The Mysterious Black Magician

The Demon Ultima was puzzled.

'Why his mental interference did not take effect on them? Why are these two able to move in the face of him?'

He could not believe this! Then he noticed the glow that enveloped their bodies.

'T-That girl again! Meddlesome girrrrrl!' He angrily screamed in his thoughts.

In truth, Ice cast a spell that temporarily boasted Yman and Almina's resistance to mental attacks and pressure.

Yman guessed that the enemy would not expect them to dodge his attack at the first encounter.

He believed that proud beings would always look down on the weak and thus the bearer of limitless pride.

After the enemy's attacks were caught by him, Yman assumed that the Demon Ultima would take him first.

To completely evade his attack, Yman had to use Rapid Leap towards Almina, then Almina would use Rapid Leap towards the enemy's back-side while pulling him. With this, the enemy could easily pick their presence.

Fueled by pride, the anger rose in him and therefore he lost his awareness to his surroundings. He turned his back and faced them. He forgot that there was someone who could easily tear his flesh among their group. And that someone was aiming at him — accurately.

Ice was staring at it knowingly, but in reality, she was dumbfounded, everything that happened at the moment was really as that person told them. It was like he already knew how the enemy would react in the battle.

"I-ls this for real?"

Maena heard the Ace muttering in surprise. She sighed inwardly, then chose not to be bothered by it.

However, deep inside, she started to question, 'What is true strength?'

Maena pushed it at the back of her mind for now as she had more important things needed to do!

...

The Demon cried in agony as his body was pierced one after another.

However,

Despite the fact that he was pierced multiple times, Yman noticed that the demon's health points were still at 70% at most.

Yman quickly stood up and signaled Almina for a retreat.

Almina quickly retreated her sword that bore in the Demon Ultima's stomach, when she felt Yman's hand was strengthened his gripped onto hers.

The warmth from it proliferated into hers.

Right now, the guy beside her looked like a real man. Stood taller than her, and with a mature aura around him. She couldn't understand what happened to him, but it wasn't important right now. Because she was very happy at the moment! To be able to hold his hand is like a dream come true to her.

She was caught unguarded when Yman proposed this plan to them. Seeing her flustered and awkward yelped, Yman had to explain that he wasn't taking advantage of the situation. Almina knew about it, but she was caught in surprise, so her face was burning hot.

Regardless,

Yman felt something unusual and immediately signaled Almina to retreat.

Without a second thought, he used Rapid Leap and jumped into the air while pulling Almina with him.

Right after they leaped, the demon stomped his foot on the ground, followed by countless spikes that protruded from it.

Spikes in the form of fangs and with dark red colors raised 3 meters while racing to pierce them. Fortunately, Yman and Almina were already 10 meters above the ground.

But the demon didn't seem bothered with it. He in fact was snoring at them.

"Guehehe, do you think you are successful in your escape? Now let's see if you can stay for long in the air!"The demon had expected them to fall after they reached the highest level of ascending. Later on, they would start to descend.

A while ago, Yman felt a disturbance of dense mana around the demon and on the ground. He felt a bad premonition about it and had to retreat. Even if he had the ability to crumble the enemy's magic-based attack like it was nothing, it was still dangerous to do it when he didn't know what kind of ability the enemy would use.

His decision proved right after he saw those countless spikes raised on the ground.

Yman had no way to make them all disappear.

"Tsk, an area of effect," he clicked his tongue and mumbled while still on the air.

"Area of effect?" Almina repeated.

"It is a wide-range attack that is able to hit multiple enemies," Yman explained while twitching his brow.

Almina peeked below and saw the 10 meters radius spikes surrounding the demon. On the other hand, Maena was bombarding attacks of freezing arrows towards the demon. Those arrows were purely made of ice. It was the secondary ability of Maena in learning magic; to be able to materialize an object out of thin air, using the element she was having an affinity with.

The demon seemed to find a way to defend himself from Maena's barrage of attacks. He was using the spikes to block it. The arrows she fired had pierced about 5-7 spikes before it broke into pieces like powder and turned into smokes.

