(Michael's POV):
I started the fight immediately by activating a special ability and changed my form a bit. Black demon horns grew out of my red hair and I started emitting powerful hellfire.
I dashed forward quickly as the enemy released holy fire and spread it out in my direction. Pretty cheeky!
I jumped up high and prepared my scythe to strike the enemy. His wings started flapping which made him fly up in the sky.
"Impressive..."
What a guy... I dashed to the side and started avoiding his rain of holy fire. I managed to barely avoid some attacks and started reading his current state.
Soon, he'll run out of mana so that will be my chance to step forward and strike him down. The chance will occur once his face twitches a bit.
I continued dashing around as I avoid the lethal holy fire burst out towards the ground. The ground then surges upwards as if it's an erupting geyser. Dangerous! How much mana does this guy have!
I swiftly avoided a an attack that could kill me if I dealt with it clumsily. I kept track of the area of effect on where this dangerous holy fire could spread out in seconds. A single touch was enough to make me feel painful burns.
"You're pretty skilled, but you can't dodge forever."
"You're pretty cheeky for an angelic type! I'll bring you down to the ground in a bit!"
The flying angel starts sweating and shows sharp eyes towards me and emits a heat blast within a short radius.
"Don't think of coming close to me!"
"Little shit! You think you're the only one who can fly!?"
"Wh?!"
"Demon Wings!"
A pair of demonic wings erected and spread out on my back. I then flew up and prepared my scythe to slash through the angel.
"You rubbish devil!"
"Cheeky angel!"
I made a forward slash and slashed through the angel's torso. He dashed back and minimized the damage I dealt to a small cut in his stomach.
"Khh!"
"Dark Blast!"
I pointed my left hand towards him and spewed out dark fire, I continued to dash forward while covering his view dangerously.
I made sure to keep an eye to any ground surges and avoid surprise attacks if necessary.
I then slashed forward without knowing the distance between us and the angel. I dashed to the side to continue hiding from the dark fire and dashed towards the angel.
"Die!"
"Kh!"
The angel suddenly covered himself with his wings, allowing me to effectively cut off his wings and make him fall down to the ground.
"Fuhaa!"
I then dashed towards the ground to where the angel landed but I was immediately struck by a surge from the ground.
"Sh-!!"
I was blown away effortlessly, I landed with my back against the wall and knelt down from pain.
"Half health in one go huh... Khh!"
When I performed a check on myself, I had lost my demon wings and started thinking of a good plan. The angel stood up and started walking towards me while showing a smug face.
"You should've saw it coming you know, but unfortunately... You didn't even think about your movements."
The angel generated a large shining halo that could probably kill me instantly.
"Did you know, the weakness of an angel is a demon, and pure human. But they're also something that angels can kill instantly. We're inside a triangle where the one who strikes first wins so..."
I imbued demon fire to my foot and prepared myself to land a few kicks as the angel raises up the halo.
"This fight.... Ends her-!!!"
I kicked the feet of the angel which lost his balance. I then followed up with a high kick straight to his face. Since the foot that kicked his face was imbued with demon fire, he started writhing in agony as he got kicked back and rolling around while covering his face.
"Yeah, it's over... For you that is!"
I imbued both my legs with demon fire and landed an axe kick towards his gut.
"Guhaa!"
He continued writhing around in excruciating burns and tried to roll off. I imbued the scythe as I collect it off the ground with frostfire and stuck it on the ground before his body moves away.
"Good day to you... I'm the Awakened Demon King..."
I stomped his face that shows extreme fear and crushed his head mercilessly.
"And there goes your chance for the tarot card..."
When I looked around, there was a huge announcement and a spotlight at the center of the arena. I didn't even bother seeing the corpse get teleported somewhere and just walked towards the center as the announcer goes on.
I then started to see the tarot card as it slowly levitates downwards from the spotlight.
Haaaah, that was flashy... But somehow, it's nice being adorned by many people for winning like this...
I held the tarot card in one of my hands and saw a picture of a demon devilishly cornering two people in between his two hands.
Huh, since everyone will be teleported outside in a minute let me be flashy then.
