up the ground and put your corpses there, of course!"

The woman smiled deviously as she began to laugh hysterically, I could feel demon energy rushing through her entire body, even her brain, and inside her brain I also saw something strange, there was a weird growth of flesh inside that was somehow parasitizing her head. What the hell is that? Now that's surprising, I had never seen something like that…

However, there was no time to investigate it, her spirit had emerged, and it looked like a Red-skinned version of the Oni we once fought in the forest with the hunters, but it was three meters tall instead, and intimidating to the core. His face was ugly, with big tusks coming from his lower jaws. He had red fiery skin, and furious orange eyes, white horns grew from his forehead spiraling upwards, and he had long silvery-white hair that looked like it was made of metal. It only wore a loincloth made of tiger fur wrapped around his crotch, and his entire body was like that of a muscular titan.

I can see why she has such an enormous amount of confidence. This woman merged demon powers with her spirit and acquired incredible power. She's still Rank 1, perhaps around Upper if not Peak Stage though, but the power she emanates seems to be even greater than that. It was incredibly intimidating to the point even I felt rather shocked. However, I quickly regained my composure as I decided to bring out my Spear, Gluttony, out of my shadows.

Ellergest noticed my movements, but he didn't pay too much attention to it, as he reloaded himself with more mana by eating a green leaf he had in his pocket, all while pointing his staff at the woman and her strange demon spirit.

Elisabeth was behind us, frightened by the demonic sight of the spirit of Cassandra Copperhand, a woman who had already been brainwashed by Demon Cultists, most likely, and is fascinated with them to the point of embracing them into her body in such a manner.

Gabriela almost fell unconscious out of the horror, as she began to slowly walk back outside of the room, the tension was getting higher with each passing second, whoever made their first move would have an advantage… However, we were quite restricted here, there were people we had to protect, and then there was what Ellergest said about not wanting to destroy a part of the manor fearing it would cost a fortune to repair it… but was that even justified now? We should really just go all out.

However, this demon spirit's power… and the woman herself. They were strong, stronger than me, of course. Can I win? Most likely not, even less without Eleanora here, as she's protecting Treebark and the rest. If I were alone, I would run away and attack her from a distance while going around in circles, that's my fighting method against those that are stronger than me, while seeking some way to turn the tables in my favor.

This scenario, however, forces me to fight her upfront, I have no other choices as it would end up in a catastrophe if I make her chase us around. There's no way that Ellergest, as furious as he was now, would let that even happen. Elisabeth and Gabriela were close together while behind us, as Cassandra finished speaking, she looked at her demon spirit.

"Beautiful, isn't it? My Demon Spirit used to be a mere Tool Spirit that helped me at sewing. But with the power of the Demons, I could evolve it into something completely different… Behold…!" She laughed. "This is my truest self!"

"GRUUUUOOHHH!!!"

The giant Oni roared, rushing towards us while making the floor tremble with his very steps. How thrilling.

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