Chapter 665: Vonun?!
Descending slowly from where the wooden spear had landed, they saw him—tall and lean, his dirty blond hair tousling in the breeze.
His greyish skin gave him an almost sickly appearance, enhanced by the dark eyebags beneath his flower-patterned irises.
A faint stubble traced his sharp jawline, while two prominent horns curved upward from his head. A tail, long and sharp, extended from his lower back, curling and piercing the ground below him.
Both Arthur and Evan recognized him instantly; they’d seen him up close during the volcanic dungeon ambush.
"VONUN!"
The name slipped from their lips, and in response, the Archdevil spread his wings wide. The sky turned dark and the ground trembled as massive wooden tendrils erupted around them, twisting and reaching, poised to attack.
And with that, the real fight began.
Arthur and Evan launched themselves forward without hesitation, and Vonun landed on the ground, raising his large spear and filling it with darkness law energy.
He swung it with earth-shattering force and Arthur immediately darted to the side to avoid the strike. Arthur infused Lostvayne with destruction law energy and swung it, splitting apart the tendrils of wood while Evan used frostfire to make them brittle before Artemisia’s lightning descended and shattered them.
’Blessing of Destruction: Second Activation.’
Evan commanded internally and immediately, the ground around them was covered in Destruction law energy.
Vonun frowned and he raised his spear, activating his Pseudo-Authority, but before he could destroy the Resonance field Evan created, Arthur’s blade bore down on him from behind.
The Archdevil spun around and swung his spear to block Lostvayne, while his tail lashed out to block Evan’s World Sunder strike.
"Cursed Vines."
Vonun muttered under his breath and the ground before Evan cracked open, from which emerged a giant wooden Treant with a weeping face.
It roared and charged at him, but Evan didn’t give the creature time of day.
’Frost Thunder Guardian.’
He activated three skills and rising behind him was a giant humanoid avatar, wielding a sword of frozen lightning and a shield engulfed in frostfire.
The two giants clashed immediately, sending embers and shards flying with each thunderous impact.
As Evan charged to join Arthur face off against Vonun, Artemisia gave orders to the others.
"Crim, Hibiki. Keep those small fries away from them.
Beatrix, we’re supporting the two!"
Beatrix understood Artemisia’s plan without further instructions. Arthur and Evan had the highest Attack Power, so they were going to be the Main Damage Dealers here.
Everyone else should focus on supporting them and preventing the small fry from interfering.
Artemisia activated her Queen of Evolution Skill, and Beatrix warped her through space, dropping her right behind Evan who had just been knocked back by Vonun’s tail.
"Evolve Ally."
She placed a hand on his back and her Evolution Power poured into Evan’s body, temporarily boosting his base parameters.
For someone like Evan who had numerous boosts that scaled off his base stats, this was a blessing.
Naturally, Vonun noticed this and his tail shot forward, trying to skewer Artemisia in one go.
Wooden tendrils emerged from the ground to hold her in place, but before they reached, Arthur appeared and grabbed Vonun’s tail, pulling on it and swinging his sword down.
"?!"
Vonun sensed the danger and gave up on Artemisia, redirecting his energy to block Arthur’s attempt to sever his tail instead.
**BOOMM!!!
Spear and sword clashed, with their law energies surging and trying to overwhelm one another.
At that moment, Artemisia ignored the fact that Arthur’s Progenitor Authority was active and placed her hand on his back.
"Evolve Ally!"
Just merely touching Arthur in his current state caused all the skin on her palms to scald off in an instant, but the goddess gritted her teeth to bear the pain and buff Arthur before being warped away by Beatrix so Vonun couldn’t target her again.
Evan flashed in from the side, his sword tearing right towards Vonun’s neck and forcing the Archdevil to raise his hand to block the strike.
It was usually overshadowed by Lostvayne’s ridiculousness, but Evan’s sword was the weapon of a deceased Aidosian Race Queen.
It wasn’t a force to be trifled with, even with its power reduced due to Evan’s mortality.
Arcs of destruction energy tore through the landscape, ripping apart anything within a hundred-metre radius of the three fighters.
Vonun moved at a speed Evan had a hard time even seeing, but Arthur used ’Shared Memories of the Future’, allowing Evan to start moving to respond five to ten seconds before Vonun even attacked.
|¬Gravity! Down!¬|
Arthur commanded and the force acting on Vonun quintupled in an instant, slowing him. He and Evan unleashed a barrage of destruction-infused projectiles that warped the air upon explosion.
Teleporting above Vonun, Arthur raised Lostvayne.
Arthur’s Gravity Pseudo-Authority activated, and a field of gravity expanded from him, warping space itself. He hurled a barrage of gravity-enhanced destruction energy towards Vonun, each blast compressing the air and tearing apart anything in its path. Time energy twisted around him, and in an instant, he appeared above Vonun, sword raised.
"Continental Split."
"?!"
Vonun felt danger. Without hesitation, he poured all his power into his Pseudo-Authority of Wood, condensing the power into his spear.
Evan teleported away a split second before Arthur’s blade and Vonun’s spear clashed, a wise decision on his part.
**KAAABOOM!!!
All eyes were filled with a blinding light and ears heard a deafening roar as the ground beneath them cracked open.
The air vibrated with the sheer force, as the spear’s wood creaked under pressure, struggling to withstand the immense power. A shockwave blasted outward, tearing through the forest and sending debris flying in every direction.
When the dust cleared, Arthur and Vonun took to the skies.
