ACC Chapter 9 High-paced Start

A demon's journey started as mere beast...

Those born from the union of two demons have different starting points, but the normal ones follow the path from being mere beasts without intelligence, ruled by instincts ingrained within their respective bloodlines.

They only have a few wants. Mating and eating are the most important ones. Even when they manage to evolve to the Spirit Gathering stage, or even beyond, into the Foundation Establishment stage, instincts are still the driving force behind their actions.

Upon advancing to the Core Formation stage, there is a qualitative transformation that takes place within their brains, awakening their own sapience and sentience, allowing them to become more human-like in nature, with thoughts and ideas of their own. Its like transforming from a baby into an adult instantly.

Also, their cultivation path followed an entirely different system from humans, probably related to their physiology.

And then there was this abnormality, Simba.

Cunningness was a quality not supposed to exist among male lion demons. They were the types to charge ahead with powerful momentum and fearlessness.

But this Simba had become the outlier. He was cunning, ruthless, and most of all, he lacked the innate arrogance brought upon by excessive pride.

As I gazed towards him from within the transparent barrier that served as a lock for the atmosphere within the hangar, a few embers of rage within me caught flame.

Lily had attempted suicide!

With a mental order, green threads appeared on my skin and started growing, weaving themselves into a green armor covering my entire body, with only my gaze unobstructed.

Then I crossed the blue barrier, exposing myself to the void of space.

Particles, travelling at varying speeds impacted my armor. I could feel every single collision with my divine sense, but chose to ignore it, instead, vanishing from my position.

Within two teleports, only 100m were left between me and Simba.

Even from this distance, I could feel the heat from the great blaze. It was uncomfortable to both me and my armor because of our attunement to wood.

My body lit up with green as I prepared to take action, with a few balls separating from my armor. They were dark green, and their surfaces were fluctuating as if they were living creatures.

I had exhausted 10% of the spiritual energy coursing within my veins to create them.

The figure shrouded in flame vanished, moving at speeds only my divine sense could keep up with.

The sound of claws on wood rang out as one of the balls floating around me, now a staff, blocked a claw strike, bending inwards from the force of the blow, then being flung in my direction, eliciting a dodge.

Simba vanished as a sharp spike sailed through his afterimage, vanishing into the distance.

But I followed his moves, with the rough spheres floating around me spewing sharp thorns filled with wood elemental energy. If any managed to penetrate through the demon's defenses, I was prepared to capitalise on that. But the opponent was slippery, managing to evade them at every turn.

And even when I cornered him, he simply released a hot flame, packed with flame spiritual particles that annihilated the thorns which were as small as needles.

I went on alert as my divine sense caught the gathering of elemental particles within Simba's clawed palms. He was about to launch a powerful attack!

With a thought, a sphere appeared around me, composed of wood. And it didn't just stop there.

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Thorns, larger than the tiny things from before grew out of the sphere and with another thought, were launched omnidirectionally. Their velocity alone caused every particle within their path to be redirected or shattered into smaller components.

Abruptly, a ball of brown fur, ten meters in diameter appeared within the path of a few, capturing them within itself, effectively killing their velocity.

But the intense concentration of fire elemental particles within the claws of Simba hadn't been interrupted as I had wanted, so I released my spherical wooden defense and instead went on high alert.

The burning heat was the first thing that assaulted me the moment the attack was released, with my divine sense too, burning up as the attack appeared just before me as if it had teleported.

It was a flaming red spear, with its tip aimed directly at my heart. Fire attuned spiritual energy had been compressed to the point that it had been given substantial form.

With a burst of force below my feet, my body was propelled upwards, with a hole appearing within my stomach.

In a fraction of a second, my wooden parasite armor sealed it instantly, with the spear continuing on into the distance.

Before I could gather my wits though, the void trembled as a deluge of particles were released towards me like an ocean wave.

They too, were fire attuned, and had been as a result of Simba's roar. The demon wasn't letting up!

One of the spheres instantly appeared right in front of me, enlarging into a shield, anchoring itself to me through branches of wood connected to my green armor.

The moment the deluge of flame, in the form of a roar, impacted the shield, I was flung away for tens of kilometers. The shield had managed to prevent any harm from coming to me, yet it had become riddled with cracks, and its surface had also become blackened.

But wood was meant to be tenacious. With the activation of genes aided by my wood attuned spiritual energy, the cracks mended themselves while the blackened and flaming potions of the wood flaked away to reveal healthier bark.

I compressed it back into a ball floating around me. There were 9 such balls.

My stomach was being regenerated with the aid of the armour, but it was going to take a few seconds.

A trail was left behind as Simba came after me with such speed that any spiritual energy particle in the void within his path, regardless of its attunement, caught flame and burnt away.

I hadn't been arrogant or underestimated my opponent. I had just been clouded with anger and rage. Lily had almost killed herself! And it was all because of this obsessive demon!

That had led to this injury. But not anymore! I, Reed was going to use my full strength and intelligence from now on!

With a thought, one of the spheres started morphing, transforming into a plant with large leaves and a bud at the top. Then it started enlarging itself. Though, it would take time still.

So, I decided to take the initiative this time. The other eight spheres all transformed into humanoid forms and dashed through space in a blur of form, as they headed towards the oncoming Simba.

Even as they dashed towards him, their features increasingly got more prominent and clear, until ultimately, they became an exact copy of me, down to the parasitic armor.

Of course, they couldn't confuse him, and that wasn't even their purpose...

The two parties collided and a battle instantly broke out. I, with great familiarity, attached my divine sense to all the eight puppets, galvanising my nascent soul such that each became an independent entity.

While Simba tussled with the eight, each capable of having its body morph into incomprehensible forms, I stood back, guarding my ninth creation.

Since the demon had never encountered such bizarre warriors, an arm was severed in a matter of seconds, by one of my puppets, having turned itself into a blade, slipping past Simba's guard while he was struggling against the others.

Though, before one of my puppets could even further destroy the limb, the stump grew a blood red lion head that instantly swallowed the severed appendage, while elongating, with the intention of becoming a new arm.

A sigh would have escaped my lips if my armor wasn't blocking my mouth.

The tussle continued while my heart started sinking further the more I watched. Why? Because the damn demon was improving!

After the loss of a limb, no other major damage had been inflicted, apart from a few gashes. They appeared serious, but with just a small wastage of energy, they could close themselves.

This guy was as much a monster as me.

I would have to actively join the battle if I wanted to buy sufficient time. My stomach had just about closed itself now.

His aim from before had been my core, which had been just behind my heart, but since I had dodged, it had been saved.

The destruction of the core was the most dangerous thing that could happen to a cultivator. Even if you survived, you would become useless. Of course, we had managed to solve that problem by making it so that there was a possibility of rebuilding it.

With a thought, my gaze blurred before finding myself behind the demon, with his tail sweeping towards me.

My palm captured the tail, dispersing the force, while also making it so that it couldn't be withdrawn. I had activated a certain genetic sequence that allowed me to mimick the seeds of certain plants, which attached themselves to animal fur for dispersal.

When more force was applied, I allowed myself to be yanked along, with my armor releasing a net composed of countless vines to entrap the demon, while once again, with a thought, I found myself back where I had been before.

Whereas the demon was struggling within the vines, with embers starting to appear along the many vines.

I had switched places with one of my puppets, having managed to successfully launch an ambush.

Those few microseconds of being trapped caused Simba to suffer grievous injuries from the combined attack of the eight.