Eight strikes, eight loud clangs resonated as Logan swung his mace in desperation. He didn’t aim to counter, but to block, a strike from his right, then left... the blade slicing his cheek. From below, and then above. "Ack!" Logan’s shout bounced off the walls as his feet left the ground.
"Old man!"
Zahir dashed forward and swung his blade across the monster.
Clang!
The monster’s final strike bounced off the curved blades, but the brutal force ripped the wind blades apart like candy floss and sent Zahir tumbling back.
"Zahir!"
Asmodeus closed his eyes, calming himself and watching the movents of the tal human, although Logan called it Thorim. He couldn’t just attack and kill it, because the entire goal here was to save this person.
"Nerim, don’t use your drill attack, focus on slowing and controlling its movents."
"Eh? But..." She looked back at him with a confused expression. "I don’t know if I can, it’s a powerful monster!"
"I won’t let you die, trust ."
He grasped his axe and lowered his stance, and scrutinised the monsters’ every movent. The way its blades moved, the speed and accuracy of each strike. Logan’s mace shone in the dark cavern each ti the blades clashed.
’It’s weaker than a Rank Two, but how did a dungeon monster reach Rank One...’
Asmodeus glanced at Nerim’s body, watching her absorb mana using her gills. The mana soon swirled around her body as she flipped the spear. A mixture of water and wind magic gathered at the tip, forming a light blue aura.
Behind her, Zahir climbed up and dragged himself between Logan and Nerim, all three of them facing the monster.
"Thorim!" Logan continued to shout and try to connect to the monster, using his mace and reserve shield to deflect and parry the heavy blows.
"!!!!"
However, the monster didn’t react at all.
"Hey!"
Nerim shouted as she darted forward and thrust her spear at the monster’s chest. With a burst of wind, her aqua strike looked to pierce the bastard’s heart.
"Nerim!" Logan shouted as if to stop her, but imdiately stopped himself.
Woosh!
Her spear glanced off the monster’s flesh. It twisted and bent back at a ninety-degree angle and spun around, slashing at Nerim with ten blades in all directions. A series of silver lines cut through the darkness as the rmaid grunted.
Da-Da-Da-Deng!
She jumped away and held her spear out with both hands in front of her, deep wounds in her shoulders, thighs and one across her cheek.
"Logan, this isn’t the ti to hold back!" Nerim shouted.
Zahir’s blade flashed from below, clashing with the final blade aid at Nerim’s throat. A spark of green and silver light illuminated his struggling face. "Help!" He called out to Asmodeus, who stood at the side.
’This is the limit of the current party...’
None of them reached Rank One or even ca close to becoming a Demigod. Yet Asmodeus didn’t rush to save them. He observed quietly, watching the twisted aura using his demonic sight.
The movent of the mana inside the monster.
How the abyssal aura and his natural aura moved and fused.
He desperately tried to find the location to sever their connection and reverse it.
"Hold a little longer!"
Asmodeus could kill this monster with a single flick of his wrists, but to save soone half assimilated with the abyssal aura and tal... that wasn’t so simple. If he failed or went too soon, then Thorim would beco a brain-dead vegetable.
"Tsk!"
Nerim clicked her tongue before holding out her right arm and beginning to chant. Orbs of water ford around her, bubbling and condensing into threads that resembled a ribbon, with sharp tips.
The monsters’ blades clashed with Zahir and Logan, both fighting desperately as the small wounds and nicks along their arms, thighs and cheeks increased.
"Haa!"
Zahir twisted his wrist elegantly, deflecting another blow, before letting Logan jump past, using his shield to slam the monster’s chest, knocking him off balance. "We can do it!" The dwarf’s mace swung down with all his power.
Thunk!
The heavy blow slamd against the ground, pinning two of the monsters’ swords, while another pierced through Logan’s chest.
"Kuhaa.... now.... lass!"
"Old man!"
"Logan!?"
Nerim’s body shone bright blue with dozens of blue ribbons swirling around her limbs. She pointed to the pinned monster and snapped her fingertips, calling out the spell’s na.
"Water Ribbon Prison!"
The ribbons shot into the air, curving in an arc before raining down on the monster’s body, each one stabbing the extra arms behind him, wrapping around the deford limbs and pinning them to the ground.
Clap!
