Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest

Resolve, as unbending as steel, shone in his narrowed eyes.

Grip tightening on his abyssal blade, his eyes darted between the poltergeist's cruel smirk and the chilly fog condensing into another volley of hovering arrows.

A drop of sweat rolled down his temples. Like a cowboy locked in a lethal duel, he had to deliver a swift, devastating blow to end his adversary. But where was the girl?

She had faded and now lingered in the shadows. Perhaps lying an ambush behind or most likely waiting to impale his chest the moment he charged the boy.

Even if he was wrong, one thing was sure: passiveness would lead to death.

As he pondered, the boy flexed his arms playfully.

"Come on, big demon! Use those huge muscles of yours to entertain us."

The taunting in his youthful voice resonated with the whispers. Dark and gleeful, they rippled against the silence, growing louder and urging him to surrender to the darkness.

"A mere ghost mocks you? You're the shame of the demon race if you don't rip his soul this instant. Use unbridled violence. Imbue your strikes with hatred!"

His brows twitched, primal savagery flashing scarlet in his eyes. Yet, he ignored it and outstretched his palm instead.

Dark flames crackled to life before it, casting ominous shadows on his rising lips.

A rare calm settled in his mind as he channelled his demonic essence. For once, he felt nothing—not the dread that had once haunted him, nor the rage injected into his veins by the whispers. No. It was just him, his skills, and his burning defiance.

"Sorry, but I don't fear you anymore."

With his words, the flames danced and assembled into a sizzling dark spear burning chaotically.

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The surrounding fog howled and evaporated under its heat as he drew his tense arm back and inhaled sharply.

Meanwhile, the poltergeist's eyes trembled as he urgently hurled his arrows and blurted out.

"He tricked us! He's a mage! Ambush him now, sister!"

Adam's eyes sparkled, and his smirk broadened.

'So, I was correct. They mistook me for a pure warrior because of my blade, and she's waiting between us. Too bad!'

Faced with the whistling arrows closing in, his eyes narrowed into fiery slits, and his torso drew back. Each joint popped under his straining muscles as Achilles' posture superimposed over his inflated body.

"RAH!"

With a fearless roar, his torso spun and his arm cleaved through the swirling vapor.

WHOOSH

Propelled like a missile, his spear brightened, its shine and heat engulfing the threatening projectiles.

If the boy's eyes trembled before, a terrorised grimace replaced his smirk now. Between his evaporating arrows and the blinding light bolting at him, the situation went from a fun hunting game to a battle for survival.

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He cursed under his breath, waving his hands to shape the surrounding fog into a curved shield in a desperate last-second protection.

However, safe from the arrows, Adam caught the boy's eyes darting to a particular spot in the empty corridor.

Although a subtle clue, his lips curled into a taunting smirk.

"There you are!"

Before the spear collided with the boy's shield, he blurred into motion. The ground cracked under his forceful stomps as his blade glinted with death—an eternal one.

The wind whistled as he reached the spot in the blink of an eye. His arm followed, drawing a dark arc and blasting a furious gale towards the ground.

Beneath it, the girl's hair danced wildly as her eyes widened for a second. Then, a mocking smirk twisted her lips as her voice echoed ridicule.

"Physical attacks don't work on my species, dumbass!"

However, Adam returned her smirk as his blade passed through her.

"ARGH!"

Horror distorted her confident cheeks as she wailed in agony.

A burning sensation assaulted her, forcing her to become visible against her will. Dark spots spread on her grey soul, and a burning sensation overwhelmed her mind for a second. Then? Darkness engulfed everything: her vision, the cracklings, the whistling, and finally the pain.

Without knowing how, a strike she was supposedly immune to brought her the eternal rest she had fled for millennia.

Meanwhile, Adam's heart drummed in his ears as he watched the girl's soul separate into two perfect halves before they dissolved into the fog.

Then, he raised his blade and observed its humming frame.

"Quite useful to cleave energies up to the fourth tier. Thanks, Muramasa!"

Then, he turned towards the boy, just in time to see his fiery spear collide with the misty shield.

BOOM

Vibrations blasted throughout the evaporating air, and flickering fires engulfed the dark carpet. Musty rocks fell down from the time-worn ceiling and splintering columns, plunging the dreary place into a sea of dust.

His nose scrunched as the scent of rot he had grown accustomed to receded, and burning sulfur replaced it.

But discomfort was a luxury he didn't have anymore.

Without wasting a second, he blurred into the dust to confirm his adversary's death.

He crossed the distance in a split second before a hateful roar blasted his hair and the dust obscuring his vision backwards.

"ARGH! I'll feast on your soul morsel per morsel for centuries and listen to your beggings like music, demonic scum!"

Upon hearing his voice, Adam instantly lunged forward, his eyes locked on the hungry flames devouring the boy's spectral frame and understanding that the shield had mitigated most of the impact. Not that it mattered since he would do it himself.

His blade glinted, his arm drawn to separate the oversized head from the kid's body. Yet, a taunting smirk couldn't help but blossom on his lips.

"Any last words?"

The boy's voice cracked, and his constricted pupils trembled as he saw Adam on him.

"Please..."

Before he could finish, Adam's grotesque body turned into that of a predatory beast lunging at its prey in his trembling eyes. He wanted to beg, to survive even at the cost of humiliation. But its icy claws were already slicing through his neck.

"RAH!"

He screeched when he felt the icy blade pass through his neck and the torrent of corroding energies it released. The burning agony almost drove him mad as his head flew through the air, but he held on for a fleeting moment.

As darkness enveloped him, fear twisted his guts.

'He's much more cruel than us. Despite standing a tier higher, he acted like a coward and made us believe he was weak.' An icy chill overwhelmed the burning corrosion that darkened his soul for a second. 'But he had us in the palm of his hand the whole time, snickering at our taunts and using them to slap us before our death.

A final defiant thought echoed before his soul collapsed and turned into smoke that joined the crypt's eternal fog.

'No wonder everyone hates demons. They're the realms pests that must be eradicated!'

Meanwhile, Adam observed the boy's dissolving soul, his eyes cold and calculative.

"One attacks at range while the other protects him from the shadows. Tsk." He clicked his tongue and moved to the next room. "You had no chance to win with such a basic strategy, even without the fragment empowering me. It made things faster, though."