1574: One Word

One Word

BANG!1

A familiar golden spear, marked with hexagonal scales and a harpoon-like blade appeared, its tip ripping through the air from above and right onto the demon ape's skull.

This time, the demon ape had no ability to maintain its balance. Its face was crushed into the ground, a violent upswell of land rippling out in all directions as Leonel's body blazed with flames.

The black flames the demon ape's body was covered in were unceremoniously swallowed, its mouth unleashing a howl of pain and horror.

It swiped upward, catching Leonel in the arm and bending his body into a sickening shape.

BANG!

Half of Leonel's armor shattered, his ribcage collapsing and his arm becoming nothing more than sludge. The bones within were completely unrecognizable, a mess of flesh, bone and gore.

He shot back like a speeding bullet, rocketing through the air as though sent out of a compressed canon. The harsh winds only seemed to make his injuries worse, threatening to shatter what remained of his armor and body.

Aina flashed forward as Leonel was knocked backward, one hand fanning outward and the other swinging her ax with all her might down the demon ape's head.

She had realized why it was that Leonel had said that this was a pure strength demon despite the fact it was wreathed in flames. These weren't normal flames. Rather, they were the manifestation of this ape's Life Force. It was so strong that it manifested into a tangible form that could be seen with the eyes, even hiding the demon's ape fur.

The moment she saw it in action, her body, too, lit up with raging flames, the blood around her combusting with vitality that quickly coated her skin.

Her spread hand gripped at the air, ripping up at the wound Leonel had made on the back of the demon ape's thick skull. A strong Life Force fought back against her, making it feel like an impossible tug of war to win, but it was at that moment that she unleashed a roar, the vibrant crimson flames dancing across her body and coalescing into wings on her back.

Her battle ax grew a size, her jet-black hair growing into a shimmering black waterfall and a solid crimson armor manifested upon her.

The Gold Tablet within her Ethereal Glabella resonated with a pulsing radiance and together, they managed to pull out a single drop of blood from the demon ape's body.

That single drop of black-red blood rushed toward Aina, crashing into her forehead and causing her body to erupt with black flames. Her vitality skyrocketed and her body followed suit.

She swung down, hard, aiming for the very same wound Leonel had originally formed.

At that same moment, the demon ape was trying to rise to its feet, its power gathering in its arms and legs as it shot up.

Momentum clashed against momentum.

There was simply no way that a single drop of this blood could compare with the entire six meter tall body's worth that the demon ape had, Aina knew this. So, she didn't reserve any of it, burning it all into a single, wild and unrestrained attack.

BANG!

Aina's ax cut into the demon ape's skull by an entire half inch, the roar of pain unleashed by the ape was enough to make the earth rock and quake.

The ape's head was crushed into the ground once again, Aina pressing with all the strength she could muster just to drive her ax down just another quarter inch. And yet, she knew well that she still hadn't managed to make it to the demon ape's brain.

BANG!

A slight whimper left Aina's lips. The slap of the ape was simply too fast and too abrupt. Although it couldn't see or use its Internal Sight properly, the moment Leonel and Aina attacked, it could use its instincts to lash out at their location. By then, its speed was too fast and they were simply too close to avoid it.

Aina's crimson armor shattered completely, her body distorting almost entirely into a bloody mess. While her physical strength was on par and often even greater than Leonel's own, when it came to physical defenses she couldn't hold a candle to Leonel. If not for the manifestation of this crimson armor, and its strengthening until the demon ape's own blood, she very well might have been blasted into a curtain of mist with just that single slap.

That said, while her body hadn't been completely vanquished, an entire half of it had been.

Her arm and her leg completely disappeared as though by some sort of sick magic trick, the bloody mist that should have been left of them being dispersed under the wind pressure of the attack.

Her body shot out even faster than Leonel's had, the demon ape clearly having been truly enraged this time.

Leonel's eyes went red in the distance. Half his armor was gone and one of his arms couldn't even function properly. He saw exactly what had happened to Aina, but with his senses locked onto the demon ape, he could also see that the wound they had tried so hard to make in its head was already rapidly closing.

Leonel unleashed an enraged howl, his hair, eyes and tails turning almost entirely crimson. A fiendish aura wafted out from him as his flames erupted.

At that moment, his right kidney seemed to have been unleashed from its shackles, a burning sensation rushing through his body.

Leonel's Starry Light Domain activated, his body turning into nothing more than a beam of light as he flashed from several kilometers away to above the shrinking wound in a mere instant.

Right this moment, Leonel simply didn't feel like speaking out a poem of words. He felt that sometimes, the number of words didn't matter. Sometimes, in the right moment, with the right mindset, just a single word was enough.

He lifted up his one good arm, half his body bloodied gore and the other half a cobbled mess of fractured plate armor.

"Die."

At that instant, Leonel's Spear Force was no longer golden. Instead, it was a deathly crimson that bathed the world in red. 

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