A Titled Demon Pt2

Strong was an understatement.

Even after pushing either sword into the demon's belly until stopped by their guards, less than five percent of the demon's health was lost. Even with my titles and buffs the demon commander was at least as strong as the original Trollbone with an equally immense level of defense. The cursing of Dark Hauntings barely even seemed to bother it despite the sudden loss of one percent of its HP every other second.

The demon simply brushed passed me after I had plunged my swords into it, barely even noticing the fact that it had been attacked as I was shoved aside. However, I was still conducting electricity between us and thus could constant flash about its body.

Every flash movement was accompanied by an open palmed strike to its body, vaguely denting its scales that were larger than my hands as a few percent of its HP were lost with each strike. Sadly, the electrical currents did nothing to hinder its movements, allowing it to push through my attacks while charging toward the other players.

Fearing the devastation this boss could cause as the memory of Trollbone's slash attack slaying over a hundred players flashed through my mind, I instantly depleted all of my mana into a combination of Force Strike and Spirit Eruption. In spire of the numerous tons of force striking the demon directly in the center of its chest, the demon was only forced back by about ten yards.

Its roaring quickly shifted into a dark and thunderous laughter as it raised a hand and swatted through the air, narrowly missing me as I conducted myself through the lightning in the air to evade the attack with what little MP I managed to regenerate in the last two seconds.

"Weak," the demon's voice suddenly sounds out, twisting around to smash into me with its body as I appeared at its side and rammed my palm forward into its ribs. Just being bumped into like this was enough to take away another fifteen percent of my health bar.

"Weak! Weak! Weak!" The demon exclaims almost joyously, continuing to laugh as it continued to merely dance and slam its body into me until I was thrown down to the ground.

"First-Aid," I cast quickly, recovering some of the health I had just lost and bringing myself just over fifty percent before flying backwards and away from the demon.

As soon as I retreated for some breathing room, the demon whipped around back toward the other players and hopped forward. Unlike the original Trollbone who seemed content to try making an example of me, this wild fiend had no problem switching targets as if the concept of Aggro did not even exist. If not for their scattered formation, just the stomping of this demon's feet would have taken out at least a dozen people.

As it was, only a few players died under its giant clawed feet. Then, as I flapped forward through the air to try and regain its attention its tail flicked out like a cracked whip. The pitchfork like end of its devilish tail thrust out with blinding speed, turning almost invisible as if it used a Flash Step to strike out like a snake.

The outer defenses that had no time to recover up until now gave way to the tail, allowing the middle two forks to impale me through either side of my ribs before pinning me down to the ground. Turning its head to smile down at me, the demon scoffs at my attempts to free myself before turning back toward the other players.

However, in that short moment of having looked away, the demon found itself turning to face two hundred chaos lances being thrown through the air all in the same direction. Laughing wildly, the demon simply stands up straight and throws its arms out as if to embrace the lances while allowing them to smash and shatter all about its body.

Scales and flesh were rent from its body with a sickening charred scent. Dark demonic fluids poured out from all over the front of its body, filling the small craters created by the elemental explosions from the chaos lances. All of a sudden, forty percent of the demon's health was gone from the awe-inspiring barrage of attacks.

Regardless of this, the demon never stopped laughed as if it had never even been touched before suddenly punching down toward the ground. Only then did I realize why this demon was so wild and why it seemed to be enjoying itself. From its clawed fist erupted a blurry eruption of elemental energies that was horrifically familiar.

Traytar had just used Spirit Eruption as well as the same magics enchanted in the chaos lances, replicating and reciprocating our attacks all at once.

Under the demon's fist was suddenly a massive crater bigger than the dried up reincarnation pond and dozens of players were suddenly missing as if they had never been there at all. My party that had been at the front of the scattered player formation were all heavily wounded from the splash of damage and thrown wide from their original positions. Even the other players had been relocated, finding themselves dozens of yards away from one another.

Suddenly, the forked tail of the demon snatched up from the ground and flicked me into the air before the half-dead demon commander spun about with a backhanded slap that swatted me from the air like a fly. Just as suddenly, I found myself feeling like a small child being bullied by an adult as I slammed into the ground with a shattering of all of my defenses that left me below twenty percent of my HP and heavily dazed.

"I waited… so long…" the demon says blissfully while hugging himself, not even bothering to heal from his wounds while my swords remained buried in its body after being forced deeper by the chaos lance explosions. "So long for you. I thought you would be strong… hoped you could hurt me so good… but you're so weak! How did you even make it this far? How could you survive so many thousands of my brethren?"

This guy was definitely stronger than Orion and way more destructive than the old Trollbone. I could barely even pick myself up off the ground as my previously pierced giant lungs slowly sealed themselves and I coughed up large clots of blood.

Before I even knew what was happening there was a giant clawed hand filling my vision with darkness, closing its fingers around my body to snatch me up off of the ground and hold me up at eye level.

"You were so brave…" it says almost ruefully and wistfully, as if it had previously been impressed or even inspired by me. "So brave, so smart, so ruthless, so… perfect! What happened to you, little one? What made you so weak when it was finally my turn?!"

