Myriad Devils-Chapter 191: The first of the Mature Clouds

Anon groggily woke up to a new battlefield. It was much larger than the previous one, but it was to be expected.

Alerting him to danger, a hoarse voice resounded throughout the battlefield.

"This is the first time."

Anon heard this voice and instantly shot awake. The confusion dissipated, and he quickly became alerted to the foreign presence.

"Never had I come across an unconscious opponent." The figure was humanoid.

Besides some strange patterns on his face and his pupilless crimson eyes, he appeared no different than the average human.

The figure held a blood-colored book in their left hand. It had strange-looking decorations and released a bloody stench.

"You can refer to me as Blood Fiend," he said. "May I ask what your title is?"

Anon was pleasantly surprised by this opponent’s mannerisms. Pondering in silence for a short while, in the blink of an eye, he concisely replied with a gravelly voice.

"Anon."

"Oh? An interesting title." The Blood Fiend smiled. "In my old world, this world, that word meant ’nameless’. Is there a reason you call yourself nameless?"

Hearing this, Anon tilted his head in doubt. He asked, "Your world? What makes you believe that I am not from this world?"

The Blood Fiend remained silent, opting to point at the book in his left hand.

Thereafter, his gaze traversed the battlefield, pausing on the flesh sword before returning to Anon.

"I only hope you do not resent me for saving you from this hell." The Blood Fiend sighed.

Anon immediately sensed danger and distanced himself.

The blood-colored book in Blood Fiend’s hand lifted into the air. As it opened, the pages flapped wildly, and a crimson hue draped his entire figure.

"Grimoires allow us natives to wield the power of the daemons." The Blood Fiend pointed at the flesh sword and said. "I see you’ve slayed one. Their magic treasures are harmful to us, but it seems you did not realize, otherwise you would’ve already offered it to the Inverted World."

"Naturally, that is why it makes me think that you’re new to this world..."

Blood Fiend smiled faintly but did not wait for a reply.

The finger that pointed toward the flesh sword then pointed to Anon’s figure some distance away.

Immediately after, a droplet of blood shot across the battlefield.

Fast!

It was too quick.

Anon barely reacted, but his cloud-severing spear could not materialize in time. Only now did he realize that this damn Blood Fiend was so casual merely to lower his guard!

But just as the drop of blood appeared before him, the droplet transformed.

Before his widened eyes, a massive fist shot out of the droplet, piercing Anon’s face.

The droplet of blood then transformed into Blood Fiend himself. The grimoire appeared above his head, and his previous figure melted into a pool of blood.

Anon’s figure shattered like broken glass.

Gripping his spear tightly, Anon had already created some distance between himself and Blood Fiend.

"You’re quite fast." Blood Fiend smiled. The crimson book slowly descended into his left palm whilst the flipping pages spurted out an even more intense bloody light.

Waving his free right hand, countless droplets of blood swirled around Blood Fiend, eventually forming a pair of crimson wings on his back.

The blood grimoire lifted into the air once more, drifting in the air behind Blood Fiend’s head, constantly pouring a blood-colored light onto his figure.

’This guy.’

Anon sighed.

Before his vision, Blood Fiend’s figure was replaced by a river of gushing blood.

The river of blood maneuvered through space with such power and speed that the entire battleground trembled and quaked.

Anon reacted the moment Blood Fiend transformed, leaving a physical body still stuck in the first layer of speed.

The blood river shattered this physical body before arching through the air and shooting towards a certain direction.

The moment Anon reappeared, his physical body was shattered like a broken glass mirror. The blood river did not give him any time whatsoever.

As he appeared on the battlefield for a third time, Anon gritted his teeth. The cloud-severing spear drew complicated patterns in the air as the blood river appeared before him.

Just as the blood river appeared, Blood Fiend’s physical body jumped out of the river, attacking Anon with his bare fists.

Anon’s spear was like streaks of white lightning, moving unbelievably fast and unpredictably.

However, as the bolts of white lightning landed on the Blood Fiend’s body, they merely created ripples like stones thrown into a lake, before passing straight through.

Blood Fiend’s fist landed against Anon’s chin. The collision of these two fleshy forces was like the collision of worlds.

A mind-shaking explosion resounded across the battlefield as Anon stumbled back.

