59 Chapter 59: Ace vs Doma I

Chapter 59: Ace vs Doma I

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Meeting Doma on the way was somewhat unexpected. 'Does he have a way to track Daki, since he was the one who made her a demon?' Ace thought.

"How did you find us?" Ace asked, looking at Doma.

"Hmm…? You're not even nervous facing me?! Well, I should have expected this much from a Hashira," Doma said, talking to himself, ignoring the question.

"That wasn't the question?" Ace asked.

"Oh! You are curious about how I found her. Well… It was actually quite difficult!" Doma said with an annoyed expression.

"I don't know how you did it, but somehow you were able to cut my blood resonance with her, causing me to search the entire west forest because of you. Do you know how hard that is? It almost made me mad."

'He searched the entire forest in such a short time?!' Ace thought, frowning a little.

"You're already a mad guy! Nothing would make you more mad," Ace said.

"That hurts me, you know! I was even thinking of sparing you," Doma said in a fake hurt expression.

"Say that when you're not trying to sneak attack us," Ace replied, while simultaneously gesturing to the others to stop breathing air and quickly tell them to move away from here with Daki in Ninja sign language.

But before they could move, several ice lotuses rained down on them from everywhere to pierce their bodies.

Ace, seeing them, quickly jumped into the air and intercepted them before they could reach him, destroying the ice lotuses completely.

Hinatsuru, Suma, and Makio quickly retreated using the opening, knowing they would only be a burden to him.

"D-Do you think he will be able to...?" Suma said, gulping back the fear that was about to come.

"We don't know. That was an Upper Moon Two if you had seen his eyes. We can only trust him and get back to headquarters as soon as possible and inform them for help," Hinatsuru said with a serious expression.

They grew silent hearing that.

"He won't die, I believe in him. Didn't you see he wasn't nervous even when facing the Demon head on?" Makio said, giving them some hope into their uncertain minds.

Back to the fight.

"Ah~ You saw through my surprise gift. You are quite competent," Doma said in a surprised face.

"And you are quite a coward, to name that as a gift!" Ace retorted with the same carefree smiling expression.

Doma frowned a little hearing that and tried to say something, but did Ace wait for him to waste his time?

Of course not! Without wasting a single moment, Ace dashed towards him in a burst of maximum speed he could gain in that moment and slashed at his neck.

Seeing the speed of the attack, Doma was caught off-guard a little and hurriedly moved his golden fans to intercept the strike.

But how could Ace use such an obvious attack to the neck of the Demon, who always had their guard up against any attack aimed at that vulnerable spot? Like how seeing the attack, Doma also moved his golden fans to intercept the strike.

However, Ace knew that killing Doma by targeting his neck was an almost impossible thing to do with his current strength. So rather than targeting his neck directly, he wanted to sever one of Doma's arms completely to cripple him. He knew that most demons wouldn't react strongly to body attacks due to their confidence in their regeneration.

Just as he expected, Doma had brought both of his fans to protect his neck even with this much speed.

Just as he had planned, just before his glaive was about to connect with the fans, Ace twisted his wrist slightly, causing the trajectory of the slash to change from the neck to Doma's shoulder.

Doma was surprised at the sudden change in the attack from his neck to arm. It was common knowledge that demons could regenerate their flesh easily so attacking any part other than is a useless thing to do. 'Does he not know that I can regenerate?... No, that's impossible! Surely Something isn't right!'

Doma quickly tried to move his fans to stop the glaive, but it was a little too late. Ace's glaive had cleanly severed his whole arm from his body. He could only use his other arm to attack Ace, who deftly blocked it with his glaive before leaping away.

Urgh~

Even Doma couldn't help but grunt a little from the pain that suddenly surged through him, despite being someone who relished pain.

"Man! You sure are fast! might even be the most fastest human I have ever seen but why did you attack my arm instead of my ne–?" Doma asked Ace but suddenly stopped midway through his sentence.

He turned his head towards his shoulder, a grave look on his face. "What did you do?" Doma asked.

