The Dark Demon Lord - Chapter 98

Arnin couldn’t help but slightly smirk at Soothing Ash’s remark. “This is good. If you weren’t at least this strong, then it would have just been boring.” After he spoke, flames began to quietly seep out his body covering him head to toe.

“You want to see how strong my flames are? Well, let me show you.” He began to crazily pull power from the Seed of Neutrality. Surprisingly, the more power he pulled, the more silent it got. It was as if the flame wasn’t even there.

Soothing Ash frowned slightly as he felt his Hell flame become a little sluggish. “Interesting.” He smiled as he began to wrap himself in flames as well. Unlike Arnin, the Hell flame he had was more of an external weapon like a sword, so he was unable to create a Seed of Fire with it as it’s core. At least, he didn’t know how to yet, but even then his flames weren’t any weaker than those that had the Seed of Fire.

“GO!” Raising his hands, Arnin blasted fireballs towards Soothing Ash in rapid succession. The latter also began to shoot balls of Soothing Flame towards Arnin. Just like last time, Arnin’s Flames of Neutrality were on the losing end, but this time it took about five fireballs to take out one ball of Soothing Flames.

‘This is still not good enough. Since my flames can’t outmatch his flames in a battle of power, what about when it comes to killing the other?’ Arnin could already control the shape of his flames at will.

Arnin began to change the shape of the flames from balls into small needles and large spears. The needles were meant to attack Soothing Ash, while the spears were to pierce the Soothing Flame balls in one spot, splitting them apart.

Of course, Arnin was simply guessing that it would work. There was a chance that even as spears, the Flames of Neutrality would be unable to match the others flames.

Seeing spears in Arnin’s hands, Soothing Ash couldn’t help but frown. ‘Seems like he is able to change the shape of his flames at will. This might be tricky.’ He already knew that Arnin could change direction of his flames as he saw in the fight against Sword Hero, but changing form was much harder.

One needed to be in full control of his flames, plus they needed to understand the properties of their flame extremely well. Even now, he could barely change the direction of his flames, let alone shape.

“Let’s see if you handle this.” Arnin swung his arm, throwing the Neutrality spears towards the Soothing Flames.

*SCRRR*

A sound similar to something being shredded resounded from the collision between the two flames. Arnin’s eyes were glinting with a cold light while Soothing Ash couldn’t help but frown deeply.

He squinted and saw that the spear had tore through his flames and was making its way towards him at a much slower speed. With a sidestep, he moved away from the place where the spear was landing.

“Idiot.” Arnin couldn’t help but speak these words as he waved his hand, discreetly throwing the small flaming needles towards the dodging man.

*PING PING*

The sound of penetration came from Soothing Ash’s body. His eyes widened as he looked down and saw long, thin lines piercing his body. He raised his head and looked at Arnin. “So you’re going to resort to trickery? I can do the same.” As blood seeped from his mouth, a wicked smile surfaced on his face.

Arnin had a look of confusion before he quickly looked down. Wrapped around his right leg was a bright blue face. His ankles were already heavily burnt, however the flame didn’t stop there; it was slowly making its way up.

‘This flame is truly extremely powerful in sneak attacks. Even I couldn’t feel when I started to burn.’ He felt a little apprehensive, however he wasn’t worried about being killed by the flames.

Covering his hand in the Flames of Neutrality, he grabbed the other flames and tossed them aside. He looked at his charred ankle and began to slowly revolve his Seed of Rebirth. A white light seeped out of his finger and snaked towards Sword Hero’s body. Although the latter was dead, the life essence had yet to completely dissipate from his body so Arnin wanted to absorb it as quickly as possible.

Soothing Ash saw this scene and his pupils constricted as a sense of fear appeared in his heart. ‘That, what is that? How could he heal his wound so easily?’

Everyone’s heart shook when they saw what Arnin was doing. They could visibly see his ankle reverting back to normal, as if there were no burns to begin with. When they looked back at Sword Hero’s headless body, they found that it had become dry like a raisin.

