RD 3 Ch 42

Chapter 42

The time for talking seemed to be over as General Zaydelin lunged at me. The demon general’s hand morphed into a massive claw with shadows twisting off the tips as he took a swipe at me.

I blocked his attack with my sword, sidestepping and swinging his hand away. Spinning back, I attempted to chop him with my blade.

But the General scattered into thousands of shadows like a swarm of insects. They parted before my blade, spilling out to the side and reforming, only for him to come swinging at me once again.

This time, I didn't block. Letting his claws dig into my shoulders, I allowed my blood to stain his hands. I needed to find a way to contain the demon general, not just in this melee, but overall.

From what I knew in the past, Zaydelin had a storied history of escaping when he should have died. He even managed to survive the Second Demon War, hiding somewhere until the third.

He was the closest thing to a demonic cockroach if I’d ever seen one.

Now that I had the opportunity to kill him, I needed to use it to its fullest extent. There was no better chance than here. 

My blood on his claws began to twist, inscribing on the back of his hand as I continued to fight him. I blocked some attacks, letting others pierce my flesh and my blood flow once again.

He fought savagely, panting raggedly. It was as if he was savoring the experience, almost erotically. Yet at times, he held himself back. It was a strange dichotomy that told me much about him. He craved victory, but held himself back with an abundance of caution. 

"Why are you so calm, Bran?" Zaydelin mocked, my name a curse on his lips. 

"This is far from over," I said, stepping out of his reach and cutting off his arm.

A multitude of shadows spilled out onto the ground, grabbing onto his ankles and reforming. General Zaydelin wasn't bleeding from any of my attacks, even losing an arm.

For whatever reason, even if I willed it within my soul, he wasn't acting as if he had a normal body. I could only assume there was some system ability in play to overcome even my control within my soul. 

"It might be far from over, but the end result is already decided, Bran," Zaydelin continued to taunt me. "I watched you while you moved through the vault, you know," he goaded me as we fought. Every one of his attacks that landed left me wounded, while his own mistakes were unpunished, his body simply reforming. 

"Oh, and what did you learn?" I decided to engage him. My eyes tracked his every move, ensuring I had plenty of blood around us as we fought. I was building a pool of my own blood beneath us, one that I could use to launch a final attack. 

"I learned you're cautious. You had enough intelligence to see those fruits and understand they were perhaps a little too good to be true." 

"Oh, is that what you think I was doing?" I smirked, just wanting to throw him off. "Oh no, I was convinced my own alchemy abilities would be able to make them better once we got out.

The general laughed. "Oh trust me, they are far beyond your alchemical means, however strong you think your ability may be," General Zaydelin smirked. "No, those fruits are made with the essence of your dying human friends.” He cackled.

“Some of them are even made from demonic souls," I added with a wink, causing General Zaydelin's lips to press down in a frown as he lost his hand again. 

"You knew," the general squinted his eyes.

“That there was something in these that was going to weaken my soul and make me susceptible to possession?" I asked, keeping close watch as he gave it away. A grin spread across my face despite the blood and pain. "Of course I knew. You can't think you're the first to have such a clever idea?”

Playing with each other's emotions was a two-way street. I got great joy out of seeing his eyes narrow with suspicion. 

"How do you know that?" He demanded. 

I scoffed. "And why do I have to tell you that? Aren't you the great General Zaydelin, the demon that's going to possess me and steal this body and my abilities?" I continued to mock him. "Certainly, you don't need me to tell you that there are more than one of these vaults that demons have seeded with their souls and placed on Earth, do you? You've been here for hundreds of thousands of years, slowly but surely biding your time for when the barrier on Earth will break and you and the rest of your demon buddies can come through and claim Earth. I'll admit, I don't know why Earth is that important to you, but I understand the game that's being played."

There it was, I laid my cards on the table to see his reactions.

The General's eyes continued to narrow as his arm regrew. He flexed the new limb, a smile penetrated his confusion. "Again, the details here are of no consequence. The game has already been played. Within your soul, you have no means for a brute like you to capture someone with my abilities." He clammed up.

"Oh, and would you care to tell me what those are?" I asked as my eyes glowed gold, a Soul Gaze searching him for the answers myself.

[Name: Bran Heros

Level: 866

Class: Devouring Swarm SSS

Status: Ravenous, Gleeful

Strength: -

Agility: -

Vitality: -

Intelligence: - 

Spirit: 16921 

Skills: 

Swarm Body SS

Multiplying Swarm S

Dark Matter S

Hive Mind S

…]

He was just a soul, so some of the abilities made perfect sense to me. However, there were a few that brought me great confusion. It also wasn't exactly easy to read through everything while keeping up a fight with the Demon General, especially one this talkative.

"Do you understand yet?" The General jumped back, giving me a moment of breathing room, licking his clawed hand like my blood was delicious. "You can't defeat me," he smirked.

"Don't you mean us?" The grin only grew on my face as the General's expression shifted to horror.

He shifted back the mask a moment later, but it was too late. "I have no idea what you mean. Don't tell me in your desperation you've come up with some creative theories."

I pointed at him with my sword as we stood across the field of battle. "Oh, it's not a creative theory at all. I have to say, your skill list is exhausting. You've been around for quite some time, haven't you, General?" My smile did not falter as I watched him.

The General threw himself at me. This time, he came in a rapid advance. His claws  both swung for me, only for a third to grow from his back and try to catch me like a scorpion's tail.

