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three fruits down and her power hasn't changed since the first fruit and I don't know if this is the normal process or if my fruit of temptation is negatively affecting it. negative for me that is because if she doesn't lose her power it will be harder for me to offer the piece as an option to regain her power and instead I will have to negotiate the old fashion way.

"You must have some sort of eye-related skill, I have been observing your odd energy and it seems to slowly channel to your eyes whenever you stare at me. is there something you are looking for Nova?" she opens an eye and looks toward me, I note this mentally for later in case I am ever in a dangerous situation where someone might be able to observe my demonic energy.

"Nah, I am just curious to see what exactly happening to you but I can't tell other than maybe a refinement of some kind." she closes her eye and nods.

"You could say that it's not a big secret that Asmodeus has a power of rebirth called nirvana that not only increases our power but revitalizes our body and enhances our appearance. what does it look like to you though to call it a refinement?" I am sure they have studied the nirvana rebirth enough to know roughly what it is doing to their bodies but I also want to see her reaction to my take on it.

"Seems your spirit power is slowly getting compressed into a higher density so that when it fills back up your container it is higher quality and likely can do a lot more with it and hit harder."

"Huh?" she opens both eyes and looks at me, it's hard to tell with the veil and all but she at least sounded confused. "what a weird way to put it, is that how you see spirit energy?" I just shrug and avoid over-explaining.

Catherine stands up and begins to pulse her spirit power again and seems to see something as she looks off into the distance and narrows her eyes. she then turns to me and begins to walk over.

"Let's relocate and then continue, the next time I start I will need to focus though since I should only need three more at the rate these fruits are working."

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We come to a stop and she pulls out a tent that begins to set itself up and walks in a circle around the tent setting up metal poles. observing the poles I can tell they have a lot of enchantments to do various things but mainly a shield to keep others out and a cloaking device, also a last-ditch effort attack that on destruction of the shield will consume the remainder of power left to try to kill the invader.

"Alright give me a fruit and be on the watch for anyone showing up and let me know if they do, I am going to have to fully focus on the last part and won't be as observant of our surroundings." I toss over a fruit and go back to observing the tent's enchantments and the defense poles so I can recreate them if I want.

This should be the part where Broc shows up and attacks if it's going to happen at all. if he shows up before she is done and attacks I will try to wound him enough to retreat unless the gap between us is so big I need to emergency teleport, in that case, I will just snag Catherine and dip.

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After roughly half an hour I am practicing mimicking Catherine's sonar ability to check for people since it seemed easy enough and that's when I get hit by it. about two miles out from where we are I feel a source of spirit power that spooks me to start with thinking I might alert the person but by the time it's too late a second pulse of my demonic energy hits and I notice it is already close. so either it was already heading this way or it managed to feel the demonic energy, either way, it feels extremally similar in level to Shea and Izzy so it should be Broc. but this level of power won't be able to kill me instantly with the surprise of being able to worthless his attacks, only my physical strength will get close thanks to Balam so I will have to be extra careful.

Catherine should be halfway with the fruit she just had if the interval is the same as before and even then she won't be able to fight if my assumptions of her current state are correct. I have two trump cards to get out of this one being to flee so Broc survives for later and if that is too risky to pull off I can summon Izzy and help her kill him. she won't be too mad at being pulled from where she is to get her hands on the man who pulled the trigger on her father so to speak. I pulse my demonic energy once more but it turns out to be pointless as I can visibly see a man with blue hair appear from thin air with fog on his heels.

The man who I am assuming is Broc is wearing shiny silver armor with a cape, his eyes are both black since he has activated his eye of incubus. his eye ability mutated and it is in both eyes instead of just one and he is looking all around trying to spot something. as he gets a few hundred feet from the barrier I begin to set up some worthless Infront of the illusion barrier so if he throws any magic this way it will dissipate. I then focus on his fog as it should be the manifestation of his territory with my all-seeing eyes to try to understand it as much as possible so I can worthless it with my pseudo territory.

Broc stops about a hundred feet from the barrier and stares directly at it, he then has a small smile appear on his face as he holds up his hand and shoots a blast of water at the barrier. the water smashes into my worthless and is like a spoon under the faucet and blasts water in all directions, I feel a drain on my energy but it is negligible.

"I guess I found you lady Christina, would you kindly come out and talk with me? I have always admired a mysterious woman like yourself and can't help but want to figure out your secrets and get to know you more intimately. but you seem to have killed my men while they were protecting my dear sister and I want to know how they have offended you." his fog begins to approach the barrier and it slides around it and over it showing off its dome shape, I ignore the mist and keep worthless up as a shield to stop any attacks to prolong this in hopes for a chance to scare him off appears.

Broc's smile disappears and he narrows his eyes before summoning soldiers made of mist that approach the barrier, he also begins to pelt the barrier in more than one spot and I have to throw up an entire dome of worthless but it only really consumes demonic energy when it stops a blast of water.

