Chapter 1048 - 1047: Not Far Enough

Akaza looked around.

A broad stone path stretched beneath an iron-grey sky. Broken pillars stood along its edges, and beyond them lay darkness without anything he could recognise.

The elders were gone. So were Sonya and the others.

He looked behind him.

A tall gate stood at the beginning of the path, its opening filled with a faint, shifting light.

"So this is it."

He could still feel the warmth against his chest.

’Blackmoon.’

Akaza touched the place briefly, then lowered his hand and walked forward.

A figure waited between two broken pillars.

The Daemon was broad-shouldered, with short black hair and grey skin. Thick ridges covered his knuckles and elbows. He stood barefoot, his arms hanging loosely beside him.

Akaza stopped when the Daemon turned.

His blood recoiled, and his shoulders stiffened before he could stop them.

A Kharad.

The name surfaced within him, along with an understanding of what stood before him.

A Common Daemon bloodline.

"Turn around," the Kharad said.

Akaza frowned.

"Trash like you has no business coming this far."

The Daemon looked him over, then laughed.

"Those markings. A Martial Demon? Is that all our blood has become?"

Akaza’s fingers closed.

He remembered Sonya standing beneath the dispersing tribulation clouds.

He was not returning after being frightened by the first person in his way.

"I still have a long way to go."

Bang!

He pushed off the stone and swung at the Daemon’s jaw.

"So fuck off!"

The Kharad caught his fist.

Akaza barely registered the grip before his feet left the ground.

The Daemon swung him overhead and slammed him down.

BOOM!

Pain burst across his back.

Akaza coughed blood. He had forced gravity upward at the last instant, slowing his fall, but something had still cracked beneath his shoulder.

A foot came toward his face.

He crossed his arms.

BANG!

The kick threw him across the path. He struck the ground, rolled, and dug his fingers into a crack to stop himself.

His forearms were already swelling.

The Kharad approached at a leisurely pace.

"That was your attack?"

Akaza rose.

A dark-grey field spread around him, pressing down on the ground.

The Daemon entered it.

For an instant, his step slowed down.

Then his fist struck Akaza’s stomach.

"Kargh!"

Akaza folded around it with spit flying from his mouth.

Bam!

An elbow hit his cheek before he could raise his guard. He stumbled sideways, only for a knee to crash into his ribs.

He turned with the blow, dragging at the Daemon’s leg with gravity.

The strike still lifted him off his feet.

’Too fast.’

He landed badly.

His gravitational field distorted as he fought to breathe.

He had faced opponents stronger than himself before. But the Kharad was barely trying, and Akaza could hardly follow his hands.

This was only a Common Daemon.

Among demons, his Royal bloodline had made him exceptional.

Here, that meant nothing.

"Get up."

The Kharad nudged him with a foot.

Akaza slapped it aside and punched from one knee.

Bang!

The Daemon leaned back. His heel caught Akaza beneath the chin, sending blood from his mouth.

Akaza struck the ground again.

Without gravity slowing the kicks and cushioning his falls, he would already have been unable to stand.

And the bastard was letting him stand.

That hurt almost as much.

He pushed himself up.

The next exchange lasted three breaths.

Akaza blocked a punch, failed to stop the one behind it, and took a kick across his thigh that nearly folded his leg.

He retreated, dragging the injured limb.

The Kharad laughed.

"Is stubbornness all you have?"

Akaza wiped blood from his eye.

He couldn’t overpower him.

Chasing his hands wasn’t working either.

But the Daemon kept dropping his guard after every blow. He expected Akaza to fall, then waited for him to get up.

’Keep looking down on me.’

Akaza raised his fists.

The Kharad stepped in.

A punch cracked against Akaza’s guard. He let himself stagger, leaving his stomach exposed.

The Daemon lifted his knee.

Akaza dropped his gravity field.

The sudden release let the knee rise faster than the Kharad intended.

Akaza slipped beside it.

His left hand caught the raised leg, and his foot hooked behind the Daemon’s standing ankle.

Then he drove every bit of pressure he could muster downward.

The Kharad’s balance broke.

"What-"

Akaza slammed his forehead into the Daemon’s face.

CRACK!

Pain flashed behind his eyes but he held on.

As the Kharad fell backward, Akaza followed, driving his elbow into the exposed throat.

They struck the ground together.

A fist hammered Akaza’s ribs.

He coughed blood across the Daemon’s face and struck again.

Another blow landed against his side.

His vision dimmed.

’Don’t let him stand.’

Akaza pinned the Kharad’s neck with his left forearm and concentrated gravity around his right fist.

BANG!

The punch struck the jaw.

He hit the same place again.

The Daemon caught his wrist, but Akaza dragged it down with his whole body and drove a knee into his chest.

The grip loosened.

Akaza tore his hand free.

His fingers barely closed but he forced them shut.

"Look down on me now!"

BANG!

His next punch shattered the ground beneath the Kharad’s head.

The struggling body went still.

Akaza raised his fist again.

Before it fell, cracks of light spread across the Daemon’s skin.

The figure broke apart beneath him.

Akaza dropped onto his hands but before he could catch his breath, something rushed through his blood.

