Ch 4 Decay and beatdown

My time in the underworld has passed by a lot faster than i would have like it to I'm currently eight years old so three years have passed since i have woken up in this world. i have not been slacking off in my time here. 

I have been studying the history of devils and all the devil pillars and their territory while attending social gatherings making connections with the heirs of the new generation of devils and other characters when I had the chance.

i would say i have become fairly popular here in the underworld with the younger devils but of course there are some that are unhappy with me but that is to be expected. I wished to become friends' with Sairaorg Bael as i know he is very strong and would make for a great Ally in the future, but he has yet to show himself at any social events as of late outside of a scarce few that were mandatory and I haven't had the chance to talk to him.

outside of those a good portion of my time has been spent training my demonic power and mastering the Astaroth clan trait decay. Lord Astaroth has been teaching me over these three years. I even managed to convince Diodora to join in on the training which he was hesitant at first and didn't show up consistently but after a while he hasn't missed a single day of training and in fact, he seems to be enjoying the training as now he isn't stuck in his room all day long moping about. 

I must say it is nice to have a someone to train with as having someone train with you kind of motivated me to do better as now me and Diodora have a friendly rivalry. while I have more power over all Diodora has shown to have more control in the beginning but that was only cause of the amount of demonic power I have is too much for me to control. I have demonic energy reserves close to that of the Satans when they were my age, but I can only put out attacks that are middle-class and slightly reaching high-class without losing control that was why when I first tested my decay ability it continued to spread even without me that was one example. over the years I have been training there have been other instances where my demonic power went out of control as I was casting spells and backfired injuring me in the process. 

After three years I am close to mastering the Astaroth clan trait all that is left is a test from lord Astaroth himself, he will be personally evaluating my abilities in this test. while I am confident in my abilities, I am not sure that I will be able to fight on even footing with lord Astaroth he is not someone to taken lightly.

I am currently waiting for him in the training court stretching making sure I am prepared for the upcoming fight, along with Diodora and Latia they have both come to spectate me. I have grown really close to the both of them over the years. I am glad that both Diodora and Latia get along so well they are very much like sister and brother now but despite all this i have yet to take my eye off of him it isn't because I don't trust him quite the opposite actually, I am wary of the old Satan faction trying to make a move and gain contact with Diodora.

it is just from the show I remember him being in contact with the old Satan faction since he was young, I fear they may try to make contact with him and end up using him through black mail or bribery of some kind I cannot be too careful who knows what they plan on doing. I need to thoroughly prepare myself to counter whatever they throw our way.

" So, Alex do you think you are ready to take on Lord Astaroth " asks Latia with a smile as she sits on the railing of the colosseum looking down at both me and Diodora

I shake my head as I look up at her. " No not quite, frankly there is no way I can beat him as I am now, but I do have confidence that I can meet his expectations. " As I was training with him, I learned that he is no push over at all he has yet to show me more than what he needs to, but I guess this is the kind of strength you would expect from someone who survived through the great war and civil war Afterall. 

Diodora tilts his head as he looks at me " Do you have a plan of some kind. " He says curiously. 

" Nope but I do have a few tricks of my sleeve that he doesn't know about. I'm hoping to take him by Suprise with a few of these spells I have been developing on my own time. " Over these three years i have been testing and expanding my magic repertoire on my own time. 

" Hmmm is that so Alex I can't wait to see how you perform. " Says Latia looking at me with high expectations as she excitedly dangles her legs over the railing visibly exited for the spectacle she is going to watch. 

A green magic circle with capital A that has a curved tail design on it the clan symbol of clan Astaroth. out of the magic circle appears a man in his late twenties with slicked back green hair with a full-grown beard and dark purple eyes. he has a stern and serious looking face that goes well with his muscular build. he is also holding a long rectangular black case with him.

' Huh what's that case for? ' I look at the black rectangular case he has in his right hand as he walks over to where me and Diodora are standing. 

" Ah it is good to see you are already here young Alexander. " He says with a stern yet kind elderly voice as he walks over to me.

" It would be rude to make you wait on me, so I came here early also what is that you are carrying " I ask as I point to the case he is holding.

he holds the case up in front of me. " This is a gift from your father he wanted to congratulate you on the progress you have made on your training. " He says as he lays the case on the gray sand and flips the locks and opens the case revealing a staff. " Don't be shy now give it a try. your father wanted you to be well armed for this fight. " He says in a gruff voice with a grin on his face.

