Myriad Devils-Chapter 204: The theory

Every time Anon’s longsword maneuvered through space, ancient characters were left in its wake.

Though they were much more illusory and elusive than the ancient characters that manifested on his sword soul with every attack, they did not disappear.

As the battle continued, these characters began covering the entire battle cloud. A subtle hum created from the resonance of many spread throughout the space within the ancestor cloud.

The daemon groaned upon exerting force, forcing Anon into retreat. Scoffing lightly, this daemon also slashed toward Anon from a distance.

Several kilometers separated them, and yet, the three-meter darkness blade slashed horizontally, cleaving at Anon’s chest.

An aura darker than ink shrouded the darkness blade, cleaving space, severing distance, it appeared before Anon’s figure that was shrouded in light.

Anon’s longsword buzzed with crackling intensity and countered.

Maybe physical attacks were really unable to harm this daemon; however, against attacks completely opposing the nature of its darkness magic, how could it remain so invulnerable and invincible?

The resonance between the countless ancient characters across the cloud intensified at a moment’s notice. Immediately after, the aura surrounding Anon’s longsword intensified.

The two forces collided once again, and the battle cloud was left trembling due to the aftershocks. Both attacks were caught in a stalemate before cracks began taking shape on the darkness blade.

The ancient characters all across the battle space lit up, and the aura swiftly reached a climax. The darkness blade shattered under the force of Anon’s attack.

This attack took the form of a sword soul once more; however, it was unlike any of the previous sword soul manifestations that had attacked the daemon before.

Such an attack this time had accumulated power throughout the entire battle. The daemon did not dare to allow it to land on its body, but how could it be easily evaded?

The daemon teleported, but this was a battle cloud that only covered a limited mass. The sword soul manifestation appeared before the daemon in an instant.

Teleporting once more, upon reappearing, it flicked its hand and sent a dark vortex toward the sword soul’s manifestation.

Back then, he did not need to wield so much dark magic. Only a light grab with his palm contained the properties of this vortex.

Now, even the true appearance of this magic spell was revealed, and still, this was not enough.

Upon contacting the sword soul’s manifestation, it attempted to devour the entire sword soul, but exploded an instant after.

The sword soul appeared before the daemon once more.

However, an endless surge of dark magic power escaped the daemon’s body and formed a cocoon of darkness that swallowed his entire figure, resisting the manifested sword soul.

Once more, there was a momentary stalemate between the two forces. Soon after, the daemon’s figure leaped out of the cocoon as it shattered not long after.

Turbulent dark energies burst forth and ran rampant in its surroundings.

"You’ve pushed me a great deal." Saying so, dozens, hundreds, and then thousands of dark barriers materialized, separating the manifested sword soul and the daemon.

Each dark barrier was shattered almost instantaneously as the sword soul relentlessly pursued it.

Finally, once the last barrier was destroyed, the daemon watched as the sword soul passed through his dark armor and continued on its path out of the ancestor cloud, dissipating soon after.

Though cracks appeared on his dark armor, the daemon remained unperturbed. Even as the power of the previous attack had been reduced to a level he could barely endure, straining his armor to the brink of breaking, it began to regenerate.

More importantly, that attack could not be unleashed again.

"Well done, you’ve managed an attack that touches the limits of this form; however, can you do it again?" The daemon snorted.

"Since you’ve unleashed your ultimate attack, I wish to see if you can survive mines as well." The daemon released a strange laughter.

Anon, too, smiled.

Was he attempting to lessen his morale again?

Was this daemon not satisfied with how much it had backfired the first time, so it wished to go for a second round?

Shaking his head, Anon softly stated, "In truth, upon hearing your bold claims, I developed two pathways that led to your defeat."

That last attack directly confronted the concept of physical invulnerability that the dark armor was said to have.

Though it contained properties of light, opposing the very nature of darkness magic, making it very suitable to combat the dark armor, it was essentially not a light-based principle attack.

Anon had little confidence in its success, and more importantly, it was a technique that accumulated power, so it could not be used in the near future.

With all of these drawbacks, of the two ways, this attack was naturally the secondary path to success.

"Well, congrats on surviving the secondary attack." Anon sighed. From the very beginning of this battle, Anon had not, in any one single moment, felt a sense of fear or apprehension.