"Arrrrgggghhh!!!"

He arched backward with a strangled cry.

His ribs shifted. The damaged bones pressed together, then thickened with a grinding pain that made his fingers claw at the path.

His shoulders broadened slightly. Muscle tightened along his back and thighs, pulling so hard against his joints that he thought they would tear free.

The skin over his knuckles darkened to slate grey and hardened into low, smooth ridges.

His black markings drew closer together along his forearms.

There was no relief when the changes reached his chest.

His heart contracted, and the pathways carrying his demonic energy seemed to burn from within.

"Ngh...!"

He endured it until he could breathe again.

When he finally stood, his body felt heavier.

He took a step, then another. The weight didn’t slow him.

He opened and closed his hands. The bruising was fading, though his side still ached.

A faint gravitational pressure gathered without him deliberately spreading his gravitational field.

He stared at his fists.

He was now a Common Daemon and he felt the increase in his strength.

It was a substantial increase and he came to realize just how lucky he was to have won against the Kharad.

If the Kharad had taken the battle seriously or used his abilities and not just his fists and legs, he would have lost without a doubt.

He exhaled softly, then he looked behind him.

He could turn back now, but Sonya’s bronze eyes came to mind.

Akaza turned and looked farther down the path.

"No."

He continued.

The second figure waited while sitting on the ground with his legs crossed.

Unlike the Kharad, this Daemon was lean. His forearms were smooth and black from the elbows down, and his eyes were a cold silver.

A Vardran... A Noble bloodline.

"You were fortunate," he said.

Akaza stopped several paces away.

"The fool let you keep getting up. You won’t have that opportunity with me."

"I wasn’t counting on it."

"You should be asking to leave."

Akaza spread his gravity field.

He kept it close this time, concentrating its pressure rather than wasting power across the path.

The Vardran moved, and this time... Akaza saw the punch.

He stepped outside it and aimed a kick at the Daemon’s knee.

The Vardran caught his ankle.

A sharp twist sent pain through the joint. Before Akaza could pull away, the Daemon’s fist struck him beneath the ribs.

He flew backward.

The Vardran followed.

Akaza barely raised an arm before a kick smashed against his head.

His feet left the ground again.

’Not yet!’

He lightened his body, turned in the air, and landed on both feet.

The Daemon’s next punch was already coming.

Akaza pushed it aside and drove his other fist into the Vardran’s mouth.

Bam!

Blood marked the silver-eyed Daemon’s lip.

For a moment, Akaza felt something close to triumph.

Then the Vardran struck back.

BANG!

A punch drove his guard into his face. Another hit his stomach. The Daemon caught the back of his neck and pulled him into a rising knee.

Akaza heard his nose break.

He grabbed the Daemon’s wrist and tried to throw him.

The Vardran planted his feet.

Akaza couldn’t move him.

An elbow struck the side of his head.

His grip failed.

The Daemon seized his throat, lifted him, and drove him into the path.

BOOM!

The ground broke beneath his back.

Akaza tried to roll.

A kick caught him in the side and turned him onto his stomach.

Then a foot pressed his head down.

His cheek ground against the broken stone.

"I’m impressed you lasted this long," the Vardran said. "But you’re still too weak."

Akaza’s fingers scraped across the ground as he recalled a familiar scene.

It was when he first encountered Blackmoon.

He remembered Simon standing over him in the headquarters of the Iron Fangs.

That same helplessness.

That same foot forcing his face down.

He respected Simon, but he hated being in this position more than anything.

’Not again.’

His energy surged.

The dark-grey field expanded, reversing the downward pull.

The pressure beneath the Daemon’s foot disappeared as both their bodies lifted from the path.

Loose stones rose around them.

The Vardran glanced down, briefly surprised.

Akaza twisted free and drove a kick toward his face.

The Daemon caught it on his forearm.

Akaza used the contact to turn, striking with his other heel.

Bang!

This one reached the Vardran’s jaw.

The Daemon’s head shifted.

Akaza pushed away before the counterattack could reach him, planted a foot against a floating slab, and sprang back with a punch.

The Vardran blocked it.

Their forearms collided. Akaza drove a knee toward his stomach, but the Daemon knocked it aside and struck him across the mouth.

Blood scattered between them.

Akaza fought to steady himself.

His newly changed body was stronger, but the field was eating through his energy. His muscles were trembling under the strain.

He couldn’t keep this up for long.

The Vardran watched him.

"You can lift things and increase the weight of things. Is that the extent of your understanding?"

Akaza spat blood.

"Come closer and find out."

The Daemon lowered one hand.

"Let me show you how to use gravity."

He closed the other into a fist.

Akaza felt his field collapse.

He immediately prepared to fall.

Instead, his body shot forward.

His eyes widened.

Above him, below him, on either side, the floating stones changed direction together. Every piece hurtled toward the Daemon’s closed fist.

Akaza forced gravity downward but he barely moved an inch toward the floor.

The pull dragged him faster.

There was no ground beneath that fist. Nothing to fall onto.

Yet he was falling toward it.

The Vardran drew his arm back.

Akaza’s entire body was being dragged into the punch.