Chapter 243 – Run away? Not today

“That old man is dead…” Zarvok muttered to himself. Barely five minutes had passed since Luke had emerged from the depths of Centralia.

He, on the other hand, was still enjoying his fight with the Wendigo.

The creature, still in its juvenile stage, was putting up more resistance than he had anticipated. It wasn’t due to strength or form, it was pure instinct and rage.

Zarvok relished that. Before devouring a valuable soul, he always preferred to warm up the body.

A defeated enemy, stripped of all hope, always tasted better.

But Mortimer falling so quickly… that wasn’t part of his plan.

From the sky, just over twenty meters up, Luke was watching.

He floated calmly, suspended above the battlefield, Eclipse in hand. His expression was neutral and serene.

His eyes followed every movement of the demon and the female humanoid monster. He knew it was a Wendigo, he had read about them in a Nevermore monster textbook. Thanks to his eidetic memory, recalling it was easy.

Then Luke spoke, “Aren’t you going to run?” he asked.

His voice carried clearly, no need to shout.

Zarvok glanced up briefly, smiling with fangs exposed, “And why would I run when I have two delicious meals in front of me?” he replied.

He twisted his neck with an inhuman crack, momentarily taking his eyes off the Wendigo. A spark of greed ignited in his red pupils as he looked at Luke.

“Your soul, psychic… it feels exquisite even from here.”

Luke didn’t respond immediately. He just looked down for a moment, thoughtful, as if evaluating something.

“This is the first time I speak to a demon… You must be mid-class, since you have intelligence. Not like those Morraks,” Luke said aloud, though more to himself than to Zarvok.

He paused briefly and then added with a scornful smile, “Though your intelligence doesn’t seem that impressive. Your greed blinds you to the fact that you’re screwed.”

Zarvok, who had been charging at the Wendigo, halted abruptly. His smile vanished, and he looked toward Luke.

“Screwed?” he repeated, his tone no longer mocking, lower, darker.

The Wendigo didn’t use the moment to strike; instead, it seized the chance to recover energy. It was at its limit.

Its eyes flicked to Luke, and for a moment, beyond rage and instinct, it recognized something: danger.

It didn’t express it, but within its wild mind the thought was clear:

‘He… is more dangerous than mushroom-head.’

It didn’t know why, couldn’t rationalize it, but it felt it, and it knew facing him meant certain death.

“You look young, and arrogant. Typical of your kind when you don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” said Zarvok, his tone threatening, genuinely debating whether to abandon the Wendigo and go straight for Luke.

‘Hunger clouds his judgment, better for me,’ thought Luke.

Zarvok, like most demons of his class, had one defining flaw: greed.

And Luke was far too tempting a meal.

“I don’t understand what I’m dealing with?” Luke repeated with a slight smile.

“You’re a mortal creature, hungry for souls or whatever. You cross into this world to hunt, but when you feel threatened, you crawl back into your hole. The problem for you is that your hunger already clouded your judgment,” Luke added, and released Eclipse.

The sword didn’t fall, it hovered in the air. Floating with precision, the blade pointed directly at Zarvok.

Luke gave a small nod, and launched it.

The force was instant. Over ten tons of telekinetic pressure behind a sword weighing maybe three kilograms.

Eclipse shot forward like a spear of pure force, accelerating to a speed that sliced the air with a high-pitched whistle.

Over 1,200 meters per second.

Faster than any conventional projectile.

Zarvok had no time to think, only to react on instinct.

He twisted his torso, turned his body, and dodged it by centimeters.

The blade passed by him, slicing through the air less than a hand’s width from his neck.

A stream of hot air struck him.

The pressure from Eclipse’s flight left a trail of flames in its wake.

The sword kept going, tearing through a slab and shattering a column dozens of meters behind him.

Luke gave a slight nod. He had seen what he wanted to see: resilience, reflexes, reaction time.

Not bad for a creature driven by hunger.

He had managed to dodge a supersonic strike using only his body, no psychic powers, no special abilities, just raw physical strength, muscle, and instinct.

Using his enhanced mind, boosted by the Blue Aura, Luke was already calculating.

Based on the weight, acceleration, and trajectory… Zarvok had moved over forty tons of pure force in a fraction of a second.

A body weighing nearly five hundred kilograms, displaced laterally at nearly a thousand meters per second squared.

The kind of momentum that shattered walls, crushed armor, opened craters with a single leap.

His physical strength had to be, easily, around forty tons.

A monstrous number.

Not the highest Luke had ever seen, of course.

Stalin, that old bastard who trained him at the Addams Manor, was even stronger. A monster among men.

