The snake which’s size now surpassed the size of the manticore energy manifestation by one third, glared at the lioness, his realm and size weren’t the only things that changed.
"Crack!", the remaining pieces of black ice exploded turning back into the two hundred large black sea, but there was an extra elent added to the hellscape, a "seabed" made out of dark brown rock, which symbolized the integration of the powers of both snakes.
"Hissss!", the snake hissed towards the lioness making his now dark brown-navy blue mana surge.
"Roaar!", in response the lioness roared and red-bright yellow energy radiated out of the manticore, eting the mana surging from the snake.
"Boooom!", when those two’s energy clashed, a loud thunder-like explosion echoed the sky, the ground below the areas where they were floating cracked and exploded, this was a fight between strong Arch ranks that weren’t being restrained by the blood prison realm, one due to its own ans and the other due to Marcus’s interference.
"Clang!", the energy explosion was blasted away by the manticore’s tail clashing against the hellscape covering the snake, unlike before the mont the lioness attacked, not only did a rock wall blocked but a solid layer of black ice reinforced it, with that the stinger of the tail was blocked, resulting in sparks and the sound of tals colliding.
Of course, the lioness didn’t give up just because of that, she retrieved the tail and once again thrusted it at the defensive wall protecting the snake.
"Hssss!", what’s more, though the poison energy on the stinger corroded the defensive wall of the hellscape, it couldn’t easily propagate unlike before at most invading a few ters into the hellscape before the affected area was discarded and replaced.
"That won’t work anymore, Black Ice Devil Beast, Frozen Snake Guardian!", with a loud shout, a stream of black water poured out of the hellscape and solidified into a fifty-ter sized black ice snake which t the manticore’s tail.
"Clang!", the tail and the snake clashed and both were forced backwards due to the impact and while the "secondary" powers of those two clashed, the lioness and the snake charged towards each other.
’Finally, that pair of useless things are putting on a decent fight’, thought Marcus as he saw the snake fight with the lioness as her equal, his eyes shone with frigid killing intent, he actually flew out of the domain.
"What, you think that just because the domain has a mind of its now, it can completely guard you, even the lioness couldn’t perfectly coordinate with you", said Daimon as he pointed his right palm at Marcus.
"Lightning Suppressing Palm", a thirty-ter sized red energy palm clad in bright yellow lightning flew towards Marcus who smirked in response, specks of black mana started coming from all over the place to then gather around the devil ruler system user who then pointed his own right palm frontwards.
"Black Devil Hell Palm!", a large amount of black burning mana ford a clawed hand which shot towards Daimon’s technique, with his manifestation phenonon he didn’t need the support of the domain to equal Daimon’s destructive power when being granted the capacity to use martial arts as techniques by the blood prison realm.
And in case you wonder why didn’t he just outright used his domain, since he has already brought out his promise level treasure, like previously stated, it’s not that he doesn’t want to but that he can’t, as the devil ruler he has to "change forms" multiple tis to reach his strongest state, so only after eting certain conditions can he exert more power.
That’s why he went all out to create the grimoire and the hellscapes, with their support he could resist against Adam all out power within the blood prison realm, giving him the ti needed to change forms, of course though he made up for his flaw the system still restricted him.
In this case, even though he has been exuding Arch rank power from the very beginning, Marcus had to wait until he had used more than half of the hellscapes to use his Lord rank trait, in other words his manifestation phenonon.
"Boooom!", both attacks clashed and exploded on the spot, Daimon wasn’t hard by the shockwave because of his body alongside Femi’s armor, Marcus on the other hand stood there unaffected because both the energy explosion and the physical impact were absorbed by his shadow which was connected by the domain to the shadow realm.
Speaking of the domain, since Marcus now no longer needed to be inside of it to receive its support, and the artificial spirit which was infused into it had its processing power increased to the limit in exchange for its short lifespan, the thing could both assist Marcus in defense and attack, passively and actively now.
"Black Devil Restraining Shadow Chains!", with the temporary spirit taking control of the domain, the thing could access shadow type spells as they were engraved in the devil mana that conford the domain, after all it was the domain of the shadow affinity lioness, of course they were modified as the na of the spell which was now tightly related to Marcus’s spell naming, suggested.
Unfortunately, the domain miscalculated, because it tried to cast the previous spell through Daimon’s shadow in order to ambush him and tie him with the shadow chains, which of course only resulted in... backslash.
’Humph!’, as if not being able to help Daimon because she is both in the middle of "training new staff" and because Daimon wanted to abide by the rules of the blood prison realm to the best of his capacities, Rita who was watching everything that happened in the outside world, from the large bed in her room within the black shadow castle that floated in the shadow world, felt an external shadow trying to invade her "territory" and she coldly snorted.
"Crack!", the black chains that were travelling through the shadow of the domain towards Daimon’s shadow in order to restrain him, imdiately exploded the spell was destroyed.
"Ack!", as if hit by a giant hamr, the domain’s chest dent inwards as it was shot down from the sky, luckily the domain was conford of not only the lioness’s devil mana as of current, since it had received spirituality from the mind burning hell and permanence from the golden opportunity hell, so apart from the spell being cancelled and a fracture on the integrity of the domain’s chest, which wasn’t recovering by the way, there was no further damage and it soon returned to Marcus side.
’That damn lioness, did she regain her capacity to use shadow mana!’, wondered the devil ruler system user with an unsightly expression on his face, which made Daimon laugh to his insides.
Marcus overestimated the shadow affinity that was granted to the lioness when he redeed her from the state of a blood specter, sure the lioness had a decent understanding of the shadows but at first glance one could see that she was a close-range combatant, she used shadow spells as support rather than as her main source of attack power.
With that as a base, Daimon could tell that shadow wasn’t the original affinity of the magic beast from which the lioness originated, this was further confird after seeing the wings that sprouted on the manticore manifestation as Daimon only helped condense the tail, not to ntion that the sole technique the lioness had casted so far used the prefix "Black Sky", so her affinity should be a different variation of darkness instead of shadow which is the result of darkness and space, according to Daimon’s current understanding.
Therefore, the domain with a shadow affinity that was derived from the lioness, who awakened as a blood specter due to what she experienced, was obviously not a match for Rita who had shadow affinity by innate, not to ntion the huge difference in realm between the two of them.
’What a fool, you tried to invade my shadow with re early-stage Arch rank shadow mana, Rita could block high stage Stellar ranks from prying into my shadow when she was at the peak of the Arch rank’, thought Daimon.
The undead head maid is currently a half Stellar, and is in the middle of so sort of transformation, but unlike Horals, not only does she not need to be apart from Daimon, in fact she has to remain closer to him, so she is unable to leave his shadow as of current, but that doesn’t an she can’t actively help him.
In fact, had it not been because Daimon doesn’t want to break the rules of the blood prison realm, Rita could have directly killed the domain a mont ago, she is a half Stellar and is residing in Daimon’s shadow, under those conditions, fighting a proper middle stage Stellar is possible.
"She is quite fierce, don’t you think?", jokingly said Daimon to Marcus whose eyes seed as if they could spew black flas due to anger, of course Daimon was referring to the undead head maid, the previous was just a small "slap" on the hand from Rita, but it left an unrepairable dent on the chest of the domain, it didn’t affect the other party’s combat prowess, but it was as if they were told "Know your place" by the undead head maid.
Of course, Marcus didn’t know about Rita’s existence, he thought that the lioness had sealed Daimon’s shadow ahead of ti, since she of course knew the tricks of the domain, as it originated from her, only the ghost-like Leezabel looked at Daimon’s shadow with interest for a second before she giggled at Marcus’s misfortune.
"Damn it!", the devil ruler system user cursed out loud, though the domain didn’t suffer any serious damage, he lost the sole opportunity to take Daimon by surprise due to the domain being able to actively participate in the fight independently, all because of a traitor’s arrangent, of course he was furious.
’That damn bitch tampered with the masked bastard’s shadow, attack him in the outside world’, he ordered to the flash towards Daimon.
