1591 Hunting Soul Beasts
"SHAAAH!"
The Giant Frost Spiders came by the dozens, rapidly surrounding us. Each one was a literal giant, easily surpassing fifty meters of height, while the ghouls we fought before could only reach thirty meters. Fighting them was also slightly trickier, we had to quickly evade their frozen spiderwebs while making sure to not get hit by their freezing poison spits, which can poison a soul and slowly take away their Soul Ether, while also freezing it and weakening it the more time the poison spread through it.
I constantly conjured Demonic Soul Barriers, made using my Demonic Soul to quickly shield against the poison and then tear them to shreds with a barrage of weapon attacks, Marchosias Demonic Spirit Weapons dealing the most damage due to the power of destroying souls they possessed.
Meanwhile, Miranda spread out barriers and tentacles of Mold, imbuing them with Demonic Spirit Energy so she could easily pierce through their soul exoskeletons, managing to parasitize a few and turning them into her temporary zombie soldiers, which we used to more easily navigate the Labyrinth made by these spiders and their freezing threads.
Benladann in the other case more actively protected our children with my father's support. Her soul and dragon form had received a tremendous upgrade after she was crowned as the Primordial Dragon Mother of Chaos Dragons, giving her further Soul Ether and defenses.
Her chaotic dragon breath, her powerful chaos magic, and her mighty axe, Hel, were used to easily tear through enemies that came from areas I couldn't easily cover with my own attacks and magic.
At the same time, my father spread his Sinful Flames with more dexterity, forming pseudo summons in the shape of black dragons using his flames combined with soul flames, which worked as good targets for the spiders to attack, distracting them enough for us to deal finishing blows on them.
My father's magic had developed and evolved more than the last time we saw him fight for real, which was back then in the Earths' Dragon Tournament, that happened even before we visited the Aquarius Archipelago.
His Sinful Flames and his Darkness Magic were mostly about cursing foes with stat-decreasing abilities and making them weaker than himself. His Sinful Flames in specific were amazing, now that I thought about it, weren't they demonic magic? How can he conjure that without being a Demon King?
CRAAASH!
As I crushed the head of the Giant Frost Spider Queen, three times as large as the others, but that fell into pieces once I hacked through it with Hephaestus, my Demon Bone Axe, and Marchosias Demonic Spirit Weapons shaped into giant axes, I decided to ask him more about it.
"I've been wondering for a while, father. What's with your magic? How can you target things such as sins and such? I thought only Demon Kings could conjure Primordial Sin Demon Magic." I asked, as I waved my hand and the giant carcass disappeared, store inside of my inventory.
"Oh, well, this is not technically the same foundations. It is actually an advanced form of Divine Curse Magic." He said. "It directly targets a foe's psyche. The sins they commit usually accumulate within their minds without them knowing. It works better on sentient and intelligent beings, but it still worked on these monsters anyways. It's not really Demon Magic, hahah. However, I've been delving further into Death Magic. After all, we Dark Dragons have a good affinity with both Curse and Death Magic, which are connected directly with Darkness."
"Death Magic… I do have a good affinity with that too! I even evolved into a Death Dragon at one point. And could Vampire Dragons be considered some sort of form of Death Dragons too?" I wondered.
"Perhaps they could be. You became one after your latest evolution, isn't it? Unlike Sangre, you became like that willingly…" He nodded.
"Y-Yeah, it was the only evolution strong enough to actually be able to fight him back then. And it was disappointing to realize how weak I was when I defeated him, only to see it was a Divine Blood Clone." I sighed.
"Sangre… How strong is that child? He's not really my son, as he was born an egg your mother laid alone before meeting me." Fafnir sighed. "But I do feel the slight responsibility… To maybe become his stepfather. Would he ever accept such a pathetic man as myself?"
"You're not pathetic, father. You're strong." I laughed. "Don't look down on yourself so much. And about Sangre, I don't know… He's already old for such things, but if possible. If we can truly become a family again… It is worth a try. But before that, I doubt he'll ever allow any of this. The Demon King Seed inside of him will continue infecting his soul with dreadful energy and thoughts. Hell, he's probably already below the sin's influence. I'll need to give him more than just a beating to get him back to normal. And I don't even know what his "normal" even is!"
"Hmm…" Fafnir nodded. "Perhaps I could help you in that regard, but there are my own problems inside of Svartalfheim my mother had tasked me to solve now. A dispute between many of the still living Dark Dragons living there. There's a really problematic youngling that arrived. Someone that is stronger than anybody else and is beating the local Dragons and forcing them to become his servants under a powerful Curse."
"What? Why didn't you tell me that?! Who is he?" I asked.
"Hmm, his name is "Abyss", and he's really wicked. That brat, I don't even know where he came from." Sighed Fafnir. "But don't worry, we didn't tell you because you already got your own problems to solve! We can't just ask you to come help us. Also, it's not like the other Dark Dragons are letting that slide. We'll stop him, don't worry."
"A Dark Dragon as strong as him?" I wondered. "I do remember Emerald told me an evil dragon also beat him when he was flying in the skies. He had dark scales and possessed demonic magic. Could it be him?"
"Hmm, dunno. We'll have to see once I confront him." Fafnir shrugged.
