NOVEL WEB Conquering the Inner Demon
Hearing the proclamation, Touma squinted his eyes and only thought of one thing.
‘This guy is nuts.’
From the way Lucius portrayed himself and the aura that surrounded him, Touma could tell that Lucius was a lunatic and would make use of any sort of insane and incomprehensible means at his disposal to reach his goal, like sacrificing humanity to save humanity.
“Then how do you plan to achieve that?”
“Originally, I intended to wage a holy war against all of humanity and become the Great Magic Emperor, and I also had the desire to remake all humans over the world into perfect beings by using the powers of devils and the magic of my brethren.” Lucius said without skipping a beat. “But then suddenly, we were brought to an unknown world and Julius was absorbed by you.”
“Thanks to you, I've discovered a whole new world! A new humanity! waiting to be saved! Not only that, you granted me more power than even I could imagine to achieve my goal, so I have to thank you for that, Kamiya Touma!” He revealed a burst of devilish laughter.
‘No, something isn’t right.’ Touma frowned but said nothing as he prepared himself for the incoming battle. ‘He is definitely hiding something.’
“As a token of appreciation, after I take over your body, I will spare your life and let you witness the birth of new humanity.”
“I will pass on that offer.” Said Touma as the Spear of Longinus appeared in his hand. “I have no plans to lose to 'anyone'.”
“So you are against Judgment Day? Well, not that it will change anything.” Lucius held out his hand and a black magic circle appeared. “I will crush you right here then.”
“[Gravity Magic: Presence of Demon King].”
The area around Lucius immediately had an exponential surge in gravitational pull, including where Touma was standing.
Without wasting time, Touma activated the [Crest of Stars] and jumped away while swiftly creating an arc with the holy spear mid-air, sending beams of pure Holy Power at Lucius.
Seeing the incoming attack, Lucius accelerated his own time and successfully evaded all the beams, but he felt a sense of discomfort just by being near them.
‘What is that spear? My instincts are screaming to me, Flee!' Lucius thought as he prepared his next spells. ‘Maybe he is like that anti-magic boy, a flaw and a nuisance that shall be exterminated.’
“[Blood Magic: Pack of Red Beasts]!”
A pool of blood formed under Lucius’ feet which took the shape of wolves before they all launched on Touma.
Seeing the beasts coming for him, Touma didn’t even falter an inch and launched in the pack’s direction.
“[Mana Zone: Chronostasis Grigora]!”
In an instant, all the blood beasts were trapped in a blue sphere where time was at halt.
But Touma didn’t stop there, he kept feeding his noble phantasm with mana, allowing him to partially release it without having to reveal its true name furthermore he deployed his Time magic to accelerate all his attacks and his movements.
Normally, Lucius would be able to easily dodge them using Time magic, but...
Normally that is…
“Guhaah!” Lucius was shocked as he coughed blood after receiving the full force of the attack. ‘How is that possible!? I am sure I dodged it, then why am I still injured!’
Lucius was bleeding from the wound in his chest and further to his shock, the usage of time magic did heal the wound but the stinging and excruciating pain was still there.
Unknown to that devil, the cause of Lucius’s injuries was none other than Touma, or to be more precise, Touma’s stand, 'Laplace'. By altering the probabilities themselves, Lucius’ reaction speed was reduced by an entire second, which was long enough for the attack to land on the devil.
‘By his expression of pain and shock, it seems holy weapons are still effective against him, even if they don’t exist in his world.’ Touma thought and twirled his fist. “What happened, oh Messiah of Humanity? Out of energy already? And here I thought you would be more than that.”
Touma's provocation worked as a vein popped in Lucius’ forehead, as he lost the menacing smile from earlier.
“Don’t think your provocation will make me lose composure, Kamiya Touma.” Said Lucius, who raised his hand and his grimoire started flipping its pages on its own. “I, who already achieved the true state of humans, won’t be defeated by a mere human who didn’t even enter adulthood.”
“[Union Magic: Eternal Fangs of Evil God]!”
Using a combination of Time, Gravity and Bone magic, Lucius summoned several enormous fangs, each having an increased gravitational field around them, which increased their weight and their time was accelerated, making them a deadly spell against regular foes.
However, Touma was 'built different'.
