Chereads / Born in flame / Chapter 4 - Chapter 4 - The dragon's core

Chapter 4 - Chapter 4 - The dragon's core

Taking the cores, Apollo instantly shoved them in his mouth, feeling a surge of power as the Hellfire started engulfing them. He sat back, letting his body rest and absorb the cores.

Apollo watched as Kappai fought. He was very strong, ripping the demons apart with his bare hands, a complete opposite of Apollo who's stats were very unbalanced, greatly favoring speed. Apollo questioned his unusual growth rate, was it really only because he was lucky and got Hellfire as an attribute, or was it innate? He hoped that one day he would get the answers to these questions.

The demon army thinned, but the fight was far from over. The demon general was still in the middle of his fight with the three Oni guards from before, the only difference is that now they seemed much slower to Apollo, but the general was still merely a blur to him.

Standing up, Apollo stretched his body, ready to assault the demons again. Taking a glance at Kappai again, Apollo noticed he was fighting.. a hunter, and losing.

'Why the hell are you guys here?' Apollo thought, launching towards the group of hunters. A female hunter, probably the leader of said group, wielding a rapier was about to impale Kappai in the chest, breaching his massive mace with fluidity and ferocity.

Imbuing his body with Hellfire, Apollo dashed in front of Kappai, gripping the rapier's edge in his hand.

"What do you think you're doing?" Apollo spat, intently watching the female hunter for any signs of another attack.

"Huh, what? Why are you protecting a monster? You're a hunter, right?" The woman said, confused.

Apollo laughed out loud before responding. "Y'know, the funny thing is, these so-called "monsters" are often better than us. Also, I'm just returning a favor, so fuck off, I'm in the middle of killing some demon bastards."

Apollo turned to Kappai, extending his hand and reciting exactly what Kappai told him earlier. "Get up brother, I got your back." Kappai smiled, taking Apollo's hand and standing up. "Aight brother, how ya wanna do this? I can take a few of em', just be careful of that rapier, it ain't normal."

After a moment of thinking, Apollo looked at Kappai and spoke again. "Alright, distract the ones in the back, I'll fight the rapier bitch and then come help you."

Nodding, Kappai stretched before walking towards the group of hunters. "Be careful brother, she's faster than she lets on."

Manifesting his daggers, Apollo took a battle stance along with the huntress, before she spoke. "May I know your name before I battle you?"

"Apollo"

"Charlotte Isabelle"

As soon as Charlotte finished talking, she shot off towards Apollo. He saw one of the cores on her rapier activate as the rapier suddenly started attracting everything around them, including Apollo. Rocks orbited around the rapier at massive speeds, launching at Apollo periodically. Using a few well-timed spins and flips, Apollo dodged and approached Charlotte, swinging his dagger.

Charlotte merely swung her rapier upward, attracting Apollo's dagger towards it resulting in a large collision. Due to Apollo's exceptionally low strength stat, he was very weak against gravity magic, so he knew he had to be careful. Shooting a burst of Hellfire at the Charlotte, Apollo forced Charlotte to disable her ability lest her weapon attract the Hellfire to itself and crumble to ashes.

Spinning and wildly swinging his dagger, Apollo slashed and slashed, but missed every hit by a hair's breadth. It was as if Charlotte was carefully dancing through his barrage of attacks, perfectly dodging every single one. Jumping back, Charlotte deeply concentrated on her rapier.

"The ultimate attack: Final black hole!" Charlotte screamed, aiming her rapier at Apollo.

"Why do you shout out the names of your attacks? Isn't that kind of counter productiv-"

Apollo was interrupted by a massive surge of magic power as all the cores embedded inside it suddenly flashed brightly, the magic power quickly leaving them and coalescing into one large attack. A tiny black void of nothingness formed at the tip of her rapier, quickly sucking in everything in a radius of at least 20 meters, including Apollo.

Apollo flew towards the black void at massive speeds, unable to stop. He hastily formed a multilayered barrier, which slowed the attack quite a lot, but it still wasn't enough. The rapier penetrated Apollo's stomach, missing his chest only because he propelled himself upwards with Hellfire at the last moment.

"Brother, hold on, I'm comin'- ugh!" Kappai shouted, getting hit with a punch when he was distracted. He swung his mace wildly, missing the hunter by a slim margin. He let go of his mace, delivering a quick punch to the hunter's stomach. Picking his mace back up, he then ran right after the hunter, ready to slam him to the ground when three barriers cast by his group members appeared around him, blocking the attack. A multitude of attacks came his way, which he reacted to by side stepping behind the hunter closest to him, using him as a shield.

