radicalducati Chapter 111: The Big Picture Begins, Seizing the Demon Emperor's Powder
Chapter 111: The Big Picture Begins, Seizing the Demon Emperor's Powder
Chapter 111: The Big Picture Begins, Seizing the Demon Emperor's Powder
Bang bang bang.
Li En held ebony in his left hand and white ivory in his right.
With his right index finger gripping the trigger of the white ivory gun tightly, he swept the muzzle horizontally, and spent cartridges bounced out of the ejection port one after another, making a series of soft tinkling sounds as they hit the waterlogged stone slabs.
He slightly raised his left hand, the ebony, and intermittently fired a heavy shot during the gaps in the sweeping fire.
The crisp, rapid firing of the white ivory guns and the deep, resonant rumble of the ebony guns intertwined in the downpour, blending with the rhythm of raindrops hitting the stone slabs to create a rhapsody.
The bullet missed Virgil.
The moment his right thumb pushed open the guard of the Yama Blade, his body disappeared from the spot and reappeared in mid-air the next moment.
When Li En moved the muzzles of his two guns up and pulled the trigger again, his figure disappeared once more.
This is neither high-speed movement nor a trick.
Yamato has the ability to cut through space.
Before the incision closes, it moves itself from one coordinate to another.
Virgil, who uses spatial teleportation, cannot be kept up with by reflexes alone.
The sound of rain being broken came from behind.
It was extremely subtle, but Li En captured the moment when that unnatural void expanded amidst the torrential rain.
He immediately crouched down, his knees slamming into the puddle and splashing water everywhere.
The blade of the Yamato sliced across the spot where his neck had been when he was standing.
As the blade sliced through the air, the space itself emitted a crisp cracking sound, like glass being shattered from the inside by a hard object.
The crack spread outwards from the arc of the blade, and rainwater and air were frantically sucked into the crack, forming a brief vacuum vortex.
After a moment, the space slowly closed up, and the black crack disappeared into the rain as if it had never existed.
Lee En, who was crouching on the ground, braced himself with his elbows, spun around, and kicked Virgil hard behind him with his right foot.
My toes pierced through the rain, but all I kicked was air.
Virgil's figure had disappeared again, reappearing on the other side of the platform's edge.
As Li En watched the spatial rift that was gradually closing, rain streamed down his face.
Even with Dante's half-demon body, he probably couldn't withstand the power of the Spatial Slash.
A single strike is unlikely to be fatal, but the Yamato's ability to cut through space itself means that everything the blade touches will be severed simultaneously.
If he had taken a few more blows, he would have definitely died here.
"Are you scared?" Virgil appeared at the edge of the platform, pacing slowly in the downpour, his shoes making a very faint sound as they stepped on the puddles.
He looked at Li En, who was standing in the center of the platform, and his voice came through the rain, steady and clear.
"Fear is normal; that's the power of the Yamato."
He raised his right hand, holding the Yamato Blade horizontally in front of him. Raindrops hit the blade but were deflected by an invisible force field, not a single drop could touch the blade.
He continued pacing and talking, his tone as if he were lecturing on a theorem that had been repeatedly proven.
"Do you know? Everything in this world is an illusion."
"Power, wealth, honor—all are illusions."
"But there is only one thing that truly exists."
Li En straightened up, flicked his wrists, and returned both guns to his spatial storage.
He reached behind his back, grasped the hilts of the two swords that were crossed behind him, and drew the Wind and Fire Twin Swords from their sheaths.
Rudra emitted a low hum in his left palm, while Agni sparked several dark red sparks in his right hand.
Virgil stood firm.
He stretched out his hand towards the sky, his five fingers spread wide.
The torrential rain pounded on his palms, trickling down between his fingers.
Then he clenched his fist tightly, and the rain around his knuckles was shaken into a fine mist that spread outwards by the sudden force of his grip.
"In this world, the only thing that is real is power."
He lowered his head and looked at Li En again.
"With power, you can shatter all illusions. Do you understand, Dante?"
"That's true, but is your strength really enough?" Li En asked.
Virgil did not answer the question.
He raised his left hand, spread his fingers, and combed his hair from his forehead to the back of his head.
The hair, which had been flattened by the rain, stood up again after his fingers passed over it. Magic flowed from the roots into each strand, reinforcing them into the shape of a slicked-back hairstyle.
The rain can no longer destroy it.
He lowered his hand, and a smile appeared on his lips.
"It seems you understand now, otherwise you wouldn't be smiling so happily."
