Chapter 738: Showdown Devil VS Demon (part 10)

"No way!", Marcus saw from the corner of his eyes how the lioness suddenly erupted with power no less than what she had when she was connected with the shadow colosseum hell and he exclaimed in disbelief.

’Did she just reach the same level of strength she used to have without using any spell!’, he screamed to his insides.

Earlier Marcus couldn’t feel the slightest trace of mana coming from the lioness and yet she reached the same level of strength she had when she could use mana, it was outrageous, the only thing he could think would give her such a strong boost was one of those strange energies which the masked silver haired youth controlled.

However, at this point he was used to the aura radiated by the silver light, bright green constructions, brown-red reinforcement and the bright yellow lightning and Marcus also knew that none of them granted physical strength.

And Marcus wasn’t the only one surprised here, Daimon couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow behind his mask at the previous scene.

’That was...’, he thought with an interested light shinning in his eyes, before returning to the real world as he heard the devil ruler system user’s loud voice echoing through the sky.

"What are you staring at her for like fools, fucking kill her!!!", shouted Marcus at the haunted locust tree general and the snake who had yet to react after it was slapped on the face by the lioness. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"Hisssss!", the giant snake loudly hissed as its eyes became bloodshot, in part because of the humiliation of being slapped on the face and in part because it could feel the anger from its creator and knew that if it didn’t comply, what awaited was death.

Marcus could have accepted the lioness escaping from his grasp to a certain extent, of course he would still chase and kill her, however he felt extremely insulted to see the lioness not only daring to want to take revenge against him, but also actively siding with Daimon, therefore he had taken away any trace of freedom from the proxies of the hellscapes, with a single thought he could kill the snake as of current.

Of course, this also came at a cost, he had to activate more than half of the hellscapes to unlock this ability, which is also why he manifested the ancient sea battlefield hell, besides wanting to suppress the lioness with a magic beast type of proxy as punishment for the offense she committed against him of course.

Speaking of the lioness, she saw the black water tide that surged at the order of the giant snake, accompanied by the multiple danger warnings that her instincts signaled, coming from the rain of invisible arrows that were shot by the locust tree general who was riding on the horse and she fiercely stomped her right frontal paw on the ground.

"Boooom!", the solid black soil in fifty meters around the lioness exploded raising a large rock wall which stopped the advance of the black water tide, as for the arrows which bypassed the rock wall, they exploded upon contact with the lightning that was radiated by the lioness’s body.

Neither of the proxies in other words the locust tree general and the snake, used spells those were their normal attack means, the problem is that they are early-stage Arch rank creations, one has a trump card from another hellscape and the other is using the power of its hellscape to fight and yet their attacks were equaled by a peak Lord rank enemy who didn’t use any spell either in a 2v1 clash as well.

"Roar!", the lioness raised her head and roared to the sky, making the horse below the general shiver as it retreated a couple of steps while the snake’s eyes shone with wariness, unfortunately when those three felt the cold glare from Marcus who was in the middle of clashing the claws of the lioness shaped domain against Daimon’s lightning clad spear, they had no choice but to grit their teeth and charge towards the lioness.

"Distracting in the middle of a fight, aren’t we getting too daring here~", Lezabel’s voice which was like nails on a chalkboard for Marcus as of current, made him immediately return to the fight, just in time to see a new reinforced energy construction appear for Daimon to wield.

"Shattering Bolt", unlike the energy bow which required Daimon to both condense the arrow and pull on the string on the spot, the crossbow which appeared in front of him, was ready to be shot the moment it appeared.

"Booom!", with a loud shockwave as witness of the power contained in the string of the crossbow, a lightning clad bolt turned into a bright star that instantly reached Marcus who despite reacting in time barely managed to slash the lioness shaped domain’s claws at the incoming attack.

"Crack!", the claws were destroyed on the spot and the impact sent the lioness shaped domain flying a dozen of meter backwards, while Marcus was unharmed because the bolt dissolved after piercing through the initial layers of the domain, his fingers shook a bit, though even if the domain were destroyed, he wouldn’t suffer backslash as it isn’t his domain to begin with, he is indeed connected to it as he has to control it at will now that the lioness is not a proxy of the colosseum’s hellscape, so there is some slight physical recoil that reaches him, that normally wouldn’t be strong enough to cause any reaction.

