41 - 100 vs. 1

Merca had searched far and wide. The 4th circle wasn't as large as the continent he died in. He found no traces.

The only theory he had was that Ixtra went to a different circle, but why would he do that?

Maybe he missed the 5th circle, where he lived before. Thinking this, I went to the 5th circle.

That's when I found out about rumors of a murderous greater demon that was going around killing all the greater demons he saw at first glance.

Coming to the area of the rumors, just mentioning him brought fear to the greater demons in the region. However, I managed to confirm it through them.

I described what he looked like, and through fear stricken expressions, they answered that I was indeed describing him correctly.

It was Ixtra, no doubt.

But, where was he now? The last rumor of a fight had been several months ago, and now he was nowhere to be found.

He...wouldn't have gone to the 6th circle, right?

I knew how demons got stronger, so I understood why he did what he did, and I also understood that it was entirely plausible for him to go down to a lower circle in search of a harder fight.

As soon as I thought of this, I rushed towards the edge of the 5th circle.

I got there in a matter of less than a minute. My cloak was still able to go at mach 1000 after all. That was 343 km/sec.

I hoped Ixtra wouldn't do anything too stupid in his pursuit of strength.

***

"What do you hope to gain by fighting us all here? Just apologize and stop killing everyone, and we can let this go."

It was normal for demons to kill each other, especially in the lower layers. It's just, Ixtra had been too much these past few months.

Not dozens, not even hundreds.

Over a thousand greater demons had died at his hands in just 4 months.

This was ridiculous. They were all murderous, but none of them were this bad.

In truth, it frightened some of them. They couldn't understand it, and when a demon like Ixtra came along who was strong and fierce and even his actions were impossible to comprehend, even other demons got scared by it.

So, some of them were ok with leaving him be if he just agreed to stop his massacre.

Unfortunately for them, that was just wishful thinking on their part.

"Keke. What do I hope to gain? Isn't it obvious?! I WANT A 2ND RELEASE, DAMN IT!!"

As Ixtra spoke, his voice started as a booming, loud voice, before sharply turning into a crazed, fanatic scream at the end.

The depth of his obsession could be seen.

Who could blame him? He had eaten 1000 greater demons and it did nothing. It didn't even make him any stronger. It was beyond infuriating.

It was like the universe was telling him, "No, actually, you're not allowed to get any stronger. You just get to stay weak and pathetic until the day you die."

It was driving him insane, and as he thought about it, intense bloodlust began to ooze out of him.

Bloodlust was a tangible energy, and there were two ways to aquire it.

The first was to desire to kill someone. The stronger the desire, the stronger the bloodlust.

However, there was a 2nd way. It was to just kill, wantonly. The more you massacred, the more bloodlust you would accumulate.

Currently, Ixtra outmatched every demon here in both categories, and his bloodlust made even the strongest of them, who should be at his level otherwise, shrink slightly in instinctive fear.

Catching themselves, these demons got mad thinking of how another greater demon made them feel this way, and their own bloodlust attempted to come out, but was drowned by Ixtra's, which coated the battlefield, where they were all floating in the sky.

Suddenly, Ixtra began to laugh.

"Kehehe, HAHAHAHAH! Isn't it ridiculous?! I have to try so hard just to get a 2nd Release, and some people DON'T HAVE TO TRY HARD AT ALL?!"

Ixtra thought of a certain man when he said that. Well, he didn't mean him. Merca had tried hard too. But the feeling was similar.

Seeing Merca grow stronger while he stagnated had been a stifling, suffocating feeling. One he had never let out, until now.

Thinking about it, his bloodlust became further enriched by his wrath, and he couldn't stand it anymore.

He immediately rushed to attack the weakest greater demon there, and the other party was caught off guard.

Immediately, he died in one attack while not prepared.

This wouldn't normally happen no matter how unprepared the other party was, but the immense sea of bloodlust strengthened Ixtra beyond belief.

He was at least several times stronger than his normal peak.

The other demons quickly reacted and attacked back, but Ixtra teleported out of the encirclement. The few demons who knew magic tried to teleport beside him to attack him, but he threw out several array plates at them.

These were made of darkgold, and were each as strong as one of his full force attacks.

He had made these himself.

The array culture in Hell was really lacking, at least currently.

The demons that had teleported were caught off guard, and in their bewilderment, Ixtra mamaged to land several powerful attacks on all of them.

With the buff from the bloodlust, these were almost fatal.

The other demons closed in then, preventing Ixtra from finishing off the few strongest ones. Still, this made it much easier for him.

In the dozen or so seconds it took the few strongest greater demons to heal, Ixtra went around teleporting behind and massacring the rest of the weaker greater demons who didn't know magic and didn't have good enough reflexes to stop him.