I grab the staff out of the case and start inspecting it. the staff is completely metal with green energy flowing through it. it also functions as a bident a two-pronged spear and just below the spear head is a circle where a green gem resides still connected to the staff.

this spear is surprisingly light and easy to hold it fits just right in my hands. I wouldn't expect no less from my father he is a genius after all. Diodora stands beside me also checking out the spear and Latia jumps down from the railing she was one and also marvel at my father's invention impressed with his work.

" wow lord Beelzebub really is amazing. " Says Latia with stars in her eyes as she looks over every detail of my new staff very intrigued by it. 

" Indeed, he is. " I say completely agreeing with her as I have a wide smile on my face. 

Lord Astaroth seems pleased by my reaction to the gift. 

" Now that, that is done with, we shall go ahead with the test now " says Lord Astaroth as he approach's the other side of the colosseum getting into position. i do the same getting on my side of the court.

he turns to look at both Diodora and Latia. " the both of you should get a safe distance away I don't want either of you to be hit by a stray attack. " at his words the both of them spread their wings and fly over to the stands taking a seat.

" so, what is it that I need to do to pass your test "

" Simple survive for five minutes against me or make me surrender. " He says as he takes off his robe and is now in a black combat uniform and gets into his stance as he holds his hands up close to his face like a boxer as he tightly clenches his hands up into a fist as he stares me down.

I grip my staff and hold it out in front of me getting ready. he says it like it is easy. I go ahead and start to charge my demonic power so i can react instantaneously to whatever he throws at me.

" I see you are worried i will inform you that am going to be holding back so I don't cause any lasting injury's " he says five magic circles appear above him and shoots out large spears of decay at me.

'What magic? I thought he was going to attack me in close quarters.' his stance caught me off guard as I was not expecting him to suddenly cast magic at me.

I take flight using my wings to doge as they get close, but they turn upwards following me in the air. they follow? are you serious. 

i charge my demonic power into my staff as I shoot out a blade of wind. it is highly compressed air in the shape of a crescent moon. my attack meets his head on canceling each other's out. I see him prepare for another volley of attacks and so do I. His attacks finish first heading toward me I dodge them all while heading closer to him while charging my demonic power once I am about fifty feet from him, I fire off my spell.

From my staff multiple arcs of green lighting scorches, the ground and the walls causing a lot of destruction on the ground as my attack continues for a few seconds. It is a spell that covers a large area, but it does not have the best accuracy I was hoping i would be able to land an attack on him with this, but I can't tell since I lost track of him in the dust. 

I feel a shiver run up my spine as I feel a Prescence behind me. I hastily put up a magic barrier to defend myself.

" Too late. " Was all I heard before my barrier got shattered as he easily punched through it and I felt intense pain in my ribs as I plummeted to the ground.

I quickly start to use biomacy to accelerate the healing process and pump my body with adrenaline I can already feel the pain Lessing and my breathing returns to normal as I focus back on lord Astaroth. 

he descends back to the ground standing twenty-five feet away from me with a smug smile on his face as he looks at me getting up off the ground after getting punched by him.

" You combined decay and lighting together to create that spell I honestly didn't except you to be able to do that yet " he says clearly impressed by what i was able to do.

" Ha, you haven't seen nothing yet. " I say trough labored breaths as the pain from his last attack is still there.

he smirks as he starts to amass demonic power as he fire's off multiple rays of decay. in response I summon a wall of earth twenty feet long and twenty feet wide covering a wide area.

" What is he thinking he should know that wall of earth isn't going to protect him from my attack. " Lord Astaroth thinks to himself as he is perplexed by my actions.

' Heh if I had to guess he is confused by my action it is natural to be. '

I place my hand on the wall of earth I summoned and use transmutation to turn it into brass right before his attacks connect to my wall. I am doing this cause my barriers aren't strong enough to hold against him I know that, so I turned the earth into brass as it decays the slowest so it should be able to hold out against attack.

the attacks connect causing sand to rise and cloud his vision. Lord Astaroth stands there waiting for the dust to clear obviously in no rush.

As the dust clears Alexander seems to be surrounded by hundreds of brass balls the size of marbles with a smirk as he stares down lord Astaroth.

Lord Astaroth raises his eyebrows as if amused by the way he fights. " i see so you used brass to negate my attack as decay isn't very effective against it. "

" Yeah, that's right now let's see how you like to be on the run. " i point my hand out to him and on command they all start to head towards him at a fast speed and entrap him keeping him surrounded while i also use the brass to attack him.

he takes flight to the air and dodges them, but it wasn't easy he did get hit a few times but any of them that did get too close to him for even a single second was destroyed by his aura. he condensed his demonic power of decay and is wearing it kind of like a second set of clothes and anything that got close decayed within in a second showing off his flawless control of his clan trait. 

