"Bold yet meticulous" was a fair summary of Chris's outward persona.
He had observed the effects of [Polymorph] three times before facing the Red Arremer. The transformations followed a clear pattern, "Human = Normal Duck," "Zombie = Shriveled zombie duck," and "Man-eating Plant = Rooted plant duck."
From this, he concluded that the version of Polymorph granted by the Gentleman's Cane was heavily influenced by the target's original species and state.
By extension, he theorized that any physical changes incurred while in the duck form would likely persist when the spell ended.
As an elite demon, the Red Arremer possessed 200 HP. Even with the raw power of the "Vampire Killer," Chris would have needed to land twenty clean hits to kill it. Furthermore, because of its Elite template, the spell's five second duration had been slashed to a mere three seconds.
Even the most legendary masters couldn't land twenty whip cracks in three seconds.
Thus, in that split second, Chris's combat instincts drove him to ignore the duck's body and hack directly at its wings.
As a Flame Gargoyle of the Red Arremer clan, the demon possessed two innate racial talents alongside its high agility.
The first was Fireball Projection, a focused burst of concentrated demonic fire.
The second was Emergency Petrification.
In its stone form, the Red Arremer would lose all mobility, but its skin would become nearly impenetrable stone, granting it high physical damage reduction at a cost, while also accelerating its natural healing.
However, the Polymorph spell had effectively "locked" those active racial talents.
The demon's species-specific traits influenced the duck's form--getting nipped by a duck with 10 Strength would certainly leave more than a bruise--but a duck's flesh was inherently far more fragile than a demon's hide.
Three seconds was more than enough time for Chris to put his back into three savage hacks.
By the second blow, the skin and muscle on the duck's back and wing joints had been torn open.
The demon duck's blood sprayed across Chris's knightly armor, staining the chest plate a strange, dark purple.
The Red Arremer let out a series of agonized quacks. For a battle-hardened mercenary demon, the pain was beyond anything it had ever imagined.
It seemed that Polymorph had also forcibly regressed the demon's high pain threshold to that of a common waterfowl. In that moment, it was powerless to resist the agony.
One second... two seconds... three seconds!
As the spell finally flickered out, a mangled, pathetic looking Red Arremer reappeared on all fours.
But Chris offered no respite. He continued his relentless assault.
Almost instinctively, the Red Arremer tried to beat its wings and take to the sky, desperate to put distance between itself and this terrifying human. But the back of its mind registered a terrifying void in place of its wings, followed by a surge of white-hot pain that made its entire body seize up.
The blood stained duck wings that Chris had hacked off had reverted to their original bat like demonic forms, lying discarded in the dirt. On the Red Arremer's status panel, a new, permanent description had appeared, "Mutilated: Flight Capabilities Lost."
The demon didn't even have time to mourn its loss. Chris was already on top of it, driving a heavy boot into the demon's jaw with enough force to shatter bone.
Based on the power of that kick, Chris had clearly been in his fair share of street fights.
The Red Arremer was agonizingly pained and furious.
Chris was cruel and cunning.
Once again, his gamble had paid off.
Injuries sustained in the duck form did translate back to the original body. The only unknown variable was how the injuries would map. For a creature with both arms and wings, would a cut to a duck's wing affect the arm or the wing?
Chris hadn't had the luxury of overthinking it. Hitting the wings was the ideal outcome, but even hitting the arms would have crippled the demon's combat effectiveness. He'd have dealt with the consequences as they came.
Fortunately, the damage had mapped perfectly. Chris's two slashes had permanently grounded the demon, stripping it of its most dangerous advantage: air superiority. He had forcibly turned a high tier demon into a land bound chicken.
Even more devastating was the secondary effect of the mutilation. The Red Arremer's Agility--which had been 15, a full 1.5 times Chris's--was now temporarily halved. It had dropped to 8, which was two points lower than Chris's base stat.
It was now clear that the demon's exceptional Agility was entirely dependent on its wings. Without them, it was slower than a human.
Chris, fighting with the savage intensity of a young thug who only knew how to go for the kill, didn't stop with the kick. He raised his Little Demon Cleaver and brought it down toward the demon's exposed, pointy headed neck.
Today, Chris was committed to being a "Head-Remover."
But at the last possible microsecond, the Red Arremer made what it believed to be the only right choice.
The sharp cleaver struck the demon's neck, but the vibration that traveled back up the blade made Chris's hand go numb.
When he looked down, the Red Arremer was frozen in a strange, static pose. The spot where his blade had struck bore nothing more than a faint white scratch, the exact mark a knife would leave on a solid rock.
The demon had activated its racial talent, "Stone Statue Form."
The massive, bleeding wounds where its wings had been were instantly sealed as the body petrified. Its HP, which had plummeted to 160 due to the mutilation and subsequent "Bleeding" debuff, was now stabilized and beginning to tick upward.
The healing rate in stone form was approximately 1 HP per second. In other words, in just 40 seconds, the Red Arremer would be back to full health.
Furthermore, its physical resistance was now so high that the Little Demon Cleaver couldn't even scratch it. It was taking zero damage.
Because its biological nature had shifted from "demonic" to "inorganic stone," the holy enchantment Chris had temporarily imbued onto the blade was equally ineffective. As long as the demon didn't voluntarily end the transformation, it was effectively invincible.
Its hunched, petrified form looked pathetic, but its defensive utility was undeniable.
Fueled by a cocktail of rage and murderous intent, the Red Arremer sensed Chris's apparent helplessness. A surge of perverse satisfaction and hunger rose within its mind.
The demon had already decided: once its wounds were healed and the petrification ended, it would tear this human "can" open with brutal force. It would roast him until he was nothing but demonic charcoal, swallow every single scrap of his flesh, and then... well, the rest of the plan involved its digestive tract.
Since the moment of its birth in the Demon Realm, it had never once wished for its healing to be faster.
As for whether or not it could catch Chris without its wings... the demon's rage-consumed mind hadn't quite gotten to that part yet.
But just then, the Red Arremer realized that Chris had stood there, seemingly lost, for about six or seven seconds.
And then, a massive two handed sledgehammer appeared in his hands out of thin air.
The "smile" in the Red Arremer's petrified heart vanished instantly.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]