Boiling Blood

Whipping around, the end of the king's cape brushed up against the venerer, grinding his body as even the soft fabric was coated with the barrier.

'He is getting faster' remarked the Old Hadal King about the venerer.

Not only did it seem like the swamp wasn't restraining it as much as it used to a few moments ago, its regeneration speed had gone from absolutely ludicrous to truly divine.

He recalled the short exchanges he had had with the stranger before hell broke loose.

'He never stood a chance' he could only conclude this, the nameless foreigner had had no actual idea how powerful a venerer was, or perhaps he hadn't thought that one could be so overpowered.

He had known however, that the central strength of the faceless beasts was their adaptative abilities, they were murder machines that could rapidly evolve into infinite directions, to this end, they could endure a severe amount of damage like it was nothing.

This also extended to restraining their movements, the king had been lucky that the venerer that came out was one in line with the Abyss, it had a glaring weakness, which he had exploited but now, the simply addition of Axiolypito covered this deficiency entirely.

He had tried and eventually given up on trying to destroy the lifeless body as it always regenerated, however, today he had to try brute force once more.

Since the spells he could imbue into his zone proved useless, especially as he saw Axio running on the mud like it was nothing, he removed it and focused the zone on solely feeding him mana.

Pointing his trident in direction of the venerer and rising his staff up in the air, he began a series of attacks that would either spell his victory or demise.

A torrent of dark water shaped like a tornado shot out at the venerer, pushing it against a wall and pinning it there for the time being while the Old Hadal King casted an egregious amount of spells aimed for the wretch, whose position he had marked down.

Meaning that even if no longer restrained by anything, Axiolyîto wouldn't have his hands freed to do anything other than run and dodge.

There was such an extensive variety and overall amounts of spells appearing every second that Axio had no idea what was what anymore, he couldn't even tell if which spells he had already seen and which were completely new.

He simply ran for his dear life, well aware that any of those spells could kill him in one hit, he moved and bent around so much that he looked nothing like he should.

Ressembling more a bag filled with a bunch of different creatures all having a seizure than himself.

Now certain that Axio wouldn't be able to use any of his moves peacefully, the king turned his focus to the venerer, who was already pushing against the waterspout and making progress.

Its body was getting used to the damage and recovering faster as time went on, prompting the king to cancel that spell as he moved toward the venerer, who was getting struck by stray spells that were trying to home in on Axio.

No matter which parts of its body were destroyed, it recuperated with the same speed, its body had no weak point.

What ensued next was a brutal beatdown as each of the Old Hadal King's swings tore the venerer to shreds.

The faceless beasts claws oozed corroding Abyss as it ignored everything and focus on trying to get through the king's barrier to little effect.

The more it attacked, the more efficient it became at deconstructing the spell and the more the king focused on reinforcing it.

This clash was of little significance for the king, he didn't seem to have anything to win by trying to fight the venerer head-on in this way.

But of course, he had an idea, he was slowly and surely luring the venerer closer to the center of the room, where is zone was at its strongest.

He knew that he wouldn't be able to overwhelm the venerer's incredible regeneration in this way and neither had he hoped so.

For his plan to work, he needed to put every chances on his side, he needed to accomplish it before Axiolypito could begin to see the patterns in his flurry of spells, he only had one chance.

Facing the venerer when he couldn't make use of its weakness was a death wish.

The moment reached the center of the room, the two of them stepped back in unison, the king waited for the beast to move forward, but it didn't do so yet.

Instead, its featureless visage seemed to bloat for a second as steam came out of it, it puffed up its thin chest and spread out its arms.

The Old Hadal King knew what was coming, he could tell the amount of Abyss it had gathered inside of its head.

He should be able to dodge to the side and still complete his plan as he had envisioned but what was right behind him forced him to stand his ground.

Behind his back was the barrier blocking off the rift, he was confident in his spell but what was going to be shot out was certain to destroy it.

So he remained still, thrusting both of his weapons forward to meet the geyser of dark blue blood reeking of Abyss.

The Barrier closest to him were strongest and easier to mend, but he didn't try to stop the attack with a simple wall, instead he formed countless barriers of great power, charged with great amounts of mana in the shape of a triangle.

Forcing the stream to split, diverting its power instead of tanking it.

The attack missed the barrier he was protecting and failed to harm him.

He had had to sacrifice most of his mana however, his trident had been broken as well and the venerer was running toward him, ready to pierced through his weakened defenses.

It had underestimated the Old Hadal King however, sucking in what was left of the mana converted by his zone, he put his plan into motion, not noticing that his other spells ceased.

The venerer hit a barrier and was pushed back into another, from all sides barriers manifested, encasing the the venerer as they formed a cube, the cube grew smaller and smaller before turning into a sphere.

A sphere so small that the venerer couldn't regrow much at all before being ground to dust again.

It was his most powerful spell, albeit missing some of its components as it was used as a prison rather than an offensive move as it was meant to be.

The sphere of deep water was meant to be surrounded by powerful currents originially, which should pull things toward its body.

It was pretty much the recreation of a black hole, although the Old Hadal King had never been made aware of such things, it was his own creation.

Still, even without its attracting pull, it still served as a powerful weapon, being able to trap a venerer was no small feat.

However, he had committed a grave mistake, the unsuspected torrent of Abyss had exhausted him beyond what was originally planned.

His plan had needed him to unconsciously stop all of his other spells and his zone to accomplish.

Which meant that a certain someone had had the occasion to do whatever he wanted during that time.

Spent and manaless, the king still sensed danger coming from behind him and turned around.

Just in time to see Axiolypito, his palms stuck against one another with a grin on his face and a slight nosebleed.

It certainly was less straining to use this little trick when he hadn't had the occasion to use any of his powers at all.

Still, he felt the rush of fatigue washing over him all the same when he unleashed the torrent of ground up flesh and debris toward the Old Hadal King.

This time, fueled with Abyss.

Unable to dodge in time, the king brace for impact and shielded himself with his staff, attempting to strike the compressed mass into another direction to no effect.

His staff was shattered and without the protection of his barrier, slammed into his chest, caving his chestplate in and sending backward toward the deadly sphere.

The spell didn't hurt him at all, as a seasoned mage, his own spells couldn't harm him even when he was left without any mana.

Still, the damage was done and Axio stopped his attack before it drained even more out of him.