Chapter 744: Showdown Devil VS Demon (part 16)
Chapter 744: Showdown Devil VS Demon (part 16)
Without the need for any words and with a "swoosh", Daimon, Marcus, the lioness and the snake all flashed from their current positions.
"Booom!", when they became visible again, the manticore manifestation’s claws and the snake’s claws were clashing in the sky, while Daimon’s right fist was colliding with Marcus’s one.
"Roaar!", the lioness roared as she used the tail of the manifestation to attack the neck of the snake.
"Hisss!", with a loud hiss, all the snakes that were protruding from the snake’s body disappeared and a second head appeared on the snake’s neck, it was a fake head as it lacked eyes but it did have a mouth filled with spiked teeth.
Now, some snake races do use their tail to mimic their heads, so that they can get attackers to focus on their tails which they can simply discard instead of their real heads, however a fake head protruding out of the neck is abnormal.
"Clang!", the stinger of the manticore’s tail clashed with the teeth of the snake’s fake head producing sparks and the sounds of metals colliding.
"Crack!", ultimately the teeth lost against the sturdiness of the manticore’s stinger, resulting in them cracking and breaking however, as a fake head, it was a lifeless appendage for the snake so it didn’t suffer any pain from it, what’s more he managed to block the attack of the lioness, so the snake was all smiles as of current.
’Not bad, and this is only one of the many snake race abilities I obtained’, thought the snake.
"Humph!", the lioness coldly snorted as she retrieved the tail, black energy with white bright spots gathered on her wings, which made the snake’s expression change, the fake head dissolved and all those snakes once again protruded out of the snake’s body, the snakes opened their mouths and actually drew in mana from the atmosphere they were helping the snake gather much more power than normal and at a faster ratio.
"Boooom!", neither of them used a spell, they simply released their powers and a large energy explosion engulfed everything in the vicinity, this was up in the sky of course, at ground level Daimon whose fist was still clashing against Marcus’s one, smirked behind his mask.
"Storm Breaking Fist", Daimon’s arm exploded in bright yellow lightning which then gathered on his fist, but just as he was about to cast his martial art while still clashing with Marcus, the devil ruler system user flashed away.
"Boooom!", the energy fist passed through the spot where Marcus was standing and destroyed a giant boulder far into the distance before disappearing.
’Crazy bastard, does he not know that will happen if we cast spells and martial arts at point blank!’, inwardly screamed Marcus.
Just imagine what would happen if you put a gun’s muzzle against another one without any space in between to then shot both at the same time, basically not only will both guns be destroyed but you will lose a few fingers as well, the same applies in this case.
When a spell and a martial art clash there is a huge energy collision, under normal conditions this energy turns into a cloud and then is released in the form of an explosion once it has expanded to its limits, but if the techniques were to clash without space for the energies to expand, the explosion will be immediate, so the arms of the casters will be in for a fun ride.
"Looks like even when fighting at the same level, you lose in the balls department, what a disappointment", said the ghost-like Lezabel, which made Marcus who had decided to remain silent during the rest of the fight, break his vow not too long after he had made it, because as previously stated, he sucks at controlling his aggressiveness.
"Shut up, he is just a psycho, besides can’t you see that red vitality-related energy that is enveloping him, he is only so daring because even if he were to lose a limb, he can regrow it in a moment!", said Marcus.
"It’s good for a devil to be cruel to his enemies, but a devil king must be even crueler to himself, I do look up to an interesting fight", added Lezabel with a smile that wasn’t a smile, making a chill run down through Marcus’s back.
’Fucking crazy bitch, fucking masked bastard, damn it all!!!’, inwardly shouted Marcus.
"Black Devil Hell Beast Step!", apparently now that he was using the power of the domain as an armor, he added the prefix "Beast" to his spells, in this case a movement one, the result was also different than the usual, his black flame mana which was fiercely burning with the help of the black wind exploded forming a lion behind of him.
"Hey, if she weren’t busy with the snake, you’ll have to deal with a really angry lioness, Storm Breaking Step", casually said Daimon as he used his own movement martial art.
"Clang!", Daimon and Marcus used quite a primitive method, as in they exchanged punches at high speed.
"Crack!", both the armor that Femi’s energy automatically created to protect Daimon and the black lion armor that was protecting Marcus cracked upon taking the blunt of those two’s gauntlet-wearing fists.
"Black Devil Hell Beast Fist!", the black flame lion behind of Marcus was absorbed into his right fist to then be released at point blank.
"Storm Breaking Fist", naturally Daimon didn’t shy away from the clash, casting his own martial art gathering a whole bunch of Femi’s metal energy and Dana’s lightning which was then amplified by Badr’s energy to cast his martial art.
"Boooom!", both techniques exploded upon being released since their casting points were pressed against each other, the explosion sent both Daimon and Marcus flying backwards while a huge crater was left in the ground as a testimony of the violent reaction between their energy and mana respectively.
They both returned to an offensive stance at the same time, the energy constructions as well as the armor created by Femi’s energy on Daimon were full of cracks, while the black lion armor covering Marcus also had some damage here and there.
