In the land of toxic fumes and enigmatic monsters, the morning brought not the sun but a deep hue of deep red dark. The clouds, the shadows, and even the air itself were oozing with the blood of a hunt far from the sight of the observer.
Scanning the surroundings with shadow clones, and scattering demonic spies all over, Haruki had successfully surrounded the watchtower that had Asmodia's body tomb underneath. Making use of her new ability, even Riley had sent some of her invisible clones inside to scan the tower and figure out the position of the guards.
Once the place was all but mapped up, the clones and the demonic spies were led up to a door sealed with strong arcane magic, and vast arrays of true holy magic circles.
"That must be the room," Haruki mumbled, opening his eyes after seeing the door.
Turning to the two companions he's brought with him, he knew they could easily handle the number of guards stationed inside. Yet for some obscure reason, an unsettling feeling was trying to take hold of his heart.
"We're gonna go in, kill the guards, and then see if we can open the door. If not, then we might have to bring some backup," giving those orders, he was ready to depart.
Right as he turned to fly towards the tower, however, a jolt of lightning passed them all by grazing their faces with a deep, sharp mark. Stunned in place, Haruki's eyes fell onto the silver-clothed man he'd been so desperately trying to find.
In his fit of rage, Dominion didn't notice the presence of the trio and landed right atop the lantern-lit tower. Frothing from the mouth, an aura of carnage emitted from the war general's very presence. Taking it as a hint to stay away for a while longer, Haruki flew slightly backward so Dominion couldn't sense them at all.
"Protherious! Open that damned door!" Raising his blood-sword high, Dominion yelled out to god knows who.
A few seconds passed his demand, an earth-shattering grumble resonated through the entirety of Scorchen Gaia.
"What?!" Having no clue about what was happening, Haruki contemplated abandoning the mission altogether, but as a familiar voice trailed into his ears, he couldn't do so even if he wanted.
"You can't escape my command if you leave now," said Asmodia, her words feeling no short of a warning.
Forced to keep going, he watched as the tower began rising to the skies, and revealed underneath a pair of deformed arms and legs, attached to a stone creature at least ten times the size of the maddened dragon.
As the creature kept rising from the ground, it felt as though a castle had grown limbs and was trying to make the earth collapse on itself. With no face but a pair of bloody lips and snarly teeth in the thousands, the creature uttered some gibberish while debris kept falling from his stone body.
"I'm here to end that bitch's reign once and for all, open that damned door, you monstrous angel!" Dominion howled out loud once more, but this time it wasn't just a warning.
Still balancing himself on the tower, while the guards inside fell screaming into the crater left by the creature's feet, Dominion clutched his sword with both hands and brought it crashing against the tower's floor.
"GRHHHH!" The creature cried, his voice enough to blow back Haruki and the other two.
Reaching up with his arms adorned with a pair of jewels, the creature knocked the tower off the back but missed Dominion as he jumped off onto its back.
'Fuck…How the hell are we supposed to take this down and get to Asmodia's body?' Surveying the creature's body for weak points, the first thing Haruki noticed was that his arms, which were thinner near the join but grew girthier as they went on. Upon getting a closer look while it kept trying to swat out Dominion, he realized that his arms only floated around his shoulders and weren't exactly attached to the body at all. As if that wasn't enough to confuse him, countless worm-like flesh lumps were crawling out of its skin to attack Dominion and eat him alive.
'Then there's those jewels.' The jewels of red, blue, and white on both fists, added to the confusion even more.
"Master, what do we do?!" Asuka asked, her whole body shaking in fear.
"I don't think we can escape this fight since even that Dominion guy has to take this thing down to open the door to Asmodia's body…" Still unsure why Dominion was fighting an alleged ally, Haruki decided to aid him just this once. "How many mana potions do we have?"
"About twenty," Riley replied with a second to waste.
"Well, we're gonna need them," turning back to the scene of battle, Haruki stretched his limbs for a few seconds before finally making his attempt to join the fight. "Shadow form body: Wolf form!"