She pressed her hands together and closed her eyes, whispering another chant.
Her muscles tensed as blood dripped from her nose.
"BIND!"
"Frozen Ribbon Prison!"
Then she shouted as the ribbons transford into ice and locked him in place.
"Quick, hold him down lad!"
Logan, who bled from the corner of his mouth, dove onto the monster’s chest, his right arm holding it to the ground, trying to pry the sword from its grip.
Zahir followed him using his wind to cut the palm and wrist of the opposite arms not contained by the Ribbon Prison.
Asmodeus observed this quietly, his eyes shimring in the dark, while the energy of the mortal nad Thorim struggled. "It won’t work." He muttered as the dark, sticky aura of the abyss began to move... it ford in his chest and then spread to the arms growing from his back...
Crack!
Nerim coughed blood as a burst of power shattered several of the ribbons. The dark aura of the abyss then devoured her magic. Small purple tendrils grew from the tips of the monster’s fingertips and sank into Nerim’s flesh.
"!?"
It devoured her mana at such a pace that she couldn’t even scream.
She gasped while clutching her throat.
’Shit.’
Asmodeus appeared behind her, his blade slicing his palm as he covered her mouth and forced her to drink his blood. She struggled at first, her eyes opened wide, bloodshot, resisting the abyss, and he suddenly grabbed her.
Anyone would thrash around and attempt to break free.
"Calm down, focus. It’s ."
"!!!"
She glanced at him with her clear blue eyes, then closed them tight as tears dripped down her cheeks.
’I know.’
He could feel her desperate plea with each movent and action.
Nerim didn’t want to die.
As if driven by instinct, she bit into his hand, like a crazed vampire drinking more and more of his blood. The mont his blood touched the purple aura poisoning her body, it withered... then the blood devoured the aura and seeped into her flesh, organs and blood.
Nerim glanced up at him with wide eyes.
"I know, you want to know who I am right?" He smiled as she nodded. "Wait."
Asmodeus closed his eyes; the painful yet pleasant sensation of a rmaid sucking on his palm differed from his original plan. But he was learning sothing important... His blood could devour the abyssal aura.
"Logan." He called out to the dwarf, desperately trying to restrain his son.
"L-Lad?"
"If I can save your son, will you beco my person?"
He didn’t plan to do this at first, but after learning about Logan’s skills, and realising that the mainland wasn’t a place of only enemies. Asmodeus felt that eting more people and growing his empire or alliances would be more useful for future battles against the creator and his arbiters.
"D-Do you really an that?"
"Look at Nerim!"
Her once beautiful skin turned black and purple when the abyssal aura pumped into her flesh, but the more blood she drank, the changes started to reverse.
"Please.... save my boy..."
"Okay, then hold him down, keep him occupied for as long as you can."
Asmodeus still needed to save Nerim; to him, she was the most valuable mber; however, the small core of the abyssal aura ford in her abdon changed.
At first, his blood slowly sapped the size and devoured the energy... but soon after that, it began to drink and absorb his blood too!
"Agh....Nnnngh.....help!" Nerim’s soft voice sounded from between his fingers as her skin filled with black and purple veins bulging under the flesh. The inside of her body convulsed and twisted as Asmodeus lost track of his thought...
’Why?’
Inside her body... the black core of the abyss devoured her mana core... then it started to form a divine shard. But when Asmodeus’s blood began to fight back, the two forces began to fuse... and the black core beca a dark red sphere with small black flecks.
"Kuhaa...!"
Nerim vomited a huge amount of blood as she fell limp against Asmodeus. Inside her, the changes continued, but he couldn’t understand. Her mana core, the abyss core and his blood all fused into a single larger core and beneath a shard of divinity... with Asmodeus’s aura ford slowly. It was his divine shard, but with a trace of the Abyss and demonic bloodlines inside him.
’Did I fail?’
He wanted to check longer, because her current aura and powers resembled Asmodea and Velvet, but with the abyssal aura unique to the abyss.
"Laddie!!!" Logan’s shout ripped him from focusing on Nerim, as the monster slamd its arms against the ground and retaliated, kicking Zahir like a ball and hitting the old dwarf into the wall like a rag.
Asmodeus could only let the unconscious Nerim lie on a stone bed and prepared himself to fight the monster alone.
But when he glanced back... her body started to transform.
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