Demon Lord: Erotic Adventure in Another World

Chapter 881: The Eye Opens!

The Behemoth stopped sinking.

Its enormous limbs dug into the exposed seabed.

The muscles beneath its shell swelled, tearing through the armoured plates as the monster forced itself upward against Ein’s gravity. Black veins spread through its flesh, pulsing with abyssal energy.

Ein’s white bob lifted slightly.

The pressure around them crackled with immense pressure.

Asmodeus watched on as Ein’s fingers trembled.

’So even she has limits.’

Leviathan raised its claws.

The movement seemed extremely slow because of its size, yet the moment it swung, the entire ocean shifted along with it.

Asmodeus held Axiom across his body, gritting his teeth as the impact blasted through the storm and sent him skidding backwards through the air. Velvet curled her wings around herself as she desperately held on. Her lavender scales flashed brightly while she endured the shockwave beside him.

Only Ein remained still, with her pale white eyes narrowed into thin slits as the claw descended towards her.

[Submit.]

Gravity collapsed around Leviathan’s limb.

There was an incredible noise as the monster’s flesh folded inward, spurting black blood while the armour protecting its body shattered and cracked. Yet the claw didn’t stop, and continued to descend.

The tremble of Ein’s fingers spread further, until her arms began to quiver, and the wavering power of her domain started to flicker.

Asmodeus clicked his tongue.

"You’re too stubborn."

Her gaze flickered toward him.

[Do not interfere.]

"It’s too late for that, sorry."

He shot forward in a blood-red flash, crossing the distance before Leviathan’s claw could crush her. Asmodeus appeared beneath it, gripping Axiom with both hands as the massive blade-like talon slammed against the halberd.

CLANG!

The air exploded.

The ocean beneath them formed another crater as the force travelled through Asmodeus’s arms and into his chest. His shoulders convulsed, and several veins burst beneath his dark skin.

Yet he held it.

The sharp wings behind him spread wide, spilling crimson droplets into the sky.

"Velvet!"

"On it!"

The Dragoness shot upward along Leviathan’s limb.

Lavender flame wrapped around her halberd as she spun through the air, carving a burning spiral across the hardened flesh. Each strike tore through another section of armour, exposing the pulsing muscles beneath.

"GRRRRRR!" The behemoth groaned.

The claw pressed harder.

Asmodeus’s knees bent in the air.

’Heavy bastard...’

Ein stared at his back.

For the first time since she arrived, her porcelain expression showed something other than anger or contempt.

It was closer to confusion.

[Why are you trying to help... to protect me?]

Asmodeus grunted as he flung the claw back, tearing a good metre of black armour off the flesh, before glancing back at her.

"Because you’re a beauty, and I am the one that will defeat you."

The emotionless Arbiter stared at him in complete shock.

[That is not an answer!]

"Well, it’s a good enough answer for me!"

Ein’s white lashes trembled.

The gravity surrounding Leviathan suddenly intensified.

Its claw stopped.

Asmodeus felt the pressure vanish from Axiom as the entire limb sank several metres. He twisted his hips and dragged the halberd along the creature’s talon, slicing through the joint Velvet had weakened.

"Now!"

Velvet roared and brought her weapon down.

Lavender fire erupted inside the wound.

The claw separated.

A mountain of flesh and armour crashed into the ocean, sending black water high enough to swallow several of the remaining eye-beasts.

Asmodeus exhaled and rolled one shoulder.

"See? Much easier together."

Ein’s expression hardened again.

[I required no assistance.]

He couldn’t help but stifle the laugh, trapping it in the back of his throat as he watched the pristine woman glaring at him with her pure white eyes.

"Hahahaha, okay, alright. You were fine alone."

Ein snapped her head to the side, breaking their eye contact.

[Foolishness...]

Velvet descended beside them, breathing heavily as smoke curled from her scales. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Ein, before softening when she returned to glance at Asmodeus, who slowly adjusted his breathing.

"So what’s next?"

Before he could respond, Leviathan’s millions of eyes opened wider.

The loss of another limb sent a violent pulse through its body. Black veins expanded across its flesh, and the armoured plates around its back split apart one after another.

Something beneath them began to glow.

Dark purple light filled the cracks.

Asmodeus narrowed his golden eyes.

"Ein."

[I can see it without your help!]

The gravity pressing Leviathan down began to distort.

The abyssal energy inside its body twisted around Ein’s field, creating small pockets where the pressure vanished completely. Flesh rose inside those gaps before sinking again, each movement testing the invisible force holding it against the seabed.

Leviathan was learning how to move through gravity.

Ein’s eyes sharpened.

[Impossible.]

Asmodeus glanced at her.

"You really need to stop saying things like that around creatures quite literally born to adapt and devour divine aura..."

The Behemoth’s body convulsed.

