Chapter 9: A Battle

"Dismantle." Akio stated, whilst doing a swiping motion with his newly regenerated hand.

Akio seemed to have successfully used the skill as an invisible blade slashed at the demon's neck.

Before the demon could finish speaking, his head was cleanly severed off his shoulders as it fell to the ground with a *plop*.

The demon's body stood motionless for a moment as the head, that was now on the floor, had a shocked expression.

A brief silence emerged as Akio focused on the demon's severed head.

...

"What the hell!? Scram demon! This is my territory!" The head of the demon spoke, irritated, still looking quite lively despite having his head cut off.

Akio frowned slightly. "As expected, dismantle and cleave probably won't work against demons... Well, it might be different if I could use domain expansion as that could practically erase someone in an instant. However, that's the problem: I don't have it!"

"How unlucky am I though! I spent 3 days looking for a weak demon to have a casual fight with, just to simply test my abilities. But, I ended up finding this sadistic demon instead! I practically skipped 3 stages and went straight to a boss battle! A demon gets stronger with the more humans it eats, and eventually, they unlock a blood demon art. Even the mutated demon Tanjiro fought during final selection, after two years of gruelling training, didn't have a blood demon art." Akio pondered.

"My left arm feels itchy now after healing it. I really didn't expect this demon to have a blood demon art. I got too confident! I had dodged the demon's first attack and thought he wasn't that strong, however he had been holding back. Afterall, why use your full power to crush an ant? And then, he almost broke my arm with his second assault, before finally cutting my left arm off... What an unpleasant experience! But, this is a valuable lesson for myself."

"Did you hear me! You best leave before I rip yo–" The demon shouted before getting interrupted by Akio.

"Dismantle."

Akio had once again used a skill, but this time, he had used it multiple times, splitting the demon's head into 128 separate parts.

The demon, realising Akio still wanted to fight, moved his headless body before pouncing at him. The demon seemed to be using his full strength which had made it so Akio was completely helpless against his attack: his strength and speed far surpassing his. Well, that would be the case, however Akio had a keen reaction time. And, with his regeneration and slicing abilities, he wasn't too worried.

Akio once again used dismantle, which far surpassed the demon's speed, splitting his body cleanly in half as his two halves flew past Akio.

"Keuk! Bastard!" The demon spoke with a slight wince. It had seemed he had finally regenerated his head.

"A demon's regeneration is really annoying..." Akio thought.

"What the hell is his blood demon art! I can't see any of his attacks that are cleaving me apart effortlessly!" The demon contemplated before his two halves quickly became whole again.

The pale demon once again began using his ability.

"Blood Demon Art: Shadow Slice!" The demon shouted, before conjuring an attack that once cleaved Akio's arm off. After that, he once again aimed it at Akio before releasing it.

However, when he tried to launch the ability, he couldn't feel his left hand that had been controlling the attack: it felt intangible. Looking down, he could see that his hand had been dissected without him even realising. 

"Like I'd let you do that again." Akio remarked.

"Damn you!" The demon screeched at Akio before tensing his legs and jumping up high up into the sky. Then, like a meteor, plummeted back down at Akio.

*BOOM!*

A cloud of dust formed as the demon crashed down onto the earth: creating a crater. 

Akio, having seen the attack from a mile away, quickly side stepped out of the demon's direction.

The cloud of dust had finally dissipated as the demon emerged out of it, with his body fully regenerated. The demon seemed to have used that attack to get the opportunity to reattach his head back.

"Are you an idiot! Don't you know that fights between demons is futile!? It's utterly pointless as we would just regenerate endlessly!" The pale creature stated with an annoyed look.

Akio simply remained silent as he prepared for the demon's assault, however contrary to his expectations, the demon ran away!

"I'm leaving! I'm not wasting my time with you!" The demon shouted, before turning around to make a dash to the forest.

"Looking at the moon, the sun will probably rise in an hour or so. I'm really irritated. Irritated!" The demon mumbled, his blood boiling with anger.

"What a waste! Why did another demon have to interrupt me whilst I was eating!" The demon spoke internally, visibly annoyed and full of hatred towards Akio.

However, as the demon was running, for some reason, he suddenly couldn't feel his lower body as his upper body fell to the ground: his face hitting the floor.

"Keuk!" The demon winced from the sudden impact.

*Plop*

"Did you think you could leave?" Akio stated in a cold voice. He had bisected the demon using dismantle before cutting the demon's lower body into mutiple parts to slow down his regeneration from completing too quickly.

"You know... Having my arm getting ripped off isn't exactly pleasant and well... Fights between demons aren't exactly futile..." Akio spoke, his tone eery, which gave the demon a bad feeling.

The demon tried getting up with his arms, however... he couldn't feel those too. 

"Don't even try to regenerate. I'll simply keep cleaving your limbs off." Akio remarked as he walked closer to the demon. Once Akio was in close proximity with the demon, he had already cut off his limbs over 10 times which had proved his statement. The demon's resistance was futile.

"I need to be careful... His shadow abilities are strange. It seems he can only use that one move. Perhaps he recently unlocked his blood demon art... But, I won't let my guard down like last time." Akio contemplated.

Akio just gave the demon's torso a kick which made him turn around to face him.

"What the hell are you doin–" The demon tried to speak.

"Dismantle." Akio stated, which caused the demon's face to be cleanly sliced off at an angle: sliding down and dropping onto the ground to reveal his tongue, brain, teeth etc...

Then, swiftly after the demon's face was gone, Akio took out a vial that had liquid inside it–which was of a pale purple colour– before he poured it down the demon's throat.