Vonun bellowed, raising his spear, and unleashed a barrage of energy beams. Dark-green energy bolts filled with his Infernal Verdancy shot forward, aiming to overwhelm Arthur, but the projectiles always slowed once they got in Arthur’s vicinity, allowing Evan to shoot them down from below.
While they fought, Arthur stopped Vonun’s time and delivered a weighted impact kick that sent him crashing down. Hibiki saw this as an opportunity and activated her Succubus Charm without holding anything back, sending waves of pinkish mist towards Vonun.
But instead of the expected response, she felt her charm dissipate as if it struck nothing at all. Her eyes widened in realization, and she shouted out, her voice cutting through the chaos.
"This isn’t the real Vonun! It’s a wood clone!"
""We know!!!""
Arthur and Evan shouted back as they charged at it.
Arthur was a Progenitor, so there was no way he would be unable to differentiate a real Archdevil from a Wood Clone.
Evan, on the other hand, had simply used Appraisal.
Arthur swung his sword, unleashing a sweeping slash of destruction energy and Evan followed suit, unleashing a Prismatic Vortex of flames that pierced straight through the wooden clone.
Under their relentless assault, the clone finally buckled, cracking and splintering apart.
Arthur delivered the final blow, swinging Lostvayne in a horizontal arc and beheading it, but something felt off.
Vonun’s wooden doppelganger, even in its last moments, didn’t show any shock, fear or surprise.
Though it was a clone, he knew it had the real Vonun’s consciousness loaded into it, and its reactions mirrored his own.
Vonun wasn’t surprised that the clone had been defeated—he knew well how much power Arthur possessed.
Rather, he felt satisfaction.
The time spent defeating the clone had delayed Arthur’s group long enough to prevent them from rejoining the Spirits as planned. The only spirits capable of reaching this far were preoccupied with the Infernal Archdevils, so they couldn’t expect any help.
Arthur’s group had remained in the place they wanted to leave and his Wood Clone fighting them had bought Vonun enough time.
’I just have to deal with his teleportation.’
As the clone’s severed head flew through the air, it muttered two words.
[Infernal Verdancy.]
The earth shook and cracked, then the entire area seemed to pulse with life.
Arthur initiated another teleportation spell, but before his casting could complete, Vonun’s clone erupted with Creation law energy, a powerful surge that disrupted his magic, throwing him off-balance with another backlash.
Evan’s Danger Sense began blaring a siren in his head, his instincts screaming that Vonun’s trap had only just begun.
Then, the swarm appeared.
From the depths of the forest around them, countless Vanguards emerged—a wave of plant-like creatures with flowering patterns and leaves covering their bodies.
On their foreheads were small blooming flowers that pulsed with wood and creation law energy.
They poured forward with a mindless fury, their eyes fixed on Arthur, Evan, and the others, charging with relentless abandon.
Arthur swung his sword, tearing through dozens at a time with slashes of destruction energy, but for everyone he felled, three more took its place, reassembling and surging forward in even greater numbers.
The horde pressed in from every side, an unstoppable tide that would reform as fast as they could tear it down.
"Fuck! They just keep coming!"
Arthur cursed, his voice barely audible over the chaotic din.
Evan’s magic power surged, flames and lightning striking out in explosive bursts as he burned through clusters of swarm creatures, leaving scorched earth and charred tendrils in his wake.
"This is why he sent the clone."
Beatrix spoke, her expression grim as she erased pockets of swarm creatures with spatial deletions.
"He wanted us isolated, here, far from the army. He bought time for this."
Nearby, Artemisia’s lightning-charged blades sliced through several Vanguards at once, electricity crackling as she struck with relentless speed.
However, every enemy she cut down only seemed to multiply, paving the way for dozens more to take their place and attack her with renewed force.
Crim was surrounded, using the blood of the fallen devils to create spikes and barriers, trying to stem the tide. She called up walls of blood, shaped into jagged thorns and spears that shredded the oncoming swarm, only for the bodies to be absorbed into the ground, rising moments later with fresh vigour.
"We can’t hold them back forever!"
The swarm closed in tighter, so thick it was difficult to see anything beyond the wall of twisted bodies.
Every time they seemed to clear a path, the swarm filled it back in, endlessly recreating themselves.
It wasn’t just their group fighting this swarm.
In the distance, the main spirit army was engaged as well, battling the swarm of Vanguards that Vonun had unleashed on the battlefield.
The forest churned with an unending tide of reborn Vanguards, surging forward without end, each cut-down creature absorbed into the ground and reformed anew.
It didn’t take them long to know what they were dealing with.
These were Triffid’s Special Vanguards—Swarm Vanguards.
While individually weak, their true power lay in their numbers and relentless persistence. The Vanguards poured out in overwhelming waves, filling any gaps left by fallen comrades in mere moments.
Like a tide, they surged forward, seemingly endless.
Wide-scale attacks may obliterate hundreds or even thousands, but the destruction only served as fuel for their endless regeneration.
But like all things, they weren’t invincible.
Charisse had warned them about these Swarm Vanguards and had told them their weaknesses.
’The swarm was weak, but impossible to kill permanently without the power of destruction.’
"Arcane Blessing: Destruction."
Arthur spoke and magic surged from him to cover the four girls who didn’t possess this power. With this, ambient destruction energy would be drawn into their attacks, allowing them to permanently erase individual swarm units.
The effects were immediate. With her twin blades blazing in destruction energy, Artemisia slashed through vanguards, her strikes obliterating them, leaving no trace behind.
Crim, manipulating the blood of slain devils, crafted deadly spikes infused with destruction that shattered the creatures on impact, scattering them like brittle leaves in the wind.
And still, they kept coming.