Yet that movement occurred beneath enough gravity to flatten mountains.

Ein’s face lost some of its colour.

Leviathan moved again.

Its remaining limbs dragged through the seabed, ripping apart black reefs and trenches as it slowly forced its body toward the coast.

The pressure surrounding Ein cracked like breaking glass, with such a strong backlash that both Asmodeus and Velvet couldn’t have missed it.

"Can you hold it?" Velvet asked.

Ein’s lips tightened.

[I must.]

"That’s not what she asked," Asmodeus replied, but Ein ignored him.

[Do not speak nonsense!]

Both her hands rose higher as the seams along her exoskeletal armour shone with white light. Gravity descended in layers, each one compressing the ocean further until the exposed seabed beneath Leviathan turned smooth.

The Behemoth sank once again, and the millions of its eyes focused on Ein.

A low clicking noise spread across its body.

Dark purple light gathered behind the armoured slits, but instead of firing outward, the energy flowed inward through Leviathan’s veins.

Its flesh hardened while its limbs thickened as the Behemoth began converting the energy from its eyes into raw power.

Asmodeus watched in silence as his slight grin vanished.

’It’s giving up its ranged attacks to resist her.’

Leviathan pushed upward, and against all odds, it broke the domain of gravity as the seabed cracked. Ein’s arms jerked with a stream of silver blood dripping from her nose.

’... She’s pushing herself too hard.’

Ein wiped it away immediately, but the movement came too late, as he’d already seen her struggling to endure the pressure.

"You’ve reached your limit."

[I have not.]

"Your face is bleeding."

[An irrelevant injury.]

"You’re terrible at lying."

Her white eyes snapped toward him.

[What would you know!?]

Asmodeus’s blood wings flickered behind him; he couldn’t help but shake his head while watching her slowly pant like a normal woman.

’This is strange...’

When he first met the Arbiters, they felt so dangerous, invincible... and now watching this pristine woman crumbling brought a strange heat from the depths of his stomach all the way to his chest.

It swirled and churned like small animals rushing inside his heart.

Velvet glanced between them.

"Neither of you knows when to stop."

Leviathan rose another metre, and the gravity field shuddered. Asmodeus tightened his grip on Axiom, but his body remained still. ’Can we even win?’

A pale light moved beneath the black and white shaft, spreading toward its blade like veins beneath skin. The energy Axiom had stolen from Ein earlier had not disappeared.

It had been changing.

Digesting.

Adapting.

The halberd suddenly became heavier in his hands.

Then impossibly light.

Asmodeus’s golden eyes widened.

Around Axiom, the thick aura of Ein and Leviathan vanished, slowly flowing into his body and restoring his wounds, boosting his strength and stamina. Ein’s eyes shifted to his weapon, then his body as her lips trembled.

[What have you done....?]

There was a pause in her words, as she glared at Axiom, her entire body shuddering.

"I was about to ask you the same thing."

[That power belongs to the Creator.]

Axiom hummed as if singing happily, while its blade released a white glow edged in blood-red light. Asmodeus felt the world shift around him.

The pressure and pain from earlier vanished, and the pull on his body from Ein’s gravity also dissipated.

Asmodeus gripped his fingers around Axiom.

Strength flooded back into his arms, not as a new power, but as everything the weapon had stolen poured through his body. Torn muscles knitted together, the trembling in his shoulders faded, and his six blood wings sharpened once again behind him.

Ein stared at the halberd.

[Release it.]

Asmodeus glanced at her.

"No."

[That weapon is consuming the Creator’s aura!]

"Then tell your Creator to stop leaving it lying around."

Ein’s cheeks flushed with anger.

[You insolent—!]

Leviathan roared.

The sound crushed their argument beneath it.

Its body twisted violently against the remaining gravity, forcing Ein backwards as the seams in her armour flashed. The dark purple light flowing through its veins suddenly stopped.

Then every eye turned toward Axiom.

’This bastard really hates the Creator, huh...?’

Millions of pupils narrowed together.

The Behemoth’s flesh began to split across its chest, the armoured plates peeling apart as something pushed outward from beneath them. Black blood poured into the ocean while a vast circular shape opened inside the wound.

An eye.

Larger than the fortress.

Its white surface trembled beneath thick veins, while a single dark pupil fixed itself on the halberd glowing in Asmodeus’s hands.

Ein’s expression finally changed.

"What is it?"

She didn’t answer immediately. Her pale lips parted as the enormous eye began gathering a light darker than the abyss around it. That’s when the Arbiter suddenly shouted, placing her hands on Axiom’s shaft as it devoured her power faster.

[HURRY AND DESTROY IT YOU FOOL!]

"Eh?"

Asmodeus couldn’t help but gasp as Axiom hummed elatedly in his grasp.

’Shit!’

Leviathan’s colossal pupil contracted.

Then the eye blinked.