"What? Scared after losing your arm for real!" Ace smirked.

To his surprise, Doma shook his head silently, holding his shoulder, as suddenly his body shuddered violently. His once handsome face started to distort into an ugly look, and he gave a crazed smile. "No... huff... huff.""

"In fact, I am actually loving it, the pain it brings, it is surging through my soul, anf relishing my heart."

'This guy is totally crazy!' Ace thought, but he didn't have much time to dwell on it.

As suddenly, hundreds of leaves made of dark ice formed in the air surrounding him, firing from all directions at the same time.

"Shit!" Ace cursed and focused himself to the extreme. He started rotating his spear around in a circular motion, attempting to deflect the blades of leaves.

[Natural Ways: Lunar Flow Stance]

Even with concentrating his focus to the extreme, he couldn't destroy all of them, and many had pierced through his defence and cut through his skin, leaving small wounds all over his body.

'These are not normal ice, is it poison? No… there is something different about it. Also, in his epithet that Daki mentioned, it had the word Dark in it, so it is likely something related to that,' Ace thought, gazing at his wounds. He had already caused the blood around them to clot to prevent further spread,and lose too much of his blood but a numb feeling still persisted in those injuries.

"You survived that! Good! Because I am going to take this fight seriously from now on," the one-handed Doma shouted

As large amounts of dark-reddish gas suddenly erupted from Doma's body, spreading quickly around the area like a smoke bomb.

'It's the same dark substance from his previous attack. I can't let it inside my body,' Ace thought.

He had already stopped breathing since the start of the fight, relying only on the air he had taken in before the battle since he knew Doma had most likely contaminated the air with his blood. Now, with the dark cloud in the mix, it would even be more damaging to his body if he breathed any of it.

And if he didn't have his Ethereal Eyes, he would have been almost made blind with the gas surrounding the area.

And as soon as he used his Soul Eyes, Ace saw Doma moving his fan in a slashing motion, launching numerous razor-sharp attacks of dark frost at him.

[Dark Frost: Wilted Hanging Garden]

'If any one of those touches me, Its over.' An immediate thought emerged in his mind glancing at the dozens of dark frost slashes coming his way at the speed of sound.

With no time to think of something, Ace closed his eyes and let his combat intuition take over his body. Feeling the vibrations and movement of air as the attacks moved through it.

He let his body move with the glaive just on his intuition, deflecting each incoming frost slash with precise and fluid motions.

The more senses one cuts off, the more his other senses grow. By cutting off his vision, Ace was able to concentrate on his combat Intuition more precisely to sense the vibrations of the attacks released, navigating through the lethal barrage of attacks.

The dark frost attacks continued relentlessly, but his focused defence held firm. But he could sense the growing strain on his body with each deflection, each move demanding a fraction more of his energy and breath. And with the surrounding air being contaminated, he didn't have much oxygen to fuel his attacks.

'I need to get away from his attack range,' Ace thought.

His surroundings area was fully devastated now from the ice attacks leaving large gashes on the ground.

"Haha, It's the first time I have encountered such a strong human!! I must say, this will make our battle even more exhilarating!" Doma laughed before launching even more ice slashes at me.

Opening my Ethereal eyes, I quickly calculated the trajectory and angle of the attacks. And as they reached me, I jumped on the attack, using just the perfect amount of strength to neither deflect the attack nor let it cut me down. Instead, I utilized the momentum of the attack to propel myself away from the surrounding area, launching into the air.

"Haaaaaa!" As I soared through the air, I opened my mouth and breathed in as much air as possible, preparing for what came next.

[Hybrid Form: Sun & Moon style]

His eyes blazing and his heart beating, Ace took a deep breath as the mark of the sun and moon on his palm started spreading from their point, covering his whole hand. Looking down as he started descending from the air, the enhanced power surged through him.

At the same time, he saw Doma ascending into the air by releasing ice from his leg, with a mad smile on his face.

"Die Human!!! "

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