BXBX NOVEL Chapter 93: Who's The Real Demon Here?
At the last moment before it hit him Sol moved out of the way of the spear and grabbed it leaning forward and ending its momentum without losing his footing, other than his feet getting dragged deeper into the soil, but then the force of the spear came afterwards and the ground around him exploded into the air like a massive unflderground bomb had been detonated causing Ikaris to raise a hand and create a second barrier when Arla\'s barrier was stripped away within the first second.
"He caught it easily..." Sitri clicked her tongue and snapped her fingers summoning several dozen small minions that began cleaning the throne room while a large minotaur walked through the even larger doors with another throne made of a dragon\'s skull on his back, huffing and heaving as he gently placed it where the previous one had been and grunted to the minions, pointing at the hole in the wall which they immediately began making preparations to renovate.
"It will be worth the wait, after all." She took a seat and accepted another glass of wine from her minions, small imp-like creatures with long arms who had their heads covered in hoods that pooled around their little feet and their faces hidden by barbed mesh-like helmets. The effecient little shits worked beautifully, and within a few minutes they were done giving the entire wall.
"Are you okay?" Eris ran over to Sol first, stopping and staring down at him who stood in a crater ten metres deep staring at his bruised hand, but she watched the slight blemishes on his hand immediately vanish as he looked up at her with a frown.
"I\'m fine."
"That was incredibly reckless, dear." Ikaris arrived next and stared down at him, and Sol nodded and cancelled his spear, brushing the dust off his hands and walking up toward them.
"I am well aware, but I got all the answers I needed." He replied to her, and she nodded at him while to the North Sitri narrowed her eyes, of course she had taken the bait, but she too knew what he was doing.
"Answers?" Usami stared down at him as well.
"I did not use any portion of my true strength, this was a test to figure out the threshold I need to cross in order to meet her power, and also a test to find out how much strength I need to exert on average to fight her toe-to-toe in the future." He clasped his fist, walking over to the campfire and taking a seat.
"That was incredible." Bruce commented, a conversation between the strong you called it, so if I tried blocking either of those spears-"
It would be about the same as a human getting hit by a tank shell that didn\'t explode." Sol used a reference that Bruce would immediately understand. "It would tear through your shield and your body would explode upon impact leaving nothing but pieces and blood everywhere."
"... Yeah," Bruce sighed summoning a small shield and staring at it. "I figured as much."
"That was not an impossible shot to block though, I could have easily blocked it myself but I needed to feel the spear and the full force if fell in my grasp with.
An attack of equivalent force would be Ikaris\'s latest [cross impact] skill, the destructive force would yield the same result, but since one is magical and the other is physical then you could tank the destruction but not the direct hit from either." Sol explained.
"So, Ikaris\'s [cross impact] that was about the size and power of a real nuke, is only comparable to a casual spear thrown from the demon god?" Dina asked shocked, and Sol hummed in agreement to her question. "Then... what about [pulsar?] She asked, and Sol raised a flask of water to his mouth and gave it some thought.
"[Pulsar] is a cosmic ability brought about by manipulating mana on a scale that should be impossible for the average mage, even Arla can\'t do it because if the sheer amount of mana it takes to pull off, but if I had to make an estimate it wouldn\'t even harm her, it\'s a lot harder to gauge though so that\'s just my guess."
"How depressing." Arla shook her head; [pulsar] was so destructive it could make literal holes in the atmosphere, and Sol was saying that wasn\'t enough to harm Sitri either.
"Then do you have anything in your arsenal that you think can harm her?" Bruce asked again, and Sol nodded.
"I have skills that I\'m afraid to use, skills that are beyond my control, and skills that I refuse to think of as my own."
"That sounds like a lot." Arla swallowed, watching Sol extend his hand outward and a portal with raging fire rushing out of it appear next to them, and then a head of wild blonde hair appeared from that fiery portal.
"Han!?" Usami jolted, her and the others had thought him dead after what Sol did to him.
"It is a lot." Ikaris watched Han crawl out of the flames with his armour dripping in blood and his sword half submerged into the head of a freshly dead monster while he had another monster\'s arm in his other hand and was chewing.
"It\'s been a week for us, but about a month for you, how are you doing in there?" Sol asked Han, and he looked around at him with a lifeless stare and swallowed the raw flesh, he had grown a small beard and his armour was visibly torn and hanging on to him , there were also endless scars on his body including one that had taken his right eye.
"It\'s endless growth, endless fighting, hundreds of millions of enemies, I have become ...stronger." Han replied in a dry monotone.
"Good," Sol nodded while everyone else stared at him in horror while he nonchalantly gestured to the broken man. " The hero Han Young here, has finally earned the right to ask me anything he wants, he has seen the horrors I have, so Han, do you have any questions?"
"Why is it so cold here, I\'m freezing, send me back, I want to fight monsters again." Han requested instead of ask and Sol nodded.
"You can go back after standing guard for the night." Sol threw the flask of water at him and he caught it and drowned himself in it immediately before Sol snapped and all his injuries vanished and his armour was repaired.
"Thank you." Han answered and turned his back to everyone.
"What about your level?" Sol looked at him again.
"Hm..." Han stared off into space for a few seconds. "I\'m level 420, if it\'s only been a week I\'d say I\'m far more powerful than even Dina at this point." He answered staring at his 230k mana count.
"That mana count is a bit disappointing though, do you feel like challenging me?"
"Of course not, that is asking for death." Han straightened and summoned a new sword causing the old one with the monster head to vanish.
"Sol, this is wrong..." Eris looked at him with her brows furrowed in concern.
"He\'s living out his punishment, it\'s a fate worse than death that will help all of us in the long run, and don\'t try appealing to something as double-standard fuelled as my humanity or something as shattered as my morality, I was of the mind to put you all in there to toughen you up a bit." He chuckled. "Han can survive it because he is strong-willed, the rest of you would probably die quickly."
Eris on that matter went silent and looked around at Sara who was stirring the pot with a carefree hum.
"I mean, he seems fine, right?" Bruce asked nervously.
"Yes, yes he\'s totally fine." Sol nodded agreeing with Bruce for once.
\'Who\'s the real demon here?\' Usami thought to herself, while Eris was trying to think happy thoughts and Bruce stared at his friend with a concerned gaze.
"Level 420..." Arla stared at Han and then at Sol. "What exactly is that place?"
"A hell where monsters appear according to your fears, I call it the nightmare prism, it\'s an empty space but whatever you fear is what will appear there, and try to kill you, and they will appear in droves, the longer you stay the stronger they get, and fears change and evolve all the time." Sol answered honestly.
[It is a skill I only recently mastered after being taught it by the most powerful mage on Atla at the time maybe about my sixth year into the war when we all realised that it was going to consume and kill everyone] he tacked on, using the system to tell her and Dina before they asked any other open questions.