The pink arrows shot straight toward Rai's khodam. With quick reflexes, Rai summoned glowing fireflies to swirl around the khodam, forming a beautiful yet sturdy shield of light.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
Dozens of arrows were deflected with ease. Unfortunately, a second wave of arrows came, faster and more focused.
One arrow pierced through a gap in the firefly shield—THWACK!—and struck the khodam's chest.
"AAAHHHH!!!" Rai screamed in a mix of pain and humiliation.
Luckily, the khodam had large breasts, which acted as natural armor. The arrow didn't reach the heart, but it still hurt like hell.
Realizing he had rushed in too recklessly, Rai retreated, flying back toward where Dukun Rosso was waiting. But fate had other plans—several more arrows chased him from behind.
THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
A few arrows landed squarely on the khodam's butt. One, in a cruel twist of fate, flew directly into the butthole, sinking in way too deep and ripping through the intestines with a wet, meaty squelch.
Rai's scream echoed like a demonic choir of agony. Despite the pain, he managed to fly back and crash-land in front of Rosso's khodam.
Rosso raised an eyebrow. "So, how was your first fight?"
"Painful... why didn't you help?!" Rai snapped.
"I said I'd help if you were about to die. I sensed no threat to your life," Rosso replied coolly.
Still grimacing, the khodam grabbed the arrow stuck in her chest and yanked it out. CRACK!
"AAAAHHH!!" Rai howled. The wound started regenerating slowly. It would take around five minutes to fully heal.
One by one, Rai pulled out the remaining arrows—each with a pained grunt—until only the worst remained: the one deeply embedded in the butt and tangled with intestinal loops.
"Master... can you help me pull this one out?" Rai asked, his pride already in pieces.
"Of course."
With a swift and expert motion, Rosso yanked the arrow free—SHLORP!—dragging a bit of intestine with it like a slippery noodle.
Rai shrieked again, twitching on the ground like a wounded animal. The gut wound would take about thirty minutes to heal completely.
"Told you, there are a lot of Milkmaid Djinn down there," Rosso said calmly. "Rushing in solo? Kinda dumb."
Despite the horror, Rai realized something: the intense battle had caused a rapid surge in the khodam's energy. The near-death experience had pushed his khodam close to Level 2—a significant upgrade.
After thirty minutes and with a freshly regenerated butt, Rai sat down (on a pillow this time) and began to strategize. He made one solemn vow:
"Never again will I get shot in the ass. It wasn't just painful... it was humiliating."
Still feeling the dull, throbbing ache in his violated butthole, Rai clenched his jaw and swore revenge.
He would make them pay.
Humans and Djinn were natural enemies. Djinn were known to devour khodams—and if given the chance, even the shamans themselves.
Unless a Djinn was successfully captured and turned into a slave Djinn. In that case, they would survive by feeding off their master's khodam energy and could even enjoy human food. More importantly, they wouldn't die... as long as their master lived.
It was a tempting deal for many Djinn.
By becoming a slave Djinn, they could enjoy things like fried chicken, ice cream, and pizza—food that khodams often "leaked" into the spirit world from the human realm. And while they couldn't be killed permanently, they were forever bound: if their shaman died, they would die too. But if they died, they could regenerate from the khodam's energy.
It was a twisted yet stable symbiotic relationship.
The difference between a khodam and a slave Djinn was quite simple:
A khodam had no soul or true consciousness—more like a magical puppet—while a Djinn was a sentient, thinking, sometimes annoying spirit that could act on its own, follow orders, and even be possessed by a khodam to serve as a living meat shield.
With renewed determination, Rai went for round two—this time with strategy.
He didn't charge in like a crazed anime character. No, this time, he brought darkness.
His khodam's right wing turned jet black, infused with voodoo energy.
From that shadowy aura, Rai summoned his artificial khodam—a mysterious grimoire floating in the air, bound in stitched skin and sealed with cursed ink. This book granted Rai the power to summon seven different types of soldiers without limit, as long as his khodam's energy could sustain them.
Then came the army:
Hundreds of skeletal soldiers rose from the ground, bones clacking and teeth chattering like creepy wind chimes in a haunted house.
Thanks to the near-death experience earlier (and the painfully deep rectal trauma), his khodam's energy had grown by leaps and bounds. Where training had brought only slow, steady improvement, facing death had pushed his khodam's evolution at an explosive rate.
"Time for a proper fight," Rai whispered, rubbing his butt one last time before sending the army charging down the hill.
Rai's khodam extended its influence further, the voodoo-infused wing pulsing with dark energy as his grimoire flipped open, pages glowing with eerie symbols. One by one, powerful entities emerged from the summoning circles:
60 Thunder Eagles, crackling with electricity, soared into the sky. Their beaks glowed with plasma, and they could now shoot bolts of lightning like bullets, providing swift and precise aerial strikes.
12 Giant Octopus, monstrous cephalopods with ink-black skin and eight massive tentacles. Beyond their sheer size, they possessed the ability to spew cursed black ink—thick, sticky, and alive. The ink would slither on command, morphing into tentacle-shaped minions that fought with independent will under Rai's control.
4 Golden Lions, majestic beasts whose bodies shimmered with pure gold. Their skin was as hard as enchanted steel, immune to slashing, piercing, or even energy-based attacks. Even Rai's evolve.firefly saw-blade technique couldn't leave a scratch. Their eyes, also forged from gold, made them nearly invulnerable to illusion or visual manipulation.
1 Nordic Shadow Spider, a colossal spider cloaked in black mist, standing tall as a 20-story building. It exuded a freezing, ancient aura of the North. Rai had only just summoned this beast, so its true abilities remained unknown. But one thing was certain—the surge in his khodam energy and the growing depth of his voodoo power allowed him to finally call forth such a terrifying creature.
With his summoned army now ready, Rai no longer intended to recklessly dive into battle. This time, he had strategy, overwhelming force, and vengeance burning in his heart… especially for that cursed arrow that found its way into a very private place.