“This is appalling! This Demonic Joker is disgusting.” A girl from the crowd couldn’t help but begin to vomit at the sight.

Although most of the people in the battlefield killed, there were a rare few that had avoided killing anyone so far. This girl was a part of this rare group, so seeing such a sight was bound to sicken her.

Arnin kicked his leg and moved his ankle around for a few seconds and then a smile appeared on his face. “Now then, let us continue.” Spears continued to form in his hand as he began to throw them towards the previously injured Soothing Ash without pause. The latter began to sense death as he dodged everything that was hurled towards him.

Even then, the spears kept coming. They were even being used to hide needles that he couldn’t dodge. He was struck over and over again. “STOP! I GIVE UP!” The previously calm Soothing Ash lost his cool and couldn’t help but shout in desperation.

Facing death, even the most almighty would become fearful, let alone a kid that had yet to experience all the horrors of the world.

Soothing Ash’s voice entered one of Arnin’s ears but escaped from the other. Why would he stop now? He was going to kill the flaming guy and be done with this fight.

Seeing that Arnin wasn’t going to stop, Soothing Flame grit his teeth as he wrapped himself with his flames again, but this time they seemed much stronger and chaotic.

‘This suicidal fool really intends to pay such a price to escape?’ Arnin could see exactly what Soothing Ash was doing. He released powers from the flame he couldn’t control yet, just for a chance to escape.

*SOOOSH*

With a leap, Soothing Ash escaped from the scene, his flames making him look like a blue star.

Arnin didn’t chase after him or even attack him since the latter would already be in critical condition after being burned by his own flames. There was a chance the latter would die anyways due to his heavy wounds.

“Now that the warm-up is done, who shall I face next?” Arnin felt much more apprehensive towards the top twenty after facing Soothing Ash. Although the latter lost, there was a high chance that Arnin could have been finished if he didn’t have better control over his own flames. The opponent’s flames were much more developed than his own, making them extremely powerful.

Suddenly, the person ranked eleven walked out from the crowd. It was the young boy that Arnin felt to be the largest threat. Even though his realm was lower than Soothing Ash’s, he gave off a much more powerful aura. “You and me can have a go.”

When those words came out from his mouth, his body bursted with a large amount of essence. Some people fainted where they stood, while others found it hard to even move. Arnin also frowned deeply. ‘He is extremely strong. I can sense auras of ice and fire?’ This shocked him greatly.

Although he himself was able to fuse two opposing elements, that was only because of his experience with various elements from the past. If he hadn’t had that, even he wouldn’t be able to fuse two opposing elements easily, and it might have even be close to impossible for him.

What shocked him even more was that the boy in front of him was able to combine the powers of fire and ice. This was even harder than combining life and death, or light and darkness. Fire and ice were completely opposite. They had no similarities that could be used to merge them.

‘I can’t hold back against this person.’ Arnin replied with a burst of his own aura. A bloody red mist surrounded his body. His palms were covered in the Flames of Neutrality, and there was even black and white smoke surrounding his arms. The Seeds of Extremities, Blood, and NEutrality were all released to their fullest.

“Although I am ranked at eleven, I do not consider myself weaker than anyone in the top ten. If anything, I should be stronger than a few of them. Back when I faced them, I was only at Essence Manifest – Earth and even then, they could barely fend me off. Now that I have broken through” Although he didn’t finish his sentence, the meaning behind his words was quite clear.

He was strong, much stronger than the some of the top ten. Of course, that is only if those in the top ten didn’t make breakthroughs in their own strength as well, but Arnin didn’t feel that the lattr was speaking nonsense. Just his ability to control ice and fire simultaneously showed that his talent was monstrous.

“Come, then!” Arnin looked at the boy and spoke with a low roar. He put his guard up to the fullest and his purple eyes began to sparkle.

The boy crouched and a ball of fire and a shard of ice appeared in each of his hands. Both of them turned into different weapons. The fire transformed into a large hammer, while the ice shard became a sharp spear. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them once again, his previous black pupils changed into a icy blue and a flaming red.

