Chapter 611: Shin and Malachi Vs Damian [1]

Malachi and Shin exchanged another glance, but this time, the hesitation in their eyes had been replaced by unmistakable greed. Neither of them had ever dreamed of getting their hands on a God vein crystal, much less several of them.

“No take backs!” Shin declared, tightening his grip on Kaiku.

Damian’s smile grew mischievous. “Of course not. When have I ever lied to you?” he asked, his expression so innocent that both disciples immediately became suspicious.

Unfortunately, the prospect of obtaining the crystals outweighed their instincts for self preservation.

Malachi’s eyes shone with crimson light beneath the setting sun, and his body trembled with barely contained excitement. If someone had told him that he would one day stand in a courtyard and fight the Prince of Lust himself, he would probably have laughed at the absurdity of the claim. Now, the opportunity was directly before him, and he intended to give everything he had.

Damian noticed Shin tightening his grip on Kaiku while Malachi seized Weeping Tom with both hands. The cursed weapons responded to their wielders, releasing faint cries that stirred the demonic energy in the courtyard.

Damian remained upright and relaxed, holding the God vein crystals casually in his left hand behind his back. He did not even bother taking a proper fighting stance, an attitude that irritated his disciples almost as much as it excited them.

“That’s the spirit. Now show me what you’ve got,” he said with a smile.

Shin moved first. Reversing his grip on Kaiku, he drove the cursed blade into the ground with enough force to crack the stone beneath his feet. His demonic energy surged through the weapon, and the air around him shuddered as the curse awakened.

“Haunting Wail!” he roared.

Keeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiii!

An agonizing cry exploded from Kaiku, unleashing violent sound waves that swept across the courtyard. The nearby soldiers immediately clapped their hands over their ears, while several staggered backward as the supernatural wail penetrated their defenses.

Dust rose from the cracked ground, and the windows of the surrounding buildings rattled under the pressure. The attack was not merely loud. It carried the anguished cries of the souls bound to the cursed weapon, a spiritual assault capable of overwhelming an opponent’s mind and disrupting their control over demonic energy.

Damian’s expression tightened as the screams struck him. The agonizing cries of the fifty thousand demons who had burned to death in the Samsara fire incident suddenly rang through his mind, drowning out every other sound.

Their voices overlapped into an endless chorus of suffering, each scream dragging memories of the massacre back into his consciousness. Blood began trickling from both ears, and his body swayed slightly as the attack assaulted his senses.

Malachi seized the opening without hesitation. He charged forward with Weeping Tom held before him, thrusting the weapon into the space ahead as though cutting through the sound waves themselves. His movements were swift and direct, his entire body reinforced by demonic energy as he crossed the distance between himself and Damian.

The cursed blade vibrated violently, its peculiar power allowing it to push through the distortion created by Kaiku’s wail. Malachi had no intention of giving Damian time to recover.

Damian detected Malachi’s approach through his divine perception, but his blurred vision made the incoming attack appear less precise than it actually was. He could sense the weapon extending toward him, yet the screams continued to reverberate inside his head, making it difficult to distinguish the immediate threat from the phantom cries filling his ears. Malachi’s thrust was already upon him when Shin finally realized what his fellow disciple was attempting.

“Wait!” Shin shouted, but the warning came too late.

Weeping Tom pierced Damian’s body, and for a brief instant, Malachi felt the resistance of flesh beneath his blade. His eyes widened as the figure before him began glowing violently. Purple flames erupted from the wound and spread across the body in an instant, consuming its robes and illuminating the courtyard with an eerie radiance. The real Damian stood directly behind the flaming figure, his bloodied ears and blurred eyes giving way to a smug smile.

“Exploded,” he muttered, snapping his fingers.

Boom!

The illusionary flame clone detonated in a violent burst of purple fire. The explosion swallowed Malachi before he could withdraw, blasting him backward with enough force to tear his feet from the ground.

