Rise of The Demon General

Krassazh was the first to notice the change in Di Ying. He had left Di Ying’s back when she checked on Thien Huo. He stayed behind while watching the battle between Di Yu, Ling Dau, and Mo Wang. He didn’t dare to join that fight. He would be obliterated if he did.

Ling Dau had managed to free himself from Di Yu. He did it using his shadow power. Unlike Thien Huo’s, Di Yu’s power didn’t produce light that could dispel shadow. On the contrary, her power of darkness provided an ample source of shadows.

Freed from Di Yu’s clutch, Ling Dau counterattacked with Mo Wang’s support. He kept Di Yu occupied at close range, while Mo Wang repeatedly threw lightning spears from long range.

Fighting one of them was already troubling. Di Yu couldn’t cope well enough when she faced two opponents of their caliber. She was struck by Mo Wang’s lightning strike from the sky. The lightning empowered by the Law of Space hit her back and paralyzed her. Ling Dau used the chance and bit her on three different parts of her body.

The situation looked bleak. Krassazh was about to flee. If he waited until the fight ended, he might no longer be given the chance to do that. However, when he was about to turn, he sensed an abnormal aura nearby. She turned and saw Di Ying, still hunching over her uncle’s corpse.

”What... What is happening...?” He asked, but to no one in particular. Whatever he was sensing was unlike anything he had ever experienced. The air seemed to have become heavier. There was a sense of dread that he couldn’t explain. He felt very uncomfortable within, as if his blood had become somewhat unruly.

He then witnessed something incredible. Thien Huo’s blood that had turned into a pool under him began to rise. This blood moved like living filaments that danced in the air. While that was happening, a transformation occurred on Di Ying’s body.

Her scales changed color. They were originally somewhat colorless, with a slightly multicolored sheen around the edges. Now, they were slowly turning red. Not bright red like Thien Huo’s, but a darker hue, like blood. Her head originally had two small horns. These horns enlarged significantly and became longer than her head. Red manes grew around her neck and along the back of her serpentine body.

Krassazh realized then what had happened. Throughout his long life, he had only heard or read about this phenomenon. What was happening was the maturing process of a noble dragon. Di Ying had gained her element and became a grown noble dragon.

Di Ying rose to her feet. Her eyes were glowing an ominous red. Blood appeared to leak out of them. Her body began to float. As she did, the blood filaments dancing around her moved more vigorously. The pool of blood under Thien Huo seemed to boil.

Krassazh was unsure about the scene. He had a feeling that Di Ying wasn’t in control of herself. She was as if in a trance. He wondered if this happened to every noble dragon who matured.

Di Ying turned her head in her mother’s direction. She then advanced. As she did, the blood filaments followed her. Not only that, but all the blood pooling under Thien Huo rose into the air. Even the blood still within the dead dragon came out and joined the blood in the air. This massive amount of blood gathered around the blood filaments and took the shape of a massive dragon. With Di Ying at its center, the dragon-shaped blood flew forward.

*

When the blast wave from the massive explosion hit Amon and Yuka, they were still playing cat-and-mouse. The blast wave was not so strong because they were far away. Still, it drew their attention. Amon wondered how the battle was going there, but he didn’t ponder long. His own situation was dire.

Amon used the Invisible Sky Steps. Yuka was gathering her energy to unleash the light-and-darkness explosion, so she couldn’t turn into a ray of light to chase him. Hence, he could put distance between himself and her by using his movement art. Meanwhile, his Lightning Flying Knives continued to harass Yuka, slowing down her energy-gathering process and hindering her chase.

Nevertheless, Amon knew it was not enough. Yuka was close to detonation. Based on his previous experience, he had not even reached the halfway point of the blast radius.

’Tch! No choice. I must put it to the test through a trial by fire,’ Amon thought in his mind. He had created two new martial arts that used the Lightning Flying Knives, but had never used them in a real fight. One was a defensive art, and the other was an offensive one.

