Following, Torturing and Fighting
For the umpteenth time, I felt the back of my head bang against the top of the train car I was in. Why'd it have to be a mission like this? If it weren't for the fantastic tea, the library of rare and ancient knowledge and the wonderful conversation, I'd quit from Kamar-Taj.
I mean, who sends a giant like me on a subterfuge-type mission? The guy I was following knew I was following him. He just didn't mind it.
Probably because he was cocky due to all that Demonic Magic he knew.
Now, it was gonna go one of two ways. One, he takes me to a dark alleyway and then questions why I'm following him. Or two, he takes me to the base of operations where the rest of his Demon worshipping buddies are. I really hope it's the latter - it'd save me the hassle of having to torture the information out of the guy.
The train came to a stop and I watched him leave before curtly following after him. I didn't even try to hide my following of him because with my size and the fact he knew, it was unpractical to do so. I'd have a better chance trying to pass off as a normal person while prancing around in MJOLNIR armor. Need to build myself something like that again - I miss Betsy, my ol' reliable armor. Saved me from a lot of hassle back when I fought against the Covenant.
Ah~ Good times. Some of it was, anyway.
How to fund it though? I could steal some of the materials needed...but not all of them. Could buy them though. Just need money. Rob a bank? Nah, need clean money that I can explain the origin of. Ah! How about I recreate flash cloning? I could make a killing on organ donations.
--Oh, he's taking a cut into a dark alleyway. Goddammit. Well, I followed him in regardless of my thoughts and seeing as the sky was going dark, the alley was pitch fucking black.
Heh, he probably thinks I can't see in the dark. I can see him behind that dumpster. Amateur.
I played the fool and continued walking down the alley until I got passed him and he stepped out, putting his hand on my back.
"Stop right there," he said, his voice raspy and very nasally.
I smiled, he couldn't see it obviously, and answered, "What are you doing?" I asked, trying to sound surprised. Had to bite my lip so I didn't burst out laughing.
"About to boil the blood in your body if you don't answer why you're following me? You're a fucking amateur," he spat, snickering as his hand pressed even harder against my back. He probably thought his Demonic Magic enhanced strength could push me over...oh, ye of so little faith. Even if he were twice as strong, he'd still be like a toddler trying to topple an armoured truck.
"How about," I said, spinning on my heels quicker than he could react, lashing out with one of my swords and cutting off his hand which had just been touching my back, "No?" I let him see my smile before I hit him across the face with his own hand. The urge to say 'stop hitting yourself' was immense but I controlled it and calmly walked after his rolling form.
He went head over heels, rolling back toward the street. I didn't even hit him that hard...calling me a fucking amateur, the dude's probably never taken a proper punch before.
When he finally stopped, he began squirming and screaming from the pain of having his arm cut off.
Rolling my eyes, I squatted down next to him and grabbed the nub that was once connected to his forearm and pressed the forearm against it before channelling my Chi into the wound. Wounds like this are usually impossible to heal because of how much Chi it takes but I'm an exception. I'm built like Naruto - I have more energy than I know what to do with. So healing this wasn't all too hard for me to do.
Plus, it seemed to hurt his Demon tainted body with such pure life force flowing through him. So I guess it served another purpose, huh?
When it finally healed and he stopped screaming, I stood up, still holding his arm and then jumped.
We need a little more privacy for what's about to come next.
/ / /
"Ple--please...please...just stop...I'VE TOLD YOU EVERYTHING I KNOW! SO PLEASE! STOP!" the man screamed and yet he was perfectly fine. Physically, at least. I used some of my sorcery to check his soul and his astral-self, and I could barely keep my disgust under control. His soul and astral-self were basically black like coal. His astral-self even had horns and claws.
Reining in my disgust, I stood up and wiped off my swords on the man's clothes of the blood they'd collected over the time torturing him, "So, this little cult are in Harlem, in so-and-so building and there's about a dozen of them. They use advanced Demonic wards and secrecy veils to keep sorcerers out and away," I said, relaying the information he'd told me back to him before looking down at him and smiling, "Now, is that everything you want to tell me? Because if I get a surprise when I get there, I'll find you in Hell and kill you again."