"Is that so?" Li En held the wind blade horizontally in front of him, with the blade facing outwards. At the end of the hilt, the head of the Lotora was emitting rings of pale blue light.
The fire knife rested on the shoulder, with dark red flames slowly flowing along the spine of the blade.
He assumed a fighting stance, his feet slightly offset, his center of gravity lowered.
He was now highly focused, all his attention locked on Virgil's right hand that held the Yamato.
Without realizing it, the corners of her mouth had indeed turned up.
"Then let's continue, Dante." Virgil gripped Yamato tightly in his right hand and thrust his legs forward with all his might.
Before the water from his shoes had even settled, he had already broken through the rain and charged straight at Li En.
During the charge, he drew the Yamato from its sheath, and countless flashes of light slashed out with the tremor of his wrist.
Each blade of light was only as thick as a hair, but their density was so great that they covered the entire field of vision directly in front of Li En.
These blade beams did not possess any spatial power; they were purely sword techniques.
Li En flipped his right hand, and the wind blade spun.
The moment the blade turned into a round fan, a violent whirlwind burst forth from the blade, expanding in diameter from a few centimeters to nearly two meters, crashing into the dense white blade light.
The hurricane was sliced to shreds the moment it came into contact with the blade.
The wind blades were no match for the slashes of the Yamato Blade.
Using the brief obstruction created by the wind wall being shattered, Li En spun around, his fire blade slicing diagonally upwards with intense dark red flames.
With a loud bang, a crescent-shaped flame detached from the blade and shot forward, instantly evaporating the rainwater in its path and leaving a scorched mark on the stone slab.
"Is that all, Dante? Is this all the power you have?" Virgil sheathed Yamato at his waist, pushed the blade open with his thumb, and drew it again.
Dimensional Slash.
The second slash was superimposed on the first wave of sword light. Each sword light, which was originally as thin as a hair, suddenly expanded after being superimposed, becoming huge and even sharper.
Even the surrounding rainwater was torn into mist by the cutting force field of the blade itself.
The sharp, cold blade light had already touched Li En's skin.
He simultaneously raised his left and right hands to parry the blade's edge.
The blades of the wind blade and the fire blade crossed and collided in front of their chests, unleashing the power of flames and storms simultaneously.
Boom!
The collision of the two forces generated a huge shockwave, which dispersed the dense blade light.
The shockwave continued to spread upwards, briefly pushing aside the dark clouds and the dense rain, revealing a small patch of grayish-white light behind the clouds.
But soon the dark clouds gathered again, and the rain intensified.
"This one's a bit interesting," Virgil's voice came from above.
He didn't know when, but he had already teleported directly above Li En, his body hanging upside down, the tip of the Yama Blade pointing downwards, and he and the blade thrust straight down.
Li En had no prior warning of any presence and could only rely on his body's instincts to spin and dodge.
With a soft splatter, the tip of the Yamato blade sliced across his right abdomen, leaving a wound that stretched from his ribs to his waist. Flesh was torn open, and blood gushed out from the wound, mixing with the rainwater and flowing down his belt.
While dodging, Li En slashed his right hand across his waist, tucking the wind blade back behind his back. With a flick of his wrist, ebony wood appeared in his palm.
Without even turning his body, he pulled the trigger from under his arm into the blind spot behind him.
boom.
As soon as Virgil landed, Yamato slashed upwards, the blade precisely cleaving the bullet fired by Ebony in two from the very center of the bullet.
The two halves of the bullet flew past Virgil's cheeks and embedded themselves in the stone slabs behind him.
"Not bad, Dante. Even when you're being attacked, you don't forget to counterattack while dodging. That's much better than when you could only take hits."
.
Virgil sheathed his sword, and raindrops slid down the spine of the Yamato sword to the tip, dripping onto the puddles.
He and Dante fought since they were children, and every time it was him who drew his sword and Dante who got slashed, then he would draw his sword again and get slashed again.
After not seeing each other for a while, the opponent's combat intuition has improved so much.
Li En landed and glanced down at his abdomen.
The wounds inflicted by the Yamato Blade healed much more slowly than normal.
The spatial energy attached to the blade lingered at the edge of the wound, preventing the demon bloodline's self-healing ability from functioning properly.
Blood was still gushing out, staining the hem of the coat a dark color.
He put the fire knife back on his back, retrieved the ebony into his spatial storage, and raised both hands above his head, making a grasping motion in the air.
