Wednesday: The Strongest Psychic

Chapter 273: Hell Island

After being swallowed by that portal, Luke arrived in another place instantly. It was a brutal transition, a rupture in space that momentarily tore apart the perception of everything.

But he adapted instantly.

His feet touched damp ground, covered in moss and twisted roots. He was in a forested area, with towering trees like natural columns. The dark sky was filled with clouds that blocked the moonlight.

With his domain fully expanded, he realized he was on an island. An island roughly 70 square kilometers in size, with no signs of human presence. Completely uninhabited.

But the important thing wasn’t the isolation.

The important thing was what surrounded him.

Hundreds of presences. He didn’t even need to use his domain, he saw them the moment he arrived.

’Morraks…’ Luke thought, staring at the hulking lesser demons, each over three meters tall. Among the trees and on the grass, they were countless, all staring at him as if they had been waiting for his arrival.

Luke counted 1,001 Morraks, to be exact. Some had a reddish hue, their berserker mode, indicating they were nearing a possible evolution.

However, what drew the most attention were four presences that stood out even above the Morraks.

Four intermediate demons.

Luke analyzed the situation, his thoughts moving at incredible speed.

Why had they sent him to face over a thousand Morraks and four intermediate demons? Was it a plan to kill him? Or something else?

He believed it was the latter. The Spellmans wanted him out of the way for a reason. He didn’t believe they would simply sit still after this trap.

Most likely, while he was being held on this hellish island, they were launching a large-scale attack.

Which meant Wednesday, Enid, Natasha, Nyra, and the others were in danger.

As for Gómez and Fester’s teleportation stones, he hadn’t broken them for several reasons. First, he didn’t know if, with the barrier, they would even work. But more importantly, he couldn’t bring Gómez and Fester here with him.

What would happen at Addams Manor if it was under attack and suddenly its strongest defenders vanished? He’d be leaving Wednesday, Enid, and the others in a very dangerous situation.

’I need to get out of here,’ thought Luke as he looked up. The sky was covered by a translucent barrier, barely visible to the average eye, but obvious to him. An energy dome that enclosed the entire island.

Expected. If flying away had been an option, the ones behind this trap would have been simply stupid.

He tried sending telepathic messages to Wednesday and Enid, but nothing.

Luke lightly gripped the hilt of Eclipse. His gaze returned to the intermediate demons.

He assessed their level in an instant. They seemed to be on par with Zarvok, the demon he had faced and eliminated months ago.

Zarvok had an estimated strength of 40 tons, combining physical power, speed, regeneration, and reflexes. He also had a super-resistant body, though not resistant enough to withstand Luke’s telekinetic cuts enhanced by Eclipse.

However, judging by their height, muscle density, and the aura they emitted, these demons appeared slightly superior to Zarvok.

Was this plan meant to contain him, or to try and kill him?

How had these intermediate demons agreed to this?

From what he had analyzed of Zarvok, that demon didn’t follow Mortimer’s orders to the letter.

’I suppose they’re close to evolving…’ Luke deduced.

The promise of devouring his soul, that of a psychic with four auras, must have been too tempting.

The soul of someone like him could push them toward evolution, turn them into high-tier demons, or at least bring them very close to that goal.

How low the Spellmans had fallen. Then again, it was hard to imagine they could fall any lower.

On the other hand, if Edward, the demonic elders, and the other Spellman members had led the ambush themselves, Luke could have been in serious trouble, truly caught in a death trap.

A definitive ambush. Not because he feared Edward, he didn’t underestimate him, but he didn’t fear facing him one-on-one. However, if Edward fought alongside the remaining demonic elders, Luke knew escaping alive would be impossible.

Still, even if that scenario had happened, with his current level, his four auras, and Eclipse, Luke was convinced: even if they killed him, he would take several of them down with him.

And that was the part the Spellmans couldn’t afford.

Not anymore.

After so many losses, after giving up so much ground, losing a handful of key pieces in exchange for his life just wasn’t worth it anymore.

It was safer for them to use demons who saw themselves as disposable tools. Even if he didn’t die here, they could still strike a serious blow to the Council and its allies in his absence.

But these intermediate demons had made a mistake in accepting such a deal.

