Chapter 180

180 Retreating

‘This... How... How could this variant do that!?’

‘It’s supposed to be my strength, my edge that would bring me on top of the others...’

Thoughts filled his mind as the forest green humanoid demon saw the dark flame fireballs that were chasing after him. It was supposed to be his ability, his edge that nobody else had. And seeing someone else use it was shocking to him.

Though it didn’t hit that hard on his mind as the one that was using them was an unpredictable variant type demon. But still, it was enough for him to have a shift of perspective about the intruder that had invaded his base.

Feeling challenged by the moving fireballs, the forest green humanoid demon didn’t just keep on running away but instead also started drawing runes with his hands.

Just like in the training room in his basement, the forest green humanoid demon completed the runes that he was drawing in just about a second, slightly longer than when he was in a relaxed state.

And when his two sets of runes flashed and disappeared, two man-sized roots sprouted from the ground, heading straight in the fireballs’ direction.

But instead of just moving straight to block the fireballs from the front, the forest green humanoid demon twisted his hands left and right, causing the man-sized roots that had just popped out of the ground to bend and twist according to his will.

The man-sized root that would probably only be able to stop the movements of 4 or 6 fireballs out of the dozen, now had bent sideways and blocked the path of most fireballs that came in the forest green humanoid demon’s way.

.....

Instead of just blocking 4 or 6 out of a dozen, the forest green humanoid demon succeeded in blocking 9 of the fireballs with its huge surface area, albeit the roots were now completely burned and destroyed, decimated by the fireballs that made contact with its body and packed huge punches.

Seeing that there 3 remaining fireballs coming at him, the forest green humanoid demon still kept his hands and fingers moving as he drew two more sets of runes, one with each hand.

The runes on his right hand then flashed and disappeared, manifesting yet another man-sized root that he used to block the three remaining fireballs while the runes on his left hand also manifested another man-sized root, but it wasn’t moving to block the fireballs.

While the first root was cast to prevent the fireballs from moving closer, the second root was used as a counterattack toward the variant type demon that was chasing after him.

The first root did its job splendidly, keeping up with the moving fireballs, and moved on its own as it used its huge body as a wall for the incoming fireballs.

The second root, on the other hand, was still trying to reach the variant type demon that was still some distance away.

Unlike the first root which literally only need to ram its body onto the fireballs to succeed, the second root takes more of the forest green humanoid demon’s focus as he was controlling the root with quite a difficulty, dodging the follow-up fireballs that were thrown at the body of the first root when the variant demon realized the forest green humanoid demon was doing its own counter-attack.

The forest green humanoid demon twisted its right hand left, right, and diagonally to prevent the root from being hit by a single dark flame fireball as he knew that even one of those fireballs was apparently hot enough to burn the whole root in just a few seconds.

And the reason why he could use the first root to block against multiple of those fireballs was due to how the fireballs came in very close intervals, making it possible for the root to not be broken apart completely after the first fireballs and used the remaining of its life to block the other fireballs.

However, the case was different when he was the one attacking, he needed to avoid all those fireballs if he wanted to deal any real damage to the source of those dark flame fireballs that must have been as hot if not hotter than the smaller fireballs that came from the ball of dark flame.

The forest green humanoid demon tried really hard, but he could only dodge so many fireballs before the variant type demon changed his strategy and completely foiled the forest green humanoid demon’s effort.

Instead of throwing several fireballs to hit the man-sized roots that keep on twisting and turning its body around, the variant type demon just threw a single fireball forward.

Just like how the forest green humanoid demon would find it easier to control one man-sized root compared to controlling two at the same time, the case was the same with the variant type demon. In fact, the variant type demon’s control was way more delicate.

The single fireball that was shot forward aimed itself towards the head of the man-sized root, but just like before, the root bent its whole body sideways, making the dark flame fireball’s trajectory to hit the ground.

However, just right when the dark flame fireball was right beside the huge head of the man-sized root, it abruptly stopped moving and danced to the side, following after the root’s movements.

The forest green humanoid demon was startled and tried to move its roots again to dodge the fireball. However, the fireball that had abruptly changed its movement, now not only changed its trajectory but also its shape.

