Chapter 98
A demon so drunk that he was fighting in his sleep while unknowingly leading human prisoners against the warriors of the Bukka clan, all the while completely unaware of his current situation or predicament.
Only his survival instincts were keen enough to move his body.
That is just how messed up the current situation was.
Ren Karatengu's mind was busy sleeping while his inner self was currently fighting against countless mighty Ox demons.
It was far worse than sleep walking; it was sleep fighting!
When he was a child, Ren and his brother would compete against each other at nearly everything.
But each time, Ren, who was known as Sagyn back then, would lose badly and more often than not, leave with bruises, while his older twin would triumph seemingly effortlessly.
This used to infuriate Ren to no end. No matter how much he tried, it was his brother who had all the talent and potential. What Ren was left with was just deeply ingrained desire to survive.
And survive he did.
His survival instincts had absorbed every useful skill available in order to live another day. No matter what, his instincts would influence his actions, just to ensure he would survive.
Funny enough, it was not like Demon Lord Mode he was currently using was exclusive to him, nor was it unrivaled in power.
Demon Lord Mode was a skill that any demon could learn with enough training.
It is just most demons are born with strong bodies, so most of them don't even spend time training to hone their skills, deeming their natural abilities to be sufficient.
It was a clear contest of strength against skill.
Watching the sleeping Tengu fight, one could come to a wrong conclusion that he was strong.
In reality, his abilities were only temporarily enhanced by Demon Lord Mode. As soon as it wears off, he would be softer than bread dough and more fragile than gla.s.s dish.
Ren's limit was roughly an hour. With his current mastery over Demon Lord Mode, that was how long his body and willpower could hold before it wears off.
But after that time is up, his body will be rendered weak, his willpower completely depleted, and he would not be able to access Demon Lord Mode until the very next day.
Of course, while the average limit is roughly an hour, it could last longer or shorter, depending on how it was used.
If Demon Lord Mode is used for physical enhancement only, then it does not expend as much mana, but if the user keeps using magic, then mana will be quickly depleted, and Demon Lord Mode would quickly deactivate.
Inner Ren knew by instinct that using up all the absorbed mana on magic would be a bad idea, which is why he used it mostly for physical enhancement.
As for Bukka clan warriors, they were now battling against humans as well, who were now far more motivated to fight.
After putting up a valiant fight at the beginning, Inner Ren now was swiveling from side to side, his body completely wobbly on its feet.
"Kill him!"
"Kill him now!"
Unfortunately for Bukka clanners, Inner Ren was not done just yet.
If it was normal Ren, he would have run for his life the moment he saw the Bukka clan members coming towards him, but Inner Ren did just the opposite.
Instead of running away from danger, he ran towards it.
Brandis.h.i.+ng his silver sword, he swiftly slashed through the bodies of his opponents.
Silver weapons were just as effective on demon flesh as Holy Magic. Even if demon's body was strong enough to withstand slashes from an iron sword, it would still receive fatal damage from a silver blade.
Silver was in a sense like Holy Magic in a solid, portable form, which is why it was a pure nightmare for demons to deal with. Silver was poisonous to their very being, able to cut them down like a heated blade upon a slice of b.u.t.ter.
With Demon Lord Mode, Ren could dodge and parry his opponents, and with his silver sword, he could deliver rather devastating damage.
Even with the skill of Absorption and Demon Lord Mode, Inner Ren was comparatively weaker than many of the warriors of Bukka clan.
While the Demon Lord Mode did make his body tougher, it would not be able to withstand an excessive amount of damage, which is why Inner Ren focused mostly on dodging oncoming attacks.
But since Inner Ren used his skills rather effectively against his first few opponents, Bukka clan members felt fear pa.s.sing through their spines.
"Shoot him down!" one of the Bukka clan members resorted to using magic to create large fireball.
The others followed a suit, creating attacks incorporating their dominant elemental magic.
But then, a very strange phenomenon occurred.
Their magic, conjured by their mana, suddenly started to dissipate into thin air.
Bukka clan's more experienced warriors knew this phenomenon rather well.
It was called the Willpower Pulse.
