Chương 23: Chapter Twenty Three
You wish for a second how you left your rebreather at home and how you regret it.
Not because you need it, but because of style. Whatever, you'll just have to fashion one out of their skulls. Cracking one knuckle slowly, then the other you let out a grin and start just... venting that frustration about Frost.
Disregarding personal safety you plunge yourself into the depths. Your first act of war against the demons was to go all out and tackle one of them head on with full force.
The resulting impact was enough to reduce the hellspawn into a fine red mist as most of his bodily fluids got smeared all across you.
The white of your teeth shines through the red layer as you shout. "I'M NOT LOCKED IN HERE WITH YOU-" Then you cream another demon right next to you. "YOU'RE LOCKED IN HERE WITH ME!"
A full scale brawl then breaks out around you as the more guts demons shout "Get him".
You get dogpiled by the demons but with a fully charged body you let out a shockwave which sends most of them flying and then you get to pulverizing the rest. One cheeky little demon tries to sneak up on you and stab you in the back but you react by attempting to use your new trick and Flash Fist Crush his skull.
To your utter horror the technique fails miserably as it zig-zags all over the place.
You clench your fist for a moment in confusion as you think back on the Supreme Kais words. "Space-time is distorted."
"Huh... So he was literal. That's a problem."
You say as more demons swarm you. "No space or time huh? Well... Let's see if I can fix that!"
Throwing another Flash Fist Crush you pay close attention to it this time and make some adjustments to compensate for the difficult conditions. It pierces one demon... then the two dozen behind him. Giving your hand a good squeeze you grin. "Yeeeeah..."
With the sheer number of demons around you and a good two thirds of your abilities receiving a handicap this fight managed to push every aspect of you to its absolute limits. Power, speed, reaction time, endurance, stamina management. They all had to be absolutely perfect. But perhaps it's because of this dire situation that you managed to push yourself so far.
No matter their numbers, their power, their trickery, they all fell one by one... without ever laying a hand on you. Your vision went blurry and you almost felt yourself loosing yourself in the heat of battle. Only when the fight has ended and you found yourself grabbing and dislocating a demons jaw that you snapped out of your trance like state.
The ones that survived, were the ones that ran away. Most others are either dead or soon to be. The lucky ones were really the ones that got hit by a stray ki blast. Because they had it done quick. But folks like the poor fucker in your hand... well they got to suffer.
His jaw, covered in some sort of a bone plate, now hangs loose. Breathing heavily you decide to spare the guy and twist his head until it breaks. Then promptly tear off that little piece of bone his jaw and slaw it on your face.
One little bat like creature attempts to crawl away from you but when you notice him he stops. He does not dare make a sound only until you point at him and even then it's a yelp.
"Go... tell the others what you saw. Tell them to come... I'll be waiting..."
Flapping his wings he flies away in a fit of panic as he leaves you with the floating mound of corpses you just made. Standing there you giggle to yourself a little. "Oh what the fuck am I becoming? Well... Hell... here I come!"
After being amused by how far you've come, from your run of the mill pizzaboy to the mother fucking Doom Slayer, you realized one very important thing. As badass as you are, you are still human and as such susceptible to several things. Like needing sleep and food.
"Right... I'll need a roof over my head. Just need to decide where and where to find building materials." You look around you for a moment. "Heeey wait a min-"
And so you decided to extract as much material from the slain demons as possible. Bones for the framework, leather for the walls and insulation. After searching for a little while you found yourself a nice looking chunk of rock with some decent outcroppings that'd provide some good cover from the elements.
Getting in touch with the primitive, caveman part of your brain as well as all those episodes of Bear Grills dicking around in the wild you started to create a decent little hidey hole for yourself. It's not cozy by any stretch of the imagination but it'll do for now.
"Right... don't have nay material left for a bed but... Rocks are soft enough to sleep on, right?" You sit down. "I made a terrible mistake!"
After fabricating shelter from the remains of your slaughtered enemies you sought to secure your means of survival, food and water. Neither of which were easy. Food is... tricky when you don't know what's edible and/or poisonous. But by observing the local "wildlife", really just more mindless demons, and their eating habits you somewhat managed to figure out what constitutes as food. Water was a bit easier but just to be safe you decided it's best to start a fire with ki blasts and purify it.
Demons of course came. Usually they just added to your home which started looking more and more elaborate with each assault, until you had enough surplus materials to make some "deterrents" for the demons.
Soon enough however... your name started to spread as did the tales of your slaughters.
The number of demons tackling you decreased but the power of those that did increased.
