…
"…Accursio Anathema… it is one of my most useful techniques. It reduces my opponents stats overall by half for one successful hit."
"Tsk! So that's why… he has used that Anathema thingy twice on me, which means I am very weak now… what a troublesome curse…"
Swift gusts of air sweep the field. Taizun shivers as his exposed skin meets the air. Exposed injuries to the wind make a stinging sensation. But his willpower does not waver. He still stands before the shadow demon.
The shadow demon's fangs emerge into a smiling form. A silent laughter is heard, only to be continued by the demon's oppressive mouth.
"…At this point… you don't have the strength to win. Admit defeat, and I might forgive what you've done to Doutha and give you a painless death, hee-hee…"
Taizun spits out saliva to his left. He stares at the demon with his spear as a sustainer. He reminisces a bit about their duel. Moments before Taizun contacted Ognist, he was struck by [Demon Aspect – Accursio Anathema] once, while the second one not long ago. With that his overall strength has been divided by half and then another half.
If put into numbers, Taizun's initial strength was 100 points. His strength got halved, thus reducing it into 50 points. He got halved once more, making those 50 points into 25 points. In conclusion he only has a quarter of his entire strength overall or 25% left.
Taizun breathes in and out in a bit of difficulty. He is fatigued. He is rather in no shape to fight anymore.
The demon relaxes his shadow muscles and talks normally, "You are nowhere near that fire dragon. You may be able to defeat Doutha and keep up against me this long but your powers are not even close to harm me. At this rate, you are easily killed. I can finish you off, exterminate any hindrances in my way, and then I will finally regain my gloriousness. This village is mine once I destroy you dragonians."
Taizun slightly grins, "Hmph, pretty thoughts… I'm sorry, I mean 'pity' thoughts," he replied.
"What did you say?" the demon calmly retorts.
"As long as the Fire Dragonian is here, he will purge you off this blue planet," Taizun stated solidly.
"That fire guy? That fire guy spoke of defeating me in someone's stead, but escaped when fighting. You think he can defeat me, a demon general? He is a coward, unworthy of trust, not reliable at all, and foolish to leave his allies!"
Taizun rebuts, "Oh, you know nothing of him. He is not a foolish guy who carelessly throws his own life. He knows when to run and when to fight."
"Heh…heheheh… I fail to understand you Dragonians," said Toma as he chuckled while palming his shadowy face. "With him running away, he left you unguarded. He has dumped you. He left you to rot and die in the hands of me. How can you even trust him?"
"—I told you, you know nothing of him," Taizun retorts sharply. "There is a reason why I trust him… why we trust him. He will not let anyone die, just as how he kept his fire alive."
The demon pauses for several seconds before continuing, "Izzatso? Then we'll see if he's really like that."
The shadow demon transforms his right arm into drill-like spear. He grins wider past the temples of his head, making a dreadfully creepy face. He walks slowly while the drill starts to spin.
The demon announces, "Let this be planted in your head, that you are terribly wrong!"
Surprisingly, Taizun remains calm and composed. He answers to Toma, "Don't even try."
Toma thrusts his hand to Taizun with utmost power, but the demon general suddenly sensed an incredibly fast footsteps closing in on him within seconds. Quickly, he turns his face around, but before he can do anything else, an instant flash happened. He then got struck by a powerful vertical slash to his right arm, cutting them off.
"Enggrrgh…!" The demon ached. He shifts his attention instantly to the attacker without caring his decapitated arm.
But he can barely perceive the attacker's movement.
"What the heck is that godlike speed?!" he squawks as his demonic red eyes expand.
As he is distracted, a powerful blow dissects a quarter of his body from right shoulder to his upper right leg. The aftermath of the blow ignites flame that burns the insides of the shadow demon.
Unfortunately, he is not dead yet. In a split second he drives all of his power solely to regenerate. He uses his remaining foot to leap away from the danger zone and regenerates quickly while in midair.
"That attack I recognize… but the other one… it's different…!" said Toma while trying to regenerate as fast as possible. As he landed, he feels a stinging pain in his right portion of his body. His right arm did not regenerate.
"This stinging ache… unggggrrgrghh!!! Holy element…?! Impossible, I had assumed there's none of them…!!!"
Toma's eyes crack as he tries to withstand the pain. As if an open wound gets sprinkled with lemon juice, it will absolutely feel insanely numb and stinging.
As mentioned earlier, the element of holy brings utter pain and destruction to the demon race, specifically those with the demon general title.
Toma changes his attention towards the ice dragonian, only to realize two people standing in front of him. One is Ognist, while the other one being Scias. Both of them bear their weapons respectively. Toma specifically looks at Scias in disbelief.
"That human…?! Is he the one that has holy element?! Impossible! Only those 'believers of the church' may use holy magic!"
Toma pressurizes himself to ward off the holy effect on his body. After a painful period of time, the holy element disappears, allowing him to regenerate again. His right arm regenerates in a split second. Afterwards, he breathes heavily.
"For a long time I've never been exposed to holy magic… to receive one right now will surely bring much more pain than I expected."
Shortly, rustles of bushes are heard. From behind him, a tiny figure leaps into the air and throws a pair of rope darts with shurikens serving as the darts in a horizontal arc from two opposite directions.
