Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Mark stood tensely, eyes shut tight as he thought with his full mind. He had decided to battle the Armor, and he didn’t want to just wait for it to come without preparing any traps.

Sadly, it was already too close and at most, some seconds remained before it reached him. Of course, Mark didn’t think petty traps he could cook up in mere seconds could hurt it by much, but every advantage was important.

Dona has that demonic trick to plant landmines, and that might be useful. But the Armor is just seconds away from reaching me.

He could bring Dona out and make her plant the mines, but that might put her face to face with the Armor when it does reach him. He had confidence in his current self to survive the initial bout but he didn’t have that same confidence when it came to Dona. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

If that Armor came face to face with her, even if it was only at the level of the Savage Lord himself, it could destroy her quite easily. And Mark didn’t want to see that happen.

Dona was required to be out of the World Space for her Tricks to reach their full potential anyway.

And I just don’t want to put her in harm’s way when it is not of much use.

That made the traps he could create in that short time very limited. But still, in one second, Mark decided on the best traps he could create in that short moment and got to work.

In precisely 78.90 seconds, a presence that shook his very soul reached outside the dungeon he was in.

"So grand," Mark said, smiling nervously.

A metallic clang echoed as an armored foot stepped into the cave and soon enough, a chilling sensation weighed upon the entire cave.

Mark saw it in the flesh, an appearance of sheer grandeur.

It was an armor with intricate designs, and instead of a person within its confines, there was a dark mist that took the vague form of a human. But it was hidden within its masked and armored form. it walked in, its platinum surface suddenly having small slits opening on it everywhere.

Mark took two steps back.

Eye of Heaven?

It had eyes all over its body, and taking a blind side to attack wouldn’t work against it. That was not as good as the Soul Sense that demons had, but it was still a strong power. And Mark felt that he was in front of a master like none he had seen before when it came to using its abilities.

Sweat dripped from Mark’s face, and he revealed a rather wretched smile, feeling miserable.

He said, looking at the unmoving armor, "As I predicted, you are not much stronger than the Savage Lord, at least, you and he are of the same Tier at least. Your evolution tier didn’t increase, it is still just at the Pinnacle of Tier 2."

The armor walked forward, each step building an intangible pressure on Mark.

It asked, voice rough, "What if that is the case?"

The Savage Lord and the Armor were both of the same Tier—Tier 2 Pinnacle. That was the limit in this world, and unless the world grew stronger by eating World Cores, no one in this world could become Tier 3. Not even demons and weapons.

They might be able to elevate their battle strength to that level with things like Mask of the Savage but they could never evolve. If they wanted to evolve, they had to go to a world strong enough to bear them.

Mark felt himself shrink.

The way the Armor moved, the way it aligned itself, the way its hands were ready to summon a weapon. The grace by which it was alive. And everything else—this was a monster. How much did it have to train to achieve such a form?

How many battles had it fought?

What kind of monstrous rivals had it faced to be so incredible?

How many years had it just done training without focusing on anything else?

10 years? 50? 100? 500?

How many had died in its hand?

Why did those eyes hidden behind the helmet, dark and transparent, seem so wise?

How many years has it been alive?

"You are no match for me," the Armor said, walking past him. "Your blade can never reach me. Your mind hasn’t seen true war, your eyes haven’t laid upon true horrors, nor has your heart borne the true pain of life and death. Such a measly creature could never reach me, even if I were but five tiers weaker than them."

Mark felt its shadow bury him in its darkness as it moved past him, past the fallen demonic corpses he had defeated. Reaching beside a particularly insignificant demonic corpse, a Lower Demon, it squatted down.

Turning back, Mark looked at the scene silently, clenching his hand.

"Isn’t it time for you to stop acting, Demon Emperor Erdhos?" the Armor asked coldly.

The Lower Demon stirred slightly, then began transforming. Amidst a bunch of writhing flesh, it grew into a different form—the form of a man. But it didn’t stop there and began growing more heads, and more arms, and soon enough, an eight-headed, eight-armed man stood facing the Armor.

Mist swirled around it, covering its face and surrounding the entire dungeon.

"How did you find out I was in this World, War Slayer?" the mist-soaked man asked.

"I saw mist demons," the Armor said with a cold tone. "Mist demons who could use their mist to hide from the World’s Will, who else could it be but you, the greedy pup?"

