“You might be undead, but you’re still just a fake human! I’m way tougher than the two of you! An arm or two ain’t nothin’! I let my guard down a tiny bit, but now play time’s over! I’m seriously gonna destroy you!”
He came at us. Lunaère and I exchanged a quick look, and then we flew to opposite sides to flank him.
“You think you’re tricky!” he cried.
I swung my sword at his claws from the left side. I was only dealing with one of his hands, but I still had to put everything I had into my attacks just to handle it, considering my level. Even so, if I could keep even just one of his hands tied up, then Lunaère should be able to land a decisive blow.
She went into hand-to-hand combat with him. Though he boasted the much larger size, she kept moving to slip into his blind spots where she would crack him in the hips and back with sharp kicks. He couldn’t fully handle her movements while I was distracting him.
“Tsk, dumbasses! Don’t think this improv coordination’s going to work well for you forever!” shouted Lucifer as he lashed out with both claws in a twirling strike. When he did, I slipped from right to left, avoiding the claws. Lunaère moved the opposite, from left to right, and she evaded as well, leaving Lucifer defenseless as both his arms stretched out and struck nothing but air.
“Huh…?”
For a brief moment, Lucifer lost sight of both me and Lunaère. I used that moment to slash his abdomen, and Lunaère smashed his head with a kick at the same time.
“Ack?! You pieces of trash! How dare you?! I’m higher-level! How can these garbage enemies do this?!”
Our attacks seemed to do a lot of damage. Lucifer did look like he was in pain as he cradled his head and retreated from us.
Unfortunately for him, our coordination wasn’t just improvisation. I couldn’t fight to my fullest earlier because I’d felt so overwhelmed by him, but once I really thought about it, I realized that Lunaère and I had fought demons more powerful than me more than just once or twice. That’s what we’d done every time in the Cursed Mirror of the Warped Realm.
We were completely in control of the pace of this fight.
I formed a magic circle and fired off a spell at Lucifer.
“Fire Magic Level 20: Apocalypse!”
A red dragon raced through the air and tried to clamp its jaws onto Lucifer. Lunaère used space-time magic to teleport to my side and avoid the spell.
“…Hate relying on the damn staff, but guess I got no choice. You small fry are just a little bit annoying,” said Lucifer as he raised his staff. Just as a magic circle appeared in front of him, my Apocalypse dragon vanished. “That’s enough for now. None of your little tricks or cooperation are gonna work on me anymore, not one bit. I’m gonna crush you with the sheer difference between our abilities.”
…That’s the same staff ability that Satan used.
BLACK STAFF OF THE APOCALYPSE
VALUE CLASS: Godly
A staff that confirms the wielder as the rightful King of Cocytus and provides the necessary power to rule the dungeon. All monsters sealed in Cocytus will submit to the wielder’s sovereignty.
The staff assists with the casting of godly fire spells above level 20 and creates an anti-magic barrier around the wielder.
The staff’s size scales to the size of the user.
It created an anti-magic barrier… That was the power of the Black Staff of the Apocalypse, the symbol of the ruler of Cocytus which Lucifer must have stolen from Satan.
When Satan used that barrier, he didn’t have enough magic for it to fully cancel out my spell, and that left me with the impression that the power wasn’t all that great, but there was just too large a difference in power between users now.
In terms of levels, Lucifer was higher than both me and Lunaère. We would definitely lose out in a fight of pure power if we tried to hit him with the amount of magic we had and the spells we could output with it. Lucifer having a barrier that canceled out all spells without question was an incredibly difficult thing to deal with.
“Can’t believe pathetic humans made me use the Black Staff. That seriously pisses me off,” said Lucifer.
It was actually absurd that he could completely nullify all lower-level spells. Our only option was to use the fact that we outnumbered him to overwhelm him, but since we couldn’t use magic, Lucifer could just fire wicked spells at us while we couldn’t do anything back.
And when I’d thought that far, a smile naturally formed on my face.
“Kanata…?” asked Lunaère, looking at me with confusion.
“What’s so funny, you otherworld ass?!” shouted Lucifer as he glared at me.
“Well…when I really thought about it, I realized we’ve fought against demons with anti-magic abilities before, in the Cursed Mirror,” I said. And sure, Lucifer was a higher level than the demons in the Cursed Mirror…and he was intelligent—but I still had Lunaère by my side. I had no intentions of losing to a guy like this.
“I am the oldest, greatest demon, created directly by the higher beings to rule over Locklore… I am nothing like those pathetic things! Don’t you dare lump me in with those filthy bugs who just happened to come into existence from the gaps in space-time because of the higher beings’ screw-ups!”
Lucifer launched toward me. Wolzottl ran to the right, while Lunaère moved into pin Lucifer between us as he chased me.