He was now readying the defensive art. He pulled the six lightning flying knives harassing Yuka.

Yuka was puzzled by the act. She watched the six large knives fly away. She wondered what Amon was trying to do, but decided that it didn’t matter. She was ready to release the accumulated energy. Everything in a large radius around her would be obliterated, including Amon.

The six lightning flying knives arrived before Amon. The tips of their blades touched, forming an asterisk. They then rotated like propeller blades. The speed of their rotation increased until they became a blur. Surges of lightning coursed in the wake of the rotation. The lightning formed a spherical barrier around Amon.

Yuka smirked at the display. ”A pitiful last-ditch effort if you think that can block my special move.”

Amon didn’t respond. The shadows from his Elder God Veil expanded. They interacted with the spherical lightning. The shadows spread, covering the lightning sphere and turning it into a black orb.

”Be gone!” Yuka exclaimed. The energy he had gathered exploded into a sphere of mixed white and black that expanded outward.

It washed over the black orb protecting Amon and went further ahead. It was large enough to hit the ground below. It demolished everything that it touched. When the sphere subsided, the part of the ground that was struck had turned into a crater.

To Yuka’s surprise, Amon survived. Only a quarter of the black orb remained, which was the part where the six knives were. Amon’s clothes were mostly gone. His skin was full of bloody wounds. Yet, Yuka could see that his wound was only superficial.

”How... How did you block my light and darkness explosion?” Yuka asked.

Amon grinned. ”Do you need to ask? You haven’t used any of your darkness moves against me because you know I have the Law of Darkness.”

”Impossible! You were hit by this same power before. You were hurt worse that time.”

”It is precisely because I have experienced it before that I can respond to it better this time. I remembered the structure of its energy. I coated my defensive art with my darkness element, which filtered the darkness elements from your attack and turned it against its light counterpart. I was essentially using your attack against itself.”

Though Amon said so, he was never sure it would succeed. It was a gamble. He was glad that it worked out.

”Tch! Never mind. We do this the hard way, then!” Yuka exclaimed.

”Not so fast! It is my turn to attack now!” Amon returned. The six Lightning Flying Knives before him never stopped rotating. The knives’ tips that touched tipped forward and advanced. Their rotation turned them into a shooting drill. They left sparks of electricity as they advanced. This was his new offensive art using the lightning knives.

This martial art could use the knives’ lightning power that turned them into rays of lightning. This let them cover the distance in the blink of an eye.

Amon surviving the light and darkness explosion rattled Yuka more than she wanted to admit. This slowed her response. She was late in reacting to the lightning knives’ drilling assault. The lightning drill pierced through the tentacles she put up to block and took out half of her left shoulder. It also struck the black wing behind and left a long tear along the wing.

”Raarrhhh...! Curse you!!” Yuka exclaimed. She wasn’t hurt from losing the tentacles, but the shoulder and wing were another matter.

She was surprised by the drill’s penetrative power. The fact was that the drill still carried a portion of the darkness energy Amon had absorbed from the explosion just now, amplifying its power.

The drill made a U-turn and returned to Yuka. She was ready for it this time. The destroyed tentacles regrew instantly. They lashed toward the incoming drill.

The drill decimated the first wave of tentacles, but slowed down as more came. Finally, it lost its penetrative power. The tentacles stopped the drill’s rotating power. Without the rotation, the drill lost much of its power. The tentacles forcefully pulled the six knives apart, ending Amon’s art.

Something fast slipped past Yuka’s tentacles. She sensed it late because it had been hiding its aura behind the lightning drill. It reached Yuka and bit her neck.

”Lin...!” Yuka exclaimed.

The one that bit her was a multi-tailed fox, Lin Li. Amon had been instructing her via their mental link, telling her to stay outside the blast zone during the light-and-darkness explosion. He then adjusted his offensive art to mask her approach.