’What the hell my mana was just reinforced when I used the ancient sea battlefield as it is the fourth out of the six, I have, did this guy just got stronger out of nowhere without using a new kind of energy, fucking hero candidate bastard!’, inwardly cursed Marcus.

As arrogant as he is, even Marcus at this point doesn’t consider Daimon a mere lackey of Adam who wanted to climb the ladder and escape the hero’s grasp, but someone that had already passed that step, the reason being that he had to use more than half of his created hellscapes, which marked a different point in the amount of battle prowess Marcus could exert and, in his mind, no "normal" people could force him to do that, the only thing he doesn’t understand is how Adam was careless enough to let a subordinate grow to that point without putting proper shackles on him.

’Useless hero bastard, I bet he was too distracted fooling around with some bitch or chasing after another one for his collection that he got sidetracked and missed both this guy’s ambitions and the timing to get into this place’, concluded Marcus.

Changing to Daimon’s side, he looked at the crossbow that floated next to him with an amused light in his eyes.

’This crossbow is quite something’, he thought.

Interestingly enough, the string of the crossbow carried just a slightly lower amount of strength than what the string of the bow would gain if Daimon had personally pulled on it, which is somewhat akin to what would happen if he were to use a proper martial art instead of the combination of energies he is using which still needs him to physically use the martial art to achieve the current attack output he has, in exchange the crossbow consumed some of Tessa and Femi’s energy, so perhaps this was the special effect of the crossbow energy construction.

It’s worth mentioning that while Tessa did have a crossbow creating technique, it didn’t have this effect, so this was a crossbow created to fit Daimon’s current state, which also meant that his manipulation ability over the energies of Tessa and Femi had advanced a bit, as to when he became able to create the crossbow it happened after the lioness suddenly burst with strong physical power enough to make the snake retreat earlier.

"Black Devil Hell Cannon!", while the claws of the lioness shaped domain regenerated Marcus instead used a long-range spell, which resulted in black flames with golden sparks gathering in front of the domain’s mouth to then be shot at Daimon who smirked behind his mask.

"Swift Step", Daimon’s image flashed from his previous position completely dodging the initial attack of the black flame sphere which then exploded, expanding into a sea of black flames, unfortunately Daimon had reached the periphery of the area covered by the sea of reinforced black flames so the faint impact was completely nullified by Tessa and Femi’s energy armor.

"Shattering Thrust", Daimon thrusted the reinforced energy spear in his right hand, which made the domain’s legs explode in black flames.

"Black Devil Hell Step!", with a loud shout the devil ruler system user imitated Daimon and dodged the piercing stream of lightning that was aimed at him, but then a sensation of danger came to him the very second, he reappeared after using his movement spell, as a lightning clad bolt reached the head of the lioness shaped domain.

"Boooom!", unable to react, the bolt directly landed on the domain exploding the next second blasting away a two-meter sized part of the domain’s head, which considering the fifty-meter sized of the domain might not sound as much, but the important part is that the attack was fast enough for Marcus to be unable to react, and that he felt a bit of headache due to the impact.

"Damn it!", the previous was the advantage of a crossbow over a bow, at least one that was ready to shot the moment it was used, it shortened the time needed to shot at the enemy, paired with the fact that Daimon could use martial arts without chanting if he pushed himself a bit as of current and also that the crossbow only needed one hand to be operated while Daimon wielded the spear with his right hand like earlier and Marcus reaction time was completely bypassed.

"Shattering Thrust", seeing the lightning stream coming at him while Daimon had the crossbow floating next to his left hand, meaning that the moment he dodged Daimon would shoot the bolt at the area where he would appear, Marcus’s eyes became bloodshot, he was being treated like a shooting target just because his reaction time was a bit slower than the enemy’s new attack.

"That’s enough you masked bastard, Ancient Sea Battlefield, Fallen Warrior Armor!", the previous was a spell Marcus casted through the snake proxy, and the result was that rock armor which the snake used to block the lioness’s attacks which had suddenly grown fiercer, but this time it grew on top of the domain encasing it in a solid dark brown earth armor.

