The men only watched as King Xerin fled back into the army. It wasn’t clear how far he planned to run, but definitely out of my sight, as if I would allow that. I initiated a Teleport and then appeared right in front of him. He stopped short, his eyes widening.
“You dare!” he cursed. “Attack him!”
The men did move to grab me at this point. It was one thing to hesitate on the king’s orders. It was quite another to stand by and watch them get murdered. Whatever fate King Xerin was to face, these soldiers felt it the duty of the Ost Republic to do such things. I suspected that this would happen, which was why I didn’t care to stay. I reached out and grabbed the Demon Lord Aberis’s arm before anyone could take a step.
Similar to Hero’s Switch Position, Slave Swap was a Slave Master ability at level 37 that allowed me to trade places with a slave. That slave happened to be the unconscious Xin. As I had learned in a certain dungeon, as long as I had a hold on someone I could take them with me during a swap. Back in the day, I had feared I’d need to be inside them and had kissed Raissa as I Position Switched with her. Since then, I had a chance to test it and found that as long as I had a good hold on them, I could drag them with me. If I was only touching them, then it wouldn’t work. I had to be grabbing onto them in some way.
Only a few seconds had passed, and both I and Aberis appeared in between the two armies. This development occurred so quickly that people from both sides were still trying to figure out what happened. Lord Aberis ripped his arm from my grip and stumbled back a few steps. His startled expression turned into ferocious fury. It reminded me of the battle I had fought with him outside of Chalm.
In that battle, the two of us fought to the death. He had systematically killed everyone I loved, and even then, we had only barely managed to scrape by and defeat him. Now, I didn’t have anyone from my party supporting me, and I was about to fight a demon lord who was in the body of an Osterian. I couldn’t hold back a single bit. I immediately attacked him.
I used Final Blow, and the ensure it struck, I used Haste, Explosive Movement, and Accelerate to deliver a quick and deadly blow. My blessing glowed as well. I had already used too much energy fighting off Xin. I put every last bit into it to take down Aberis. I hoped at the least I could cause him some damage. Alysia struck Demon Lord Aberis, and he didn’t even pull a sword to defend himself. Whatever glowing that occurred around his body was interrupted and he went flying off like he was pulled by a string.
He slammed into the ground, thirty feet away, causing the ground to shake with a resounding boom.
I stared at the brutally destructive attack. What just happened? As the smoke cleared, Aberis rose from the smoke. I see. The true battle was now going to beg- Aberis was a bloody mess. His clothing was in tatters, and he was barely standing. He immediately started to cough up blood.
“Oh…wow…” I said in disbelief.
“What is it?” Alysia asked.
“Demon Lord Aberis… at least this version of him… is really weak!”