Surprised, Toma hops into the air and manages to avoid the surprise attack. He quickly rotates his head creepily to the opposite direction facing the sky and saw the tiny figure.
In an agitating rage he moans, "How many more attackers must I face?!"
Beneath him, a wall of flame has started, enlightening the region beneath his foot. As he lands, he rotates back his head to initial point. He is in a pincer. If he attacks one side the other will strike him from behind. Not to mention his entire figure is revealed by the light of fire.
…
"Took you some time to arrive, eh, barbecue head?" said Taizun in a bit of gasping.
The fire dragonian turns at his junior.
"There are several things to be done first. And lookie here, I've brought some fortifying reinforcements as a result," said Ognist in a relieving voice. In the end he smiled.
A slight pause, Taizun then replies, "Humph, just get this over with, Ognist."
"What an unthankful fool," Scias coldly said while sheathing his katana followed by Ognist sheathing his sword.
In misunderstanding, Taizun comments, "What are you two doing, hey? That demon is still alive, you know?!"
"I know. B-But we are not the one to fight him… for now," Scias stated while staring towards the demon's location.
"We must secure Zeugen at once. Scias, help me out," Ognist asked.
"U-Uh," Scias nodded slightly.
On the other side, Pio grunts in bad mood for failing to hit the demon general with her weapons. She pulls her rope darts and let it swirl freely around her arms and finally grabbing the shurikens with both of her hands perfectly. She then lands on the rooftop of one of the nearby houses.
"Hey, you!" she shouted. "The creepy ugly abomination!" she added.
Toma gets irate and turns his view towards Pio. "What the flipping heck did that brat say?!" he grunted angrily.
"Pio thinks you're one crazy demon! You looked worse than the last Pio met!"
Seeing the childish words from her, Toma calms his composure and talks back to her, "So what if my looks are like this? For a tiny brat you've a slippery mouth."
"Slippery mouth? Pio can't understand. Pio's mouth is clean. Your mouth is dirty, full of black thingies!" Pio replied.
Pio takes a stance with her position half crouched with both of her hands each on her shoulders holding the shurikens. "Anyway, Pio will be your opponent."
Hearing her statement, Toma lets out an evil laugh. He views her only as a wannabe hero kid that is desperate to become one by attacking him.
"Might I assume your name is Pio? Then here let me tell you something, you're just a little kid. You think you can win against me? Not a chance! You should just go back to your family. Ooh, wait, they're careless enough to let you fight a demon general. What a pair of stupid creatures!"
Pio lowers her voice and says, "How dare you… say something so spiteful to Pio's family?"
"Ah?" the demon general retorts. "Am I wrong?" the demon taunted with an arrogant voice. "Or… are they dead?" he grinned widely.
Afterwards, Pio angers and shouts to him, "Pio will never forgive you!"
The little lady drags her foot a bit forward and readies to strike. "Pio will kill you!"
Toma lowers his smile and thinks, "Then I will kill you before you can even touch me."
And so the battle begins. Toma takes a quicker stance and a magic circle emerges beneath him.
"Demon Aspect – Accursio Anathema!!!"
The shadow demon drags a bit backwards. He then gave himself a massive boost by his foot and charges towards Pio in high speed. Toma strikes a powerful punch to Pio's face but she swiftly avoids it and escapes unto another roof with great agility.
Toma chases her down with matching speed. Pio meticulously dodges his incoming strikes. "Huh…! Huhuh!" she strangely giggled. "Creepy thing loves to use punches, huh?" she stated.
Toma did not respond, however. He only replies with his freaky smile with large shining crimson red menacing pair of eyes. He keeps striking at her, but surprisingly Pio manages to avoid his attack.
From rooftop to rooftop, Pio freely runs while waiting for a chance to strike back.
"Are you going to run forever? You disgust me!" the demon taunted while striking her from behind. Pio dodges and throws a wooden box she found right at him. But obviously, Toma did not falter. He keeps chasing her down.
Pio hops into a three story building through the window. She sprints faster in order to avoid the demon general. Breaking noises is heard from behind. Toma is literally breaking through everything in his path.
The shadow demon thinks in suspicion as he breaches through walls and doors.
"That brat can't possibly be human, right? None of my punches have hit her. Her speed and reflexes are way too great for a human being! Not even that Dragonian can avoid all of my attacks like her!"
Pio breaks through a window and lands unto a rooftop. In front of her, only several buildings left to be sprinted across.
In a bit of panic, she moans, "This is bad…! Pio is running out of buildings to jump onto!"
Pio knows she must not get too close to where the villagers are so she decides to jump below and runs as fast as possible back to the field. Through the small alleyway, she avoids any hindrance along the path and finally reaches an open field. Behind her, a scary roaring sound of a demon breaks the sound barrier as Toma breaks through the alley, through buildings, through any objects in his path and finally catches up with Pio.
The wall of the building is destroyed, from it emerges Toma. "Game's over!!!"
Toma gathers all might in his body and lands a frontal blow to Pio. His launching punch is seen causing shockwaves. "Going into the open ground means you admit defeat, brat!"
Though incredibly shocked, in a vital point, Pio still retains composure. "There's no other way left… Pio must do this now…!"
Instead of running, she turns at him and throws both of her shurikens to him.
In the last second, Toma's eyes expand as the projectile closes in on him.
"It can't be! Those are…!!!"