I appeared in front of Wenwu’s forest mansion with Jean to a sight that caused me some pause, responding to the panic button I’d given Regan in secret. The Cambion were here, and they were pissed.
Wenwu’s forest mansion was on fire, wreathed in Dark flames that sloughed stone. Above, Wenwu and Enrique clashed. Enrique had an easy, almost hungry look in his eyes while Wenwu was fighting for his life. Whatever his plans were when he sent the ransom video, I was sure it didn’t include this.
“Take him,” I sent to Jean.
“Gladly,” she smirked. She was gone, and Enrique was sent flying into the wilderness with a ferocity that terrified even me.
I zipped into the mansion with a Burst, and time slowed down as the demons materialized from thin air, using some kind of space-related invisibility that was completely ineffective against my perception. Regan, the professor, and Wenwu’s children were huddled in a corner, just underneath a collapsed beam.
And from my left, I saw a partially manifested Domina charging at me. To my right and back, two strange monstrosities brimming with power that rivaled Domina, and above me, I sensed the likely orchestrator of the ambush, a man obscured in a mask, plunging downwards with a pair of katanas. I wouldn’t have sensed him if I wasn’t so sensitive to dimensional energy.
I let the look of surprise play on my face for the briefest moment before replacing it with utter mirth. My wings manifested, and I exploded forward with Gust, Burst, and Invictus’s Impact runes. I slowed down just enough to touch all four hostages and teleport them to Kamar-Taj before reappearing behind my ambushers with a smile playing on my lips.
“You can teleport now?” Domina asked, stumped by the sudden information.
She was dressed in an infernal metal body suit covered in heavy runes, some of which I didn’t recognize, but I got the gist. They essentially boosted her Density magic by a great margin.
“Didn’t you think I’d figure it out?” I chuckled.
“His teleportation magic,” the faceless man began. “It’s not space-based. It’s dimensional.”
Well, can’t have him giving up all of my secrets.
I teleported forward, faster than any of them could react, or so I thought, my hand wrapping around Domina’s neck. The faceless ninja was mid-swing when we popped into the desert, and I had no doubt he would be a moment behind us.
I covered Steel Bane in Anathema flame and stabbed at her gut, straight through one of the biggest runes in the suit. I was halfway through when she went intangible and darted backward in surprise.
With a yelp, she discarded the armor, glaring at me as it was subsequently engulfed.
“What the hell was that?”
We were standing in the eye of the Sahara. “What’s the matter? Weren’t expecting a fight?”
Her eyes darted around the arena, recognizing some of the fresh runes we’d added, and her face went pale immediately. She dashed backward, accelerating quickly, drawing on her Density affinity to lighten her, but she wasn’t quick enough. I was waiting behind her with a shoulder check when the array went on.
I felt it immediately, the demonic magic in my blood vanishing instantly. My demon energy-based enchantments and techniques were cut off, but so was hers. I was working with half of a repertoire, but she only had her body. Several demons portaled in to my left, ushered by the Masked Dream Runner, likely tracking me here somehow.
I hadn’t been counting on that, but I was prepared nonetheless.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I smirked as I teleported out, and somebody else leaped out of a portal, replacing me. Yelena was fully kitted in body armor that used all three metal types I've been experimenting with. She had a new Katana, a downscaled version of Severance but with a Shield and only Precision enchantments instead of impact. It ran purely on Angel energy for an occasion such as this.
“What is this? Do you think this child can hold me?” she yelled.
“I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?” Yelena snorted in her thick Russian accent while I charged straight at the enemy. My Twilight Sentinel armor wrapped around me as I sped up dramatically. I drew on my core, filling Eryx up with Anathema fire as I charged at the hulk of a monster racing to meet me. He was twice as large as I was, stringy and long, with claws that were nearly a foot tall.
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I activated several impact runes as I closed on him, tripling my speed. Before impact, I saw a hint of recognition in its eyes. Fire poured out in a cone, melting the sand and leaving glowing black glass in its wake.
The explosion flung it several dozen feet back. And it stood there for a long moment, Anathema fire licking at him, before sloughing off alongside a layer of crystallized blood armor. It cracked and melted into nothing before it hit the ground.
An aura whipped out from its sinuous body so thick it was nearly solid. If his defense was this good, I wondered what his offense was like.
Two katanas slipped through my sphere of perception, almost skewering me from behind, and experience told me they’d damage my armor if they touched me.
They carried space magic--one of the only things that could cut through my robust defenses.
The second blood demon that escorted the pair was not far behind. He flew on wings made of blood and had produced more from seemingly nowhere, filling it up with magic in preparation for an attack.