"Clang!", the bolt landed the very moment the armor had appeared, resulting in sparks and the sound of metals colliding, the rock armor blocked the lightning clad on the bolt and then collided directly with the layer of Femi’s energy coating the energy bolt ending in a pure physical clash.

"Crack!", while the rock armor indeed could intercept Dana’s lightning, the little tiger girl’s energy was fierce enough to seriously damage a defense type spell with mana that is supposed to counter it, so the armor on the area where the bolt initially landed was worn out by the lightning and ended up crumbling apart due to the impact of the bolt.

Still, this time the domain wasn’t forced backwards and Marcus didn’t get even the slightest recoil from the attack, which is what he was aiming at, that being said, the armor also slowed down the domain’s movement so Marcus knew that he would no longer be able to catch up with Daimon without using movement spells, there was a solution for that as well, an expensive one to be more accurate.

"Golden Opportunity Mountain Hell, Permanence Boost!", a couple of dozens of golden mountains disappeared turning into golden sparks that flowed into the domain’s legs which exploded into black flames, as well as on the rock armor Marcus had turned his movement spell and the defensive one of the snake into permanent ones with the trump card of the golden mountain hell.

"Heh, drinking poison to quench thirst, unlike that domain which is powered by the shadow colosseum, and the armor that is powered by the ancient sea battlefield that being your own movement spell, will make it so that the cost of being activated every time will be paid by you", disdainfully said the ghost-like administrator girl which made Marcus’s eyes nearly spit fire as she casually emphasized the weakness of the permanence boost.

When it was applied to a spell of his own, sure he won’t have to cast it to use it, but with each activation he would have to pay with mana, albeit a diminished amount of it thanks to the special effect of the golden opportunity mountain hell’s final technique.

Unfortunately, the fastest movement spell among the ones he could currently use was his own, if the black flame war horse ride of the general was alive, it could have given him a faster speed enhancing boosting spell which when being turned permanent would be subsided by the living hell jungle as well, but Daimon killed it and the movement spell of the current horse created by the shadow colosseum was inferior to Marcus’s one.

"Boooom!", angered due to the previous, the black flames now permanently covering the legs of the domain burned fiercely as Marcus charged at Daimon, with continuous enhanced speed he was fast enough to slightly surpass Daimon’s normal speed, now, unless he used a movement martial art, he would not be able to bypass Marcus’s reaction time anymore.

"Shattering Thrust", Daimon didn’t care he simply thrusted the spear in his right-hand head on at Marcus who used the domain’s rock covered claws to block.

"Crack!", a loud shattering sound followed by the rock armor being directly destroyed before the spear reached the domain’s body stalling the domain’s charge which made Marcus grit his teeth, though the now permanent defensive spell could block long ranged attacks without producing any effect on the domain at the cost of the armor shattering due to the clash, at close range he was indeed blocked by the impact of Daimon’s martial art.

"Boom!", what’s more, the crossbow on Daimon’s left hand instantly followed shooting a bolt at the exposed area of the domain’s claws which was just about to be covered in rock armor again, blasting them away.

"Black Devil Hell Canon!", at close range Marcus shot a black flame sphere from the mouth of the domain, unfortunately while his current speed when using the permanent movement spell was faster than Daimon’s normal speed, Daimon’s reaction time didn’t fall behind.

"Crack!", a pair of reinforced energy shields stacked together in front of Daimon blocking the initial impact of the black flame sphere, only resulting in the layer of Femi’s energy cracking before they flew away, returning to Daimon who had used swift step to get out of the range of the sea of black flames released by the flame sphere the next second.

"Black Devil Hell Slashing Claws!", with a loud voice, Marcus used the domain to claw at Daimon releasing ten black burning slashing lights towards him, while he also flashed on the spot.

"Shattering Bolt", this time two crossbows appeared for Daimon resulting in two bolts being shot at the incoming slashing lights, instantly destroying four of them two due to the direct impact and two due to releasing the energy stored inside of them.

