Chương 99: 96. Silver Haired Boy

The trees below blurred together as he sped toward Eurynomos, pouring as much mana as he could into Flight. Within seconds, he was several hundred meters away from the city. He flew for some time before stopping above the endless forest, midway between the mountain and the city. Adolin hovered in the air. A moment later, another figure stopped three meters in front of him. It was a boy around nine or ten years old, with shiny silver hair, dressed in rags.

The pristine new boots on his feet looked completely out of place. The formation's signature came from the boy, who was also spreading his aura, confirming that he was Eurynomos, the Demon King.

"Calamity," the boy said, his voice soft and childish. Adolin chuckled. He wasn't sure which one of them had ended up with the worse reincarnation. The air around them grew colder, and the only sound was his fading chuckle. The boy's mana flared. A dark flame formed above him before shooting toward Adolin. The chuckle died in his throat as he blinked away from the flame. The dark flame changed direction mid-flight and continued chasing him.

It was the first time he'd seen the spell, yet every instinct he possessed warned him not to let it touch him. Adolin blinked again, appearing on an earth platform behind the boy. Since Eurynomos wanted to play with fire, he decided to answer in kind. Bigger Inferno. The vortex descended upon Eurynomos, but a dark barrier appeared around the boy. The dark flame was still chasing Adolin, so he poured more mana into his Mana Barrier, letting the flames crash against it.

The black flame wrapped around the barrier and even started burning through it in a few places. He immediately cast a second Mana Barrier, closer to his skin, shielding himself from the terrifying heat. The spells soon ran their course, leaving both of them unharmed. A few cracks had appeared in the boy's barrier. His mana flared once more. Adolin decided to make the first move this time. Wind Spell.

The air currents twisted in an instant, transforming into countless wind blades before crashing into the boy with overwhelming force, launching him deep into the forest. Adolin followed. Eurynomos shattered every tree in his path before disappearing into the ground. Just as the earth swallowed him, Adolin cast Thunder Barrage. Massive bolts of lightning rained down upon the point of impact. A sharp, metallic smell filled the air from the lightning, mixing with the scent of ozone left behind by the spells.

Adolin didn't stop. He started flinging mana constructs into the crater. The pressure around him suddenly changed before he was launched backward at tremendous speed. He crashed through a dozen trees before the pressure shifted again. This time, it came from above. Adolin slammed into the ground, sprawling as the crushing force continued driving him deeper into the earth. The Demon King had always been better than him at Gravity magic. Much better. Adolin cast Gravity.

Instead of increasing the pull, he altered the mana pattern to lessen gravity's effect on himself. More than half of the pressure disappeared in an instant, allowing him to push himself to his feet slowly. The ground beneath him held the imprint of his entire body... even his face. His first Mana Barrier had collapsed. Only the second one, formed tightly around his body, remained, its outline pressed into the earth. Eurynomos stood a few meters away, a cruel smile on his face.

Instead of the terrifying grin he had worn in his previous life, this one was... Cute? Adolin frowned as the thought crossed his mind. He was beating up a small child. It felt wrong, even though he knew exactly whose soul inhabited that body. Then again, he was receiving a beating in return, so maybe it wasn't that bad. The gravity around him intensified once more. Adolin blinked behind the boy, his staff already in his hands.

He cast Mana Burst as the staff descended toward Eurynomos, stopping just before it struck him. The force of the spell buried the boy in the ground up to his knees. Hitting a child was a line he wouldn't cross. There was no reason to dwell on the point any further... He blinked away just as gravity descended on the spot where he'd been standing.

"Why are you running?"

"..." How was he supposed to fight him when he kept hearing that childish voice? This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Can you stop talking with that voice? It's distracting."

"Mage!?" the boy's voice boomed through the forest, enhanced by mana. It was still the same childish voice.

"Just stop talking, please?" Hundreds of black flames—just like the first one—formed around the boy. A moment later, they shot toward Adolin. Perhaps taunting him about his voice hadn't been the smartest thing to do. Whatever. He cast Wind again, hoping the blades would be enough to destroy the black flames, then blinked away. The wind and the flames clashed. The flames struggled to pursue Adolin while the winds pushed them back. Some of them collapsed, but far too many remained.

A handful broke through the wind spell and shot toward him. Adolin took a deep breath and created fire mana constructs, launching them toward the incoming black flames. It took more than twenty constructs to destroy a single black flame. The fight continued, and the forest around them was set ablaze. If it continued much longer, the entire forest would be burnt to a crisp.

"Can we use slightly less destructive spells?" Adolin said as he sidestepped a black tendril that shattered a tree into a thousand pieces.

"And why would I do that?" Eurynomos replied as he cast even more tendrils, each one wreathed in black flames. Gravity spells also appeared all around Adolin, like pockets waiting to swallow him. He blinked away, but only managed to travel half the distance he intended. The Demon King was messing with the space around them as well.

"So the city still has a forest?" Eurynomos looked thoughtful.

"Your point is valid, but I still need to clear some of the forest." He shrugged and cast even more black flames. The good thing about the fight was that Adolin's mana was purer than Eurynomos's, so he kept using mana constructs and new spells every few seconds. It conserved his mana while allowing him to deal far more damage with much less.

