Chapter 45 : Getting an Op Skill

"Bastard..."

Accompanied by a huge roar. The demon climbing on the tree kicked the branch under his feet and the huge branch easily broke because of his kick. At the same moment, the demon's figure also bounced up like a ping-pong ball and floated in the air.

Under the bamboo hat, Haruto raised his head. In the middle of a full moon, the figure of a demon descended from the sky, waving its sharp claws, it bee lined straight towards him.

Haruto put his hand on the hilt of the blade, without any thought of retreating. His fingers tightening around the hilt, he waited for the demon patiently. The demon bounced quite high with his ability than he jumped again in midair taking the air as medium and came toward Haruto with explosive speed.

Since Haruto remained in his position, the demon quickly reached him and waved his claw straight toward Haruto's head. Since the claw carried the previous momentum of the jump with the additional force of swinging, it literally tore through the air towards Haruto. In response Haruto just swung his blade toward the claw with all his strength. Both the claw and blade with explosive strength met in midair but..

"Ssstreeeek!!"

Instead of the loud sound of the claw and blade clashing, only a paper cutting like sound ringed out. The demon was astounded, since instead of the predicted clash between the blade and his claw, the blade just passed through his claw like a scissor cutting a paper and since his body was still filled with momentum, the blade easily divided his body in two parts.

Just one clean strike and demon was divided into two parts. Blood splattered all over the air and fell to the ground. Well all of this was in Haruto's expectation, since compared with the 'Demon claw' skill of the first demon he encountered, which makes the claws especially hard like the nichirin blades, the claws of this demon although sharp, they were still not comparable to the nichirin blades. So the result was delivered as he expected because of his superior speed.

The body of the demon slowly began to turn to ash. However, Haruto was still focused around his surrounding without letting his guard down. Haruto was still vigilant because when his blade cut across the demon body, the demon's eyes were surprisingly devoid of fear and the demon hadn't used his other skill.

Suddenly Haruto swung his blade behind him, which made the demon who was sneaking an attack on Haruto retreat hastily. When Haruto turned to face the demon, he saw two identical demon standing there. Which taking along the dismembered body were three bodies of the demon and it didn't seem like any of the bodies were fakes. 

"Tch, bastard. Did you think just killing me once will be enough to take me down. Just you wait when I catch you, I will make sure to tear you apart piece by piece."

The demon spoke through the mouth of the both bodies.

'So that's the ability 'Splitting'?'

Looking at the two demons that appeared in front of his eyes, Haruto murmured slightly and could feel that these two demons were indeed real bodies not some illusion. So the ability was an overpowered one, it just didn't had a good user for it.

'I should be able to get this ability if I kill him, right?'

His golden eyes could not help but light up slightly, thinking of the 'Demon claw' skill he got when he killed the first demons. So there's 50/50 chance to get the splitting ability.

But without giving Haruto anymore time to think, the two demons began to charge toward Haruto one behind the other in a zigzag motion. Since they were also using their bouncing ability in-between their charge, it was quite hard to distinguish their trajectory.

Haruto didn't pursue them but instead he just stood his ground like before. Since the demon doesn't have any long range technique, so no matter how they charge towards him at the end he have to be near him to attack.

One of the demon Jumped high in the using his ability 'Super bounce' and came toward Haruto claws aimed at Haruto's head, followed closely by the other demon on ground. The demon was solely focused on striking Haruto without giving his defense any thought, fuming hatred in his bloody eyes.

In response Haruto waited till the demon got close to him and inclined his head in quick movement to avoid the claw and swung his blade at the demon from point blank range. the demon being in air couldn't avoid the blade and saw the blade passing through it's neck like knife through butter. The blade was swung with such strength that it brought an airwave in it's surrounding making the leafs and dust blow around.

The demon's head along with it's body fell to the ground, slowly corroding and turning into ash, the air exuded an angry stench. The head which was cut off by Nichirin Blade will be affected by the energy of the sun contained in Nichirin blade and the demon will no longer have the chance to be regenerate.

But at this moment, a black figure appeared behind Haruto and sharp claws appeared toward Haruto's back aiming at his heart. Since Haruto had cut of one of the demon's neck, his blade was still in the air and it will be to late to stop the claws with his blade.

All of this was obviously planned by the demon. The demon was already aware that the seemingly young demon in front of him obviously outclassed him in strength and speed. Also the brat was carrying a Nichirin blade made to kill demons, which was absurd yet brought more disadvantages for him. Since he can't win against the brat in face to face confrontation, the demon used his other body to create a chance for him to strike a lethal part without engaging the brat directly. Since even though the brat was strong, he obviously can't fight properly if he gets a hit at time.

So seeing his claws nearly reaching the back of the brat unimpeded, the demon broke a vicious grin but...

Suddenly a golden claw appeared and grabbed his dark claw. Although the claw looked beastly it still exuded a bright luster like gold.

"Demon claw"

Haruto's ability obtained by killing the demon last time was used by him again at this moment. The golden beastly claw's exerted a little force and the demon's hand, which was obviously much smaller than the golden claws were easily tore off from it's body.

The demon stared blankly at this scene with its red eyes. He couldn't understand understand what happened in a moment's notice. Then like the claws of a wolf, the golden claws again slid across, piercing the demon's chest and a heart was held in the palm of the Haruto's golden hand.

The demon's heart was still beating erratically in Haruto's hand. Five fingers squeezed violently and the heart was crushed in a second. Blood spurted out all around, sparing Haruto's face because of the hat.

The demon backed away clutching his chest. He was shocked and terrified of the boy in front of him, who squashed his heart without a change in his expression. he no longer wants to continue fighting with this brat. He didn't stand a chance from the beginning.

Then the next moment, a ray of cold light flashed out. Haruto swung his blade again. The blade clearly slashed across the neck and the demon just stared blankly, watching his head detach from his shoulders and the distance from his body became farther and farther away.

As he laid dying, he still couldn't understand how he died. he never was considered the possibility of him dying so easily in his own turf that too with with a demon who uses nichirin blade ironically. But no matter how unwilling he was, his body started to dissipate quickly.

<Ding, congratulations to the host for killing a demon and gaining skill 'splitting'.">

<Splitting: Split a body that is exactly the same as host, with ability host.>

A crisp sound came from his mind. At this moment, Haruto felt that he seemed to have mastered something. With just one thought, he can create a body exactly like himself.

For now the limit of the skill was three bodies like the demon and all bodies share a hive mind so there was no gap in orders. And Haruto could feel that after improving his strength, he should be able to create more clones but that's for the future Haruto to explore.

"Fuck it's quiet op."

In an instant Haruto's power tripled. He was now confident that he could even win against the evolution level demon easily now. For elementary demons, Haruto could just let the clones do the work.

Well considering all the benefits, it was obviously much more than the triple of his original power.

...........

...........