Calamity Upon This World

A little bit before the elemental spear hit Kaust.

William was originally intending on just doing one last test about how much output mana can be destroyed at once.

But when he saw Kaust charging at him, he had an even better idea—one that, if executed properly, would let him kill the demon.

And well, if it didn't work out, he was about to die a very brutal death.

It was extremely risky, but considering he was going to most likely die anyway, even if he didn't take the risk, he might as well try his luck one last time.

With that plan, he used almost all of his newly collected life force to create hundreds of shadow hounds to serve as distractions.

'Such a waste' he thought, knowing that all of these hounds would end up getting destroyed, making all the life force used to create them useless.

Well, it should be worth it as long as he can just kill the demon.

And just like expected, so far, his plan has worked.

'Motherfucker, my precious life force' William thought. Seeing Kaust destroy his hounds, he knew it was his plan and that he was technically responsible for it, but he didn't care; he was going to avenge them.

With his precious life force gone, he released a massive spear of elements he had created.

In the heat of battle, his passion for magic shone, as when faced with an opponent against whom his usual attacks were useless, he had no choice but to destroy and rebuild his basic understanding of magic to surpass his current limit.

Once he had done this, he had achieved this penta-elemental spell.

Unlike his usual spells created for the sole goal of destruction or other utility, this spell was aimed at pure lethality condensed and designed to kill his enemy.

After creating this spell, he had poured a whopping 80% of his total mana as well as all the atmospheric mana that he could muster to create a spell that could even harm Michael (at least the version of him that fought against Edge Lord and was holding back).

Even William was afraid of what he had created and hoped to kill the demon with it.

But he knew he was just being opportunistic, and in all likelihood, all the spell would do was gravely injure him.

From that point on, it would be up to him to deal with the rest. Unfortunately, after this spell, his [Mana Ascension] would also run out, rendering him useless and unable to even move his body.

If he wanted to keep his body somehow moving, the only possible solution was a [spirit ascension] using all his spirits.

But using something in his current state that he couldn't even use in its peak form would be nothing short of suicide.

Well, not exactly; it's more of a 50/50; either way, the backlash from this will either instantly kill him or break multiple of his cores, putting him through agonising pain that could kill him each time one core breaks.

Obviously, both of these options were horrible, but if I came down to it, William was prepared to potentially test his luck one last time.

**

"Fuck, it hurts," Kaust grumbled as a black mist formed around his body and very slowly healed him in an agonising process.

Miasma was an energy whose main purpose was chaos and destruction. Using such an energy to power a healing ability wasn't exactly ideal, as it hindered the ability and made the process agonising.

But this was the only option for a demon like him, as mana potions don't work on demons.

Every time he relived the pain of that brutal spear strike, the hatred inside his heart grew as he steeled his mind to focus on hunting down the adventurer responsible for his state.

He was the one responsible for causing Aron to kidnap Maya and for Reat issuing a request to the adventurer guild.

All so that he could have a new devil contractee.

And when he saw the adventurer assigned, he knew he had struck gold.

The masked adventurer was strong, intelligent, talented, and young—a perfect and ideal contractee for a demon like him.

This was also the reason why he was just playing around despite William trying to kill him; no matter what, he was adamant about getting him to sign the glorified slave contract.

If he wasn't going to do it the easy way by willingly doing it, then he had no choice but to break him until he eventually accepted.

After all, death is something that not just humans but every living being fears once confronted with something they can't possibly overcome, no matter what they do.

Everyone will throw away their pride, kneel, and beg for forgiveness.

And he was sure this boy was no different; however, he no longer cared about any of that anymore. The only thing that mattered now was ensuring that the boy who broke his majestic and grandiose horns suffered a horrifying death that sets an example for what happens when you miss with a demon's horns.

To a demon, their horn was their most precious part of the body, something that grows with them as they grow older.

Even the calmest and most calculative demon would lose his shit and go on a rampage the moment their horns were even slightly harmed.

And right now, not only had Kaust lost his precious horns, he had also lost them due to his carelessness and underestimating of his opponent, so his reaction was only natural.

"MF, just you wai-" Before he could complete his tenth curse in a row, from the corner of his eyes, he caught sight of the one responsible for his suffering.

He had a four-element crown on his head, four wings of the same elements on his back, a royal-like robe, and beautiful cyan eyes and hair.

However, that wasn't what concerned Kaust; rather, it was the black longsword in his hand that was burning in a bright cyan flame that caught his attention.

He had no clue how he managed to sneak so close to him without him noticing, but now wasn't the time, and almost instinctively, he cast a barrier of miasma near his neck, which seemed to be the target of the boy.

But once the cyan flame on the sword made contact with the purple barrier, the barrier broke, unable to stop the power contained in the flame and in a swift motion of the sword.

~Swing~

Kaust had been decapitated, and his head fell to the ground, which was shortly followed by William falling.

William was given no moment to celebrate his victory as all the backlash from abusing his body kicked in.

However, what he didn't know yet was that for once, aiming for the head was not a good decision, and he was about to pay for it, an easily avoidable mistake only caused by the lack of information William had about his opponent.