I laughed, parried, and blocked while jumping backwards all while working to create space between us. I had spilled enough blood.

Now was the fun part. My smile grew wider as I focused on the wounds covering my body and healed them all in the blink of an eye. 

"Don't you know, General, most of us can be quite resilient when we need to be." I enjoyed his face as he studied me. 

"You were hiding your strength," he asked. Before he chuckled, "Arrogant fool of a human. You stand before you a demon general. Yet you dare hide your strength?" 

I laughed and couldn't help but notice how upset my laughter made him. Unfortunately, that only made me laugh harder. 

"Imbecile," he roared and came at me again.

"I was trying to figure out how it is you're so damn good at avoiding death, General Zaydelin.” I told him.

“Do you know me?" He asked, pausing in his attack just enough for me to cut off his third arm.

In the same fluid motion, I severed his head. His entire body fell into little scattering motes of shadows. And even then, after having his head removed, they began working to gather themselves and reform into a new whole body.

Even though I had suspected this was going to happen based on my theory, there was still a feeling of disappointment.

"I do and I don't, General. You and I share some similarities, unfortunately. You see, like the demons, I've waited a long time and I've come a long way to stop you. Only while you've been waiting here, I came from the future. I've seen you, General Zaydelin, do horrible, horrible things. But, I also know enough to piece together how to stop you."

The demon’s frown did not last long.

I was used to their arrogance, and how little they thought of humans. They never did believe we could outsmart them.

"So you're telling me you have proof from the future that I survive this fight? I become greater? Oh, tell me. Do I become a demon lord? Oh, no, no, no. A demon god." He said the words with a maniacal grin on his face. "You don't have to tell me. I know it's in the cards for me." He continued to chuckle. "After all, I am the great demon Zaydelin. Tell me, how immortal do I become? My feats must be many and great."

My comment had gone to his head, in all the wrong ways.

I clicked my tongue in disappointment. "No. You're a fucking cockroach that refuses to die. You've been stamped out dozens of times by humans and reduces to a weak demon that crawled back up. Treated like a slave, crushed beneath their boot. Really? I'm just doing a lot of humans a big favor, making sure you die for good the first time. That way so much effort doesn’t have to be expended on you." 

His eyes narrowed. "You lie. I have a far greater destiny awaiting me, and you can't convince me otherwise." His lips spread into a predatory grin. "Especially after I take your body, consume all of this knowledge of the future that you hold, and use it to transform myself into something even greater than what you witnessed in your past life." 

A shadowy tongue emerged from his mouth and wiped across his lips. "Yes, I can see it now. Your bevy of beautiful ladies, all twisted into demonic forms. Their bodies are at my beck and call."

My hand gripped the hilt of the blood blade tighter. "You should be careful, General. I'm a jealous man."

The idea of him having my women spurred me forward. I would never let him touch them.

Going on the offensive, I crashed into the demon with powerful blows. The hits drove him back, scattering his form multiple times before I threw him to the ground over the pool of blood that I had built in our earlier part of the fight.

The General just laughed. "There's nothing you can do to stop me for good. All you're doing is exhausting yourself." 

Rather than running him through with the sword and seeing him scatter once again, I let the sword melt over him as there was an invisible egg. The pool of blood came up from the group to meet it, wrapping him in a cocoon.

Inscriptions spooled out a dozen at a time, glowing a deep red as they imprinted their power on General Zaydelin's soul.

He screamed from inside the cocoon of blood, railing against the confines. "This is impossible," he roared. "You cannot trap me with a simple puddle of blood." 

He fought hard. The bubble of blood, warped underneath his blows. It twisted its shape all over the place as General Zaydelin fought tooth and nail.

I had my full concentration on the orb. Different inscriptions activated in sequence, punishing him one by one while his body was contained. I cut him, I crushed him, I burned him, and I poisoned him, inflicting any and every status ailment I was able to imagine. The hits happened in quick succession, one after the other and I didn’t let up. 

General Zaydelin had an ability that meant he was many bodies in one. Each one of those little fleeting shadows was its own mind, its own demon. General Zaydelin was not a singular individual. Instead, he was a hive mind of little shadow demons, all working towards the same goal.

That meant each and every one of those cuts I inflicted on him might have directly killed one or two, but the thousands that made up his body never faltered. Fighting swarm creatures was one of my least favorite activities. 

Inside the sphere was a poisonous, hot, cold, and whirling maelstrom of chaos. Yet he still found the energy to speak. "If you know anything about me, Bran," my name was once again a curse upon his lips, "then you know I never lack contingencies." 

I stared back confidently into the mess. "In order to possess me, you would have had to bring your full self."

All the parts of General Zaydelin might be able to function like a hive mind, yet the mind itself was the central entity, and all of the various pieces would have to be present. 

The General laughed, "Sacrificing a few pieces, perhaps I will make them into new demons, my next set of lieutenants after I succeed." He laughed. "They sit outside this area. The second you manage to do any significant harm to me, they will scatter like the wind," he warned. "They will know where I was when I died and who would have had to kill me. They will make your life a living hell." 

I laughed, "Oh, trust me, I'm well aware that all of you demons could turn Earth into a living hell." Flashes of my past flit by and I clenched my fist and the pressure inside the blood sphere exploded, causing several more inscriptions to come to life on the exterior.

General Xadalin's screams were nothing but sweet music to my ears. It was a symphony to my fallen allies.

There was nothing I enjoyed more than killing demons, and the fact that I was about to be able to kill thousands at once only made me grin wider.