’My black devil lion armor though temporal is a real magic treasure created through a ritual, but those are just energy constructions and even when clashing head on they weren’t destroyed, what the hell is that bastard’s body made of that is sharing the burden alongside the energy constructions!’, cursed Marcus to his insides.
His armor suffering less damage is not only normal, but that’s how it’s supposed to be, it’s a real magic treasure after all, what didn’t make sense for him is that even after clashing against it directly, Daimon’s energy constructions weren’t obliterated.
"Hsssss!", the cracks on Daimon’s energy constructions and the damage on Marcus’s armor repaired on the spot, of course Daimon used energy for this while Marcus simply drew in power from the dagger, which was storing the leftover mana from the domain that wasn’t used for the armor.
"Now that was fun~", said Lezabel, breaking the tense and bloody atmosphere that was created by the savage exchange of moves between Daimon and Marcus.
"Do you not find her fucking annoying?", asked Marcus, obviously with the intention that Daimon’s answer might not be liked by Lezabel, so that she would screw with Marcus a bit less, unfortunately for him, Daimon’s answer was completely not what he expected.
"I’m used to deal with all kinds of people, among which there are quite a few "quirky" ones, besides trash I can probably learn to tolerate anything else", of course he changed the fact that he is used to deal with different girls to "people" instead, as for the quirky ones, well there are quite a few but the gold prize is probably for either Sarah or Erin.
"Right, you are trying to become a hero like Adam so of course you would be careful of your words in front of a "pretty" girl you womaniz...", just as Marcus was about to mock Daimon, basically saying that he was being lenient to Lezabel a thought that was actually justified, after all Daimon came together with Femi and Tessa who were Adam’s targets, so in Marcus’s mind, he stole them from the light hero idiot, he felt a sudden sensation of dread whose origin wasn’t clear.
It didn’t come from the ghost-like administrator, as she didn’t care about such things in the slightest, and it didn’t come from Daimon either, but at the same time it seemed to come from every direction, unfortunately this doubt of his would remain unsolved for now, because the ones releasing killing intent at him were Eve and Nasha.
’Ahem, take it easy you two’, inwardly said Daimon, only then did Marcus stopped feeling that suffocating sensation.
"Black Devil Hell Beast Roar Cannon!", feeling humiliated over the previous, Marcus’s body exploded in black flames which then took the form of a lion that opened its jaws as he pointed his hand at Daimon.
Black flames gathered in front of Marcus’s hand which was positioned right in the middle of the lion’s jaws.
"Roaar!", just like Daimon said, Marcus’s spells resembled those of the lioness a bit as of current, the black flames were turned into a stream accompanied by a powerful roar that travelled towards Daimon.
That was a triple element spell actually, it used the black flames for fire power, shadow to condense the image of the lion and wind for the roar.
"Storm Breaking Palm", as for Daimon he used the same spell he has been showcasing, releasing an energy palm clad in lightning. which made Marcus grit his teeth as he thought he was being looked down upon.
’Fine, act cool all you want, don’t complain when you die!’, he thought as he further injected mana into his attack making the black flame stream grow a bit.
As Marcus expected the energy palm turned solider and the lightning cladding it also increased its explosiveness, that was of course the work of Badr’s energy, however just before the two attacks collided, the lightning clad palm created by the martial art used by Daimon suddenly tripled its size, which was completely unexpected.
"What!", the reason behind of it is actually simple, earlier Daimon used the multiplier of pledge to increase the power of the energies used for the martial art, first once then twice.
This time he only increased the energies used for the martial art once and thanks to the second fulfilled condition, courtesy of Lezabel’s explanation, he doubled the power of the martial art itself as well, which resulted in its range, movement speed and explosiveness increasing.
That’s right, unlike Badr whose boosting was indeed larger but had to be done in a single aspect at the time, Daimon could boost different aspects at the same time, this was another thing in which his version differed from the original one.
Also, the boost brought by multiplying the power of a technique itself rather than just the energies used to cast it, is way stronger as the palm tripling its size instead of simply doubling it, suggested.
This is because it’s harder to increase the "proficiency" of a technique as it requires mastering it, when compared to just strengthening one’s energy, it’s normal if you think about it, increasing your realm will automatically strengthen a mage’s mana or a knight’s battle aura but just increasing your realm won’t improve your mastery over your techniques, but Badr’s energy can do it.
With mastery over a technique, you can attain a stronger effect with a lower amount of energy, and here you might wonder why Daimon simply didn’t use both multipliers on the martial art and the answer is that he couldn’t, since the effect is stronger, so is the strain on the body.
On the other hand, this combination of doubling energy and doubling the power of the martial art is probably the most effective anyway, balancing the cost and the resulting attack power.
"Boooom!", speaking of which, the giant energy palm directly blocked the shockwave roar attack without even flinching before the black flame stream landed on it.
"Crack!", Daimon clenched his right hand and the giant palm closed onto the stream destroying it on the spot to then explode.
"Booooom!", Marcus was hit by the explosion since he failed to react in time and he was sent flying into the distance, that being said, Daimon saw that the black lion armor blocked the impact for him, which is to be expected as it contained the power to open the portal to the shadow realm and also had a powerful physical defense property unlike before, as it had turned into magic equipment by the ritual completed through the dagger.