I flipped on my new favorite Cloak configurations. Mind and Density. Since the upgrade, they both granted an 80% boost in magic effectiveness, on top of the 55% boost in several base attributes. It matched my new style well—overwhelming force.
Severance appeared behind me, slashing upwards at the last possible moment, triggering Demon Evade and Moment of the Sage to buy me three precious seconds. My telekinesis-controlled blade swept upwards, parrying his Katanas, leaving him open to an Impact and Precision rune- accelerated dagger throw to the throat.
It went halfway in before he teleported, as did I, reappearing behind the flying blood demon and swinging Rebellion. The blood surrounding him spun, lightning fast, splitting into a dozen tentacles, attempting to block my advance. A beam of concentrated Nether fire arced out from my blade, slicing through the blockage and slamming into the chest of the monster.
It scored a deep wound that violently repaired itself even before his flesh stopped burning. His Aura burst out a moment later, and it was followed by the muted aura of the Dream runner.
I smirked. “This just got a hell of a lot more interesting.”
I tried teleporting, but my connection was stifled by the teleporting Dream Runner, who closed the distance between us nearly three times as quickly as he had previously moved.
Behind me, dozens of blood spears manifested, attacking from all angles, trying to box me in, but I dashed forward with several bursts. Summoning Kurogiri in my free hand and a giant spear behind me, I telekinetically commanded it to start spinning. It parried the hundreds of blood spears, crushing them, helping me gain the extra 50% boost that Symphony of Death provided through my Feral Flow subskill. I met blades with the Dream Runner, our bodies an explosion of sparks and energy.
His blades were coated with the same demonic potency his Cloak had, and they shoved back the Aura of Netherfire I had on my blades.
Our hands and body danced, moving at speeds I could’ve never previously conceived of, but maintained comfortably. He was better than me on technical skill, and I could see him eking out a victory eventually. Thankfully, this wasn’t some honorable sword duel.
Anything goes.
I separated abruptly by whisking myself backward with sleek wind manipulation while simultaneously blasting him with a wind tunnel.
He dispelled it with a crisp Iai slash, which left him open to a Gut’s style Great sword that suddenly manifested at his side at dizzying speeds. It was boosted by Dimensional and Wind energies, so I know it wouldn’t be as easy to block.
While he was distracted by the attack, I swung at him, speed and impact substantially buffed by runes.
He dodged both attacks simultaneously, zipping straight up into the waiting payload of Anathema-flame grenades that I chucked at him.
His eyes widened as we were bathed in Purple Fire. He dropped his lock of my Dimensional affinity and opened several portals around himself, letting the fire wash over them instead of him.
Noting that I was sufficiently distracted, the other demons pounced. Sand exploded as the clawed demon leaped towards me. The spears of the blood the winged demon had been using shattered and cracked as they liquified, turning into floating blood orbs that began to glow with a sinister light. Still, I was unbothered as I flickered my Aegis on, instead focusing all of my attention on the retreating figure of the Dream Runner. I foisted the full strength of my Adept-Tier Telepathy on him. Its effectiveness was nearly doubled by my mind Cloak, but that was not enough for me.
I tapped into the near-limitless pool of Demonic Energy I had churning in my core and unleashed the mother of all mental attacks— a memory of me melting in my flames at the North Pole on a loop over and over again. Every sensation, every pain amplified to the nth degree. I juiced it up using all 10 impact runes to ensure no one came out unscathed.
The Dream Runner died immediately, and the flames of Anathema swept him away. The other demons had very different reactions. It whipped them into a frenzy, both attacking with full force despite the flame.
Their attacks bounced off my shield repeatedly, each round doing more and more damage to them, their auras and regeneration wobbling.
Tired of indulging them, I teleported behind the Claw demon and punched him with a half-charged telekinetic Burst aided by ten impact runes.
The sand exploded in a monstrous geyser as he hit the desert floor, and I closed the distance between me and the second blood demon with a teleport, snatching him by the neck. The blood floating around us returned with force, but not before I exploded in a conflagration of Nether Fire, scorching him. His new Cloak held up surprisingly well.
That changed when Eryx manifested around my hand, enhancing my affinity further, and I switched Cloaks from Density to Fire, boosting the heat to ridiculous heights. His regeneration could barely keep up. I ended things with a wisp of Anathema flame, transforming the inferno around us to the center of a purple star. He turned to ash in seconds.
By the time the Clawed demon recovered, I was floating above it, the inferno I created earlier hovering behind me. I brought it down with a ruthless indifference, wiping him from existence. He was gone within the blink of an eye.
I turned back to the array just in time to catch the end of the fight.