Life Hunter

"Oh, looks like it"s finished" Suddenly, she exclaimed. She then saw a silver light in the horizon slowly fading "They"ll come back soon, let"s go" She said and sighed before heading back to the demon city.

Ratia and Lanya looked at each other and followed her just after. They were already back in the castle after ten minutes. Ratia fell on the bed and Lanya laid her whole body on a sofa, while Lilis just sat down.

"You are strong" Ratia abruptly said to Lilis

The latter smiled "Of course I am, right now, I"m even stronger that Arima" She said casually "But, I"m sure he"ll catch up to me soon. The scariest particularity of a Life Hunter is just before they enter into the Heaven Realm, at that moment, he will be stronger than me without a doubt" She explained.

Although, Ratia didn"t understand a thing, Lanya had a pensive expression.

"And what is that particularity?" A familiar voice resounded in the room and the three girls looked at the source. They found Arima standing there, carrying Raal on his shoulder. They immediately understood that Arima had won, but they also realized that none of them had any injuries. But the thing that caught them off guard was Arima"s appearance. He was still in his draconic form, he was really intimidating.

Lilis smiled "Sorry, I can"t tell you" And said

Arima glanced at her and brought Raal to the bed before throwing him on it. Ratia was shocked when Arima threw her husband like that, but she noticed the latter had no external injuries.

"I healed him, Raal can"t heal injuries that I made to him, but it"s a different story when it"s me who heals them" Arima said and his scales, wings and tail transformed into a dark light that converged and reformed as a small wolf cub.

Lanya instantly caught the latter in her arms, like she was waiting for it since the beginning. Arima sighed and stretched a bit. He then sat down on a couch and closed his eyes.

Everyone in the room looked at him curiously. Arima didn"t move for five minutes straight. When he finally opened his eyes, he looked at Lilis "Can you help me a bit? I need to heal my organs that were affected by a change of time" Arima asked and Lilis became surprised.

She laughed and sat beside Arima, she placed her hand on his shoulder and also closed her eyes "That"s what you get for suppressing your power" She smiled and said "I don"t know much about Time magic, so I won"t be that much of a help" Both Arima and her started working on the former"s recovering.

Lanya waited by playing with Night and Ratia was taking care of her husband. Only after ten minutes, did Arima and Lilis finish. Arima stood up and waved his hand a bit, a small breeze blew in the room.

"It"s good, thanks" He turned toward Lilis and thanked her. The latter smiled and nodded "No problem"

At that moment, Raal grunted and rolled on the bed before falling down on the floor "Ah" His wife exclaimed and the others looked blankly at the scene. Of course, the Demon King was awake and slowly stood up while rubbing his head. He then looked around. He spotted Arima looking at him, then he looked at himself and tilted his head.

"A dream?" He said and Arima started laughing, he then sat down and shook his head.

"No, you can be sure of that" He said with a smile

Raal laughed wryly "I lost, huh?" He looked around a bit "Where is Rayord?" He asked

Arima pointed at a window with his thumb "Outside, he was too big to get in, so I let him outside" He said

"I see, then I should let him rest a bit" Raal said and sat down on the bed, he extended his hand toward a nightstand beside his bed and opened a drawer. He took out a scroll and threw it to Arima. The latter caught it and looked at its contents.

"I see" He smiled and nodded. He looked at the scroll for a few seconds before giving it back to Raal "Thanks, I"ve remembered it" Arima said

Raal also smiled "No, I should thank you for the fight you gave me. Also, the fact that you suppressed your full strength, I heard it" He said "I"m sure you did it because it would"ve been unfair for me, don"t worry, I"m not blaming you" He laughed and said

"I never did worry about it" Arima said and no one knew if it was a joke or not "Anyway, I suppose I can get the reward for my victory now, right?" He stood up and asked

Raal nodded "Go ahead, I gave you that map for that" The scroll that he had given Arima was actually the fully detailed map of this city with all of its secret facilities.

"Well, bye" Arima said and snapped his fingers, along with his group, he disappeared in an instant. He teleported Lanya and Lilis without asking them about anything.

***************************************

Arima"s group reappeared on a road, in the outskirts of the city. You could even see a wheat field nearby.

"Why are we here? Weren"t we supposed to look for a prison?" Lilis asked after looking around.

Arima pointed at the ground and Night frowned in Lanya"s embrace "Again?" He said

"The prison is down there, that"s what the map said. Basically, it"s underground" Arima explained, he crouched down and tapped on the ground a bit.

"What are you going to do?" Lanya asked in wonder.

Arima smirked "[Vita Venari]" He chanted, but unlike his previous times using Life Hunt, a giant black circle appeared in the sky, the runes in the circle were in Latin and the structure of the inner circles was extremely unusual and complex.

