image [https://imgur.com/zw1Pimi.jpg]

Now I had to get serious, because I wouldn't have Uncle to back me up anymore, seeing as he had a fight of his own to deal with. With a breath, I refocused myself on my target.

Belphegor wasn’t a poultry minion, or some rampaging skeleton cut loose from its godly leash...this was a lord of darkness. A lord of slothfulness. A lord of demons. But most importantly, he was an enemy to all righteousness, and my target to terminate.

Just to be sure I was ready, I glanced to the corner of my FOV to see my spear was fully charged and had plenty of stardust points to feed it. I couldn’t have been more ready.

If it wasn’t for my combat mode, I probably would have been a nervous wreck. Thank God my mental state was stabilized or this would be a wash in his favour.

Meanwhile, the demon lord and I were silently glaring at each other, awaiting who would be bold enough to make the first move. Both our eyes narrowed, as if daring the other to go first. Turns meant nothing now. We were both on the clock.

Without any hesitation, I took initiative to protect humanity and flew toward Belphegor with my spear reeling back for a stab.

The dastardly foe raised his shield, catching my spear in its thorn faced clutches. Though that damage was going to reflect back at me, I calculated my momentum just right to slide my weapon down the metal and stab right into his abdomen.

My motion was so fast, he couldn’t block at these speeds. Instead he grabbed the stardust shaft of the weapon now embedded in him, forcibly pulling it out of his body and crushing it in his ravenging grip.

His skin burned from touching the holy crystal in multiple places, but it was nothing to someone so powerful. The darkness, his ally, threaded the wounds shut and repaired him in seconds.

The initial shockwave of my weapon striking and sliding across his shield finally traveled down to hit me, but part of it also shot into Belphegor from his contact with the crystal.

I let go of my weapon, dematerializing it as an experiment. What sparkles that remained of the spear still shot a twinkling black bolt of darkness my way.

Pulling a page from his playbook, I spawned a stardust shield of my own, smooth and reflective as a mirror. The dark particles shooting back at me, those blackened bolts of energy came at me like hungry lions on the prowl, but my solar mirror took the hit and denied them further passage.

Something unexpected happened once the shield ate the shot. The energy was absorbed into it and shook violently. My whole body rumbled, so much that my combat systems couldn’t even correct for it.

The twinkling darkness energy flowed to the center portion of the shield and blasted out, appearing like a swirling bolt of black and white. It exploded on the ground, forcing me back a great distance.

What was that anomaly? Could I use it against the demon?

I shot a blast of stardust his way, he reflected it, causing that twinkling black bolt again to come back my way.

My shield absorbed the energy, shaking again, then it shot back out toward him with even more force and focus.

He blocked again, sending it off in another direction.

*BOOM!*

It exploded in the twilight sky!

That was a lot stronger than the original stardust bolt I’d sent his way. Something about the reflected energy being absorbed into my stardust mirror shield was making it all the more powerful. That went against the laws of physics, since something should lose energy the more times it was reflected. But we were dealing with supernatural forces. Science had to adjust or it would lose all value in such a strange fight.

I fired off a second shot, having him and I reflect the energy back and forth exactly seven times in total.

*BOOM!*

After the seventh reflection, the swirling energy exploded on Belphegor.

Belphegor was forced back from the explosion. The blast gave him some good damage. He was just as surprised as I was at the reaction.

Again we had a round of this tennis match. The swirling energy burst once more upon the seventh hit. I made sure to fire exactly the same amount of stardust at him as last time too.

Once is a coincidence. Twice makes it a science. And as the daughter of the greatest scientist in the universe, I was going to figure out every little mechanic behind this shield of his and exploit the ever living crap out of it!

With a battle cry, I lobbed out more rays of stardust, each of varying degrees of strength. The demon lord was no fool, as these he wisely evaded.

But I accounted for his movements, leading my shots in a machine gun flurry of shimmering solar light!

Veins swelled all over his body as he pushed himself past his limits to evade. Only one of the most tiny of specks of stardust struck his shield, but it was enough to multiply it with dark energy. It shot back at me and I caught it in my mirror.

It blasted out, much bigger than before, hitting the ground below the demon lord.

Wings sprouted from his back and he flew up to evade the blast.

“Looks like it’s time to change the rules.” He snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, what counted as light in the sky changed to darkness. Everything around us looked like we were under a black light.

As before, I tried spawning more stardust energy, but it fizzled into nothingness. My shield was gone too.

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Did this black light somehow counter stardust? He’d been holding onto that trick for a while. I’m surprised he hadn’t used it before.

Taking advantage of my confusion, Belphegor flew at me on his wings, slamming one of his shields into my stomach.

*BOOM!*

The force of impact was brutal. The mirror effect also kicked in, doubling the pain.

“Gahh!” I grunted as I was sent flying.

I was winded from that one attack alone. I didn’t even have a weapon to defend myself with. All I could turn to was magic.

