Chapter 402. Fracture (3)
One side was trying to defend and block their enemies with everything they had, while the other side was trying to pierce through by all means necessary.
“What are you doing? Come on. I told you to come fight me, you hear me?”
Gamagin’s expression darkened as she watched Yunael swing her spear. Bael’s situation didn’t seem good, so she needed to go and assist her as soon as possible.
“You’re not gonna fight? You little fucker?”
Gamagin thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to rip this rude human female to pieces before she left. Dark energy gushed out of her hands, thickening gradually before morphing into a dagger. Dark energy dripped down the blade like droplets of blood.
Seeing the ominous daggers in Gamagin’s hands, Yunael stopped her provocation and got into stance. Gamagin suddenly spun in place and turned around and around like a whirlwind, recklessly swinging her double daggers.
Yunael, who had been tense and waiting for an attack to come flying at her, blinked when nothing happened. “…What the hell are you doing?” When she asked with a hollow laugh, Gamagin instantly stopped spinning. At the same time, her eyes glowed red as she gazed at Yunael. Yunael, who had been standing still, immediately flinched and quickly retreated.
Swissssh! Sharp blades swirled in all directions. The attacks Gamagin had been making without moving suddenly burst out all at once—from the front, back, and both sides. Thanks to her sixth sense, Yunael was able to move away in advance. She felt as if she had narrowly escaped a storm created out of nowhere by a second—no, she hadn’t been able to escape completely unscathed.
Tadadadang! A loud and constant staccato of scratching noises came from the protective barrier automatically generated by the AI armor. Yunael had no time to recollect her thoughts. Before she could even process what just happened, Gamagin had arrived one step ahead where Yunael was trying to withdraw to and swung her daggers. In the end, Yunael had no choice but to borrow the power of the AI’s armor once more. Feeling chunks of her mana used up, she gritted her teeth and widened the distance between them.
By the time she managed to get into stance again, Gamagin had already finished spinning once more while slicing and stabbing with her double daggers. Yunael clenched her teeth. As expected, her foe was no easy opponent. Although Yunael had kept her distance from Gamagin, sharp blades came flying toward her, and even when she tried to evade them, Gamagin would simply move ahead of her and immediately attack again. Although Yunael knew that at this rate, she would just become a mere puppet playing right into her enemy’s hands, she had no choice but to run with all her might.
“You fucking bitch!”
However, Yunael didn’t run back, but forward this time. As she thought, Gamagin had expected Yunael to continue evading her attacks. Thus, she predicted Yunael’s movement again and arrived a beat earlier; then she was about to make another stab when—Gamagin suddenly lost her composure and withdrew. Yunael’s spear was furiously pouring out purple slashes at Gamigin.
Bambambam! A huge explosion erupted at where the two were about to move to. Yunael had attacked at the same time as she ran away, knowing that Gamagin would move in this direction. In a way, she had made a prediction of a prediction.
Gamagin muttered, “…How brutish.” She had lost her composure. She swiped her mouth with the back of her hand, took a couple of steps back, and grunted. She had a feeling that she wouldn't be able to finish this fight as fast as she thought.
* * *
While Yunael was cursing nonstop in her fight against Gamagin, Emmanuel and Agares were also in the midst of a fierce battle. The dark energy flowing around Agares gradually gathered and took the form of black spheres; then they changed into various weapons of all shapes and sizes and fired at Emmanuel, indiscriminately bombing him. Of course, Emmanuel did not just stand still and take Agares’ attacks.
[Eustitia’s 12 Special Arts—Thunderbolt] Crackle, with the sound of thunder, lightning destroyed the bombs of weapons and burst forth. It wasn’t just the thunderbolt; Emmanuel had used Lightning Patterns and Sound of Thunder, and the other Eustitia’s family’s twelve special arts burst forth one after another. As a series of attacks based on Emmanuel’s destructive Lightning Fire continuously flew towards Agares, an opening formed in Agares’ dense array of weapons. Emmanuel did not miss this opportunity.
Crackle! A red light flashed. Emmanuel pierced through the opening in an instant and charged. Looking at his opponent rush towards him like lightning, Agares calmly stretched out his arm. He held the handle of a black sword that was created from the black sphere and sliced in a horizontal direction—at the exact moment, Emmanuel pushed himself off the ground to advance explosively.
If Emmanuel had charged straight ahead, he would have been cut with absolute certainty. However, he did not counter the attack with his fleuret. Just before his opponent’s blade could slice him in the trajectory of a half moon, he had hit the ground once more to propel himself backward. As a result, the tip of Agares’ black sword stopped right in front of his eyes; it was a perfect range calculation, to the point where it wasn’t an exaggeration to say that there was only a paper-thin distance between them.
Then Emmanuel moved in the direction of the black sword’s swing and stabbed with his fleuret, his eyes fixed on his sword-wielding enemy. Agares showed a moment of admiration, but that was all. As with the black sword, the fleuret also narrowly missed the enemy’s neck as a result of Agareth tilting his chin and twisting his body.
