Intruder (2/3)

[DAY 81]

'That's bad' thought Neo as he jumped a few meters to the side and narrowly dodged a beam of magma that shot out of the demon's open head.

The ground where the magma hit immediately began to heat up and small flames could be seen everywhere on the ground. However, after only a few seconds the magma dissolved again and simply disappeared, like it has never been there.

Although Neo would like to examine the magma-like substance more closely, he first had to deal with the attacker, which has so far remained a mystery for him.

'What are these beings? They are not human and not infected creatures as far as I can tell. Maybe some kind of alien species? But here on Earth? That would never be possible.' Neo thought as he examined the being more closly while dodging several more attacks.

Neo then decided to analyze the creature's Soul more closely and made some strange discoveries.

The Soul of the demon was not structured like the Souls of Humans and Undead or any other living being are. Where the Soul of Humans and Undead but also animals is almost at a complete standstill and there is a Soul Core in all living beings. These demons have a completely abstract and chaotic Soul that is in constant motion. Furthermore, the Soul seems to have no Soul Core at all.

'So beings with a different kind of Soul can also exist?' Neo thought to himself as he dodged a magma beam.

On the one hand, the demon's attacks so far have been more than deadly, as the magma blast drastically increases the temperature in the room and annihilates everything in its path. On the downside, however, the demon attacks are relatively slow and also take a few seconds to charge up, which in turn makes them easy to dodge.

Therefore, with Neos increased agility and infinite physical stamina, he has no problem dodging the attacks of the demon and is even able to analyze the demon in the meantime. However, now Neo decided to go on the attack in order to get even more data about the demon.

With one thought, Neo's Mace manifested in his right hand and he jumped towards the demon to attack.

The demon responded to the attack with a kick in Neo's direction, which he could easily dodge thanks to the demon's slow movements and at the end Neo ended up hitting the demon's two legs several times in return.

'The demon's body feels odd, like hitting water, making the attack completely useless.' Neo thought to himself as he took a few steps back and examined the demon's legs.

The demon just stood there and didn't appear to have suffered any pain or real damage from the attack.

'I guess his body which is basically like a armor, has some kind of kinetic absorption ability that renders physical attacks useless.' Neo speculated as he dodged several magma beams.

After dodging the attacks, Neo's Miasma suddenly shot out of him and then surrounded the demon. The Miasma then formed into thousands of sharp dark spikes, all of which then shot out to attack the demon.

However, before the spikes could hit the demon, a thin red barrier formed around the demon's body, completely blocking the Miasma spikes and not letting them through.

The red barrier then suddenly expanded and pushed the Miasma away, after which the Miasma could no longer maintain its form and started to disperse, gradually returning to Neo.

'Interesting, sort of an artificial barrier that surrounds the creature while blocking any attacks. But the barrier seems kind of unstable, like it doesn't have full energy.' Neo thought to himself as he analyzed the barrier while his Miasma again shot out to attacked it, only resulting in the same outcome.

Afterwards, Neo decided to go into direct melee combat with the demon. Taking a few steps from left to right, Neo dodged some of the demon's magma attacks while at the same time reduceing the distance between the two.

Meanwhile, one of the magma attacks slightly grazed Neo and was able to melt Neo's armor on his left leg which his Miasma was currently extinguishing and his regeneration ability healing.

'The magma is so hot that even my Armor, along with my regeneration Trait, couldn't withstand the light wounds. So it's better not to be hit by the magma.' Neo thought to himself as he made a few attacks on the demon's chest with his Mace.

However, the demon doesn't seem to be really impressed by the attacks and instead went into melee combat himself and attacked Neo with his huge claws.

Although the claws looked huge and strong, the creature was just too slow compared to Neo and couldn't hit him.

After a few more attacks of Neos Mace, the demon suddenly stopped and after some time, one of the demon's arms separated from him and fell to the ground, from which a huge amount of yellow magma came out and afterwards began to slowly disappear.