Struggling to think quickly and come up with some kind of strategy, I just start to move when the demon's hand suddenly clenches tighter around my body and I soon find myself spitting up blood clots all over again. Suddenly growing angry, the demon roars in my face, "WHY CAN'T YOU FIGHT ME?!"

Grasping at straws, I release my hulk form in an instant to produce a glittery gaseous cloud of broken down mana before planting my foot against the demon's palm and using a ring's Flash Step to retreat into the air. "First… First-Aid," I say haggardly, fighting to verbally cast the spell while coughing and retching now that my chest and lungs had room to expand and take in air again.

Holy hell this dude was strong. I could not help but think of the few hundred skeletons and all of their chaos lances that I had told to stay behind at the cathedral. I had thought this fight would only be a little bit tougher, that there would only be more demons and not a boss this overpowered. If I had known then what I now realized after less than a minute of fighting, I would have begged the skeletons to come with us!

Not even taking the time to withdraw items from my Character Inventory, I simply corrupt my entire body and belongings and Devour everything I had that could heal me. My health and mana were almost instantly refilled but I had just used up the last of my recovery items and food. There was nothing left for me to fall back on besides healing skills and I suddenly felt like First-Aid was shamefully weak in the face of this demon.

"Your big ugly ass caught me by surprise, that's all," I finally reply through gritted teeth, hovering a few dozen feet out of the demon's reach and above its head. "Just you wait, ya freak. I'll show you what ruthless looks like."

I was honestly terrified of attacking. The demon was so big that only my movement skills could evade any of its attacks and eventually it would just throw my attacks right back at me. The only chance I really had was to kill this damn thing in one big boom or to just keep punching it without using any skills.

Even my swords that were now somewhere in its pitted stomach were barely even bothering it and one was cursed while the other was divine. How the hell could this guy even move around with a divine weapon stuck inside of it?! This demon's abilities were even more broken than Trollbone or Zekrom's health bars!

Plus, I was not even supposed to kill this guy! The plan was to try capturing it so that Donna or Mr. Thirteen could claim it for their clans. However, how could we actually let something like this continue breathing?!

More than likely, if we tried to bind it or something it would just eat the binding and turn on us while laughing its head off like a masochist getting stomped on.

Then, thinking of masochism, an idea more ridiculous than anything I had ever thought of suddenly occurs to me. Truthfully, such a plan was more likely to work than trying to beat the demon into submission since that seemed to be what it wanted. So, why give it what it wanted at all?

"Pack it up, folks, we're going home," I call out suddenly to the other players, essentially signaling the retreat. Nobody needed to be told twice, all the other players simply turned on their heels and started running as if the gates of hell were opening up underneath them. Before the demon commander even had time to react, we were the only people left within a hundred yards.

"What?!" Traytar exclaims in confused fury, whipping its head this way and that while watching the others flee from the fight. "Where are you going?! COME BACK AND FIGHT ME!"

"You're not worth it," I reply with a dismissive wave of my hands, turning as if to fly away as well. "We don't even NEED to fight you, we can just go to the manor any time we want and end things without you. You just go back to your outpost and twiddle your thumbs while waiting for someone else to be dumb enough to fight you. we're leaving."

Suddenly taking to the air despite its open-boned wings that could not grasp the air, the demon lashes out with a crazed slash of one clawed hand which I manage to dive away from at the last second. The demon commander turned out to be much slower in the air, providing me with enough of an advantage to evade its attacks as I flew up and down and around.

"Stop running and fight me, human!" Traytar the Defiler demands as he- or she- continues chasing me through the air, dipping and looping around in pursuit of me as I struggled to stay just out of reach. "How can you be so shameful!?"

"What's the point in fighting you?" I retort with a scoff, doing my best to sound calm despite the strain of flying at my top speed while maintaining constant direction changes. "I told you, we can just go to the manor and settle things whenever we want! The only reason we're attacking your outposts is because it's good loot and experience. You, though… you're not worth it! You're too much trouble. You're needy and clingy and never pay attention to anyone but yourself! Who wants to be involved with someone like that?"

I honestly felt like I was trying to break up with this demon and that the demon simply refused to accept it.

Screaming in frustration with an ear-shattering high pitch, the demon suddenly drops down to the ground and stomps about angrily like a child throwing a tantrum. Finally, as I stop flying away and hover in the air with only fifty yards of distance between us, Traytar demands, "What do I have to do to prove myself to you? I'm strong, almost the strongest demon here! FIGHT! ME!"

"Well…" I say slowly, flicking my gaze in the direction of the commander's army of demons. If this guy was ALMOST the strongest demon here then we definitely needed them to deal with whoever was THE strongest. However, I wanted to see exactly how far this masochist would go in order to receive a beating.

"I mean, if you were useful I could understand why putting forth the effort would be worth it but I don't know how useful you would be. You're basically a broken sword, dude, because you're not at your strongest until after you've been beaten. If you can at least kill all those guys in your current condition then I'll go ahead and fight you."

*