The demon chuckled, his chuckle sending ripples through the air. After a while, it stopped and looked at them. " Do you think, you can kill me? Pernacuis, the demon that thrives on trickery? How absurd."
Yu merely smirked after hearing that declaration. " That's why, cowards like you, use trickery. You don't have the skill to back up your words. Deceiving is what you are good at and that's pathetic."
Karin looked at Yu and smirked, the mission had shown her a side of Yu that she funny enough found respecting. He was not as naive as she had painted him to be, he was crafty using the boasting ethics of the demon against it and belittling its highly praised skill of tricking people to get the upper hand.
Pernacuisʼ eye twitched and a vein the size of his finger appeared on his forehead. His crimson eyes gleamed in the dark showing his fury. "Kill them, bring the boy's head. The woman, leave her at the brink of death so that I can take my time killing her."
As Pernacuis was higher on the hierarchy, the lower demons were easily influenced by his speech, and with a unified cry of the night, it sent tremors to the people who were awake during the time. Making mothers hide their kids and fathers lock the doors in preparation for demons swarming through the city.
But on this night, it was different. The shrieks and demonic cries of the demons were aimed at two people.
Karin unsheathed her sword, she stepped back a bit closing the gap between her and Yu as the demon circle closed in on them. She looked at the boy from the corners of her eyes. "Leave the small fries to me, go after the big guy."
Yu looked back at Karin. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, in case you did not realize, I'm stronger than you know. A few hundred demons won't kill me that easily and besides, if we spend our time fighting these ones who know how much stamina we would've spent."
Yu nodded, Karin's words had some truth to them. If they exhaust themselves fighting his minions, even a demon that focuses more on trickery could overwhelm them. "Don't die on me"
Yu breathed in, oxygen flowed through his lungs accelerating the movement of his blood. His heartbeat eased up a bit and his eyes dilated. He cleared his mind, and with the preparation of the Sun Form completed, Yu shifted his stance a bit. His right leg moved to the side, the left slightly inching back, his hand held onto the handle of the sword, his thumb against the hilt pushing it outward. "Sum Form: Heavenly Demon, Surface Slash."
Yu pressed his toes against the ground and pushed off his back foot. His speed propulsion threw him forward and he unsheathed his sword, swinging it from left to right horizontally cutting through the demons that were in his path. The blade illuminated with fire, and through muscles, it cleaved with ease. The layer of demons that were before Pernacuis disappeared in the blink of an eye and before Pernacuis could react, Yu's sword cleaved through his hand severing it from the body.
Yu stopped behind the demon, having a higher elevation than it, and swung his blade cleaning it from the blood of the demons he carved through on his way to Pernacuis.
Pernacuis blinked and looked at Yu, he blinked again. In his mind was the thought of how? Why did he not see him move, he turned his head to look at the minions that were before him and saw they were reduced to nothing but dust. He looked down and saw a hand on the ground, his eyes followed the trail of blood and saw he was missing a hand.
"My hand!!!" He bellowed in agony, his mouth wide open as the shriek of pain flooded the city of Xin. "My blood! My blood!! That's my blood."
Yu looked at the demon with uninterest, just as he had expected, the demon was weak. It had never been harmed that's why it behaved this way. "Next time it will be your head that rolls."
Pernacuis gritted his teeth, his body distorting and he reverted to his true form. Sixteen-inch horns appeared on his forehead. His ears protruded to the side. His skin turned blue, and a prehensible tail emerged from his tailbone. His severed hand regrew from the stamp Yu left. With a shriek, Pernacuis disappeared from sight and appeared before Yu, his fist slammed into Yu's stomach launching him through the tiled roof of the royal palace.
Yu coughed, the oxygen in his lungs knocked out and his saliva mixed with his blood spread through the air. He adjusted his body and reached out to the top of the castle, he held onto it stabilizing himself. He looked at the demon below him, he saw something before he got hit but he could not tell what he had seen.
Shaking his head to get rid of the thoughts, Yu held the sun blade in his right hand, the tip of the sword facing Pernacuis. "Sun Form…" He breathed in again, holding his breathing channelling foreign energy into his body. His lungs started to hurt from how long he had been holding his breathing, even when he was hit, he managed to retain some of the air he had sealed in his lungs. Mist formed around his lips, his left hand settled on the handle of the blade, his legs shifting to the side to get a good footing.
"Heavenly demon second phase…" It started off as a small flame, the white blade ignited into a myriad of small pale flames which combined and fed off the atmosphere becoming a raging fire, his hands burned but the flame was cold. Underneath the moonlight, he looked like an angel cloaked in white. "World Phoenix!"
Yu dashed from the roof, the tile scattering from his speed and strength. His body soared through the sky, illuminating it with his flames, becoming a mini shooting star. The flames around his sword enveloped him, the tip of the sword became the center point, and the beak and the rest turned into a phoenix. His body rotated around, and he plummeted right into Pernacuis who was standing there in anticipation.
"Foolish child." The being from earlier chuckled watching through the eyes of Yu.
Pernacuis grinned a feral grin as he stretched his arms out, the descending blade of flames approached him and he took the liberty to conjure up nether flowing through him into his hands, torso, and legs, crushing the floor underneath him with the pressure of his weight
Yu's sword tip hit the open palm of Pernacuis and a shockwave rippled across the city blowing away the buildings around them including everyone who was in the courtyard. The water kennels running throughout the city violently shook and spilled water everywhere, creating mid-sized tsunamis that swept through the city.
Around Pernacuis, the stone ground crumbled, the stairs chirped away into debris and a crater formed. Under the intense clash, Pernacuis kept a smirk, the flames were burning his hand but they were starting to die out around Yu. "Got you!" Pernacuis raised his right hand, having used the left to block the attack, and hit Yu on the back smashing the boy into the crater. His foot rose from the ground and he kicked Yu in the ribs, cracking six of them while sending him flying through the walls.
His punishment was not done, through the extensions of nether. The shadows bent and twisted to his mental command creating tendrils that latched onto Yu, piercing through his arms, shoulder, and legs before pulling him back into another punch that shot Yu into the sky breaking more of his ribs and bones.
Yu coughed out blood, his hands fell limp and the Sun blade wiggled out of his grasp as he threw through the air. His vision was blurry, he could hear the rushing winds but he could not breathe. Blood dropped from his lips, and he closed his eyes, his breathing becoming shallow, even the screams of Karin were fading from his ears. "This is how I die…" He whispered.
"Not quite, but you are close to death."
Yu opened his eyes and saw that he was in the same place as before. The blood water was at his waist now instead of his ankles, and the throne of skulls had increased in elevation. "Oh, it's you again."
The man grinned, his eyes illuminating a dark color, the skulls around him grinned as well. "That's not a way to greet yourself. But you are in a bind, I can help you but for a price."
"No thanks."
The man got up from his throne of skulls and jumped the distance between him and Yu. He ceremoniously landed on the water and looked at Yu. "For your left arm, give me your left arm and I'll make sure you, your little girlfriend survive this. One's word is one's vow."
"How do I know I can trust you?"
The man sighed and stepped closer, the blood spilling on Yu's face. His overbearing shadow of malice and despair covered Yu entirely. "As I said, I am you. Although different and stronger, we are the same if you die I die. It's that simple."
"Okay then, I'll give you my right hand for now."
The man's grin increased in intensity. He laughed, the world shaking in anticipation of what was to come. "Rest boy."