With another blow to the barriers, two crumbled, only one remaining. The hunter quickly scrambled to his feet, running back. Not letting him escape, Kappai chased after him, swinging his mace.

With the rapier still embedded in Apollo's stomach and blood coming out of his mouth, Apollo gripped the rapier firmly in his hands, preventing it from being taken out while ripping out the cores and letting Hellfire consume it. As the Hellfire climbed up to Charlotte's fingertips and up her glove, she quickly let go of the rapier and ripped the glove off her wrist, jumping away.

Hellfire flooded Apollo's wound, slowly sealing it. Apollo felt the Hellfire "asking" for permission to take over his mind. He had never let it control him more than only partially, but now, for the first time, he decided to let it. The metaphorical gate to his innermost thoughts opened, his emotions disappearing almost completely as he turned his cold gaze to Charlotte.

"Round two," Apollo whispered, shooting towards Charlotte with daggers in his hands.

Multiple rocks shot towards Apollo with massive speeds as the earth rumbled. Magic power danced around Charlotte as a small castle rose from the ground, a field of massively increased gravity forming around it, using it as an anchor to contain it.

Seemingly uncaring, Apollo stomped on the ground, stopping just in front of the gravity field and winding up for a punch.

"A pretty flimsy waste of magic power you got there," said Apollo as his fist shot forward, creating a huge shockwave along a gust of wind that traveled through the barrier harmlessly, crumbling the castle to dust.

"W-with just the wind from his punch?!" One of Charlotte's team members shouted, blocking an attack from Kappai.

The gravity field collapsed, the castle supporting it no longer standing. Charlotte collapsed on her knees from exhaustion, but Apollo was not done yet. Smirking, Apollo launched himself at her, picking her up by her face and subsequently slamming her to the ground with enough force to create a ravine and knocking her out. Standing up, Apollo stretched and whipped his head around to look at Charlotte's team, who were all surrendering and begging Apollo not to kill them.

"P-please, we won't say anything to her father. We'll deny everything, please just let us go!"

"What do you mean, who's her father? It better be something important." Apollo impatiently scoffed, the Hellfire inside him wanting more.

"Her f-father is called Marco Isabelle, he is one of the cofounders of the Shadow assassins guild. They possess many S-rank and even above hunters!"

"Can't people even be bothered to give a whole ass guild an original name? It's like I'm in a poorly written novel." Apollo sighed.

"U-ugh, I'm sorry?"

"Nevermind, alright, deal. Make sure not a single one of these Oni dies to more hunters, and you can leave here alive." Apollo said, quickly shooting towards the demon horde again.

With a slash of his greatsword, multiple demons perished. What was previously a small wave of Hellfire emanating from the edge of the blade was now a massive slash, cutting through demons like butter. Apollo was surprised to see that the battle between the three Oni and the demon general still continued, albeit both sides were already bruised and battered thoroughly. Apollo decided he would wait and then, when the general was even more damaged, finish him and take the core for himself.

In the meantime, Apollo cut up more demons. The only demons posing a threat to Apollo were the very few powerful ones and the general, but he was approaching their level too. Every single powerful demon was occupied with many Oni, diminishing the threat.

The amount of demons was thinning, decreasing from thousands to hundreds. The flood of demons coming from hell couldn't compare to the sheer amount of demons being decimated.

And after another hour of combat, night struck, and the cries of the Oni intensified. Unbeknownst to Apollo, the general had a shadow affinity. His strength grew in the shade, and even more at night. His limbs were slowly regrowing as he was crawling through the shadows, slaughtering other Oni as the three generals futilely chased after him.

The fire affinity Oni did their best to create a pseudo-sun, creating vortexes of fire that they fused into one large ball to create light. The general, ejected from his shadow, quickly cleaved through them, returning right back into the shadows.

Readying his daggers, Apollo said. "Hey, keep the demon illuminated, he's mine." The Oni seemingly understood, bravely casting more fire magic into the air.

Before the general could kill more Oni, Apollo charged at him with his daggers. A sword of shadows manifested in the demon's hand, clashing with Apollo's dagger. The dagger, surprisingly, stayed firm, not cracking under the stress and merely deforming. The demon's skill clearly was in a league of its own, his sword flowing like a river, strong and fast, firm but flexible. If not for the damage done by the three Oni, Apollo would surely be minced meat by now, and he knew it.

Apollo's Hellfire reacted to the strong opponent, adapting in the middle of battle as always. The forest Apollo came out of, the cliff from which he overlooked the battlefield, all were now gone as their destructive battle completely ruined the battlefield as unlike the three Oni, Apollo was not trying to minimize collateral damage.

With a single swing of his dagger, a myriad of trees disappeared in brilliant dark blue flames, yet the general seemed like he had no trouble dodging, adapting to Apollo's fighting style, but unable to land a finishing blow himself.

The Oni casting light around them couldn't keep up, leaving to fight off the rest of the demons and leaving Apollo to use the light from his own flames, which only emitted a minimal amount of it.

Like this, the two battled until it was almost midnight, leaving behind a desolate landscape wherever they went. The deeper they delved into the night, the stronger the general became, but so did Apollo. While the general gained strength from the night, Apollo was growing. He had learned how to effectively control the flow of Hellfire and how to save his strength during a prolonged battle, he had studied the general's sword skills thoroughly, he had increased the sharpness, durability and effectiveness of his weapons, and of course, his raw power and stats increased too.

During the battle, he had looked at the status window quite a bit. At this point, he had pretty much disregarded it completely, deeming it completely useless, only serving to boost the ego of its users by showing them pretty numbers, hell, no one even knows where it came from, it just popped up one day. Only thing he was interested in was his attribute mastery, which was now sitting at 36%.

Apollo was confused, after so much battling and getting stronger, it was still merely 36%? He had no idea it would be so difficult to attain, but this motivated him even further. If the jump in power would be as great as the last one, it was definitely worth it.

With each second approaching midnight, the demon general sped up, punching Apollo with much more force than before. Apollo struggled to block the attacks, let alone dodge.

'This is no time to be holding back,' Apollo thought, letting go of his firm grip on the Hellfire which allowed him to battle for hours.

Hellfire flowed through his body, relieving the pressure put out by the demon. With both of them at the peak of their strength, they were once again on an equal footing, Apollo being faster while the demon was much stronger and more durable.

Apollo knew, however, that he would be the first to run out of steam. Shadow affinity users peak at midnight, and their power then slowly diminishes over several hours, while Apollo had only about half an hour until he was out of energy, and that was only if his estimations were correct. He needed to finish this quickly.

Apollo pushed his body beyond the limit, amplifying it with much more Hellfire than it could handle. Cracks formed in his skin, from which Hellfire escaped at a fast rate, but for this short moment, he was much more powerful than ever before.

'It's all or nothing,' Apollo thought while amplifying his body with even greater quantities of Hellfire.

His body felt as if he was getting stabbed by thousands of knives at the same time, making him fall to the ground, but he didn't relent. Hellfire was overtaking his mind even further, driving him into the familiar madness he experienced upon his first use of it.

Apollo stood up, watching the demon intently, Hellfire leaking out of his body as blood flew from his wounds.

The demon general mumbled something which Apollo didn't understand and started laughing. "Kekekekekeke" The demon pointed at Apollo, laughing even more.

The general's laugh quickly turned to surprise and fear when he heard a voice from behind him. "Shut up, you're annoying."

The demon was met with a relentless barrage of slashes, each strike deftly severing the arms it had regenerated during the battle, as well as its legs. The demon's body was lacerated multiple times, unable to withstand the fierce onslaught.

With one last push, Apollo pierced the demon's chest with his greatsword, sending the shiny core spinning somewhere towards the ground. Apollo's consciousness faded, his body collapsing as the last of his Hellfire ran out from his body and he fell from the air onto the hard rock underneath him.

A few hours prior

Back at the castle, Jorogumo was battling a squad of hunters, precisely 4 C-ranks and 7 B-ranks.

His onyx black longsword gleamed as it cut through multiple magical attacks coming from the humans. As many of the Oni before him, Jorogumo was not a ranged attacker, merely using his water affinity to help him attack in close-quarters situations or block opponent's escape routes using ice.

"It's been a while since I've been in a good fight, humans, I've got to give you that."

"We don't need recognition from a monster such as you!" A B-ranked hunter, seemingly their leader, responded, shooting multiple arrows made of pure lightning out of his bow.

"Oh my, you've certainly got a sharp tongue," Jorogumo chuckled, stopping the arrows by grabbing them mid-flight and throwing them back at the sender.

Every attack the hunters launched was either avoided, slashed through or otherwise blocked. It was clear that this Oni was playing with them, savoring the battle. The magic power in the air resonated as Jorogumo felt multiple strong beings walk through the gate.

"It's the Balliol guild! What are they doing here?" Jorogumo heard one of the hunters shout out.

