Lucius backed away even more, realising that this demon, while very physically strong and powerful, wasn't as dangerous as he had initially thought. He was so much faster, that if he wanted to he could just run away. But now that he realised his life or well…..essence? Wasnt in immediate danger he decided he would use this demon as a test dummy.
Lucius focused once again, trying to force his shadow tentacle into its coiled state, but this time, he was trying to do it while moving.
Lucius's eyes narrowed as he watched the wounded demon stumble and thrash, blood pooling around its destroyed head and mangled body. He took a deep breath, feeling the familiar surge of focus. His mind sharpened, and he concentrated on his shadow, willing the tentacle into its coiled, pounce-ready form while simultaneously moving.
'This feels a little easier already…..what the hell? This almost feels like cheating.'
[Self-Shadow Manipulation has reached level 2]
'So the skills level up when you get better at them…..or is it that it felt easier because it leveled up?' Lucius wondered
'No, it clearly felt easier even before it leveled up, this is probably just a visual indication.'
The tentacle still wasnt responding as fast as he would have liked but it was still better than when he first got it.
About a minute later, Lucius's shadow tentacle was coiled, ready to pierce and destroy. Lucius quickly ran up to the demon that was still trying to chase after him, he quickly dodged another strike of the creature throwing out a punch of his own at one of the demon's legs, causing it to buckle but not doing much damage.
The creature roared out in pain and suddenly opened its two other mouths….. and nearly took Lucius's head off with its long, sharp tongues. That was when Lucius decided to strike, his coiled shadow tentacle that was beside him this entire time suddenly lashed out again, causing the familiar air screeching sound as it destroyed another of the creature's heads.
Lucius didn't back away this time and continued attacking the demon with his fists, striking its legs the most to prevent it from moving.
Lucius wasn't tall enough to strike at its remaining head
And even if he was, the creature's tongue would likely destroy his hand, due to the speed at which it moved.
At this point, the demon wasn't even trying to prevent the damage Lucius was inflicting on it. It wasn't moving anymore and its body was curled up similar to a snake.
Seeing this Lucius decided to stop wailing on the poor creature and instead test out his other skills he had gained when choosing his last name.
A flowing dark purple aura slowly began to leak out of Lucius's body as it started to surround him magnifying his presence. The creature, who had realised his attacker wasn't attacking him anymore, turned to look at what had happened and backed away in fear from what it had seen.
The dark purple aura spilled out like liquid night, swirling around him in tendrils that flickered with a strange, dreadful glow. It intensified his presence, making him seem larger than what he actually was.
The creature's eyes widened, it tried to run away but every time it did try, Lucius would always be right beside it, scaring the shit out of it everytime.
Eventually it stopped moving and bowed its remaining head while quivering in fear.
'So Dread Inducement is super effective, though that may be because it was basically already defeated before.'
'Onto Shadow Corruption.'
Lucius held his hand out towards the demon and pulled on his power, causing a black aura to manifest in front of his palms. He noted it was much much easier to use than Self-Shadow Manipulation, in fact he would go as far as to say that none of the two skills, Dread Inducement or Self-Shadow corruption was nearly as easy to use as Shadow Corruption
The black aura slowly flew away from his hand towards the defeated creature, slowly seeping into its body. Suddenly, it stilled and then started to thrash around, stomping its feet on the ground as it did.
It eventually calmed down after five minutes had passed and Lucius now noted some changes happening to it. Its two heads that Lucius had destroyed before were now completely regenerated, along with the slight cuts Lucius had managed to inflict on it with the regular attacks of his shadow tentacle.
However, the regenerated parts were not from the creature's flesh, instead they were from shadow. Lucius had felt his shadow the moment he saw this and didn't feel anything off, he gained a sort of perception of his own shadow after he gained the skills for it so he assumed the shaodow being used to regenerate the creature was its own.
As soon as the creature finished regenerating Lucius felt a small connection build up in the back of his mind similar to the one he had with his shadow tentacle. He felt he could order it to do whatever he wanted and it wouldn't so much as complain.
It wasn't like the tentacle, which was a part of him since it was literally his shadow just in tentacle form. The creature could act and defend him on its own without any order input from him at all. However this was also something that he couldn't use much because it took a quarter of his infernal essence.
And the thing that caused Lucius to nearly break the connection instantly was that his Infernal essence was not regenerating past the quarter that had been taken.
After some thinking, Lucius came to the conclusion that as long as he had this creature bound to him that portion of his essence wouldn't come back.
'I don't know how Sung Jin Woo did it, one minion and my essence is already a quarter down.' Lucius thought
'Though technically he is basically the god of death in that universe so it's expected.' Lucius chuckled
Lucius nudged the little connection he had with the demon in his mind as he walked back towards his small base.
…..
…..
Lucius managed to reach a good distance away from his base before he had to stop in shock from what he was seeing.
About three kilometers away from the giant volcano Lucius based near were a group of humans, three of them in extremely noble and royal looking clothing. Their clothes had weird glowing symbols on it that Lucius assumed protected them from the environment since there was no way they could be alive without it.
'But these are different humans, they aren't weak like the humans from earth so I can't judge them based on that.' Lucius thought.
'And why are humans in hell?'
