Chapter 170: Dead Meat!
Chapter 169
"You know?" Max was heard saying as he pulled himself forward, detaching himself from the sickles of the demon. His back was still bleeding, and blood even filled his mouth.
"I thought you all knew a lot about dragons," he continued, coughing out the blood that filled his mouth before wiping it away with the back of his hand while his back was still turned towards the demon.
"You should know that our regeneration isn’t so bad, and your stupid, puny poison can’t affect me."
Tring!
[Foreign substance has just been injected into Host’s bloodstream.]
[Calculating what sort of substance it is...]
[Calculation done! Host has just been injected with a highly concentrated amount of poison!]
[Immunity active! All poison neutralised.]
"Kek! I have been poisoned before, but not again," the dragon said, and in front of everybody, his slashed back that continuously bled began knitting together in a flash. Within seconds, he looked as good as before—though his clothes were shredded and barely hanging from his shoulders.
"Poison?" Jake asked in confusion as he looked at Max, then at the demon who was now licking the blood off its weapon with a twisted smile.
"Listen, everybody!" Max shouted aloud, his eyes scanning the others. "All demons have a certain trait aside from their immense speed and strength. For this damn one, its trait is poison, and I think it’s concentrated within its sickles. So no matter what, make sure it doesn’t strike your flesh!"
Tring!
[Draconic Suppression Aura deactivated.]
[Adrenaline Rush deactivated.]
[Magical Energy deactivated.]
[Strength Surge: one minute left before it deactivates and goes on cooldown.]
’Crap! This is bad. How am I supposed to keep up with the demon’s speed if all my speed-based skills are down?’ Max thought, feeling dread creep up his chest.
"My wings..." Lana mumbled as she stared at them, sliced and torn. Since she had crossed them together earlier, the weapon had struck both at once. Now, her large majestic wings were split into four slender ones, like torn sheets of silk.
"Do you still have strength? Can you all still keep up?" Max asked as his eyes flickered between Jake and Lana.
"This demon needs to pay for doing this to my wings!" Lana roared angrily, her eyes glowing faintly.
"Max, what do we do? You seem to know a lot about demons. Is there anything we can do?" Jake asked, his voice tense while he kept his eyes locked on the demon’s movements.
"To be honest with you all, there’s no way we can defeat it," Max muttered, his tone grim but steady. "We just have to hold out long enough until help arrives. But I think as long as we work together, we can hold on. So Jake, go! Trust me!"
"Roger that!" the hunter grinned as his already massive legs thickened, his calves bulging like coiled steel. Then, like a cannonball released from its chamber, he exploded from where he stood, the force creating a small crater beneath him.
He darted toward the demon, who merely took a lazy stance, sickles crossed against each other as it watched the incoming hunter. In the next instant, the demon also dashed forward, its speed blurring the air between them.
"Now!"
[Ruler’s Hand activated.]
Max’s hands began glowing with fierce blue light, and at the same time, Jake’s body shimmered with the same hue. The next second, the hybrid was lifted off the ground—just in time as the demon’s twin sickles sliced through the space he had been standing a heartbeat ago, striking nothing but air.
Yanking his hand back, the glow around Jake’s body disappeared, and in a second, he lifted all his seven hands into the air. With a loud roar, the demon quickly glanced up, but it was too late to avoid, so it raised its weapons above its head.
BAM!
BOOOM!
A massive gust of wind blasted outward, slamming into every single person nearby, sending even Jasmine and Daki skidding several metres away until their backs crashed against the wall behind them.
Lana raised her wings to cover her face, shielding herself from the surge of dust and debris, but Max stood his ground, eyes glowing as he stared into the thick haze, waiting to see the outcome.
Then, just like that, the dust was blown away in an instant. The ground where the demon stood was revealed to have caved in completely.
A massive crater—nearly eight metres deep yawned beneath its feet, the result of Jake’s crushing blow from above.
The force had been so intense that the demon’s arms had snapped away from its shoulders. Its twin sickles clattered to the ground, while its broken limbs gushed dark blood that splattered across the cracked surface.
The being’s once intimidating stance now looked distorted and unsteady, yet it glared upward at Jake, who was bleeding from the mouth but still wore a defiant smirk.
"You know," Jake said with a sneer, spitting a line of blood to the side, "for a so-called Proto-Echelon, we’ve just been giving it to you hard. Or are you the weakest proto there is?"
The demon didn’t respond. It simply stood there, motionless—its head bowed slightly, as though frozen mid-thought.
’Huh? Why isn’t the demon moving?’ Max wondered, narrowing his eyes.
Lifting his hand, the dragon pointed forward, and Lana instantly clapped her palms together.
Twenty razor-sharp feathers shot out like a storm of silver bullets, slicing through the air with vicious speed.
Even then, the demon didn’t move—not an inch as the feathers tore through its body one after another, riddling it with holes from which blood streamed endlessly.
"Huh? Is something wrong with it? Why isn’t it moving?" Jasmine asked in a whisper, her expression tight with confusion.
[Fireball]
Max thrust his hand forward, and a roaring orb of blazing flames shot out, hurling straight into the demon. The explosion of fire struck with enough force to push it back several inches, yet it still didn’t dodge. The flames burned across its skin, blackening and searing its flesh, but the creature simply stood there—unfazed.
"Are you all done?" The demon finally spoke, lifting its head slowly, its lips curving into a sly, chilling smirk. "I let you all throw your strongest attacks just to show you how hopeless this is."
Its glowing red eyes shifted to Jake. "And you..." it hissed, voice dripping with venom. "You’re dead meat."
SWOOSH!
The demon blurred forward in a flash, its body vanishing from sight. Mid-dash, its arms regenerated instantly, bones cracking and snapping back into place as it reached for its fallen sickles in one smooth motion.
In less than a second, it was directly in front of Jake. The demon thrust its weapon forward at full speed, aiming straight for his chest with murderous precision.