The fight between Alan the Champion of Light and Demon Lord Beelzebub had finally begun.
Alan braced his sword and ran straight at Beelzebub. His footwork was polished to such an extreme level that it almost looked like gravity had no effect on him as he sped up. Carried forward by his momentum, he struck at Beelzebub, only for the demon lord to easily parry the sword with his own.
“Ha ha! Another great strike that I could feel to my heart, Champion! But that strike wouldn’t have hurt me even if I failed to defend myself,” Beelzebub said.
“I guess that’s true,” Alan replied.
Instead of fighting against the force of being knocked away, he used it to put some distance between them and did one full rotation in the air to straighten his stance. When he observed Beelzebub, he saw vast amounts of dense mana overflowing from the demon lord’s body. The magical protection offered by the mana he subconsciously emanated made him almost impervious to ordinary physical attacks. Physical strength an order of magnitude higher than Dora’s would be necessary to break through.
“Then how about this?!”
Alan activated the mana circuits he’d developed inside his own body. Those circuits could only be activated when he felt the mana of a demon standing before him. The last time he’d used them—in his fight against the three former Black Stars—it had taken him some time to get the rusty pathways working after decades of unuse. But this time, they’d immediately reacted to the impressive mass of the demon lord’s mana. Soon enough, a dazzling light shone from every part of Alan’s body.
“Yes, that’s it. Bring out your mana of light! That’s what I’ve wanted to fight all this time!” Beelzebub cried with delight.
Alan’s mana of light was an element specialized against demons. Its power was many times more effective against them than other targets, and it erased their mana on contact. Yet, Beelzebub rejoiced to face this destructive light that could so easily turn his kind to ash.
Alan swung his sword just as he had before, but this time, it was clad in brilliant, blinding mana. Beelzebub responded by covering his sword in his own dense pitch-black mana and intercepted the blow. Light and darkness clashed. Beelzebub’s mana was powerful enough to stand against the mana of light head-on, despite its inherent disadvantage. The two kinds of mana scattered into the surroundings, causing untold destruction incomparable to the wreckage before.
Beelzebub burst into laughter. “Oh, how glad I am that we changed location. I have to defeat you, the man who once killed me, when you’re at full strength!”
He expelled a tremendous amount of mana from his entire body, making his already-incredible mana from earlier feel like he’d just been messing around. His presence alone warped and twisted the world around him. Alan responded in kind by drawing out more of his mana of light. Now, it was clear that they were both serious.
“Let us begin, Champion! I challenge you this time! Time for the second round of our battle in the Titanomachy!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Master Alan...”
Rosetta was watching Alan’s fight from a faraway location. The shock waves were so intense that she could barely stay on her feet even at this distance. She knew that standing there and hoping for Alan’s victory wouldn’t change a thing, but praying was the only thing she could do. That, and treating his wounds with magic after his victory.
“I believe in you, Master Alan,” she murmured.
✦ ✦ ✦
Alan and Beelzebub had already exchanged over fifty blows.
Even with his anti-demon mana of light in action, Alan’s fighting style was rooted in the basics. Although it was orthodox and by the book, he’d perfected it to a frightening degree. He made full use of his beginner, nonelemental spells—Basic Warp, Mirage, and Barrier—with impeccable timing to supplement his flawless swordsmanship and fend off his enemy in this high-stakes battle. While his stamina and mana had decreased from his heyday, his combat ability was as good as ever. He moved in the ideal way described in every combat manual.
However, his enemy was the demon lord. Ordinary strategies like that weren’t enough to grant him victory against such a demanding foe. His attempts at feints and defense with beginner magic were all seen through, and even his swordsmanship that stood at the realm of legends was nothing Beelzebub couldn’t easily keep up with.
This must be the work of his Ultimate Zenith. An Exploitative Skill through and through, Alan thought.
Beelzebub possessed two Ex-Skills. The first one was called Fairy Sight. The third eye on his forehead laid all of his opponents’ information bare to him, but since he already knew Alan’s tricks from their first fight, it wasn’t of much use here. The problem was the second one, the aforementioned Ultimate Zenith. With the exception of Unique Skills like Alan’s mana of light or Derek’s brainwashing, it allowed him to use almost all magic and forms of combat techniques at the highest possible level from birth.
It was exactly like this during our first fight. Beelzebub faced the techniques I’d risked my life to perfect with the ones he’d just been born with.
This time was no different. Beelzebub deflected a number of Alan’s best attacks magnificently, just like their first battle—until Alan realized something was off.
Something is different from last time!
Beelzebub roared as he deflected one of Alan’s attacks and countered with his own. The hero grunted in pain as the sword grazed his cheek and drew blood. Beelzebub didn’t let up there. Without a moment’s delay, he pointed a finger at Alan and gathered his mana.
“Red Magic, Number Forty!” With terrible power, Beelzebub formed a massive beast out of flames and sicced it on Alan.
“Hngh!” Alan focused his mana of light and faced the spell directly. Not only did the light element increase in power more than tenfold against demons, it was also elemental magic, making it significantly stronger than the nonelemental magic he used. Under the usual circumstances, his mana would have no trouble negating Beelzebub’s in a direct confrontation.
Such dense mana! I can’t negate it! Alan thought.
To be more precise, he could negate it, but he was consuming considerable amounts of his own mana to do so. Just because he was using the mana of light didn’t mean he had an endless pool of mana like Norman.
To conserve mana, he turned his light-clad sword horizontally and slid Beelzebub’s spell across it to change its trajectory, causing the beast of flames to pass by his right side. It landed on a spot several kilometers away where it exploded with a violent roar, creating a pillar of fire that towered over one hundred meters tall.
“That was some ridiculous destructive power, and that was after I dampened it with my mana.” Cold sweat ran down Alan’s brow. His earlier hunch had been confirmed.
Beelzebub was powerful the last time too. He’s incomparable to any other demon I’ve fought in my life, he thought. However, he hadn’t been this strong.
In their previous conflict, Alan had been slightly superior in swordsmanship and martial arts, and when their magic had collided, his mana of light had warded off the majority of Beelzebub’s attacks thanks to its favorable affinity. This time, Beelzebub had improved both his physical and magical abilities by one degree. The demon lord had prevailed in every fight he’d entered thanks to his omnipotent Ultimate Zenith. What would happen if he were to improve even further?
“Heh, have you noticed?” Beelzebub used conventional footwork just that much more refined than Alan’s to close the gap between them in an instant. He yelled as he struck at Alan with a series of grounded, rational attacks, better in technique than the hero’s.
Unintentionally, Alan found himself captivated by the level of Beelzebub’s swordsmanship. It took everything in Alan, amid grunts of pain, to deal with the barrage of blows.
“Our previous fight was when I first tasted defeat. I asked how someone as talentless as you became so strong. You told me, and I still remember those words clearly,” Beelzebub said.