章 8: A Royal Demon's Magic
Leila leaped into the air, crossing a dozen meters and landing gently by Adam's side. She wrapped her arms around him and stared at Raum with a cocky 'I told you so' victory smile before laughing again, and this time, Adam could not help but laugh with Leila.
Adam never knew he had it in him to laugh down at people like this, and maybe it was because he was being influenced by a part of Leila's heart being inside of him, but he laughed with her, and where she laughed with hand to her mouth and head held up high, he crossed his arms and smirked.
As the laughter rang in the air, Raum's embarrassed blush grew even deeper, almost fully red around her already drunken flushed cheeks, but then something changed about her.
Raum snapped.
Raum grit her fanged teeth, her embarrassment turning into red hot anger completely uncharacteristic of her usual tiredness. Her red lips curled up, revealing all of her razor sharp teeth, and her eyes widened and flickered with raging, flaming red.
"I-I will not be looked down upon!" shouted Raum, her voice distorting even more inhumanly to the point that Adam's skin crawled when he heard it. Her voice projected outwards in forceful shockwaves, flattening the grass around her and shaking the branches of trees nearby.
It was a horrible, guttural voice fitting for a being meant to slaughter and torment humans.
Raum gripped the shadowy pen in her hands tight, the black veins in her pale arm bulging. The pen shattered, and an explosive aura of black magical energy flickered around Raum, turning all the grass and plants around her into withered, dead husks.
The ground started to shake and howling winds started to whip around Raum in the beginnings of a natural disaster.
"Alright, my darling," said Leila as she grasped at Adam's shoulders. "It is time to go. Raum might act like a dignified royal demon tired of everything around her, but when she gets annoyed, a...switch in her flips, and she can get quite unreasonable like this.
Unleashing her full power in the open – does she WANT the mages and church to come crawling down here?"
"Full power? How much power are we talking about?" said Adam as he sensed Raum's strength spiking exponentially. Whatever power she was emitting before against Adam was nothing in comparison.
It felt like he was at the precipice of a volcano, watching helplessly as the magma surged in preparation for an eruption.
"Enough to destroy a country, maybe?" said Leila with a cutely cocked head, as if a destroyed country was the most casual thing in the world for her to consider.
Adam, oddly, still did not feel any fear from hearing this. Instead, as his own red eyes focused on Raum, as her crow wings became far larger, wreathed in shadowy energy that crackled with fierce power, he felt…hungry?
That heat inside of him that he felt when he fought, the heat that seemed drawn to danger and power, the heat that was just itching to break out, became red hot now.
That heat in Adam's heart told him to move forward, to take Raum's attack. His entire body felt hot now, electrifyingly hot like how he got when he was at the peak of an intense workout.
His hands, especially, felt like they were on fire.
"Darling-," said Leila as she tugged on Adam's shoulder. She began to worry as she saw Adam's gaze fixated on Raum. "You cannot survive a full attack from her. Even I cannot.
But Royal Demons cannot use their full power in the Overworld properly, not without a proper compatible host or strong physical anchor, and a single tiny little crow is not nearly enough for Raum to fully manifest.
Once Raum uses this one attack, the crow she is using as an anchor will break apart, and she will have to return to Hell. All we have to do is leave, and we win.
Or…or is it-,"
Leila's eyes narrowed, and a fiery black aura started to manifest around her as her lips twisted into rage. "Is it that she has captured your heart? Is that why you want to stay?"
"Nothing like that," said Adam. He pulled Leila in and gave her a kiss on the forehead, instantly dissolving her tension. Her narrowed eyes widened in surprise as she blushed again, shyly looking away.
"Ugh!" said Raum as she started to float in the air. Her wings had grown to an enormous size by now, easily each a dozen meters across, and it was very evident that those wings belonged to a monstrosity far, far larger than any human.
She looked down at Adam and Leila with disgust, though her face flushed red even deeper at the sight of the kiss. "Seeing stuff like that makes me nauseous. Romance this, love that, whoever needs any of that!? Huh!?
Princess, please move. This human wants to challenge me, so I will give him my best."
"Do not be a sore loser, Raum! We've already won-," began Leila indignantly, but Adam put a finger to her lips.
"Leila, trust me. I know what I'm doing...mostly. And I really want to drill it into her that I've won, and what better way than to beat her at her best?" said Adam. "I can pull this off, Leila, and you said you would believe in me, right?"
Leila quietened up and nodded meekly, blushing as she felt Adam's finger against her lips. She kissed his finger and nodded, drawing back.
Raum took her glasses off, neatly folding them into the pocket of her vest. Without her glasses, she looked noticeably younger, more energetic, and fiercer. "The princess is right. I am good for only one attack unleashing a fraction of my true power like this.
But you are a fool to not keep the princess with you. Her Shadowflame can break apart anything, even a stronger attack from me. That you would not use her to secure your survival is utterly foolish indeed."
"That's the thing," said Adam as he shook his head. "I get the impression Leila is done with people wanting her for what she can do for them and how they can use her, not for who she is."
