Chapter 194: The Battle Begins 7: The Last Bout

"Leave this body? Impudent child, who are you to order me around?" The Demon king asked with a scoff, he was already beginning to get impatient and a little annoyed at the statements being made by a human boy that was clearly beneath him.

"Order? Oh no, I merely gave you advice." Jacob responded with a smirk.

Normally, other beings would cower before his magnificence, but this boy didn’t seem even the least bit scared, or fazed by his presence. It ticked him off.

"Since I can’t affect you with my Qi manipulation, I’ll just beat you with my bare hands." It was difficult to tell if the Demon King was smiling or not, as he was now in Seraphina’s body, which did not possess the traditional human lips.

But it was of no concern to Jacob as he had already made up his mind on what he was going to do. The Demon King was had corrupted his Seraphina with his essence, meaning that only a part of him was inhabiting the Phoenix’s body, his main body was still stuck in Helmand. It was not possible for him to channel his entire essence to the body of the Phoenix.

The first reason was this his power was too great, greater than Seraphina had the capacity for, meaning that if he channeled too much of his essence into her, her body would fall apart, and all of his effort would be for nought. The body was already starting to crack in crevices not many could see, so he had to hurry up.

The second reason was that Helmand was still a prison for him, therefore channeling all his essence out into the above world was not possible, it would mean that he could walk freely in the world, thereby defeating the purpose of the prison,

His power was limited, but even in this state he was still stronger than most beings. The Demon King had begun to grow impatient, he could no longer bear the weakness that this body imposed on him, he had to act, and he had to do it now.

***

After staring at Jacob for a moment, he used Seraphina’s <Firestar> to observe the boy, he could see that his Qi was purple colored and bright, the flames which were supposed to be contained within Jacob’s body spread out endlessly unto the world, suggesting that this boy’s Qi was infinite. It was a sight to behold, considering the boy just stood there, seemingly uninterested by so many things that were happening around him.

The Demon King studied further, using a skill he had called <Foretell>.

<Foretell> was a skill that the Demon King possessed, although it wasn’t at peak condition considering Seraphina’s body was significantly weaker than his main one, it was still reasonably powerful. The skill allowed the Demon King to simulate multiple attacks against his enemy/opponent without ever actually attacking, to see which attack would have the most impact.

It was exactly how he had defeated Light without obtaining even a single scratch. When he applied the skill against Jacob, all he could see were dead ends. His eyes widened as this boy had become a very obvious stumbling block for him, and he could not believe how a regular human would be so strong.

In that moment, the Demon King could not pinpoint a single weakness that Jacob had, a situation that plagued him seriously.

"What exactly are you boy?" The Demon King inquired in a low voice. It was devoid of pride, or arrogance. He simply just wanted to know how a young boy such as this had grown so strong.

"I’m Jacob Ironfell." Jacob answered, mildly confused at the question, but deciding to give this answer anyways. He never quite understood when people asked what he was, because he was clearly a human being. So it was either they were being sarcastic, or they could not see properly. Whatever it was, his answer would always be the same.

"Jacob Ironfell..." the Demon King repeated his words, making a mental note of the name. "You have gained a lifelong nemesis, Jacob Ironfell. From today onwards, I will make it my mission to destroy you, and gain the source of your overwhelming power."

Jacob sighed, he stared at the Demon King in Seraphina’s body and furrowed his brows. "That’s fine, but can you leave my friend’s body now."

The Demon King started to laugh, a loud, maniacal laughter that almost seemed as though he was coughing. It confused Jacob, and the other elders who had already started to come to after being whacked hard against the walls of the garden.

"Not whe victory stands so clearly before me." The Demon King replied, already working a way in which he could attack Jacob, <Foretell> was useless already, so he just decided he would lunge towards the boy without thinking, that way he may be able to land a hit, or a counter hit that would surely disarm the boy and close the gap between him and the tree.

***

In less than a second, the Demon King in Seraphina’s body darted towards Jacob, he was faster than Morbius, much faster. He moved like a torpedo through the air as he closed the gap between them in no time.

Although he was much faster than Morbius, he was still relatively slow compared to Jacob, so even when he swung the first punch, Jacob raised a hand to block it fairly easily.

Jacob launched a counter punch, which the Demon King also managed to dodge with relative ease. Then the Demon King launched an upper cut as he had previously lowered his body to evade the counter blow that Jacob had thrown.

Jacob had seen that the Demon King had managed to evade his hit, it had been a while since someone was actually able to do that, so he was a little impressed, but also a little disappointed.

He quickly vanished from his position, leaving nothing but empty air for the Demon King as he appeared behind his back and with two easy touches, Jacob had attacked the pressure points on each of the Demon King’s shoulders.

A Martial Arts technique he had learned from one of the books in the <Library of Life>.

"W-What is the meaning of this?!" The Demon King’s yelled in a confused tone as his hands fell lifeless to his side as Jacob moved through the air and appeared in his peripheral again.

Jacob used the same technique on the Demon King’s laps, causing him to fall to his knees. With a loud guttural grunt, the Demon King was almost completely impaled by Jacob’s attacks.

He had one last attack to render, a Hail Mary. After this he wasn’t even sure how he was going to get to the tree, which was still a considerably long distance from where they both stood currently.

He gritted his teeth, then opened his mouth.

The Demon King was able to mimic attacks, after he had seen them once, but only if he had not already been affected by them. Jacob knew this instinctively, which was why he had not even tried using any of his techniques against the Demon King.

The Demon King opened his mouth, to use his last and final attack. Dragon fire. An attack he had picked up when he tamed a dragon while he could still roam around freely in the world.

A large ball of fire suddenly shot out of his mouth—one that would make Raijin’s flames look like a mere handheld lighter—directly aimed at Jacob’s face...