Asteroth came to punch again. The blow broke the sound barrier before it even connected.

  But this time, Alaric didn't move.

  The fist stopped inches from Alaric’s face.

  Asteroth, whose crimson eyes could perceive the flow of magic down to the particle, widened them in shock. Between his fist and the human, there were not ten, not twenty, but hundreds of layers of Null Magic barriers. And they were increasing exponentially, stacking faster than he could push through.

  "What is happening?" Asteroth muttered.

  Alaric moved.

  KZZZT.

  With Alaric as the epicenter, millions of volts of lightning exploded outward. It wasn't a magic spell Asteroth knew off.

  Asteroth, sensing danger dodged backward. He avoided the brunt of the discharge, but one arc of blue lightning struck his hand. His muscles twitched involuntarily.

  This feeling... Asteroth thought, looking at his trembling hand. Something is wrong. This isn't the same human.

  Inside Alaric’s mind, the entity controlling the body scoffed. He had been watching the real Alaric cast magic for so long from the shadows. He knew every spell, every astral circuit, but he possessed an intellect far higher and colder than Alaric ever had.

  "Alaric has so much mana," the entity spoke through Alaric’s mouth, his voice distorted. "But he always seemed to be so reserved. Never using everything he got. What a waste."

  Dark Alaric triggered a new spell internally.

  "Neural Overdrive"

  He produced Lightning inside his own body, shocking his neural connections. He was replacing the standard bio-electric signals with raw magical lightning. By replacing the signals, he increased his transmission speed by a factor of thousands.

  It was a suicidal move. The intensity was burning his neural network to ash, but Dark Alaric simply forced his regeneration enhancement circle to heal the nerves faster than they could be destroyed.

  To Alaric’s new perception, the world ground to a halt. The falling debris hung suspended in the air. Asteroth’s blink took an eternity.

  The Demon Lord, realizing the shift in power, immediately flew away, creating distance to reassess.

  But Alaric wasn't about to let him go.

  From the soles of his feet, two spells are cast simultaneously.

  "Creo Ignis: White Flame." "Creo Ventus: Wind Compression Burst."

  A jet of superheated plasma and compressed air erupted from his boots. Combined with the Light Weight, Gale Boost, and Vacuum Sphere already active, Alaric flew at a speed unimaginable by a human.

  He tore through the sky, keeping pace with Asteroth’s flight.

  Suddenly, Alaric reached for the Railgun on his back. It was supposed to be empty.

  But he did something absurd.

  "Creo Terra"

  Alaric generated magnetite rocks with earth magic and shaped them into bullets. Magnetite as an ore was ferromagnetic. He loaded the Railgun mid-flight, the magnetic rails humming as they accepted the makeshift ammunition.

  Below them, Shersalon was a graveyard.

  The Demon Lord’s previous blast had erased 20% of the city. The situation on the ground was absolute horror, a landscape of ash and silence.

  But amidst the ruins, the surviving soldiers forgot their divide. Royalists and Coalition troops pulled each other from the rubble. Survival was the only flag that mattered now.

  Lucia was there as well. Her white robes were stained grey with ash. She had completely lost hope, her tears drying on her cheeks as she frantically healed whoever she could find.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "Father!" she screamed, stumbling out of the wreckage of the Airship, which had crash-landed in the plaza.

  She found him. Duke Thorne was lying inside the throne room, unconscious. Lancaster was nowhere to be seen.

  Lucia fell to her knees, pouring her holy light into him.

  "Wake up... please..."

  Thorne gasped, his eyes flying open. He sat up, groaning, clutching his head.

  "Lucia..." Thorne wheezed.

  As they slowly stumbled outside the castle, the full scale of the devastation came into view. Even Thorne, the Iron Wall, stood shocked. Most of his soldiers were gone. Vaporized.

  BOOM...

  Thorne looked up, hearing the sounds of a clash that sounded like thunder rolling continuously.

  And there it was.

  Two streaks of light—one black, one green—were colliding in the clouds. Alaric was flying, clashing with a Demon King.

  High above, the dogfight raged.

  Alaric was actually keeping up with Asteroth. He fired the Railgun point-blank, blowing off chunks of the Demon Lord’s body. He destroyed him continuously, but it was never enough. Each and every time, Asteroth would regenerate.

