Chapter 885: Now, Logan... Fire! [1]
There wasn’t any time to continue their foolishness. Asmodeus quickly jumped to his feet, unsteadily reaching for the air as it distorted with a violent hum. "Looks like it’s going to be a long day..." He mused while glancing at the deformed abomination.
’Come to me, Axiom!’
With a single shout, the world echoed along with Asmodeus’s heartbeat for several moments, a golden brilliance leaking from his eyes as he activated his domain around the entire port.
"Tsk..."
However, despite everything else stopping. The fiend continued to move. Although at an extremely slow pace, it could resist his domain, much like the Arbiter’s could three years earlier.
Leviathan’s fingers continued forcing themselves through the barrier.
The golden surface groaned as cracks spread around its wrists. Each of its seven bladed fingers moved through the frozen world as though dragging itself across the bottom of an ocean.
’Even now, it can resist this much?’
Asmodeus lifted one hand.
The air above the ruined coast twisted.
A black-and-white streak appeared in the distance.
Axiom tore through the rain, spinning so quickly that the storm split around its blade. It passed over the flooded docks, crossed the broken wall and flew into Asmodeus’s palm.
The moment his fingers closed around the shaft, the domain collapsed.
Sound returned.
The barrier shattered.
Leviathan surged through the broken light, its elongated arm shooting toward Asmodeus’s chest.
He moved first.
Axiom rose between them.
CLANG!
The impact sent a tremor across the ruined wall. Asmodeus’s knees bent, and the stone beneath his feet split, yet he held the strike.
For a moment, he and the twisted creature remained locked together. Its countless eyes blinked while observing Asmodeus and his every movement, the way his muscles twitched and even the churning of his energies.
His golden eyes narrowed.
"Sorry, ugly bastard. I’m not done yet."
Asmodeus twisted Axiom and dragged the halberd’s edge along Leviathan’s forearm. Black armour peeled apart, spraying dark blood across the platform as he stepped inside the creature’s reach.
His shoulder slammed into its torso.
Leviathan slid backwards, with a slight dent in its armour.
Though he didn’t manage a significant blow, Asmodeus grinned widely, a few metres away, and yet it was enough to give the soldiers and other people some hope.
’Good, so you’re not invulnerable to damage!’
Asmodeus felt strength returning through Axiom, but it was little more than residue. The weapon had carried traces of divine, abyssal and demonic power back to him, though nothing close to what he had spent earlier.
It wasn’t enough to restore him.
Only enough to make fighting possible.
He forced the remaining energy inside his body to move.
The currents resisted.
His demonic power crawled through broken veins.
Abyssal energy burned inside his muscles.
The faint divine aura around his heart recoiled against both.
Asmodeus gritted his teeth and crushed them together through sheer will.
’Move.’
His body convulsed.
Blood poured from the reopened wounds across his chest, but his aura flared around him in a violent mixture of red, black and white. He could feel the distorted energies around him before Velvet’s cry echoed from behind.
"Asmodeus, please stop! You can’t keep pushing yourself this far....!"
"Haha, don’t worry." He glanced back with a playful smile, the faint remnants of blood dying his pale lips bright red. "I’ll be okay."
"Why are you smiling?"
Velvet’s shoulders trembled, but he forced himself to turn away.
"Because my beautiful wife is worried about me."
"That makes no sense!"
"It makes perfect sense to me—Tsk! Don’t interrupt a couple when they’re talking!"
Leviathan appeared in front of him.
Its long arm bent in three places, passing around Axiom before striking him in the ribs.
CRACK!
Asmodeus flew through the remains of the cabin.
Wood and stone exploded around him.
He struck the damaged support frame of the Kraken Slayer, bending part of the metal inward before dropping to one knee.
Blood filled his mouth.
’That was bad.’
Leviathan followed without pause.
Its talons scraped across the stone as it stepped into the ruined structure. The wings surrounding its body rotated slowly, dark purple eyes tracking every movement Asmodeus made.
Logan stared at the bent support.
"Laddie!"
Asmodeus spat blood.
"Weapon first!"
"You’re leaning on the weapon!"
"Then fix it faster, you damn old man. Can’t you see I’m getting my ass beaten?!"
"Heh... as if we don’t know you’re putting on a show for the ladies!"
Leviathan’s claws descended.
Asmodeus vanished.
The claws tore through the Kraken Slayer’s support frame instead, cutting deep trenches through reinforced metal.
Logan screamed.
"NOT THE WEAPON!"
Asmodeus reappeared above Leviathan.
Axiom swung downward.
The halberd struck the ring of wings surrounding the creature’s head, severing two and crushing a third into its neck. Hundreds of eyes burst at once, spilling black fluid over Leviathan’s shoulders.
The creature’s vertical mouth opened.
[KILL.]
Its voice slammed into Asmodeus’s skull.
His vision flickered.
Leviathan’s elbow struck his stomach.
Air left his lungs.
The creature caught him by the throat before he could fall and dragged him across the platform, smashing his body through stone, chains and broken machinery.
Then it threw him toward the ocean.
Asmodeus spun through the air.
He spread what remained of his wings, but only fragments of blood answered him.
’Not enough.’
He struck the water.
The impact punched a crater through the surface.
A moment later, he erupted from the sea and swung Axiom toward the coast.
A blood-red crescent tore through the storm.
Leviathan crossed both arms.
The attack struck its chest, carving through several layers of black armour and driving the creature away from the wall.
"Ooof." Asmodeus shook his hand, revealing the bruised surface covered in blood. "You’re one tough bastard to hit."
’His armour is stronger than my demonic hide..."
"HOW FUN!" Asmodeus’s eyes glowed red as he shot towards the beast once more, his heart beating rapidly against his chest.
He rose higher.
"Come after me."
The eyes along Leviathan’s wings narrowed.
It moved.
The creature crossed the distance in an instant.
Asmodeus twisted aside as seven claws passed through the space where his heart had been. He hooked Axiom beneath Leviathan’s wrist and pulled, forcing the monster past him before driving one knee into its back.
The force sent Leviathan skimming across the ocean.
Each impact erupted into a column of water.
Asmodeus followed.
He flew low over the surface, striking Leviathan again before it recovered. Axiom carved through the creature’s side, and a burst of demonic fire detonated inside the wound.
Leviathan rolled through the explosion.
One of its elongated hands stretched backwards and caught Asmodeus’s ankle.
The creature’s face twisted. Its eyes opened wide before it began to spin. Asmodeus became a weapon, slamming into the ocean once, twice... dozens of times. Like skipping stones, they exchanged blows.
Each impact sent pain through his bones and opened the wounds Alan had helped stabilise. On the fourth swing, Asmodeus forced Axiom through Leviathan’s wrist.
Finally, its hand separated from his body and tore free, kicking the creature beneath its vertical mouth.
Black teeth shattered.
Leviathan staggered across the water.
Asmodeus raised Axiom and teleported above it.
The halberd descended in a streak of blood-red light.
BOOM!
The attack buried Leviathan beneath the ocean.
A vast ring of water rose around the impact point.
Asmodeus hovered above it, panting.
Blood dripped from his face.
His arms shook.
’Almost there.’
He glanced toward the fortress.
The surviving Kraken Slayer sat behind the broken wall, pointed toward the ocean. Logan and the engineers swarmed across its frame, replacing cracked mana conductors and wiping abyssal blood from the runes.
Brando’s voice crackled through the device attached to Asmodeus’s armour.
"Keep pushing it east!"
"That’s what I’m doing."
’Tsk.... this damn dwarf... does he think it’s easy?!’
"Asmodeus."
"I heard you."
The water beneath him exploded.
Leviathan rose with both arms spread wide, and the missing hand had already begun regenerating, black flesh stretching across the severed wrist as its wings opened fully, unleashing dark purple beams at point-blank range.
Asmodeus crossed Axiom before his body.
The first beam struck the blade and split.
The second pierced his shoulder.
The third burned through his thigh.
The fourth struck his side and sent him spinning through the air. He recovered before falling, but Leviathan was already waiting as its knee slammed into his chest and shattered bones.
Asmodeus coughed blood across the creature’s black armour.
Leviathan wrapped one arm around his waist and drove him beneath the ocean.
Cold darkness swallowed them.
The creature moved perfectly underwater.
Its long limbs twisted around Asmodeus, claws cutting into his back while the eyes across its wings shone through the black sea.
Asmodeus couldn’t breathe.
The pressure crushed his ears.
Leviathan opened its vertical mouth and lunged for his face. But the Demon Emperor slammed his head into the monstrosity’s forehead, shattering its bones and deforming the freak’s face.
In the moment, Asmodeus raised Axiom between its jaws, catching its teeth between white and black as he forced both arms straight, locking them in place.
’Move!’
The remaining power inside him whirred violently; deep throbbing aches spread across his thighs, calves and abdomen as the Demonic energy burned through him. Abyssal power flooded his muscles, causing the pain to increase while the divine light around his heart forced the black water away from his body.
"ARGH!"
Asmodeus roared beneath the sea, creating a massive spherical blast that erupted around them.
The ocean separated.
Leviathan was thrown from the water and launched toward the open sea.
Asmodeus followed through the hollow space created by the explosion, flying after the creature before the ocean collapsed behind him.
He reached Leviathan from below.
Axiom struck its spine.
The blow folded the creature’s elongated body and sent it higher into the storm.
Asmodeus teleported above it.
His heel crashed against its chest.
Leviathan fell.
It struck the sea several miles from the fortress.
Exactly where he needed it.
Brando’s voice reached him.
"You’re in the line!"
"I know."
"Move!"
"Tell Logan to hurry."
The Kraken Slayer began charging.
Purple runes flickered across its damaged frame.
Logan shouted at the engineers.
"Three rings active! Stabilise the barrel! If it moves even a fraction, we’re all dead!"
Asmodeus barely heard them over Leviathan’s roar.
The creature rose from the ocean.
Its wounds opened.
Dozens of new eyes formed inside the cuts Axiom had created. They stared at him from every angle, their pupils contracting until a wave of pressure struck his body. Asmodeus froze before vomiting blood, his insides feeling as if they were churned through a metal grinder.
Leviathan’s arm stretched out with a sharp claw piercing Asmodeus’s stomach.
His eyes widened as the sudden pressure released; with blood pouring from his stomach, he felt a sudden flicker of lightheadedness as the monstrosity raised him into the firing line of the Kraken Slayer.