Raum paused for a moment, visibly raising a brow as she processed Adam's words. She shook her head. "Hmph! Such silly human ideals. Yet how will they save you from this!?"
Raum flapped her giant crow wings, and black feathers fell from them, shaping into quills. They levitated in the air and began drawing by themselves.
Adam felt his heart skip a tiny beat as he saw just how much stronger this attack was than before.
Maybe thirty drawn attacks, and the drawing were far better.
Fully sketched out swords, spears, scythes, chains, flames, and things that Adam could not even describe were all pointed menacingly down towards him.
But the more magical energy Adam saw in front of him, the hungrier he got. The hotter the fire became in his heart and his hands.
"Raum," said Leila from the side as she bit her lip nervously at the scale of the attack too. A full-fledged strike from one of the Seventy-Two Great Demons, even a single one, could blow apart this entire Meadow in one fell swoop.
Leila's demeanor shifted into oozing bloodlust. "If you end up killing my darling, just know that once I return to Hell, once I regain my own power, it's your head I'll be after.
You may have raised me since I was young, but I will not hesitate to put your head on a stake and torment it through eternity."
"Princess, if your Bond cannot even take a single attack from a proper Royal, how can he ever lay claim to the throne of Hell? How can he ever stand by your side at the throne?" said Raum. "If he cannot do even this much, he is not fit to wed you."
With that, Raum flicked her hand towards Adam, and the weapons she had drawn all flew towards him.
Adam's body moved for him. He thrust his open palms out at the sea of incoming destruction, as if his hands were magnetically drawn to the massive swirl of magical energy building up before him.
Logically, Adam knew that just holding his hands out would do nothing against an attack of this scale, an attack that could blow up an entire building wholesale, but he was not afraid.
No, he was eager. He smiled broadly, his sharp teeth growing even more bestial, and he felt the skin on his head split further as the stubs of his black horns grew fully, growing out to almost the length of his head in curved, serrated arcs.
The weapons slammed into Adam's hands, but instead of exploding and disintegrating him and everything around him to ash, it was the weapons that broke apart.
They shattered like glass, the countless shattered shards funneling into Adam's hands.
Around Adam's hands was darkness. Darkness so pure that it absorbed everything, every little photon of light, completely.
It was as if Adam's hands were coated in vantablack, and anything magical that came into reach of them simply broke apart and funneled into them like they were two miniature black holes.
"Darling!? Shadow Magic!? You have developed it already!?" exclaimed Leila as she looked Adam up and down. She saw the horns emerging from his head, the wings starting to tear through the back of his suit jacket, and the darkness in his hands.
Shadow Magic was the signature magic of Hell Demons and reserved only to those that had Royal blood flowing through them, and it manifested uniquely among every single royal demon. It was powerful magic derived from the beginning of creation itself, a remnant of the darkness that existed before the phrase 'let there be light' was uttered.
Leila had always, always believed that Adam, her beloved, would unlock Shadow Magic because he had a Gene that made his body and blood full of potential, and with Leila's own royal blood running through him, it was only a matter of time.
But like Raum had implied, Leila thought Adam would take years, decades, perhaps even a century to fully mature into his strength.
Instead, Adam had unlocked his Shadow Magic within the span of two days.
Leila smiled widely; her fangs bared in lustful, predatory gaze as her desire for Adam intensified beyond measure. Her entire body shuddered in barely contained admiration and want.
She put her hands to her face not in a shy blush, but in restraint, stopping herself from at that moment flying forwards and tackling into her love.
Her love had manifested Shadow Magic, the power of Demonic Royalty! Proof that he could walk down the aisles of Hell and rule it with her!
"Yes, yes, darling! I knew you were the one!" shouted Leila.
Raum blinked several times in complete shock. All of her attacks had been broken down and absorbed. She even rubbed her eyes before putting back her glasses and narrowing her eyes, as if trying to read text too small for her. Her disbelief settled, and her calm and tired demeanor returned to her in an instant.
Her crow's wings dispelled, shrinking, and returning to their normal size as she floated down to the ground, her energy spent.
Adam stood there, huffing and puffing as adrenaline poured through him. The hunger he felt was now completely satisfied, and in the place of hunger, he felt relief that he was alive. With all of the shadow constructs absorbed, he saw a message appearing in his head.
His Power Matrix.
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[An attack from the Great Demon Raum has been absorbed]
[The spell: Delineas (7th Tier) has been stored for later usage]
<Stored Magic>
1. Delineas
Spell Rank: 7th tier
Description:
The Shadow Magic of the ancient demon known Raum, one of the Seventy Two Great Demons of Hell. By using shadow magic to sketch one's thoughts, it is capable of bringing life and form to them, creating devastating constructs based on how much magical energy the user is willing to input.
Currently, only a single attack containing mana equivalent to the 7th tier has been absorbed. This attack consists of a barrage of manifested weapons and explosives meant for large scale destruction.
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