Jake was taken aback by the initial show of strength by Azekiel, but he didn't let it phase him for long as he ran ahead at full speed.
He didn't just run straight to Azekiel without any preparations though. As a King, he also had many tricks under his sleeve in the form of the skills that only he could use.
Each of his skills had been trained as much as possible. Without even opening his System screen, he used one of those skills.
Thousands of shackles came out of the ground, shooting straight for Azekiel's ankles. At the same time, the gravity on Azekiel increased so that he couldn't escape at the right time from those shackles by jumping.
Surprisingly, Azekiel didn't even try to escape. Instead, he just made his Gauntlets transform back into the Ax and sliced down on the shackles that had barely managed to wrap around his feet.
No matter what skill was used to create those shackles, before the Gauntlets of Gluttony, those shackles couldn't last long and broke into a thousand pieces.
As Azekiel got distracted by the shackles, the man had already managed to reach him. Not only did the shackles keep Azekiel in his place long enough for Jake to reach him, but they also distracted him to some extent, allowing Jake an opportunity.
Azekiel swung his sword once again. It was quite strange that as a King he preferred only to kill Azekiel through his sword even though he could use many long distance attacks to achieve the same.
Even Azekiel had noticed the same thing. It was just too evident for him that the man wanted to kill him using his swords.
Even Azekiel didn't know why it was, but he had some guesses.
There could only be two reasons behind it. One was that the Sword gave him some advantage like additional experience after every kill, which he wasn't going to receive any other way. In that sense, it was going to be similar to his Gauntlets in some way since his Gauntlets also gave him an advantage if he killed a King using them.
The other possibility that Azekiel could think of was that the Sword was poisoned, and he wanted to leave at least a scratch on his body to let that poison take effect.
Whatever being the case, he just couldn't allow the weapon to touch him. It wasn't worth the risk. The more Jake wanted to use the Sword; the more Azekiel decided to avoid it.
Once again, the sword was right next to his throat; however, it just couldn't touch his neck.
An ax was blocking the Sword from even touching him, let alone hurting him.
"I respect your conviction, but I'll have to end this here."
With a pale face, the man lowered his head to see a Sword that was stabbed right inside his body.
Azekiel didn't just have an ax, but he had another Weapon of Sin. Only a weapon of sin was a weapon that could pass through the defense of a King, which was why the man was more focused on the Ax, not paying attention to anything else.
Even he hadn't expected Azekiel to have another weapon like that.
"Urgh!" The man grunted as Azekiel twisted the blade inside his body.
He could only jump back, still holding his bleeding chest. Azekiel struck right where a person's heart was supposed to be. Despite that, the man was still standing, albeit with a pale face.
"How do you have two?" the man exclaimed. It was a different matter if he could transform one weapon into another weapon of sin, but this time it was literally a second weapon.
"Interesting. You still aren't dead..." Generally, most Kings were dead as soon as their heads were sliced off or their hearts were attacked, but the man was still standing.
"I am a Damic." Jake glared back at Azekiel, clenching his fist tightly. "If you think you can kill me that easily, you are wrong!"
"Ah, so you're a Damic. That makes more sense. Unlike most of the species that have their hearts on the left, yours normally have it on the right. Then again, that doesn't change a single thing. You're still dead."
Even though Jake avoided the critical hit straight to his heart, thanks to his species, but he still couldn't avoid something else.
Initially, he was angry that he was hurt but also happy that he had managed to escape alive from an attack that could've killed him. However, his happiness didn't last for long as he noticed something.
His body was in heavy pain, which made him lower his head, looking at the wound on his chest. Strangely enough, even with his healing abilities, his wound wasn't healing.
On the contrary, his wound had turned pitch black, as if it was rotting. Moreover, that rotting was only increasing.
"Poisoned Weapon?" he asked as his legs buckled under his own weight without any control.
It was as if his legs also stopped working at around the same time. The man dropped to his knees. If glares could kill, his bloodshot eyes would've killed him multiple times already.
The man couldn't believe that he had been fooled like that.
The weapon that Azekiel used wasn't just a weapon of sin like others. It was a Cursed Weapon of Sin, where each wound from it was enough to poison an enemy, let alone when the wound was so deep.
"I should thank you for the idea..." Azekiel commented, walking closer to the man. It was when he thought of the reasons the man was using the Sword to kill him did he realize that he also had something similar to that.
It was also easier to kill Jake this way without showing too much of his tricks. This way, even if a King found out that another King had been killed, they could only imagine that Jake underestimated the enemy and was killed thanks to being hit by the weapon.
When the death came from poison, rarely was anyone going to question his abilities. This kind of death already implied that the enemy wasn't strong enough and had to resort to sneaky tricks to win a battle.
The sword which was guarding the line in the back couldn't wait anymore. It was clear that Jake was in danger.
Realizing his situation where he couldn't move his body or heal, Jake called his second sword to not only block Azekiel but also to kill him. It was only when Azekiel was dead that the cursed weapon was going to disappear along with the poisonous effects!
The Sword flew to Azekiel on its own. Unfortunately for the Sword, Azekiel was closer to the man than the sword was to him.
Before the sword could get to him, Azekiel reached Jake.
A beautiful ax moved, slicing even the winds on the way. A head flew up, wholly separated from the body before eventually falling on the ground. Everything happened so fast that Jake couldn't even yell.
The sword which was flying to Azekiel stopped mid-way as it lost its owner. The headless body also dropped to the ground.
Even though Jake was killed, the poison still hadn't stopped spreading everywhere inside his body, destroying it particle by particle.
Azekiel sent his Ax back to his inventory before casting Soul Snatching. The rules about not killing other Kings were from the kings of this floor, but he didn't place any importance on this rule as he wasn't a part of the ground which was going to clear the floor in a team.
Seeing Azekiel kill Jake, the men and women in the back finally started running once again since the flying sword had disappeared. Their path was clear now! And this was also the only way to escape since all other paths were still covered by other Kings!
The massive crowd finally had a path which they could escape from, and everyone who was still alive took the path in running. Seeing the flow of people move in one direction, the other people also slowly realized that one path was clear for them.
More and more people took that direction, and finally, the crowd that was running in random directions had one direction they could take. Despite that, there was still a stampede as every person tried to run faster than the one in front of them to avoid the Kings in the back that were coming closer.
With time, even the other Kings realized that the people had found a way to escape. They didn't know who wasn't doing their duty properly, but they couldn't let him happen since finding these people one by one and killing them was going to be much harder.
The old man sent more people to check what was happening and stop people.
Azekiel didn't care what was happening behind him as he had already left in the meantime, not caring about the people in the back.
He didn't go too far, either... Taking position above a distant building.