From a ball of dark flame, the fireball had turned into a fire blanket that quickly caught the man-sized root that had a large surface area. And though the fireballs didn’t crash right onto the huge root with huge momentum, the dark flame had latched onto the body and it was all that it took for the variant to force the fire to eat the flammable root, quickly cutting off the forest green humanoid demon’s control over it.

The dark flame didn’t actually have the ability to revoke or eat the forest green humanoid demon’s ability to move and control the root, but just the root being destroyed and being turned to charcoal was definitely enough to prevent the forest green humanoid demon from controlling anything.

The exchange between the two continued on for some more time before finally, the forest green humanoid demon realized something.

‘No matter what I try to do...’

Another moving root was then destroyed by another flame blanket.

‘No matter how I try to make it unpredictable...’

This time, a moving earth spike was broken to pieces by a fire whip.

‘I can’t do anything to this guy...’

Yet again, all his spells that were either used to defend or attack the variant demon were destroyed by the dark flame that belonged to the variant type demon.

The forest green humanoid demon then looked around him, to the base that he built for the past year. The buildings that were built over time had mostly been demolished by the building-sized demon ape that run around everywhere, destroying everything around it using its fist while the few that had remained would sooner or later follow the others, turning into charred debris by the dark flames from the dark flame variant.

Seeing everything around him, the forest green humanoid demon nodded in understanding and realization when he thought about what had happened about a week ago.

‘If this was what happened there, then it would make sense that the fool would die...’ Thinking about the sensation that he felt in his heart through the contract that they all had signed, the humanoid demons from the deeper realms knew when one of them had suddenly died out of nowhere.

In a year of their conquest of the first demon realm to fulfill their mission, there was not a time where one of them had been on the verge of death as they were almost unbeatable in the first demon realm, if not for the calamity type variant demons and the demonic beasts with overpowered bloodline power were able to threaten their lives.

And now, one such being that could actually end his life had burst through his gate and rampaged into the forest green humanoid demon’s base.

He didn’t know how strong the gorilla that seemed to have not received a single wound from his subordinates despite being constantly under attack, but the variant was enough for him to realize the situation he was currently in.

Although it was a very bitter pill that he had to swallow, moreover when he found out that the variant demon was able to do the same thing that he thought only he could do, even being better at doing it, the forest green humanoid demon knew that it was not a battlefield that he could win.

So when he realized this, the forest green humanoid demon knew exactly what he should do.

Casting two earth walls before then using his runes to make them as huge as a building, the forest green humanoid demon blocked the variant’s view of him.

The variant hadn’t seen the humanoid demon cast the huge walls before, but it knew that it only had one thing to do, and that was to blast it with its flame.

So it was exactly what the variant did and simultaneously threw 6 dark flame fireballs to instantly break down the earth wall that was supposedly a good counter to the fire element.

However, when the earth wall broke down, the variant type demon didn’t see any follow-up attacks nor did it see the forest green humanoid demon preparing another attack.

Instead, he saw the back of the forest green humanoid demon facing him, with both of his wings spread open and flapping, pushing his body to fly away from the losing battlefield.

The variant type demon was startled by the sudden development, but it didn’t do anything else other than blinking several times before continuing to throw its fireballs toward the other humanoid demons in the area as if neglecting the forest green humanoid demon entirely.

It’s not because the variant type demon just let the humanoid demon go away after fighting for so long and didn’t care about the humanoid demon running away.

It was because the variant type demon knew that running away was something that the variant type demon wouldn’t be able to do.

And just as the variant type demon continued causing havoc and spreading its flames, two bundles of abundant elements suddenly appeared from high up in the sky.

The bundles of elements looked similar to the dark flame fireballs that the variant demon used all this time.

However, the speed of those bundles of darkness and flame elements was at least twice as fast as the ordinary fireballs, which was a speed that would be hard to completely dodge for anyone without being able to move at bullet speed.

And the target of the two bundles of elements was none other than the forest green humanoid demon that had just flapped its wings twice and hadn’t been able to reach its peak moving speed yet.