As I stood there, still recovering from my ordeal, I could feel her eyes upon me. With her petite silhouette, this demonic creature - or whatever she was - seemed to be studying me with an unnerving intensity. Her eyes gleamed in the fading light, and her dark purple aura pulsed with a malevolent energy.
The girl's voice cut through the silence like a knife, sending shivers down my spine. "Ahahahaha, you're so weak, WEAK!" she sang, her tone dripping with malice. "But don't worry, I'll make it quick."
Her words sent a wave of panic through me, but before I could react, she vanished into thin air. One moment she was there, and the next she was gone. I spun around, trying to locate her, but all I saw was empty space.
And then, suddenly, she appeared right in front of me again. Her eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, and her dark purple aura swirled around her like a vortex. "Ahahahaha," she sang once more, her voice echoing through the air. "Now, let's get this over with!"
I raised my hand to defend myself, but as I did, she vanished again. This time, however, she reappeared behind me. I spun around, trying to get away from her, but no matter where I went, she always seemed to be one step ahead.
As the dance of death began, I realized that this creature was playing a twisted game with me - one that I had no idea how to win.
With every step she would breach my electric dome as if it were nothing, the damage on her body felt like it was minuscule, just as my existence in her eyes.
I raised my hand again, and another blast of electricity crackled out of it. But instead of striking her, it seemed to simply dance around her like a ballerina, as if she were somehow absorbing it. And then, without warning, the sparks disappeared, leaving me feeling drained and frustrated.
"You're a tough one, I'll give you that," she said with a giggle, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "But don't worry, I'll make sure to end this quickly."
And with that, she launched herself at me once more. This time, however, she didn't just breach my electric dome - she seemed to be able to phase through it entirely. I stumbled backward, trying to get out of the way, but she was too fast. She landed a vicious kick on my chest, sending me crashing to the ground.
As I struggled to get back up, she stood over me, her eyes gleaming with malevolent amusement. "You know," she said, her voice dripping with cruelty, "I've been waiting for someone like you for a long time."
Pinned down to the ground, I could feel my hopelessness. With her knee on my throat, I could barely catch my breath, but found the strength to ask in despair, "Wo re yu?", my words barely making a coherent sentence.
"Pfft ahahahahaaa," with a demonic tone she giggled, as if she enjoyed my struggle, "haaaaah, you're quite funny, funny hahahaaaa! I guess I can take my time explaining it to you, since you are about to die anyway." she said with her tongue out accompanied by a sinister smile. "You see, the higher-ups don't like how close you're flying to the sun with these lightning powers of yours sweetie, so they've sent me to cut down the beanstalk before it reaches their heights. But enough talk, your lightning aura is really starting to piss me off." she playfully pointed to her pitch-black dress getting slowly burnt, the stockings on her legs practically non existent at this point.
"This dress is quite the high quality artifact, you see, I'm surprised you've managed to ruin my cute outfit when it is enchanted to resist lightning."
"I- I ... see, that's how." I mumbled, while thinking to myself that her artifact clothing is the reason why she's able to counter my electric dome and pass through it as if it were butter.
With the little strength I have left, I pulled myself together and started to push her off my neck, "You're not the only one that has some tricks demon!". Remembering the time at Yuiren's cave where I was engulfed by my own inner draconic flame, I begun channeling this flame into my core, mixing it with the lightning aura and creating a zone of electric-fire, although much smaller than the previous electric dome due to the required concentration to maintain the dual elements, but just enough to push her away.
"YOU! You're more interesting than I thought hah! I really need to kill you now, or I won't hear the end of it..." she said while playfully wiping her burnt left cheek, with her absurdly long, snake-like tongue, seemingly healing it.
I gritted my teeth as she wiped away her burnt cheek with an eerie slowness, her face practically growing meat and skin back.
Her eyes seemed to gleam with amusement at my struggle, but beneath that, there was a spark of curiosity - a curiosity that made me realize that maybe, just maybe, I could use this to my advantage.
With renewed determination, I focused on channeling the dual elements within me. The fire and lightning swirled together in a contained blaze around my body, casting an eerie glow over the surrounding area. My breathing grew labored as I strained to maintain the balance of the two energies and their condensed power, but slowly, a plan began to form.
As she taunted me with her long tongue, I saw an opportunity to catch her off guard.
With a burst of strength, I lunged forward, shortening the distance between us and sending a blast of electricity mixed with fire crashing into her chest. The flames engulfed her demonic dress, and the air was filled with the acrid scent of burning fabric.
She stumbled backward, momentarily caught off guard by my sudden attack. For a moment, our eyes locked in a fierce stare-down - and I sensed that she was as surprised by my resilience as I was by hers and her artifact's that is still somehow holding on and protecting her body.
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Her eyes narrowed as she took a step back, her movements fluid and calculated. She was still toying with me, but beneath that playful exterior, I sensed a growing irritation - an impatience that seemed to be building with each passing moment.
"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!' she spat out, the words dripping with venomous intent. 'YOU THINK YOU CAN RUIN MY DRESS LIKE THIS? WELL, LET ME SHOW YOU THE TRUE MEANING OF POWER!"
As she spoke, her body began to shift and contort in ways that defied human anatomy. Her limbs elongated, her torso twisting into impossible shapes as if she were a living, breathing puzzle piece, with a long tail at the end. The remnants of her dress seemed to grow brighter, pulsing with an otherworldly energy, a black and purple aura of demonic nature enveloping her body.
"YOU THINK YOU CAN HURT ME?"
