"Before we begin .. let me ask you something, Tenth-Rank Demon."
Zibar tilted his head. "What?"
"I know your king never leaves his seat .. only watches from afar. And I know he somehow became one of the Great Ones after killing the Demon’s Great one and taking he’s place."
At that, Zibar’s smile thinned. The human before him had named secrets no human should know.
"So here’s my question, Zibar: after he became a Great One... did Agaroth finally abandon you .. leave you to wander like masterless dogs? If that’s the answer, it makes perfect sense."
A vicious smile spread across Frey’s face.
"It suits you .. a dog that can’t live without a master. Isn’t that why you’re wagging after Wesker now?"
He taunted the demon head-on.
Zibar’s expression darkened; killing intent rolled out so hard the air itself seemed to shudder. Then he threw his head back and laughed, the sound shaking the plain.
"Very good, Frey Starlight. I’ve no answer for your question... but I do hope your mouth isn’t all you’ve got."
His grin widened. "Let’s begin."
At the same instant, Frey roared, unleashing everything.
"Dark Ascension!!!"
His SSS-class aura detonated outward, whirling back into him like a raging violet sun.
"Oh?" Zibar arched a brow .. even for a Tenth-Rank, that was a respectable tide of aura.
Frey drew it all in, forcing it deep through flesh and bone. The process was far faster than when he’d faced Blattier .. though he left plenty of openings Zibar could have punished. The demon didn’t. He wanted to watch what Frey was attempting.
The aura settled .. barely inside a body now like a nuclear core on the verge of rupture.
This was his peak .. the most he could bring to bear at his current level: Dark Ascension layered atop the heightened control from Shadow Adaptation, Stage Four.
All of it for a single purpose: to break the monster before him.
The hour had come. The enemies he’d dreaded were here.
Zibar had stepped from the void, and Frey had no choice but to fight with everything he had .. and try to survive.
"Let’s begin!!!"
In a sprinter’s crouch, Frey lowered his center of gravity .. then detonated the ground and launched like a roaring violet beam, the earth shuddering as he slammed into Zibar with everything he had.
"Hahahaha!!! Come on, Frey Starlight! Hit me with it all!"
Zibar’s laughter merged with Frey’s feral shout. Frey’s blades hammered the demon, shockwaves scouring the mountains behind Zibar .. erasing them, corpses and all.
The clash was monstrous; aura pressure spiked to unheard-of levels. In a handful of heartbeats, Frey carved at his foe tens of thousands of times .. too fast for the eye to track. Yet just as quickly, Zibar’s arms blurred, backfists catching steel, shunting the aftershock aside each time.
"Is that all you’ve got, Frey Starlight?!"
BOOOOM!!!
A sudden punch slipped through Frey’s guard .. an explosion of raw aura and Frey was hurled away, pulverizing everything in his path.
He recovered mid-flight and surged back at light-speed, riding the brutal boost of Dark Ascension.
"Believe me .. you’ve seen nothing yet!"
"Then show me!"
Unleashing the full breadth of Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow, Frey chained his ultimate techniques one after another at Zibar. The two tore across the sky at light-speed, black trails of aura lacing behind them and knotting together.
"I’ve always wondered why they care so much about you! Why would Wesker hide himself for years over a whelp like you?!"
BOOOOOM!!!
A thousand titanic fists collided with a thousand murderous slashes .. thunder rolling across the wastes.
At first the powers seemed even.
But they weren’t.
Frey hadn’t landed a single true hit. Zibar, meanwhile, brutalized him so thoroughly that ..without regeneration .. Frey would already have fallen.
"Pathetic! Is that it?!"
"Shut up!"
Frey slid back a step, packing a colossal swell of aura along his blades.
"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow: Supreme Art : Echo of the abyss!"
A tremoring mirage wrapped Frey, supercharging his cuts. He unleashed everything straight at Zibar ..
There was no wet rip of demon flesh .. only the ring of metal on metal. Zibar had read and caught it, again, despite the blistering speed.
Frey adjusted instantly and struck again.
"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow: Mirage."
In an eye-blink, ten thousand Freys bloomed around Zibar, hemming him in like a cloud of gnats ..
.. and just as fast, ten thousand Zibars appeared, shredding every copy until they smashed the real one too.
"Copies? On me? Hahaha! You’re dumber than I thought!"
He hounded Frey, grin unshaken. High above, Zibar’s fists ignited with a murderous black aura. Frey looked up to see thousands of blows pouring down like rain.
Teeth bared, he braced .. feet gouging the earth .. then kicked off, leaving a crater. He shot skyward like a violet star, battering through the storm of punches, forcing a path to Zibar.
They met again in midair, and the battle climbed to another tier. In that cold expanse, their exchanges went berserk. Frey’s swords were parried; Zibar’s feral strikes landed again and again on Frey’s body.
Skin, flesh, bone atomized into bloody dust each time ..only to knit back together an instant later. Face, arms, legs, chest, gut, shoulders .. everything was wrecked and restored, over and over, as he shouldered the horrors of a Tenth-Rank High Demon.
Zibar’s laughter cracked like thunder, relentless.
Frey was swatted away, then dragged across the ground as Zibar chased him down.
"Ah... ahaha... HAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Amid the explosions and ruin .. blood and ash .. the fight turned catastrophic. Frey endured by inches: monstrous regeneration and Dark Ascension barely keeping him upright. But the tide was against him.
BOOOOM!!!
Zibar’s fist crashed into Frey’s locked blades, the demon leaning in harder.
"What made you think you had even a chance against me?!"
BOOOOOM!!!
"Even as an avatar, I’m still one of the Ten High Demons the King, Agaroth, forged with his own hands! There is no world where I lose to the likes of you, Frey Starlight!!!"
BOOOOOM!!!
The pressure Zibar poured on was insane—orders worse than Joseph Blattier .. so far beyond that any comparison felt absurd. Even at only half his true power, this level had once required two SSS-class combatants just to hold it back.
And it had taken six of them just to handle a clone at eighty percent of his power.
The Ten High Demons were, simply put, instruments of total war .. peers to the Seven Great Powers. Their strength belonged to another world entirely, and Frey had no choice but to face that kind of power head-on.
"You’re strong, Frey Starlight," Zibar said, "but I exist far beyond the ’strength’ you understand."
After a savage, rapid exchange, Frey Starlight was buried under tons of rubble, while Zibar stood on the peak without so much as a scratch marring his shadow-black body.
"I’ve always known what’s happening on this planet is a farce," Zibar went on. "With my own hands I’ll end it .. by killing you here and smashing everything Wesker’s trying to achieve."
He raised his fist, dark aura flooding into it.
"You aren’t worth the attention they lavish on you. Maybe you have a few traits that make you dangerous... but you’re still just a weakling who’s easy to kill. And that is your fatal flaw."
He stalked forward.
Frey answered by blasting rubble away in a wave of aura and stepping out of the crater. His cuirass was shattered, the entire upper half of his body laid bare. Barefoot, in dreadful shape .. yet already healed .. he stood across from Zibar again, violet fire burning in his eyes.
"You’re right, Zibar. I don’t deserve the attention your masters give me. I don’t even know why they care."
He crossed his blades, settling in.
"I never asked for it. I never wanted it. But they left me no choice, so here I am.
"I fight and fight... and fight and fight—fight, fight, fight! Until my body gives out, my soul is drained, and my blood runs dry.
"And still .. I keep fighting!"
With a scream that split the air, Frey unleashed a crushing surge of aura; violet channels cracked across his skin.
"I never wanted any of this! So shut up and fight me! We end it here and now!"
His aura swelled and swelled; violet heat hissed from his mouth and nose.
Zibar’s smile returned. "As you wish."
BOOOOOOM!!!
The ground erupted again as they crashed together .. harder than ever. No restraint. No mercy. Their duel rattled the continent; the world could feel it from afar.