The entire dome around me turns dark, and the faceless gaze that points down at me becomes colder and colder.
“Demons of the Vermillion Family—no—Demons of the Five Great Royal Families do not wish for each other’s downfall. You may be new to the Upper Realm, but your public insolence must still be punished. One minute. I will give you a single minute to survive with my Energy Manifestation that watches over this Citadel. Survive, and I will give you the opportunity to kneel and accept the prize I’ve offered you again. Fail, and I will kill you here and now with the Grand Citadel as my witness. Even Noble Demons that disobey are nothing but pawns to be eliminated when they are no longer useful in the Royal Families Grand Game!”
The mountain range, floating rings, and remaining trees in the forest region all begin to crumble and fall to the dome’s floor.
I feel vibrations rippling through me—tens of times more intense than any of the holographic recordings I felt while talking to this demon before.
Visuals of the outside show the entire green dome shaking, and waves of Lords and even Demonic Servants beginning to faint and lose grasp on their systems.
Automated safety suppression commands activate, but the demon’s growing aura keeps breaking through them.
More automated systems activate, and the ring of seated stands that surround this dome start to detach from each other and float backward through the air. They break off into about two dozen sections and, at fast speeds, eject away from the dome, floating up in the air and further away from the center of the Grand Citadel’s inner city to a safer distance.
Many Lords begin to wake up again, and the Announcer watching does not miss a beat.
A large one-minute timer appears in the air, and he starts yelling out like this is a normal show, throwing up betting odds and hyping up the crowds that start waking up.
On the other hand, I begin to let the spectate feed in the back of my mind fade away, as the aura that is rippling through me is actually quite intense.
My limbs start to feel numb, and my mind goes fuzzy for a second.
A drowsy sensation washes through me, and all of the numbers and skills available to me in my mind flicker, but Miriel’s yell snaps me out of it.
“Get ready, child! I had big plans for an ambitious young fledgling like you. But I will be equally happy to make an example out of a Noble that lets his ego overshadow his talent! Another like you will come along in a thousand years—you are not special!”
The timer ticks down, showing 59 seconds, and I watch all of the dense black shadowy waves of energy that cover the outside of the dome instantly sink back in toward the topmost point.
The dome itself is now translucent, white, with hints of green.
The structures inside have all crumbled to dust on its floor.
I float in its center as a small purple mass holding a glowing sword.
Yet, there is now the dark black demonic form that has manifested into reality high above me.
It’s roughly the same size as me, maybe twice as large at most—just over one kilometer tall.
Yet, it is made of dense black coiling energy, giving off such a menacing aura, I can’t think straight when I look at it.
All of my inspection, appraisal, and perception skills are activated, but it is truly just energy. There is no avatar, no enchanted gear, nothing gives back any readings.
It’s like I’m staring at a body double—or even more simple than that, a clone made of nothing but Noble Vibrations and demonic energy.
Yet, it easily forms a long black staff in its grasp, making the end sharp like a spear, but slightly curved like a blade. Though, it oscillates and shifts, making it seem alive.
In between heartbeats, the demon disappears, but I feel the cold vibrations getting stronger and stronger as fractions of milliseconds pass.
My survival instincts act on their own, and I pull every single available stat from the pool, not touching the 20% total necessary for my generals. The full power of 50% of the borrowed stats from over 4 hundred thousand worlds rushes in, granting me over double the strength and reaction time from an instant ago.
I twist my body and activate the true core ability of every single one of my new divine-grade stat-boosting skills I upgraded in the wilderness, shifting the color of my demonic form much brighter to glow with a white, red, and yellow hue.
Then I slam my purple blade against the spear aimed straight for my chest.
The shockwave of Noble Vibrations that explodes from this clash fills the dome with equal amounts of heat and cold, making it crack under the pressure and forcing the Grand Citadel to surge with a white light as stored ether beneath its streets pulses toward the center of the fight arena in order to trigger emergency safety protocol for energy surges like this.
I feel splinters of cold surge through my body as well.
We’re both floating in the center of the dome, spear to sword, and waves of numbness trickle through my body.
It is like a veil of shadows is falling down on top of me, making my perception of reality fade the longer I keep touching it.
The sour smell of corruption sinks into my mind, like the sea far out in the Green Zone—yet so much stronger… because I am much closer to the real source, not the leftover residue from tens of thousands of years ago.
