Chapter 222 - Cold Fire

"Do you feel that Lilith? The nature of his power has changed~"

"Kekekeke~" She laughed looking Grim up and down. "Its still not enough. He still can't harm us!"

"Ahhhhh!" Throwing his head back and carassing his face, Nahamah's eyes shook with anticipation. "I can't take it anymore Lilith! I want break him!"

-I want to wring the screams of despair and agony from his throat!

-I want to burn each and every part of his body and flay his charred skin!

-I WANT TO- NO! I NEED TO KILL HIM NOW!

No longer playing around, the sadistic nature of the devils could no longer be contained as the only thought in their heads was about ripping Grim apart piece by piece.

"Haah?" Cocking his head to the side and slowly unsheathing his sword, the pace of Grim's begun to increase. 

[Breath of the Kitsune: 1st Tail - Fox Fire]

*FWOOSH*

White coloured flames sprung to life and danced along the body of the blade.

"You want to hear screams of despair?"

[Breath of the Kitsune: 2nd Tail - Burning Sakura]

Burning petals of sakura filled the sky.

"You want to kill?"

"Funny you should say that because..."

With his grimoire glowing with a white hot light and his sword now fully unsheathed, a grin so wide that it put the devils's to shame formed on his face.

[Breath of the Kitsune: 3rd Tail - Fox Trot]

"I FEEL THE SAME WAY!!"

*BOOM!!*

Stomping down hard, he burst forward at a speed so fast that it caused the ice shards behind him to shatter from the shockwave.

"COOOOMEEEE!!" The two devils laughed as their mana surged in anticipation.

The Half Elf Demon Slayer vs The Twin Devils of Ice and Fire.

*FWOOOSH!!*

Arriving in front of them and moving his sword along with the momentum, the sound of the air being sliced rippled out as he brought his sword up from his waist as slashed up diagonally.

"KEKEKEKAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Expecting that, Lilith's laughter rung out as her mutated arm shot out and blocked the blade with a Devil Ice shield.

*BAAANG!!!*

*FWOOSH!!*

Appearing behind him like a ghost and with a giant fireball forming in the middle of his palm, Nahamah let out a demonic laugh of his own as he thrust his own mutated arm forward and roared-

"DIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

'Oh Shiiii-

Feeling his feet suddenly turn ice cold as Lilith's ice crawled up his leg and rooted to the ground, the fireball in Nahamah's palm transformed into a huge beam of concentrated Devil as he unleased his magic in its fullest state and turned everything in his paths to ashes.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" The devils laughed as Grim was completely swallowed by Nahamah's flames.

*FWARP*

Materializing next to one of the falling sakura petals thanks to the ability of [Fox Trot], he completely evaded the fire beam and was ready to counter attack!

Luckily for him, the petal he had chosen to jump to just so happened to be falling right above them.

*GRINS!*

[Breath of the Kitsune : 4th Tail - Rightful Ignition]

[Breath of the Kitsune : 5th Tail - Blaze Born]

[Breath of the Kitsune : 6th Tail - Flare Cloak]

Growing three more tail at once, a burning cloak wrapped itself around his body and enhanced his speed and defensive ability.

*WHOOSH!!*

With white light burning in his eyes, he gently pushed off from the petal and shot down.

With the cloak enhancing speed, his descent wasn't exactly quiet.

!!!

Sensing him, Lilith raised her arm again and formed a massive ice dome. But the thing about ice was, it melted.

*BAAAANG!!*

Slamming straigth into the dome with enough force and heat to melt a hole through it the moment he touched it, his eyes locked onto Nahamah and Lilith as they both transformed into their intangible ice and fire forms and left the dome.

"He's still alive!" Nahamah grinned as the both fire and ice ran alongside each other.

"Hah?" Standing up as the rest of the dome melted around him. Grim flexed his sword-arm.

"You bitch ass little fuckers!" He grinned as he stared at the twin devils.