Announcing his presence out loud, Haruki broke the fight between Protherious and Dominion for a moment. Enshrouded in dark, Haruki's body continued to grow until it was at least half of the angel's size. Then glaring up at the two, he did something that left them both baffled.
"Multi-thought procession! Clone: Haruki shin, shadow form body: Wolf," creating a replica of himself and using part of his consciousness to make use of that body as well, he hit the final nail in the coffin with the next few words. "Pass through! Clone: Everyone!"
Using pass-through with the clone, he made it so each and every attack would go right through its body, all the while the clone kept creating clones of people, Haruki had ever turned into a demon or consumed the flesh of through demonic spies.
With a burst of mana expulsion, countless replicas of demons, elves, goblins, demi-humans, and even the dragoness sprang out of the clone.
"Dominion, if you can't help, then don't get in my way, we can settle things between us later!" Leaping onto the angel's arm, Haruki charged all the clones on him.
The impact of them crashing against him was enough to topple him over, and as the series of brute attacks and that of magic began unleashing themselves on it, Protherious squeaked out in long drawn groans of pain.
'Riley, potio-' Before Haruki could finish asking for a potion, the red jewel from the giant's arm shot a beam of light that incinerated a great collection of the clones. 'Shit! We need to destroy those jewels first, I don't think he can use magic without them!'
While giving off that order, he felt a strong gust of wind coming right at him from his right. Upon turning to look in that direction, he noticed the giant's arm, inches away from his face. With no time to escape, Haruki braced for impact with his eyes shut tight.
"Ughhh, the next demon lord, as if," opening his eyes to those words, however, he noticed Dominion standing in between him and the giant's arm.
His sword held horizontally against its palm, Dominion was holding off the attack so it wouldn't reach the demon.
"Don't just stand there, do something, you idiot!" Screaming out loud, Dominion drew his sword back and all of a sudden it felt as though time itself had slowed down around him. In the small-time frame it should've taken the angel to crush them both, Dominion managed to land a kick against its palm to send its arm flying back to the ground.
"Master!" As time resumed like usual, Riley called out to Haruki from behind.
Quickly turning towards her, Haruki noticed her throwing a total of two mana potions right at him. Holding his hand towards them, Haruki had them pass through a dungeon portal and land right into his wolf form's mouth.
"Here, you take one too," while the giant was still recovering, Haruki decided to offer one to Dominion as well.
"I don't need mana for magic, you moron," saying that he dashed toward the angel's grizzly mouth.
'Clones follow him!' Sending off the remaining clones behind him, Haruki downed the potion and went to get rid of the elemental jewels instead.
While making his way there, he felt Riley's presence right beside him. Still invisible, she was on the giant's body trying to help Haruki get rid of the jewels. Asuka on the other hand, being a healer, decided to help in her own way.
"Lulu! Miasmic flytrap!" Calling upon her familiars, she had them bind the angel's arms so it couldn't hurt her companions. And even though it easily tore off Lulu's tentacles, Asuka kept healing the familiar to deter all movement from Protherious's hands.
"I would've loved to use this thing to create an angel control apparatus," Standing by the jewels on its right hand, Haruki turned back into a human and held his arms outstretched toward the elemental jewels. "But I guess these jewels have to do instead. Dark light!"
Sending off an aura that consumed any and all, he attacked the stone-like skin that held the jewels attached to the angels' knuckles. One after the other as the skin deteriorated under the aura, Haruki made use of Lulu to throw them into a dungeon pocket he'd opened near the arm.
"That's enough, let's finish this fight quickly now," peering up at Dominion keeping the skin worms busy as he tried to get to Protherious' s mouth, he came up with a plan that would either ruin everything or get rid of this damned monster.
'It's been a while since you've been out, don't make me regret it.' Grabbing his right hand's wrist, Haruki held it high up toward the sky. "God tier summon: Void Eater!"
And with that, it was time for the bullied skies to get even bloodier.
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