And like this, the two exchanged attacks and changed positions. Agares stretched out his other arm and grabbed another weapon created in the air. As he turned around, he cut Emmanuel’s back in an instant. Shortly after, Emmanuel jumped a couple times backward and stopped rushing towards his opponent. He hesitated before turning right back because a long wound had been left from his left shoulder to his elbow. Agares had attacked so fast that even his AI armor couldn’t respond in time.
Agares’ eyes narrowed as he saw blood bursting out of Emmanuel’s shoulder. But he soon fixed his expression and said with a soft smile, “It seems that my skills are superior to yours. How about it? If you withdraw now, I won’t go out of my way to chase after you.” In a way, it was a generous offer. After exchanging a few moves, Agares was assured of his superior skills.
Although Emmanuel felt the same, he didn’t care in the least. “…I told you already. You’ll have to step over my dead body.” He rolled his shoulders as if nothing had happened and spun around. Agares sighed when he saw Emmanuel bend down and clutch his fleuret. Although the mix of lightning and fire was definitely threatening, that was all there was to it.
Agares had been certain that his earlier attack would’ve won him the fight, that his opponent wouldn’t be able to evade it, but in the end, Emmanuel was still standing. He had twisted his body with perfect precision without even looking back in an instant. As a result, what should’ve been a fatal attack ended up inflicting a shallow cut. Contrary to Emmanuel’s appearance, he was like a beast. He was fierce and had astounding intuition, and he was the type of opponent that Agares had the most difficulty with.
Sparks flew out of Agares eyes as he got an uneasy feeling watching Emmanuel shoot out a thunderbolt. Although he didn't feel like he would lose, he didn’t think the fight would be settled any time soon.
* * *
As in the case with Yunael, the battle for Emmanuel seemed precarious as they were both fighting great demons at single-digit ranks. However, not all great demons were at an advantage, and a case in point was Marbas, who was dealing with a gangster-like human who suddenly popped up out of nowhere.
“You punk!” The moment he cried out, Marbas’ spine split from side to side, and blood poured out. The flowing blood soon hardened into strands and shot like stems towards Ismile. The number of stems surpassed a few dozen, but none of them reached Ismile as he ran toward Marbas.
“Too slow.” Ismile pinpointed the gaps in the midst of Marbas’ dizzying attack. He moved nimbly and ran through the narrow gaps between the blood stems.
“You fucking rat!” Marbas immediately moved the stems of blood accordingly when he saw Ismile running in zigzag while leaving afterimages behind. The blood stems that stretched out in all directions converged one by one to form multiple lumps. Then the lumps quickly came together. When he saw Ismile between two blood clumps, Marbas internally smiled. No matter how swift and nimble his opponent was, what could he do when he was stuck in the middle? Marbas was determined to squish and pop the human like an ant and didn’t hesitate to combine two blood clumps into one.
But what happened next left him appalled. “W-what?” His opponent should have been trapped between two blood lumps and burst; instead, Ismile had become abnormally thin as he was pressed from both sides. However, his body wasn’t crushed. No matter how much strength Marbas put into his blood lumps, his opponent continued to run toward him. Marbas couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The sight of his opponent joyously coming towards him in a flattened form from his head to feet was nothing short of horror. Soon, Ismile came out of the blood lumps and—
Bam!
“Kuhaack!” Marbas opened his mouth wide and vomited a mouthful of blood. A tremendous shock shot up from his abdomen; the force was so great that he flew into the air, and right before he flew far, far away, the last thing he saw was Ismile.
Ismile was winking with his fist in the air. “Why, are you surprised?”
Marbas’ expression filled with astonishment. The same was true for Belial. Belial, who had been fighting a fierce battle for a while, fell on one knee with a loud thud. He unconsciously touched his shoulder with his trembling hand, and it slid without making contact; he couldn’t see the arm where it should be, and the only thing he could feel was a neatly cut section of his shoulder. Trembling, Belial looked up and stared incredulously at the blond young man standing in front of him. When he first faced the man, he had planned to quickly take care of the lowly human and go support Bael. However, after exchanging a couple of attacks, this thought completely vanished.
This human in front of him wasn’t the legend, nor the mysterious enemy they had recently identified after coming here. Nevertheless, he was overpowering him. Belial couldn’t see a single fault in the man’s movements and was constantly pushed back by his opponent’s flawless attacks and defenses, and in the end, he even lost an arm. No matter how careless he was, he had never imagined that there was another human so skilled and talented. He finally understood Bael’s argument that they needed to use this opportunity to completely erase all possible sprouts and prevent humanity from growing further.
However, the situation didn’t seem favorable no matter how he looked at it. Their positions were now reversed. Rather than clearing a bothersome problem, he was the one who had to cling onto the edge of his opponent’s pants and prevent them from moving forward. If he lost, and this powerful enemy joined forces with his companion to fight Bael, then…
“…No!” Belial shook his head vigorously and rose to his feet, indignant.
