Sarin breathed in deeply before stepping forward. He did not have the luxury to step back now. The army would get in any minute now, and he could feel he was the only one remaining in the ruined temple.
As he took the golden knife and slit his palm, resolution downed on him. He was going to die. There was nothing he could do to change that. It was... freeing.
His soul would end up being punished for this, but he would not, could not, regret the actions that led him here.
"I summon the bright lord if the abyss, he who governs with an iron fist bathed in the blood of his enemies. May my offerings of blood and gold please his excellency." He bellowed, the whole chamber shacking to the energies being summoned by the blood hitting the dammed golden eye on the altar, his essence being drained to fill a complex circle of runes around it.
An energy wave hit him, expanding from the center of the circle he stood on, the dread it caused affecting the souls around more than the slight breeze in the locked room would suggest.
The hands holding the dimensional tear open were armoured, the pristine white a hard contrast with the black void from the other side of the portal.
As the demon lord stepped forward in it's plate armour, the would be summoner was greatly surprised. This was not the 'Bright lord'. The aggressively white young man had both the telltale crown of horns and what he supposed was the pressure of one however.
"Hello. I see none other with my perception, so I imagine you are the summoner. I thank you for the chance to retrieve this artifact. Tell me why you call for demonic power of this level and I may grant your wish." He slowly said, the words not any language he knew yet still understandable. Sarin couldn't help but gulp.
"I beseech your excellency, rid my city of the army of fell creatures that besieges us." He weakly asked, slowly falling to the ground and kowtowing. Suddenly, there was a pressure in his mind, he could feel as his mind and heart were laid bare before the entity in front of him. At the same time, his senses detected someone walking the halls leading to this chamber.
It was likely to be Lin Huang. The thick stone door being blown to smithereens seemed to agree with him.
"How the mighty have fallen. To step so low as to summon such dangerous entity, you must be really desperate. None of this would have happened if you had..."
"You'd have killed him and everyone in this room knows that, saying those kinds of lines doesn't make you cool. That girl sleeping with you is mostly being hipnotized by your abilities and thinks she owns you because of the times you easily saved her, she doesn't love you, she's just addicted to soul resonance. Having no life outside of cultivating and having revenge is not, in fact, healthy, and despite all the fear people have for you, they don't respect you so they will never fully submit to your rule, which they see as childish, because you explain nothing to no one, so none of your long term plans reach a reasonable progress without you having to pressure people into slobbering idiots controlled by their fears. I must admit, it's quite rare to see an idiot like you around. You didn't even try attacking me while I insulted you, so whatever you did to remain alive till now it just be a mira..."
Both men just stood as they were quite surprised and interested in what the demon had to say, but neither expected his words to be so... harsh and to the point. Those were exactly the core complaints the people under the bone tyrant had, plus the personal views of Sarin, who'd accompanied the man for a long time before becoming leader of the resistance. It was only in the end of it that Aki actually looked at the man, his tongue lashing being stopped by the clink of his gauntlet stopping the black scythe.
"A scythe? Really? You know even war glaives make more sense in a one on one battle, right?" He snickered while holding still the trembling blade before yanking the rest of the weapon through the rift it'd opened to attack his side, punching the man still holding onto it into the ground with his other arm.
The demon was already stomping for his throat when the necromancer blinked away, calling for his cursed weapon only to see it dissapear in thin air. As he smirked, the demon gave out a soft smile, not showing any problem with keeping the grim weapon in his possession.
"Impossible, no avatar should be able to stop my weapon spirit." Exclaimed the now frowing man.
"First, this is your main weapon and you have never named it? After more than a hundred years? Bitch." Sneered the demon, stopping the sword aiming for his throat with a sinister dagger with many teeth in it's bone white blade. "Second, who said this is an avatar?" As he said that, a stream of lighting passed through his weapon and towards his opponent's, several runes on the enchanted equipment either dimming or straight up disappearing as the dark knight retreated a step back before a pitch black light passed through him and the corpse collapsed onto the ground, Aki kicking his opponent through the walls and breaking several of his ribs in the process before his dash was even understood, accurately axe kicking the flying figure into the ground and forming a deep crater. "I see, so you have an appraisal skill."
Lin Huang was baffled. How long ago had he reached the point none in this realm could beat him like this? How long had it been since he'd heard someone speak english? At the moment, it really didn't matter, because it'd been way too long since he'd been so pissed.
