Chapter 1546 - 219 - Sins Vs. Leon (8)
When I finally got close enough to her, Beelzebub suddenly moved in front of me again, trying to cut off my path just like before. Fortunately, I managed to redirect my momentum at the very last second, slipping past her without losing too much speed, and that allowed me to close the distance between Satania and me even further than before.
For the briefest moment, our eyes met with absolute clarity, neither of us looking away.
I saw Satania’s crimson eyes staring directly into mine, and within those pupils, I could clearly see my own reflection staring back at me.
She looked genuinely caught off guard by the sudden change in my movements.
It only lasted for the smallest instant imaginable, but that tiny opening was already more than enough for me to take advantage of.
Up until this point in the fight, I hadn’t actually been using the two cursed swords at their full potential. I had been feeding them life force, but only enough to keep them functioning at a manageable level without completely exhausting myself. Now, however, I poured twice the amount of life force into them compared to what they had originally been draining from me, completely removing the restraint I had been holding back until now.
It was the exact same thing I had done with Ayuru back when I fought Julius.
That battle had pushed Ayuru so far beyond her limits that she eventually gained enough power to transform into a human.
Thinking back on it, that fight really had been ridiculous.
Now, I was doing the exact same thing once again without any hesitation.
Without wasting even a fraction of a second, I swung my sword straight toward Satania’s neck, fully intending to take her head off in one clean strike before she could recover.
Her instincts kicked in just in time to save her.
The moment she recovered from her surprise, she leaned so far backward that it almost looked impossible for her body to bend that way, barely avoiding the edge of my blade as it sliced through the air right in front of her throat.
Honestly, her flexibility was kind of unfair.
Unfortunately for her, I wasn’t fighting with only one sword in my hands.
While Ayuru missed its target, my other hand immediately followed through without giving her a chance to relax.
I drove Samui straight toward her knee with as much force as I could muster.
She instinctively reinforced her body with mana, trying to lessen the damage before the blade could actually reach her.
Under ordinary circumstances, that probably would’ve been enough to stop the attack.
Against Samui, though, it meant absolutely nothing at all.
The cursed sword devoured the mana protecting her body the instant it made contact, stripping away her defense before effortlessly piercing through her skin as though it had never existed.
"Kah!"
A pained cry escaped Satania’s mouth as the blade sank into her leg.
"You bastard!" she growled, glaring at me with obvious fury and barely restrained killing intent.
Almost immediately, she tried to heal the wound by channeling mana into the injured area as quickly as she could.
Unfortunately for her, that was never going to work in the first place.
Samui wasn’t an ordinary weapon by any stretch of the imagination.
It was a cursed sword that ignored common sense.
Any wound inflicted by it couldn’t simply be healed with magic until the effect itself had completely run its course. As long as the effect remained active, trying to restore the injury was nothing more than wasted effort that would accomplish absolutely nothing.
It was basically like the Bleed effect in a game, only much more annoying.
When your character was inflicted with Bleed, healing skills and life steal became useless until the status effect finally disappeared on its own.
This situation worked exactly the same way, except the consequences were much more serious.
Without giving me another chance to press the attack, Satania immediately leaped backward before suddenly charging straight at me again with frightening speed.
"Belphegor!" she shouted without taking her eyes off me.
I couldn’t help being caught slightly off guard by that unexpected call.
Out of everyone she could’ve called for assistance, she called Belphegor instead.
Belphegor, who had been floating farther away while constantly throwing magic around the battlefield, immediately abandoned what she was doing and dashed toward Satania without the slightest hesitation or delay.
Then, right in front of me, Belphegor climbed onto Satania’s back as though they had rehearsed it countless times.
For a second, I genuinely had absolutely no idea what they were trying to accomplish together.
Then I felt it, and the feeling immediately sent chills through my body.
An enormous surge of power erupted from Satania’s body almost instantly after Belphegor climbed onto her back.
It wasn’t simply stronger than before.
It was overwhelmingly stronger to an absurd degree.
It felt as though Belphegor’s power had merged with Satania’s the moment she climbed onto her back, combining not only their magic but also their physical abilities into a single terrifying force.
Naturally, that sudden increase also included their speed.
The two of them shot toward me so quickly that they almost vanished from my sight before I could properly react.
The instant they got within striking distance, Satania threw a punch directly at me with terrifying force.
I crossed Ayuru and Samui in front of my body, relying on both cursed swords to absorb the impact just like they always had during previous attacks.
Then everything changed in an instant.
Her fist crashed violently against the blades with enough force to shake my entire body.
At first, I honestly thought the pressure hadn’t been absorbed at all because of how hard the impact felt.
That assumption turned out to be completely wrong.
Ayuru and Samui did absorb the incoming force exactly as they were supposed to.
The problem was that the amount of power behind that single punch was simply far beyond what they could fully handle by themselves.
The remaining force burst through the blades and slammed directly into me, sending my entire body flying backward before I could stabilize myself.
Before I even had a chance to recover my footing, something suddenly wrapped tightly around my legs.
I instinctively glanced downward to see what had grabbed me.
Both of my feet had sunk deep into thick slime before I even realized it.
It reached all the way up to my ankles, locking me firmly in place without leaving me any room to move.
Only then did I finally realize what Beelzebub had secretly been doing this entire time.
While everyone else had been fighting me head-on, she had quietly been spreading slime across the battlefield, leaving puddles everywhere until she successfully lured me into stepping into one at exactly the right moment.
This entire situation had been part of her plan from the very beginning.
While I struggled to pull my legs free, a massive shadow suddenly fell over me from above.
My instincts immediately forced me to look upward without thinking.
Asmodeus was already descending from above with terrifying speed.
She held her enormous broadsword high above her head, bringing it down with enough force to split me clean in half if it landed.
I activated Guardian without even a moment of hesitation.
The barrier appeared just in time to intercept the incoming attack before it reached me.
The broadsword slammed into the barrier with an absolutely deafening impact that echoed across the battlefield.
The force was so overwhelming that Guardian actually cracked under the pressure.
Thin fractures spread across the barrier almost immediately after the collision.
At the exact same moment, Morsea and Levi rushed in from opposite directions without wasting any time.
Both of them swung their blades toward me almost simultaneously, aiming from either side to leave me with nowhere to escape.
Guardian barely managed to block both attacks as well despite already being damaged.
Even then, I could already tell it wasn’t going to survive much longer if this continued.
I desperately tried pulling my feet free from the slime with everything I had.
Doing that was practically impossible because it refused to let me move.
Beelzebub wasn’t just trapping me anymore.
She was actively strengthening the slime around my legs, making absolutely sure that I couldn’t escape no matter how much force I used.
Then the slime began moving once again in an even stranger way.
Numerous arms suddenly sprouted from the puddle before grabbing onto my legs, waist, and arms, locking my body in place so tightly that I couldn’t even properly swing my swords anymore.
"Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhh!!!"
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!"
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
"URAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!"
"DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"
All six of them roared at the exact same time, their voices shaking the battlefield around us.
Their voices echoed across the battlefield as they unleashed everything they had in perfect coordination, as though this exact moment had been what they had been waiting for all along without making a single mistake.
Looking at the expressions on their faces, it was obvious they already believed victory was finally within their grasp, and honestly, I couldn’t even blame them for thinking that.