But Zarvok was still part of the physical elite. Luke knew that.

If he only had telekinesis, he’d be screwed.

With a maximum output of fifteen tons, he couldn’t pin him down. He couldn’t throw him.

He could only fly and keep his distance, play defense.

But if the demon leapt and grabbed him, reacting in time would be nearly impossible, and his telekinetic shield would barely hold for a second, in the best of cases.

That’s why… if he had just one aura, he’d lose.

But he didn’t have one.

He had four.

And on top of that: Eclipse. A sword that, even if it “only” channeled fifteen tons, concentrated all that force into a single point, with such precision it could slice through anything… even bodies harder than steel, when enhanced by his telekinesis.

That’s why he wasn’t worried.

Luke calmly stretched out his hand.

Eclipse floated back to him.

The blade vibrated in the air, wrapped in an invisible halo of telekinetic pressure, ready to be launched again, but this time, it wouldn’t go alone.

A second Eclipse appeared beside it.

It wasn’t real.

It was a perfect illusion, shaped directly within Zarvok’s perception.

A mental manipulation that altered the senses, not just sight, but also weight, aura, even the sound it made slicing through the air.

The two blades began spinning rapidly around Zarvok, tracing fast, tight, erratic orbits. A chaotic dance.

Zarvok stepped back, not out of fear, but to improve his peripheral vision.

He couldn’t distinguish them visually, but he didn’t need to. He sniffed.

From above, Luke made a small motion with his index finger, and finally, one of the swords shot straight toward Zarvok’s chest.

Zarvok stood still, not dodging.

The blade passed through him without harm.

It was nothing but air.

A second later, the real sword arrived.

Zarvok managed to avoid the strike by mere centimeters, but the blade still grazed his left arm, carving a deep, clean line across his bicep.

Zarvok growled through clenched teeth as dark blood poured from the wound.

From the sky, Luke’s voice came down like an emotionless sentence:

“Good nose. I didn’t think you could distinguish a weapon by its essence.”

‘Well, it is a Soul Weapon… hard to replicate its essence with an illusion, even Mortimer might’ve noticed the difference,’ Luke thought, not giving it much weight. It had just been a tactic he tested.

Zarvok looked up at Luke.

Eclipse was already floating again.

And he understood, this sword was far too dangerous to let it act freely.

He had to kill Luke, the true threat, before dealing with the Wendigo.

Without a word or warning, Zarvok jumped. The ground exploded beneath him.

Chunks of stone burst outward, the earth caved in, and his body launched toward the sky like a missile.

He moved at over forty meters per second, straight at Luke, leaving him almost no time to react.

In less than half a second, the demon was upon him.

Luke saw him coming, knowing he had less than a second to react.

Most psychics would have been dead.

But he wasn’t looking at the present. He was seeing the future.

The charge wasn’t a surprise, it was a predicted point.

And just before impact, he vanished using Shambles.

Space distorted, and Zarvok flew past with claws outstretched, slashing only air.

His eyes flared with restrained fury, but he had no time to curse.

Eclipse was already flying toward him.

And this time, in such an awkward position, he couldn’t dodge the supersonic blade.

Eclipse pierced through the demon’s right arm with surgical precision.

The limb spun through the air like dead weight. Zarvok roared, but Luke wasn’t done.

With his arm extended, above his index and middle fingers, he generated a telekinetic orb, compressing tons of telekinetic waves into a translucent, vibrating sphere.

Without hesitation, he launched it from a blind spot toward Zarvok, who was falling, unbalanced, missing an arm, unable to dodge.

The orb struck the demon’s back, and exploded.

An invisible shockwave burst out in every direction from the point of impact, as if gravity itself had collapsed.

The air warped. Zarvok’s flesh cracked, and his internal bones vibrated like crystal.

Zarvok was hurled downward like a stone at terminal velocity—but he was no longer in control of his fall.

The impact folded him midair, his body twisted unnaturally, then crashed into the ground with brutal force.

The earth trembled on landing.

A three-meter crater opened beneath the demon’s body.

Rocks flew. Burning fragments of Centralia spiraled upward.

The impact made the ruins of the abandoned town rumble, as if something had detonated underground.

Zarvok remained kneeling at the center of the crater.

His chest rose and fell with difficulty.

He had lost an arm, his entire body ached, bones were fractured from within, and his internal structure was damaged.

‘A three-aura user…’ Zarvok thought, coughing up black blood.

Now he understood the fear surrounding psychics who possessed more than one aura.

He had never encountered one with three.

He knew he couldn’t continue this battle.

