Craning his neck upwards Marcus was able to see exactly who had saved him.
He had honestly been expecting Mrazivy, James, or Quillon since they were among the strongest of their group. But instead, it was his little sister, Lilia.
'Lilia don't try to fight him! You are not strong enough! Run away and wait for some of the others!' Marcus shouted to his little sister using telepathy.
In terms of level Lilia was more than twenty lower than the Archdevil.
Currently she was only at level sixty-two and after her evolution she had been leveling up very slowly.
The quality of the evolution she had achieved was simply that powerful and was actually above Marcus even with him being a great spirit. In fact, she was on par with Roxene.
Still as strong as she was for her level, the Archdevil was leaps and bounds higher and a very powerful entity in his own right.
However, while Marcus wanted Lilia to prioritize her own safety there was no way she was going to abandon him.
"I am not the same scared little girl trapped in a box, Marcus. I have gotten stronger not only to be able to protect myself but you as well. Now just lay there and rest while I pummel this devil to death for hurting you." Lilia said with a confident smile.
She then turned towards the Archdevil and prepared to do battle with him.
Luckily after ripping his own head off and having his body destroyed by Marcus, even if he had recovered it thanks to the energy he received from his subordinates' souls, he was still far from in peak condition.
Yet there was something else that was far more disconcerting for the Archdevil than his condition. And that was the feeling that Lilia was giving off.
Her aura made him feel like something was prickling at his skin and that she was especially dangerous to him.
"What are you? You feel like some sort of angel, but you do not have wings and look completely human." The Archdevil said practically hissing at Lilia.
He was being extremely wary of her from the sinking feeling that he had.
"You are right that I am not an angel. Though I am not exactly sure what that is. Anyway, it does not matter. Once I am done with you there will be nothing left."
Lilia then pressed down against the ground with her left foot and launched herself towards the Archdevil.
As she closed the distance her form shimmered multiple times as she cast a few force magic buff spells on herself.
When she got into range with the Archdevil, she pulled back her right arm and jabbed at him with her full power.
Yet, her attack failed to hit the Archdevil despite how fast she had been going as he fled up into the air.
Just from that one exchange he could tell that Lilia was far better versed in close quarters combat and that staying on the ground and fighting her head-to-head would be foolhardy.
Instead, the Archdevil figured that he could simply lord above her int eh air and attack from out of her range.
To start he unleashed a thick cloud of his miasma down towards her like he had done earlier to Marcus.
The dark red mist swirled around and consumed Lilia without her even trying to move out of the way.
The Archdevil took this as a sign that she could not move fast enough to react, but it was because she simply had no need to.
One of the unique skills that she had received was called Abnormal Status Reduction.
This made anything like poison, paralyze, charms, stat drain, or the like fifty percent less effective on her.
That coupled with the powers from her Peerless Body, Peerless Soul, and Peerless Mind unique she was pretty much immune to most things other than being physically damaged.
'This hurts a little, but nothing my regeneration cannot easily offset.' Lilia thought while being engulfed in the Archdevil's miasma.
'Expanding force.'
Throwing open both of her hands Lilia sent out a blast of pure energy all around her and forced the miasma away.
While it was not doing effectively any damage it was still blocking her view and making it harder to see her target.
Once the miasma had moved away from her Lilia pointed her right index finger at the surprised Archdevil and fired off her disintegrate spell.
Rolthor for his part had not been expecting Lilia to come out from his cloud of miasma completely unheard and was caught off guard when she fired off a powerful spell at him.
He could sense the immense danger that the spell posed to him and made sure to evade rather than try to block it.
In retaliation he then created numerous blasts of mana from his four hands and started raining a barrage of attacks down on Lilia.
Crossing her arms Lilia put up a mana barrier in front of her and weathered the attacks.
Each one of the blasts had a great deal of power behind it and Lilia felt her mana barrier giving out quickly.
When her barrier gave out, she was hit by numerous blasts of mana.
Several dozens of attacks continued to relentlessly hit her and the Archdevil did not let up until he was satisfied that Lilia had been reduced to nothing but dust.