The Rebellion Greatsword slid from his palm into between his fingers, the outline of the bone-spiked decorations on the spine gleaming with a cold, metallic sheen in the downpour.
"Come on, let's continue."
Li En didn't notice that when he said those three words, his voice carried a strong sense of exhilaration.
Virgil smiled and sheathed Yamato again.
He pushed off with his right foot, his body stretching into a blurry blue afterimage in the rain.
He drew his sword instantly during the sprint.
This time, the blade's aura sliced through space itself, creating black spatial rifts where the blade passed, drawing rain and air into them.
Li En's eyes narrowed.
He did not retreat or dodge.
He placed all his weight on his right foot, using the forward shift of his center of gravity and the rotation of his waist and hips to smash the Rebellion Greatsword down from above.
The greatsword's blade collided with the spatial rift created by the Yamato Blade.
when!
The sound of metal clashing exploded at the top of the tower, and the sound wave pushed the surrounding rain curtain outward into a brief vacuum.
This sword actually withstood the spatial slash, and there were no signs of tearing on the blade.
The Rebellion Greatsword's material and accompanying magic provide it with some resistance to spatial attacks.
His gaze was fixed on Virgil, but the other man vanished in the next instant.
Li En stepped forward with his right foot, shifting all his weight onto it, gripping the hilt of his greatsword tightly with both hands, and then spun around on the spot, using his right foot as the axis.
As the body rotated horizontally, the greatsword swept across 360 degrees, its blade cleaving through the rain and leaving a silver arc in its wake.
As the arc reached the left, the sword struck Virgil, who had just teleported into existence.
Virgil parried the attack with his Yamato, the blade clashing violently with the greatsword, sparks flashing briefly in the rain before being extinguished.
Li En opened his arms, and the Rebellion Greatsword vanished, replaced by Ebony and Ivory in his palms.
At the same instant he gripped the guns with both hands, he pulled the triggers, and the muzzle flashes of fire from both guns alternated as a barrage of bullets rained down on Virgil.
Virgil fought and retreated, drawing an impenetrable defensive net in front of him with his Yamato, deflecting all the bullets.
His knife skills were extremely precise; each bullet was cleaved in two from the middle by the blade, and the two halves of the bullets splashed into the water at his feet.
Li En kept pulling the trigger, closing in as he fired.
The moment he got close to Virgil, he leaped up and flipped himself directly above Virgil's head.
The index finger of his right hand, White Ivory, never left the trigger. The muzzle was pointing downwards, and a hail of bullets poured down on Virgil's head from directly above.
As he flipped over, the ebony in his left hand was returned to his spatial storage, and the Rebellious Greatsword was once again in his hand, which he then slashed downwards fiercely.
On one side, a continuous barrage of bullets poured down from above like a tidal wave; on the other side, heavy sword strikes slammed down between the bullets.
This offensive caused Virgil's defenses to become slightly disrupted.
Several times he wanted to sheathe the Yamato back into its scabbard and use the Dimensional Slash technique to break the passive position.
But every time his right hand made a movement to sheathe the knife, Li En would turn the muzzle of White Ivory's gun and strike his wrist and the joint between the knife handle with a continuous barrage of bullets.
The bullet itself couldn't hurt him, but the continuous impact would forcefully interrupt his action of sheathing the sword, preventing the Yamato from ever returning to its sheath.
Virgil had never been oppressed like this before.
Having fought Dante for so many years, he has always been the one to draw his sword, while Dante tries to dodge.
Now the situation has completely reversed.
His mood gradually became irritable as he continued to defend himself, and an uncontrollable anxiety surged up from deep within his chest.
He roared and gripped the hilt of the Yama Blade tightly with both hands. Instead of trying to sheath the blade, he drew a complete slash from bottom to top.
The moment the blade sliced through the air, spatial rifts tore open to both sides along the blade's trajectory.
The edges of the crack gleamed with a purple glow, and rainwater and gravel were being frantically sucked into it.
Li En's eyes widened.
He had no flat surface to use for leverage in the air.
But he stomped his right foot hard in mid-air, and it exploded with a loud bang.
The recoil from stepping on the air shifted his body slightly to the side.
The space slash of the Yamato sword shifted from its original position aimed at the torso to the left arm.
With a snap, his left arm was cleanly severed a few centimeters below his shoulder by a spatial rift.
The severed limb, along with the still-bleeding left hand, tumbled several times in the air before landing on a stone slab in the distance.