Inwardly, the demon was wondering why ice Elementalist humans are always troublesome. He wanted to skewer their flesh and scattered their innards while bathing from their blood.

The demon eerily thought.

Almina noticed that Maena's attacks had become lesser and lesser. She was probably getting tired by now. Yet, she did not stop.

"C-Can we do something about it?" Almina anxiously asked Yman.

Yman gazed at her and smirked, "I and the others can't, but you perhaps can do it," Yman replied.

"Do you mean —"

"Mhm, your Flame Wave," Yman added.

Almina looked at him and noticed that he was serious.

"W-What I needed to do then?" She asked.

"Just fire everything you have towards him," he said with a grin.

"O-Okay!" After saying it, their body started to descend.

The demon fired a crimson energy wave towards the two humans in the air, without waiting for them to descend.

Yman noticed and figured that it was the same ability used by the Mercenary Ultima. Not only the color had changed, but he could also feel that its power had increased greatly. Looks like this Demon of Possession could also use the ability of the person they possessed.

Yet, the demon frowned once again when his crimson energy wave was caught again by that human boy and disappears shortly. He was kind of annoyed for not knowing if what kind of ability this human boy had.

'What a waste of effort!' He thought to himself.

In actuality,

He could fly and tear them in the mid-air or shoot these spikes towards them, but he was doubtful about that human boy's ability. So he chose to wait because he also wanted to see the pitiful outcome of these humans, thinking they could escape by leaping in the air.

When the demon saw them started to descend, he smiled wickedly.

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh! The demon while staring at Yman and Almina had heard familiar sounds of something rapidly traveling in the air.

The demon glanced at the source of sounds and saw some arrows racing to hit him.

He slightly frowned. These arrows were much more powerful than the one she fired before. And now this girl fired as many as she could.

'Tsk, she's annoying.' However, the demon believed it could not hurt him, forget about hurting him. It could not even reach him.

As expected the arrows Maena fired did not reach him. It was stopped by spikes and sometimes was using the crimson energy wave to collide with the arrows.

The freezing arrows lost its durability and exploded into white powder smoke when they collided at the last spikes they could pierce.

"Fool, guehehe," he laughed.

Nonetheless, Maena did not stop and continued firing.

The demon tried to fire a crimson energy wave but good thing that it didn't have a long-range. Whenever the enemy demon fired it, it could not reach them.

The smoke powder proliferated around the demon, then it covered the whole area where he was standing. The demon had no need to worry about it, he had high perception ability and could clearly identify what was happening around him.

But suddenly, his attention was caught by the two humans falling towards him.

The demon smirked and broke into laughter, "Gyahahaha, die!" He shouted.

The demon lifted his hand towards the two descending humans, then unexpectedly the spikes rose up and flew to pierce these humans. Actually, he was waiting at his current position, and let himself beaten-up for the humans to think that he was having a hard time dealing with their attacks.

But actually, he was laying a trap for them!

"Gyahahaha, humans are still naive creatures! They were lowlife with little brains! They are easy to fool! Gyahahaha!" Once more, he broke into laughs of great delight.

Almina widened her eyes at the approaching spikes.

Her heart started to pound. She wondered if they would be going to die here.

She glanced at the person at her left side, who was descending rapidly together with her.

His brown-white hair was fluttering, while his brown eyes were straight-staring down below, with his left hand extended in front, and his right hand firmly gripping her left hand.

Almina noticed no fear in his eyes. His face was not the face of someone who gave up. It wasn't also the reminiscing face of someone who was prepared to die.

In truth, it was the face of someone who was looking forward to tomorrow!

Suddenly, he glanced at her, smiled, then said, "Let's survive." She then felt his hand firmly gripped her hand.

Almina with teary eyes nodded her head. Like him, she turned her gaze in front full of resolve. Then a moment later, they collide with the spikes.

The demon broke into a guffaw!

But suddenly froze.

Because a block of ice crystal suddenly appeared and he was at the center, frozen inside it.