Pure strength and the sheer destructive power that came from her strength. With those alone, Bael had beat all her prominent and powerful great demon competitors. There was no way she would lose. If it was Bael, she'd definitely win no matter who her opponent was. Thus, all he needed to do was hold out until then. Belial resolved himself and burned up in fighting spirit again, while forcibly turning a blind eye to the inkling of uneasiness that began to wriggle in the corner of his heart.
* * *
While various fights were going on, there was one battle that was the loudest and most destructive by far. Bael’s giant sword came striking down in a straight line. At that moment, Chi-Woo, who had remained where he was until now, finally moved. Instead of continuously defending like before, he finally decided to attack. After moving to the left and evading the giant sword, he rushed toward Bael with a forward roll. Bael withdrew her arm instantly and swung her sword wide again.
However, Chi-Woo momentarily pulled himself back, and the giant sword cut the air in vain. A glint of uncertainty appeared in Bael’s eyes; Chi-Woo had moved with such admirable flexibility that he looked like water flowing freely. Then after a brief moment of retreat, Chi-Woo stepped on the ground again and ran towards her. Gritting her teeth, Bael moved her head slightly to evade the ghost-busting club and then focused on her eyes.
Bamm! With a loud explosion, the floor Chi-Woo was stepping on collapsed. She had destroyed a part of the gate where the dimension distortion magic was applied to only with her eyes. Receiving an unexpected attack, Chi-Woo fell. Of course, Bael knew very well that he wouldn’t die under an attack of this level; she immediately approached him and was about to swing her sword again when—
She saw a hand over the edge of the collapsed wall. Climbing up like he was parkouring, Chi-Woo soared back into the air. After a couple of somersaults through the thick dust, he dropped and struck her down with his heels. Bael hurriedly lifted her sword and blocked his kick, pushing him back with great strength. Then she raised the sword she was holding in reverse at a diagonal angle. However, she ended up cutting the air once again because Chi-Woo had landed on the floor and crouched down. Then he jumped like a frog and poured out exorcism energy from his club.
Bael moved back on reflex and scowled. Her opponent hadn’t retreated when she took the offensive; on the other hand, she was getting pushed back when her opponent started attacking. This fact inflicted an unbearable wound on Bael’s pride. It couldn’t be. There was no way that the pinnacle of the Demon Empire and the greatest of her kind would be pushed back like this. It was simply absurd.
An animal-like growl came out of Bael’s mouth, and she stretched out her hands. Then the giant sword’s terrifying strike followed; its power was the same as before. It was strong enough to tear a body to shreds with the slightest graze. Moreover, it wasn’t simply strong. As an analogy, the giant sword’s attack was akin to shooting a bomb with a machine gun. In fact, wherever Bael’s sword touched, the gate shook up and down as if a bomb had landed. If Chi-Woo had been his usual self, he would have felt so pressured that he wouldn’t be able to move properly. He wouldn’t have even dreamed of defending any of her attacks, and while desperately trying to evade, he would have eventually got hit and got torn into pieces.
However, Chi-Woo’s expression was calm for some reason. He did not allow a single attack from Bael to land with his mirage-like movements, and instead, he was looking for an opportunity to strike. Chi-Woo couldn’t understand it well himself. He didn’t know why, but he could see and feel her movements; above all, his body automatically moved as he wanted. After using the Kobalos’ magic fire pit, an unknown and strange energy seemed to burn inside his body. Although the sanctuary had been erased for sure, it felt as if he was fighting inside the sanctuary, right next to the temple of the White Horse General where the sanctuary’s effects were the strongest. He felt like he wouldn’t lose right now.
At that moment, after rolling on top of the wall that had broken and exploded everywhere, Chi-Woo slightly widened his eyes. He stopped rolling, raised his upper body, and extended his arms. Then the light that had maintained a club shape divided into several branches and flew towards Bael. Most of them were parried, but a few light beams that turned left and right succeeded in reaching her. They wrapped around both of her arms while she constantly moved.
“Arghh!” A suppressed groan escaped from her mouth. As soon as the light wrapped around her arms, she felt an intense pain as if piping-hot iron was burning through her skin. Chi-Woo took advantage of this opportunity to pull both strands of light down hard while leaping into the air. Bael’s sword fell to the floor as her body tilted.
‘He’s battling me with brute force? How dare he?’ Furious, Bael endured the pain and tried to lift her giant sword. However, before she could sense it, an intense shock hit both her arms, and the sword buried deeper into the ground. Before she could process what was happening, she looked to the front and saw Chi-Woo run, jump on top of her sword, and rush toward her. A terrifying force rose from below her face as she stared blankly at him. Before she could even look down, bam!
Chi-Woo’s foot, full of exorcism mana, collided with Bael’s jaw. Bael’s head was knocked backward to the limit, and all she could see was the vast sky. “…” As she gradually fell back, an empty light flashed in Bael’s two eyes for a moment.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freewe(b)nov𝒆l