The Devil"s Evolution Catalog Chapter 45: The Arrogance of a Demon Child
As the two spiked maces hurtled towards him, he jumped backwards, perfectly dodging them. With a quick kick of his two feet, he sprinted towards No.3 and Big 4.
Before the pair could even recover from their missed swings, Chipped Horn was already within striking distance of No.3. With a forceful clench of his fist, the incandescent flames wrapped around his fists once more.
*Bam*
Before No.3 could even react, the flaming fist slammed into his chest and sent his entire body careening through the air.
Next to him, Big 4 was able to recover his stance with the time bought by No.3. As No.3 was sent flying, he counter attacked with his spiked mace.
However, this attack was immediately stopped by the steel-like palms of the Demon Child, who with a clench of his fist, immediately took control of the incoming mace. With a violent tug, the mace left the hands of Big 4 and was immediately tossed away by Chipped Horn. With a fiery punch to his body, Big 4 was sent flying as well, his injuries just as severe as No.3. The pair would probably be unable to get up for a while.
In the short span of time it took for him to defeat No.3 and Big 4, I wasn"t idling about either. As the familiar flames extended from my hands, I prepared my sneak attack.
Flame Whip!
The snake-like whip coiled around the left leg of Chipped Horn without much trouble. As the flames crackled, my heart fell. His leg was unharmed.
"It"s useless. Flames cannot harm me." With a light kick of his foot, the flames binding it dispersed harmlessly into the air.
I was aware of his flame resistance, but this was the only option I had.
The darkness arrows were simply too weak. It was still effective against large imps, but against head imps, its effects were significantly weaker. The enemy in front was even stronger than a head imp, so casting them was merely a waste of mana.
My nether flames were still sealed up, so I couldn"t use them. As for the bone wall...he was already able to break through them when he was a head imp. That means only my flame whip had any chance of working. No matter how slim those chances were, I still wanted to take the gamble.
Unfortunately, that gamble failed miserably. As expected, he was immune to my flames.
"Err...let"s sit down and talk, there"s no need for all this violence."
"I want you!"
Chipped Horn wasn"t in the mood to waste anymore time. He glared at me for a moment before instantly pouncing towards me.
d.a.m.n it, don"t just jump straight into action after saying so!
Bone Wall!
In this crucial moment, I ended up relying on my bone wall after all. Even though I knew it was useless, I still struggled.
The creamy white wall immediately rose up from the ground, blocking the path between me and Chipped Horn. He wasn"t able to react to the sudden obstacle in front of him and rammed headlong into it.
*crash*
The tank-like demon child rammed right through the bones as if they were merely paper. With that, the bone wall crumbled into a pile of broken shards. This was soon followed by the sound of a second bone wall being destroyed, and then a third...However, at this moment my eyes flickered to his feet, and a bone wall instantly rose at the point where his foot was about to land.
My plan was to trip him with my bone wall as he landed. The unexpected landfall would cause him to lose his balance and fall. Unfortunately for me, having evolved into a demon child, Chipped Horn seemed to have gained inhuman reflexes as well.
The moment he noticed the bone wall, he shifted his weight towards the front, regaining his balance. With a light kick of his feet, he made a tiny leap off the rising wall, as if it were stepping stone.
While he wasted time on this tiny wall, I prepared a 4th bone wall in his path. If everything went according to plan, he wouldn"t be able to change his course midair and would crash right into that wall.
However, tactics were meaningless in front of such immense strength. Even with my mana strengthening this wall, the outcome was still as bleak as the other three.
While he wasn"t able to change course as expected, he instead clasped his hands together and raised them up high. His muscles bulged as he brought them down onto the wall, cleaving roughly into the wall like an axe. The bone wall exploded in a ma.s.s of fragments and dust as if it was merely a gla.s.s wall…
This monster was actually able to break through four of my walls with such ease...
Run...that"s all that went through my mind. At this moment, there was nothing else I could do but run. Thankfully, a number of my subordinates had already arrived at the chapel entrance. There were 10 ordinary large imps. With their usual howls, they rushed towards the chapel with their bone clubs raised high.
Seeing the reinforcements, my panicking heart calmed down slightly. However, this good news only made Chipped Horn that much more anxious. He immediately followed his chop up with a punch towards me.
With the previous incident still fresh in my mind, the image of my grimoire resurfaced once more as I threw it out at the incoming fist. Book and fist met once again and just like the previous time, the grimoire was harmlessly knocked to the side. His punch wasn"t able to expend its full strength, and only caused the grimoire to fly away without breaking the bone chain.
As it did so, the bone chain yanked me slightly to the side. Following its lead, I fell to the side, barely dodging the blow.
This was the umpteenth time that I had dodged his attacks, and it was starting to get on his nerves. He immediately tried to attack once more. However, that previously missed attack gave the large imps enough time to reinforce me. As they rushed in through the doorless entryway, they stood between me and Chipped Horn.
"Stall him." While 10 one-star imps were definitely not a match for the three-star Chipped Horn, I had no other choice at the moment. In order to live, I have to resort to whatever means I had at my disposal, no matter how ugly it was.
"Protect the Master!" Their loyal cries echoed in the air as they threw themselves at Chipped Horn.
