Boom!
Damien's fist impacted the sickle covered in black flames yet again. Their exchange had been going on like this from the start of the battle.
From what he could see, this Demon woman was far too prideful to use any other kinds of attacks against him even after seeing the power he used to decimate the legion she commanded, but he didn't really care.
In fact, it worked out better for him this way. After all, his plan was to thoroughly break her so he didn't have to trouble himself too much when it came time for interrogation.
The blade of the woman's sickle was far more thin and sharp than an ordinary weapon could achieve, but from what he could tell, it still landed within the realm of SSS rank.
And it would take a peak SSS rank that was better classified as a half-step Chaos rank artifact to pierce through his bodily defenses.
If she continued like this, he knew she wouldn't be able to scratch him at all, but that black flame was another matter altogether.
It contained a malice unlike anything he had felt from an element before. Whenever they made contact, it tried to crawl up his body as if it was sentient.
But yet again, it met its match. If his Void Physique that had now properly gained a connection with Void Essence couldn't expel this tiny amount of flame, it truly wouldn't live up to the domineering attitude it had shown before.
Damien smirked. It seemed he had met someone he could easily counter. Actually, this didn't seem to be a strange sight when he encountered the Nox.
From what he could tell, corruption and corrosion were their strong points, and those were the things he feared the least.
Still, he didn't let it get to his head. Knowing full well the taste of defeat after being beat senseless by the Incarnate Snow Beast King and being forced to flee by the members of the Eclipsing Shadow Sect, he was well aware that he wasn't someone considered unrivaled.
His idle thought didn't continue for long, as the black flames dancing along the woman's sickle became fiercer and fiercer with every exchange.
They seemed hellbent on burning through his defenses as if its pride had been damaged by his resistance.
The Demon General also had an annoyed expression on her face. She poured a greater amount of mana into the flame with an unwilling look while unrelentingly attacking.
Damien suddenly flashed away from his position, appearing one meter behind her and throwing an electricity-coated punch.
Even though they weren't close enough for his fist to hit her, the wind pressure from his attack did so on its own. And hidden within that wind pressure, a distortion of space.
Before she knew it, the woman was sent flying back, a portion of the cloth on her chest burned to shreds. Even her flawless skin had been slightly charred.
"What?"
She didn't understand how it happened, but that only made her rage boil even further. The fact that the first one injured in this fight was her, it was unacceptable.
Boom!
It seemed she could no longer handle the humiliation. The black flames burst from her body and covered her entirely, her piercing eyes became dyed red.
"Bastard!"
She shouted in anger. A beam of black light shot from her hands and arrived in front of Damien at insane speeds.
But Damien simply smirked in derision. When the beam reached a point one meter away from him, it suddenly switched course and made a sharp turn to the right.
But the woman was too frenzied to notice. She continued shooting beam after beam of concentrated black flames, her scarlet eyes burning with madness.
Damien watched the scene curiously behind the protection of his vector shield.
'Why is she so pent up over a single injury? Ah, well I guess it kind of makes sense.'
He doubted she had ever tasted the flavor of defeat before. In a realm like this one where demons were the supreme race, there was no situation for her to.
And with her inherently haughty and arrogant attitude, this kind of always winning would inevitably lead her to become complacent.
But Damien didn't feel like this was all there was to it. Her response to provocation could be explained with this much, but the amount of wrath she was showcasing wasn't at a level that he could simply call the result of arrogance.
No, she seemed to be influenced by outside forces.
'That black flame sure is interesting.'
Damien wanted to get his hands on that flame to see what was going on, but he figured he could do so after the battle ended.
Boom!
Leisurely watching the other battles taking place, Damien had a fun idea. Doing some slight calculations, he shifted the trajectory and magnitude forces of his vector field in slightly different directions.
The incessantly pouring black beams that were randomly striking the surrounding environment seemed to have gained a purpose. They moved in a targeted fashion, heading towards an unsuspecting demon general that was entirely tied up by the mysterious girl from before.
In all honesty, her battle was both the most and least interesting at the same time. The blackness that came from her shadow dominated the one the demon general tried to use, forcing him to fight with physical strength alone.
But the girl's movements were fleeting and nimble. She dodged his attacks like a loach. Every time he thought she was in a situation where she could no longer escape, she would somehow twist her body unnaturally and do exactly that.
He was frustrated. The stoic expression he held at the beginning couldn't maintain itself. He could feel it. Just like the captains from before, he was being toyed with.
Every once in a while, cuts and gashes would randomly appear on his skin, but even as he watched the girl with utmost focus, he couldn't tell when she moved. A primal fear was taking root in his heart.
He felt like prey that was standing in front of its natural predator.
His eyes soon became dyed scarlet. The girl's eyes also changed, showing a hint of interest. But before anything could happen, tens of black beams suddenly shot in their direction and hit the demon general squarely in the back.
His body shivered. He knew immediately what had hit him. In fact, he had been whipped by the same flames countless times before. Such had been his fate for so many years that he no longer felt any shame from it.
But now, those same flames had hit him in a much more visceral fashion. With every new beam that impacted his body, the burning hole in his back grew wider and more pronounced.
By the time the demon woman finally stopped firing after realizing something was wrong, he already had a massive hole in his chest.
The demon general's expression was aggrieved to say the least. Why did he have to die like this? Even if he died, why couldn't it be in a more justified way?
And just as his life force was about to fade away, the mysterious girl dropped what was apparently the final nail in the coffin.
"Awww~ Kill stealing is no fair!"
Those were the final words he heard before he dropped dead.
Hearing the girl's words, Damien broke into a fit of laughter unbefitting of the situation. "Alright, I see your point. But what was I supposed to do with these annoying beams?"
"Hmm~ Annoying? But that woman didn't seem to be playing around?" The girl responded, feigning innocence.
Damien smirked in response. "Please, a beam attack isn't supposed to be weak shit like that."
"Oh? Then what is a beam attack supposed to look like?"
While the girl spoke, she glanced at Feng Qing'er and suddenly waved her hands. A massive black barrier surrounded her, causing the endless stream of tentacles assaulting her to be held back.
Once her task was finished, the girl focused her attention back on Damien.
"Is that a provocation?" He asked with a smile.
"Why can't it just be a girl trying to satisfy her curiosity?" She quipped back.
"Fine, fine," Damien responded. "I guess I'll just have to show you then. Watch carefully."
Damien refocused his gaze on the demon general who was still fuming and covered in black flames. Her scarlet eyes hadn't reverted to their original black color yet, and she still seemed to be attacking madly.
Although his vector shield couldn't block physical attacks, she didn't seem to have realized it yet, as she was still throwing out a barrage of mana-based attacks.
"Sigh, how am I going to interrogate her if she's in this state? Welp, I guess a healthy dose of dragon's breath should snap her out of it."
Damien breathed in, his throat expanded to its limit. Sunflames coalesced within, as well as destructive black lightning. The two forces immediately tried to fight each other, but a strand of Void Essence entered the mix and quelled them.
It only took a second for all of this to happen. And when it finished, Damien opened his mouth wide. A fearsome roar left his mouth, accompanied by a massive beam of black and red light.
And at the same time, another dragon roar rang out from a separate part of the battlefield.