Many leaders used this skill in order to suppress the power of those who oppose them. In fact, their own leader, Robos Bukka had used it whenever someone tried to oppose his command. Each time, Robos's opponent would be rendered powerless and at Robos's mercy.
In a sense, it is a skill that allows the user to use willpower to suppress the magic of the user's opponent, but on a far wider scale than normal.
A single wave of ma.s.sively concentrated willpower is used to overwhelm the wills of others. Those that are weaker of will would lose control over their magic and feel an undeniable sensation of fear.
Stronger demons could resist it, but with so many of the Bukka clan's warriors suddenly ending up losing access to their magic, it was clear that this human's willpower exceeded theirs by a long shot.
Willpower is essentially a manifestation of one's desire to move forward, to strive, to survive. And since Inner Ren was the embodiment of Ren's survival instincts, the willpower he was radiating was simply ma.s.sive.
While magic can be thought of as an absurdly powerful weapon, willpower is
By suppressing the wills of Bukka clan warriors, Inner Ren essentially took away their access to bulk of their power.
Without a shred of doubt, Willpower Pulse is also a Demon Lord level skill.
Though, Inner Ren's usage paled in comparison to the real Demon Lords.
But since all the gladiators were packed together within the arena, it was rather effective.
With his presence alone, he nullified the power of the weaker demons and severely weakened the stronger ones.
At the same time, humans were motivated to fight for their lives, rather than give up, because as far as they knew, there was a Holy Knight among them who refused to give up.
If he wouldn't give up without a fight, how could they?
Without access to the bulk of their overwhelming magic, Bukka clan members were now in an even playing field with the human prisoners. With their key advantage was reduced to nothing, they only had their physical strength to rely on.
Now the humans had the fighting chance.
Had Inner Ren been fighting alone, without a doubt, he would have been overwhelmed by Bukka clan's numbers within minutes, but now that humans started to fight back in the earnest, he was no longer in as perilous situation as before.
Now it was just a matter of dodging the attacks of the oncoming demons, one after another.
Using his ability to sense mana, Inner Ren skillfully avoided getting hit by enemy attacks while using the silver sword against them.
Luckily, there were almost as many human prisoners as Bukka clan's gladiators, so Inner Ren did not have to face too many opponents.
At the moment, Inner Ren was doing the most ridiculous thing he ever did up till now = leading humans against demons.
Considering the fact that Ren himself was a demon, this made the situation even worse.
If Ren had been awake, he would have been horrified at the current turn of events.
But here he was, standing as a beacon of hope for the captured paladins, who have somehow managed to fight off many of the Bukka clan members after taking away the weapons from the defeated demons.
Slowly, but steadily, the humans were gaining the upper ground.
Watching this, Robos Bukka couldn't help but slap himself on the face from humiliation.
The victims of the show were starting to emerge victorious.
This was not good, not good at all.
The ones who were supposed to be killed for entertainment were now gaining the higher ground. It was not supposed to be this way!
Most of the battles in coliseum ended with the corpses of the humans or the captured demons from enemy clans being fed to Robos's pet. It was a rather efficient way to clean up while also making his pet stronger with each meal.
But usually, he only has his pet eat the corpses after his clan's warriors emerge victorious.
Based on the current situation, his clan's gladiators were getting pushed back by the humans, steadily losing ground as the prisoners started to beat them.
And it was all that man's fault!
By putting up a good fight in the beginning, he motivated all the frightened humans behind him to stand up and struggle for their lives.
Inner Ren may not be much of a fighter, but he clearly was a leader.
If anything, he possessed a remarkable quality of motivating those who have lost hope, to make them believe that they have a chance to survive.
A chance to take their lives in their own hands.
And their chance was now.
Frustrated at the fact that the humans were starting to win in his own arena, even with their magic sealed away, Robos resorted to using his spell.
It was his personal summon, a legendary monster he kept as his pet.
A Kraken usually was a creature that dwells oceans and sinks countless s.h.i.+ps, but the one Robos possessed was a variant of Kraken that adapted to live on land.
As a legendary monster, only someone of Demon King level caliber or another legendary monster could stand a chance against it.
The only reason his summon would not attack him is because it recognizes Robos as its parent and master, since Robos found it as an egg, hatched and raised it.