"No matter how many you throw at me, trash will still be trash." He coldly said as he swept his gaze over the incoming imps and stared right into my eyes.
Without wasting a single second, he sent the front most imp flying. What followed was a one man show of Chipped Horn bullying the 10 imps. With his flames and terrifying speed, the large imps were simply no match for him. Their bone clubs were like mosquito bites to him; a slight discomfort and nothing more.
His attacks on the other hand, took a life with each square hit he landed. Even those fortunate enough to live were badly crippled and could only lay at the side, moaning.
In a short span of 10 seconds, the large imps were taken care of. As for me, I made use of this time to escape to the chapel doorway.
At the same time as this, the guardsmen led by One-eye finally emerged from the underground tunnel. Nine-finger and Big 1 were still nowhere to be seen and of the 40 guardsmen only 35 came up. It was highly likely that they were either dead or severely injured.
No.3 and Big 4 weren"t dead but they weren"t able to get up either. They tried multiple times to stand up but their attempts were all futile. Chipped Horn"s punches had injured them greatly; on their chests was a clear imprint of a devil"s fist. Judging from the way it caved in, the bones underneath were probably crushed as well.
"Master! I"m back!"
I would"ve never thought that the day would come where that potato"s voice would sound so sweet to my ears. Right in the nick of time, No.5 managed to bring the shieldbearers and saber wielders over. With the almost simultaneous appearance of my two armed forces, the battle was finally swinging in our favor.
As the shieldbearers and saber wielders were a part of my main forces, they usually rested not too far away from me. Even so, the fact that No.5 was able to bring them over so soon was surprising.
"Surround him!" Under my command, 20 shieldbearers rush out in front of me and set up a straight line wall. Behind them, the saber wielders took up their positions, ready to defend the wall. Under the command of One-eye, the guardsmen began blocking off Chipped Horn"s other escape route. And so nearly 80 armed to the teeth devils formed a fearsome encirclement around Chipped Horn.
The survivors from the initial 10 large imps crawled behind the new defensive line, and as for No.3 and Big 4, a couple of guardsmen brought them to safety.
In spite of his dire situation, Chipped Horn roared in a brazen display of arrogance, as if to say that he was the strongest devil under the heavens. "Useless. It"s all useless. The me right now is invincible! Gwhaahahah...!"
Wow...don"t you know that the [I"m invincible] flag is a death flag. Whoever raises it will surely die.
While his boasting only elicited a mental tsukkomi from me, it seemed to have frightened One-eye and the others considerably. They were relatively young devils after all. Even though they had inherited memories, their world was still limited to this land of the dead and the blood sea.
Originally, we should"ve have been able to dominate this land with our refined weapons, but we ended up meeting a three-star devil. Furthermore, it was in a narrow tunnel. Losing was a given.
However, this loss still affected them mentally. The terrifying image of Chipped Horn"s fists had traumatised them significantly, impairing their ability to think clearly. To be fair, three-star devils were significantly stronger than two-star devils. Putting aside Big 1, even No.3 and Big 4 were defeated in one blow. And that was with their new weapons!
"Invincible my a.s.s, how shameless can you get!" Out of all my subordinates, the only one who remained level headed was surprisingly, that idler, No.5. Even while everyone was suppressed by the pressure of the three-star Chipped Horn, this strange one-star imp was busy heckling him: "Who the h.e.l.l you think you are! Our Master is the strongest under the heavens!"
"..." I almost gave myself a facepalm as he said this. This brother had just been toyed around like a little rabbit by this three-star, and you still dare to claim that I"m the strongest? How am I the strongest? Is it my face? Or is it my disposition.
Can you not be so shameless!
Seeing my face fall, the ignorant little scamp turned to me and asked: "What"s the matter Master? Did I say anything wrong?"
"Attack, don"t waste anymore time on useless bantering!" I glared at the potato, shutting him up. As Big 1"s condition was still unknown, command of the shieldbearers and saber wielders fell to me. I swiftly a.s.sumed command and shouted: "Shieldbearers advance! Saber wielders keep up with them."
"Guardsmen advance!" One-eye ordered his guardsmen to advance as well. Knowing him, he should"ve been right at the head of the charge. The fact that he was commanding from the sidelines meant that he was still wary of Chipped Horn"s powers.
"Come at me! It"s going to be a glorious battle!"
Chipped Horn roared, flashing me a strange smile. Without wasting a second, he immediately charged at the shieldbearers.
These shieldbearers were specialized defensive troops. Their sole job was to defend us with their colossal bone shields. Chipped Horn who had no experience fighting them, naturally didn"t know of this and stupidly charged at their defenses.
His charge managed to knock away two shieldbearers but that was the whole extent of his advance. As soon as he did so, three shieldbearers rushed at him with their shields raised. With his stance still in the process of recovering, he still managed to knock away two of the three shieldbearers.
As for the third shieldbearer, he managed to succeed in his sneak attack. As he came in diagonally from the back, he was able to make use of the opportunity created by his four comrades, and bashed Chipped Horn squarely with his heavy bone shield, disrupting his balance.
Footnotes:
Credits:
Special thanks to Steve Granger, Ichitsuzen, and LaRue Martin!!