No more words to be exchanged, Aki took things seriously and immediately concentrated his efforts into beating the man before him into unconsciousness so he could deactivate his personal system. Using several magical filters, he was able to see several screens opening and closing in high speed, so he dropped a dimensional anchor and punched downwards with the maximum of strength he could produce so quickly, which included several pin point telekinetic platforms reducing the area of the force being applied, gravitational attraction and repulsion on several points, soul strikes and magical reinforcement of his arm to the point it'd dislocate it'd entirely from his body.
Suddenly, he had a feeling part of the attack would be redirected to himself, but that did not stop him, his fist caving a hole in his opponent and poped his own eye. As he was about to strike again, a huge force push flew him several meters away, an old man with magical robes and several rings per finger casting several spells in a second as magical circles formed around him.
Accelerating again, a path of pure darkness connected his position to his target, and Aki just stepped forward, blowing the skull of the lich to bits in one hit, his original position momentarily surrounded by a force cube choke full of traps.
Like the last one, he did not allow the undead to return to whatever repository the necromancer had, instead shattering the soul to pieces and even absorbing some of it.
Seeing as his dimensional anchor had broken, he worried for a second that the man had run away, but then he made a barrier to his side, feeling the wind pressure coming and narrowly defending the skeletal claw coming his way. Before more mobs could try to get him, he teleported upwards, quickly finding where his target had gone and instead teleporting him over, striking him the same way and sending the man temporarily unconscious.
This time the right side of his head was also destroyed, but it really didn't matter at this point, his delayed healing spell regenerating the whole thing easily. His opponent, however, seemed to have some problems as he regenerated more slowly.
Aki wouldn't fall for it however. He knew from the begining the man was a vampire, so this kind of regeneration was expected even under his soul attacks. The only way to make him stop would be breaking his soul, but that was clearly not an option from the moment he noticed the man was actually a transmigrator.
He needed the coordinates in there!
*****
As he dragged the man behind him into the isolated mountain he found, he wondered whether the son of a bitch would ever be able to regain lucidity.
The battle had been long and arduous, the necromancer having tens of hidden abilities even after his army was put to rest.
While Aki had many a chance to just kill the man, there was just no way for him to do so without losing the coordinates on it since they'd be rewritten for good. At the end he even needed to stop the system from self destructing the body in hopes of running away with whatever that energy was for.
Truly a battle that should have filled up some four or five chapters from pure annoyance of the Main character over having to tank or dodge several ridiculous abilities.
From it, he learned that apparently computers were very good at pressing buttons, because after the program took over tons of abilities almost made him lose the avatar he'd sent, which would greatly damage him, though his soul would recover with some billions of XP and time.
No, the important thing is that he'd be taking every precaution so that this guy would be a sitting duck till he could finish him off for good. Defeating an enemy of similar strength without killing them was ridiculously difficult, specially when his more powerful spells were all geared for killing. Preferably in one surprised strike. He'd not gotten around to writing something more complex than 'extremely focused light waves' or 'innately combustible mana coating'.
With some luck he'd get to the more 'proper' activities of a mage and create real detection spells instead of passively doing it or a barrier series instead of relying on natural toughness and his soul armor, which was unexpectedly powerful for the rainbow colour.
He just needed to stay a still for more than fifteen minutes and not worry about his newly born son.
Much like he worried, the child was very energetic. The boy was basically always eating, shitting and running around, sleeping exactly four hours at a time before staying awake for the same time despite what the fact it was a baby would suggest.
While Aki was completely fine with his child being able to move from birth, it made perfect sense when you thought about weight and muscle strength, but that instead ment he was worried about when the little ball of hiperactivy would learn how to fly instead.
For now the chestnut brown wings with yellow specks were still quite small and cute, not really useful, but the moment he was actually able to fly around...
Yeah, he was going to develop a lot of baby sitting spells before anything. Plus finding a magic beast tamer, a baby sitter and young aide for his child, the candidates for each position reduced to the mere hundred from the thousands he had compiled.
It'd been simering in family's back log because of the family size, their disposition to take care of their new addition and their respective responsibilities, but those same people were currently afflicted with 'first time parents' sindrome.
Everyone was suddenly ten times more worried whenever the baby was not in their view since it'd only been 48 hours since their bundle of joy was born. Another reason Aki had a hard time just spending the twenty minutes to deal with this guy for the demonic artefact he wanted without killing him.
He could only sigh and look again at the little fluf smiling with joy. He'd taken the photo quite quickly, though apparently there wasn't a fairy born through his first laugh, but he could already say he loved the little thing more than anything.
If something ever actually happened to him, he'd kill everything and then kill himself.