This was enough for him to kill half the present demons.

Looking at the monster who was still oozing with bloodlust that was only growing stronger by the second and with each kill, some demons thought of retreating.

This was a fatal mistake, as they all knew the moment they thought it.

The strongest demons attacked at once, all teleporting next to Ixtra and attempting to stab him, but he teleported up by one kilometer, the max allowed by the basic [Teleportation] spell, and threw his weapon, a spear, straight down into the group of greater demons who wouldn't be able to teleport away for another split second.

They didn't need to however, or so they thought, as they looked at the spear wearily and with caution, yet also with disdain.

'What is throwing your weapon going to do besides give it to us?'

Suddenly, one of them figured it out just in time and barely manahed to teleport away.

As for the rest, their laziness at thinking they could collectively block the attack and the leave Ixtra with no weapon led to them staying put.

If they teleported away, not only would it be more effort, but Ixtra could get his spear back.

They didn't want to let that happen.

Unfortunately for them, Ixtra also didn't want his spear back.

When it got close to them and collided with their combined barrier of demonic energy, Ixtra directly sent a command to the weapon to implode.

BOOM!

A large opening appeared in the demonic energy barrier, and some of the demons were severely injured.

Before they could get away, Ixtra had already teleported close and used a second weapon, a set of several dozen oalm sized daggers, to stab into the injuries of all the greater demons.

When the greater demons teleported away, they felt a spiking pain in their injuries, beyond the pain of being stabbed. Suddenly, all the daggers exploded as well before they could take them out.

Ixtra had enchanted the daggers as best he could with a kind of poison. He had designed it to be most powerful against fellow demons, and after the explosion settled, the demons found their healing had been slowed by a factor of over 90% by the poison.

That was equivalent to over 2 minutes of time spent healing, and the poison would have to be taken out of their body separately from the healing, lest it impact future healing.

The basic healing of the demons wouldn't resolve the high level poison.

In the first minute, all the other greater demons died.

Some of the strong greater demons that had gotten severely injured tried to prematurely stop Ixtra before their injuries healed substantially, only to be massacred all the same.

So the rest of the strongest greater demons could do nothing but sit, or rather, fly and watch as Ixtra killed and devoured all the remaining greater demons.

There were only 6 greater demons left now, still severely injured.

Ixtra went up to them and began fighting with them, and killed two more before the other 4 healed.

1v4.

The 4 greater demons looked cautiously and with rapt attention at Ixtra, not even daring to blink.

"Brother, why don't we just stop here?"

"Yes, yes. We'll let this go, we won't even mention it to anyone."

They were not confident anymore in beating him, even if it was a 4v1.

'Hello?! That 4v1 is what used to be a 100v1, damn it.'

However, when he said that, Ixtra's slightly dimished killing intent flared up to max output once again.

With an annoyed face, he said,

"Do you think. Not telling anyone. IS WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO?! IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED, I STILL DON'T HAVE A 2ND RELEASE!"

Heaving deep breaths, Ixtra said,

"Whatever, go away. Killing you four won't do much for me anyway. Go back and spread the word. The greater demon, Ixtra, is challenging all the demons of the 6th circle.

Come at me, all at once, or I'll come find you and kill you all one by one to DEVOUR you. If the entire circle has to be sacrificed for my ascension...then that is what I will make happen."

Hearing his words, the remaining 4 greater demons shivered, and it seemed that in the moment he said those words, Ixtra's bloodlust morphed into a new energy, deeper and thicker, but it immediately went away, so the four thought they imagined it.

Yes, surely they imagined it. Otherwise, wouldn't it be too terrifying?

If void mana was a nuisance because it had to be constantly absorbed to be refilled, bloodlust was the opposite. Using bloodlust in combat wouldn't use it up. However, it didn't apply a gross damage increase but a damage multiplier.

Hence, a weak person with intense bloodlust would only be a slightly stronger weak person, but a strong person with intense bloodlust would become a true monster.

If Ixtra's bloodlust became so thick it formed a new energy, wouldn't that be too terrifying?

What if that energy was also one that didn't get used up?

No no, it was surely their imaginations.

Rushing away in each direction, the only thought the 4 of them had was that they did not want to see this monster ever again.

Once they left, Ixtra slowly calmed down.

He somewhat regretted telling them his name, since he was essentially makimg himself enemy number 1 in the 6th circle, but he also didn't care too much.

Let them come. It was death, or ascension. This was the only way he saw to potentially unlock and obtain his 2nd release.

He wondered if other archdemons also went through such hurdles? Probably not.

He was an imp.

He was never even meant to become a greater demon, let alone an archdemon. It made sense he was having tremendous difficulties.