Inside this segment of the demon dimension there was sweltlering heat, the land there was barren and seemed to be an endless expanse of nothing but ash and sand stretching in either direction.
Beside him Tanoshi had morphed into lava bubble form and was apparently staring all around her based on the way the atmospheric mana around her body was being distorted.
Garasu their senior guild member had manifested several humanoid figures, this caused even more distortions in the surrounding mana.
Buio could sense the atmospheric mana being absorbed into them as it became thinner, their senior apparently had a dimension somewhat akin to his own.
However instead of being based in darkness, it was like a portal composed of countless mirrors containing reflections of everything in his current surroundings.
While Buio stored mana among other things in his dark dimension, Garasu seemed to be able to do something similar with his mirror dimension.
As he listened to the description of the things he couldn't see being provided by his beast bond, the humanoid mirrors summoned by Garusu surged forward in all directions.
"I'll be close by observing everything without interfering except for the intervention of my mirror beings, i have to see how you handle yourselves without assistance. Plus i've heard how lethal both of you can be, so i will remain at a certain range from you. You may begin your subjugation of the tier two demons now."
Upon finishing that statement a mirror manifested behind him, which he stepped backwards into seemingly becoming one with it's surface as only an image of him remained in the mirror.
Soon that image disappeared as well, now only the ashes of the barren expanse reflected in it's surface. Moments later there was no way to discern where the mirror ended and where their real surroundings began.
When his beast bond finished relaying that information to him Buio couldn't help but smile. That was a very versatile affinity indeed.
...
As he altered his mirror to reflect their environment and become one with it, Garasu watched as Darkness spread from Purple Coat's neck downwards and his purple coat disengaged itself from his body and started to levitate in mid air.
'Hm, man's got style no wonder he got the nickname Purple Coat, that coat of his is indeed interesting. According to rumors the coat was every bit as dangerous as it's owner, so anyone who mistakenly assumed he wasn't as powerful without the coat was in for a nasty surprise.'
Garasu knew anyone capable of wielding such powerful tools was either equally as powerful or even more so. If not they were either very resourceful, very intelligent or both.
Based on the information passed on to him by the guild master the notorious young man before him was all of the above and likely much more.
As he watched Buio and Tanoshi dash off in opposite directions Garasu couldn't help but ponder for a moment at how similar the guild's new member's current utilization of darkness was to another guild member of his.
'Ryu... he's probably going to use his darkness like Ryu does.' If this assumption of his was right, their new teammate was chillingly lethal indeed.
When Ryu spread darkness over his body like Buio was currently doing, every type of attack feasible would simply disappear into it like a coin tossed into a well, never to reappear again.
Ryu was also able to summon dark portals which he spewed immolating flames from or sharp and absolutely lethal dragon scale projectiles.
The former could incinerate just about anything without sufficient mana reinforcement within range. The latter could cleave the average being in half almost effortlessly.
To his knowledge Purple Coat had a tendency to use mana siphoning in tandem with refined mana manipulation and spider silk based projectiles in combat. So him and Ryu were different in that regard.
However he had heard that Buio only used his innate ability once throughout the entire Elite Force tournament, but here he was using it right off the bat.
So Garasu focused his attention on him and started sharing senses with the mirror beings he had sent in the direction which his teammate was headed.
As soon as the first demon appeared infront of Buio he seemed to flicker out of existence, only to reappear directly infront of the demon and immediately palm it's face.
A second later there was a huge surge of mana, as he watched the demons head disappeared up to the neck into Buio's palm.
The demon's body began to twitch in a manner which unnerved Garasu, Buio was siphoning the mana out of it. But mana siphoning wasn't supposed to have an effect like that on anything as far as he could tell.
Whatever was on the other side of that portal, the demon was in such a state that it couldn't even focus enough to retaliate. Which was alarming seeing as demons were known to have such a high pain tolerance that it was downright infuriating.
A few seconds later it's body slumped lifelessly and Buio let it fall into the ash below. The demon was now headless, with only a very faint trace of mana remaining on it's body.
Soon that too dissipated. He had heard that his new teammate told another contestant that the usage of his innate ability was strictly for demons. Now that Garasu had seen it in action he could see why.
That particular way in which he had used his portal was more than feasible.
Garasu theorized that Buio had partially transported the demons body then deactivated the portal leaving it's head wherever the portal opened to.
Immediately after it's body hit the ground a horde of other demons appeared surrounding him.
The unslaught which ensued was chilling to the bone. Buio began flickering in and out of existence from one demon to the other, with every reappearance he made a demon lost several limbs sometimes followed by their heads to the rapidly manifesting portals.
Some simply fell or ran straight into portals which appeared before them or under their feet, only to fall out of another portal completely drained of their mana.
Throughout all of this voilent rampage Buio's permaclone didn't intervene not even once. Even as he watched Garasu saw one of the demons fall waist deep into it's own shadow, only to fall sideways a moment later with it's lower half cleanly removed.
One demon who had started racing towards the levitating permaclone reached within an arms length, only to be caught by the hair and have it's head cleaved in half by a small portal that had manifested in the middle of it's face.
A few minutes later demons started homing in on one point as if trying to drown Buio with their sheer numbers. But Garasu's junior was obviously unperturbed, as he didn't even use a portal nor his incredible speed to try and escape. Which he was clearly capable of doing.
For the next few minutes Garasu watched in awe as demon legs, arms and heads flew outward from the middle of the shrinking circle.
After a while the lower tier demons seemed to get the point that the opponent they were up against could not be culled by the likes of them.
At which point some of them attempted to make a hasty retreat, this however was rendered futile.
A massive wave of mana surged forward, expelled from inside Buio's body or his dark dimension.
Whichever it was, Garasu was too surprised to tell the difference. Quite abruptly there was a cube like barrier of very condense mana surrounding them.
The retreating Demons collided with the barrier as tentacles shaped from impenetrable darkness shot outwards from Buio and started ripping the demons to shreds.
Outside of their dimension without the body of a willing being to occupy, demons couldn't affect reality much. In here they had their original bodies.
Garasu would be willing to bet that the demons here wished that was not the case. Everywhere you looked there were demon body parts strewn across the barren wasteland, staining the ashes red.
The demons were the most despicable beings he knew of in all existence, despite that the carnage perpetrated by the human seemed more demonic than the demons themselves at the moment.
The walls of the mana cube were painted red and the ashes beneath it was so saturated that it looked like coagulated blood.
Not a single demon had escaped, not a single one. In the meantime the perpetrator of this ghastly display of voilence dismissed the darkness which had been covering his body all this time. After which he slanted his head sidewise as if cracking his neck then actually started cracking his knuckles. He then simply blurted out: "next!"