Chapter 84 - Midlight Village#4

MAX'S POV:-

"It's okay Max. Help has arrived. The Fifth Branch of Alfheim has arrived. Everything will be fine now," I hear the voice of Daphne, who is standing behind me.

Turning around, her expression is furious as she looks at the white-haired red-eyed Devil, Belphegor, her green eyes then looking at Katherine. Watching her tying her long green hair and then taking out her bow as she points at the Devil,, I couldn't help but compare her to all the times in my previous regressions. Now she looks more mature than before. Then I turned to the Elf Branch, who arrived.

-Whoosh

Threads. Tens of hundreds of threads spread around us. Then both Zwain and Belphegor vanish at once. 

-Boom

-Boom

-Boom

.

.

.

All I could hear was the sound of them fighting. Even my eyes couldn't catch them fighting. The surroundings started distorting, trees started burning; ground had developed many pits; air started swirling heavily all around us.

"It looks like Zwain has the upper hand," Daphne says as she observes the surroundings. Looking at her, I can't help but look up to her. After all, if she can see this much, then her strength must be much stronger than she has shown yet.

"After all, we are alive, aren't we? Even after all this fast-paced fight, we aren't even scratched. Even the ground around is intact," she speaks as if she read my thoughts. At her words, I finally realised what she meant by her previous statement. 

'Not only he is fighting that monster, but also protecting us.'

My eyes then turn to Katherine, who is lying unconscious at a distance. I slowly walked towards her as I looked at her. She must have been affected by that sense enhancement magic.

"I will cure you once we reach back home. Just bear with it, okay?" I assure her as I look at her unconscious-like body. Daphne moves closer to us as she pulls down her bow, then she takes out a potion and starts feeding Katherine by mouth to mouth. I turn my head at that.

ZWAIN'S POV:-

"[Mana threads of Life and Death]" I chant as several black and white threads start coming out of my head. I then wait as I sense him moving towards the kids once again. He moves and rips them into pieces. I run towards him and kick him away as I throw my Threads of Death at him. I also throw Threads of Life on those kids with which I patch them back to the state they were before.

'He is fast, in fact, too fast. The Devil Sin of Sloth, Belphegor,' I can't help but recall the stories I have heard of him.

Belphegor, an Elf Branch, was born with very little mana compatibility. But as if to compensate for it, nature blessed him with agility and a Genius Talent in research and experimentation. It was fine in the beginning but as he grew more and more restless with his experiments' failures; he started experimenting on living beings. As if that was not enough, he succumbed to being a Devil just to enhance his research using Devil Energy instead of Mana. In the old world, we called such people who were crazy for experimentations as, 'Mad Scientist'

He then stands in front of me with a smile on his face. I want to hit his face so badly right now, but I am afraid that if I go all out, he will too use his other special ability. 

'And if that happens then…' a smile forms on my face as I think about the people observing this fight from the shadows right now, '...and if that happens then, he will have no choice but to die here the most brutal way possible, at least I will make sure he does. But wait? He just killed so many kids before coming here…haha, he is so dead now, I wonder what would be his reaction later. Well whatever, my work is to trap him. Since I have planted my golden threads all over the place, my work is done here.'

"Why are you smiling in this situation? Do you really think those people hiding in the shadows can defeat me after you have locked me in with your Golden Threads? Have the Elves gone so naïve after all those years? Tsk tsk, to think it would be this bad after all those years. Well, it's not like a dying nation has anything to do with me," he speaks as he raises his hand and chants,"[Blood Sacrifice: Ocean of Undead]" 

He uses his second ability as blood drops from his finger on the ground and the surrounding area fills with blood. The blood burns the trees or, to be more precise; it sucks their life force. Soon something comes out of the pool of blood, and then similar creatures start pouring out of the pool. One, tens, hundreds…all of them at least look similar to the power level of High level being at least with many Supreme Level creatures in them. It is almost similar to having an army of hundreds of Supreme beings with you all time.

"If this isn't enough, then I can summon more you know, this is but a drop in the ocean if you don't know," he shows me a creepy smile as he looks at me as his long white hair starts fluttering against the air. Looking at his deep red eyes, I can't tell if he is bluffing or not. In the records there is mention of this ability, but it only says that Belphegor can summon a hundred creatures to fight for him at once.

Time flows normally as I remove my mana channels. Looking at me, his eyes narrow and his expression gets confused as he speaks," What are you trying to do? No, it doesn't matter. It just makes things easier for me." He speaks as he moves towards me, but before he could do so, someone calls him from behind him.

"Long time no see, Belphegor. I see you are as ugly as ever, huh?" Leraye speaks with a smile on his face. Belphegor's eyes get shocked at this. He turns to Leraye with wide-open eyes.

"What are you doing here?" There is slight horror in his voice. His whole concentration is taken by Leraye as he takes out his dual blades and points at Leraye. He isn't even giving me a spec of his attention.

"I will feel bad if you do this, you know? Did you forget our last bonding moment?" Leraye speaks again. I wonder what their relation is, do they know each other from before? Leraye himself is a big mystery.

'But since he is with Sir Aether, there is nothing to worry about, I guess.' I nod as I think about it. Just him being there solves most of the problems. I wonder if I will ever get the chance to join his party. Hey! That's a nice idea.' my eyes lit up on this thought. I am definitely going to ask about it once this ordeal is over.

"Why aren't you answering anything? IS everything fine? You look like…" Leraye pauses as his smile widens,"..you saw someone who can kill you for real."

'Huh? What does he mean by that?'

I look at Belphegor, gritting his teeth as he looks at Leraye. Looks like Leraye knows a weakness that Belphegor has. 

The creatures then start attacking the kids and me, while he himself starts running away with only two creatures attacking Leraye that looked stronger than the other ones. 

"[Blue threads of Simplicity]" I chant as threads spread all around the place, cutting every monster that approached me. I then look at the kids, they were horror-stricken as they prepared to fight against the army of monsters, but before they could do so two shadows cut all the High-level monsters followed by a purple fire that burnt all the Supreme Devils at once. It does not look like they put much effort into doing that. I then observed the boy, who was shocked at all the things that were taking place here.

MAX'S POV:-

'Wha…What the heck??' It was incomprehensible. What was happening in front of me? First there was the stoppage of the fight between the Elf and the Devil, then all that army that Belphegor summoned, then someone else joined the battle who looked no more than 18. As if that was not absurd, then that boy knew Belphegor and for f*cks sake, Belphegor actually looked scared of that boy. Then after a talk that has been hard to follow, the creatures started attacking us, but before they could reach us, half of them were burned and the rest half of them were killed by kids who looked only 8 or 9 years old?

"What the f*ck!!" I hear Daphne cursing at the absurd development in the situation. It looks like I am not the only one who is finding everything abnormal in this situation. This is the most absurd situation I have ever seen in my life. I doubt I will ever witness something more absurd than this.

Then I look at the Elf Branch, the boy with the scythe, Belphegor and the kids looking in a certain direction. Following their line of sight, I notice three people coming from that direction. 

Three people, an old man on the left, a white-haired girl on the left and a child wearing similar clothing to the other two children walking in front of them. It looked as if the child was the centre of this whole citation right now.

"You can call me Morpheus. I guess it wouldn't be a right thing to kill someone without even letting him know who killed him.. Isn't it right Sin Devil of Sloth, Belphegor?" He speaks with a wintry smile on his face.