He wasn’t the one trapped, they were trapped in there with him.

Luke intended to make it out alive, and quickly. Time was pressing.

’Let’s see if their aspirations are worth the price,’ thought Luke, unafraid of facing more than a thousand enemies.

He could kill Morraks like sheep in a pen. Eclipse began to vibrate. His eyes lit up with a halo of energy.

The battle began before anyone noticed.

A blink, and then a flash. Luke vanished and performed a single slash.

Just one, ten Morraks fell, split cleanly in half like tofu.

Luke appeared among them with Eclipse in hand, the blade humming with condensed telekinesis, not yet unleashed. He only released it when he needed a long or mid-range slash to expand.

’Shambles,’ Luke thought, and vanished again.

He reappeared above another group of lesser demons.

A flick of the wrist.

Eclipse spun like a scythe and unleashed a wide telekinetic slash.

This time, twenty fell. The translucent wave cut through dozens of trees in its path, kicking up dirt and dust.

In than five seconds, thirty Morraks had left this world.

Right then, the nearby lesser demons began to move, like a swarm of insects throwing themselves at him to smother him.

But it was useless. As they leaped in unison, Luke was already gone with Shambles.

He reappeared several meters above the group of over twenty Morraks who had lunged toward his previous position.

A telekinetic orb was already formed at the tip of his index finger, the hand not holding Eclipse.

The orb spun in the air like a second sun. Luke launched it, and it traveled at supersonic speeds.

It reached them in less than a second, and upon contact with the first creature, it exploded with great force.

Thirty Morraks were blasted into pieces, the explosion so dense that the very air seemed to compress.

Demonic blood soaked the area.

The intermediate demons, though they couldn’t have done anything to save their subordinates, did nothing. They just watched in silence.

They analyzed. They waited for their moment.

They weren’t idiots. They knew that if they attacked Luke now, they’d die, or be gravely injured.

They wanted Luke to expend energy, to be wounded, observe his abilities, his fighting style…

Luke realized this. But while he slaughtered Morraks like ants, he was also looking for ways to escape. Simulating methods with his future vision, but none worked.

He couldn’t use Shambles to pass through the barrier. It seemed they had learned to improve their containment barriers, unlike the one at the Marlowe estate.

If he attacked it with his maximum condensed telekinesis through Eclipse, it would damage the barrier, but it wouldn’t break.

It would take multiple hits of that magnitude, and once he started, the intermediate demons would stop watching and launch at him, knowing they couldn’t let him begin damaging the barrier.

With over 900 Morraks and 4 intermediate demons whose strength measured in dozens of tons, Luke couldn’t afford to go all-out on the barrier. It was dangerous, even for him.

So only one option remained: exterminate all the demons, and then work freely to destroy the barrier.

Though time was pressing, he had to be careful, or he could die here from recklessness and wasting energy foolishly.

Luke continued slaughtering Morraks while keeping a close eye on the intermediate demons. He knew they were watching him, studying his fighting style and waiting for him to wear down.

They still had hundreds of Morraks to throw at him before joining the battle to try and kill him with the help of overwhelming numbers.

Luke was untouchable for the Morraks. Before they could attack, he would vanish with Shambles or move away with his supersonic speed.

His shields also bought him enough time to escape without constantly relying on Shambles, which consumed more energy.

From above, the field looked like hell. Dozens of Morrak corpses.

Those still alive, still a large number, ran in packs, howling. Charging like beasts.

At one point, the Morraks completely surrounded him, swarming from all sides. Dozens charged at once from different angles, from the skies, rom the ground, rom beneath the earth itself.

When a claw struck him, Luke vanished.

An illusion.

He had already moved, rising a few meters into the air, channeling his energy and activating a telekinetic suction field.

The swarm collapsed.

The Morraks were dragged like leaves in a tornado.

They crashed into each other, wounding one another, but before they could escape, Luke launched two telekinetic orbs, one from each finger.

The explosion was colossal, engulfing over a hundred Morraks.

Blood rained down like a torrential storm.

From afar, the intermediate demons watched. Smoke, dust, and bodies made it difficult to track Luke precisely.

When they could finally see him clearly, they noticed something that made them frown. Eclipse was no longer with him.

