The Punishment of A Demon General

I glide high above the ground, my side aching from that strong hit. Seriously, where the hell were they?! I couldn't find them at all...

I'm a succubus, not a minotaur, dammit! How am I supposed to fight something like that head on? They never fired when I was looking at them, but the instant I looked away they would immediately start hurling boulders at me.

Ugh, whoever they were they definitely had experience dealing with demons, really annoying. This is why you don't visit towns without an army at your back. While demons triumph easily in large scale combat, humans and demi-humans are way too good at taking the advantage of being in their territory.

What's the phrase? Guerilla warfare? They're experts at that, there's no way we demons could have enough cohesion between us to accomplish something like that. Half our troops would die to our own traps!

It doesn't help that they were pressing my biggest disadvantage in combat, that I can't do anything to them if I can't figure out where they are! I can almost guarantee that they were a real demon hunter, a really painful coincidence.

I massage the side of my body, the wound gradually assuming a purple-ish red hue. It should only take a day to heal, but it's still not comfortable to have.

Demon hunters are very much a lust demon's kryptonite when it comes to combat, since our weaknesses can easily be taken advantage of. Sloth is similar, but no demon hunter worth their salt will unironically hunt a sloth demon, as someone who is likely to die to starvation or something else within a couple weeks after being brought into this world.

Gotta be honest, being a lust demon sucks. Our defense is low, our offense is meh, our weaknesses are plain and well documented by most of our enemies. Our largest benefit is being able to bend people to our wills.

Ughhh... I hate it. I may have made it to my position off my own hard work, but the only reason I've been able to keep that position is because I'm not a threat to the others, and that makes them like me.

Honestly? If I go back with the heroine in tow, there's a 20/80 chance Wrath will either kill me for risking her life, or thank me for bringing her a worthy challenge. At least I've escaped from the heroine properly, so I don't have to worry about that anymore.

I groan in frustration, my head in a mess from the throbbing pain in my side. I pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to calm down the stress building in the pit of my stomach.

Right. Time to get my head screwed back on straight, I've escaped, I get to go back away from all this garbage! Woohoo!

So, looking around from up here, I can vaguely see a large amalgamation of lights through the distant haze. Is that the capital of humans, maybe? I don't know exactly where things are besides that, I just know I need to go not in that direction at least.

I begin gliding in the direction opposite to the lights, following one of the roads from above to hopefully not get turned around.

...

Honestly, humans are seriously crazy. This road goes through a mountain of all things! No, I don't mean like swerving up and down and all around the mountain, I mean it goes literally through the inside of entire mountain. I groan in frustration, picking up height a bit, trying to flap my way up to glide over the mountain.

I close my eyes, relaxing after the strenuous effort to pick up height, briefly opening them to spot the road once again, and then continuing to follow it.

Seriously, who builds a road through a-

I'm suddenly blindsided by another heavy object, one that I can only assume is another boulder, from the mountain now behind me.

I can feel my left wing bones snapping under the strike, groaning as I'm sent spiraling out of control, desperately trying to slow down my unplanned descent.

Fuck, fuck! Why don't these assholes know when to give up?! I flail my body in the air as it picks up speed, unable to get any resistance going beyond my one spread wing, which only serves to make me spin uncomfortably fast.

I tilt my body slightly to try and aim for some nearby tree cover, hoping to cushion my fall with the branches, I've survived a fall this high before, but it's not something I want to do while some demon hunter asshole is chasing me.

I close my eyes, bracing myself for impact as my body approaches the trees, before I suddenly feel nauseous as all momentum stops.

I slowly open an eye, not knowing what exactly had happened, but I remain awkwardly floating in the air, just above the trees for several moments before once again my body drops into the canopy, smacking a couple branches with some pained groans, landing on the ground shortly after.

Ow... Seriously, ow. I groan in equal parts frustration and pain, bracing myself on the trunk of the tree I just slammed through to stand up, my left wing hanging limply off my back, throbbing in pain, my right wing not doing particularly well either, having been snagged and torn on a couple branches on the way down.