Despite me admitting that I was about to kill him, he didn't react badly to it. He just nodded his head, eyes filling with tears as they were already drowning in fear. What did I do to the guy?
...Probably best if I never tell anyone the answer to that questions. Hint: It required a lot of healing.
Seeing I wasn't gonna get anything more out of him, I whipped my leg around and decimated his head with a Chi-enhanced kick. His head exploded into bloody mist and before it could even hit the floor, I was gone, jumping from roof to roof.
New York was still recovering from the Chitauri invasion but the majority of the buildings around had been repaired on the outside - courtesy of Stark's funding and his new company that cleans up stuff or whatever. So I was clear to jump from building to building without worrying about rubble getting in the way of my mission.
I was sent here to route out a cult of 'powerful' Demonic Sorcerers - Sorcerers who made deals with Demons for power or influence or just whatever they wanted.
For the three months since my mission that took me to that village in China, I've been cleaning up the Demonic Scourge that seems to want to mount Earth like a cheap prostitute. Ever since the Chitauri it's been getting worse as well, according to the Ancient One.
We'd talked about reasons and settled on one specific one - the portal was powered by the Tesseract, a cube that contains the Space Stone, one of the Infinity Stones. By ripping open that portal above New York, Loki had pretty much messed up the space around Earth, making it waaay easier for Demons and other dimensional beings to break through onto Earth.
With this came stronger Demonic Sorcerers who could make more deals, with less requirements and even quicker than before because of the weakened space around Earth.
That dagger we'd found three months ago was a pretty power artefact that had the main purpose of weakening the dimensional space around Earth even more. Each sacrifice weakens the space by a small amount - negligible really if it's only one person every year - but it adds up, say, if you sacrifice an entire village every few months.
Luckily, we stopped that Demon from completing the sacrifice ritual. Though that's not to say there are dozens of other artefacts like that currently on Earth. I'd confiscated three other things like it.
One of which was apparently the spear stabbed into Jesus Christs side when he was on the cross while the others were apparently the nails used to secure him to the cross. Freaky shit, honestly. I left it all with the Ancient One and she locked them up in some magical safes.
It's all pretty complicated when you get passed that but what I'm doing is stemming the flow of Demons and their worshippers/cultists while the Ancient One is figuring out how to repair the dimensional space around Earth. Kinda like dimensional surgery.
...I'm just gonna stick to what I know, and what I know is killing Demons and shit like them.
Anyway, it really didn't take me long to reach Harlem and the specific building where the cultists were holding up. I could sense the wards and the secrecy veils but they couldn't overpower my senses like they could the average sorcerer. My physical senses were already strong before coming to this world but once I'd taken up sorcery and Chi, they'd gotten even more keen alongside my instincts.
Jumping from the building I was on, I leaped toward the roof of the rundown building filled with cultists. The barrier tried to stop me but I brute-forced it with Chi and Hamon, basically melting through the barrier with pure life force and physical energy.
Damn it pays to be strong. The technical way of breaking these barriers was a real ball ache, so I'm glad I can just do that.
Landing silently, I looked around and decided there was no need for secrecy or subtlety. Instead, I just cast a barrier of Eldritch sorcery around the entire building to stop anyone from leaving - to make it even stronger, I made it so it only worked one way. Anyone could enter but leaving would take a lot of effort. I even weaved Chi into the barrier because I knew how effective it was against Demonic Sorcerers.
Burned 'em quite badly, even when used for healing. So who knows what it'll do when used offensively in a barrier.
Once that barrier was set up, I made it invisible and slammed a foot down on the floor below me. It collapsed inward and I turned on Transparent World which sped up my reaction time even further than it was already at. Everything was basically moving in slow motion as I pressed off some falling debris and charged at the first Demonic Sorcerer I could see.
They could be powerful, sure, but only when they had a Demon with them. The Demon would act like a tank and fight you while these guys would cast spells to debuff you and siphon your life force away.
