I jumped up and landed on the shark, but my leg immediately slipped as the demon's skin was oily. I nearly face-planted onto its meaty flesh, despite still being under the effect of Perfect Me. Even in that state, I could smell the nauseating stench emanating from the rotting shark.

As I got closer, it became apparent that the shark's skin was bloated, resembling a long-dead corpse that refused to decompose. Towering over twenty stories tall, the shark demon had a mouth big enough to easily swallow Carpy whole.

It was clear that my small body would be practically useless in attacking such a creature, lacking the explosive strength needed to make any impact. Using the cursed sword, I stabbed it into the beast's body and used it as a foothold to propel myself upward.

As I was about to reach Carpy, another blur flew past me. It was the Strength Exorcist, effortlessly moving despite his heavy armor and giant ax. With a powerful swing, he buried his carriage-sized ax into the shark demon's body, tearing out a chunk of flesh the size of a small house. However, the demon seemed unfazed, as the wound swiftly closed and its decaying flesh writhed like worms.

As expected, an ultimate class demon possessed formidable regenerative abilities, even if that wasn't its primary attribute. Suddenly, the chunk of flesh extracted by the Strength Exorcist exploded grotesquely, resembling a revolting grenade. Perfect Me swiftly activated a talisman, forming a small circular barrier around me to shield me from the grotesque fragments that moved like worms.

Unfortunately, the Strength Exorcist wasn't as fortunate. Left mid-air, he was wrapped up by tendrils of flesh. Though he managed to break free from their grasp, his momentum was disrupted, causing him to descend.

Refusing to yield, the Strength Exorcist bellowed furiously as he swung his ax, plunging it into the shark demon's flesh to halt his descent towards the water. However, before he could celebrate his escape, water tendrils seized him, dragging him into the depths. With his heavy armor accelerating his descent, six water serpents pursued him.

While a Special Exorcist would typically fare well against high-class demons, the underwater advantage of these creatures made the situation uncertain.

I made no attempt to assist the Strength Exorcist, as I had my own challenges to contend with. Using a feather-falling talisman, I activated it just before my feet touched the oily skin of the shark. By circulating Ord at the soles of my feet, I mustered the strength for one final leap, barely managing to touch the unconscious Carpy.

Immediately, the fusion process commenced, aided by Perfect Me's seamless coordination, rendering it almost instantaneous. The shark demon initially seemed bewildered, but in my fused form, I spit out a blob of water and enveloped my body in it, allowing me to float.

I could feel the water around me tugging, but this water was created by my own Ord. Despite the raw power of the shark in controlling water, he stood no chance against this water. It was clear that the ultimate class demon shark didn't have much experience in fighting and was unaware of some of the techniques’ obscure rules.

Perfect Me healed some of the injuries that had transferred onto me due to my fusion with Carpy. It then turned off, having accomplished the order I had given it.

Taking a deep breath, I felt something in my stomach. I opened my mouth as wide as I could, and a sword's handle began to emerge, I grabbed it and unsheathed the sword and then took the sheath in my other hand. Having something coming up my throat was a strange and unsettling experience, and I felt like throwing up. Thankfully, Perfect Me suppressed all gag reflexes.

Now armed with a weapon of fire, I had an advantage. The manner in which I retrieved the sword was rather unsightly, but it didn't matter. As I controlled the water around my body and charged at the shark demon, it instinctively formed a whirlwind of water needles, sensing the danger it was in.

Anyone attempting to pass through that whirlwind would be torn apart, but I smiled and used my own water control. While I couldn't match the raw power of water control possessed by an ultimate class demon, I knew that even if I used Perfect Me, I could only hope to stall it, not break it entirely. The gap between Ultimate Class and High Class was insurmountable.

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With that in mind, it didn’t mean that there was nothing I could do. I created a small opening for myself within the water barrier, allowing me to slip through easily despite a few water needles piercing my arm. I pressed forward, and as I approached, the shark demon turned its milky white eyes toward me and opened its mouth.

"Shit," I muttered under my breath as a colossal torrent of water, the size of a tsunami, shot out and slammed into me with tremendous force. The water barrier and talisman barrier shattered instantly, and I was thrown back with such power that it snapped my arm in half when I tried to use the sword to cut the wave in two.

Suddenly, above the demon, a large ball of shadows formed, with a tower of darkness peeking out from atop the demon. Tendrils extended from the bottom of the shadow ball, wrapping around the shark demon.

The ultimate class demon struggled momentarily, but its sheer size granted it a raw power that few could replicate, and it broke through the shadow tendrils in a matter of seconds. Then after it was free, it glanced toward where the others were and it shot a giant blade of water toward the ship.

Even from this distance, I could see the wince on the face of the Kuro Clan Head. He was at a significant disadvantage, out on the ocean in the middle of nowhere. Even with his tower boosting his power, there wasn't much he could do with his skill set in this situation.

But a giant mirror formed in front of the attack and absorbed the water blade in one fell swoop. Another mirror formed above the shark demon, and the same water blade shot out. However, as soon as it touched the shark demon, the water attack canceled itself and only doused the shark in water.

“You bastard! Get ready to die!” Agon yelled out and unsheathed his Kusanagi, which had a purple hue and a dangerous feeling to it. “Divine Slash!”

Whether he was trying to sneak attack the shark demon or not, it didn't matter since he had just yelled out his attack.

Anika also wrapped herself with white strings, forming a dress, and used one of her strings to grab onto my cursed sword that I had stabbed into the shark. There was a sharp intake of breath as the sword got closer to her. However, she used strings to make another arm, made of strings, sprout from her shoulder blade and she grabbed onto my cursed sword.

Even with all these precautions, the sword's curse was quite strong, and the white strings made of pure compressed Ord started darkening as they began to get corrupted.

With all three of us concentrating on attacking the monster, the shark demon let out a roar—a kind of sonic attack that made all of us wince. I felt something pop inside my ears and a warm wetness in them.

Whatever. It didn't matter. As long as these attacks landed, we would pretty much win the fight!

However, such hopes were soon crushed as the demon's body suddenly lost its color and the space around it rippled. The shark demon swam upward, and the space around him rippled as if it were water. Our attacks passed right through him as if he were just an illusion.

Maybe he was?

No, I had sensed him just before he started swimming in the sky. Even though I couldn't sense him anymore, he was there before. It had to be some kind of ability that allowed him to temporarily swim in another dimension, making it invincible to any attack. It wasn’t all that bad, since in that state it meant that the ultimate class demon wouldn’t be able to attack us either.

"None of our attacks will be able to get through!" Anika hollered and used her strings to grab onto Agon before he fell into the water, where it would pretty much be a death warrant.

"Back off!" I advised them, and we all moved back. It turned out to be the right call as the shark materialized and stayed there for a couple of seconds before turning translucent again.

"Do you think that ability has some kind of time limit? Why would he come out of it like that?" Anika asked.

"Don't be tricked. Maybe it's learning to scheme in the middle of battle. Also, I doubt an ultimate-class demon is running out of Ord any time soon," I warned her.

In the original story, there had been many instances of demons learning certain things in the middle of battle.

However, before anyone could do any of this, a blistering heat wave formed around us. Immediately, I looked up, and the sun was in the same place, with a strong light still coming from my right. It was like a second sun had suddenly appeared.

Before my mind could even fully comprehend where this was coming from, I somehow already knew what to do.

{Perfect Me!}

‘Order: Get us away from this incoming blast!’