The Strongest Demon Lord in the Modern World - Chapter 14

Oblivious to the grave threat that was rapidly approaching his current position, Aziel was busy inspecting the slight changes of his own body. Consuming that oversized armored fish-monster, he now felt much more comfortable in this new, unexplored medium.

He raised his attention, ready to leave back for the surface as he felt like he acquired what he wanted when suddenly, he felt his senses screaming at him from somewhere behind, outside of his field of vision.

Alarmed by the sudden warning signals, Aziel quickly turned around to see another fish, similar to the one he killed rushing at him with high speed. Watching his hasty approach, Aziel was slightly perplexed, he evaded its charge by swimming to the side once it was close enough.

“What is with this all of a sudden? This shouldn’t be causing the…”

Before he could finish his line of thought he had to evade again, as the creature had changed its trajectory and went back after Aziel, opening its jaws ready to bite into him.

Feeling that their dance was getting pointless, Aziel swiftly extended his claws and just as he swam to the side to evade the second rushing charge of the maddened aquatic beast, he also sliced at its underbelly, tearing it open.

Like a piñata, the creature’s guts were spilled at its surroundings, painting the water into a deep shade of red.

As the beast succumbed to his injuries a moment later, Aziel swam to it and proceeded to absorb it. The traits he gained from the creature slightly enhanced, making him feel stronger under the water than he did before.

Swimming around, Aziel was observing the environment to familiarize himself with his soon-to-be new domain. Looking around, he noticed a creature much bigger than the ones he had just killed rushing in his direction.

Not only was it bigger but it seemed to be much faster as well, closing the vast distance within mere seconds.

Snapping at Aziel, the creature tried to bite off a sizable chunk out of him in its initial charge. Its ferocity and desire to viciously murder the invader into his territory, the creature knew no remorse.

Not wanting to be done so quickly, Aziel reached to grab the creature’s massive jaws, trying to keep it from connecting and tearing into his torso. Yet, the creature had an unexpected, titanic strength in its jaws, causing Aziel to crumble under the brutal pressure, he was visibly straining.

This unknown beast of the dark depths was just that much stronger, dwarfing all the other apex predators he had met so far.

Giving into its strength, Aziel tried to force his way out of this situation by morphing his arms into his demi-human form. This proved to be helpful, as he managed to pry its mouth open just enough for him to maneuver out of the way.

Not giving him the chance to recover, it swung its tail at him, causing Aziel to put his arms up to defend himself. The hit sent him rocketing several dozen meters in the water towards a boulder protruding from the bottom.

Seeing the slab of stone rapidly approaching, Aziel flipped around, contorting his body and positioning his feet on the rocky surface of the boulder to return to the beast. Reaching the rock, Aziel crouched on its surface and transformed his legs into his demi-human state to give himself an even greater, explosive boost.

Launching himself, he began rippling through the water, similar to a torpedo towards the side of the creature, trying to tackle it underwater.

The creature observing Aziel’s charge effortlessly shifted its massive body and swam to the side, causing him to completely miss his intended target.

‘This beast… is toying with me?!’ He grumbled with a mixture of shock and helpless anger upon the realization just as he whizzed by the massive beast.

Aziel decided that the fight was dragging on longer than it should have, transforming completely into his demi-human form, with the additions of his new traits. His tail was similar in appearance to that of a modern-day crocodile, except for having a pointed tip at its end.

Feeling that the fight was dragging on longer than it should have, Aziel decided to let go of all his remaining restraints; he transformed completely into his massive demi-human form.

The only difference was that instead of the large draconic-shaped wings he would normally dance around with, Aziel currently sported a pair of gills at both sides of his neck and had a full row of massive bone spikes protruding from his spine. A thin layer of a semi-transparent membrane stretched between them, acting as both dorsal- and caudal fins, increasing his maneuverability even further.

With the formation of his tail, Aziel’s speed underwater had increased exponentially. Using his tail, he slithered through the water towards the creature bearing his claws.

‘DIE!!!’ he exclaimed inside his head.

Zooming towards the creature, he swung his claws.

*SWISH!*

The creature swiftly swam out of the way once again, effortlessly evading his attack. Aziel was growing more and more frustrated and angry as the creature wasn’t even fighting him, it seemed as if it wasn’t taking him seriously. Just like he guessed, the beast was merely playing, toying with him.

Aziel began to savagely swing his claws at the creature trying to tear it to pieces in his anger. The creature was unamused, only observed him while dodging all his attacks as they came, not paying that much attention to Aziel as they fought.

In Aziel’s uncoordinated, savage barrage of attacks, the creature countered his last attack and swung its tail into his chest with even greater force than the last, sending him flying back whilst also causing him to spit out a mouthful of blood from the sheer force of the impact, shattering his sternum.