I stare into the empty face of this energy form, and see up close the long horns that curve out from its head.
Memories from many demonic beasts and demons sharing the instinctive fear of this menacing shadowy figure flash in my mind, but all I want to do back for some reason is laugh…
Excitement is the main emotion I feel.
I’m strong enough to block this attack, and the root of my consciousness beneath my third and final seal has still not even been touched.
“Now this… is a real fight!” I yell out while bursting with red and purple flames, following through entirely with my sword swing and forcing the black shadowy energy form back.
The cracks in the outside of the dome grow larger, making dense white fractures grow like a spider’s web in the center of the Citadel.
The shadow demon lets out a screech that is inhuman… and tears the spear in its grasp in two.
Tendrils of black energy flow off it, like it’s alive, trying to piece back together, but the spear fully separates and becomes two black curved blades instead.
Without any words, only a menacing burst of aura, the energy form disappears in an instant again, going in for the kill from another angle.
It slams down into the bottom of the dome, spreading out waves of corruption like a spattering puddle, then bounces upward even faster, swinging both blades my way.
My adrenaline is pumping even more now, and my battle focus and life-or-death instincts are fully activating. It feels like I’ve gone rusty from staying suppressed, and now every movement I make feels like energy is flowing back into my body, rejuvenating a part of me I didn’t even realize was faded. I kick off the air above me and swing down to collide my soul sword against dual-black blades again.
The shockwave that follows cracks the dome even more.
Audience members, as more and more protective layers of white ether commands are spawned over the dome, watch in complete and total awe.
As much as ether commands can protect the public from these waves, small amounts of each clash still make their way through.
Residents of the Inner City that did not attend this month’s Arena event all feel that something is happening.
They know waves of this magnitude only occur when one of the Noble Demons fights in the ring, but it never goes on for this long…
Plus, pre-made safety commands are always set up beforehand.
Either something has gone horribly wrong, or one of the Vermillion Demons is putting on a show on purpose.
Tens of millions of fast travel orbs begin to activate as even more Lords arrive to watch the show, and live feeds of this event are even shared to those not present. The Admins make the event blare out on every public channel, so that anyone in the Green Zone of the Upper Realm can view it.
Pings on the Fortress, Mensa, and even Ellipsia Citadel feeds for Demonic Servants are able to watch the show.
The one million kilometers of Wilderness surrounding the Inner City is even subject to some weak waves of Noble Vibrations that manage their way through.
In a matter of seconds, every Lord loyal to the Demons in the Upper Realm freezes to watch this match.
–
Dozens of massive explosions and shockwaves fill the screens and the dome. Only ten seconds need to pass, and the whole translucent fighting arena, dome and floor, is so filled with cracks it’s unbelievable that it’s still held together.
The compressed layers of ether commands on the outside are what hold it from shattering and bursting outward entirely.
The shadowy demonic figure’s weapon in hand shifts to an axe, a hammer, a curved dagger set, a ball on a chain, and many more unrecognizable weapons every time we clash.
Depending on the range and angle, it switches up and attacks me right where I’m the weakest or least expect it.
Every hit, portions of my body go numb, and I feel like I’m about to pass out, but I dig deeper and swing back, narrowly surviving every single exchange, grinning wider, and sinking deeper into a flow-state of battle that I haven’t felt in far too long.
–
A few hundred thousand kilometers below the Grand Citadel’s surface, a true Royal Demon sits on a black throne, staring into the darkness of his protective tower.
Tendrils of Corruption flow off of him in every direction, making the black walls quiver.
Yet, he only moves a single finger, waving it back and forth, watching his energy manifestation fight in the arena above.
While infuriating that a Noble Demon with not even one month of life in the Green Zone dares to call him out so publicly, it is also quite amusing.
No one ever talks back to him other than the Family Heads from higher zones.
He has already decided to take this Noble Demon in to train for a few decades at least once the show is done here. As it does not matter if he rebels or not—he won’t have a mind of his own once the Corruption flows through him.
The Family Head is merely toying with its prey before the inevitable kill. The Green Zone will forget about this incident in a few hundred years anyway.
This is what he believes. Everything playing out before him is entirely in his control.
That is at least, until two notifications directly from Ellipsia ring in his mind…
They are the kill confirmations that will ripple through every zone of the Upper Realm. This is the direct result of the orders Maria followed through with, killing two First Class Vermillion Demons to officially declare war.
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