"Black Devil Hell Step!", appearing next to Daimon, Marcus used delayed casting to then slash his right clawed gauntlet at him.
"Clang!", the gauntlet was t by Daimon’s reinforced spear which resulted in a loud tallic clash, followed by a soft shattering sound.
"Crack!", Marcus might not have used an attack type spell, however he had gained montum with his movent spell and was using his promised level treasure, so of course just an energy construction without a technique was unable to endure a direct clash and started breaking after the initial impact.
It wasn’t a matter of who is stronger between Daimon and Marcus, a pure energy construction can’t match up to a promise level treasure, in fact so far, the only thing that could outmatch a promise level treasure with a master in a purely physical clash is Disaster as proven when Narasha blocked Adam’s sword, of course if there is a large difference in realm then the user would be wounded and the treasure will be damaged as well.
’Without a technique, even with four energies, the constructions can’t endure more than a couple of exchanges against his gauntlets, not bad’, concluded Daimon, rather than feeling pressured he was actually surprised, even Disaster couldn’t destroy Adam’s sword when it was linked to him, if Narasha had gone all out alongside Daimon wielding her, then denting or even cracking it might have been possible, but destroying it wasn’t until it lost the support of its user, when Nasha easily destroyed it for trying to "seduce" Daimon, and Disaster devoured it.
Of course that was when Daimon wasn’t using his manifestation phenonon, which is the strongest state he can reach even as of current, perhaps with it, he could easily kill a system user like Adam alongside his promise level treasure, but not only was there not a necessity to do that, but back then it would leave Daimon weakened and if he didn’t follow the "play" of the hero who fell from grace, Adam might have had a chance to escape or survive, as the defining trait of hero type users is escaping from danger and returning stronger.
Amusingly enough, it was that battle that led to Daimon being able to use his manifestation phenonon without any sever side effect, because the ability he got from the siren which joined hands with Adam, perhaps she as a part of another hero’s forr administrator was dragged into the fall from grace of Adam without noticing.
"Storm Fortress Shield", anyway, back to the fight, instead of abandoning the spear which was about to crumble after a couple of seconds of clashing against Marcus’s clawed gauntlet, Daimon both transford it into a shield, reinforced it with Femi’s energy and then made it radiate a wave of Dana’s lightning.
Femi’s energy included tal affinity which was perfectly compatible with the little tiger girl’s lightning, so Daimon used a tal-lightning defensive martial art with them as the energy source.
’What the hell, one thing is controlling those energies, even if he doesn’t have the respective affinity, it can be attributed to this damn place’s rules, but the techniques he is using are transford from actual martial arts, this bastard is a triple affinity knight!’, cursed Marcus to his insides.
So far, Daimon has used attribute less basic martial arts and lightning affinity martial arts only, Marcus has seen Daimon’s silver light energy which from his point of view is of the light affinity considering how much it damaged him and because he was supposed to be Adam’s subordinate and you know he was the hero of light system user, but now he was using a tal and lightning affinity martial art.
And of course, why would a light-lightning knight know tal-lightning affinity martial arts, so Marcus instantly classified Daimon as a really rare triple affinity light, lightning and tal knight, which on the other hand made so sense for the devil ruler system user, because soone that dared to "betray" a user to steal their targets naly Tessa and Femi and aim to rise in power, couldn’t be average among normal people
’Damn Adam, it was already bad that he didn’t co and even then, he guided a troubleso guy here’, thought Marcus, sure he was using more than his fire and darkness affinities, but through diums such as the hellscapes and their proxies, dual affinities are still within the no trouble range for mages, the pressure on the body starts from triple affinity and above.
However, for knights dual affinity already requires an unusually strong body not to ntion a triple affinity one, in his current state Marcus could awaken a third affinity and use it with his own body with so effort and training, but a triple affinity knight faces pressure equal to a quadruple affinity mage.
Marcus returned to the real world as he retreated to avoid the lightning being radiated by the shield which perfectly blocked his attack, showing that with a martial art, his gauntlets can’t do anything to Daimon’s energy constructions in the short run.