'Why is the demon falling apart on his own? Maybe it was already injured and that's why it's also so slow?' Neo thought to himself as he looked at the other two demons, who were still connected to the countless cables coming from the ceiling and who had been standing completely motionless in the room until now.

It wasn't like they didn't care about the fight or anything, it was m,ore like they didn't even notice it in the first place.

'Maybe the demons are not only injured but also don't have enough energy?' Neo concluded upon seeing a yellow liquid being carried into the demons by the tubes.

'That's most likely it. The demon in front of me probably doesn't have enough energy to attack faster and can only rely on his simple attacks.' Neo thought to himself as he looked at the demon that just lost his arm.

The demon just stood there for a few seconds and did nothing and Neos was about to finish the demon. But suddenly, countless cracks began to cover the demon's armor in a metter of seconds.

Afterwards, the demon suddenly began to grow a few meters and yellow red magam began to fill the gaps in the demon's body.

The magma began to erupt from all over the demon and the room temperature increased to such unbearable levels, that Neo was sure if he was not an Undead and had his armor, he would have been cooked and killed by the heat in the room by now.

But what is far worse than the unnatural heat is the slowly rising lack of oxygen in the room. The demon doesn't seem to mind this lack, especially since the creature doesn't have any lungs anyway and its body probably doesn't need any oxygen. But Neo on the other hand, even as an Undead, still needs oxygen to exist, so the lack of oxygen is a big problem for Neo.

'All right, enough with the experiments, it's time to kill the monster now.' Neo thought as he looked at the 5 meter tall demon clad in magma and a strange dark armor.

However, before Neo could attack the demon again, a kind of weapon made entirely out of magma, which looks like a halberd, formed in the demon's hand.

In the next moment, the demon started to attack with its new weapon, but with a drastically increased speed, which seems to be even slightly faster than Neo's attack speed.

With swing after swing, the demon attacked Neo, leaving wound after wound on Neo's body.

Neo tried to dodge and block the attacks as quickly as possible with his Miasma, but the demon's attacks were just too fast.

Only after a few attacks did the demon's speed finally drop, allowing Neo to retreat a couple of meters.

Neo's armor had a few wounds and cracks here and there, but overall his wounds were slowly starting to regenerate. However the yellow fire on his body was the real prbolem.

The flames were difficult to put out and Neo had to use all of his Miasma to have any real effect on the flames.

'That thing could do me that kind of damage... ENOUGH NOW.' Neo thought determinedly as his Mace transformed into his Broadsword.

"I don't care what you are, whether demon or alien, this little fight no matter what, has its end now!" Neo said in a demonic voice as his wings shot out of his back and he engaged in melee combat.

"Kai kama ida it lAM!" said the demon in a strange voice that didn't emit sound but spoke directly to Neo's soul.

After that, the demon also jumped at Neo and raised his halberd to split Neo's small body in two with a swing.

Neo, on the other hand, attacked the creature's head directly at an increased speed. As expected, the red barrier, which has blocked the attacks so far, once again formed around the demon.

However, Neo has been waiting for this moment and used his Telekinesis ability for the first time in this fight, ordering the atoms of the barrier which were piled in a strange formation, to scatter.

The atoms obeyed Neo's command, but Neo found that moving the barrier's atoms in the process was more difficult than expected. In fact, it is so difficult that he speculates that he can only partly removed the barrier on some places, but never the entire barrier.

However, a part was enough for Neo to attack and with a precise and targeted sword stroke, the Broadsword cut off part of the magma-laced armor.

Interestingly, the magma doesn't seem to do any damage to Neo's Broadsword and Mace. But at the end of the day, Neo doesn't really know what material his weapon is actually made of. He doesn't even know the original origin of the weapon, or who forged it, but one thing is very clear to him.

This weapon is not from Earth, but was probably purchased and brought here from one of the colony worlds.

Possibly it was once the weapon of one of the alien species that was wiped out or enslaved by Mankind in the past. At the end, the fact remains that Neo doesn't know anything about his mysterious weapon and even if he wanted to know more about it, he doesn't even know where to start looking for information.