Blood Fiend immediately frowned.

Even though it was he who instigated and landed the first attack, his own arm was left trembling upon landing against Anon’s chin.

Anon looked at Blood Fiend strangely.

His head ached, and his vision was slightly blurry.

"How robust." The Blood Fiend cursed.

Originally, Anon’s flesh and cells were only comparable to a third worlder’s. But just as his drifter cloud had evolved, his own body was improved as well.

His entire body was destroyed and reforged.

Mature drifters had the base power of the fifth world. This was true not only through magical attacks, but physically as well.

After being nurtured by the world, Anon’s flesh contained the power of the fifth world. Luckily, he already had true mastery before the reforging process.

After all, it would be umpteenth times more difficult to grasp true mastery of a physical body containing the power of the fifth world.

"My body might be even less robust than yours," Anon said this and smiled meaningfully.

Naturally, he spoke in a general manner. Maybe if Blood Fiend had achieved true mastery over his fleshy body, that would’ve been the case.

However, with each cell containing the might of the fifth world, when working in a fixed system to amplify his strength, Anon’s physical body was naturally very scary.

Blood Fiend and Anon exchanged a few words whilst their minds rapidly assessed the previous exchange and deduced their future actions.

From the beginning, Anon had been forced on the back foot due to Blood Fiend’s sudden attack. It wasn’t that he lacked alertness; however, the Blood Fiend used Anon’s unconscious situation to his own advantage.

At the same time, Anon opted to observe rather than make a futile attempt at reversing his situation.

After all, both drifters had multiple cards at hand. The battle was bound to reach a momentary pause before they decided to reveal their next set of cards.

Giving up the initial round to keep his cards hidden was the best strategy he had thought of in that moment.

Anon’s thoughts rapidly churned.

’Even when I attacked his physical body, it was as if I was attacking a boundless river. The destructiveness of my attacks is dispersed across a larger area, easing the burden of bearing my attacks.’

’If I wish to defeat him with the first technique, it would likely be a drawn-out battle. However, the second, more destructive technique, can be perceived and evaded much more easily.’

The daemon had been caught by surprise at that time.

In the end, Anon could not wield the lightning principle.

If he could, the power and ability he could showcase with those two techniques would be unimaginable. At least, compared to what Blood Fiend had shown so far, Anon would’ve already won this battle.

’When he transforms into that blood river, his speed is even faster than mine. However, so far, he has not attacked with anything except his fists.’

Thinking this, Anon gripped his spear even tighter.

The space that distanced Blood Fiend and himself instantly shrank. Appearing before Blood Fiend, Anon’s spear soul shone with crackling white lightning. His spear, containing the properties of the white lightning, was inhumanely swift.

Blood Fiend waved his left hand. The pair of blood wings on his back deconstructed into droplets of blood that appeared before him and materialized as seven layers of blood shields.

Under the immense power of Anon’s physical strength, coupled with the properties of lightning and his spear soul, each layer was destroyed upon impact.

They barely slowed his spear even for a moment.

Blood Fiend stared without fear as the spear soul rushed towards him. The grimoire floating behind his head shone with intense blood light, and upon being pierced, his body transformed into a river of blood that distanced itself away from Anon.

Anon wasn’t willing to give him any chance to breathe, but before he could cross the distance between them, hundreds and thousands of blood lights in the forms of spears, spikes, and swords danced through the air.

Moving at high speeds, they fell on Anon in the blink of an eye.

Blood Fiend watched on as Anon’s figure was destroyed like shattering glass. The blood lights followed Anon across the battleground, preventing him from nearing Blood Fiend even slightly.

’His physical prowess is greater than I thought. He has high mastery over his spear and body, and that technique is also too strong. It was a joke to even think of overwhelming him in the beginning and gaining a drop of his blood...’

Blood Fiend sighed.

"Very well, Anon. To achieve victory, sometimes sacrifices are necessary."

The grimoire trembled with excitement and fell into Blood Fiend’s left palm. At the same time, he bit his right thumb and threw his own blood onto the grimoire.

An overwhelmingly archaic aura of blood energy shot out of the book, racing into the sky before falling back down.

As the energies landed on his body, the strange patterns on his face burned with vigor.