152 Formless Dread
“Let’s do this!” He announced.
With his words, all three set off, breaking off into different directions, but all with the same destination as they encircled the devilish foe.
I’ll hit him with an “Eve of The Dragon”! He planned.
I’ll cut him into tiny bits with “Vorpal Shredder”! Yeong-Un planned.
…I’ll, err, get him with something! Sol planned, gulping down.
But, before any of them could launch their strikes–
“Let’s play a little game shall we?” Dae-Mon smiled, clapping his hands together, “I’ll take you all on a tour through Hell…separately, that is.”
As soon as the devil-made man slapped his palms together, the floor beneath each of their feet opened up, causing them all to fall directly downward into an unknown location.
“What the–?!” He let out.
Around him, the walls of flesh pulsated and leaked pus, surrounding him in a length tunnel that he fell down swiftly from.
The other two–he split us up! He realized.
As he looked around frantically, his eyes searched for a proper surface amidst the freefall.
–
“Well, that settles that,” Dae-Mon wiped his hands off with a cheery smile, standing in the grotesque chamber alone, “…I’ll let the fiends have some fun with them–”
Just as Dae-Mon smiled and relished in his victory, the devil-made man had his black eyes forcibly opened in surprise as something resurfaced in the room, echoing as if sharp steps were being taken.
[Blink Step]
[Blink Step]
[…Blink Step]
Leaping from the unnaturally formed hole in the floor, the vermilion-haired assassin reached the top of the tunnel after successive [Blink Steps], huffing as he landed with a thud–being looked at in silent surprise by the Artificial Devil.
“How did you…?” Dae-Mon asked quietly.
He ignored the question, wiping the sweat from his chin as he stood up straight, “…I made it.”
The morphing devil replaced his shock with his normal grin, transforming his arms into bladed chains once more, increasing the number of the malicious, sharp chain links as he looked on at the emerald-eyed young man.
“That was a big mistake, Mr. Jeong-Hui. At least if you fell down there like planned, you maybe had a chance, but now…You’re all alone with me,” Dae-Mon told him.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied, “What of it?”
For once, a vein pressed against the pink-haired devil’s skin as he held his smile, beginning to whip around the dozens of chains that acted as his arms in preparation.
“…I wonder where this boost of confidence came from? Aha-ha…I’ll play along, though,” Dae-Mon approached him slowly.
He stayed silent, breathing in and out as he readied himself, avoiding pulling out his daggers as he was focused this time on embracing his martial arts side of the spectrum.
He’s making it sound like fighting him is a much worse fate than what’s down there. If that’s the case, I don’t have to worry about the other two, then. I’ll just have to worry about myself. Compared to babysitting them…No sweat, he told himself.
And, beyond “selfless” reasons, there was a selfish desire in choosing to face the Artificial Devil on his own; a reason that stemmed from the thumping of his heart, his desperate perspiration, and the focused drive pushing him onward:
When my back is to a corner, and my life is forfeit but to a single mistake, that’s when my skills cultivate themselves the most. In a situation like this…I’ll transcend who I was the minute before, he thought.
From both sides, coming at a rapid speed while he was in the midst of his thoughts, the razor-blade formed chains closed in like a net attempting to ensnare him into a brutal death.
With a single step, he blinked away from their visceral edges, setting his eyes on the smiling, pink-haired devil.
“Keep it up, Mr. Jeong-Hui! Don’t let me break you so easily!” Dae-Mon shouted.
Whipping around his chain-arms, the devil man laughed out as the dozens of killing chains danced around the abhorrent chamber, forcing him to continuously evade their reach while at the same time closing the distance between himself and that very devil.
One wrong move and it’ll be over before I even realize, he thought.
He was forced to use his [Blink Step] in unorthodox ways; cartwheeling and flipping over instantaneously as the bladed chains came from every direction, whipping around harshly and smacking the ground with each miss.
The thought occurred to him to unsheath his daggers and use them to repel any chains that he wouldn’t be able to avoid–but he decided against it, keeping his hands at his sides and narrowing his eyes.
This was a trial.
One he set for himself, and one he also couldn’t back out of now.
…If I want to improve, I have to embrace it fully. With just my martial arts, I’ll fight you, Artificial Devil! He resolved. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
Just as he took a step closer in the rain of blades, he saw the grin plastered on the black-eyed devil’s lips widen.
An unmistakable increase in malice exploded from the smiling evil’s position; an aura of quaking bloodlust that alerted him to what was coming:
It’s getting faster! He realized.
In the face of Hell, he activated [Sage Period], utilizing the enhanced reflexes it brought in exchange for the possibility of certain death upon being caught by those bladed chain whips.