"Cough!", behind the helmet that the black lion armor granted to Marcus, the devil ruler system user coughed a couple of times, there was a trace of blood on the small spit drops that came out of his mouth.
’Damn it, his power hasn’t increased so how come he suddenly managed to overpower my spell like that’, he thought as he got up, the chest of the armor was filled with cracks that repaired themselves the next second.
"That’s because unlike you he knows how to use his powers to the best of their capacities, mmm, I would say that he was born to be a warrior but it wouldn’t make him justice, he was both born to be a warrior and has done the kind of training that makes you wish you were dead on a daily basis for a really long time, you remember that "devilish" training program I generously offered but you were too much of a coward to follow, well something along the lines of that".
"So, like I previously stated, at the same level you’ll lose against him ten out of ten times, because you are lacking in the balls department~", said the ghost-like administrator.
"Damn it, Black Devil Hell Beast Claws!", with a loud curse, Marcus slashed his clawed gauntlets and the black flame lion behind of him did the same, releasing ten slashing lights that flew towards Daimon.
"You are not the only one with a fierce "magic beast" companion, Storm Breaking Tiger!".
"Hsssss!", bright yellow lightning radiated out of Daimon’s body followed by a whole bunch of Femi’s metal energy, which then mixed to form... a tiger.
That was Dana’s technique, the little tiger girl created a lightning tiger through which she then casted techniques to empower them, of course Daimon was unable to use that ability, until now.
He used Femi’s energy as the frame, then added Dana’s lightning and doubled the power of said energies with Badr’s first multiplier, as a result he forced a technique on a similar standing with Dana’s signature technique.
"Storm Breaking Tiger, Shredding Claws", and now he used a martial art through that energy construction, making the copper-bright yellow energy tiger slash its right paw claws frontwards.
"Boooom!", the five slashes released by the metal-lightning tiger destroyed the ten slashing lights released by Marcus before being destroyed, for a split of a second Marcus felt relived until he heard Daimon saying.
"Not bad, now let’s see its attack power when I also boost the martial art", that’s right, that attack which with only five slashes destroyed ten from Marcus, was a normal martial art casted through the boosted energies that conformed the tiger, Daimon still had one multiplier left to use.
"Black Devil Hell Beast Step!", Marcus flashed from his previous position, maybe because of what Lezabel said but he didn’t put distance between himself and Daimon, but actually took the initiative to ambush him instead, appearing behind of Daimon with his claws gauntlets ready to pierce his back.
"Storm Breaking Tiger, Tail Whip", taking a page from the little tiger girl’s book, Daimon poured energy into the tiger’s tail to then lash it at Marcus, who was taken by surprise over the previous.
’What kind of damn tiger uses its tail as a whip!’, he screamed to his insides, well, Dana surely has a bit of a strange fighting style, in fact many poor bastards in the Jolbaris are going to suffer later due to it, because they only fight with their "claws" of which they are the proudest about.
That’s for the "noblest" among them though, besides that they use their fists and legs, but there has never been a case of a Jolbaris using their tail as a weapon, perhaps this preference came from the Star Lioness lineage, though Dana basically uses her whole body to attack, it’s a subject worth investigating, but let’s leave that for later.
"Crack!", the lightning clad tail landed on Marcus’s right shoulder, instantly cracking the black lion armor while also forcing him backwards, unfortunately Daimon was trying this technique for the first time so he didn’t have the time to use the second multiplier on it as he had to maintain the first one on the energies that formed the tiger, otherwise he would have broken through the armor and burnt Marcus arm in a single go.
That being said, blood dripped out of the cracks on the army, apparently the impact of the lightning tail was harder than expected, so Marcus did receive a wound through the armor.
For a change Marcus didn’t get angry though, because he actually got something useful out of this exchange and also out of the usual insults that came out of Lezabel’s mouth.
"If he is stronger than me at the same realm, don’t I just need to reach a much higher realm than him, the "devil king" is always stronger than the hero after all", said Marcus.
"I have bled after seriously confronting the enemy head on without being able to block the attack, the conditions have been met, devil librarian open the first page!", shouted Marcus as he placed his hand on the wound, he suffered to then smear his blood on the grimoire.
When does the devil king achieve his "ultimate form", it’s of course after having been hit by an all-out attack from the hero, when the hero has inflicted a wound on the devil king, the latter must transform, completely recover from the suffered damage and then crush the hero’s hope of victory.
The grimoire flipped through its pages until it reached one that was completely black inked, Marcus blood was drawn towards the page which had nothing in it and the blood actually formed the image captured in it, which was of a blood red throne room.
"Black Devil Contract, Royal Ascension Hell!", an open black throne room two hundred meters large with a blood red throne emerged behind of Marcus, this was the last hellscape and it had nothing to do with the sacrifices of his subordinates, though a bit of everything from them was used as fuel for it, the major component was that all the steps were followed in order by Marcus and that he suffered a loss at the hands of the enemy while going on a complete offensive, like it happened a moment ago.