This was no arrogance.

’It’s different.’

The moment he actualized the merger of the black and white lightning techniques, he came to realize why...

This stemmed from absolute confidence.

It was an unbreakable confidence in himself and in his genius.

’This... it is not my fault that my soul can devour other wraiths and the like to evolve. It is not my fault that my comprehension, and will continuously evolve alongside my soul.’

Logically, if the other drifters also saw the evolution of their souls thanks to the nurturing of the dimension, then their comprehension and other aspects would’ve been nurtured and improved as well.

Similar to how Anon saw his comprehension, intelligence, and mental faculties increase. This should’ve been the case.

But this was clearly not the case.

If it were so, then the cursed daemon, the blood fiend, and the rest of them would’ve been capable of matching Anon’s comprehension ability as well...

To them, the slaughterous energy of this dimension not only nurtured their souls, but it also corrupted said souls, leaving a permanent mark that slowly transformed their existence on its most fundamental level.

These life forms were completely reliant on the slaughterous energy’s nurturing effect to evolve their souls.

However, it was different for Anon.

Rather than rely on the slaughterous energy to evolve, his soul devoured the slaughterous energy to evolve.

Simply put, his soul knew how to evolve on its own. It did not need the slaughterous energy to be a guide in the dark path of evolution, but it instead used it as nutrients.

So when his soul evolved, it was fundamentally different when compared to other souls.

This was something that Anon had thought up, and he had reached this conclusion with some certainty as well.

He came up with this concept some time back.

Back then, he had an idea.

Thinking back to the spell that had sent him on the brink of insanity, he had a similarly insane idea; however, once curse magic did not have a source origin, this insane idea would only be considered genius.

Anon viewed some of the spells for blood magic and curse magic as being similar, yet written in different languages.

Thinking like this, he then thought of the spell that had given him an untimely backlash.

One could say this was a high-level spell; others could say that it was not so much of a magic spell, but a summoning technique instead.

Anon wanted to believe that the reason he had faced backlash was not due to the high-level magic spell itself, but the strength of the existence that he had summoned.

The summon itself had punished him.

If this were the case, and it was really a summoning spell, then it could certainly be utilized in other forms of magic as well.

Though this was a different language, the essential meaning would remain the same.

He had already used the technique, so he had a general understanding of the framework. For him, Anon did not find it difficult to transfer this framework to another language... curse magic.

Instead of a blood summon, why not a cursed summon?

This was not the only curse magic he had developed, and he had initially planned to slowly utilize all forms of curse magic he developed in this battle; however, who told this daemon to unknowingly hint at a likely weakness.

It just so happened that cursed summoning was not a physical attack...

And if it did not work?

Well, things would indeed be troublesome, because this was his primary trump card; however, who was Anon?

He, Anon Xerxes, would simply develop a new method mid-battle!

With such confidence still bubbling within him, the daemon chose the wrong time to say...

"Since you’ve unleashed your ultimate attack, I wish to see if you can survive mines as well."

Anon could only sigh at another daemon’s failure to suppress their sinful nature, saying plainly, "Well, congrats on surviving the secondary attack."

The daemon already acted... 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The darkness blade reshaped from fragmented shards of darkness.

The daemon’s dark aura surged once more, and the disc-shaped void levitating above its shoulders suddenly began expanding.

It swiftly engulfed the daemon’s figure like a dome, continuing on its path. The entire battle cloud was on the verge of being consumed by this ’domain’ of sorts.

Anon opened his arms wide, as if to embrace heaven and earth. The domain continuously drew closer; however, the radiance on Anon’s face only grew brighter.

The power of curse magic was sealed within the closed book that floated above his head. And even his longsword was embedded in the ancestor cloud near him.

He appeared to’ve gone mad and given up, but who would actually believe that?

The domain continued to expand, eventually swallowing Anon’s figure.

Instantly, his eyes could not see, his ears could not hear, his skin could not feel, his nose could not smell, his spiritual awareness could not perceive anything...

His six senses were sealed.

The daemon also felt the absolute control that came with his darkness domain, and yet, a foreboding sensation forged from endless death battles suppressed all other emotions and sensations in his heart and mind.

Within the darkness domain, a purple light shone, and a cursed book opened.