Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest

"Get serious?" The creature's lips parted into a soul-chilling smile, its four rows of circular, jagged teeth on full display. "Show me more. Entertain me before you become a part of me. Before your powers fuel my regression... until I return to what I once was. Hahaha."

As its guttural voice echoed, the net of fiery tendrils surrounding Adam collided with him.

BOOM

The air trembled, distortion and vapor spreading on the platform overlooking the city. Each impact intensified the blast, creating a raging conflagration of light and heat alien to the abyss. Visible from thousands of kilometers, it pierced the dark sky, revealing the abominations that had been lurking before they scrambled in horror.

The melted rocks underneath splashed and roiled like a torrent battered by the explosion. But a voice drilled through the chaotic sizzles. Calm yet cracking in suppressed rage, it carried a definitive tone.

"Sure. I'll help you turn back to dust."

PSHHH

Before the creature could answer, an ethereal blade made of arcane, demonic, divine, and chaotic energy as tall as the explosion sliced through the air.

The cleaved flames parted, revealing a swirling ball of purple and dark fire. The chaotic energy within wasn't merely a shield—it embodied natural forces that consumed and devoured anything around it to fuel itself.

And inside, Adam's downward swing paused as he raised his left palm. His fingers cracked shut one after another into a fist before he took a deep inhale and punched.

ROAR

With a roar that made the air tremble, a fiery dragon imbued with sparse golden light lunged at the creature from his knuckle. Yet he could see the creature's mocking grin. It wasn't enough, and he knew it. But his eye flashed red. He was also just starting. Find more to read at empire

With a stomp and a backflip, he landed on the dragon's long back and surfed to its head. Dark flames flickered and condensed on his extended finger as the creature retaliated with more tendrils.

The air whistled, and another net surrounded him in the blink of an eye. The acceleration and flexibility aside, who was the creature kidding? Ikarion's laser beams—a painful memory—had taken his left eye and were as fast. Perhaps using pure light instead of flames helped, but those attacks were the same. And would something he had suffered from work again? The question made him remember a saying from where he came from: only a donkey stumbles twice on the same stone.

With a swipe of his hand, he discharged his own dark and chaotic version of his beams. They cut through the air, meeting the creature's orange ones in an unfitting clash of light and darkness, considering their appearances. Well... he looked like a demon. Still, the creature was the most grotesque thing he had ever seen.

Casting aside those thoughts, his eye narrowed through the explosions and wind that crashed on his steadfast body as he tensed his arms. He'd kill the monster, find a clue to escape the abyss, and... and what?

'Focus, fool.'

Reminding himself, he leapt off the dragon's head as its maws snapped on the creature's sides.

"Huh?" The tendrils bursting out of the creature's fingers paused. Instead, it moved its hands to rip the dragon into pieces. Yet, the eyes on its wings trembled, and its voice lowered into a suppressed mutter. "Divinity?"

A wistful smile split its lips as it lowered its neck and bit on the dragon that charred its flesh. "So many memories. Hah. Why is there so little? Give me more!"

Meanwhile, Adam frowned as he landed on the creature's shoulder. Why did the thin divinity that his blade added to the dragon distract it so much? It also commented on the devil's mark. Did it interact with both species in the past? How old was it? He didn't know, but he knew the day it would die.

Without lingering on those questions, he lunged at the red eye that was creased in delight on its left fleshy wing. His arm blurred in a downward slash, his scarlet blade a whistle shredding the wind.

"RAAH!"

With a war cry, he cleaved the eyeball, dark blood spurting all around him.

"ARGH!"

The creature roared in agony for the first time, every fiber of its body trembling.

But he knew it would eventually recover. No. He needed to debilitate it permanently before he hacked the creature into shreds.

Landing on one of the fleshy tendrils, he secured his footing as the creature trashed around. He thrust his palm forward, his demonic essence pulsing through his veins and erupting into a scalding vortex.

It engulfed the flesh and divided eye in a merciless spectacle of smoke and fire. As the scent of burning flesh permeated the air and the eye vaporised, he jumped and cleaved down at the wing like a butcher.

The creature roared again, cursing and threatening him with endless torment, but he shrugged, consumed its back in flames, and lunged at the clavicle.

WOOSH

A giant hand crashed down at this moment, aiming to swat him like a fly. Simultaneously, the tentacle-like hair slithered like vipers to strangle him.

"You little pest! I'll strip you of your essence and consume you slowly. You'll watch me recover my divine nature as you become the shadow of what you could have been. Neither a god nor a devil, just a pitiful demon who struggled against forces he can't understand."

He felt the creature's rage through its trembling clavicle, but it was too late. If Cu Chulainn was nicknamed the hound of Culann, who never let go of its prey, he was the predator of the abyss who never backed a step, who always pushed forward against the freezing winds and endless hordes.

But for what?

It would be so much easier to let the creature flatten him and be done with this nightmare. Everything he had believed in—loyalty, friendship, trust—had crashed down after they had betrayed him...

"Sigh..." His fingers tightened around his blade. He couldn't give up—not because of others or whatnot, but because of himself. He had sworn to become the number one before he met Tiamat and the other vipers.

His eye blazed, the tear about to roll down evaporating before touching his cheek as he raised his blade.

"You speak too much, abyssal trash."