The demon's fist almost reached X's fist. Both hands blazed with different colored flames, one dark red and the other golden-white. As their fists inched near each other, X spoke with a smile
'Pyrokinesis'
The flames on the demon's hand spluttered away, and it was hit with a powerful punch from the fist covered in blazing hot white flames. The creature was blown away by the single punch, crashing into a nearby dune, slowly losing all the dark red flames that coated its body like a suit of armor. It got up, sand in its mouth. Rage filled its entire body, and with a bloodthirsty roar, it charged forward.
The Fifth Lord required him to win this battle and gain control over the desert so that he could defeat the King. He would not fail his country. Some foreign energy was fighting against its flames, causing them to splutter and due out, but it could not let that happen. The flames that had disappeared slowly started reforming due to its will, and rejoicing in that fact, the demon threw a punch at the being completely covered in golden flames.
X could not comprehend what happened just now, and he did not have the time to comprehend it. One moment, he remembered something from his visions, one word, a new power, and now his body was coated in flames. When his fist had almost collided with the demon's, he had heavily concentrated his punch into that attack, and the flames on the demon's body died out. Now the flames were slowly returning but lacked the same intensity, so he was not sure if it was his doing, but one thing was certain. He had pissed the demon off.
X tilted his body back, almost touching the ground with his hand as the demon punched the air above him. Flexing forward, he swung his hatchet down, but the demon was not playing around. It sidestepped and the hatchet struck the ground, getting stuck in it. The demon landed a punch on X's injured side, but he barely felt the pain.
He felt a wave of heat washing over him instead. X opened his eyes to see that he was on the ground, the golden flames slowly disappearing. Just as he was about to get up, the demon appeared in the air, falling from high above, blocking the setting sun like an eclipse.
The demon had pounced on him since they both lacked heat now. It's flames were useless, but so was the human's. All that mattered was strength, and when it came to that, the demon had much, much more.
X did not know what he was doing, but he did it anyway. He couldn't fight the demon, even with this new and unexplained power, but he could burn. And so he did. He let go off all the fear of flames he had been harboring even now. He let loose all the heat he had inside him, a blast of golden-white fire that roared up to the sky.
The sky was dyed golden for a second, and all X could see was golden, but X knew that it was useless. The flames won't hurt the fire-covered demon, just like they did not hurt X. The explosion was massive, so big that X could not comprehend its range. The flames were hot, so hot that even X felt it, despite having been reduced from the pain because of the new ability. All of this, but no damage to the demon.
But when the explosion was over, X was in for a surprise. The demon lay in front of him, half of its body having burnt away. X turned around and walked away, not gaining any joy despite killing the demon. There was no reason for them to fight, after all. His visions, and what they showed about demons had changed his perspective. He was only doing this for the survival of his squad.
Brik felt pain. He felt a lot of pain. His legs felt like they were getting ripped apart, and that was probably because they were. It did not hurt while extending his claws out of his fist for the first time for some reason, but now that he tried it with his legs, he almost lost consciousness while fighting.
His eyes fell on Aqua standing behind him, barely able to walk. She held two glowing blue tridents in her hand, and Brik had a sudden realization that he had seen a similar trident in her hand when they were running away from the scorpions,albeit an incomplete one. Brik felt a lot of power from those tridents, and was temporarily angered by the fact that she did not use them earlier.
Anger rose within him, and the sand demons stepped back, disturbed by rush of killing intent emerging from his body. Then he realised that it probably took a long time to charge up, or had some other catch, like his new ability, so he turned his anger on someone else.
These demons, not only had they forced him to literally eat dirt, but they had hurt his comrades as well. X might have died on multiple occasions and although he did not care much about her, Aqua might have died as well. He had to kill these demons. His fist curled up. The pain was no longer an issue. All the dark feelings he had held back during the past two years, he released it all. All the worries, insecurities, anxieties and most importantly, wrath. The demons stepped away and turned around hastily, checking if their commander was watching. If it was, they were probably planning to flee. But Brik would not allow that.
He felt a sharp pain in his leg but did not mind it. Even though he was rooted in spot and he could barely sense anything other than pain, he managed to speak one word.
'Death Roots'
Suddenly, long, ivory-white spike rose from the ground, right where the demon's were standing. Their sandy bodies were spiked from the ground, bone claws impaling them from the ground.
Brik's wrath had been fully unleashed. Multiple spikes followed, as all the bones in his legs transformed into death sentences for the demons. His spikes forced the demons to get closer until the demons were almost touching each other, constantly getting ripped apart fatser than they could reform.
Brik walked forward, and as he did, the whole bone structure shook, moving the impaled demon bodies up and down. But they were not dead. Their bodies crumpled, and as they reformed they got spiked again. Brik inched closer until he stood face to face with both the demons, who were now as small as Brik's arm.
With a single swat with both his hands, he dispersed them both. His anger merged with the attacks, his killing intent forcing the demons to die. Permanently.
The bone spines disappeared under the sand once again, and as Brik turned around, the bones reformed in the soles of his legs.
He spat out some of the sand in his lungs and suddenly felt an increase in temperature so great he felt the necessity to run away.
On his right side, a giant flare of heat rose from the ground, followed by a massive golden cylinder, scorching a demon who was pouncing down from the sky. It looked like the Lord of Light had pushed down on the area with his index finger. As soon as it disappeared, Brik saw a stunning sight.
In the center of the fiery abyss stood a single entity, who screamed silently, since the sound of his scream could not overpower the sound of the explosion.
Brik was so entranced by the fiery attack that he did not realize that he was attacked. A punch hit him from behind and sent him down to the ground. Before he could respond, his head was kicked, and a miniaturized sand demon stamped on his injured legs. Brik howled in pain and clamored down, his bone claws returning to finish the job.
The demons then rushed towards the only other person standing in their vicinity. Aqua. And that was the biggest mistake of their entire demonic lives.
The tridents in her hands shone bright blue, and so did her eyes and hair. Her brightly glowing water-like hair floated around like she was underwater, and she felt the powerful current of water held by her weapon through her fingertips.
She could barely stand, but that did not mean she could let the demons attack her friends. These demons were made of sand, but they lived too far away from the ocean for them to fear her, a being born from the sea. That was not something she agreed with.
Aqua smiled slightly, as the mini demons rushed closer, slowly regrowing, pooling sand from the desert floor. She held one of her tridents, let go of the other and made it float in the air. She stared forward as blood covered her sight, making it hard to discern shapes.
No matter how strong the structure of the sandcastle was, it cannot survive a tidal wave. The demons did not seem to realize that the tidal wave that would wipe them off the face of the planet was fast approaching. But she did. This she smiled, especially while speaking out the name of the ability she was using, something she had seen her elders use back in Atlantis.
Aqua sent her trident flying through th air with a quick movement of her hand, throwing it with as much strength as she could use without killing herself, while also increasing its velocity by using the telekinetic ability she used to send her normal tridents flying at enemies. The attack rushed forward with the power of the ocean, and as the trident was almost instantly in the demons' faces, they realized that their time had ended. It was too late for them to run, dodge, or pray to the Demon God. The wave had already washed over them.
'Riptide: Kilo Trident'
A trident that contained enough water to create a thousand normal tridents crashed into the demons, instantly melting them away. The desert sand within a large radius around the demons had turned into to the sand that was found on the sea bed, marshy and sticky. The demons had been destroyed, Aqua could feel it. The energy of their bodies got mixed with the energy of the trident in the air, like a drop of ink in a bucket of water.
A single trident had vanquished the demons who had not died to countless fatal attacks and killed demons who could come back after death. Aqua smiled brightly in self-satisfaction, turning her head around, hoping to see X complimenting her on the attack.
Brik's who had fainted due to pain and was lying at the edge of the attack' radius, was sprayed with water, and the poor guy woke up due to the splash of extremely cold water. He sat up, blinked a few times, and breathed out sand until his lungs turned partially normal. He then got up and walked to Aqua. Regardless of his hatred of the pesky girl, he put his hand on her shoulder for support while she put her hands on his, and led her to the place where their packs had fallen off. Within the small packs were a couple pairs of spare clothes, and some magical medicine made by the Tower Master just in case anything went wrong. Brik gave the medicine to Aqua, which helped her come back to her senses. The other Kilo trident she had made floated around her, annoying Brik. Aqua seemed to notice how disturbing it was and made it spin around faster to purposefully irritate Brik.
They gathered the medicine and walked towards X's unconscious body. Brik slowly fed the medicine to X, and as he did that he thought about how he should learn to make medicine from the Tower Master. After a moment, he asked Aqua to take over while he went to change into his spare clothes.
When she was sure that Brik had left, Aqua stared at X while feeding him those medicines. How a person could look so beautiful after a battle to the death, she had no idea. Even the pattern made by his blood and some other, darker substance on his body looked fascinating. Suddenly, she felt an odd sensation. She tilted her head and looked around, but nothing had changed. X opened his eyes.
'Aqua... something is wrong.'
'I know, but what is it?'
X closed his eyes for a while, took in a deep breath, and spoke
'The energy of the sand demons you killed, seemed to be pooling somewhere. And the energy of the ash demon, I just don't feel it.'
Brik had just walked out from behind the dunes after changing his clothes when he saw something so utterly terrifying, especially after what they had been through that he wished he had just stayed back in Rossenberg. The ashen demon X had killed, why was it still walking despite not having half of its upper body? Towards his friends? And why did it seem like the demon had gotten a lot stronger?