Lucius decided to move with extra caution and slowly move towards the group. He wasn't going to rush towards them like an idiot when he knew absolutely nothing about them and he also wasn't following them because he just got a sudden urge to kill them, that was definitely not the reason.
The humans were huddled up close together, checking their surroundings every so often to check if anything at all was nearby. None of them seemed very physically strong to him, based on their physique. They were all wearing those expensive mage-like robes that gave him the idea that they might be mages, extremely powerful ones if their clothes looked this expensive.
Lucius noted how each of them acted when moving, the girl was extremely jumpy, everytime she would turn head, trembling to something that was not there. The other girl however, seemed very confident and focused, Lucius had no idea if it was just confidence in her ability or dumb arrogance. The last member in their little party was the only male and the one that did most of the environmental checking.
The girls, especially the confident one, regularly ordered the guy around.
Lucius deemed he had enough information on them and now decided to test something. He still wasn't going to fight them himself, that was just plain stupid, instead he was going to send the demon he had defeated after them to test their capabilities and just how strong they really were.
He pulled on the connection he had with the demon in his mind and ordered it to attack and kill the three humans upfront. Lucius quickly went in another direction so as to not give himself away when the demon started charging.
And charging it did as the demon instantly started charging at the group the moment it received the order.
…
…
*Marcus POV*
'Maybe I made the wrong decision becoming a knight of princess Latina.' I thought
Her father had organised a large party for her after she had passed the exam for the Adventurer's Guild with flying colours. She had literally set a new record, she even beat the record made by the literal General of the king's army…..though the general made that record when she was younger.
It was still very impressive, but I think she let it get to her head. She dragged me with her, along with her other retarded sister and made some deal with some shady fucking mage that told her if she can defeat a demon and show proof, she would be worshiped and become queen.
I was so disgusted and disappointed with her I nearly slapped her in the face right then and there. And now after creating a portal to the fucking cursed dimension we are now here, in the literal home of the demons. The same demons that their newborns can fight and sometimes even kill our ADULT human soldiers.
I had to hold back a sigh lest Latina blasted me away, it was a good thing nobody could read my thoughts.
"Marcus." a cold feminine voice uttered
"Quickly pack up, we are moving until we see a demon." Latina uttered coldly
"Yes my princess." Marcus softly said, though internally he was raging
'WHY! Was I SO DUMB to follow this BITCH!?' Marcus screamed in his mind
I managed to calm my rage down in time to start packing up, I had brought like ten extremely high grade potions from my storage, potions that can heal a person from near death and with my proficiency in earth magic I could create basically a mini-house.
I had to use my own mana to create earth though since no matter what I did, I couldn't manipulate the earth of this dimension.
We continued walking for a few minutes not seeing any demons ... .or anything at all really other than giant volcanoes and a creepy looking sea.
Suddenly, Latina raised her hand signalling for us to stop.
"The ground...it is shaking." she said slowly
"Do you know what is happening?" She turned to me and asked
"I don't know my lady, maybe we should go back to the kingdom? It's too dangerous here." I said slowly so as to not enrage her.
Her eyes narrowed as she slowly turned to look at me, "So your saying I should give up and leave because im incompetent!?"
"Maybe I should feed you to whatever demon we find so you can learn some manners."
I panicked and my mind rapidly spun to try and find a solution, the solution came out as a stuttered apology and a deep bow.
"I-I wouldn't d-dare try to say your incompetent my lady, maybe the heat has gotten to me, im not thinking straight, I will be better!" I stammered out while giving her a very deep bow, as in literally prostrating.
"Hmph, see to it that you do become better, a queen does not need useless tools." She said
She eventually stopped staring me down and I finally had the chance to get up.
'I hate my life.'
Suddenly, the shaking of the ground started getting more intense as if someone or something was rapidly approaching us.
I instantly panicked and looked towards Latina to see what she was doing, hoping she had suddenly stopped being retarded and would let us leave.
Instead what I saw was a slight smile on her face as she prepared her magic..
The shaking finally reached its peak as in the distance I could make out a very very large creature running towards us, eventually I could make out its physical features and I knew right then and there that it was a demon.
Latina quickly raised her hand forming multiple ice shards in an instant and released all of them towards the creature.
I quickly started casting my only combat spell which was a summon golem spell as I realised with growing horror that the demon was shrugging off Latina's attacks like they were nothing and was getting closer and closer.
I finally finished casting my spell as I ordered the little golem to do whatever it could to stop the demon. It awkwardly wobbled towards the demon to do what I ordered.
While it was doing that I sneakily made my way towards Anissa, I wasn't going to die in this place because of a spoiled brat.
I made my way over to the shivering little girl, it seemed she had completely forgotten that she literally has a dimensional stone in her bag, she could literally escape right now.
'How are these two idiots royalty!?' I thought in annoyance
I didn't bother trying to act and instead just grabbed her bag from her and quickly backed away from her. She finally snapped out of her fear state as she suddenly realised her bag was gone.
The face she made would have made me burst out laughing if I wasn't in literal hell.
"Fucking idiots, oh and Latina….. FUCK YOU BITCH!" I shouted in happiness
That was the last thing I said before I crushed the stone in my hand and teleported back to the human world.
* Marcus POV end *