Lilis looked in shock at the five miles wide circle hovering in the sky "That"s a custom circle, you created a circle for your Life Hunt" She said, astounded "I think that"s the first time it ever happened, how far did your understanding of magic go?" She uttered with shock

Arima grinned and the circle in the sky glowed, a transparent energy created a whirlpool in the area. That same energy entered the ground, but although the energy produced by the circle spread far, no one managed to sense it. They could only see the circle in the sky, totally unknown to them.

"I can only take the life force of those below level ten, I think" Arima mumbled and his custom circle started spinning, the runes on it also started moving in a strange way.

At that moment, a ma.s.sive amount of life force resurfaced and integrated with the magic circle. This time, everyone felt it, the life force of around ten thousand people, condensed together. Of course, it would be sensed. They all looked in fear at the sky, fearing that it would take their life force too.

Arima eyes glowed strongly, the star in his eyes started turning crazily. The circle kept becoming bigger and bigger. After a minute, the circle already took the sky of the entire demon city. That phenomenon wasn"t omitted by the power houses of this continent.

The Demon King looked silently at the sky with a smile on his face.

The Elven Priestess also observed from afar.

Rex, Hieran and Evergreen easily recognized who could do something like that.

While the last power house that Arima didn"t met, the Vampire Lord, was looking too from the monster territory.

The life hunting circle seemed to never stop his work, his size already recovered an area a thousand miles diameter. Even Arima was surprised by the result, he looked at the sky and whistled.

"That"s big" Night commented and Lanya nodded strongly.

Arima scratched his hair "Actually, as the circle was growing bigger, I thought that I could take the life force of every criminal I found by looking into their darkness and it became scarier than I expected" He said and laughed wryly before looking one more time and the circle in the "…Oops" He silently exclaimed.

"You don"t have time to regret! Quickly! Stop this thing!" Night shouted "At this rate, it"ll take the life force of every slightly bad people!" He hastened Arima

Arima forced a cough "[Altera rationem terram]" He chanted and immediately set up a dimensional connection.

He looked up and stared at the giant circle. He raised his palm to the sky "[Veni ad me] (Come back to me)" The whole circle started spinning like a wheel until it became a whirlpool that was siphoned into Arima"s hand. It took around five minutes for the whole thing to be absorbed.

After it finished, Arima fell silent and froze in the same position. His eyes were closed and his expression, not that good.

"Hey, Arima…" Night called and only received a signal from Arima to be silent. It lasted for a good ten minutes. During that ten minutes, Night began to understand what was happening thanks to his own body, his strength was increasing at a terrifying rate. He too had to concentrate on controlling the flowing energy entering him.

Arima then breathed out and sat down "…It"s over" He uttered "I received much more life force than I thought" He said while he was till trying to control the strength in his body.

Lilis"s expression was twitching nonstop "Arima, at which level are you right now?" She asked

Arima pondered for a moment "If I take reference on what you explained me, I should be around the peak of the first sky" He said and Lilis almost suffered a breakdown.

"He raised an entire level in just half an hour" She mumbled in shock.

"Well, with that said, sorry, but I will like to have a day before leaving to the Main Land. You can do what you want meanwhile" Arima said to Lanya and Lilis "But don"t you dare be late when we"re supposed to leave" He then uttered with an almost cold voice.

Night also jumped from Lanya"s arms and turned back into a dragon before sitting down too.

Lilis sighed "Let"s go Lanya, we have time to spare" She said and disappeared from the dimension. Arima already set this place to let them go in and out freely.

"See you tomorrow" Lanya said to Arima and Night, then also left.

*******************************************

Twelve hours later, Arima stood up and practiced his body a bit. He also played a bit with death, s.p.a.ce and time magic.

"You finished refining it?" Night asked

"Yeah" Arima smiled and then eight spheres of different colors formed above his palm. When he looked at it, Arima grinned "I did it" He said

Night glanced at the spheres of magic "So you finished absolute dominance over all elements, huh?" He commented

"Yes, the main reason I wanted to steal the life force of those criminals was because of this. Now I can try something I wanted to do for a moment now" Arima said and conjured eight other spheres of each element, but these were a lot bigger than the previous ones.

He flicked his fingers and every sphere fused with each other to create a rainbow sphere that only lasted for a few seconds before exploding. Arima of course protected himself and dispersed the smoke.

"…I see, if you succeed, that would be extremely scary" Night said after he saw what Arima just did.

"Well, I"ll try" Arima said and then resumed his small experiment.

The next day, Arima called back Lilis and Lanya to leave the continent. Fortunately this time, Lilis seemed to have spared him of waiting an hour before leaving.