The only person I can think would have stopped me like that is the heroine.

... So I was right, she is behind all this! What, she didn't want me to accidentally die before she had her fun? That psycho bitch!

I'm out of the frying pan and into the fire, though. I have no idea where I am, and not just due to my sense of direction this time. I was spinning so much on the way down that I barely knew which way was up. I should have looked when the heroine stopped me, aaaagh.

No point in regrets now, I drag my heavy feeling body through the dense underbrush of the woods in a random direction. Wherever I want to be, it's not where I landed, that's for sure.

Aaaah, why didn't I just stay the night with the puppy instead? So cute, so sweet, so obedient. I should have just woken him up for round three...

My head is trapped between part boiling anger at the heroine, and part puppy love towards the lovely puppy, both mixing to at least calm me down enough to at least get a reading on my current situation.

The heroine, or whoever she hired, will definitely know how to track passage through underbrush. It's possible whoever is throwing those rocks is Fluffy, of course, I don't actually know what she's capable of, but there was a reason she was brought...

I need to find a large animal or monster to charm and ride if I wanna be able to move fast and get away, if it's a local one they might even know the way out as well!

I have no idea how they kept up with me while I was flying. I didn't even see any cars on the road! I shake my head rapidly after thinking that. What's done is done, how doesn't matter. All that matters is getting away.

The heroine said the next time I tried to escape that she was going to kill me, if I stop moving I'm gonna die. I push through the bushes even faster, still looking for the slightest traces of a beast I can charm.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, a large screaming winged demon slamming loudly through the trees scares things away. I keep finding tracks I can follow, but can't follow it far enough to find the source, at least not without looping back around to where I came from.

I wish I could mark the trees to make sure I'm not walking around in circles, but if I do that they'll have a path right to me.

... Fuck, I can't find anything!

That leaves only one thing I can do left, and that's waiting in ambush. I don't know what their numbers are, but if I can get a good first strike, I can win. I just need to make sure I target the heroine first.

I immediately hoist myself up the tree, trying to ignore all the pain radiating through my body while I climb, my wings snagging on trees, aggravating the discomfort from them both.

I rest on a large but relatively concealed branch, taking a few deep breaths to try and silence myself, clinging to the bark like a predator ready to catch prey.

I stare at the ground, not knowing how long has passed since I climbed up. Aside from the wind rustling the trees, and insects keening in the darkness, silence reigns through the blackened woods.

I keep my breath held, on high alert, waiting to spot even the slightest motion out of place.

I hear some faint crackling from the direction I had just been walking from, alongside some voices. "Do you really think this is a good idea? I mean, she IS a demon." I hear Killa's voice echo slightly between the trees.

"I didn't ask you for your input, did I?" Her voice sounds cold before quickly taking on an authoritative tone. "Lisle, have you found any more traces of Ilvia yet? She probably got hurt from whatever that was that hit her." The heroine's voice passes through the trees, disarming me a bit with her words. Isn't she the source of that rock?

"She did speed up a while back, so we might need to move faster if we want to catch up to her." Fluffy's voice follows up after, getting closer with each crunch of leaves and twigs. I crouch even further, trying to get a visual on the heroine.

I can see the vague outline of someone as they approach, slowly increasing in detail to reveal Fluffy and three other currently shadow-y figures not too far behind.

I squint my eyes, which one of you three is the heroine, then?

+Dun dun duuuuun.+

(Those rocks hurt a lot.)

+Yeah, Ilvia needs lots of head pats.+

(Uno Reverse!)

+That meme is a lot more cute when you use it.+

Author's Note:

I have figured out how to use the poll function!

Reason I'm considering this is 'cause I'm wondering if people are dropping because there's lesser quality at the beginning.

I wonder if polling would be more intuitive for people to use than asking for comments.

The smut in the first 10 chapters I feel was kinda iffy, so that's why I've been wondering whether it's worth a rewrite at this time.

I also figure if I'm rewriting the smut, may as well rewrite a couple other chapters to make things flow more fluidly.

The rewrite process won't change release schedules at all, so don't worry about that.