A sickening crack echoed as the neck twisted far beyond what should be humanly possible, the head completing an unnatural turn with a wet pop. The smile never left Robert’s face. No, not Robert anymore. Something else was wearing his skin like a trophy. The hollow eyes shimmered with flickers of ice-blue flame, and the air around Damon dropped several degrees.
"You..." the demon rasped, voice like glacier shards scraping against bone. "Such a familiar scent... Blood. So much blood. And such potent blood, too." Its eyes, still glowing embers of abyssal fire, seemed to pierce through Damon, analyzing, consuming. "You, little mortal, reek of something... interesting."
The ground around Robert began to crack, black ice spiderwebbing out from beneath his contorted feet. The swirling snow, which had been dancing around him, now began to turn an ominous black as it coalesced into jagged shards that floated menacingly in the air.
The next instant, the demon unexpectedly ran towards Damon with an unnatural speed, using Robert’s legs that looked more like claws now. "You must be the reason why the thread of fate was leading me to this shit hole of a world. What are you? Your blood is making me desire all sorts of things." The demon screeched, sending a chill down Damon’s spine.
Damon did not waste any time as he instantly conjured a blood lance in his hand, the strongest attack he could muster. The lance had fire, shadow, and even hints of lightning swirling around it. It howled with unstable power, a chaotic convergence of elements.
Damon did not even waste a single moment, throwing the lance before the freakish thing could reach him. The lance tore through the storm like a missile, warping the air in its path, leaving behind a trail of crimson fire. The demon shrieked in delight rather than fear, throwing its body forward to meet the attack head-on. The moment of impact was apocalyptic.
A blinding flash consumed the field as the lance collided with the demon’s chest. Fire erupted outward, snow and ice vaporized in a shockwave, and the earth beneath cracked open like brittle glass. Black shards of corrupted frost rained down across the battlefield, each one humming with residual demonic energy.
When the smoke cleared, the demon stood hunched, its chest smoldering, a crater where its heart should have been. But it was laughing.
A low, guttural sound that grew louder, fuller, until it shook the bones in Damon’s spine. The wound was sealing, no, freezing over from the inside, as tendrils of black ice snaked outward to rebuild what had been destroyed.
"Oh, that was beautiful," the demon hissed, eyes wild. "I haven’t felt something like that in eons. Do it again. Hurt me more, little vampire."
Damon’s eyes narrowed. He was not this demon’s match. It was simply toying with him despite him going all out. That attack had been everything, and yet it had only made the damn thing smile. Worse, the cost of the attack was significant. He had used 5% of his blood archives. He couldn’t simply keep throwing lances like that infinitely.
The demon’s body cracked again as it straightened, bones clicking into place like loose marionette strings snapping taut. The hole in its chest sealed with one last hiss of frozen vapor, and its expression twisted into something euphoric.
"You taste like the old world," it whispered, licking at the air with a frostbitten tongue. "I can’t wait to eat you alive." The demon cackled loudly and once again started running towards the demon in a weird, contorted way.
Damon’s mind spun. What could he do now? How could he face something like this? An avatar of a demon god? He was about to conjure another lance again, a more powerful one this time, when suddenly Artimius flew in front of him.
"Your opponent is me!"
Damon’s eyes widened in shock as he watched the old man move like he had never done before. His skills and his movements were at an epitome as an unbelievable aura flared up around him. Pure soul energy poured out of him like an unstoppable force. It was silent, disciplined, and unyielding like the will of a man who refused to fade.
The demon actually halted mid-step, its grin faltering for the first time. "You..." it rasped, "Aren’t you the seedling who refused my blessing?" Its head cocked to the side with a sickening crunch. "I can smell my curse on you." Its grin widened. "And you dared to come before me? You didn’t know, did you? Oh, pitiful little ant, you are nothing but a soul battery to me now."
"I’m well aware," Artimius said quietly. "But if one man must burn to buy some time... then so be it." He unleashed another swing of the sword as a powerful attack blasted forth.
The blade sang with sorrow and wrath, its arc trailing glimmering soulflame, azure light burning so brightly it turned the shadows to ash. The snow hissed as it vanished beneath the heat of that swing, and the black ice around the demon cracked and flared.
The demon screamed. "Soul Cleave..." it hissed, reeling back as the edge of the attack tore through its shoulder and severed the outermost ring of corrupted runes circling its body. "How did you manage to master such an attack in this backwater world? I have truly underestimated you-"
The demon did not have the time to talk as it was cut short by the seven consecutive blood lances that came flying towards it one after another.
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