He moved his body nimbly, dancing around the chains as they smacked against the metallic flooring, leaning back, leaning forward, and even momentarily falling to the ground to avoid an assault aimed at his upper half.
“Good! Good! So good, Mr. Jeong-Hui! Keep it up!” Dae-Mon encouraged him through his malignant words.
He drowned the words out, focusing only on the flurry of chains as his eyes darted side-to-side, strained and readied for the lethal objects that flew in at speeds far surpassing human reaction, even surpassing most superhuman reflexes, at that.
The air cracked and whistled as the chains missed him before he spun around, preparing to avoid the next assault before–
“Aha-ha!” Dae-Mon grinned, “–Don’t get too caught up one one thing, Mr. Jeong-Hui!”
Around him, while the chains were hurling towards him at full-speed, they morphed into another form in an instant as the black tendrils of rotten flesh reshaped itself.
“–!”
The chain limbs shifted into colossal sets of fleshy arms, made up of hundreds of smaller arms that now closed in on him, reaching for him with its countless fingers.
He jumped up with a [Blink Step], avoiding the ensnarement of the grotesque limbs.
As he looked down, that smile that watched him from below irked his instincts again as he felt something behind him while leaping up in midair.
Above–? He questioned.
Glancing up behind him at the dangling chains that hung from the ceiling, he watched them morph into tubular, pale mouths that stretched out like human worms directly towards him–opening their jaws wide as saliva rained down.
“–!”
He can morph other things besides himself…? Is this what this inner realm is capable of? He questioned.
In midair, it was hardly easy to avoid something that rained down from above him in the form of dozens of gaping, clamping mouths that stretched down with a ravenous hunger.
Still, he made do as he finally began to spin himself around, kicking as he built up momentum to reverse his trajectory, allowing a swirl of air to encircle him from the force built-up by the repeated helicopter kicks.
“Ngh–!”
He was still inexperienced with such maneuvers, but it miraculously worked–through the unorthodox position he began the attack, he built up enough momentum to launch a tremendous kick, unleashing a shock wave bolstered by the wind pressure he garnered, stunning the clamping mouths before they could reach him.
“Wow! Amazing, Mr. Jeong-Hui! You’re really giving it your all, aren’t you?!” Dae-Mon called out from below, “–Keep it up!”
Those less than encouraging words were accompanied by the devil man’s colossal arms reaching up to him from the ground, wriggling its fingers made up of countless, quivering limbs that made his skin crawl.
As it came right for him, he spun his body around, managing to evade the giant grasp as he began to run down the length of the limb as a downward bridge.
“Oh–?” Dae-Mon watched in delighted surprise.
The devil man prepared another alteration to his shape, sprouting spiky, hardened pieces of his own flesh in an attempt to catch the red-haired adolescent off-guard, but–a [Blink Step] came.
It propelled him downward at a speed that completely took the Artificial Devil by surprise as he used the momentum to spin around into a kick that gathered a lofty serving of flames around his heel, filling the repugnant air of the hellish environment with its heat.
“Huh?” Dae-Mon let out quietly, mere inches from the flame-bearing heel meeting his face.
“Eve of The Dragon.”
Just as the kick descended upon the black-veined, abhorrent devil, an explosion of flames that took the shape of a momentary dragon released.
–I did it! I got a clean hit on him! He thought.
His heel was pressed directly against the nose of Dae-Mon, having slammed the devil into the ground as embers danced around them.
Even with his face caved in by the attack, Dae-Mon chuckled quietly from below his boot:
“…Oh, man…that one hurt! That had a nice sting to it!”
Feeling the bubbling malice from his opponent, he jumped back just in time as Dae-Mon’s body protruding many fleshy spikes before the player killer abnormally returned to his feet without the usage of his hands, picking himself up by using the spikes from his back to propel him upwards to his feet.
Dae-Mon plugged his nose, gathering air in his cheeks before blowing hard, causing his caved-in face, that should be all means hold a fractured skull and bleeding brain, filling back up to normal as he bent his broken nose into the proper direction again.
“All good! Ahh…where were we?” Dae-Mon stretched his shoulders, shaking his arms as the flesh on them morphed and twitched as if ready to shift shapes again.
He felt it again: that immutable feeling of impossible victory before him when looking at the strange devil man.
…Don’t lose focus. Nothing is unbeatable. I can hurt him. It might not be completely fair, but even Systems have their own restrictions. There is likely a weak spot I have to look for…If he’s a “devil” of some sort, I’m willing to bet there is a special organ, or organs, that have to be destroyed. That would explain why he can regenerate seemingly endlessly–there is something allowing him to reform, he deduced.