"Hah!" Krune grunted, slashing the two ice swords down on the Black Demon, watching it melt them by covering its fists with fire.
Soon after, the miasma in the region had swirled around, seeping into the Black Demon constantly as it replenished its reserves. In any case, the two sides were at a stalemate. Ignoring it, Krune slashed time after time, inflicting freezing gashes onto the Black Demon.
In response, the Black Demon thawed the ice using its fire, regenerating its energy. However, it didn't have a good time either. When it inflicted wounds on Krune, he regenerated at the same pace as it. On top of that, he hadn't absorbed the miasma or anything of the sort.
'From where does he obtain such a frightening quantity of energy to use? Is this new race really so scary?' The Black Demon was worried. And adding onto its worries was Hazak, one that was a demon but was different from a demon in quite a few ways.
The first was the fact that it didn't seem to be influenced by the instinct ingrained into a demon, one that forced them to march towards the cities. It was just a Red Demon, but it seemed unaffected by that.
The second was the fact that it was evolving into a Black Demon, something that was impossible for all the demons. Their color remained the same from their birth to their death. The third was the fact that it was subservient to Krune, and the fourth was its scaly appearance.
The Black Demon was assured that Hazak was different from all the demons.
'I should get rid of them before researching their corpses to figure out their secrets,' the Black Demon thought, condensing a fireball that it blasted into Krune's face.
Krune condensed a layer of ice on his face on time, defending against the heat while something hit him in the chest, sending him flying back. By the time he eradicated the fire burning through his face, he had faced a flurry of attacks, causing all the ice he had erected as a defense to shatter.
Hurriedly healing himself, Krune panted a little, realizing that the Black Demon was indeed troublesome. It was further attributed to the fact that they were fighting in a place filled with miasma, giving the home ground advantage to the Black Demon.
'It seems I cannot win without going all out.' Krune thought, shouting at Hazak, "Take care of the items. I'm bringing down the Cloud Whale."
"Yes!" Hazak shouted in response, stopping its act of absorbing the miasma as it watched the Cloud Whale arrive before it, vanishing once it touched the steps leading towards the battlefield. Hazak then hurriedly flashed before it, guarding the tank filled with the Healing Extract and the bag Krune had packed.
It controlled the miasma, absorbing it while creating a ring around the items, preventing any miasma from touching them. Its figure flashed for a moment, killing all the demons on the flight of stairs before returning to its station.
Now that he had retracted his Cloud Whale, Krune was at his full strength, causing intense gales to ripple from him as he activated his active ability, generating air currents that increased his speed.
He immediately flashed before the Demon God, now faster than it, as he attacked it in a flurry. He layered every attack with his ice, beginning to freeze the Demon God's body. As the Demon God retaliated, he suffered some wounds, healing them automatically as he simply focused on the attacks.
"Haha, you're getting slower. So, your energy isn't infinite." The Demon God cackled upon seeing his panting figure.
"Is that so?" Krune smirked, shattering an ice sphere in his stomach, causing all the Healing Extract from within to spill out. His stomach digested it readily, replenishing his energy in droves, quickly filling up all the five crimson rings of his Ocean Heart while also revitalizing his body in the process. Grinning, Krune punched the Demon God and said, "What do you have to say now?"
"Impossible!" The Demon God was shocked, having watched Krune recover in real-time. It was shocking because he hadn't absorbed any miasma or any other energy of sorts to recover, giving him an air of mystery, causing the Demon God to feel a tinge of fear.
For a moment, it wished to escape. After all, it had already perfected the method to generate Spiritual Energy. It had only been sitting at the steps because it knew that Spiritual Energy was just the first form of energy.
It knew that the final form of this energy was called Godly Energy, the energy the first generation of humans complained about being unable to wield when they arrived at the place. So, it had hoped to continue siphoning Spiritual Energy from the city until it was able to increase the rate of siphon and improve the energy quality to higher levels.
If it wasn't because the cities had the Godly Summon to rely upon in times of crisis, it would have already stormed into a city and killed all the humans. In the past, it had sent in hundreds of Red Demons as a group, storming into the city.
But when cornered, the humans sacrificed their lives, activating the Godly Summon to blast energy attacks on the Red Demons, killing them all. By using the Demon Cores of all the Red Demons, the city had grown stronger as a result.
Unless it had obtained enough strength to overwhelm the Godly Summon, the Black Demon had planned to wait while growing in strength. But now that it faced a powerful foe, it wished to run and focus on increasing its reserve of Spiritual Energy first.
But unfortunately for it, thanks to the air currents, Krune was faster than it, always remaining on its tail as he attacked it. Suddenly, he condensed the Cloud Whale in his hand, wielding it like a knife as he pierced the needle into the Black Demon's leg.
The Cloud Whale injected Frozen Blood into the Black Demon, numbing its legs a bit. Wielding it like a knife, Krune pierced the Black Demon in multiple places, always injecting Frozen Blood into its body while he attacked, realizing that this tactic of his was the strongest counter to any foe.
Even though it continued to absorb the miasma in large droves, the Black Demon was unable to eradicate the Frozen Blood in its body fast enough. After all, Krune was just stabbing into it every time he attacked and continued to inject Frozen Blood into its body.