And after a while. When you stalked the demons at night and listened in on them, you could hear them speak in hushed whispers of the one they call... the Doom Slayer!
It's been a couple of days now since you've entered the Makai. And each day brings new and exciting ways to torment you.
On top of the constant threat of demon attacks and the fear of starving to death you feel like you have to fight the very realm of Super Hell itself in order to survive.
Gravity, wind, air pressure and temperature are more like vague, made up concepts than anything else, each capable of rapidly changing every second. The only fortunate thing about this is the fact that at least it's not instant so you can react to it. But that's about it.
Other than that this realm can go fuck itself.
You suppose at least now you have less albeit more powerful demons storming your gates than when you started out. But suffice to say, you're pretty pissed off. Like all the time.
You haven't been able to sleep well for quite a while, your resources entirely depend on your luck and whether or not you can scrounge up anything edible and there is also the matter of getting stronger.
It's an... aggravating thing... Paranoia creeps up on you, wraps around your neck and doesn't let you go. But you don't hate it. Paranoia keeps you alive. It's the cause of your paranoia that you hate with a passion.
Not being able to sleep because you fear some horned beast sneaking up on you and murdering you in your sleep. Not exactly a thing that gives you sweet dreams. And you need to fix that. You read once that dolphins are capable of sleeping by shutting off one half of their brain at a time, while the other one is wide awake and watches for potential threats. While you doubt you could pull that off there IS something worth trying.
Crossing your legs you start focusing on emptying your mind until you enter a state of half sleep. It's not exactly easy to do as your body seems to react the slightest stimulus, trying to wake you up. But it's working.
And being semi conscious in this period has its... benefits. Namely that you can think over things that you've witnessed in your "dreams".
You recall each battle, each fight you undertook here in the Makai, analyzing the demons and their... unusual techniques.
As you repeat every motion and recall every detail you start realizing what's so... strange about these creatures. While they possess an increased level of Ki they hardly seem to use it. In fact their battle power remains constant throughout a fight, even as they die.
That catches your attention. Focusing on the matter more you start recalling their techniques. Elemental attacks like balls of fire being hurled at you, the very ground beneath your feet obeying their command and attacking you mercilessly as well as the conjuration of various objects and their manipulation. Suffice to say you've never encountered anything... quite like these.
And this little list doesn't even include their more bizarre abilities...
"What is their secret?" You wonder. "How can they fight without exhausting any of their reserves?"
But you suppose these are questions you'll have to find the answers to later. As no matter how hard you try to analyze the issue you aren't getting any closer. There is only so far you can get using your faulty memory.
You suppose next time you'll just have to focus more on the fight. Maybe now that you know what to look for you'll get somewhere.
Not bothering with this issue any more you allow your mind to freshen up a bit with this little "nap" of yours. Once your eyes open up you let out a relieved sigh. "Finally... I needed that."
Standing up and giving your numb limbs a good stretch you look around, scratching your stomach.
Cracking your neck you look around and let out a little smirk.
"Okay... Time to purge."
With a burst of energy you set out in pursuit of some... more worthy opponents. You garnered enough of a reputation already that when you show up somewhere the lesser demons scatter like a flock of birds. So you do not make an attempt at hiding your power as you scour the shifting wastes.
Eventually you find what you were looking for: Someone stronger than the average so they pose some challenge and whom might possess information you want. But not someone you can not handle just yet.
That comes later...
Flying on top of a hill overlooking an arena like flat piece of dirt you look down where a bug like demon with four arms, each holding a saber stands. He looks up at you nonchalantly. "So you're finally here... the Doom Slayer. I've been waiting for you to show up. Now come down here and face me!"
You float down and land a few paces in front of him. "You've been waiting for me? I'm honored. But you know how this ends... right?"
With a flurry of his blades he assumes his fighting stance. "Of course I do! With your head bringing me one step closer to becoming the Demon King!"
"Heh... Is that so?"
Standing still you invite him to come at you, which he does. Swords flailing around he closes the gap and swings his blade in your general direction. Dodging with ease you watch closely as his sword sends out a wave of energy which destroys all in its path.
Those things are brimming with energy as he extended his Ki aura around his weapons, causing them to be much more destructive than they ever could be on their own.
Watching carefully you wait for him to exhibit more exotic abilities but he doesn't.
Seems like you found yourself a brawler.
You continue to dodge him without much trouble even though you have to resort to using time-skip a couple times during the fight. But realizing that you won't learn much from this one you resign yourself to finishing this one quickly.
