The Runic Alchemist

[Near the Ice Wall Covering The Giant Stone Shrine, Current Time, Damian’s POV]

The white spear was inching closer to Land Breaker’s chest even with his two hands holding the tip with all their strength. A fourth ranker’s pure base strength should be higher than a third ranker like Damian, but he was an exception even among the transcendents regarding his pure strength and physical powers—not to mention the fourth ranker in front of Damian was an esper. Even with Land Breaker’s body, one of the most powerful fourth rankers in history, the Demon Lord was still weaker compared to the real owner of the body. Well.. at least Damian assumed he was; otherwise they wouldn’t be equally matched.

Darkness sprouted from Land Breaker’s back like tendrils of some horrendous monster from children’s nightmares and assimilated with his thighs and legs, instantly turning them pitch black and bulging with added muscles—giving an extra boost in strength to the Demon Lord, with which he finally managed to throw Damian back, while himself sliding back slightly too.

Damian, too, while sliding back on the ground, activated all pieces of his sacrium armor containing aura-enhancing spells. Becoming transcendent had already increased his life energy multiple folds. Along with his severed soul being healed, Damian’s aura control and output had reached above peak-level second ranker pugilists. He was nowhere near transcendent pugilists like Bonecrusher, but he didn’t need to be. This small boost, added with his forceful aura extraction spells through the armor, increased his strength once again, and Damian charged forward with his spear held straight, exploding with light mana—a small crater formed under his feet as Damian stopped sliding and pushed forward.

The Demon Lord, now covered in pure, shiny black darkness and holding a normal-sized sword, was ready for him. The spear was blocked again, leaving a massive shockwave behind. Damian was not just a brute with a weapon, though. With a smile, Damian unleashed his full-power hellfire at close range—the Demon Lord’s eyes widened, and he immediately pulled back all his polished abyssal darkness and created a shield in front of him.

The hellfire landed with full force on the dark shield.

The sparks of such intense flames were flying around; through them, Damian noticed it. The shield was getting thinner by the second. The abyssal darkness was not endless as he had thought.

That was all the confirmation Damian needed—he immediately placed fifty-plus ready light laser spells beside the hellfire, and the second the skill came close to its end, he activated all fifty and ten new ones which he weaved in a few seconds.

The Demon Lord was gritting his teeth, but neither could he push him back nor could he afford to pull back and show his back to him. But the bastard chose neither—suddenly, behind the blinding light of the lasers and the dark, polished shield getting thinner by the second, a thin, barely perceptible (to Damian’s enhanced senses) needle of pure darkness launched towards five different targets. Damian realized a split second too late—the dark structures were hard to sense when they were really small or thin in nature. Emptiness in such small space was common, so it was almost impossible to sense it. Still, it was moving, which was indicator enough.

Damian knew what the Demon Lord was aiming towards and instantly pulled back his floating mana cubes from behind his back—but he only managed to save five: three of his sacrium ones and two steel ones. Three steel mana cubes exploded in a small, contained explosion, with the thin dark needle piercing deep into them and falling to the ground—unmoving.

It was a dumb, instinctive reaction. Only the steel ones would have been destroyed by such an attack; he cared too much for his sacrium ones—even though they were tough and could endure such attacks easily. Just as he had grasped the Demon Lord’s weakness, the Demon Lord had realized where his source of strength lay too.

Still, Damian quickly solved the issue by creating a golden shield protecting all five of his full-power working mana cubes while the Demon Lord was still losing his dark shield by the second.

It was the perfect time to place a trap—and Damian was doing just that. He placed a wormhole connecting a waygate under the Demon Lord’s feet—waiting for the perfect moment of distraction to activate both at once and get the guy in one attack.

However, when finally the Demon Lord’s polished black shield started to crack beneath the 100 chained light lasers’ pressure—Damian used the moment of distraction to activate his wormhole—the Demon Lord did not fall inside. The guy seemed to have expected such a trap and had been continuously hovering above the land all this time.

Well, if he won’t go in—Damian will just have to beat him into going in.

Damian used the floating wave of liquid mana all at once and immediately activated the full mana armor modified spell of Asher. Using all his available mana at once was risqué, but Damian was done with this guy’s tricks by now. If he craved a simple, brutal beating, Damian would have to give the guy exactly that.

Throwing his spear away, Damian powered his sacrium armor to the limit with his own manapool—enhancing his strength to the limit—and smashed the dark shield with his two giant, bulging mana hands, shattering it into pieces in a second. The laser spells ended, and the Demon Lord was trying to use the second of relief to fly away, but Damian was faster—he grabbed the guy by his neck and slammed him on the hard ground—making a giant crater.

Blood came out from Land Breaker’s mouth—surprisingly, this one was red; not the same disgusting black he was used to seeing by now. Damian did not stop to admire the dark red color though, and slammed the Demon Lord’s face again and again on the ground, and finally, when the Demon Lord thought he would slam him on the ground again—Damian quickly created another smaller wormhole, opening near the waygate opened in the distance, and threw him inside.

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