Return of the Youngest Son with SSS-Rank Talent-Chapter 199: Demon (Part 2)

Here it comes!

Kael gritted his teeth and raised his sword, adopting a firm stance. He didn’t back down. He didn’t look for an escape route. Instead of dodging, he aligned his body with the trajectory of the attack, as if he had already accepted the outcome.

Whoosh!

The air roared as the demon’s sword descended. The weapon, engulfed in hellfire, seemed to carry the weight of a mountain. The pressure it generated distorted the surroundings, and the scorching heat made the space around it vibrate.

Kk—Crunch!

Crack!

The impact was brutal. The demon’s sword hardened at the last moment and struck Kael directly. There was no deflection. There was no effective resistance. His body was slammed into the ground like a projectile, crashing violently.

Kael tensed every muscle, pushing his body to the limit to try to withstand the blow. His feet sank into the stone. Cracks spread beneath him, expanding in concentric circles. The pressure was too great.

The ground began to give way.

Unable to withstand that overwhelming force, the structure collapsed completely. The earth broke apart and collapsed downward, swallowing Kael along with fragments of molten rock and debris from the pavement.

A gigantic crater formed in the center of the city.

Dust and smoke rose in a thick column, obscuring the bottom of the hole. The infernal fire illuminated the walls of the abyss with an intermittent glow.

The demon frowned slightly.

"...Strange."

From his position, he had the distinct impression that Kael had taken the attack on purpose, rather than dodging it. That decision made no sense. Any fighter with a survival instinct would have avoided the blow.

So why did Kael choose to face the infernal fire head-on?

The demon stood watching the depths of the crater. He heard no screams. He saw no apparent signs of death. Only silence... and an unsettling absence of response.

Something didn’t add up.

At that moment...

Crack!

From inside the pit of fire, a crack opened in the silence.

Tap. Tap.

A sharp sound echoed from the depths. Then another. Footsteps.

Kael slowly emerged from the crater. His body was blackened, covered in burn marks and ash. The residual heat distorted the air around him, and each step released small embers that extinguished themselves upon touching the ground.

"...I thought I would die from the heat," he murmured.

He exhaled slowly. The burning aura accumulated within him began to dissipate, flowing from his body like an incandescent mist. When he looked up and fixed his gaze on the demon, the change was immediate.

The demon stood motionless.

His eyes widened.

"You... your eyes..."

Kael’s irises were no longer the same. They had transformed into a deep, brilliant gold, like molten metal under an ancient light. It wasn’t a superficial glow; it was a sign of complete activation, of something that had awakened.

"Oh... thank you, demons."

Kael smiled slightly. It wasn’t arrogant or provocative. It was the smile of someone who had just confirmed that everything had gone according to plan.

"Now... why don’t we start over?"

The world looked different. Every detail before his eyes took on overwhelming clarity. His senses expanded as if he had activated an enhanced sensory ability; he could perceive currents of mana, thermal fluctuations, and even the rhythm of the infernal aura surrounding the demon.

It was as if he could see through everything.

At the exact moment the demon had attacked him, Kael had pulled an object from one of his space rune rings: Zu Golden-Eyed Monkey.

The condition for its activation was particular: high temperature.

And the demon’s hellish fire had been... perfect.

"Want to get started?" Kael repeated calmly.

The demon smiled slightly. Although he was surprised to see him emerge from the burning pit, that surprise quickly dissipated.

In his eyes, the situation remained clear.

Kael’s body was covered in burns. The burning aura still couldn’t entirely dissipate. His physical condition was far from optimal.

"And what exactly do you want to start?" he said contemptuously, "When your body is in that state?"

It was natural for the demon to underestimate him. He was a demon, one of the races that ruled the world long before the first human, <<Adam>>, appeared.

Although he was now weakened by ancient restrictions and seals, his racial pride remained intact.

To him, Kael was nothing more than a scorched ant that refused to die.

What the demon did not understand... was that Kael had never planned to win with brute force.

From the beginning, this battle had not been a fight for survival.

It had been an activation.

And now, for the first time, Kael saw the demon not as a threat... but as a clearly defined target.

"Hmm... this is nothing."

The demon narrowed its eyes, watching intently as Kael’s body began to cover itself with a dark, viscous substance. It was neither fire nor shadow, but something denser, almost organic. The mass spread over his skin like a living blanket, gradually solidifying into a protective layer.

Another Zu.

Zu Gorilla Snot.

A specialized defense that covered the wearer’s body with flexible armor, whose resistance rivaled that of an eight-star knight. It wasn’t elegant, but it was brutally effective.

At the same time, Kael adjusted his grip on the sword he now wielded. The hilt, long and black, seemed ordinary at first glance, but the blade was different: polished to an unsettling beauty, it radiated a red aura that pulsed like a living heart.

Kael stepped forward and planted his foot on solid ground just as the demon’s sword descended toward him.

Whoosh!

A gigantic flame burst wholly and forth, engulfing him. The heat was enough to reduce any ordinary warrior to ashes in an instant. However, Kael did not retreat.

Instead of dodging, he attacked.

CLANG!

His sword sliced through the fire with a single stroke, parting the flames as if they were a burning curtain. Taking advantage of the opening, Kael leaped forward, closing the distance in an instant and entering the demon’s personal space, close to its waist.

The next move was clean. Precise.

The blade descended.

The armor of fire shattered.

"AHHHHH!"

The demon’s scream shook the air as Kael’s sword sliced through its torso, tearing away the fiery protection that had always made it untouchable. Warm blood spurted from the wound, falling to the ground in glowing drops. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

It was working.

Usually, something like this would have been unthinkable. The fiery armor of a demon like Surtur could not be pierced, even with high-quality Zu. But now... now he was weakened. Restrictions limited him, and Kael had mercilessly exploited that weakness.

"You..." the demon spat with restrained fury.

His body began to slowly turn black, as if the fire inside him was being corrupted. A crimson infernal flame mixed with absolute blackness erupted from his hand. It was no ordinary fire.

The onyx-colored flame threatened the world itself.

Kael’s vision was tinged with gold to the utmost. The Zu Golden-Eyed Monkey was fully active.

Within that altered vision, the chaos of the battlefield was arranged in an unnatural order. Invisible lines were drawn before him, marking a single possible path.

One path.

Kael didn’t need to think. He felt it.

It was one of the effects of the power of Prediction.

BOOOOM!

Black flames burst forth, incinerating the entire area. But this was no simple combustion. The ground wasn’t burning... it was melting, turning into magma under the infernal fire’s pressure.

It was one of the concepts unique to a demon: the manifestation of hellfire.

"Kugh..."

Kael managed to move along the path marked by his vision, avoiding total incineration by a narrow margin. Even so, the heat reached him. The burning aura clung to his body like a curse, refusing to dissipate.

He tried to expel it.

It was useless.

The restrictions of the inheritance limited his strength.

The pain built up.

Kael gritted his teeth.

I need to end this quickly.