Enigmatic Step


    Cold death stiffened the smoldering ashes of the air ravaged by the mes of Hell in a cluster of ck nodes of mana erupting into a pir barreling through the ceiling. It tore toward the skies like a bolt of lightning, bearing the roar of thunder so loud it was sure to rupture the ears of anyone nearby.


    The winds screamed as if to flee, following the great pir trying to connect the Heavens to the earth,ying waste to the elements.


    Altair roared like a great demon surrounded by a ck Vale of Night as he bore down with all his might. The Bapett struck the earth with such a force a shockwave of nearly fifty meters ruptured into a nketing whirlwind of destruction. The earth wailed, rumbling with the churning of stone being turned to dust.


    When, atst, the dust and the trembling of the earth had settled, Altair hadnded silently as a shadow with an ashenplexion. Reina took off, aiming her Godly Armament at the Bapett. She rocketed forth like a blur, with the aid of Broken Moon, arriving at the downed Baqett faster than a snap.


    Her golden eyes seemed to almost burn with the Sacred Might of the Eternal Heavens. Reina released a single arrow that split apart the skies in a great ze of golden light. So radiant it was, Forwin appeared to be beneath another star. The mes that had once been ravaging the castle died one after the other in fear of the me of Heaven.


    She shed back to Altair''s side with Broken Moon, pale as he was. Falling to her knee with a heavy breath.


    "Forty Percent,'' She told him.


    "Thirty," He said back, opening his circle to pull the mana from Heaven and Earth now that the Baelfire had died. Altair swallowed down another set of Hearthstones, and Reina did the same. Even so, theirplexion did not get better.


    Their bones felt heavy, and the lids of their eyes had begun to droop with deadly levels of exhaustion. But even so, the battle wasn''t over.


    The Bapett was getting up. Drenched in the blood that gushed from where one of its horns onceid, nearly half of the demons faced seemed no more than a mesh of gore with an eye dangling from out its socket, spewing blood over the ground. The shoulder that once gripped its ax now carried a gaping hole the size of a grown man''s head from where Reina''s arrow had prated.


    Name: Bapett[Cripple]


    Race: Demon(Half-Blood)


    Str: 538.8 → 342


    Dex: 210 → 192


    Con: 275 →200


    Wis: 452.4 → 341


    Char: 40.2 → 31


    "This thing is still a bloody monster." Altair cursed, feeling the numbing of his legs from his overuse of Sovereign Gale. He nced at the pale face of Reina and knew she, too, had been heavily drained. Broken Moon hade with a great strain, and Sacred me was an even bigger drain.


    They couldn''t go on like this.


    With a mourning wail towards the skies, ash seemed to billow from the gaping hold in its shoulders that rendered its right arm unusable. The Bapett cried, staggering from out the crator in which ity. It awkwardly reached for its great axe.


    Altair tsked and conjured the World of Shadows Grimoire and turned to the second page past Shadow Cage with a solemnplexion. He had barely mastered Shadow Cage to a level he deemed eptable, though he had been training the second spell for a little over a year now, with little sess without the aid of his sigil.


    The grimoire hovered within the young lord''s palm, shimming a cloak of ck mana that whirled like mes.


    As if sensing its might, the Mana of Heaven and Earth seemed to turn docile. The Bapett grunted, having regained its bnce, and lept out of the crater with a gleam in one eye.


    "Get her out of here!" Reina shouted to the Sisters that had protected Aria against the shockwave of Enigmatic Step powered by the Vale. "If the sanctuary isn''t safe, return to us," shemanded, pulling herself up with the half-glimmer of a single white wing billowing from off her back.


    The sisters felt their eyes widen, and their cold, dead hearts shook with life once more. They bowed deeply and dashed towards the sanctuary. But not before tossing Reina a sk of Holy Water. They were gone.


    The Bapett did not seem to mind as it red at Altair and Reina, dragging its axe across the earth as it gritted against the stone, asionally sparking. The noise it made seemed to embody the screams of the dead.


    Beginning with a walk, then a trot, the Bapett entered a feral bull rush. Far slower than it was before, Altair still found it difficult to dodge the bull nearly twice his speed. If the beast had known how to use movement techniques, Altair knew he and Reina would have died long ago.