He struck the courtyard stones roughly, rolled several times across the surface, and finally came to a stop about ten meters away. His armor smoked, and Weeping Tom nearly slipped from his grasp, but he managed to hold on to the weapon as he struggled to recover his breath.

Shin gritted his teeth as he watched the scene unfold. Damian’s counterattack had been deceptively simple. He had merely stepped backward at the last possible moment, leaving behind a clone formed from his purple flames to receive Malachi’s thrust. The real Damian had remained hidden behind the illusion, positioned where Malachi could not see him through the distortion caused by the attack.

The execution had been so fast that even Shin, who had maintained a better view of the battlefield, would have been fooled if his angle had not allowed him to notice the real Damian behind the clone. The Prince had turned their coordinated assault into a trap without abandoning his relaxed posture.

“But why isn’t my Haunting Wail working? You shouldn’t be able to fight back!” Shin gasped, frowning as he continued pouring demonic energy into Kaiku.

The cursed weapon’s cries grew more violent, the sound waves spreading across the courtyard in relentless pulses. Damian should have been struggling to remain upright, yet the Prince was already walking toward him with measured steps. The blood running from his ears had not stopped, but neither had his advance.

The closer Damian came, the more Shin felt the pressure bearing down on him. The wails continued to assault the Prince’s senses, but the effect appeared increasingly insignificant. Blood began flowing from Damian’s nose, followed by thin trails from the corners of his eyes, yet his expression remained cold.

He moved as though the pain were a minor inconvenience, and each step brought him closer to Shin, whose confidence began to erode beneath the growing realization that his strongest opening attack had failed to accomplish what he expected.

Within seconds, Damian stood directly before him. His bloodied eyes fixed on Shin with a chilling gleam, and the corner of his mouth lifted in disdain.

“Cries of fifty one thousand hunted souls. What a joke. Who do you think murdered all of them in the first place?” he snorted.

Before Shin could respond, Damian’s leg swung violently into his torso. The kick landed with a heavy impact, lifting Shin off his feet and sending him hurtling backward.

Kaiku flew from his grasp as he crashed through the air, travelling several dozen meters before striking the ground and rolling across the courtyard. The moment the impact landed, the weapon’s haunting cries stopped abruptly, leaving the surrounding soldiers in stunned silence.

The sudden absence of the wail was almost as jarring as its arrival, and several demons lowered their hands from their ears while trying to understand how their Prince had endured the attack long enough to reach Shin.

Damian lowered his leg and turned toward the demonic energy gathering behind him. The air had begun to vibrate with a different kind of pressure, and a complex array was forming beneath Malachi’s position.

Runes illuminated the ground in crimson and black, spreading outward in interlocking patterns as Malachi forced himself to his feet. His breathing was ragged, and his robes were scorched from the explosion, but the crimson light in his eyes had grown more intense. Rather than waste time complaining about the gap between their abilities, he had decided to use another spell.

“Ooh?” Damian raised a brow as his hair fluttered violently in the gathering wind.

The array beneath Malachi pulsed, and the ground split open as several black chains burst from below, each one wrapped in a crimson aura.

They shot toward Damian from multiple directions, twisting through the air in an attempt to bind his limbs and restrict his movement.

“Demonic Spell: Abaddon’s Chains!”

Damian watched the chains approach without making any effort to dodge.

‘It possesses the same properties as my Devil Chains, but much weaker,’ he observed.

The resemblance was unmistakable. The chains were designed to restrain a target while draining their demonic energy, making them particularly effective against opponents who relied on overwhelming power.

Against an ordinary demon, the spell could quickly turn a battle into a war of attrition. Against Damian, however, Malachi had chosen an ability whose fundamental principles were already familiar to him.

One of the chains reached Damian first, coiling toward his arm, but he caught it casually with his bare hand. The others wrapped around his forearm and shoulder, their crimson aura flaring as they attempted to tighten their hold.