The Demon Emperor laughed, mist dancing around it. "So War Slayer, I have been watching you for years now. The World Will here copied you and created a race from you to fight my minions—the Savages. It was quite fun."

"Only you, with your hundreds of clones can waste time so uselessly."

"Oh, it is not useless. Who wouldn’t want to fight the War Slayer Armor when it was at its weakest?" The mist roiled in the man’s hand. "What do you say, become mine and I will bring you back to your peak."

"You weren’t born when I was ruling the battlefield," it replied calmly.

A silence hung heavy for a second.

Demonic Trick—Mist Blade!

A dome of glass around the Armor that appeared just in time blocked the Mist Blade and a sword flashed into the Armor’s grips, cutting one of the eight arms of the enemy at a speed Mark could barely even see.

Another Mist Blade moved covertly from the back but the Glass Dome easily defended again.

Then, without continuing, the Armor simply made the sword disappear.

Mark reeled back. How?

It had used the Glass Dome to defend itself and Weapon Creation to attack at the same time. Was it not impossible to use Glass Dome while attacking? Wouldn’t that defense interfere with the user’s own attack, too?

Reol’ran said with a sharp hiss: "What great subtle control. It is using those two demonic tricks simultaneously in a way I can’t understand. Its control and battle sense is on a level of its own!

"Mark, the Armor doesn’t seem to be on your tail at all, and this is clearly beyond us. Even a Demon Emperor’s clone or something of that sort is involved. We should remove ourselves from this, it’s too early for us."

Mark was unresponsive, just staring at the two creatures from a distance.

"They might look like Tier 2 creatures," she warned. "But their strength, control, and experience is beyond anything you—and me—have. Do you think staying here is still worth it?"

Mark clenched his hand.

"I know what you are thinking," she said, not against the idea but thinking of its repercussions. "I don’t think it will work. Maybe it will work on that Demon Emperor, but I have a feeling it will not work on the Armor."

He replied, "Clown’s Circus is ready to be activated. Its downtime is over, don’t you understand, the chance the Armor can resist is low. We already know all its abilities! But I can’t sense anything from that Demon Emperor even with the system."

That was his biggest guarantee of staying here in the first place, Mark wasn’t the type to let everything go to luck and that, Clown’s Circus, was his biggest trump card.

Reol’ran took a deep breath. "For now, just watch. Use it when you see a good opportunity."

"You haven’t rusted, Armor," said the Demon Emperor.

"And you haven’t grown much, pup. Still the same rat who sniffed around in my toilets."

Suddenly, they both blurred.

Demonic Trick—Ethereal Mist Movement.

Aura Teleportation.

Anywhere the Armor had walked, it could teleport there.

Appearing behind the eight-armed creature, a sword flashed once more but this time, no arm was cut. Instead, the creature itself turned into mist and another of it appeared beside the Armor, all arms heading for a hug.

"Hmph!"

The Armor raised a hand to block but immediately, it looked back.

A covert Mist Blade had sunken into its greave, lower leg.

The armor vanished and appeared some distance away. Then, it looked down at its own slightly broken greave with a cold expression and turned to look at a fallen demon corpse beside it. With a quick move, it plunged its sword into the demon and the demon vanished into smoke and was soon absorbed.

Blood Healing.

It could heal with the corpses of its slain enemies.

Once again, not giving the Armor any time, the Demon Emperor moved closer, eight Mist Blades in hand. And this time, the Armor faced it with a slight incoherence in its perfect movements, it had been affected by the earlier attack.

The Demon grinned.

Demonic Trick—Anti-Defense.

Purely defensive abilities like Glass Dome could no longer be used in this area.

The eight swords all moved down to chop at the Armor. But surprisingly, the incoherence in its perfect movements vanished and it moved forward to face the Mist Blades calmly. All eight sharp blades touched the Armor and could not move an inch further.

Clang!

"As foolish as ever. You seem to not even remember all my powers—or are you just that delusional due to your greed?"

Nullification!

Any ability blocked by its greaves, the Armor would gain complete resistance to it. The Mist Blade ability had become completely useless against it the moment it was touched by the greaves.

Its gauntlets gained sharp knives as nails and it pierced the Demon Emperor’s chest with it. Chainsaws appeared all over its body riggt after and soon enough, Mark could see the arms of the Demon Emperor flying around, shredded.