"This barrier you have is wonderful, it can even stop the attacks from my territory's soldiers. if you agree to come out and talk to me maybe we can come to an understanding where we both benefit from this." his voice is loud even if he is not shouting, it seems it's some kind of spirit power technique to make himself be heard at great distances.

I summon an attack using Stolas behind him to spray acidic venom onto him and see how he reacts. as the circle is complete taking me a few seconds at this distance to fully power it up it jets out green liquid at Broc's back only for him to disappear and reappear a few feet to the left out of the way.

"That is some pretty nasty stuff, I guess I will have to get serious." he looks at the bubbling ground and then back at the barrier only to launch a jet of water that begins to eat through demonic energy to stop. he begins to launch attacks from all sides of the barrier dispelling the soldiers of mist since they were ineffective and focusing on trying to crack the defense.

After a few minutes of constant blasts of water smashing into my worthless he stops and seems to figure out that it was completely ineffective. he only knocked off a tenth of my demonic energy but compared to what I speculate he lost I should have won the exchange.

"Fine, if that's how you want to play then I will just be more direct. it's still not too late to come out and head back with me to the fort, I can promise to make you my second wife and that I won't harm you." he smiles once again but the red sin pouring off him tells a different story and I just so happen to notice in my sin sense that Catherine's sin had a few spots of red appear and realize she is watching the show while going through rebirth.

I can't help but smile knowing she is watching but can't do anything without risking messing up nirvana so I can talk some smack and she won't be able to refute my claims.

"Don't you know the ladies don't like an obsessive man." my obvious male voice seems to take him aback as he briefly raises his brows before they scrunch together and he glares at where I am having heard where I spoke from through the illusion.

"Who are you? and what are you and Lady Christina doing out here all alone?" as he erupts in more anger sin I begin to laugh back at him as a response.

"What do you think a man and a woman ran off to do in the middle of nowhere?" it takes only a second for his rage to completely flip back into his family's natural sin of envy as I audibly hear him grit his teeth from a good distance away. his normal greed sin he leaked is completely dwarfed right now, it is a storm of envy letting me know just how off his rocker this guy is.

He wastes no time rushing the barrier having thrown caution to the wind and slams straight into it, it takes only a moment to break through triggering the metal defense rods to melt themselves to release all their stored power in one giant bird-shaped fire attack. somewhat coming back to his senses he begins to throw up a defense of water to counteract the fire but I just worthless the whole thing and that's when he looks over at me in shock. it seems he realized it was me and it won't be hard to figure out it wasn't the barrier stopping his previous magic attacks so I need to finish this fast before he resorts to something I can't prevent.

As the fire smashes down on him creating a crater I begin to speed up my perception with Agares and follow it up with a wave of acidic venom once again trying to melt him as much as possible. as the fire clears and my venom fills the crater I see him explode out with his spirit pressure and I make sure none of it burns the tent as he screams and tries to wash the venom off. I don't give him much time to respond as I throw everything into my wings as I close the distance and try to take his legs off, as much damage as I can to make him leave and be weaker on our later encounter the better. but his years of combat experience pays off as he sends a kick out and I only just manage to redirect myself to not get my ribcage caved in but my side still got grazed and it's got a deep cut.

"Hahahaha you insect! you think you can beat me?!" well to be honest I might have gotten ahead of myself seeing his front half charred and melting off covered in acid. If I had a better attacking trait I would keep my distance but with Eligor I can manage to do some close quarters and worse case I will just teleport out and let him taste the bitter taste of regret as he will gain nothing from this. "do you even know who you are attacking?!"

"No, why don't you enlighten me." I continue to dodge and strike at his limbs and as he manages to make contact with my injured side again I pull out a dagger from my inventory and cut through his arm above the elbow sending his hand to the ground.

"AHHHH, you bastard I will crush you for this." just when I think to summon Isabella since he is going too fast for me to keep up with and the only reason I haven't been struck dead is Eligor keeping me in the fight, he summons a blue ring behind him and jumps back toward it and as I instinctively try to worthless it I realize its not just water and I let it happen. if I went through with worthless he would have not gotten out since I couldn't completely understand the magic it meant it was new and I guessed it was a teleporter of some kind since he leaped into it. my momentary decision paid off and he is gone and now I don't have to worry about him till silent night wasteland where I can kill him.

I hear the tent behind me opening up and turn to see Catherine looking around, she looks at the crater where Broc took most of his damage from the fire attack and then at me having fallen back on my back catching my breath. she holds out her hand as if asking for something and I realize she wants another fruit, I can't help but sigh as I toss it over and think about how ungrateful that seemed of her.

"Good job." she walks back into the tent and I hear the crisp sound of her biting into the fruit and feel a bit better.