"Why's that?" The boy let out an evil laugh. At least, Adolin assumed that was what Eurynomos had been going for. It sounded cute rather than evil. Or perhaps... evilly cute? He grimaced at his own train of thought. What was wrong with him? He refused to acknowledge that thought.

"Wouldn't you want to know? He he he."

"Whatever," Adolin said, shrugging. The boy suddenly collapsed onto the ground. A moment later, he climbed back to his feet and dusted himself off.

"That's it? I'll tell you if you say please." He kept acting as if he'd never collapsed over the branch. Adolin ignored him as he dodged dozens of black flames and returned hundreds of mana constructs. He also cast a wind spell that filtered the black smoke so it wouldn't alert the city. He really didn't want to deal with the guards. How was he going to explain why most of the forest near the city was gone? Well, it wasn't really near the city, but it was close enough. A few moments later, Eurynomos looked annoyed.

"Do you think ignoring me is the way to learn my plans?"

"I really don't care," Adolin said.

"That's not going to work on me!" His mana was running low, and Eurynomos was casting fewer spells, which meant they were both running low. The fight continued, while Adolin relied mostly on mana constructs because they consumed the least amount of mana. He also stopped using fire because he didn't want to burn the whole forest down.

"Fine, fine. I'll give you a hint. It's the first step in my plan to take over the city! He he!" Adolin didn't say anything. The Demon King... the former? Retired? Whatever. The Demon King really wanted to share his plans. Even if Adolin didn't want to hear them, he was certain that by the end of the fight, he would know everything. A few seconds later, Eurynomos spoke again.

"Any guesses?"

"No."

"It's not that hard to guess!"

"Maybe, but again, I don't care." That seemed to annoy him even more as dozens of black flames surrounded him. That would put him on his last fumes of mana. The problem was that Adolin had to deal with every single one of them, which would also leave him on his last fumes. The fight was going to end in a draw if he didn't pull something off, which was incredibly hard to do against the strongest Demon King. Even at the peak of his strength, Eurynomos had brought him to the cusp of death.

At least, with their deaths, Adolin hoped the world had returned to normal before everything went to shit. The normal was still awful, but it was far better than when the war against the Demon Continent had started. The game of the divine. Just as Adolin destroyed the last of the black flames, he felt Eurynomos gathering every last wisp of mana into a spell. It was a last stand. Soon, the winner would be decided.

He focused on the mana pattern, trying to guess what spell Eurynomos was about to cast, but he wasn't familiar with it. His best guess was that it involved darkness, gravity, or the void. Those had been Eurynomos's domains in his previous life. For darkness, he could use a Light spell, which also worked against the void. Though it wouldn't do much against gravity. The light element wasn't something he usually used, so he quickly gave up on that idea.

He was much more comfortable with fire, and fire was effective against both darkness and the void. Gravity wasn't something he needed to worry about because using it as a last-stand spell didn't cause enough destruction in a short amount of time. Adolin focused the mana inside his core and gave it a fire nature. The part of the forest they fought in was already burned to a crisp, so the last spell wouldn't cause too much damage to the already destroyed part of the forest.

The moment he changed its nature, a burning pain exploded from his chest. Last-stand spells did a lot of damage to their caster. Well, for most people. He would just experience excruciating pain and regret his decision to ever use the spell. Just as it felt like his core was about to collapse, he willed the mana through his channels. In an instant, scorching flames erupted from his hands, blasting toward Eurynomos. At the same time, dark tendrils exploded from the Demon King, surging toward him.

The two spells collided. Fire against darkness. The heat from his own spell blasted against his face, and Adolin started sweating profusely. The flames devoured the darkness, slowly pushing it back. Adolin heard a laugh coming from in front of him. His stomach churned as he felt something bad was about to happen. He wouldn't dare, Adolin thought. Yet the feeling remained. Something really bad was about to happen.

"You wouldn't dare!" Adolin shouted. There was no reply from the other side as the fire pushed the darkness back even further. A painful shriek came from Eurynomos. Every instinct screamed at him. Adolin threw himself to the side just as one of the tendrils sliced across his shoulder. He slammed into the ground and quickly turned around. The ground between him and Eurynomos was gone. An enormous, perfectly round hole remained. Which, technically, it had been.

"Crazy bastard," Adolin shouted as he rolled onto his back, his chest burning with pain. A painful chuckle came from Eurynomos. Adolin glanced toward him. The boy was clutching his chest, his teeth gritted, red tears streaming down his face. Adolin couldn't even imagine the kind of pain Eurynomos was currently in. The bastard had changed the nature of the mana inside his core into two different natures: darkness and void.

Changing the nature of the mana inside one's core was one of the dumbest things a person could do, but changing it into two different natures... He was left speechless. The two mana types would oppose one another, causing enormous damage to the core.

"Why would you do something so dumb?" Adolin spat. Eurynomos looked like he wanted to say something, but he was incapable of speech. They stared at each other for a few seconds before the boy collapsed onto the ground. Both of them lay on the ground in silence. The forest around them was gone, while the edges still burned. The ground had been scarred in dozens of different ways. It looked like a calamity had passed through it. Even though he was mad, Adolin felt a smile spread across his face. He had to admit...

The fight had been fun. After fifteen minutes, Eurynomos finally spoke.

"That was fun." Adolin just shook his head. The Demon King had gone crazy.