"Why are you running?" He teased resting his sword on his shoulder. "You're not scared are you?"

"Kahahahaha!! Scared? He thinks we're scared Nahamah!"

Laughing along with his sister, not a hint of fear could be seen in their eyes.

"Oh? I get it. You guys don't know what fear is do you?"

*Grins*

"Let me introduce you."

Raising his hand up high, a weird feeling started to wash over the two devils.

"You guys should really be more mindful of your surroundings. Because those petals you're standing on... well you'll see."

"Petals?"

Realizing that they were surrounded by an untold number of sakura petals that had fallen from the sky, the weird feeling the two experienced earlier suddenly intensified.

*BADUMP!*

"Nahamah..."

*BADUMP!*

"Something isn't rig-

"Detonate."

Not allowing her to finish her sentence, Grim's fingers snapped.

What happened next was more than just physical spectacle. No, it surpassed that.

It was a furious burst of sound and heat, followed by a light so bright and raw that it consumed anything and everything. Turning the once darkened world pure white.

The explosion was more than destruction, it was a work of art. In that single moment, the shards of shattered reality were painted through the air as the wailing screams of the devils and Grim's fiendish laughter mixed together to form an unholy tune.

By the time their screams had finally died out, the malicious light in the eyes of the two devils had died out. And in their place stood something else.

*Step*

!!!

Having never experienced this thing called pain before, let alone a pain that targeted the soul. The two were rendered immobile as the knees refused to leave the ground and fear consumed their minds.

''RUN!''

Was the only thought in their minds.

When their fight or flight instincts kicked in, they chose the later and fled.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Seeing the two transform into their intangible states and flee the scene, the smile on Grim's face grew deeper as he remembered that they couldn't be harmed physically.

'Nah, Imma do my own thing.'

[Breath of the Kitsune : 7th Tail - Red Sun]

[Breath of the Kitsune : 8th tail - Fire Thief]

Taking hold of the kitsune mask and placing it on his face, his eyes flashed with white light as mana started gathering around the mask and the pages of his grimoire.

[Breath of the Kitsune: Broken Cycle]

Breaking the spell cycle of [Breath of the Kitsune] at the cost of expending more mana and destabilizing the form, he was able to use every spell this form was able to offer without limit.

Exploding out with a dangerous amount of mana, a small red sun spawned above his head as the temperature in the area sharply rose.

*CRACK!!*

'What!'

*CRASH!!*

'My Ice!'

With the sudden rise in temperature, the intangible ice form that Lilith was so proud of quickly fell apart as the new feeling known as despair began spreading through her chest.

'My ice form... I can't maintain it... I-I'm going to die...'

Die?

Such a word was unfamiliar to her. Of course she had killed plenty of high to low ranking devils in the underworld. But as a supreme devil, one who reigns above all, a god amongst mortals, had she ever considered her own death before.

"W-WHAT IS THIS!!"

Screaming next to her and breaking her concentration, Nahamah who was in his intangible fire form had streams of bright orange light flowing out of his body and heading towards Grim.

[Fire Thief: As a being whose flames have surpassed the level of blue fire, all lower ranked flames and heat sources must submit to your will.]

"No... STOP IT! STOP!!" Nahamah yelled to no avail.

With his flames being siphoned off and his intangible form falling apart, he quickly returned to his normal physical state and fell to the ground.

"No..."

[Red Sun]

"Hyaaap!!"

"Gaaaah!"

Now that both devils had been forced out of their intangible forms, Grim took control of all the gravity in his orbit to raise the two up into the air and dragged them towards himself.

'Tch, supreme devils my ass! These fuckers still couldn't make me use the 9th tail.'

While it was true that he was cheating by using the mask, the fact remained that despite them being way stronger than Conrad, they still weren't enough to push him past the 8 tail mark.

"Ah fuck it."

Raising his sword up high, in his frustration, he brought Nahamah close to him and-

"NO NO NO!!"

Split him straight down the middle.