Using the momentum from this slight displacement and rotation, Li En, wielding the Rebellion Greatsword in his right hand, slashed fiercely at Virgil's right arm, which was too late to retract its blade and defend.
The sword's edge sliced into the arm's muscles and bones, severing the dark blue sleeve along with flesh and bone in one stroke.
Virgil's right arm, along with the Yamato sword he gripped, detached itself from his body, tumbled in the air, and crashed into the puddle, splashing water everywhere.
Virgil immediately bent down to pick it up.
But a tremendous force came from the side.
Li En kicked him away.
This kick was delivered with full force, sending Virgil flying several meters away from the Yamato, his back slamming against the stone surface of the platform before bouncing off again before coming to a stop.
Li En did not pick up his left arm.
He used his foot to hook Virgil's right arm, along with the severed hand that was gripping the Yamato, to his feet, then bent down and lifted the entire severed arm up.
He bit the back of the Yamato blade with his teeth, blood still flowing from his severed left arm, while his right hand pried Virgil's fingers off the hilt one by one.
The severed fingers made a slight, delicate sound when they were pried apart, and each finger hung limply in mid-air after being loosened.
He put the Rebellion Greatsword back into his spatial storage and freed his right hand to grasp the hilt of the Yamato.
Virgil stood up from the ground, glanced down at the clean cut of his right arm, and then at the Yamato sword that Li En was holding in his hand.
He didn't rush over to snatch it, but stood still and said in a factual tone, "The Yama Blade is not an ordinary weapon; it recognizes its master."
"If you don't pursue power, you are not qualified to use it."
"Is that so?" Li En casually slashed the Yama Blade through the air.
The moment the blade sliced through the air, a thin crack appeared in space.
The width and length of the crack were much smaller than the one Virgil used to teleport, only about one-tenth the size, but it was indeed a spatial rift.
After the blade sliced through, space itself was torn open, rain and air were drawn in, and then it slowly closed up again.
He twirled the Yamato twice in his hand, the hilt resting against the anti-slip texture of his palm.
The grip is completely different from the Rebellion Greatsword; it's light, sharp, and has a cold, constant vibration.
"You forgot, I also have demon blood."
"Since you know you also have the blood of a demon, why don't you pursue the ultimate power? Why do you reject your father's Spartan bloodline?" Virgil opened his right hand to Li En. The muscle fibers at the severed arm had stopped bleeding on their own, and new granulation tissue was growing little by little from the cut.
"Join me in opening the Demon Realm, breaking the seal, and absorbing all of Sparta's power. We will then obtain the strongest power, and no one will be able to stand in our way."
"I do want power, Virgil, but your vision is a bit lacking." Li En stood still.
He gently kicked Virgil's severed arm back, and the severed arm slid a few times on the puddle before coming to rest at Virgil's feet.
Then he picked up his left arm, which had fallen to the distance, and aligned the severed portion with the wound on his shoulder.
The demonic bloodline's self-healing power began to work, muscle fibers reconnected, broken bones realigned themselves, and skin healed layer by layer.
Virgil frowned, bent down to pick up his severed arm, and pressed it back onto his shoulder.
The cross-sections are aligned, and the fascia and bone are reconnected.
He flexed his newly reattached fingers a few times, then raised his head again, his brow still furrowed: "What do you mean by 'lacking vision'? What do you mean, Dante?"
Li En looked up at the sky.
The torrential rain continued, with occasional streaks of thunder flashing through the gaps in the churning dark clouds.
He looked at it for a moment, then a smile crept onto his lips. His voice wasn't loud, but every word was clear in the rain.
"Was Spartan power truly the pinnacle?"
"If that's really the case—why didn't he just kill the Demon Emperor back then, but instead sealed him away?"
"Sealing and killing are two different things. The fact that he can be sealed means he is stronger than the Demon Emperor."
"The fact that he was only sealed away and not killed means that he still owes something."
1
"What are you owing?"
He stretched out his left hand and raised it towards the sky.
With his fingers spread wide, raindrops hit his palms and trickled down between his fingers.
His voice lowered by an octave, but the certainty in his tone carried even greater weight.
"If you're after power, why not just take down the Demon Emperor directly? Why go looking for Sparta instead?"
Rumble.
A deafening clap of thunder erupted from the dark clouds in the sky, and a thick bolt of lightning struck the distant spire of the tower from deep within the clouds, causing the entire tower to tremble slightly.
Virgil stared wide-eyed, standing rooted to the spot, rain streaming down his slicked-back hair, which he made no attempt to wipe away.
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