City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)
Book 6 - The Beauty Of Smoke And Fire Chapter 20

True Enemy

“Mister Essien,” Richard chuckled, “I’m doing just what I should. Or you could tell me your name, bastard. Don’t you have one? I wonder just how much of his body you control.”

'Essien' immediately paled, “Why didn’t you attack me if you already knew this?”

Richard laughed louder as he waved his hands again, encasing the castle in a mist that was saturated with life energy. The broken building contorted into a sticky black mass, fizzling as it burned into nothingness. The mass didn’t have a mouth, but strangely enough it still managed a shriek.

The demigod’s face warped with rage, but as much as he wanted to attack Richard he hesitated. Richard read his thoughts and smirked, “I don’t want to destroy the priest’s body, but if you so much as lift a finger I’m purging your existence no matter where you’re hidden.”

“You…” Two long fangs protruded from Essien’s mouth, but he still didn’t dare to attack. Richard ignored him completely, floating another ten metres into the sky as he launched a flurry of attacks on the black mass. The creature screamed and writhed, but the barrage wore away at it until there was nothing else. Every lightning or fire spell was interspersed with some of the mist of life force, ensuring that the disgusting thing would never come back to life.

The entire plane shook as numerous undead creatures crawled out of the ground, all struggling with numerous injuries on their bodies. Tiny black masses flew out of these injuries as well, covering the sky like a dark cloud as they rushed towards Richard.

A quick life energy barrier seemed destined to be overwhelmed by numbers, but as Richard disappeared from view a dull red light flashed within the darkness. The red flashes quickly expanded over the next few seconds, and eventually a loud explosion shook the semiplane as abyssal fires wiping out all existence in range. When the fireball faded out, all one could see was a glowing barrier in the centre where Richard was curled up.

Richard raised his head and snickered at the stupefied Essien, breaking the barrier to stretch his limbs, “This was your final resort? Not bad, even having me use a grade 9 spell. Now…”

“You win!” Essien raised his hands, “I’ll let you leave.”

“Heh…” Richard chuckled, “You know, there’s a popular saying in my plane… Never trust a god’s bastard.”

A pillar of flames turned the last remains of the castle into ashes. With the truy body destroyed, the trace of the demigod in Essien roared in rage as he vanished from existence. Essien’s body writhed for a moment before melting and dripping to the ground like wax.

Once the castle disappeared, cracks began to appear all over the hill. The rocks splintered apart as black water rose up from below, covering the entire area before expanding outwards. The night sky flickered continuously as many star-like crystals fell to the ground one by one.

A black vortex now stood where the castle once was, the exit that led back to Faelor proper. Richard looked at the dying semiplane and tutted, but unable to power one yet he could only sigh and fly away. Behind him, the water surged into the skies.

The demigod had clearly governed this semiplane for the longest time, having put all of his efforts into building it. However, even a minor understanding of the laws of life had completely decimated him to the extent that there was no context. Richard had consumed a lot of energy amplifying his spells, but the results he reaped were far beyond the effort put in. The destruction of the semiplane would cause severe damage to the enemies, which was his primary goal right now. While Flowsand and the guardians had a huge advantage in this kind of matchup, Waterflower was someone who focused on single targets and thus didn’t do well against large hordes.

…

The moment he passed through the portal, Richard found himself falling down into an extremely large hall. Several tentacles as thick as a thumb curled towards him, but he quickly dodged even as he noticed the strange creature in the middle of the hall. The thing was several tens of metres wide and about twenty metres tall, seeming no different from an amorphous mass of flesh. Its body was also covered in a viscous substance, and broken limbs and faces were overflowing everywhere within. From afar, it almost looked like a number of humans and animals had been stitched together to form a frightening chimera.

Richard almost wanted to puke at the mere sight of it, and the putrid smell that assailed his nose didn’t help that feeling. He ended up having to circulate some mana to suppress the nausea, and once he felt better he returned his attention to the tentacles assaulting him. The elven sword started swiping left and right, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, but every tentacle that approached to less than a metre away was cut apart.

A large face surfaced on the indescribable blob, glaring at Richard and howling, “Mortal, I will tear you apart and turn you into the dirtiest of organs!”

Richard cast one more glance at the creature, his eyes now glowing brightly. The increasingly frightened face of the creature faded away into a pure flow of energy, no normal matter capable of blocking his vision. Analytic’s evolution, what he now called Insight, could only be hindered by special sources of energy.

What Richard saw was another black mass, constantly writhing and unable to maintain any sense of shape. Some energy constantly radiated out of the mass and dispersed into the surroundings, but was quickly reflected by the sturdy walls and entered the body once more.

“So that’s it…” Richard shook his head, “No wonder the one in that semiplane was so weak, turns out you’re all manufactured… Heh, what are you acting up for when you can’t even leave this place?”

“Stepping into this hall of anguish was your biggest mistake!” the giant demigod roared, “This is my domain, and you don’t have the mana to fight me! Let’s see how long you can stave off my delicious pain!”

Black energy congealed to form numerous infants that had their mouths open wide in a silent scream. These creatures were just like the one he had seen in the village before, but they numbered in the hundreds. Every noiseless cry was like a needle pricking into his soul, the barrage so powerful that it quickly broke through several soul guarding spells.

Richard’s world went dark as he fell down, the demigod laughing in ecstasy as a mouth appeared from its body to swallow him whole. However, a barrier of golden light quickly surrounded him like a bubble, stopping the jaw’s advance and even burning it away. Io jumped out of a newly formed portal in another part of the hall, obviously having broken free from his own trap.

The cries of these babies quickly changed targets, causing goosebumps to rise on the battle priest’s face as he stacked defensive holy spells on his body. They still managed to leave him writhing in pain, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it was with Richard.

“Richard, you owe me one!” Io screamed, not forgetting to take credit in Nyra’s absence. This was the best time for him to try and demand something.

However, Richard could only smile with annoyance under Io’s barrier. He hadn’t truly fainted, only faking it so the demigod would try to swallow him and thus let him destroy it from within. A Devout Prayer launched from within the creature’s belly would certainly leave it severely wounded, allowing him to finish it off with a few fireballs. Io’s appearance had destroyed all his plans, and the battle priest was now claiming a debt on top!

Regardless, the circumstances had changed. Richard jumped up and flicked his sword out, cutting apart two of the infants in an instant. His eyes went wide as organs and blood sprayed from the beings, indicating that they were still alive, but he only hesitated for a moment before he hardened his resolve to give them a quick death. If they were anything like the baby in the village, these poor infants were far too broken to live anything more than a farce of a life.