“You are worthy enough for me to use all of my strength. Even the top ten didn’t force me to this step.” When those words left his mouth, two wings formed on the back, each exuding a temperature of different extremes.

Arnin inhaled a deep breath. The blood mist turned began to shoot out bloody spears, while the black and white smoke turned into beams, aiming to kill the boy in front of him. Even his Flames of Neutrality didn’t fall behind as they aimed to burn the boy to crisp.

“Indeed terrifying. AH!” The boy flapped his wings and thrusted his body towards the incoming attack. His two weapons rose and slammed against the incoming attacks. Seeing that he was being pushed back rapidly, his wings began to shoot out icicles and fire balls aimed at Arnin’s body.

Unlike Soothing Ash, he wasn’t going to try and fight Arnin’s attacks directly because he knew that he would be overpowered if he were to try that. The only way to win was to keep attacking Arnin’s body.

Arnin saw the incoming attacks and he quickly jumped to his side, however little did he know that the boy was also able to control the form of his attacks like Arnin.

“Hehe!” The icicles which were dodged by Arnin made a sharp turn and stabbed directly into Arnin’s shoulder blade.

*BLUERG*

A mouthful of blood spew from Arnin’s mouth as the icicles seeped into his body, freezing his blood.

A cold glint flashed from his eyes and he quickly began to use the Flames of Neutrality to get rid of the coldness, however the more he tried, the darker his face got. ‘What the hell is with these icicles? They aren’t burning away!’

The young boy smirked as he quickly jumped back, stopping the clash with the three different powers from Arnin. “Its futile, that ice is not normal ice. It is formed with hints of fire, making it hard to burn away. In fact, you may even be increasing its freezing properties by feeding it with your flame.” Arnin’s face couldn’t help but pale when he heard this.

The combination of fire and ice was one of the most deadly powers in the universe. He had only met one person who had this ability, and that was a day where even he almost lost his life. If not for his higher cultivation, there would not have been a Demon Lord Arnin after that fight.

The only elements that could equally match the combination of ice and fire was timespace. Ice and fire defied the very order of elements, which was why they were powerful.

Arnin’s heart was still calm even though he was in danger. He had faced a person with ice and fire powers before so he knew of some small tricks. Taking his finger, he quickly tore a large hole in his arm and the frozen blood began to fall out like blocks of ice. There were even a few veins in the mix.

*BLUERG*

Blood rushed from his throat and out of his mouth again. His face was extremely pale, losing all of its color. This was the toughest opponent he had ever faced, and he doubted the people in the top ten would be stronger in terms of ability.

The young boy saw this scene and a smirk appeared on his face. “You’re really ruthless, aren’t you? Who would have thought that there would be such a kid in this world? Now take this attack from me. If you are able to block it successfully, I won’t mind letting you go.”

When those words came out of his mouth, the wings on his back began to dissipate slowly. His weapons also began to disappear, however Arnin felt a stifling aura surround him. It wasn’t an aura that came from ones cultivation realm. It wasn’t domineering like Xillar’s, rather it was a very silent aura, as if it caused even nature to be silent in fear of making any sound.

Arnin’s pupils contracted into pinholes when he saw a small drop appeared in front of the young boy. “C-complete merger?!” His face quickly paled and sweat began to drip from all over his body.

Previously, he was barely able to fend off ice with bits of fire in it, and he even had to sacrifice a large amount of blood for that, putting himself in critical condition. Now that a complete merger was happening in front of him, alarms of danger went off rapidly in Arnin’s mind. He knew that if he faced that attack, even the slightest touch would kill him. Just a scrape from the ability would end his life completely, leaving nothing behind.

He couldn’t release his Demon Lord powers because he knew that he would be risking the death of his human body. Last time he was lucky, but there was no second chance.

This was the first time he felt the possibility of death in Afloria. There was no escape and facing the danger head on would be suicidal. ‘F*ck!’