"Where is he, the one who killed my son! Bring him to me at once, so that I can make him experience the pain my son felt a hundredfold!" Yelled an old man with scars around his body and greying hair, his old but muscular body a sharp contrast to the new, shiny armor with many cores imbedded inside it. He wielded a one handed sword along with a shield, each having at least 5 cores imbedded inside them.

Next to him stood two subordinates, one seemingly an assassin wielding two daggers with clothing as black as the night, and a female holding an orb full of cores, probably a healer.

Jorogumo reached inside his pocket, throwing a large explosive in the air, functioning as a retreat signal. "To the capital!"

Upon seeing this, all the Oni started running away from the battlefield, towards the forest next to the castle in the direction of the capital.

The old man seemed not to care, instead interrogating any hunter he saw for information.

Jorogumo quickly ran into the castle, taking the dragon's core with him to make sure the humans didn't get their hands on it. He then departed, moving his entire army methodically though the forest on-route to the capital while dispatching the hunters following them.

The big army marched on for hours, almost reaching the capital, suddenly stopping when Jorogumo raised his hand. Signs of battle, a massive battle, could be seen ravaging the land. Wisps of dark blue flames with a slight hint of violet lingered in the air. The clouds blocking the moon disappeared, unveiling the full midnight moon illuminated the desecrated landscape and uncovering two bodies lying on the ground.

Jorogumo immediately rushed to the bleeding-out Apollo, bandaging his wounds and letting the Oni heal him.

"Now what do we have here?" A sinister voice chuckled, immediately putting all the Oni on guard, including Jorogumo.

"You idiots really led me to your capital, hahah, I have to admit, I was taken aback by an Oni healing a human. Tell me, is he the one who killed the boss's son? If you do, I might put in a good word for you, you know?"

"Stop hiding and face me, coward!" Jorogumo yelled into the darkness, not getting an answer.

Jorogumo's senses screamed at him as he barely managed to block the surprise attack from behind with his sword.

"You, you're the assassin that was with the old man, aren't you!?"

"Bingo, you got me. Unfortunately, you won't be alive to remember me for much longer, heheheh."

Attacks came from all directions, the assassin's shadow affinity allowing him to pop in and out of the shadows. Jorogumo blocked all of them, although struggling greatly.

Every time a fire or light affinity Oni tried to create light, they were killed instantly.

"Impressive, being able to block attacks from an A-ranked hunter. I wonder, what will you do when I go all out, heheheh!"

The sound of metal striking metal filled the air, the two's weapons clashing violently, but when Jorogumo blocked one attack, another came, stabbing the dagger straight into his stomach.

"Don't worry, my next attack will go for the head, heheheh."

A dagger formed out of nowhere, right next to Jorogumo's head. With his damaged body, he failed to dodge or block. This was the end, he had failed. In his last moments, he wondered whether the three great Oni guards of the capital could face off against the old man.

Before the dagger could hit Jorogumo, however, a voice resounded throughout the battlefield.

"Hey, how about you fight someone of your own strength for once, your ego's a little over-inflated from fighting weaklings, don't you think?"

The dagger was stopped in its tracks as a hand held it in place. Dark blue flame slowly creeped up the dagger, incinerating it completely and forcing the assassin to jump away.

"Tell your Oni to create some light once they heal you," Said Apollo, spinning his daggers in his hands.

"Apollo, how? How are you able to stand?"

"The demon I killed, I'm using it's core to replenish my energy. My affinity can turn cores into stats, so I figured, why the hell couldn't it just restore my energy instead."

"What do you mean by 'stats'?"

Blocking one of the assassin's attacks, Apollo forcibly pulled him out of the shadows and kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him flying into the ground.

"Do you not have a status window? It shows you your stats like strength and agility."

"No, I don't know of any such thing. I'm sorry."

This surprised Apollo greatly. Why wasn't it public information, why do monsters not have status windows, why don't humans have cores, why does he have a unique affinity, these were all questions that greatly interested Apollo but were left unanswered, for now.

"Huh, weird. Alright, I'm just gonna get rid of this guy, wait here." Said Apollo, walking towards the assassin.

"Wait," Jorogumo said, taking something out of his bag. "Here, I'm sorry if it's not enough to repay you, it is from one of the weakest dragons, that is why we were able to defeat it."

It was a shiny, but completely black core. An unending abyss of magic power, that seemed to draw in all light and magic power around it. It pulsed with a dark energy, almost as if it were alive. Those who dared to get too close to it felt a cold chill run down their spine, as if they were being watched by something sinister.