But if you get them like this? They're glass cannons through and through.
The first one lost his head and before the second could react, he'd been bisected vertically. The third and fourth fired off some sorcery spells but the bolts of boiling blood were easily dodged and their casters were soon taken care of as well. I turned to the doorway leading to the stairs and threw my sword toward it, not forgetting to attach an Eldritch whip to the hilt so I could pull it back.
The Nichirin blade easily cut through the heavy door and with an audible squelch it had obviously cut through the person about to charge through it as well.
Pulling on the Eldritch whip in my hand, the sword came back and I easily caught it before dispelling the whip of pure energy. Five down, then. Walking to the door, I opened it and sidestepped the falling dead body, a hole straight through it's head.
Stepping over the body, I walked down the stairs, both my swords now drawn and both my energy sources circulating through my body at full speed and force.
The next two floors were empty and I had to check the basement. It's always the fucking basement with these cultists.
Kicking the door in, I saw a crudely carved basement, covered in runes and filled with metal objects that were oddly shaped and seemed to undulate at random intervals. The metal seemingly had veins of blood running through them and were welded to the ground with...flesh. Pulsating, throbbing flesh. Like tumorous growths that came from the metal and infested the ground around them.
The remaining seven sorcerers I knew that would be here were each by one of these metal-flesh monuments, their hands thrust into the tumours growing out of them. In the center of them all was one thing - a rusted sword stabbed into the ground. Runes floated out of the stone and the tumours and faded into the air.
Everything felt so...wrong. Visibly, there was nothing going on other than the runes. Yet my instincts screamed at me that whatever was happening had to stop. I switched over to astral vision and I saw why.
Cracks. The room was filled with dimensional cracks, each of which was slowly getting bigger and bigger as time went by.
I didn't wait around and killed every single one of the cultists in front of me. I thought about pulling the sword out of the ground but I wasn't nearly knowledgeable enough about curses and cursed objects, so it's better to not fuck around with them. I'm strong, sure, but I'm not gonna play with fire just because of that. I'm strong, not stupid.
The cultist's bodies were quickly consumed by the tumorous growths but I destroyed them soon after with raw Chi from the dimension I'd found all those months ago. It's destructive nature broke down the tumours and left nothing behind. It had no effect on the metal, however.
Pulling up a sound portal - a thing of my own creation - I contacted the Ancient One and told her where I was and that I needed her to come sort some stuff out.
Though toward the end of the conversation, it was cut off.
Something changed. The cracks burst and something came through, a humanoid with long matted black hair and eyes, a pair of horns bursting through their forehead and wearing a fancy black suit. Though something told me that wasn't a suit but in fact the thing's skin. It's skin was alabaster white and it was easy to see the black veins underneath it's skin.
It regarded me with a curious apathy that reminded me all too well of Muzan's gaze, it's mouth opened to show no teeth or tongue - just a black abyss. And still, words came out.
"So you're the meddling mortal messing with our plans," it started, it's voice coming from all around me, "Well, we can't have that, can we? Begone," it simply said and the walls to the left and right of me turned into spikes which thrust toward me like they'd suddenly became sentient.
Chi-enhanced swords and breathing style-enhanced arms easily repelled the spikes.
This wasn't Earth anymore. We were in the Mirror Dimension. To think it could drag me so easily into the Mirror Dimension without me noticing until now...this Demon was strong.
I charged it, employing the eighth stance of my style and let out a bellowing roar that was exactly like that of a tiger's. Hence why the name of the stance was Tiger's Roar. It was made to disrupt a person's balance, hearing and effect them psychologically. It winced slightly but was otherwise unaffected but that didn't deter me as I employed Coiled Tiger and sent two spring-like slashes at the Demon's neck.
The Demon dodged backward but I kept up my assault, pushing forward with Tiger's Strike, thrusting my swords faster than bullets could travel and trying to pierce through the suit wearing Demon.
At least half of my strikes caught him lacking, which seemed to surprise him and wiped that look of apathy off his face as it twisted in anger. I didn't give him a chance to speak or counter as I thrust one last time and then twisted the blades once they'd entered, rending the flesh in the Demon's chest into a bloody mess.