The demon's body instantly convulsed as veins bulged all over his body. 

"You won't die... I've diluted this wisteria liquid so it can stop a demon's regeneration. But, considering your strength: it'll probably only slow down your healing factors..."

Akio had crushed up some wisteria and turned it into a liquid before diluting it. He had been intending to find a demon as a little test subject for his abilities so he can understand what his skills are and how it worked. Especially his MP.

The demon, after recovering from getting poisoned, which took around 15 minutes, looked at Akio with a somewhat fearful expression: his body sweating profusely. After he had been poisoned, he felt extremely pitiful: his regeneration had become much weaker–around ten times slower– whilst his physical strength had been reduced drastically.

For lower level demons, wisteria can paralyse them and stop them from regenerating, even killing them if the wisteria was potent enough.

The demon knew that his life was in Akio's hands.

"Demon... For the next 2 or 3 hours, you're going to be my test subject, K?" Akio asked, but he wasn't exactly giving him an option.

...

...

...

"Okay, I think I got a gist of how 2 of my stats work now. For dexterity, I'm certain that it links with my reaction time, considering it's my highest stat whilst also allowing me to be very nimble. If it weren't for my reaction time being this good, I don't know how the fight would have turned out." Akio analysed.

"As for MP, after experimenting with cleave and dismantle, I'm pretty sure it's just how much 'mana' or whatever magical source that lets me use my abilities are. I have 5 MP at the moment, so let's say that it equates to 1000 points of mana to make it easier to understand. I used dismantle which is my basic invisible slash attacks. I can output however much points of mana I want, to make the ability stronger. It's quite simple." Akio pondered.

"But, as for cleave... It works differently as it automatically uses my mana points to give the best ratio to perfectly cleave someone or penetrate their defence using the least amount of mana points. So for a human, less points would obviously be used whilst for a demon with higher defence, more points."

"I used 1000 points instead of the average 100 points that most fantasy games start with as a player. This is because, for some reason, I can use my ability "Dismantle" for around 850 times. I'm certain I could do more as I had healed my arm, which likely expended some of my mana points. However, it's also likely because dismantle is probably worth less than 1 point to cast if we're considering game logic."

"This links to another interesting thing I found out. I can spam my two abilities: Cleave and Dismantle. What I mean by this is that I can conjure 500 "dismantles" or "cleaves" at once if I really wanted to. This is probably exclusive to Sukuna's abilities as it's quite simple yet effective."

"With this revelation, I can practically make a mini domain expansion that lasts for a second if I were to use my ability this way! But, all my MP would be quickly depleted." Akio finished his contemplation.

Akio then turned his gaze to the demon, who surprisingly, looks as good as new–minus his severed legs and one arm missing... A very good test dummy! 5 stars! Akio would rate.

"Fuck! Who is this sadistic kid! He's been torturing me for what feels like an eternity!" The demon screamed internally, not daring to voice out his displeasure. He had quickly found out that Akio doesn't care even remotely about anything he says. Insults, pleads, promises: Akio didn't even bat an eye!

"Shit! I can see the sun rising! I'm in the open and I can't even move! I'm practically stuck here waiting for my death!" The demon had a panicked expression.

"Okay demon, I've finished what I wanted to do... Since you were so cooperative, I'm feeling quite generous. Hmm let's see, the sun is going to come up in around 5 minutes..." Akio contemplated, before focusing his eyes on his torso that only has a head and one arm.

"Well, how about this. I'll give you a chance to live: Crawl your way into safety..." Akio spoke.

"You can't be serious, we're in the middle of the field! I would need atleast 10 minutes!" The demon spoke with desperation.

"I can't even regenerate my limbs due to the wisteria that I had consumed mutiple times by now! This kid is treating me like a plaything!" The demon cursed internally. It's rather hypocritical for a demon like this one to say this, however the demon was completely oblivious.

"That's not my problem." Akio spoke.

"Shit! No time to waste!" The demon spoke, realising he couldn't change this person's mind.

He made a full speed crawl to the forest to get away from the sun whilst Akio just watched. To Akio, it looked rather funny and comedic.

The demon had already crawled for 5 minutes as his body has now been exposed to the sun.

"Ahhh! Hot! IT BURNS! I'm almost there! Just a little more!" The demon uttered as he tried reaching the shade under a tree of the forest 

The demon mustered all his strength, and miraculously, had managed to arrive: the burning sensation on his body slowly dissipating.

"I survived!" The demon breathed out an air of relief. However, he heard a faint noise a good distance away from him.

"Dismantle"

To the demon's terror, the multiple trees that he had been seeking shelter under, had been cleaved apart! The sun once again enveloped the demon as he combusted into flames, turning into dust.

[Host has defeated a greater demon for the first time: Received 3 attribute points]

"Yawn. This has been an eventful night... or day." Akio muttered, as he looked at the rising sun. "It has also been my first time getting seriously injured as well."

Akio's energy has been heavily spent from staying awake all night and fighting.

This was his first life or death battle, and he already made mistakes that could've costed him an arm and maybe even his life if it wasn't for his abilities he recently obtained.

Akio looked at the destruction he caused at where the demon had perished at. He had cleaved the trees to allow the sunlight to kill the demon. He didn't even care that he didn't keep his promise to the demon. Why would he pass up free points? Furthermore, Akio was quite the petty individual. Having an arm getting ripped off is as good of a reason as any, to kill someone.

"I should have 4 points now, let's see what they do when I add them to my stats!" Akio spoke internally, enthusiasm of defeating an opponent and getting stronger overpowering his dreariness.