I'm not trying to beat him but simply gaining some time I only have three minutes left if I can just keep him occupied this strategy was worth it. sucks my accuracy isn't that good it is hard to simply control that many things at once with pinpoint accuracy which is why he is able doge them while counterattacking. every now and then he would find a gap in my attacks and use that chance to come after me directly catching me off guard the first time but after that I was able to successfully evade his attacks and entrap him again. 

a minute passes like this but eventually it wears off as now all my brass is now just clumps of decayed metal scattered about on the ground completely unusable. meanwhile the mental exhaustion is taking effect controlling all that was really taxing on my mind as for my demonic energy i still have plenty of.

however, my opponent seems almost unscathed except for the few wears and tears on his clothes. " That was a surprisingly good workout apologies if I dragged that on for longer than I should have." he says nonchalantly as he stretch's his arm. 

w-w-workout you call that a workout I was taking this seriously and he was just playing around. I know the difference in power between us, but this is just infuriating to be treated as such. 

In the blink of an eye, he disappeared from my field of vision and as soon as my brain processed that I made a magic barrier which was a good call as the sound of a fist hitting the barrier was made.

*clang*

this time I was able to enforce this barrier to be stronger than the last one as it managed to survive the first hit, but it still greatly damaged my barrier as cracks form on it.

he was on my right side preparing to punch again I try to enforce my barrier to hold out against him, but it was no use as his next attack connects shattering it completely before I could reinforce it. 

I take a jump back so I can go into the air, but he doesn't give me a chance as his fist lands in my chest knocking all the air out of my body. 

it hurts it hurts I swear he broke my rib cage with that blow. His punches are so heavy it feels like I'm being hit by a truck. I use biomancy to increase the toughness of my body while increasing the density of my muscles and bones as my body already starts to heal the damage

' I really am no good at close quarters I need to gain distance if I want to have a chance. '

 I recover my balance from his blow and grip my staff to thrust it forward, but he just shifts his body to the left avoiding it while leaving me completely vulnerable to him.

he punches me in the face twice and once in the kidney if it wasn't for the biomancy I'm using on my body i would have passed out already as my vision darkens for a second as it quickly returns to normal.

After his attack there was a delay in his fourth punch which I saw and used to my advantage to summon spikes to come out of the earth causing him to retreat as i point my staff to the ground as it starts to boil and turn into magma taking the form of a serpent heading straight for him casing him to retreat farther back as I take to the air gaining distance from him.

[magma serpent]

the magma serpent approaches him opening its jaws wide intent on devouring him. Lord Astaroth stops backing up and slightly bends his knees forward and pull back arm as demonic energy begins to condense on fist. the magma serpent closes in on him withs it jaws wide open and just as the serpent was about to close its jaws Lord Astaroth's first explodes forward punching the serpent destroying it in one punch causing magma to fly up in the air scattering it across the ground. 

I stand there in the air momentarily shocked by his power but become on guard as without missing a beat he instantly prepares a large magic attack and fire's it at me. he shoots out a large beam of decay towards me.

At seeing this I can't help but smile as I get to use one of the spells I have been working on and have been eager for a chance to use it.

[gravity well]

a purple orb forms in front of me as his attack is fast approaching it gets within range his attack starts to curve around the gravity well leaving me completely unscathed as it goes past me and hits the barrier surrounding the colosseum causing an explosion behind me. the principle behind gravity well is the same as how the earth bends the suns light around it causes of the gravity is so much it warps space and time but obviously [gravity well] works on a much, much smaller scale. 

' I think it is about time to ends this. '

Lord Astaroth shoots his demonic power of decay at alexander and to his Suprise it completely warped around him. he was astonished he thought he learned his father's special ability the kankara formula to take control of his attack, but he doubted it cause if he did then his attack would of have been redirected back at him.

he was brought back to the fight as alexander flared all of his demonic power on display covering a wide area around him. Lord Astaroth had a proud smile on his face as he watched young Alex. ' He truly is fit to be Satan. '

' but if He thinks he can end it with a large attack and make me surrender he is sorely mistaken. ' Lord Astaroth spreads his wings heading straight to Alexander at a blindingly fast speed with his fist pulled back intent on finishing this fight once and for all as there is no need for it to go on any longer as he has already proved himself.

As he closes the distance and gets in range, he sends his punch straight to his face making contact but to his Suprise Alexanders body disappears in a gray mist as he feels the sharp edge of cold metal placed against his neck in a swift motion. the real alexander appears out of thin air to his right staring him down with a smile on his face as he knew this match was his.

"Surrender" that is all that comes out of his mouth while not moving the blade a single centimeter from his throat.

he takes in a deep breath as he sighs. " Very well I surrender this is your victory "