The leader’s palms were sweating.
Moriarty’s words were demonic—he knew about the blade demon, yet remained so calm!
Was he a demon scholar or a demon masquerading as human?
And how did he know about the blade demon?
“—A traitor?” the leader blurted, realization dawning.
If Aiwass Moriarty was a demon scholar, the mission was flawed from the start. He could be a hidden Lloyd Society mber, unknown to them!
This was just factional infighting, and they were the cannon fodder.
“Wait, I have sothing to say…”
He understood too late.
“No,” Aiwass’s icy voice cut through. “You can’t surrender.”
A gunshot rang out.
The leader sensed danger the mont Aiwass pulled the trigger, dodging desperately but not fully. Aiwass hadn’t aid for his head, allowing a partial evade, but the bullet tore into his right shoulder.
An invisible shadow blade seed to slice through, severing his arm in a spray of blood. A corrosive agony seared the wound.
For the first ti, he felt such excruciating pain, his mind blanking, unable to recall spells or curses. He collapsed, screaming, his wails echoing through the night.
A fleeting thought struck him: This is the sound they made when I doused them with acid… So this is what it feels like…
“Hurry up. Don’t waste ti, or I’ll kill you now,” Aiwass’s cold voice pressed. “Where’s your blade demon?”
The fiery butterfly, slowly drifting toward them, neared the leader.
He looked up, fear in his eyes.
“—Blade demon! Save !” he cried instinctively.
At his command, the blade demon, previously a spectral presence behind him, materialized.
It resembled a half-knight in black armor, jagged spikes adorning its helm and chest. No lower body existed—black smoke, flickering with lightning, trailed from its waist. No eyes were visible, only red glows from the helm’s eye slits. Gloved hands gripped a massive two-handed sword.
It moved like a silent gale, slashing heavily at the high-temperature fla butterfly.
The butterfly detonated on impact, unleashing a spinning firestorm that engulfed the demon. When the flas faded after three or four seconds, the demon’s armor and blade glowed red-hot, its power visibly diminished, the black smoke beneath it thinning.
Yet it had shielded its master from the blast.
Wrapped in searing heat, like a red-hot bull, the blade demon charged Aiwass at the doorway, lightning crackling along its sword, illuminating the night.
—Lightning Strike!
A universal skill requiring at least two levels of lightning affinity, usable by any tal-weapon wielder, not just swordsn. Common but effective, its electric discharge could briefly paralyze or stun at close range, setting up an unavoidable, unblockable decapitation strike.
The demon’s charge was blindingly fast. Even without his wheelchair, Aiwass couldn’t dodge on foot.
But gray threads, unnoticed until now, coiled around his waist. With a light backward leap, the shadow-infused threads yanked him into the darkness.
Simultaneously, the fla butterfly from his fingertip erupted, forcing the blade demon back half a step.
It was the Butterfly of Paradoxical Fla, shedding its companion form.
Its red-black wings blazed, and the black-haired girl’s crimson eyes snapped open with intense hostility, letting out a childlike scream.
A molten orb ford before her mouth, unleashing a forearm-thick, deep-red fla beam in an instant.
The blade demon, driven by relentless aggression, pressed through the attack, aiming to strike.
Lightning crackled, wrapping the Butterfly in electric serpents, but it didn’t flinch.
A heavy slash followed, nearly cleaving the Butterfly in two, sparking instead of drawing blood—proof of its weakness to physical attacks.
Yet it survived.
The Butterfly’s beam, far stronger than the demon expected, pushed it back with roaring heat, ultimately piercing it through.
The surrounding grass withered and burned as the beam hit the ground, igniting it.
This was the Butterfly’s simplest chanic, Guided Fla Stream: a random-target fire ray that ignited its path, a typical firewall tactic to split the battlefield, rarely lethal.
But the blade demon, lacking the cunning of higher demons, stood still, eating the full beam like a clueless novice.
In one hit, its armor was in tatters.
The Butterfly spun in the air, landing gracefully and folding its wings, as if resting or preparing sothing.
The battered demon, undeterred, charged again.
Its blade struck, but the Butterfly’s wings snapped open, countering.
With a rapid spin, a torrent of heavy flas blasted the demon away.
Aiwass recognized this: the level-fifty Butterfly’s lee counter state. Remote or water-based attacks had to douse the flas on all four wings to end it. If lee attacks depleted its health first, it triggered an early, devastating area-of-effect counter.
A team-wiping chanic if mishandled.
The Butterfly rose, wings unfurling. Twelve eyes—three per wing—ford, sweeping the ground like claws, targeting the demon and leader.
The demon endured all twelve beams, surviving, but the leader fell on the second hit.
Still enraged, the Butterfly transford into a blazing teor, streaking toward the demon.
Reduced to half a helm and one arm, the demon stood firm, like a warrior facing a charging knight. White light gathered on its sword for a dazzling final strike.
But the radiant sword light was swallowed by flas, ineffective. The black helm clattered to the ground, then vanished.
Aiwass, receiving the blade demon’s experience notification, returned to the doorway and gasped in awe.
“Eating all the chanics like that, Blade Demon Bro?”
(Chapter End)
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