It was his personal summon, his secret weapon in case the Phoenix demons ever decided to attack his clan.
Even if Altyn clan's possessed unrivaled power, they did not have anyone at the caliber of a Demon King. Without one, mere Demon Lord level demons would stand no chance against this legendary monster.
Robos was confident that his Kraken, Red Devourer, would be able to easily feast on the humans that managed to turn the tides in the Bukka clan's arena.
Armed with countless tentacles, the Red Devourer's body was of a truly colossal size. Roughly hundred meters tall, at least currently, it would only grow bigger the longer it lived.
Befitting of a legendary monster, its tentacles were as tough as tempered steel, able to easily squeeze a large bovine to death. Robos knew for a fact that the Land Kraken was nearly invulnerable from the outside.
The base of the monster's body contained five large mouths and several smaller ones around it. It had a total of seven yellow eyes spread across the various sections of the body and each tentacle had a single eye that was constantly moving on top of it.
This type of monster has around seven to eight stomachs on average, but there were cases of t.i.tanic Krakens that have had as many as fifteen.
Overall, this beast was the pride and joy of the Bukka clan as well as its most powerful member.
It was because of this beast that even the arrogant Altyn clan does not dare to attack the Bukka clan.
However, this beast could not be used to conquer other territories, for it was rather slow, at least when it comes to movement across land, and summoning it took a lot of mana, not a feat that could be done many times a day.
While its tentacles were mighty, fast, and extremely useful for stationary style of battle, the Land Kraken could not travel across vast distances.
So, it was a powerhouse all right, albeit a comparatively slow one.
It also had another weakness.
Even if this type of Kraken has adapted to live on land, it still depends on water inside of its body to sustain itself.
As such, every time the Kraken is unsummoned, it is transported to a location with plenty of water to rehydrate it.
Under the three suns of Sulum, Kraken would end up drying up within a couple of hours, making it not very reliable during long term battles.
But still, in a coliseum, with the prisoners unable to escape, it was the perfect beast to get the job done.
Robos was not worried about the Land Kraken dehydrating, as far as he was concerned, he was feeding his pet yet another meal. It should not take too long.
Even if that human with the silver sword was strong, it wouldn't matter.
Not even a combined might of several Demon Lords would be enough to stop the Land Kraken.
The only creature that could go toe to toe with a legendary monster is another legendary monster.
As expected, the humans started to run for their lives, but soon, countless tentacles of the Land Kraken ended up catching hold of several of its human victims.
Among them was the human wielding a silver sword, but for some reason, he did not resist.
'Is he sleeping? How can it be? Is he insane? Not even a scream for his life, did he accept that his death is eminent?'
"Wow, what a beastie!" Kanka looked genuinely fascinated.
When a tentacle tried to take a hold of him, he proceeded to unleash his magic, skewering the entirety of the tentacle with bone shards.
But aside from making the tentacle s.h.i.+ft its direction away from Kanka, there was not much visible damage. Even if the tentacle was pierced by bone spears, it was just one of the many.
It had plenty of other ones to feed on its victims.
The tentacles with the captured humans now dropped them into the creature's mouths.
Seeing the human with the silver sword falling into the belly of the beast, Robos started to laugh like a madman.
Finally, that annoying pest of a human being was dead!
Words could not describe the joy he felt at that very moment.
Unfortunately, his happiness did not last for long.
Now the Land Kraken started to act rather strange, its tentacles started to shake, and several of them even ended up releasing the captured humans.
"Red Devourer! What is wrong?" Robos had never seen his pet in such a state.
Almost as if in response, the Land Kraken's entire body started to steam up with black smoke.
And then, the area of one of its stomachs started to dry up, then crack, before a single blast of black fire tore through it.
Land Kraken may be nearly invulnerable from the outside, but it was not the case on the inside.
What emerged was a creature akin to a dragon, with a large body, majestic wings; breathing black fire.
Spreading its enormous wings, it proceeded to fly out of the stomach into the sky.
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It had a single person on its back, wielding a silver sword.
But what made this creature distinct were the six enormous heads connected to its muscular body.
'A dragon? No, that is not a dragon, it's a…'
"A hydra"
Robos Bukka gulped as he saw another legendary monster before him.