24 Chapter 24
"Let's stop here for today, Igor. You've…won."
"What? Already?"
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|DxD|
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Igor was confused. He looked at his fist that was caught by Azazel's palm. He barely saw the fallen appear in front of him, barring that his senses were entirely focused on Baraquiel.
But after the haze of combat slowly left him, he could now see the current condition of both cadre. Azazel was smiling lightly with no visible strain from blocking a full-powered Kaioken x4 punch. While his grip on Igor's palm appeared strong, the blonde could feel there wasn't any force in the fingers.
So retracting his fist, Igor's eyes widened when he saw the cadre's arm fall limply to his side.
"B-broken?"
Azazel grinned.
"Yeah. You pack quite the punch for a kid your age."
"Oh…"
Igor also took a glance at Baraquiel's laboured state. The fallen weakly knelt on the ground while taking deep breaths. Although a few of his wings were damaged, he was relatively fine besides the issue of experiencing the consequences of having low levels of energy.
Igor tried to force a smile.
"So I won…"
Truth be told, the emotion that pervaded Igor's mind at the moment, was disappointment.
[I trained this hard…for this?]
Azazel could feel the blonde's disappointment so he hurriedly tried to remedy the situation.
"Why the glum look, kid? My brother just didn't expect you to be this strong to the point that you could survive his attack like this. Tell you what, how about you two have yourselves a little rematch in 3 days? Baraquiel here will show you why he's the lightning general."
Igor's eyes gradually brightened up.
"Yeah. That's fine. Next time, I want to see all your techniques, old man!"
Baraquiel groaned.
"No need."
He slowly got up from the ground with a small vial in his hand. Without another word, he consumed the contents of the vial in one gulp before crushing the container.
Shatter!
Not paying attention the the pieces on the ground, the changes happening to Baraquiel were gradual but swift. His broken and singed wings straightened out with a crack. However, one of his right wings appeared to suddenly shrivel, confusing the blonde before he suddenly felt Baraquiel's magic power restored to its previous level. *
Baraquiel breathed a few times before retreating a few metres and getting into a stance. This time, he retracted his wings and didn't let them come out.
"You've won this one, brat. Let's see if you can win the next."
Crackles of golden holy lightning flashed around him. But unlike before, these flashes remained simple flashes. This roused Igor's curiosity but he didn't ask.
Decreasing his Kaioken multiplier, he only let it run at 75%. This was the current limit he could hold with absolutely zero strain on himself for the next half-day.
"Don't mess around this time, old man. I want a real fight."
"And I will give you one."
Sensing the atmosphere between the two of them, Azazel chuckled lightly before unfurling his wings.
"Don't forget to play nice you two."
"Don't worry, Uncle A. I'll carry the old man on my straw mat if it gets too heated."
While Baraquiel remained impervious to Igor's provocation, Azazel chuckled lightly before taking off. With the third wheel gone, both warriors focused on each other. Both showed different variations of seriousness in their gazes. While Igor's displayed seriousness and confidence, Baraquiel's displayed calm and calculating.
This time, Baraquiel was the first one to strike.
Swoosh!
Igor almost couldn't see the movement, reason being his eyes had suddenly felt heavy for the briefest of moments. But even if it was for a brief moment, the blonde was still able to react in time.
Dodge!
Bending backwards to dodge Baraquiel's punch, Igor used his momentum to raise his leg and kick towards the fallen's chest. But Baraquiel's experience shined in that moment. Using his free hand, he diverted the blonde's kick before stretching out his leg to sweep Igor's remaining leg.
Feeling that danger was imminent, Igor tried to twist his body and roll out of the situation, but Baraquiel's sudden grip was strong. Kicking the blonde's remaining foot, Baraquiel didn't waste time and immediately mounted Igor. The blonde opened his mouth to release an energy blast but Baraquiel dodged to the side while cocking his fist.
*Blocks*
But Igor was able to put his arm up and block the fist that almost hit the side of his head. Not liking his current situation, Igor gathered some strength into his legs before pistoning his hips up. With his powerful core muscles, he was able to offset the fallen's balance, destabilizing him briefly and opening a brief window of opportunity.
But instead of escaping, Igor quickly grabbed both of Baraquiel's arms and opened his mouth.
"RAAAA!"
But Baraquiel was swift. Even with his arms restrained, he had no qualms rolling over to the side…
Crack!
…even if it meant dislocating his left arm. Although Baraquiel had considered using his wings, he learnt the hard way that the blonde's attacks carry quite the punch and that mouth blast would've easily snapped them in half.
Igor didn't continue lying on the ground. Quickly getting up, the blonde charged forward towards the fallen, eager to use the advantage provided by Baraquiel's broken arm.
CLASH
Engaging in close combat, Igor was momentarily surprised to see that Baraquiel's arm had already healed. But he didn't let that detail cloud his mind. Both began exchanging moves at breakneck speeds. With Igor's increased height, he wasn't as disadvantaged as he was a year ago. Furthermore, his increased strength allowed him to slowly dominate and push back Baraquiel in their exchanges.
Although Baraquiel wasn't winning their exchange, he wasn't losing either. Having enhanced his combat capabilities with holy lightning, the cadre's perception far outstripped the norm. In fact, he had focused his enhancement more on perception and speed instead of strength and defence. Not only does this option allow him to save more of his energy, but it also allowed him to somewhat predict and evade the blonde's moves in advance.
