I'm a Immortal Tavernkeeper, But My S-Rank Daughter Doesn't Know That!

With a determined look on his face, Victor moved his right hand towards Elban’s sword, which was stuck in the center of the altar. His fingers wrapped tightly around the handle, and a tremor ran through his body when he felt Gravisk’s pulsating, evil energy.

"That’s it, human! Release me!" The demon roared.

The blade radiated an intense dark energy, and that same energy enveloped Victor completely when he touched it.

Someone with a weak spirit could easily have been corrupted or even killed by coming into contact with this massive amount of evil energy, but Victor resisted bravely and, after a few moments, a white aura began to envelop him instead of the dark energy. This was the Den around him manifesting itself visibly.

Then, with a swift movement, Victor removed the black sword from the altar. A bright flash erupted from the point where the blade was embedded, illuminating the cave with an almost blinding intensity and the glowing runes scattered across the ceiling and wall of this chamber began to fade slowly, as if the whole thing was being dissolved.

The magical seal that had bound Gravisk to this place for the last fifteen years was finally broken.

With Gravisk freed, black smoke began to rise from the very hole in the altar that the sword had created. This was Gravisk, in its initial demonic form just a black cloud. However, gradually the cloud began to distort and transform, revealing the demon’s true monstrous appearance.

Gravisk’s skin that formed through the smoke was a mixture of leather and fur, covered in cracks everywhere. From the smoke and this unusual body, with its large, bipedal arms and animalistic appearance, a buffalo skull head formed, with curved horns that extended to the sides. Its eyes glowed like two white orbs and steam came out of its bony mouth, reflecting the contained fury that burned at its core.

However, Gravisk’s most frightening aspect was yet to emerge.

At the level of its chest, its ribs poked through the skin in a grotesque way, as if they were trying to escape from their corporeal prison. Its sharp claws gleamed with a sinister glow, and its mouth opened in a grin full of pointed teeth.

Victor showed no sign of flinching at the monstrosity that now stood before him. His eyes didn’t waver, nor did they turn away from the enemy, because no matter how ugly the enemy he was facing, he would face it head on.

"You’re uglier than I imagined, Gravisk," said Victor, teasing the demon by calling it by name, and his calm voice contrasted with the terrible aura that at that moment had engulfed the entire forest.

The demon let out a guttural laugh as more horns grew on its back. It then raised a hand and some of the rocks from the cave flew towards it, forming a stone staff.

"You are brave, human. Very brave indeed." said Gravisk, its voice echoing through the cave with a mocking tone. "You must have been preparing for this for years, dreaming of the day you would finally achieve glory by slaying a demon that not even a hero could. However, you’re out of luck, your bravery will be futile in the face of my strength. You have no idea of the power I possess."

Victor gripped his sword tighter, still looking very calm. He knew he was about to face a difficult battle, but he also couldn’t back down without having information about Gravisk’s exact abilities and powers.

"You have no idea how much I know about you," said Victor and started running towards the demon.

Unlike when he fought in the duke’s castle, Victor didn’t need to hold back, so he went at the demon with everything he had.

Gravisk saw the hunter running, pointed its staff at him and said:

"I’ll tell you one last thing about demons, human. Unlike you, we don’t need to use those futile chants, because we’re the ones who invent our own magic."

Then Gravisk, with its sarcastic smile, raised the stone staff formed from the rocks of the cave.

Dark energies began to concentrate around the demon, forming a whirlpool of evil power. With a simple gesture with the staff, the demon shot out and turned this whirlpool into a beam of dark energy that flew towards Victor.

The force of this magic was overwhelming, tearing through the air as it approached its target.

The cave shook violently as the explosion of pure evil energy slammed into the ground. Rocks broke loose from the ceiling, cascading down as the structure of the cave creaked under the conflict, and a thick puff of dust rose up.

"You were foolish to challenge a demon, human!" Gravisk snarled and its voice sounded like thunder. "That is my true power!"

However, that wasn’t the end of it for Victor. Suddenly, amidst the smoke that rose with the stones that fell from the ceiling, Gravisk saw a blur appear to its right and turned around, already preparing an attack, but, as the smoke cleared and the blur became clearer, Gravisk saw that the blur was actually an old cloak, and this moment of distraction for Gravisk was exactly what Victor was looking for when he used the cloak itself as a decoy.

Coming out of nowhere to the left, right next to Gravisk’s face, Victor delivered a sharp blow with his sword imbued with Den of Fortification.

The blade sliced through the air with a high-pitched screech, finding the grotesque, hairy skin of Gravisk’s neck and tearing it open.

A loud scream escaped the demon’s bony lips when Vítor’s blow hit it hard.

Gravisk swung its staff quickly and hit Victor with an unintentional physical blow, throwing the hunter to the ground.

Victor only had a moment to think of something that would prevent him from crashing into the cave floor too hard. So he used the Den of Creation to literally create an invisible platform in the air, to hold onto with his left hand, as if he were holding onto the edge of something, before falling safely a few meters.

Victor landed and got to his knees, already a little tired from the number of movements in a row. "I faltered, the cut should have been deeper." Victor said to himself.

When he raised his head, Gravisk had one hand staunching the bleeding and was staring at Victor in bewilderment, unable to react and unable to understand exactly how on earth Victor had managed to pull off that stunt to free himself from crashing to the ground.

"Ho-how did you do that, human? How did you make air become material?"

Despite being a demon, Gravisk was a wizard, so it was shocked to see that human with no magical aura do something that was only possible with specific spells.