Chapter 37: Damian Vs Bathin [2]

[Ninefold Samsara Foxfire Skill Used!]

Damian did not dare hesitate against a foe who could cross hundreds of meters in an instant. He unleashed his ultimate skill immediately.

Buzz!

Nine ghostly fox tails of pale violet fire unfurled behind him, each one crowned with a floating ember shaped like a closed eye. From them came faint, eerie cries that resembled the distant wail of a fox beneath a dying moon.

“Go!”

Swoosh!

All nine embers shot forward at terrifying speed, tearing through the air. Bathin’s expression darkened at once. Without hesitation, he yanked the reins, veered sharply down the street to the left, and rode. Space warped around him as he vanished from sight, the nine embers chasing relentlessly after his fleeing figure.

“He ran?” Damian muttered, taken aback.

Slowly pushing himself upright, he stared down the quiet street in confusion. Considering how determined the demon had seemed, he expected the battle to stretch longer. He had not anticipated a retreat the moment the advantage shifted.

Efficient, yes. But it made demons look like cowards.

“Talk trash and run the next moment,” Damian scoffed as he turned away.

He had just begun walking toward Clara’s home when he froze. His body still felt tense. The danger had not vanished. It lingered, unseen and undefined.

’What stops it from coming back an hour later when my guard is down?’

He interpreted the unease as fear of a future threat and briefly considered reaching out to Hazel. Then, without warning, dread fell over him. It felt like the cold blade of the angel of death resting against his throat.

He spun around instantly, but he was too late.

Pfft!

Blood splattered into the air as Damian screamed. A demonic force lance had pierced through his right shoulder, lifting him clean off the ground. His hand instinctively clamped down around the shaft as the horse continued galloping, dragging him through the air while blood streaked the pavement below.

The world compressed and expanded around them repeatedly as they tore through the streets of Chicago. In less than a second, the scenery shifted. Buildings vanished. Asphalt disappeared. They stood in a deserted stretch of land resembling the wild landscapes of old cowboy films, dotted with sparse patches of vegetation beneath an endless sky.

“GAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”

Grinding his teeth, Damian tightened his grip on the lance as immense azure flames erupted from his body. Bathin answered with a maelstrom of demonic force, and dazzling blue fire clashed violently with ominous dark crimson energy.

The explosion was cataclysmic.

Both were hurled backward in opposite directions once again.

Damian skidded across the ground for dozens of meters. Fresh blood poured from the puncture in his right shoulder, and his injured arm whipped uselessly in the wind, unresponsive to his attempts to regain control.

He was hurt badly. Badly enough that his vision blurred at the edges.

But he was given no time to recover.

Staggering to his feet, he thrust his open palm to the left and unleashed a torrent of azure flames. Almost immediately, Bathin materialized atop his horse, the demonic lance in his grip surging with a swirling vortex of dark energy.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Damian staggered repeatedly, barely keeping pace with the absurd speed of his opponent. His predatory instincts allowed him to sense where each strike would land through Bathin’s killing intent, but he was reacting at the very last possible moment.

Azure and dark crimson flames clashed over and over again in that deserted corner of the United States as Damian found himself trapped in a bitter life and death struggle.

What he had believed would be a simple, overwhelming victory had become a desperate fight to survive. And the signs were not in his favor.

’At this rate, I’ll die!’ Damian frowned.

His gaze flicked to his demonic force reserves. Barely fifty points remained. His knees trembled under the relentless pressure. He did not know how much longer he could endure such vicious assaults.

“I have to use it,” he decided in a heartbeat.

He had only unlocked the base ability of the Abyss talent tree’s living art, but Lin Qui had stated clearly that this inheritance was extraordinarily powerful and must be used as a trump card.

Now was the time to test it.

[Infernal Transformation: Dark Knight]

Damian did not move when the transformation began.

The world before him lost its color instantly. Red, blue, gold, every shade was stripped away until only black and white remained, as though existence itself had been drained of meaning. The air grew heavy. Sound dulled. Even the light seemed to hesitate.

His eyes turned pitch black.

Not shadowed. Not darkened. Void. The kind of black that devoured reflection and offered nothing back. Thin fractures spread from the corners of his eyes, crawling across his eyelids like shattered porcelain. The cracks deepened, branching outward in jagged lines as though something beneath his skin was forcing its way free.

He stood perfectly still.

No tremor. No breath. No flicker of emotion.

Bathin, who had been about to launch another assault, abruptly pulled on the reins, forcing his horse into an emergency halt. The sudden shift in Damian’s presence felt disturbingly familiar. It was the kind of familiarity that compelled caution, the instinct to wait and see before deciding whether to fight or flee.

He watched as Damian’s veins bulged beneath his skin, swelling visibly along his neck, arms, and hands. They darkened gradually from blue to deep charcoal, then to absolute black. They pulsed once, twice, as if circulating something thicker than blood.

Then the armor began to form.

A dull metallic groan echoed across the colorless world as the first piece slid into existence around his boots. Rusted. Ancient. Yet shaped with impossible precision. It clung to him as though it had always belonged there.

Greaves followed, locking into place over his legs with heavy clicks. A breastplate manifested over his chest, scarred by age yet perfectly fitted to his frame. One piece after another assembled with deliberate patience. Gauntlets sealed around his hands. Pauldrons settled upon his shoulders like the weight of forgotten wars.

Every fragment bore the marks of centuries of battle. Edges chipped. Surfaces corroded. Yet there was not a single gap between metal and flesh. It was as if the armor had been forged for him in an era long erased from memory.

Finally, the helmet descended.

It formed slowly around his head, the visor sliding down to conceal his empty gaze. The fractures around his eyes vanished beneath cold iron as the last sliver of exposed skin disappeared.

For a single breath, the world remained silent.

Then the rust ignited.

Fierce black flames erupted from the armor without warning, devouring the corroded surface in a violent blaze. The fire did not consume the metal. It transformed it. What had been rusted became obsidian and infernal, wreathed in living darkness. The flames roared upward, swallowing his entire form until only the silhouette of a knight stood within the inferno.

He looked like a warrior dragged from the grave of a fallen god.

A fiery black knight of death.

The ground trembled as something tore open behind his back. One pair of wings burst forth, formed from black light and shadowed feathers. Then another. And another.

Six wings unfurled in total, vast and majestic, spreading wide with silent authority. They were angelic in shape, but utterly devoid of holiness. Each feather was darker than night, edges sharp, trailing faint embers of black flame.

With a slow, deliberate beat, the wings extended to their full span.

Black feathers began to rain from the sky.

They drifted downward like a morbid snowfall, covering the colorless world in silent ruin. Wherever they touched, the ground seemed to wither, as though life itself recoiled from their presence.

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