DD 203 Ch 31

Chapter 31

With stacks of [Liminal Speed] beginning to build up, I was able to face Demon Lord Snu Snu head-on rather than running. He had shaken off Bun Bun and blown away the fire from Des's spell.

Now, Demon Lord Snu Snu had refocused on me, calling forth an enormous number of chains from the shattered pillars, trying to lock me down.

But I was not dissuaded, and I would not run. My blades smacked away the chains as I stayed on Demon Lord Snu Snu and began damaging him.

"Don't kill him, Ken, I have an idea!" Des shouted. She pulled out an old, worn, leather-bound tome and began flipping through it.

"Is this really the time for some light reading, Des?" I shouted back, jumping over a set of chains and slashing at Snu Snu while I wove around him. I tried to use the chains against his massive body. If they tangled up his legs then maybe he’d stop using them.

As I predicted, he picked up his legs, trying to dance around the chains as I threatened to tie him down. I slashed at his legs, not letting him be able to focus on the chains as much as he would like.

After all, he was controlling the chains with gestures from his hands, turning it into a comical dance as he hopped from one leg to the other waving his arms about.

Fayeth was staying just outside the swirling mess of chains, slashing with her glaive, while Charlotte was throwing heals on both of us.

Meanwhile, Demon Lord Snu Snu started throwing gouts of fire to pin me in.

I dove between his legs coming out the other side, my blades still carving away.

His chains managed to hook one of his ankles while chasing me and he stumbled. In a roar of frustration, he spun and slammed his hands down, forcing me to dodge back as the two car-sized fists shattered the stone in front of me and dispelled all of the chains. Fire blasted out from the cracks he’d made waves of flames rolling towards me.

I used [Elemental Shield] to protect myself from the flames, still feeling their heat.

"That's it! I got it!" Des shouted, holding her book and pulling a bag out of her CID. She was holding a bunch of bone dust, a rather common ingredient that we had plenty of, considering the raid that had plenty of skeletons. She began pouring the bag out as she ran.

Demon Lord Snu Snu sneered at her, "Foolish mortal. That won't work. I am no longer a drop of blood for you to infuse with Ken or a soul bound in his pitiful mind." The Demon Lord rose up arrogantly from where he'd smashed the ground. Though the effect was slightly ruined, his boss room was currently littered with smut magazines.

I didn't really have an option, given the fact that Demon Lord Snu Snu was intent on crushing me, and so I danced around him, continuing to damage him.

Des ran around the room, pulling out more and more bags of bone dust, making a large pentagram across the room. She sprinted like a madwoman.

Demon Lord Snu Snu took several more swipes at me as I dodged back, using his hands as something to hit with light strikes to keep up my stacks. Every part of his demonic form was rock hard and my blades sparked off even his fingers.

Bun Bun latched onto his ankle again, infuriating the Demon Lord, who shook his leg, trying to free himself of the rabbit who was now clinging on with all his might and biting as hard as he could.

"Get him, Bun Bun!" I encouraged the rabbit, who was doing a fantastic job of distracting the Demon Lord.

Des managed to run around the demon and draw a giant pentagram in record time. Finishing up and going to the side of the room, her book opened as she began to mutter under her breath.

I had to hope she knew what she was doing and I kept my focus on the boss.

"Where are you looking?" Demon Lord Snu Snu smashed at me, though I grabbed one of the magazines off the ground as I rolled away, and when his next swing came up, it stopped dead.

"Not the Baywatch edition!" He gasped, his fists stopping short of me, and the heat coming off of them, mellowing as he was too worried about burning the pages.

I held up the magazine with one hand, while my blade struck at him several more times, taking advantage of his indecision. It was almost unbelievable that this was working.

Demon Lord Snu Snu looked incredibly pained as he thought about hitting me, only to again look at the Baywatch edition, his face twisting up in sorrow. "No! I will not be stopped!" He wound up again, and this time I could tell the Baywatch edition wasn't going to be enough.

I threw it at him, his fists burning bright red as the magazine puffed into smoke mid-swing. His fists hammered down at me as I used dodge to get out of the way.

“Some may call me a demon, but that’s only because they don’t know the horrors in which you’ve wrought upon the world. You are truly evil!” He cursed me as he began pummeling the space in front of me with a dozen blows.

The hits created a small crater in the floor, and my swords danced along his wrist as I jumped and spun out of the way. I needed to stop being at a distance, so I ran closer to him. Now he did not have room to wind up and swing at me with his fists. He was left with the option of stomping on me.