I was instantly healed back up to full health and completely refreshed. I once again activated demonic state and spread out my wings that have been completely enlarged. My horns started to show itself in a more intimidating manner and had somehow excite the people watching.
"Tarot Card XV! The Devil!"
My body starts emitting various colors of fire and becomes lighter by a long shot. Damn! It feels like I'm weightless! I can use all kinds of fire limitlessly and my strength...
I smashed my hand on the ground and it suddenly cracked nicely. A huge crater was made and there seems to be some shockwave included in the strike.
So basically, tarot cards are boosted...
I increased the emission of all kinds of fire and generated multiple burning tridents with various kinds of fire.
Holy, demon, dark, pure, frost, blue (arcane), black, void, mystic, light, and stardust. I emitted all those kinds of fire before being teleported back to the entrance of the arena. The loud cheers starts to dissipate as I return to where I was earlier just like nothing had happened.
A panel appeared in front of me notifying me about collecting the tarot card. When I checked my inventory, the item is already placed in the ready-hand slots.
"Wonderful... How did the others go while on their fights?"
I tried to check up on the others but I start to see some of the members of the Asylum just hanging around together in the spawn area.
"Oooh! It's Michael! How was it on your side?"
The person who called out to me was a guy who has brownish hair and a cool guy look. He's nearly as tall as me and he somewhat attracts girls but not his crush. His name is Karl, our royal magician of the group.
"Ah, it went well. I managed to win The Devil. How about you guys?"
"Only me won... The others lost horrendously in the free-for-all and some were close on the duel fight." - Karl
I see... Well, it's not like they're weak but... There could be some powerful opponents after all, so it can't be helped.
After chatting with all the other members for a while, the next one that appeared was Seymour.
"Oooh! The leader is here! You won right?"
"Yep, and how about you guys?" - Seymour
"Just me and Michael..." - Karl
"I see... Can't help it! We may need to train more or have actual experience." - Seymour
While Seymour starts thinking about what to do with training the others, Robin had finally arrived.
"Robin! Did you win?" - Karl
"Yeah, it was a bit of a scuffle though." - Robin
The chatter within the area continues as we wait for the last person which is Denzel, to finally come around. We started comparing between Denzel, Robin, and myself.
"I'm not so sure about our rankings to our abilities but I think I can safely say that I'm the strongest between us three?"
"Nah, we counter each other so it's basically who manages to strike first wins..." - Robin
"So it's basically equal huh? Somehow, I don't trust the rankings."
"Well, you're pretty flashy so it's expected for you to be seen as one of the strongest." - Robin
"Damnit..."
Now I regret being flashy there...
After a few minutes of waiting, Denzel finally showed up.
"And there's the guy who is often late! Did you win?" - Seymour
Seymour instantly cracked a joke about Denzel's habits of being late. If I remember correctly, he was late on the meeting before we entered this world...
"Yeah, but I performed the one-health thing where I survived with only that sliver of health." - Denzel
"Daredevil as usual... He's quite the risk-taker but he's pretty careful when against us right?" - Seymour
"Yeah, fighting us is different than fighting a bunch of idiots." - Robin
"Well, I think that I'm screwed the moment you guys found an opening on me..." - Denzel
"True, but on the rankings, he's the weakest one on the four of us..."
"Well, hiding all our powers could be a good idea but we need to make sure that we won't be targeted easily. It's enough that only three of us are known in the top ten. Robin is still not much identified but you three are equal at this point." - Seymour
"There would be some that would target Robin on the four of us but maybe they'd target the rest first so we keep an eye on them." - Denzel
"Which is why we're gonna be training a lot starting tomorrow." - Seymour
Denzel's ears seemed to have twitched in reaction to Seymour's proposal of training. Dude, you're no fox or wolfkin alright?
"Seymour, you see... I'd like to continue my training alone, so I can find a way to grow without assistance." - Denzel
"I see, how about you Michael, Robin?" - Seymour
Hmm, training alone would be great. We could gather up some experience while we're training alone and level up somewhere. We gain experience points passively as time passes but it doubles the increase when in combat. As useful as it is, you can't level up in combat which is a sad predicament.
"Yeah, I'm training alone."
I'm gonna look for a better way to level up...