Once he makes a mistake and swings too wide you lock his arm between your biceps and forearm. Staring down at you in utter shock he doesn't even bother to swing with his other arms as he'd more likely chop off his own limb in the process. With a smug grin you look up at him.
"Hello there!" And you bring down your other arm, breaking his in the process. With a kick you send him flying backwards with his now limp arm. "A'ight. We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. The choice is yours. Either you'll start explaining a few things to me or I'll start plucking your arms one by one..."
Begrudgingly he agrees as he winces.
You ask him about how the Makai functions and whether it has any sort of leadership structure or not. To your surprise there IS apparently a system in place.
The mooks of the Demon Realm are not even given a name and they serve more or less as cannon fodder or food. They often scheme and plan but even in large numbers they hardly amount to anything, so most demons just ignore them. Above them however you'll start bumping into interesting figures.
Greater Demons are, as the name implies, greater than the lowest ranking ones.
These are the particularly powerful individuals, like this bug feller over here, who managed to carve some sort of a territory out for themselves. They often have to fight with their neighbors who'd take away what they have and keep watch for larger packs of lesser demons. But over all they are still not much if this guy is anything to go by.
However there are two ranks above Greater Demon, first being the Elite Demon. These are basically warlords that are so powerful they managed to subjugate several Greater Demons and rule over large areas the size of countries...
And everyone previously mentioned belongs under a single individual: The Demon King, the strongest demon of them all. The Demon King usually has a family and the title is passed on once an heir becomes stronger than their ancestor. However if someone can beat the Demon King in a duel the title falls on them as well as all the power that comes with it.
After telling all that the little demon seems to start getting nervous. "I-I told you everything!
So let me go already!"
You grab him by the neck and lift him up.
"Okay beetleborg... That's nice and all but there's one thing that's been bugging me this whole time. You creatures keep attacking me over and over again, using whatever whacky gimmick you may have. But while I'm running on a timer you seem to be capable of going for as long as you want without your power diminishing! Tell me what's up with that! Now..."
"H-Heh... You'd... like to know... wouldn't you!"
He acts smug as you choke on him but once you squeeze him JUST a bit tighter he starts singing to you real quick. "AGH! I'LL TALK! I'LL TALK! L-Listen mortal... You have no idea about who or what we are! We may share your primitive... energy... but we don't use it! Our power stems from far deeper than you can even comprehend! What you see us use is..."
He starts smiling smugly. "Magic!" He pauses.
"Surprised? Yeah I'm sure you are... Our powers are far beyond your comprehension! What's fantasy for you is reality for u-"
"Oh is that so? Well, I figured it's something like that. Just wanted to make sure. But now that I know what to look for my job will be that much easier."
"Hah! You think you can master the arcane arts?! Such arro- GAH! OKAY OKAY! NO MORE! I'LL SHUT UP!" He pants as you loosen your hold a bit. *pant pant* "Okay... I told you what you wanted to know! So let me go already!"
"Nuh-uh... I was thinking... since I already got you here maybe you could... enlighten me.
Since I'm just a foolish mortal..."
"I-I'd rather die! You think I'd give you strength?! You are out of your mind!" There is something about the way he looks at you that's disturbing. You sense that... he's not kidding about rather dying. Perhaps it's their culture which is centered around power that makes him utterly detest the idea of helping someone else get stronger, perhaps it's just a warriors mindset or he simply hates you with such a passion that he'd rather spite you even if it means death.
You kick him in the stomach and as he falls on his ass you lean over him. "How about no?"
"W-What?!"
"You said it yourself... Demons respect strength. And I'm stronger than you. Your life is in my hands. You live... because I allow it. And you'll die when I demand it. You are henceforth my follower... whether you like it or not."
You see something swell up in the demons eyes. It's something you are very familiar with: Incoherent rage. What he feels is probably what a human would feel when a cockroach would suddenly order it around. Absolute disgust.
But he knows he can't take you, he's not dumb. So he does the only logical thing... and tries killing himself. But you don't let him. Before he even realizes it all his swords are snatched away during a little time-skip.
He stares up at you as you hold his swords.
"You die... when I allow it... Is that clear?"
He does not respond. "I see... so you'd rather be food then..."
"H-Huh?!"
You lick your lips. "Yeah... I think that's for the best. I'll drag you back home... and I'll turn you into a meal. But I won't kill you of course. Wouldn't want your meat to spoil!"
"W-WHAT?! Y-YOU'RE JUST A MORTAL! I AM A GREATER DEMON! WHAT ARE YOU?!"
"Silly little demon... Hell hath no fury... like a good man going to war... Now... make your choice!"
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