Des held her book higher, as the bone dust began to burn bright red.

Demon Lord Snu Snu laughed. "See, it won't work!"

"Get him lower!" Des shouted.

As I reached Demon Lord Snu Snu's leg, I activated [Triple Breach], hitting him as hard as I could.

Des wasn't done yet, still chanting. "His mana too! Get him as weak as you can!" She called out.

I grumbled to myself, activating [Shadow Arm] and [Mana Burn], latching the combo onto the boss, and avoiding as he tried to stomp me into pancakes. "This better work," I shouted to Des as I danced around the boss, avoiding his feet that threatened to squish me every few seconds.

This was one of the most dangerous box experiences I'd ever experienced. After all, he was a level 55 boss and continued to focus on me rather than the tank, completely ignoring the dungeon system of aggro. It seemed while he was bound to some rules, he was not bound to all of them.

He summoned a fistful of chains and lashed them at me like a cat o’ nine tails. Fayeth jumped in front of me fully clad in her plant armor as she raised her shield and created a wall of vines that blocked the attack. 

"Thanks," I let out a breath, quickly dodging around her and continuing to attack the demon lord.

The attack had been rather dangerous, the chains having fanned out in erratic and wide angles, making it incredibly difficult to dodge.

I danced along beneath the boss, going as far as to jump up on his fist the next time he swung. My blades carved slashes all along, up to his shoulder. I even got up to his face. 

Felin wrapped myself in a bubble of ice just in time for the demon lord to breathe fire over me. The bubble helped me survive as I began to slash at his face. 

"Not the face!" Demon Lord Snu Snu shouted, sputtering and trying to knock me off his shoulder.

I ducked under his hands and wove around his fingers, coming up on the back of his neck and jumping down, my two swords dragging along his back as I carved long gouges in him. All along the way, my [Shadow Arm] clung to him and I used it like a rudder while he scratched at his back trying to rid himself of me like some sort of gnat.

Des shouted in triumph and the bone dust caught fire, jets of it encircling Demon Lord Snu Snu. The fire flickered from red to green and then settled on an eerie purple, that made me think of Des's hair. It spun up into the air, surrounding me and the demon lord. 

"Fayeth, get out!" Des said, "It's working!" She was more excited than me at the prospect of whatever she was doing. 

Fayeth rushed out of the formation and the demon lord stared down at me, pausing for a moment. 

"This will not work," he said amid the fire as it climbed towards the ceiling.

Des was muttering, "I can do this," over and over again to herself. 

"This will not work," turned to her, smirking. “When she's tired and this is over…” He trailed off, his smirk growing into something sinister as the flames thickened and cut us off from the rest of the party.

Now it was just me and Snu Snu amid the flames.

"No… maybe it will work," he air quoted with two fingers. "Perhaps you will reseal me," the demon lord smiled as the pentagram fully reached the ceiling and we were completely encased in walls of purple flames. "But I'll tell you a secret," Demon Lord Snu Snu laughed, "it won't be you." 

He then reverted from his massive demon form into the smaller humanoid form, his arms out in a grand gesture, beginning to melt away into blood.

I swung at the trails of blood, my swords cutting through it, but not stopping the flow one bit.

His smile was burned into my mind's eye as he faded, but my attention was snagged as his blood filled my vision and chased after me.

Despite my best attempt to evade, the blood wrapped around my body as I tried to slash it away. 

Demon Lord Snu Snu completely ceased to exist. Instead, a tidal wave of blood came at me from every angle until I could see absolutely nothing. 

And in that darkness, I woke up back in that space in my soul. Demon Lord Snu Snu and I both stood within the pentagram. Rather than a giant wall of purple flames around us, there was a low simmer of the pentagram on the ground. 

"This time, you will not defeat me," Demon Lord Snu Snu promised, dashing forward, his hands turning into claws. He came at me with a fierceness I had never seen from the relaxed Demon Lord before. 

I blocked, quickly realizing that I still had my stacks of [Liminal Speed], and dodged around him, slashing him several times with my sword before abandoning them for [Metamorphosis]. There was no time to hold back. It was time to give this fight my absolute all. 

With [Liminal Speed] active as well as [Metamorphosis], I thought I could finish this quickly. I activated [Triple Breach], [Dark Strike], and everything I had to push as much damage into Demon Lord Snu Snu as I could. The shock on his face was priceless as I immediately pushed him back. 

He scoffed as he blocked several of my attacks, spinning around, using my very own fighting form to match me blow for blow. 

"I have not been idle this entire time," Snu Snu demanded. As [Liminal Speed] lightning crawled along his arm, he added, "In fact, you can say here we are one in the same." His eyes were alight with delight.

In my shock, I fumbled, and he managed to scratch my cheek as I twisted out of the way. I came at him again, my claws slightly faster than his, but he was picking up speed all the same.

Rather than sticking strictly to my form, he jumped, slamming his fists down on the ground. The ripples underneath caused me to stumble, and he came up, gouging a large chunk away from my chest.

I twisted back, avoiding a fatal blow, and stomped my heel on the ground, activating Earth Stomp and stunning him for a second so I could regroup.

He had me on the defensive. If we were going to both be using [Liminal Speed], the last thing I wanted was to be on the defensive. Instead, I wanted to push myself as quickly as I could and build up more stacks rather than waste my time dodging or blocking. 

We both leaned into the fight, taking wounds just the same as we gave them. It was a bloody knockout brawl as the two of us shot around the pentagram, scoring hit after hit on each other, both fully focusing on offense.

Demon Lord Snu Snu leaned in, his eyes glowing. I knew that effect; I had seen it right before far too many deaths.

Knowing what he was doing, I activated [Liminal Space] at the same time as he did. The world exploded around us, and we were both still able to move, though my stacks were dropping at an incredible rate. The fight didn't stop; instead, we matched each other in the frozen space, the flickering flames of the pentagram around us, completely still amidst the broken shards of the space around [Liminal Space]. 

"I have more stacks than you," he said, though I knew he had no way to be absolutely sure. Demon Lord Snu Snu was trying to play mind games.

"We'll just have to see." I responded, matching him blow for blow, going as hard as I could, knowing that whoever had the most stacks would most likely win. The second one of us fell out of [Liminal Space] and froze would be the second the other finished this fight. I could feel the sweat bleeding down on my forehead, and I regretted that it had come down to this moment. 

Demon Lord Snu Snu froze mid-attack. Though he had been inside my soul for a period of time, I did not hesitate.

I raked my claws across Demon Lord Snu Snu's throat, spinning around him and grabbing his head as I too fell out of [Liminal Speed] a second later. I had never used them, but in [Metamorphosis], I had a wicked set of teeth, and I used them at this moment to tear out Demon Lord Snu Snu's throat.

I activated Elysara's [Vampire] ability and used its skill to heal off of Demon Lord Snu Snu's blood. Unfortunately, I couldn't have [Vampire] and [Metamorphosis] active at the same time. I shrank down to a thinner form while keeping a set of wicked fangs.

It didn’t matter, my wounds rapidly closed as I drained Snu Snu.

Snu Snu thrashed, and I drew my blade across his chest, opening up more wounds before I threw him forward. He clutched at his neck and his stomach.

I could tell he was at the end of his line. The haughty smirk the Demon Lord often kept on his face was completely gone. Instead, a disgusted sneer was spread across his face.

"In all this time, to think I would lose the race to becoming the Demon King to a pipsqueak like you," he said. Demon Lord Snu Snu smiled. "At least win the whole thing, so I lost to the winner." With those words, he collapsed into the pentagram, becoming nothing but a pool of blood. That blood rushed up, wrapping itself around me in a swirling, crimson cocoon.

***

Outside in the boss room, Des was panting, her heart pounding in her ears. She was reading from her grimoire as quickly as she could, not even letting herself breathe.

The boss room was eerily silent. The only noise was a soft sniffle from none other than Bun Bun, as they all stared at the cocoon of blood in the middle of the room. 

"What's happening?" Felin asked. 

Des looked at her book again. She hesitated. "I'm not exactly sure." 

"What do you mean you're not sure?" Charlotte screamed, charging over. Even the cute druid had hit her point.

"Well," Des pointed at the cocoon, "that wasn't supposed to happen. In fact, that's nowhere in the book."

Des began flipping through the pages and then back to the ones she had been trying to use. Given that Ken should have already had some demonic blood from when he first got Snu Snu, she thought she could use one of the technique that the Renard Family used to upgrade their own blood. It was a perfect idea, and it would also get rid of the raging problem in the room. 

Fayeth stuck her glaive in the ground in front of Des. "I will hold you responsible for whatever happens. We could have defeated the boss." 

"Have some faith in Ken," Des shot back, trying to hide her own worries. She absolutely loved Ken. And if something happened to him, she wouldn't need any of the others to punish her. She would certainly punish herself far worse than any of them could manage.