He understood, not out of fear, but instinct.

Now he understood why the brat had asked if he wasn’t going to flee.

He clenched his teeth and extended his left claw. Demonic energy began to twist and coil around him.

The portal was about to open, his escape route, but then… a strange voice echoed in his mind.

“Stop.”

It wasn’t a suggestion or a warning.

It was a command.

Zarvok froze for a split second, just long enough for the barely formed portal to collapse in on itself and vanish.

And in that exact moment, he heard a slicing sound, a clean stroke cutting through the air.

Zarvok knew that sound. His expression darkened, and horror overtook him.

He recognized it: it was that cursed sword. But it was already too late.

His wounds, his position, and the absurd speed of the sword…

All of it made it impossible to even lift his head to see the weapon that would kill him.

Eclipse, wrapped in telekinetic waves, slashed downward in a vertical arc.

It struck Zarvok’s skull and sliced down to his abdomen.

A perfect line.

Zarvok couldn’t even scream. He was simply split, without even enough time to feel pain.

The flesh parted in silence.

Dark blood spilled out without force.

And the demon’s body fell, split into two nearly perfect halves, into the crater.

“I told you to run, but you didn’t listen,” said Luke, shaking his head as he peered down into the crater, looking at the lifeless demon’s body.

Eclipse floated beside him, hovering at his back.

“And of course, you tried to run. Classic demon,” Luke muttered.

Though it was his first time facing a demon with true intelligence, he had known the demon would try to escape the moment he felt truly threatened.

That’s why he had been prepared.

A simple command, to shut down whatever portal or method he used to return to his dimension.

‘Mm, I hope the body still holds some value… both economic and for research,’ Luke thought, as he began levitating Zarvok’s remains out of the crater.

He’d bring it as a gift for Wednesday.

He was sure she’d love having an intermediate demon for her collection and personal study.

And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn’t scold him.

‘Though she’ll probably scold me anyway,’ Luke thought with a sigh.

He hadn’t kept his promise.

He hadn’t destroyed Gómez and Fester’s teleportation stones.

And she had asked him, made him promise, and still, he broke his word.

Worse than that, Wednesday had spoken to him with emotion, with a sincerity she rarely let slip.

‘Shit…’ Luke thought, scratching his head.

He had gotten carried away by his emotions when saying goodbye to Edgar for good, and he’d wanted a punching bag, that’s why he didn’t break the stones.

He looked at the demon’s body floating in front of him.

Zarvok had been a real threat.

An intelligent, savage, and powerful demon.

Thanks to his arsenal of skills, his methodically trained auras, and Eclipse, he had secured this clean, almost easy, victory.

In the past, he would have died, or it would’ve been a brutal fight.

And yet, this demon didn’t scare him half as much as an angry Wednesday.

‘Should I run?’ Luke wondered.

Not Mortimer, not Zarvok, not even an army of Morraks made him feel such dread as his girlfriend, arms crossed, looking at him and speaking in that icy tone.

‘I just have to be brave and face her,’ Luke told himself, without much conviction.

He sighed and looked away.

Then he saw her.

A few meters away, still standing: the Wendigo.

A young creature. Small. Thin, ragged body, pale skin, horns seemingly fused into a fractured skull. Red eyes glowing with rage and fear.

Luke studied her carefully. He knew what she was.

An exceptional specimen. Rarer than a Hyde, fewer in number even than psychics.

A living Wendigo. Young. And most surprisingly: stable. With consciousness and reason.

A thought crossed his mind.

Wednesday would love to have a specimen like this, to study, dissect, or whatever else she wanted to do.

She’d have both an intermediate demon and a unique Wendigo.

Who else could boast such specimens in their lab? They’d be worth millions.

Luke looked at the savage-looking girl with the same calm with which someone might evaluate a museum piece or a taxidermy display.

The Wendigo trembled under Luke’s gaze, wondering if this person would attack.

If he did, her chance of survival was zero, and she knew it.

“Ugh… I can’t do it. I have principles,” Luke muttered to himself, turning his gaze away from the Wendigo.

He wasn’t going to kidnap a loli. She already looked like she’d suffered enough at the hands of the normies.

It wasn’t hard to tell she’d been kept as a test subject or something similar.

Maybe it had something to do with the fight Edgar mentioned, the one between outcasts that left Centralia in this state.

Luke looked toward the sky and bent his knees slightly, ready for takeoff.

And then… he heard it.

A strange, rough sound.

“Wait!”

—————————————————

You can read 15 Chapters in advance on my patreon.

Link: https://[email protected]/Nathe07

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep