-----
As the battle continued to unfold, the last fly was defeated, and Beelzebub was the only one left...
"Kukuku... I've been waiting for this moment! Now come forth, the souls of my servants!"
FLAAASH!
Now what the hell is he doing?
He suddenly waved his hands and his large staff as several magic circles emerged. He then used his giant domain to push away my father and his companions momentarily, giving him enough time for whatever he was going to do.
"What is he doing?" Nepheline could not help but ask.
"Necromancy? Is he planning on reviving them? Let's kill him quickly!" Shade roared soon after.
"No, this isn't just necromancy... this presence... a fragment of the Demon King?!" my father muttered in shock.
Seriously, what the hell is going on?!
"Kuhahahahah! Behold! This is a fragment of my King's soul! Bestowed upon me to take over his title in the future! By sacrificing the souls of my loyal subordinates, I can enhance my power by devouring them back from the dead! Now admire me as I undergo evolution and become a Pseudo-Demon King!" Beelzebub cackled.
FLAAAASH!
More power continued to flow from his body as the groaning souls of his subordinates flew towards him and began to fuse with his body.
His entire body exuded an enormous flame of purple and dark color. Soon, his body started to be reinforced and evolve, shapeshifting as it grew bigger and bigger...
The power continued to flow, as if they were streams of darkness that came from his body, expanding all over the place...
And then...
He stood there in the same pose. In actuality, he didn't grow any bigger than a meter.
"Kuahahaha! Any time now! You'll see!"
"..."
"..."
"..."
But nothing much really happened?
"Eh?"
"Was he bluffing?" my father could not help but ask.
"Let's squash this fly into bits already," Nepheline suggested.
"I agree..." Shade nodded in agreement.
"W-Wait! I was about to become a Pseudo-Demon King! I was sure of it! The souls... they lacked a large part of their energy... the ritual failed... h-how?! Did you obtain knowledge of my secret technique beforehand?!" Beelzebub could not help but ask in shock.
The energy of the souls was missing... how? Wait... is this because of... me?
By watching the fight, I gained EXP. This energy didn't come out of nowhere, so it came from their souls then? And because the souls of his subordinates lost mass, he lost energy, and therefore, he gained less power? Is that the reason why? Damn.
Then this means I helped at not letting the boss increase his power in the middle of the battle... I actually helped... involuntarily, though.
And even though he was that strong, he wasn't able to detect this? I guess the souls lost most of their energy which became my "EXP", and then the System devoured them greedily. In short, there's no way to give it back to him.
Due to this, his transformation halted midway as he ended up as a half-baked, slightly strengthened giant fly.
Hehehe... you don't need to thank me, father! It was nothing, really.
My father and his two friends looked at Beelzebub with disappointment after that.
However, they quickly changed their expressions as they became serious once more. The guy was still powerful even without transforming, and my father said he had a fragment of the former demon king inside him. Perhaps that made him even stronger.
"T-This shouldn't be- ngh?!"
SLAAAAASSSSH!
My father rushed straight towards Beelzebub, so fast that even my eyes had a hard time following. The flames surrounding his body suddenly transformed into enormous dragon-like wings, overcharging his entire body with even more power. He then flew like a blazing meteor towards the fly and slashed it away with an explosive attack from his sword.
CLAAAASSH!
"Ngaaaggh...!"
Beelzebub cried in agony as his bug body was bathed in flames, a large wound emerged over it, cracking his hard exoskeleton.
"RRAAA!"
Nepheline then appeared from behind, her strong rock hammer impacted his head with enormous strength, enough to make one of his eyes blow up into pieces. Because of this, his face ended up even more horrendously disfigured.
CLAAASH!
Thanks to that move, the fly was sent flying towards the barrier made by mother, impacting it as if it was an actual fly that hit a window by accident.
The creature splattered over it as he tried to fight back, but felt very weakened all of a sudden. Then again, the attacks from Heroes such as my father and his friends were nothing to scoff at. I could sense as if their very magical damage held some kind of effect that affected the wounds they inflicted, something similar to a curse, but even deeper.
"Y-You bastards!!!"
Beelzebub barely managed to cry out as his aura began to expand, countless clouds of little flies began to emerge from it, swarming my father and his allies as they began to destroy them, mostly through my father's fire.
Shade, however, had suddenly disappeared.
Where was he?
Ah!
FLASH!
He emerged right behind Beelzebub using some kind of amazing stealth ability that completely erased his presence.
Using this, he reached Beelzebub by surprise and used his bare fists to pierce his back, destroying his exoskeleton from behind before grasping something!
"GRAAAHH...!"
CLASH!
What he took out was a large black jewel, the same one the other flies dropped.
"A Demon General Magic Crystal sells for a lot of money," he said ruthlessly as the horrendous fly vomited a mouthful of green and oozy blood, falling and dying right there and then.
"Demon King..." he muttered as his last words.
"It's dead, then," my father said as he looked over the corpse.
"No. Look." Nepheline shook her head as she pointed at the corpse, a phantasmal aura slowly emerging from it.
"So, there really was a piece of his soul there... I was sure he was purified through Faylen's magic... did the Demon King utilized some method to save parts of his soul?" my father could not help but mutter.
"I don't know, but let's quickly destroy it," Shade said in response.
"Faylen, can you help us?" Father asked.
"Leave it to me..."
Mother's familiar then hovered over the phantasmal presence emerging from the corpse of Beelzebub. Soon, a flashing light emerged from its eye as the phantasmal presence was purified...
As that happened, I felt a ray of energy hit me once more... ugh.
For some reason, this EXP this time around felt a bit strange.
-----