The Runic Alchemist

Damian looked down at his spear. It had bent into a curve. The ridiculous Demon had bent sacrium in a single attack? His hands would have broken if it weren’t for the multitude of aura-enhancing spells powering him, along with his third-ranker-level stats.

Suddenly, the Demon pulling his scythe back spoke to him, “Grell’ta vash nurak’tin! Throval’ek di’shara kren’qu!”

The language sounded familiar.. It was similar to the one the pigmen used. Damian had no idea what he said, though. But Damian also put away his spear—he wasn’t going close to that thing anyway. Instead, Damian started drawing and holding even more runic spells, just in case.

“Hrash da’vel.. kinth dro’ma vek! Vrah’zul ik’tahn?” said the Demon again.

This time, Damian shook his head, gesturing that he could not understand what the guy was saying at all. As if deciding something, the Demon stopped talking and raised his scythe against him, gesturing for Damian to kneel before him with it. Now, the meaning of that was clear as day.

Damian replied in kind, releasing his thick pillar of light-laser at the guy. The Demon was like a fly, though, and dodged it in a fraction of a second—chanting while doing it. Meanwhile, he pulled his scythe back and delivered lightning-fast slashes in midair. One after another, a dozen big, bright red arcs shot toward Damian, cutting the air with a continuous ‘Shnnn’ sound.

Damian waited until the last second and activated the wormhole spell a few meters away from the arcs, the portal sending them right at the Demon’s back. His chanting was interrupted, and though he dodged hastily, the first arc still nicked the guy’s bicep a little—pitch-black blood oozing out of it.

Damian smirked. The Demon, on the other hand, was boiling, his body fully covered in ethereal red flames. A bloodshot, angry gaze shot up at Damian, and in the next second, the Demon was meters away from him, the deathly scythe raised high—aimed directly at Damian’s neck. The sound barrier broke seconds later from where he initially was.

Damian activated his two bracer spells, creating layers upon layers of thick, meters-wide air shields. The guy tore through the first two like they were made of paper. The third cracked and shattered seconds later, so did the fourth and fifth. But at last, the cracked sixth and untouched seventh layers stopped the scythe.

Damian didn’t give the guy a second either and immediately unleashed five ready spells at once. A massive lightning bolt struck the red Demon, stunning him for a second. Thousands of green and black vines materialized, wrapping themselves around the Demon’s body, capturing him inside. Then, a massive sphere of water enveloped the red Demon, followed by a powerful freezing spell turning the massive sphere into complete ice.

And to complete this combo, Damian also captured the guy, along with the sphere, inside an invisible box. Then, using a wormhole, Damian doubled the distance between them compared to before and waited to see what would happen. Would it be enough?

The Demon took a few seconds, but soon Damian could see a searing hot red dot in the middle of the frozen sphere. The vines melted—so did the sphere—filling the invisible box more than halfway through with water. The Demon was glowing bright red; his body had entirely become that of condensed fire. Way hotter than the mini suns the guy had created earlier.

Still, the more water he evaporated, the more he made his situation worse with all the vapor and smoke trapped inside the invisible box along with him. For a while, the guy punched the invisible walls with ear-splittingly powerful punches. Then he stopped, glaring at Damian with bloodshot eyes.

The lightning may not have been enough, but it had still left behind some damage. And the Demon had used 30% of his entire mana pool till now; the last skill or spell he used had really cost a lot of mana.

It certainly wasn’t impossible to kill the guy, but Damian wasn’t entirely safe either. He could not deal with the strength and speed these kinds of creatures had—not if he went head-on.

While Damian was thinking such things, suddenly the red Demon started chanting—he was standing really close to the wall. Damian narrowed his eyes as the same spell as before was launched. The three mini suns, however, were conjured outside the invisible box even though the runic circles were still inside.

Damian’s eyes widened as one of the suns crashed into the invisible box with quite a force and shattered it to pieces.

What in the hell? No mana thread could stretch outside the invisible box, and it was unbreakable from the inside. He himself had never thought it was possible to break out of it like that.. Only with chanting was that possible.

The distance between a person’s body and the point of effect conjuring.. That kind of judgment and insight was truly a demonic level of knowledge. He had figured that out in seconds. This guy sure was one impressive lad.

Damian had not wasted time gawking either and had weaved over seven new spells while the Demon took his time breaking free. Playtime was over.

The red Demon powered himself, along with his scythe, and once again zoomed straight toward Damian. But this time, he had learned from his mistakes and was already chanting a spell. Before the red Demon could close the distance, an enormous demonic head made of molten lava conjured from two-layered massive runic circles. The head too was coming at unbelievable speed, opening its huge mouth, trying to bite Damian to oblivion.

The Demon himself was a problem. Spells were not.

Damian also unleashed a giant runic circle, powering it to the max—a massive Chinese dragon made of water came out of it and circled around Damian, protecting him against the demonic head. Meanwhile, the red sky was completely covered by dark, ominous clouds as a frightening number of purple lightning bolts flashed across it, ready to fall on Damian’s command to turn all his enemies into cinders.

The red ancient Demon stopped in the middle of his charge, his eyes shaking in disbelief, his hand losing the grip on the dark scythe.