As the expanding purple aura reached Marcus the blue glow from the power of his unique skill Shield of the Just got even brighter and fought back the demon’s power.
Still, it was not quite enough to fully negate the effects of the demon’s own unique skill and Marcus felt his physical stats dropping.
In the wake of this they all stopped their charge and retreated a bit to assess what was going on
Quickly Marcus opened up his status and saw that his agility and strength had dropped by around five percent.
The others without the same protection that he had were definitely worse off.
‘Lyra how bad did it hit you?’ Marcus asked over telepathy seeing that she had also opened up her status.
‘My agility and strength are down by thirty percent.’ She responded with a grimace.
It seemed that everyone else was in the same boat as her and their fighting power had just been drastically reduced.
Unfortunately, Mrazivy was running low on time before she hit the limit of her unique skills and if they wanted her help, they needed to finish this quickly.
Now understanding the negative effects of the demon’s unique skill, Marcus led the charge since he was the least effected.
‘Fire Storm.’
Leading up with a wide ranged magic attack, he unleashed a huge blast of fire from his hand which spread out to engulf the gargantuan demon.
Of course, he doubted the spell would do much damage, but mostly he just wanted to use it to block the demon’s sense so his allies could move into better positions to attack.
Unfortunately, the demon simply let out another roar and Marcus’ spell vanished just as it had before.
‘Mraz can you tell me what it has that is allowing it to block my magic.’ Marcus asked as he jumped back as the demon swiped at him with one of its claws.
Focusing her dragon eyes on the demon Mrazivy quickly looked through its status and gulped as she saw just how powerful it was.
‘Yeah, it has a race ability called bellow of disruption which dissipates any spell tier seven or lower. None of our magic is going to work on it as long as it can get that ability off.’ Mrazivy said to the group.
She also told them that it had three unique skills..
One was its Aura of Weakening which was obviously what it was currently using. The next was called Greater Battle Prowess which simply raised all of its attack skills by one level and increased its physical stats by six percent. And the final one was called unnatural resistance which made it able to shrug off and lower the negative effects of status conditions.
It was not only strong but tough with no real weakness.
‘Fine if we cannot use magic we will just have to go into melee.’
Getting back into the fight all of them charged around the demon getting in blows where they could while avoiding its counter attacks.
It was certainly difficult for them especially with the negative effects caused by its unique skill, but they were getting by.
[0)??? Marcus was playing mostly defense for everyone else since he was the only one barely effected by the loss of strength and agility.
“Tempest Fang.”
“Whirlpool Strikes.”
“Heaven’s Rending.”
While Marcus was focused on defense, Mrazivy was going wild with powerful attacks.
She held nothing back since she knew she would be reaching her limit soon and pelted the demon with heavy hit after heavy hit.
Still the thing was tough and even her attacks with he amethros saber were not able to dig into its flesh deep enough to deliver a fatal wound.
“I got you.”
Jumping in front of one of the mantis limbs on the creatures back, Marcus held it off with his shield and unique skill and protected Mrazivy as she carved into the arm of the demon.
“Four-fold spiral thrust.”
Attacking at the feet of the demon James unleashed his attack skill which bored four large holes into the left foot of the demon.
Lyra at the same time along with her eight clones unleashed blasts of fire from their mouths which exploded all over the demon’s body.
She was focused on ranged attacks since her fire came from a race ability and could not be negated by the demon’s bellow of disruption.
‘What the?’
Suddenly as they seemed to making good progress the demon’s eyes began to light up and it fired beams out of all of them that went in different directions.
Four of Lyra’s clones were carved through and destroyed by this attack, and while James was not hit directly the explosion in its wake blasted him away and sent him flying.
For Mrazivy she was nearly hit as the demon focused three of its beams on her since she was the one doing the most damage.
To defend herself she tried to use a spell, but the demon just cancelled it out with its bellow.
At the last moment Marcus managed to get his shield in front of her, but he had to reach his arm out to do so and instead got blasted by one of the beams.
Luckily just as it was impacting him, he made the area where the beam was ethereal and it passed right through harmlessly.
‘Whew, that was close. Hopefully the demon did not notice that.’ Marcus thought.
He had been concealing the fact that he was a ghost so that he could try and get one over on the demon but now that might not be possible.
‘Yep, it noticed.’
The demon had of course been paying close attention and seen its attack pass through Marcus, not to mention that in that moment it could smell the stench of a spirit.
Now it had infused all of its limbs with spiritual energy to make sure Marcus could not pull off that stunt again.
“Thanks Marcus, you really saved me there.” Mrazivy said with a relived smile. “I only have a little bit longer left before I am out of strength. I will hit it with one more big attack and then I will have to retreat. Would you make and opening for me?”