"Clang!", Daimon instantly turned one of the crossbows into a spear while the other was turned into a shield, then with the spear clad in lightning he blocked the domain’s right claws while the shield blocked the left ones, without a martial art or a spell, neither gained the upper hand over the other, but that wasn’t up to Marcus’s liking, because he had stacked a lot of things on the domain just to match up to Daimon’s output.

’The domain is receiving power from three hellscapes as well as my own mana, how is this bastard able to keep up with the energy consumption and what are those two useless pieces of trash doing!’, inwardly roared Marcus in his heart.

At this point in time, he had expected the snake and the locust tree general to have dealt with the lioness already, so that they could come to suppress the masked silver haired youth so that he could finally kill him, but when he looked at the second battlefield what he saw nearly made him lose it.

"Neeeigh!", the locust tree general was thrown out of his horse by the lioness who tackled the horse biting his neck to then rip his head off, of course the horse regenerated the next second but she suppressed it with her paw to then explode in bright yellow lightning arcs as she proposed to pounce on the general who was shooting invisible arrows at her as he did his best to put distance between the lioness and himself, knowing that if she caught him, he was dead.

"Water Devil Torrential Tsunami!", gritting his teeth, the snake finally used a spell, apparently the snake was a dual element proxy, able to use both water and earth spells, though it looked like it could only use defense type earth spells and attack type water ones, respectively, as to why it hasn’t used attack spells and only tried to control the lioness with the black water of the ancient sea battlefield hellscape, that remained a mystery as of current.

"Booooom!", anyway, a large amount of devil mana was poured in the one hundred large area of the black water hellscape, which made it surge with a giant wave eight times that length, instantly flooding everything in the vicinity swallowing the lioness as well as the horse and the general, though the last two weren’t affected by the corrosive black water allowing them to escape the claws of the lioness whose figure disappeared in the instant sea created by the snake.

"Hsssss!", of course the extended instant sea wasn’t permanent unlike the one hundred black water area of the hellscape and started sizzling as it dissolved itself and the ground in the process.

"Final fuckingly...", just as Marcus was about to celebrate the demise of the pawn that had dared to bare her fangs at him a loud shattering sound followed by a deafening roar echoed through the sky.

"Rooar!", the still existing extended sea shook, the ground collapsed and the excess of black water fell into the giant crater that had appeared in the middle of it, revealing the sight of the lioness whose body was "burning" in red light.

’I knew it’, thought Daimon as he saw the lioness radiating that familiar-looking red colored light, that was Arianna’s energy, Daimon already had guessed that was the case when the lioness suddenly erupted with stronger physical strength earlier which was the very moment, he became able to use the crossbow as well, but only now it was confirmed that the lioness could use Arianna’s energy.

"That junior sister of mine is quite biased, but I guess it’s understandable considering she is liked by Dana’s lightning", mumbled Daimon, the lioness unlocked Arianna’s energy before he did it.

Like previously stated, the energies quite resemble their owners, Dana had become quite close with Arianna as they were together through the whole time since the start of the mission, and the lioness was also liked by the little tiger girl to the point that her energy asked Daimon to help her escape Marcus’s grasp.

Not to mention that as a blood specter, the lioness is a condensation of lineage energy which is basically vitality the target of Arianna’s energy, if Daimon were to freely use battle aura then he would have become instantly able to use Arianna’s energy, but that would go against the rules of the challenge.

Still, Daimon was also rewarded, or more accurately he now met the requirements of Arianna’s energy besides the high vitality, as his body suddenly radiating a vibrant red light that turned into a layer of fierce burning red energy, suggested.

’Dana told me that Arianna’s first action after becoming able to condense the giant wolf was protecting her, so perhaps when I casted the armor on the lioness, I had already met the requirements but still needed the vitality explosion aspect to be covered’, thought Daimon as an interesting idea appeared in his mind.

"Booooom!", the burning red light covering Daimon suddenly surged forcing Marcus to retreat with apprehension in his eyes, the fact that Daimon is restricting himself to not use vitality as a power doesn’t mean his monstrous vitality is not there, he simply was unable to use it actively until now.

A giant pillar of red light that raised high into the sky originated from Daimon to then... descend upon the lioness.