Apollo's expression turned into a wide smile as he reached for the core, blocking the assassin's attempts to stop him. "This is from one of the weakest dragons? That makes me weirdly excited."

As the core reached his mouth, he felt the Hellfire hungrily waiting for it, as if it knew that this core was something special. Placing the core in his mouth, Apollo swallowed, and immediately felt as the Hellfire quickly engulfed the core.

Massive amounts of magic power flooded Apollo's body, greatly increasing each of his stats, but it was far from stopping. Magic power overflowed from inside the core, overwhelming Apollo's body and Hellfire. At this rate, something similar to when Apollo reinforced his body so hard he almost exploded from the inside would happen, Apollo knew he had to find a use for this unending energy.

The energy suddenly spread evenly within Apollo's body as the Hellfire guided it throughout the body, circulating it and speeding it up, creating a vortex of magic power inside Apollo.

Apollo knew this feeling, as he had experienced it once before, evolution. His body felt like it was turned inside out and outside in multiple times per second, as if his flesh was being forcibly torn apart by beasts. The thick aura of Hellfire around him formed a shield, protecting him from the assassin while he writhed in pain on the ground.

As the last of the core's energy was depleted, a pleasant, cold feeling washed over Apollo's body, stopping the pain. Apollo's eyes pulsed, his dark blue irises turning a potent topaz color. The concentration of Hellfire within his body was insurmountably larger than before, his senses able to perfectly pin-point the assassin in the shadows even without Hellfire amplification.

After a long while, Apollo finally opened his status window.

[Name: Apollo Hart]

[Race: Draconic Hellfire human]

[Age: 18]

[Strength: 89k]

[Agility: 193k]

[Sense: 201k]

[Vitality: 68k]

[Power: 500k]

[Attribute: Hellfire]

[Attribute mastery: Beginner «44%»]

His eyes opened wide at the massive status increase he gained from absorbing the dragon's core. Even his race changed as his Hellfire integrated some of the dragon's power into Apollo's body, rebuilding his body to be more draconic.

Apollo laughed once more, unable to grasp just how much he had grown.

"H-hah, I'm an S-rank now." Apollo mumbled in disbelief. But of course, his body was much more suited for storing such a massive amount of power, being part draconic and part 'Hellfire'.

"You're a what? Stop bluffing, child!" The assassin said as he lunged at Apollo, who merely laughed.

"You don't know when to stop, do you?"

Apollo concentrated a small amount of Hellfire on the tip of his finger, flicking the assassin in the forehead.

With a cracking sound, the assassin collided with the ground which shook from the impact and formed a massive crater. It was clear the battle was over when the dust cleared and Apollo saw the assassin lying on the ground, his limbs twisted and blood surrounding him.

Apollo looked back at the wide-eyed Jorogumo, who was so shocked he could merely stare at Apollo and the dead assassin.

"I'm off to the capital, I didn't get to finish all of the demons there. You should get there soon so your men can rest up."

With that, Apollo disappeared, his speed alone creating a massive shockwave as he travelled to the capital.

It seemed the demons had been largely pushed back, now that the three Oni guards were back in the fight. With a wave of his hand, Apollo conjured a massive wave of Hellfire which barreled upon the demons like a tsunami, clearing out a massive group. The Oni rejoiced, the mere sight of Apollo decimating the demons boosting their morale greatly.

Apollo mercilessly slaughtered almost all of the demons on the battlefield in a matter of minutes, leaving only the portal and a few weak strays that quickly got finished off by the Oni.

Apollo was astonished at the amount of power he now had. His power stat increased much more dramatically than his other stats, and at first he thought it to be bad, as he was a primarily melee warrior, but he then realized he could do a thing that others, with the exception of the shadow element at night and the light element in the day, couldn't do. He could amplify his body, raising his agility, vitality and strength greatly beyond their base values.

With the exception of shadow affinity users at night and light affinity users in the day, no one else was able to amplify their own body very much. While it was possible to flood your body with magic power, it would give a very slight boost. This meant that Apollo's body amplification was pretty much an ability only he could use.

The three Oni guards approached Apollo, kneeling. "His Majesty wishes to speak with you, sir Apollo."

They led Apollo into the castle, where the king sat next to the queen and what seemed to be a princess. The king shooed the guards away, leaving only the four of them in the room.

"Apollo, you are the castle's savior. I have decided to bestow upon you the best reward I am able to."

Apollo waited eagerly for his reward, expecting something grand.

"You may take my daughter's hand in marriage."

"Eh!?"