Damian’s palm darkened with Abyssal energy, and his Devil Hands activated. The chains immediately began losing their radiance as he drained the demonic energy sustaining them, drawing it into himself with alarming speed.

Bam!

“What?!” Malachi blurted out in disbelief.

The array beneath his feet flickered, its runes buzzing on and off as the power sustaining the spell began to disappear. He could feel his control weakening, the chains responding less and less to his commands.

For an instant, he simply stared at Damian, unable to comprehend how the Prince had turned his own spell into a source of energy.

Gritting his teeth, Malachi abandoned his shock and seized the other end of the chains with both hands. His eyes burned with violent crimson light as he forced the remaining energy through the spell, attempting to overwhelm Damian before the Devil Hands could consume everything.

“Demonic Spell: Crimson Lightning!” he roared.

Crimson lightning erupted from Malachi’s body and surged along the chains toward Damian, racing across their black surfaces in jagged flashes. The spell carried enough destructive force to tear through a heavily armored demon, and Malachi poured every remaining ounce of strength into the attack.

Yet the instant the lightning reached Damian’s palm, its trajectory changed. The crimson current twisted toward his hand as though drawn by an invisible force, and the energy vanished into his palm before it could spread across his body.

Malachi’s eyes widened as his control over the spell slipped away. He had not merely failed to damage Damian. He could no longer feel the lightning he had created, as though someone had severed his connection to it and claimed ownership of the power.

His knees struck the ground, and he struggled to draw breath while the last traces of his demonic energy drained from his exhausted body.

“What kind of power is this?!” he gasped, his chest heaving as he tried to recover.

Damian did not bother answering. He released the now lifeless chains and casually turned around, raising his bare hand toward Shin, who was still recovering from the kick.

Crimson lightning sparked across Damian’s eyes before gathering around his fingers. The movement was so effortless that it almost seemed as though he were demonstrating a basic technique to a student rather than preparing to strike an opponent.

“Demonic Spell: Crimson Lightning.”

Bang!

The crimson bolt tore through the courtyard toward Shin. His expression paled, but his instincts took over before fear could paralyze him. He swung Kaiku downward, meeting the incoming lightning with a furious burst of power.

White flames tainted with crimson blood erupted from the cursed blade, surging outward in twisting waves as the two forces collided. The flames carried the power of Samsara, a force that could threaten even powerful demons, and Shin drove them forward with everything he had left.

Boom!

A violent shockwave exploded between them, shaking the courtyard and scattering dust across the surrounding walls. The clash of crimson lightning and tainted Samsara flames illuminated the battlements, drawing the attention of soldiers who had been watching from a safe distance.

For a moment, the opposing forces struggled against each other, the crimson bolt pressing downward while the white flames twisted around it and attempted to consume its energy. Shin planted his feet and forced more power into Kaiku, determined to prove that his cursed weapon could overcome the Prince’s attack.

Then Kaiku ripped through the remaining lightning.

The blade continued forward, its edge surrounded by raging flames as Shin and Malachi roared together, “Cut through!”

Shin’s strike descended toward Damian’s outstretched hand with enough force to split stone. His effort pushed the tainted Samsara flames forward, carrying the full momentum of the weapon toward Damian’s fingers.

Peng!

Both disciples’ eyes widened in horror. Damian had stopped Kaiku with nothing more than his pinky finger. The cursed blade trembled against the tiny point of contact, its momentum completely halted, while the white flames tainted with crimson blood flowed greedily toward Damian’s finger and began disappearing into it. The power they had unleashed was being absorbed as easily as the demonic energy from Malachi’s chains, leaving Shin staring at his weapon as though it had suddenly betrayed him.

Damian remained perfectly still, his expression carrying a faint trace of disappointment. He had not even needed to use both hands, and the God vein crystals remained secure in his left hand behind his back.

“The goal is to snatch the God vein crystals from me, not defeat me, for a reason. Even in my weakest state, a thousand of you two would not be enough to put a scratch on me,” he said casually.