"Thunder Breaking Bolt", a ready to be shot crossbow appeared on Daimon’s right hand, aiming at Marcus who was only dozens of ters away, making the devil ruler system user feel danger in his heart, the almost null casting ti of the crossbow martial art earlier, left a deep impression in him.
"Black Devil Hunting Shadow Chains!", luckily the domain ca to his rescue, this ti the chains didn’t try to invade Daimon’s shadow to restrain him, but were summoned in the real world making a dozen of black spiked mana chains erge from the domain’s shadow to then surge in different directions towards Daimon.
"Booom!", at the sa ti, a lightning clad bolt was shot from the crossbow, reaching the incoming chains that originally aid to reach Daimon, but ended up blocking for Marcus, both the spell and the martial art destroyed each other upon contact, but that didn’t brighten Marcus’s mood in the slightest, because the enemy had disappeared under the cover of the energy explosion from earlier.
"Lightning Breaking Step", Daimon who used delayed casting, appeared at Marcus’s left and used his armored and lightning clad right leg to kick at his side.
"Black Devil Hell Shredding Claws!", Marcus didn’t dare to block the lightning-tal martial art which combined both speed and physical impact with a normal attack and directly used a spell, slashing his right hand at Daimon’s leg.
"Clang!", a loud tallic sound echoed through the sky, resulting in both Marcus and Daimon being flung backwards a few dozens of ters, of course Daimon had to take an extra step and change the crossbow to a spear which he then slashed at his right smacking a few shadow chains away while cracking a couple of them, the domain didn’t have a promise level treasure after all, with four energies combined Daimon could block and damage its spells even without using a martial art, just with the energy construction which counts as half a technique.
"Black Devil Hell Step!", of course the domain’s job is just to support Marcus so the devil ruler system user used the opening to flash towards Daimon, only to see him point in a familiar direction, which made Marcus ultimately change his trajectory, returning to the side of the domain to then look at where Daimon was pointing earlier.
"Boooooom!", at the left of the area where Daimon was fighting Marcus, the sky was suddenly illuminated in a bright yellow tone, what followed was a thunderous explosion and a pained hissing sound.
"Hissssssss!", the clouds parted and a one-hundred-ter sized snake whose body was letting out black smoke fell from the sky, there was a piece of ice and rock which stopped the snake from landing on the ground, but the snake had a few scales missing and there were still electric arcs traveling through its body.
The lioness whose body was enveloped by the manticore manifestation, majestically descended from the sky, there were black wisps with white spots and bright yellow sparks surrounding the manifestation.
"Manifestation Phenonon, damn it!!!", cursed Marcus to the sky, that’s right, the lioness had taken a step ahead and managed to use her Lord rank trait, what’s more there was more than one elent fluttering around her.
The lightning obviously ca from her newly ford connection with Dana, but the darkness related energy that had co her way was much more interesting than the fact that she could summon Dana’s lightning from the Blood Prison realm.
Also, the symbol on the fourth segnt of the manticore’s tail, which Daimon thought would contain Arianna’s red energy, instead had that black white spotted energy in it, that was... the lioness own energy.
"Darkness and light variation", mumbled Daimon with a tinge of surprise, so far, besides himself, the only other people he knew could use such directly opposing elents to empower each other rather than just balancing them, were the three sisters with the Ivory lineage and of course their ancestor Joanna, who had achieved control of darkness and light in her later years as her evenly divided white and black hair suggested.
The lioness seed to follow a different path though, because she combined darkness and light and while there was a bit of conflict due to the previous in the energy she was using, there was also harmony, so she had a variant elent resulting from the combination of darkness and light.
’Now that’s unexpected, besides my "Demon Light" I haven’t seen or heard of a variant elent which actually combines darkness and light directly, records of elents derived from them being combined do exist but even then, the majority miserably failed to maintain their integrity’, thought Daimon.
Marcus on the other hand was about to go crazy.
’Why, if she had that much potential, why the hell didn’t she show it before!’, he roared to his insides.
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