Trying to reorient himself, Aziel was in a lot of pain from the creature’s hit. This pain only served to further fuel his rage.

“AAAAAAAARGH!!!” He yelled out, the water enhancing the vibrations; the anger in his yell could be felt by the surrounding fish, causing them to flee.

In his growing bloodlust, unbeknownst to him, his body slowly began to heat up, the strange vital energy, the [Aether] coursing inside him faster and more violently with each pass.

Aziel’s body started to expand greatly in size, building up pressure in the water. His claws elongating and his teeth grew in length increasing in their sharpness.

The creature was becoming wary of Aziel’s sudden increase in size, getting minor danger signals from his changes.

Immediately swimming at the beast, Aziel opened his jaws to clamp down onto its body. Approaching it, he increased his speed. The creature quickly evaded to the side, dodging his attack once again.

As it did so, Aziel swung his tail into the creature’s side just as it evaded his jaws. He then followed it up by jamming his claws into the stomach of the creature latching himself onto it.

He used his claws to continuously stab the titanic creature’s abdomen in his fit of rage, not wanting to let it go no matter how hard it was thrashing around in the water.

The blood of the creature was bathing the water in dark red color. Growing desperate from the loss of blood, the creature bit Aziel’s arm that he used to puncture its stomach and began to lock its jaw. Like a machine, the force vice-like snap placed unbearable pressure on his arm, causing a great deal of pain.

*SNAP!* The muffled sound of bones breaking was carried away by the water.

“AAAAAAAARGH!” Aziel screamed in pain, magnified by the liquid.

The creature had snapped his forearm bone and tore through the flesh of his right arm completely, while simultaneously forcing his shoulder joint out of place.

Aziel had let go of the creature after its desperate attempt at escape working. The creature kept thrashing with his forelimb swaying in its mouth, pulling it out from the socket and tearing it off completely.

The immense pain of losing one arm made Aziel let go of the beast completely and back away. Despite needing to let go, he had already done a considerable amount of damage to it, the creature wasn’t going to live much longer after its hard-fought victory.

Spitting out Aziel’s arm from its mouth, the creature was visibly enraged by his actions. Realizing it didn’t have much longer left to live, it rushed at Aziel who was still disoriented from the loss of his arm.

Reaching him, the creature opened its jaws and bit towards his right side, clamping its jaws deep into his flesh. Aziel, gradually losing the clarity of his mind, was unable to respond to the creature’s attack, he was slowly losing more and more of his blood.

He desperately began using his claws on his left hand to stab it into the side of the beast repeatedly for it to let him go.

The creature gave in and released Aziel from its bite, but not before tearing off a chunk of his flesh in the process, making his organs visible from the outside.

Now, both the creature and Aziel were on the clock, running out of time to finish this fight. Both of them were in critical condition.

Even though Aziel’s [Essence Restitute] have shifted into maximum gear and was doing its best to continuously heal and restore his body, the rate of healing simply wasn’t fast enough to recover the many grave injuries in the timeframe needed. He also had to keep a sliver of energy stored away at all times, otherwise, he would end up in a similar or maybe even worse situation as when he was expelled from his previous world, Nova.

Deciding to end the battle in one last charge, Aziel swallowed down all the pain and swam at the creature with full force. The creature seemed to have the same idea as him, it began to swim towards him with everything it got as well.

*SWISH!*

Both contenders cutting through the water approached each other at high speeds.

*BOOM!*

An underwater explosion rang out releasing huge ripples through the fluid medium.

The creature had sunk its teeth deep into Aziel’s neck, his razor-sharp teeth deep within his gullet.

Aziel on the other hand had sunk his claws into the creature’s lower jaw, piercing into its brain, killing it instantly.

Realizing that he finally won the fight, he retracted his claws and pushed the huge carcass off of him, letting it float in the water while he reverted to his human form.

After straining to stay transformed from the loss of blood and the critical damage he sustained in the battle, he struggled to keep himself conscious.

He descended towards the creature’s corpse to absorb it and aid his body in his recovery.

However, before he could even reach it, he felt something from behind. Turning around, he saw the same creature he had just fought with and almost died too.

No, it wasn’t the same.

This one was different, bigger in every way. Its sheer size was many times greater than what he just fought with, its skin looked thicker and its teeth were many times larger than anything he has seen before.

“Was that thing I just fought with only a baby?” He exclaimed in fear.

Aziel couldn’t react as the creature opened its massive jaws, biting him in half within seconds. The last thing on his mind was the realization that what he had almost died to wasn’t even fully grown; and if it would have been, he wouldn’t have stood a sliver of a chance against it.

This information sunk deep within Aziel’s mind as he drifted into the darkness once more.