The Devilish Belial's grin split wider, skin tearing at the corners like rotten parchment. Its stolen arm twitched, still slick with Raizel's blood. The Paragon's new armor hummed, its gilded edges seeping wisps of kinetic light as the air itself crystallized around him.
Raizel's visor blazed with wicked light as he dropped the sword from his shoulder, letting it ring hollowly across the silent battlefield. He unsheathed the second blade from his scabbard and cast it into the crater beneath.
The air thickened, suspended in anticipation. Even the drifting wind held its breath.
Then it began.
Raizel didn't move—he unfolded. A silver streak across the battlefield, his armored fist already mid-arc.
The Belial raised Night Terror's claw to block, but Raizel's speed doubled mid-swing, his velocity suddenly saturated with unnatural violence.
The impact detonated like a newborn star, shearing the claw clean off in a fountain of black ichor. The severed limb liquefied midair, writhing back toward the Belial's body like a serpent seeking its nest.
After the Paragon's strike, the creature's grin faltered, the blood in its eyes burning fiercely. It lunged forward, lashing out with its remaining hands, fists blurring into a tempest of jagged black bone.
Raizel stood motionless, welcoming the onslaught. Each strike thrummed against his armor, golden filigree brightening as kinetic energy funneled into his reservoirs. The ground beneath him cratered, yet his posture remained unwavering—a lighthouse drinking a hurricane.
Raizel's talent was cunning and broken, revolving around the absorption of movement energy—both from his own movements and of those around him. This terrifying ability ensured he would never grow tired as long as he had essence.
Of course, this was merely the main overview of his talent; his specific abilities were even more frightening.
His vagrant talent ability, for instance, allowed him to channel absorbed kinetic energy to fortify his entire body's durability.
As a Paragon, with it Raizel's body possessed such resilience that he could walk through a cataclysmic explosion engulfing all of Lithia, with vicious shockwaves tearing everything asunder, and emerge unscathed. Like a stone unmoved by raging waters.
The ability was why he could fly within the tsunami of a Catastrophic Behemoth without concern.
The green light in the Paragon's visor flared with savage intensity. He dropped low and shot forward, unfolding again. His speed made the ground shriek and disintegrate in his wake.
His fists clenched tight as he approached the monster. Upon impact, massive shockwaves fractured the earth beneath them, sending debris skyward. The devil lost its footing, staggering on the uneven terrain, but Paragon Raizel remained impossibly balanced, his hands shooting forward like twin cannons.
Each strike rippled the abomination's charred skin with subtle shockwaves. Shallow cuts bloomed across the creature's hands as it attempted to block the Paragon's assault.
For a moment, the devil faltered, bewildered as any intelligent creature would be. The Paragon threw punches that cut like razors, inflicting dual damage with each blow.
The devil's skin quivered beneath the force of his strikes while simultaneously being sliced by their sharpness. Though the charred hide proved more durable than anything the Paragon had previously faced—lesser monsters would have perished long ago.
Paragon Raizel had anticipated such a battle. It explained why he had subdued all those destroyers single-handedly, absorbing vast amounts of kinetic energy throughout the process.
Such abundant kinetic energy would prove invaluable now, though his attention constantly drifted to the giant hand dangling from the rift.
A Devilish Belial alone was worrisome enough. Unwilling to expose his precious Mentee to such danger, he decided to handle this threat first. Afterward, everyone would need to unite against the Leviathan.
Even then... he could only hope their combined strength would suffice.
But first, he had to outlast this wicked, unnatural monster.
He continued his relentless barrage, his fists shrouded in energy sharper than any blade. Each strike launched what felt like a thousand spears at his opponent.
The energy he had absorbed from previous battles fueled his assault, and his swift, precise movements were already gathering more. Beyond that, he subtly harvested energy from the movements of everyone around him.
A faint aura of his Essence Manifestation had spread throughout the entire city, imposing his influence subtly over it all.
The creature's eyes burned as it used all three arms to block the Paragon's strikes. Its body rippled with each impact, generating shockwaves powerful enough to buckle and fracture the ground beneath them.
It spread its grotesque wings wide and took flight, retreating backward without turning away from the Paragon. But Raizel didn't hesitate for even a heartbeat.
The instant he spotted the creature spreading its wings, a massive shockwave compressed beneath his legs and suddenly exploded.
As the monster took flight, the Paragon was already closing the distance, raining merciless blows upon it.
They soared through the air, leaving shattered earth below. They crashed through an entire building, but Paragon Raizel remained unfazed.
He seized the monster's neck, his grip like a vise of blades desperate to tear through the abomination's throat. Yet the neck beneath his fist resembled a pole of unyielding alloy that refused to give.
He had never encountered anything like it!
Clenching his grip tighter on its neck, he swung his hand and crushed the monster into the wooden wardrobe nearby. The furniture's back shattered with a violent blast of wind, and the wall immediately followed, shaking the entire building as it crumbled.
Paragon Raizel pressed on relentlessly. He pulled the monster closer, his grip still a vise of blades hungry for flesh, and delivered another sharp blow to the creature's stomach. The impact made the creature's eyes bulge and forced black blood to erupt from its mouth.
An explosion of wind blasted from its back, sweeping away everything within reach like leaves in a hurricane.
Barely recovering from the pain, the monster lunged to grab the Paragon, but its hands froze mid-flight, forcibly retreating.
The Paragon's eyes widened momentarily. Though uncertain why the monster halted its attack, he had cloaked himself in his most powerful durability energy and remained unperturbed.
Then he witnessed something grotesque—the monster began tearing its stolen hands apart. It used each remaining hand to grip another and savagely ripped them from its main body. Thick black blood flowed freely, pooling at its feet like oil.
A crooked grin slowly formed on the creature's devilish face.