Then it kicked me and I flew back into the wall not too far from me, creating a crater from the impact. I pushed through the impact and pushed off the wall, deepening the crater before the wall itself turned into an iron maiden and crushed me.
Hearing the snap behind me, I used the first stance, Tiger's Pounce, and appeared right in front of the Demon, landing a solid knee in it's stomach before slashing downward at it's arm.
And then I was back in the crater.
"I admit, for a mortal, you're impossibly strong," the abyss-mouthed Demon said, a reluctant respect in it's tone, "But you lack the existential power to go up against a Demon of my calibre."
My sternum and ribs were completely cracked. The arm I used to try and cut the Demon's arm off was twisted out of shape as well. Internal bleeding as well, throughout most of my organs. I was really fucking damaged.
And yet I cracked a smile.
"Here I thought..." I spat out some blood, "That everything here would've been taken out within a few attacks. But you," I untwisted my arm with my superior muscle control and channelled Chi through it to heal the damage. I did the same for my bones and organs as well. "You just made this place very interesting. I actually feel pressured to get better."
It felt nice to have a healing factor of sorts through my utter abundance of Chi. My Hamon made it easier to do it as well.
How about I try that new thing I developed? Yeah, let's give it a shot.
The Demon healed just as I did but I was planning to attack it so quickly it wouldn't be able to heal in time. Eleventh stance, Massacre. I charged the man, filling my arms with Chi and Hamon and forcing them to merge. The effects were instant, my veins bulging massively and my muscles tensing to such an extent that they nearly snapped.
My joints, oddly, relaxed and my arms swung wildly at the Demon. I pushed my eyes to their limit, my reaction speed to their limit, I pulled in every bit of oxygen I could and stuffed it into my blood. I drew every little bit of Chi out of myself that I could.
I felt elevated. Like I'd gone to a new level. The energy merged and infused throughout my flesh.
The energy even went through my skin and layered itself over my skin like an armor.
My strength entered a new level. And my slashes broke the sound barrier multiple time, visible shockwaves spreading outward behind my blade. The Demon was cut to ribbons. And the ribbons were cut to pieces. Then cut to shreds. It tried to heal but I cut them up even more, and poured more of this mysterious energy into my swords, gripping them harder and turning them red purely from my grip strength.
A red crack appeared behind the shredded Demon and it disappeared. And then I dropped to the ground. My arms were torn up and nearly destroyed. Not even Chi could help them right now - I'd have to naturally heal them. Should take a week or two.
But now I could see the direction I had to take. I needed strength and I know the path to take to get it. I needed durability and I know just the serum/experiment to use to get it.
I exited the Mirror Dimension just in time for the Ancient One to arrive.
"Took your goddamn time, didn't you?" I scoffed at her late appearance, "Too busy filling in mystical paperwork or something?" Her frown and worried expression, however, told me I probably wasn't the only one to have a run in with a Demon.
The times they are a-changin'.
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Dr_Scriven
Dr_Scriven What serum is he getting? The same one Luke Cage got before he underwent the Burstein Process. Why? Because he needs durability above all else and that experiment/serum brings with it further enhanced strength, speed and a genuine healing factor outside of him using Chi.
Now, if you think the end to that fight was anti-climactic, that's fine. But you gotta release that if that Demon decided to stick around, if only for a few more seconds, the MC would've been in deep shit. He basically bluffed his way into surviving. If a Demon a tier above the one in this chapter appeared, the MC would be dead or severely injured at the least. The MC is strong for a human but now he knows he needs to become strong, period.
Also, some of you are probably wondering who the love interest is. The answer? I have no clue. I can't think of anyone who can properly mesh with the MC. While he's got the physical body of a 25-year-old, he's mentally in his 60's/70's. I could see him and Black Widow getting together but it has some obvious problems, so who do you guys think would make a good love interest for the MC?
— Un nouveau chapitre arrive bientôt — Écrire un avis
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone