[Arena Colosseum, Unknown Planet, Damian's POV.]
Damian used the same two golden shield spells to defend everyone against the demon lord's weird-looking chaos attack—the same spell the prince had once used to protect Damian. However, the spell wasn't all-powerful and could only remain as strong as the many mana threads supplying it with continuous mana.
Damian brought the mana liquid containers near Lucian and canceled the invisible box spell. She understood immediately and started opening them one by one. Extending a mana thread for each, Damian pushed the giant ball of energy aside in a contained explosion.
The place where it landed immediately lost all color, turning a rustic brown with cracks spreading across the land, as if it had drained the very life from it. That was no simple spell. It reminded Damian of the erosion spell the elf queen had once shown him. He had signed a mana contract never to use that spell, but—he could no longer sense any binding mana inside his body after his evolution into the demonic lineage.
Technically.. he was free from its restrictions. But was it due to his evolution, or had the strange world travel somehow broken the contract? If he used it here, would he be punished the second he returned? Damian wasn't willing to take unnecessary risks.
He gestured for Lucian to go through the waygate too. Above them, a massive hand made of darkness was descending at crushing speed, shaped like a giant fist. This one, Damian knew, he could not stop with golden light attribute shields.
Lucian gave him a look before running inside the blue portal. Damian also flew backward toward the waygate while still facing the enormous form of the demon lord. Five giant runic circles formed before his eyes, purely through intent, powered by the many liquid mana containers at his disposal.
Two of them formed light constructs shaped like giant spears over fifty meters long, designed to explode on impact. The third was a wormhole spell, set to open near the enormous face of the demon lord's giant body, where he could faintly sense the true forms of Land Breaker and Shadecaster. Damian launched the wormhole spell and sent the two massive golden light spears directly at the demon lord's head. The explosion was smaller than the chaos spell the demon lord had unleashed, but it was perfectly aimed. A massive chunk of darkness blasted away from its giant face.
The enormous darkness let out an earth-shaking roar, its mountainous form scattering over the massive city below. A lone figure shot out of its dark, misty face, rushing at lightning speed toward Damian and the waygate.
"Come, bastard. Let me show you who you're messing with.." Damian muttered, his eyes sharp, locked onto the oncoming black dot in the sky.
He was still holding his last two spells in each hand. More than half of all the open liquid mana containers had been drained for this moment.
As the demon lord—in Land Breaker's body—closed within 300 meters, Damian launched two massive beams of light energy, each thicker than the arms of the enormous darkness behind them. The demon lord's face, composed of swirling shadows, narrowed its red slits in shock at the unexpected attack. The figure hesitated, trying to swerve to the side, but the beams adjusted their trajectory and followed him relentlessly.
Roaring, the demon lord retaliated, launching two chaos-infused energy balls at full power. The opposite energies collided in a cataclysmic explosion, reducing the entire town to a massive crater. Mushroom clouds of debris and dust rose high into the sky. An unknown city had just been wiped off the map.
Damian, however, had already leaped into the waygate right after adjusting the beams' trajectory. He landed atop the giant lizard's corpse, cancelling the waygate behind him immediately. The group was waiting with bated breath. Without him, they would be lost—just trading one hell for another. Seeing him, they all sighed in relief.
"What in the hell was that thing!?" Karl asked, his pugilist-trained body still trembling uncontrollably.
"That.." Damian replied, "was a demon lord—inside Land Breaker's body."
Everyone's breath hitched as they stared at him with wide eyes. Damian recounted what had transpired, explaining their situation in brief. Needless to say, they bombarded him with endless questions. Still, they were grateful for a change from their miserable circumstances, even if it wasn't the ideal escape they had hoped for.
"Who's that guy?" Damian asked, noticing a red-skinned pigman listening intently to his tale as if he understood every word.
"Ah, that's Heather," Maelor replied.
"He understands our language?" Damian asked, surprised.
"..Um, no. We just used to call him 'Hey there,' and he took it as his name," Maelor explained with an awkward smile. Then, patting the pigman on the shoulder, he added, "He helped us. Saved Karl and Evante more than once. He was a prisoner just like us."
The second he said 'prisoners,' all four of them reflexively touched the black metal chains around their necks. Damian had noticed them earlier but had been preoccupied with larger issues.
He stepped closer to Evante, examining the chain, and infused it fully with his mana. There was a spell imbued in it—but it was too foreign for him to decipher at a glance.
"What does it do?" Damian asked.
"If we try to break it, it zaps us with painful energy," Evante replied.
"Do you mind if I try?" Damian asked. Evante's face paled, hesitating, but Maelor stepped forward instead.
"You can try on me," Maelor said.
Damian nodded and gave the chain a firm pull. Instantly, a runic circle in light cyan formed before his eyes using Maelor's own mana. Damian copied it with his Sigil Replication skill. The second it fully materialized and was about to activate, he used his Arcane Dissection skill to pinpoint the weak, red-highlighted region in the spell. With mana-clad fingers, he struck the flaw.
The light cyan runic circle shattered into countless glowing fragments.
In the next second, Damian crushed the black chain, freeing Maelor from its bindings.