    Bearly weaving the horn aimed at his chest, his clothing wrenched, shedding apart from the sheer winds of the beast. The Bapett slid, trying to stop its charge, and swept his axe towards Altair''s neck, threatening to decapitate him before he had time to dodge and would have had his eyes not glowed with the power of [Schizophrenia].


    Altair manipted the beast''s senses into believing he was a head taller than he actually was. The axe zed past the top of his head, missing himpletely. He took off after the demon, charging as it slid to a stop.


    Altair''s image seemed to split into seven different clones converging on the Bapett. The demon roared, shing and cleaving at the clones that seemed to easily dodge its barrage. They began attacking and taunting, cutting into the beast as it screamed, ring its mana.


    Reina watched as the demon began to attack in the air, seemingly fighting some unseen ghost, and figured it had been beneath Altair''s spell. She turned to her Prince, shaken as he stood with a twin circle crowning his head like a crown.


    Forging an intricate magical circle that bore his sigil at its center, dozens of runes of the Fallen shone with the Demonic Might of the Nine Hells. The air turned to night, and the night to nodes of ck so dark it seemed like liquid balls of Darkness, converging into a single point upon the tip of the Prince''s finger.


    The magical circle gave a finishing sh and vanished, leaving behind a pale Master and the orb on his finger. He exchanged nces and vanished with the aid of Soverign''s Gale. Through the domain of the king, he arrived beneath the Bapett in a single breath.


    When the eyes of the two monsters met, the Bapetts axe that had been arched high cleaved down with the bellowing hiss of a demon sensing the touch of the Angel of Death, Azazel approach.


    Altair pointed his finger up and spoke the incantation: "Enma."


    A/N: Cero


    With Darkness so profound, it was sure to wither the minds, bodies, and souls of those who glimpsed it. A beam of raw Darkness came from out of the Prince of the Vale''s fingertip, erupting in a Baptism of Darkness that ate away at everything and everyone.


    The Darkness did not destroy, nor did it burn. It devoured.


    From the approaching axe, inches from his head, to the ck fur of the Bapett, all of it turned to vaper faster than one could blink their eye. It was all disintegrated, leaving behind a gaping hole that barreled through the cathedral.


    Through the walls it went, whipping past the bailey into the City of Forwin, through houses and farms, forges and keeps,it flew up past the Great Wall, tearing towards the horizon, howling with the cries of the demons of Hell.


    [Herald of Astaroth Felled. Exp Gained]


    [Herald of Astaroth Felled. Exp Gained]


    [Herald of Astaroth Felled. Exp Gained]


    [Sister of Sepith Felled. Exp Gained]


    [Sister of Sepith Felled. Exp Gained]


    [Sister of Sepith Felled. Exp Gained]


    [...]


    ╰(*°▽°*)╯ (づ￣ 3￣)づ


    What remained of the Bepett was a giant beast of bleeding muscles that held no eyes, much less skin. It dropped to its knees before the Prince, pale as a ghost.


    Reina emerged, shing onto its downed head, and plunged her sword, which zed the golden radiance of her sacred me. An arc flew from out of her sword as she performed the first stance of the Nine Celestial Moon de Technique her master gifted her, adjoined with Infernal Rage.


    "Howling Moon"


    As if the Bapett''s neck had been made of liquid butter, a searing sword passed through it, stealing away its life.


    [Bapett Felled. Exp Gained]


    [Level Up]


    [Level Up]


    [Level Up]


    …


    Chiming nearly ten times, Altair and Reina copsed into the pool of lifeblood pulsing from out of the Bapett before it became no more than a steady stream before it stopped.


    Sucking away the blood with a hint of fever, Altair groaned, feeling the bacsh erupting from out of every pore of his body. Blood had begun to trickle out.


    Enma had been a Second Circle Spell. One at the very peak of its stage that called not only the power of the Infernal Hells but the Darkness. Its power was enough to rival most Third Circle Spells and sometimes fourth.


    And had required nearly ten years of his lifespan to cast. It was a drop in the bucketpared to his actual lifespan, but Altair''s current body still found it hard to bear.


    Reina sighed, gasping for air, feeling her heart painfully hammering against her chest. She rolled over, pale and weak.


    "3%," She said, short of breath, unable to feel most of her steaming body.


    "1%," Altair replied, suckling at the Bapett''s blood.


    [Ding]