Nodding his head Marcus agreed to do what he could to allow for Mrazivy’s final attack to do major damage.
‘Might as well use it now.’
‘Soul Burst.’
With his power rising with the activation of his unique skill, Marcus felt that he could do almost anything now.
Flying into action he blasted right down towards the demon his scythe growing in power as he funneled his energy into it.
He made sure to get right up in the demon’s face and began unleashing attacks at it and making himself the center of attention.
Lyra at the same time moved in and began harassing it from behind to split its focus further.
‘Let’s go.’
Deciding from above Mrazivy shot down in a flash using her light speed slash attack.
She cut right into the demon’s head as it was unable to react and carved all the way down its body.
Its dark green blood burst out from the long wound, and it screamed in pain as its face and torso were split open.
After that Mrazivy began flying away as she was about to hit her time limit, but she had done a considerable amount of damage and now it was up to the others to finish the battle.
‘Death Dance.’
While the demon was distracted by its horrible wound Marcus began spinning around and slashing it all over to cause more damage.
Even with the demon’s high-level regeneration it could keep up with the damage it was taking as Marcus and Lyra continued to bombard it with attacks.
BOOM!
Anger welling up the demon slammed its body into the ground and unleashed a massive blast of mana all around it that forced Marcus and Lyra away.
Sadly, in the blast Lyra’s remaining clones were caught and destroyed. Leaving her without one of her best powers.
“It certainly is tough.” Lyra said as she regrouped with Marcus.
They were both beginning to get a bit worried since even all they had done had not taken it down yet. But all they could keep doing was trying their best.
When the dust settled the demon had healed up quite a bit but there was still a huge gash running down its body from where Mrazivy hit it.
“Lyra I am going to hit it with everything I have got, and if that does not do it use your flaming fox form to blow us both up together. I will just use my ghost form to avoid the damage.”
“Got it. Just don’t kill yourself.”
With their new plan of attack ready Marcus began coalescing all his power around him to attack with one final strike when something else shot past him.
“Dragoon Buster.”
Moving incredibly quickly and like a missile, James and Fallon who had just made her way her and joined him shot forward with their dual attack skill.
The demon put up both its arms to block and where they hit its scales bent in and a loud cracking sound could be heard.
As it was blocking the attack the demon bent its head over to swallow James and Fallon, but the latter angled her head up and fired her flames breath.
A huge blast of fire consumed the demon and blew it back, and to finished off their combo James threw his lance as hard as he could right into the demon.
Its hulking form went flying through the air and it crashed into the ground and left a trench as it skidded to a stop.
Yet right when the demon thought it had a reprieve a huge blast of light and darkness fell down upon it.
“Awoooo!”
Looking towards the sound of the loud howl and the source of the blast Marcus saw a huge wolf that was half white and half black descending from the sky.
And on her back there was what looked like a tiny gleaming dot, but upon closer inspection it was actually Inten.
Four giant pillars of diamond then fell from the sky and slammed into four main limbs of the demon to hold it in place.
Currently it was restrained and its body heavily damaged by all of the attacks it had taken, preventing it from getting back up.
“Now is our chance Lyra.”
Flying off Marcus brought all his power around himself and Lyra turned into the huge form of a giant flaming fox.
Together they raced across the sky and Marcus hurtled himself down right towards the demon’s head.
‘Eclipse Meteor.’
Before he impacted, however, the demon opened its mouth and unleashed a blast of all of its mana right towards Marcus.
As he impacted, he felt himself slowing and his power beginning to be shaved off.
“Fox Deity’s Judgment.”
But as he was in his struggle with the demon a huge pillar of blue fire fell down from Lyra and hit the demon in its already heavily damaged torso.
It began burning to a crisp and its study body started to blacken, and its fur burst into flames.
The pain of its body being burned eventually proved too much for it and it was unable to focus on its final attack.
Cutting through the wavering blast of mana Marcus shot right into the demon’s head and a massive explosion of light and darkness expanded all around him.
The ground began to rip apart and quake and the nearby buildings crumbled and collapsed.
When the attack finally settled there was now a colossal crater in the earth that was over five hundred feet deep.
Inside was the body of the demon which was blown apart and completely missing its head.
“Marcus!” Lyra cried out to her fiend in distress.
She was afraid that he may have blown himself up in his own attack, but her fears were soon cleared way.
“What? Did you need something else from me?” He said as he reappeared right next to her.
Seeing him there Lyra let out a sigh of relief and then hit him in the arm.
“Next time just send me a telepathic message you are alright.”
“Okay. But enough about that. We still need to head back to the venue and deal with the rest of the demons and their collaborators.”
New novel 𝓬hapters are published on (f)reeweb(n)ovel.com