"I am Vulcan Asura." The demon said. "One of the four generals of the demon army and the ruler of this fortress. Welcome to my domain, would you like some tea, or…" The chairs supporting his feet shattered into millions of pieces and he stood with his full height. "Or should we begin the fight?"
He lifted his right hand and a massive sword flew into it from the wall, then he pointed the sword at me. "You're a swordsman, right?" He asked. "And a strong one too… Why don't we start with you." In an instant he disappeared in a cloud of dust, cracking the ground beneath his feet. I instinctively drew my sword. Vulcan appeared in front of me and struck the sword in my hand to the side with enough force to break my guard. "One down." He said and swung his sword the other way, trying to split my torso in half.
There was no time to block, no time to run, so I closed my eyes and waited for the inevitable. Mother, father, I am sorry, but I won't be able to return to you. Clank! A sound of metal clashing with metal resounded in my ears and I opened my eyes to see two blades levitating in front of me and blocking the demon's strike.
"I might not like you, but that doesn't mean that I'll just let you die." Daria said, stepping past me, her dimensional ring vibrated and ten more swords appeared from within it. "You, demon, I am also a swordsman." The levitating blades all pointed at Vulcan. "But I use twelve swords."
The floating adamantium blades, gleaming like silver in the torch light, shot forwards aiming at the demon's chest, but Vulkan Ashura just smiled and spread his arms wide. The blades hit him, but neither one left so much as a scratch.
"Surprised?" The demon asked. "You'll need a whole lot more power than that to even injure me. But your technique sure is nice, let me try it as well…" The blades adorning the walls began to vibrate and float. Spears, axes and swords gathered into a whirlpool above Vulcan's head and like a stream shot towards Daria.
Daria's blades formed a defensive formation in front of her. The steel clanged, sparks flew and the blades clashed. The odds were overwhelming, but Daria's twelve blades held their own against hundreds, Vulcan's vortex of steel passed through Daria, but she was left untouched.
"Do you know why I only use twelve blades?" Daria asked. "That's because that is the number of blades that I can wield individually. Observe." Her blades split into two groups - one to defend against the returning Vortex of blades and one to attack. While Vulcan's blades moved as a hive - having one mind and one direction, Daria's blades moved individually - changing direction, speed and rotation - some cutting, some stabbing.
That was because, unlike Vulcan who controlled all the blades with one mind, Daria had mastered an advanced black magic spell - 'Mind split' - a spell that allowed her to split her mind into twelve parts. Due to having twelve minds that were working in unison, she was able to make twelve different actions at once.
But no matter how many blows she landed, The demon's skin was just too tough. "What makes you think that you can cut me now, but not before?" The demon laughed, knocking some of the swords away and tanking the rest.
"You should count them carefully." Daria replied.
Vulcan's smile wavered and he turned his head around to see one of the blades that had passed him before now spinning like a drill - so fast that the tip was getting hot from the friction with the air. The sword launched at an incredible speed and just when we thought that the demon was going to get screwed, he placed his massive sword behind his back and blocked the attack.
The demon's sword shattered, but he just smiled more. "Good… That's more like it." He charged at Daria, aiming his massive fist at her chest, her swords blocked the brunt of the damage, but she was still sent into the wall behind her. "You're still alive?" The demon asked. "Not bad." Then he charged at her again.
He was about to strike, but I got in the way and parried the blow with my sword. It was a parry, but the impact on the blade transferred an insane amount of vibration through my arms. Before I was able to regain my balance, a round house was already on its way to my head, but at the last second, it missed and the demon went to his knees.
"What… What happened?" He asked, clutching his head. "What did you do? Why is everything spinning?" He tried to stand, but before he could, he lost balance again.
"Did you know that your ears are connected to your balance?" Caleb's voice rang out. "Well you do now. This fight is over."
Owen's body materialized behind the now downed demon and he placed his hands over Vulcan's eyes. A black and viscous, fog-like miasma began to seep from his palms. "Lets see you fight without your eyes…"
But the demon was far more resilient than he thought, because mere moments later, he shakily stood up, just to fall again when a sound like an explosion sounded when Rory broke the sound barrier and slammed her sword into his side sending him into the wall.