An instant alarm went off, but it was too late.

One of them, the shortest, with reddish skin and curved horns, turned with lightning reflexes. A stone was flying toward his face. At full speed, like a projectile surpassing the speed of sound.

And in a microsecond… the stone changed.

Shambles. Switch.

The stone became Eclipse. The blade left a fiery trail in its wake.

There was no time to react.

The edge pierced through the demon’s eye, then the brain, and exited through the back of the neck.

The demon fell without a sound, dead instantly.

And the sword… didn’t stop.

It continued its flight, charged with momentum, direction, and will.

It was heading for another demon.

The second demon barely reacted. He jumped, but Eclipse slashed through his left arm up to the shoulder.

The demon roared in fury, blood gushing like a fountain.

The third and fourth demons managed to dodge the final impact.

“Damn human!” they both roared, their voices distorted by hatred and a vibration that would make any normie tremble, and unnerve even more than a few outcasts.

Luke, still far from them, appeared with Shambles, only a meter away from the wounded demon missing an arm.

Just as Eclipse, still spinning in the air, descended from the sky.

Luke extended his hand with surgical precision and caught the hilt without even looking, as if he knew exactly where it would be.

The wounded demon stepped back in terror, every instinct screaming at him to run, to open a dimensional rift and go back home.

Luke’s presence this close was overwhelming. Every cell in his body screamed he was facing something that shouldn’t exist.

Luke sent him a simple but powerful mental command: Stop.

The demon froze. His muscles refused to move. His regeneration halted.

And at that moment, Luke raised the sword with one hand… and brought it down.

A vertical slash, precise and devastating. The demon’s body was cleaved in two, from the top of his skull to his groin.

There was no scream. Just a wet sound, and the body falling in two halves that sizzled with residual energy.

All of it happened in a matter of seconds. Two intermediate demons dead, and over a hundred Morraks annihilated.

The two remaining intermediate demons stared at Luke.

They couldn’t deny it: that aura and pressure were real. It reminded them of the few times they had stood before a greater demon.

Even so, they didn’t flee. The scent of Luke’s aura, so powerful, so pure, awakened a primal hunger in them.

A hunger only demons know. If they devoured him… they would evolve.

Perhaps they’d reach the next level, or at least get very close.

Besides, they still had hundreds of Morraks surrounding him, and no matter how lethal someone was, no one had infinite energy.

Though Luke had yet to be wounded, they noticed the sweat on his forehead, and his breathing was slightly more irregular than at the start.

Luke smiled faintly, knowing the real battle was about to begin with hundreds of Morraks and these two bastards joining the fray.

He didn’t know how much time had passed since the full-scale battle began, facing hundreds of Morraks and two intermediate demons who waited for the perfect moment to strike while he was preoccupied.

Maybe half an hour. He wasn’t sure.

He had maintained the same strategy throughout: vanishing with Shambles, moving at supersonic speed, using illusions, and reacting at the perfect instant thanks to his future vision.

Every second, every millimeter, was controlled with surgical precision.

He had taken some cuts, minor wounds that were healed by his green aura.

Nothing serious. Even so, his endurance had been pushed to the limit, and he had to remain precise at all times. But thanks to that same green aura, he managed to maintain the pace without falling behind.

’The last one’s dead…’ thought Luke, gasping for breath.

At his feet lay the bisected corpses of hundreds of Morraks, like a battlefield-turned-cemetery.

A few meters away, the final intermediate demon, its head severed, eyes still open, lifeless.

Eclipse was embedded in the ground. Luke leaned on its hilt like a cane. He breathed heavily, not from weakness, but from the overwhelming energy he had expended.

A second passed. Then another. He raised his eyes. The barrier. Still there. Almost invisible, but not to him.

’Time to bring it down,’ thought Luke, yanking Eclipse from the ground. The blade began to tremble with stored power.

He started charging it to the limit, telekinetic waves swirling around the sword, compressing to a critical point.

’If my calculations are correct, I’ll need three or four strikes to break it,’ Luke thought, sighing inwardly.

More energy to spend, but there was no time to rest.

Not while Wednesday and Enid were in danger.

“Time to get out of here,” Luke murmured, unleashing the first slash toward the sky.