Touma crossed his fingers and a transparent green barrier appeared around Touma.
*BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!*
The fangs exploded upon impact with the barrier, causing it to tremble but there were no visible signs of breaking.
Lucius frowned as he looked at Touma who wasn’t taking any real damage.
‘As long as he has that spear, I will be in a disadvantageous position.’ Lucius thought and with a wave of his arm, the devil used a combination of Body, Blood and Bone magic to create several clones who surrounded Touma.
‘All I need to do is to touch him only once and make him lose that spear for this to be over!’
Half of the clones charged forward while the other half stayed behind and fired spells at Touma.
In response to the assault, Touma raised the holy spear upwards.
“Longinus.” Having called the name of his weapon, a burst of Holy Power came out from the spear and killed the nearby clones. Then Touma opened [Inventory] and took out a short sword that almost looked like a dagger.
“Sacred treasure activate.” Touma activated the power of Lostvayne and five clones of himself appeared behind him, each holding the Longinus' spear in one hand and Lostvayne in the other.
Each Touma pointed his spear in a random direction and used Laplace to raise the probability to hit the original Lucius.
Lucius sensed something wrong and poured all his mana into a single spell.
“““““[Gravity Magic: Gravity Singularity]!”””””
Each Lucius clone along with the original created a small black hole and fired it at Touma.
Meanwhile, each Longinus spear was already glowing intensively and seemed to illuminate the dark realm with golden light. Touma remained unfazed, looking at the imminent deadly spells and muttered.
““““““Sacred Spear, releasing two layered restraints. Countdown…””””””
““““““[Longinus Count Zero].””””””
Touma unleashed the complete power of the sacred spear without holding back, shooting rays of Holy Power that collided with miniature black holes.
…
*Cough* *Cough*
Lucius spit out the blood from his throat and his body was full of deadly injuries that could kill any normal person.
‘I am out of mana.’ Lucius thought as he coughed again. "Recovery is impossible and injuries are too severe…Is this the way I am going to die?’
The devil heard footsteps and tilted his head to see Touma approaching him who had his clothes soaked with blood but had no visible injuries.
“Why did you not try to take my body earlier? I am sure you had opportunities earlier.” Touma finally asked the question that had been puzzling him since earlier.
“It’s not that I didn't, but I couldn’t. You had some kind of protection that prevented me from taking your body, but then whatever method you used to strengthen the grimoire allowed me to have the power to breach that defense.” Lucius explained and let out a dry chuckle.
‘Protection? Is it because of the [Protection of the Holy Grail] skill from Percival's card?’ This was the only thing Touma could think of at the spot.
Then without uttering a word, Touma pointed Longinus Spear at Lucius and his injuries started closing up and healing.
Seeing this, Lucius widened his eyes in shock.
‘After all of this, why is he healing me? I feel no pity in his eyes nor remorse, then why…?’ Lucius thought before bursting out laughing.
“Hahahaha! Don’t tell me, are you the type of person who refuses to kill the enemy?” Lucius mocked and coughed amidst laughing.
“Don’t misunderstand.” Said Touma who frowned as he retrieved the spear. “I’m not healing you out of guilt or any lame excuse, it’s just that you are too useful to die yet.”
Then Lucius saw Touma’s eyes changing from silver to red color with a black four-point pinwheel.
“Kotoamatsukami.” Touma casted the special genjutsu of his Mangekyō Sharingan on Lucius, who was unable to resist or counter.
Lucius' eyes turned emotionless and chains sprouted from the ground and pinned him down by the neck.
“Now submit and obey me, Lucius Zogratis.” Touma commanded and Lucius nodded without saying a word.
The chains disappeared but left a mark of obedience on Lucius' neck.
Then without any warning, the dark realm started breaking down and was replaced by the scenery of his hotel room, but this time Touma wasn’t alone.
In the room, there were several people, who have high levels of mana compared to normal civilians, looking at Touma with widened eyes and were armed with magic swords and guns, ready for battle.
“Halt this instant, Mage!” One of them shouted. “What do you plan to do by using that grimoire in the middle of the city!?”
And this was the first meeting between Touma and the History Compilation Committee.
______________
If you support my work, please consider subbing to my Patreon! It will give you access to a chapter ahead of the current one in my discord server.
patreon.com/aheartless