Not long ago I’d copied some of Indena’s fire magic abilities, so it was time to put those to good use.

My eyes, hair and heart temporarily lit up bright orange. Flames wafted out of my fingertips as I jumped to my feet. The light I produced now slightly fought away the darkness of the black light.

Belphegor was quickly able to glide around the fire, still heading my way for another shield bash attack.

I kept on the fire power, sending magical walls of flame all over.

Part of his shield got caught in my spray, reflecting it back at me in the form of a black fire.

That black flame covered a lot of ground and hit me, searing right through my armour and scalding my flesh like an acidic splash.

I’d never felt pain like this ever. A blood curdling scream left my mouth and I writhed in agony. A second wave of horrific suffering scattered across my torso.

-WARNING!-

-Armour integrity = (99.7%)-

My god, it actually did damage to my ferronium body. Whatever that black fire was, I needed to avoid it at all costs. No testing necessary to know it was a danger.

Vowing to make the demon lord pay for that, I primed up the mana cannon, but I didn’t set my sights on the demon lord just yet. I gave it a good fraction of power and shot the ground ahead of me.

*BWOOOV!*

*BOOM!*

Rocks and rubble got kicked up. I flew in and kicked the peppered stones as hard as I could toward his shields.

He had to block, and each time the hard force of impact was pushing him. Not a crack to his shields though.

Bursts of mirrored kinetic force returned my way, but more aimlessly and missed.

I tried doing that again, but he created a swirl of dark red energy to block the rocks. Then that same energy surrounded and blanketed over my wings and my chest. It was like a weird evil poncho.

I could hardly move at all, it suddenly got very heavy.

No matter how hard I tried to remove it, it just got heavier. Spikes sprouted out of it and dug into the ground, planting me firmly in place.

“Your lack of creativity disturbs me. I’ll end this quickly.”

An orb of red and black energy grew in his palm. It would easily be enough to cause critical damage!

Time to think fast!

I spawned an elemental flames wall around me, fighting back the black light that prevented stardust.

“Stardust Aura!”

Twinkling light around my body fought away the dream and reverted me back into a seven year old. I was small enough to escape Belphegor's evil poncho.

I scampered through the heat, then reverted back to an adult form once I was outside the flames. My stardust aura left along with the change.

Getting behind Belphegor, I hit him with a shot from my mana cannon. That got him on the ground.

“Clever…” he got back up. “But you’re still not creative enough!”

He fired off blasts of darkness everywhere, peppering me with dark explosions.

“Flame aura!” I shouted.

-New abilities unlocked!-

-You may now use the following ability-

-Flame aura-

Fire burst from my body and hugged close to me, like a blazing aura of power. Seeing as the black light was weak to flame, I could spawn stardust within the aura’s influence.

I brought up a new stardust shield and blocked a few of his shots. But a lot of them seemed to be missing me completely.

I then flew in at him, firing the mana cannon again.

*BOOM!*

It caused a massive explosion!

At the center of the blast, he was kneeling. It hadn’t done nearly as much damage as I was hoping.

“You’re almost there, but I’ll draw all of what I want out of you yet,” he let out with a chortle.

He snapped his fingers. Those bolts of darkness he'd fired off haphazardly suddenly rose from the ground and chased after me. I attempted to evade them through flight, but the very ground below me momentarily rose up and impeded my escape.

I raised up my shield, accepting the fated damage.

*BOOM!*

*SPLASH!*

The darkness bolts exploded and scattered demon sludge water all over me. My flame aura was weakened, causing my stardust shield to deteriorate significantly.

A stray bolt of darkness then slung around and struck the weak shield, blowing up and getting me on the floor.

“Seeing you struggle so much… It’s pathetic! I expected more creativity from a child!"

Black and red energy cocooned around him, wrapping him up nice and tightly.

Rays of light shot out from the imperfections in the cocoon, then it suddenly burst open.

The horns on his head and the bone spikes at the tips of his wings grew twice the size. His body significantly increased in muscle mass too. Markings of red were glowing all over his skin.

“Phase 2…” I mumbled to myself, seeing him evolve.

He kept spouting on about creativity this and that… What did he mean? I’d been putting everything I had into this fight!

The demon lord stuck out his hand, and the ground began to shake like an earthquake. I had a hard time keeping my feet planted steady.

I flew up in the air, but as I tried to gain more altitude, the floor just followed me up!

With the flick of his wrist, a massive force struck me in the confusion and sent me flying.

I couldn’t even keep up with what he was doing anymore. My Automated Attack Predictions Systems were stressing out with how he could manipulate the environment to his advantage. It was like he was constantly editing reality in some sort of creative mode.

Wait… Creative mode… This is a dream realm. You can do anything in a dream, right?

I had a theory, but it came with a huge risk.

I powered down my combat systems. Weapons and brawn wouldn’t win this battle. I needed a different state of mind to fight in a reality of dreams.

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