  Asteroth felt humiliated.

  No matter what he did, he couldn't kill that human.

  I will wait, Asteroth thought dodging a slug barely. I will wait until the human's mana finishes, and then I will rip him apart.

  He was sure of it. With the amount of mana Alaric was using, simultaneously casting tens of high-tier spells, maintaining flight and regenerating his own burnt nerves, it wouldn't be long before he ran dry.

  But then, a horrific realization came into Asteroth’s mind.

  He looked closely at Alaric with his magic-seeing eyes.

  And he saw it.

  Alaric wasn't just burning mana. All the mana in the atmosphere in a radius of a hundred meters was getting violently sucked inside of him. He was like a black hole.

  Asteroth laughed, a dry disbelief-filled sound. " Ridiculous."

  This human was regenerating more mana than he was spending.

  Asteroth stopped playing.

  I cannot let him live, the Demon Lord decided. Even though I am only at 20% of my original power with this new body, this human is far too dangerous to the Demon Race to be kept alive.

  "I will use my strongest move," Asteroth growled, gathering magic.

  But Alaric wasn't just standing there. Seeing the Demon Lord pause, he fired the Railgun again.

  BANG.

  Asteroth’s head exploded into mist.

  As Asteroth’s head began the process of regenerating, Alaric did something extreme.

  He generated the 20-layered physical barrier, but this time, he shaped it into a perfect sphere between his hands.

  Inside the sphere, he cast "Creo Aqua" and "Creo Ignis: White Flame."

  It produced a massive volume of water that couldn't possibly be contained inside that small sphere. Instantly, the White Flame, burning at thousands of degrees Celsius vaporized the water.

  Steam turned to superheated plasma. The water molecules broke down into Hydrogen and Oxygen.

  The pressure inside the sphere skyrocketed. It was trying to expand, but the 20 layers of barrier held it firm. The heat increased and atoms began to smash together into each other.

  Critical Threshold Reached

  Alaric deliberately fought while flying upward, moving their battleground almost five kilometers into the air to save the city below.

  He held the trembling sphere of blinding light.

  Asteroth’s head finally finished regenerating. The Demon Lord opened his eyes just in time to see Alaric hovering above him.

  Alaric spoke with a voice of strange melancholic nostalgia.

  "Get a taste of the sun that I experienced.” and threw the ball.

  FLASH.

  The sphere cracked.

  The explosion was blinding. A blast wave kilometers in range erupted in the sky, creating a second sun over the sub-continent. A massive mushroom cloud billowed upwards, piercing the stratosphere.

  Alaric hovered far away from the blast zone, his body enveloped in hundreds of barriers to protect himself from the radiation and heat.

  Looking down at the empty sky, Alaric realised he had managed to erase all of Asteroth's body at once. There were no chunks left. No head, no heart, no finger. Just atoms.

  He had a smug grin on his face.

  "I won."

  But before he could let out a breath of relief, he felt a chill behind his back.

  A voice whispered, right in his ear.

  "You think I need to exist to regenerate?"

  SHINK.

  Alaric looked down.

  A black, armored hand had pierced through his stomach, exiting his back.

  Blood gushed from his mouth, staining his chin. The light in his eyes flickered. Even the composure of the Dark Alaric broke, replaced by genuine shock.

  Asteroth was there. Completely regenerated. Without a scratch.

  "Foolish human," Asteroth whispered, pulling his hand out.

  Alaric’s body went limp. The spells cut off and flight magic vanished.

  Asteroth grabbed him by the neck, looked him in the eyes, and then released him.

  "Begone."

  He threw Alaric’s dying body toward the earth.

  The whole world downward looked with absolute horror.

  Thorne’s face collapsed in misery, his knees hitting the dirt. Lucia screamed, crying uncontrollably as she watched the green streak fall from the heavens.

  All the humans alive in the city looked up with dread.

  Their savior and their last defense against the horrifying Demon Lord.

  It had come to an end.

  [END OF ARC 2]

  Dear Readers,

  I want to be completely transparent with all of you. After stepping back and taking a hard look at my own work, I've come to a realization that I need to share.

  I also want to sincerely apologize for the delays leading up to this. I know inconsistency is frustrating, and you all deserved better communication from me. I'm sorry.