The demon spat out some blood and stood up again just for another loud bang to occur, when a bullet from Mr. West's gun fired. A bullet pierced Vulcan's shoulder and embedded itself in the stone wall behind him. "I was aiming for your heart, but with recoil like that…" Mr. West said, observing his home made pistol whose barrel now looked like a half peeled banana. "Too much gunpowder, I think."
"Ha… Ha ha ha ha…" A low, mocking laugh came from the now downed demon's lungs and a thick, oppressive aura flooded out from his body as he stood back up - now looking even bigger and scarier than before, his eyes resembling those of a feral beast. "You should have aimed for the head, because now, I'm unstoppable."
Vulcan's injuries began to heal at a rapid pace, Rory charged at him again, seemingly not understanding the situation that we were currently in, but the demon simply swatted her to the side. Owen was the next one to try his luck by stealthily getting behind Vulcan and striking him at the place where the spine connects to the head, but out of nowhere, the demon turned his head and bit down on the dagger, shattering it. "Just because I am blind, deaf and can't seem to balance, doesn't mean that a twerp like you can sneak behind me."
Owen panicked and tried to get away, but the demon head butted him into the land of dreams. Then Vulcan turned back to the rest of us. "Let's play."
_________________________________________________________________________
I received a telepathic message. "Arthur, are you almost done? My army is falling apart as we speak."
"Not yet, Lina…" I answered, dodging an uppercut, hook combo. "You'll have to hold on a bit longer, we've experienced… Issues on our side." A straight kick landed on my torso, sending me flying.
"How much time do you need?"
"As much as we can get." I dodged a straight that crushed the wall behind me. This demon had become far stronger than before and his power just kept growing with every strike. I had activated every skill and spell that boosted my physical abilities in my repertoire except one - 'Limit break'.
'Limit break' is a skill that tremendously boosts all of my physical abilities, but it comes at the cost of an insane mana consumption when activated. With my reserves, I can use it for less than a minute and when the time runs out, if the enemy is still standing, I'm done.
I looked around at the allies that were still fighting. Daria - while bleeding from the head, was still masterfully controlling her blades and providing me some protection from the onslaught, Wade wielded his flaming sword and acted as our offence - attacking from the demon's blind spots and immediately retreating and finally Tina - our healer - ran around healing the ones that were down.
It was strange, Vulcan seemed mad - a beast that fought with mere instincts, but, after incapacitating one of us, he wouldn't kill that person, instead, he shifted his attention to the others.
It would have seemed that he had totally lost it, that he was attacking the ones that moved, or the ones that he saw, but his technique, his accuracy and precision, suggested that he was fully in control.
He struck again, his fist encountering Daria's blades, but breaking the block with ease and striking at my gut, lifting me into the air, then a reverse round house into my side sent me flying into one of few walls remaining.
"Give up, swordsman…" A voice like thunder sounded as the demon slowly approached. "There is no way for anyone to defeat me when I'm in this form…"
I spat out blood and began to stand up. "Humm… Your spirit is encourageable." The demon said. "But meaningless." He raised his leg and landed an axe kick on my shoulder, sending me through the floor.
My vision was fading, but I still saw the demon turn around and say. "Who's next?"
This fight was meaningless, even if I activated 'Limit break', I'd barely match his power and I could only keep it up for less than a minute. I should just run… A thought ran across my mind. I can't win, but I still could survive…
Then I heard a scream, a voice I was all too familiar with, it was the scream of Tina - our healer. This is it, now that the healer is out, we have no chance, so I… NO… I can't leave them… They are my friends, they followed me as their leader and trusted me… I began to stand up.
Screw it… I won't run… Let's die together… I activated 'Limit break', my body flooded with immense power and I jumped back onto the battlefield.
The demon that was holding the struggling Tina by the head, turned to me. "You still want more?" He asked.
But I wasn't listening anymore. I concentrated and lifted my sword up. If 'Limit break' gives me strength equivalent to an 'SS' class for a minute, how strong would it make me, if I concentrated all that power into six seconds? Three seconds? What about a single strike?
I exhaled and made my strike - a vertical slash. Even though I was standing more than 20 feet away from my enemy, It reached… A dazzling light enveloped everything around us, sending dust and debris in every direction. When the light faded, I saw that I had split the demon in half from shoulder to the hips.
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