Except when everything cleared Lilia was still standing with far less damage than the Archdevil had expected.
Certainly, she had numerous wounds all over her blood and her blood was flowing out all over to the point that she looked like she had been drenched in crimson paint. Yet she was still alive and had a large grin on her face.
"Looks like I finally figured out how much I can take." Lilia said absentmindedly.
Up to this point she had rarely been injured since evolving thanks to the powerful defenses that she had acquired.
Most attacks from anything even close to her level just bounced off her skin and did nothing.
"It seems that all of you are far stronger than I was led to believe. But this is the end for you."
With all four of his hands above his head the Archdevil accumulated a far more powerful mana attack and prepared to finish Lilia off.
Before he could launch the attack though, the air around Lilia's body began to tremble and a shimmering light began coming out of her body.
"Here you can have this back. Force Payback."
Casting another tier seven spell Lilia felt her mana begin rapidly depleted as her spell created an attack that equaled the amount of power she had just been hit with.
A massive blast of pure kinetic energy flew out from Lillia's hands and flew directly for the Archdevil to return the power he had sent her way.
In a desperate bid to block the attack the Archdevil launched the accumulated mana sphere above his head and had his attack clash with Lilia's
The entire area shook as these two powerful forces crashed into each other.
For a few moments it seemed that the two attacks might be equal but in the end, Lilia's broke through and impacted the Archdevil.
A blinding explosion expanded around his body when Lilia's attack hit and for a dozen seconds everything was bathed in an intense light.
When things finally settled down Lilia looked up to find the Archdevil with a large hole in his right side along with missing all his right limbs.
However, while this was a great deal of damage Lilia could only feel disappointed.
That attack had drained pretty much all of her mania and she had taken a great deal of damage which would take even her at least a couple of minutes to fully heal.
She was no longer had any hope to continue fighting. Though the Archdevil was in a similar position.
"To think that I would be pushed this far by your group. I do not know where I went wrong but Arrakas' information must have been wrong. All of you are far stronger than what should be realistically possible. And you leave me no choice but to offer up my own soul."
Surprise on her face, Lilia could not understander what the Archdevil was getting at but she knew something bad was going to happen when he pulled out a pure black sheet of paper from his chest.
Looking at it she could see that the text was written in a language she did not recognize and was red like it was written in blood.
Quickly the Archdevil signed his name on the contract, and it burst into black flames.
A moment later the Archdevil's body began pulsating and the image of an immense figure in a suit of blacked diabolical armor that had constantly screaming faces twisted in agony covering it.
Even Boreas, who she had met a couple of times, felt like a harmless kitten in comparison to what had just appeared.
With an outstretched hand it dropped an ink black ichor on top of Rolthor and the Archdevil began to twist and change.
His body quickly recovered from all the damage Lilia had inflicted and another set of leather wings sprouted out of his body.
He then enlarged to twice the size he had been before, and his two sets of arms fused into one, and on each side of his body he now had two hulking appendages.
The remains of the black ichor surrounding his body flowed into his right hand and formed into a large mace.
Once Rolthor's transformation was complete the entity that had appeared when he signed the black contract disappeared.
However, even with it gone Lilia was still faced with an incredibly powerful begin staring down at her in contempt.
The Archdevil had now undergone some sort of transformation and was now even stronger than he had been before.
"So, this is the power that my subordination is worth." Rolthor said in awe.
Nevertheless, there was also a despondence to his tone as well. He knew what he had given up to gain this power. Even if it was the only way he could have saved himself in the moment.
"Now I think I will take my time tearing you and that spirit apart until I am satisfied. Then I can add you to my collection of souls."
Holding his mace above him, the Archdevil prepared to smash Lilia into the ground and put an end to what little resistance she could still put up.
"I suppose I will get to test this out as well." Lilia said while giving the archdevil a defiant look.
Gold bands of light began flowing out of her body and wrapping around her.
In an instant the grievous wounds she had incurred were fixed and her depleted mana was restored.
This was the strongest power Lilia currently had and one of the race abilities she had received upon evolving into an Empyrean.
"DIVINE MIGHT!"
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