She taunted, her voice growing more menacing by the second, her playful yet angry tone seemingly patronising me.
"FEEL DESPAIR!" she yelled, with a dash forward unlike she's displayed before in our battle, her burst of speed catching me off guard as she sends me flying with a fist to the core, followed up by a series of kicks and claw slashes and a powerful sledgehammer tail slammed into my chest.
"Blergh!" I cried, blood spilling out of my mouth as I try to recover in the air. "Ugh, that hurts like hell! I need Red Moon, where is my sword!?" I thought to myself, the pain slowly becoming unbearable.
As I landed hard on the ground, I could feel my vision beginning to blur. The pain was intense, and I knew that I needed to focus if I was going to survive this encounter. I scanned my surroundings frantically, trying to spot any sign of Red Moon, but it seemed as though my sword had vanished into thin air since her first attack when I unwillingly released it from my grasp.
"No... No way," I muttered to myself, shaking my head in disbelief. "I have to keep fighting."
With a newfound determination, I scrambled to my feet and launched myself at the demon once more. This time, however, I was met with a powerful blast of dark energy to the face that sent me on my back, my head hitting the ground, leaving me unconscious.
"Heh-heh well that was easier than I expected..." she said with a giggle, followed by a disappointing sigh, "Guess you weren't that great huh? I wonder why my masters are so afraid..."
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But without her knowledge, I sunk deep within my inner world, my previous dark emotions of wrath surfacing as flashbacks of my mother's and father's mangled corpses appeared in my mental vision.
A dark-purple, demonic aura enveloped my body as its energy slowly rose my body from the ground.
With tears of blood pouring from my eyes, I woke up with a demonic roar and commanded while raising my hand, "RED MOON, COME TO ME!" and as if the sword had a mind of it's own, it would fly through the air from the other side of the field where it was dropped into the charred ground, enveloped in a pitch-black demonic aura it would fly right into my hand as if it was where it belonged all along.
With the addition of Red Moon and it's newly added aura, our demonic energies would combine, creating markings on my face and forcing my draconic eyes to change and mix, bright-yellow changed to bestial crimson once more, blood flowing on my cheeks.
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"YOU!" her demonic smile bigger than ever,"You really are entertaining hyiahahaaaa!", she laughed as she powered up, her aura doubling in size.
I steadied my stance as taught by my mother while adopting almost a spear-like version of my father's, "With this stance I will maximize Red Moon's penetration properties, it's time to end this, or I will die...".
With conviction and a hyper-charged demonic aura mixed with lightning and fire, in a flash that is indescribably different from my normal speed, I dash across the field and run the demon through, penetrating her aura and right into her demonic heart, a beam-like aura escaping through the back of her body.
"Y- you bastard..." blood gushing from her mouth, staining her black lips, beard and chest crimson. "I didn't think you'd be this strong..." she mumbled as her body started to burn away, a red cascade flowing down her body and painting the ground in a pool of blood.
"But you know, there's still something you don't know about us demons... h- hu- huh-huh..." the pool of blood slowly begun to rise, and in an instant, the blood would envelop my entire body, as if it was trying to corrupt my very soul.
"You..." I let out in an almost depressed tone.
"HUH!?" she said in disbelief," It's... not working?"
"You can't corrupt what's already too far down the demonic path, you wench."
And with the sound of these words escaping the thickness of the blood and Red Moon still deep inside her body, I pulled hard on the handle, my grip firm, cutting the demon in half with a slash so powerful that it would paint the entire field in a crimson red.
"IF I HAVE TO STARE INTO THE ABYSS AND BECOME A DEMON, THEN SO BE IT!"
Red Moon seemed to have absorbed some of the otherworldly energy of the demon, I could feel it's weight in my hand, heavy, but with promise of destruction. And as I stood in the crimson pool of her blood, the twisted energy of the demon would get sucked into the sword, channeling its aura into mine.
The addition of this aura on top of my wrathful emotions and my own demonic energy, would bring about visions of the demons past, and as these visions would pass, one thing was certain.
"This demon... she's not the reason my family is gone... But then... WHO!?" I cried, with tears in my eyes and a sense of confusion, I mumbled, "And... how do I get out of here? How do I get back to Leilei?"
Hours later, my travel into the unknown would leave me with even more despair, as escaping what I would soon come to realise was a separate dimension, would prove a daunting task.
"Everywhere I go, demons, creatures not from my world, where the fuck am I?" I thought to myself, the dark demonic aura still very much present on my body, seeping slowly into my very being, corrupting my judgement, senses and amplifying my wrath.
"I feel... like... I want... TO KILL!"
With Red Moon in hand, I would enter a killing spree, hours upon hours of slaughter, the demons in my path would fall one after another, drenching everything from head to toe in blood. My sword's excitement could be felt in the air, as Red Moon would become a Demonic Sword and it's red aura would intensify tenfold.
Hours... days... weeks... maybe years have passed, time feels like it's standing still. And as an almost a lethal fatigue finally enters my body, I find myself in front of a big building behind a giant fence, similar in design to an emperor's palace.
A big red gate, blocks my way, two big jade lion statues, called Shishi, are on each side as if they were guarding the place. Approaching the Shish, I slowly gaze upon their beauty, gaining a bit of insight into the architecture of this place, it seems to be a design similar to those on Atris.
And as I gaze upon the statues more, the giant red gate would open, followed by the sound of paws of what could only be a quadruped beast, a demonic dog would appear from behind.
"Mrrr-... My master has been expecting you."