But let's get back to the fight against the demon who just lost part of his head.

'Yes, now I'm sure, the thing has no organs, so no brain either. In fact, their entire internal circulation seems to consist of magma alone... what a strange creature.' thought Neo as he initiated the next attack.

The demon, on the other hand, slowly began to recover from the damage Neo had inflicted and went into a defensive position, using his halberd to protect primarily his upper chest from Neo's attacks.

Meanwhile, Neo decided to continue attacking the demon's head and with each further attack from him, the demon's previously magma filled head was slowly being sliced ​​into pieces and after a few more attacks from Neo's broadsword, the demon fell to the ground motionless.

The bright magma flowed from the demon's head and arm while Neo could see no motion from the demon. But one thing made him suspicious about the whole situation.

'Why can't I absorb the demon's Soul and why can I still feel it so well?' Neo wondered.

Normally, a Soul disappears a few seconds after the being's death, but this is different.

Either the demon just plays dead, or its Soul is different in several ways more.

'Even while I was attacking and killing it little by little, the demon only wanted to protect its chest, maybe the answer to my question is there?' thought Neo as he cut open the demon's chest with his sword.

The magma and parts of the armor flowed out of the being and only with the help of some Miasma which formed into arms, was Neo able to open the chest completely.

In the depths of the demon's chest Neo finally found what he was looking for. A small yellow/green sphere that glowed slightly was carried out of the demon's depths by its Miasma arms and was now in Neo's sight.

"Some kind of Body Core? Hmm... No, that can't be it, I feel that the Soul of the demon is coming from it. Is that the Soul Core of the demon?" Neo wondered.

"But why does it exist in reality. Normally, Soul Cores only exist in a being's Soul and in their separate reality. Then how can there be a Soul in our reality, in physical form?" Neo wondered as he picked up the Soul Core.

"Hmm... I wonder if I can absorb it and if so what will be its effects on me?" Neo asked himself as he examined the Soul Core more closely.

The Soul Core was slightly emitting the chaotic aura that Neo could already sense from the demon's Soul, and when he tried to use his absorbing ability on the Soul Core, the Core began to vibrate.

And after a while it started. Unbelievable pain afflicted Neo's Soul and created small white cracks in his Soul and his World of Darkness began to move slightly faster than before.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH" screamed Neo through his clenched teeth as he immediately canceled to absorb the Soul Core and fell to the ground.

...

[DAY 82]

Immediately after he aborted absorbing the Soul Core, Neo began to treat his wounds in his Soul and has only just finished provisionally. However, in the end Neo decided to leave it at that, especially since he still has two of the demons here and is not in a safe environment right now.

"The pain... such an unbearable pain. Having your own Soul destroyed is just excruciating pain." said Neo as he slowly recovered and opened his eyes.

"There's no way I can absorb the Souls of these demons. So I'll refer to these special Soul Cores of these demons as Demon Cores from now on, who knows maybe they'll have some use in the future, but so far they're pretty much useless. However, maybe Emily will be able to find out more about them." Neo said as he looked at the Demon Core which he was still holding.

"However, what happens if I destroy this thing?" Neo wondered as he materialized his Broadsword in his hand and made a small cut in the Core.

After Neo made a small cut in the Core, a dark green mist immediately started to come out of the cut and the Demon Core started to shimmer again.

Suddenly an unnatural scream began to come from the Demon Core. The scream wasn't something that could be heard, instead it was something that screamed directly into another being's Soul.

The scream was unbearable even for Neo, who has heard many screams from victims he has eaten and killed so far. In the end it took a few seconds and the scream disappeared along with the dark green fog and the demon core changed color from yellow/green to white.

"What was that?" Neo wondered as he looked at the Core in his hand.

"KAR IRA NANAR IO." Suddenly a dark voice said something, what Neo had already heard but didn't understand before, with a quick head lift he then discovered that another of the demons that was previously inactive and hanging on the wires seems to have woken up.

"Ah... interesting." Neo said as he looked at the demon who just freed himself from the wires with a demonic smile.