While Igor knew that if he directly used a Kaioken x8 he could directly defeat Baraquiel, it wouldn't give him the satisfaction he wanted. So he wanted to see just how far he could fight Baraquiel without multiplying his power twice.
The result was exhilarating. Both fallen and human zoomed across the clearing, their movement stirring the winds and the sound of their clashes scaring any lingering wildlife.
While Igor's method of combat was pure offence with minimal defence, he was absolutely abusing the power contained in his bones and muscles to launch powerful blows and his smaller figure to dodge any counters the fallen released.
As for Baraquiel, his style of combat this time around focused more on defence with minimal offence, the exact opposite of Igor's. Even though his figure was large, he was able to dodge with ease and deflect what he couldn't deflect. While he would want to use his wings, he was cautious as to what means the blonde would use to destroy them. His wings were useful extra limbs but they were vulnerable targets. Besides, the other reason was that they would be useful to recharge any spent magic power he had.
Right now, he had nine more wings to draw magic power from. And this fight was just the beginning.
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|DxD|
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Azazel and Cleria were observing the battle from the air just over a kilometre from the scene. Compared to the chaotic scene at the battle site, both fallen and devil enjoyed the cool breeze that flowed through their wings.
Despite having a broken limb, Azazel showed no signs of pain at all.
"So, Cleria. What do you think?"
Cleria watched on with genuine interest at the power Igor was displaying.
"He's powerful. Very powerful."
"Heh~ And this isn't even his full power."
Cleria turned towards Azazel with eyes as wide as saucers.
"Whaaat? Don't play with me Azazel-kun!"
"It's true. You weren't here before so you couldn't sense it through the barrier. But his power temporarily rose to that of a mid-satan class.
"M-mid?! Are you sure?!"
Azazel didn't say anything besides lift his limp arm. Due to being lifted, it awkwardly bent in the opposite direction.
Cleria audibly gasped while Azazel waved around his arm to show that it was indeed, broken.
"This is what happened when I blocked his punch. My wrist and elbow are broken. The bones in my arm are cracked and my shoulder feels like it's a breeze away from dislocating as well."
Even though he stated his condition, it was clear that he was simply saying it to arouse sympathy from the devil since Azazel showed no signs of being in pain.
Cleria weakly stretched out her hands, almost as if she was trying to see if it was truly broken.
Azazel smiled at her worrying about him and so, decided to tease her.
"If you touch it, you owe me a kiss~."
The result was near instantaneous. Cleria's face directly turned red before she punched Azazel on his good shoulder.
"Mou~ Azazel! Don't tease me like that!"
"Ouch! See? See? Now it hurts."
Cleria, fearing that she had aggravated the injury on his right shoulder from the sudden movement, panicked.
"W-well what do I do?!"
Azazel leaned closer to her.
"Well…I have an idea."
Realising the implications, Cleria lowered her head shyly. But she still asked anyway.
"What…is it?"
"Well…"
He gently cupped her chin with his finger and gazed into her deep ruby-red eyes. Her cheeks were flushed red and if Azazel could, he would've removed a strand of her long white hair from her face.
But so captivated was he by her beauty and purity, that Azazel momentarily froze for the moment. Over the year, he had bonded with Cleria over the subject of Igor. Although she had known about the blonde since almost three-years ago, it was only a year ago after his fight with Baraquiel that Cleria truly began to investigate him.
Naturally, she was by Azazel most of the time since the both of them developed an interest in the blonde. While Azazel did routinely tease her because of her kind personality, he never found her as beautiful as he did now.
*Badump*
All his wits evaded him while his heart began to beat. He never expected this. When he teased her, this wasn't part of the plan. He would've poked her in the nose before laughing like all the times before.
But now, Azazel was caught unaware by those innocent eyes of her. Slowly, he descended towards her lips, not breaking contact with her eyes. Cleria didn't pull back or show any signs of resisting. It was like his gaze had rendered her hypnotised.
Gradually, the distance between the two shortened. Centimetres were becoming millimetres and they could vividly feel each other's breaths on their faces.
Their lips were about to touc-
BOOOOOOM
"TAKE THAT, OLD MAN!"
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AN (No Spoilers)
I want to thank all of you sincerely for reading my work and coming with me this far. It has been enjoyable writing and I appreciate all of your reactions and comments.
Now with the thanks out of the way, I just want to ask. How the hell are you people still reading my work? I took every single chapter to Grammarly for a checkup and the amount of grammar errors I found are…numerous.
Even I as the author was ready to abandon this book from chapter 6. It was only because of the user, GodAxe from RoyalRoad pointing out grammar errors that I downloaded Grammarly and started running all my chapters through it.
Let me be crass here. The number of shit spelling mistakes and repeated words I saw made me want to smash my phone against the wall. Even MTLs were better. I know this isn't conducive to advertising my work or improving my image as an author but…screw it.
In short, all of you who trudged on through those grammar errors in silence and even gave me comments like "Tftc" have brains of steel. I would fully understand if I was cussed to hell and back after reading repeated words like "the the" in a chapter.
On a more serious note, thank you for enduring and thank you to GodAxe for those timely comments that pointed out the errors. I've fixed mistakes from chapter 1 and hopefully, there won't be any more in the future.
I am a fast typer and an even faster reader. So I tend to miss some things. Even though I will use Grammarly from now on, I would appreciate if someone posts a casual comment at the end of a chapter saying I need to recheck it for errors. Thank you.
As for missing yesterday's upload, it wasn't intentional. It is clear that power outages may become a daily occurrence so I will now upload chapters in the morning instead of late at night.
