Chapter 239: Rising From The Ashes

"Y-you! How did you-" Emilia managed to mutter once more before coughing up another mouthful of blood, her vision growing hazy and her body becoming numb, yet not numb to the pain in her burning heart that only grew more and more painful as the aura of purple around the blade slowly and slowly increased with her anger, embarrassment, and disbelief. 

"Simple… You underestimated my tricks and played off what you already know I could do… It seems like you got too used to fighting predictable ability users and let your guard down… That will be your downfall…" 

The man behind her spoke as he infused more and more of his energy into his blade. 

Instinctively, Emilia went down on one knee, her hands tightly grasping the wound on her heart that still had a sword stabbed into it, coughing up even more blood on the ground, her vision now completely dark. 

Using every ounce of energy left in her body, she forced herself to look back only to be greeted by Moby, a devilish smile on his demonic, shadowy figure, his wings spread out wide and his horns standing tall, his red pupils looking rather serious yet amused at the same time, the aura of death and despair, unlike anything she had felt before, staring into his eyes feeling more like peering straight into the depth of hell itself. 

No matter how hard she tried, she could not force her body into producing even a single spark of flames, she had completely run out of fuel, not out of mana but out of energy, her body too wounded to even function properly.

She could not believe what was happening to her, it felt unreal, almost like it was straight out of a nightmare. She had not felt like this in many, many, many years, the feeling of pain and suffering that had only been a distant memory to her prior now completely surfacing into her mind… 

She had underestimated her opponent's strength and knowledge instead of going all out from the start, considering the fact that his power level was 10s of thousands beneath hers… 

She, the great Villanova Igris, one of the first ever ability users in the shalker army, defeated so easily in such a pathetic way… The disgrace to her lord's name would be immense if she lost, no, more than immense… Her entire legacy would be tarnished… As long as she still drew breath, she could not allow for such a thing to happen.

She could not give up...

Her teeth clenched tightly to the point of almost shattering, her weary eyes turning into deadly slits with small sparks of crimson in her otherwise gray eyes, her hands gripped into a fist, she screamed at the top of her lungs, trying her best to complete something that in all her many years of living had never attempted or even knew existed as it was the only way she could think of to get out of her predicament. If she died doing it then so be it, death would be a certainty if she did not try anyways. 

"AAAHHHHHH!"

With all the remaining energy left in her human body, she lifted her clenched fist up to her face, making sure to hide her hands from the demonic figure of death who she knew was no doubt peering above her with a confident smile, thinking he was god as he stared at her agony, infusing more and more of his energy into her heart. 

Then, opening her fist, she swiped her hands from the left side to the right side of her blood-filled face, yelling at the top of her lungs, trying to get out every last drop of power left in her body.

The look of pure anguish and distress still on her visage, using every last ounce of her being to do what she wanted to do, her previously beige skin began to crackle with a faint sound almost undetectable to the ear as it was completely overshadowed by her screams of desperation, slowly but surely turning from beige to ghost white, not showing on any part of her body since it was all covered in armour other than her face that was facing away from her oblivious opponent. Her previously crimson eyes now turned completely blood red with a different shape to them, her red eyebrows now glowing a firey silver colour.

His sword still implanted in his opponent's still-beating heart, Moby patiently waited for the notification telling him that he had defeated his opponent or to when he noticed her fall unconscious, a smile on his face as his plan worked out even better than he ever expected for once in his life. 

For now, he did not plan to kill her, but turn her into a demon instead. He needed to find answers to his many, many questions and she would serve him no good if she were dead. Plus, once she turns into a demon, she would also be able to help him fight off Abby and HikariYami. It was a win-win, no downsides to it.

The amount of anger, fear, embarrassment, and annoyance exuding from her was beyond immense, almost matching that of Natalia who was infatuated with him beyond a person's wildest dreams, a feat that he thought could never be matched. 

She was extremely resilient, being able to withstand his demon energy-infused blade straight through her heart for so long, it was almost unnaturally scary, yet he was not scared at the same time considering his massive advantage on her. He was confident she was as good as dead with his sword through her heart.

It made him feel immense relief like never before. It just went to show how big of a power gap between him and her was and how he managed to best her simply by outsmarting and catching her off guard.

'MOBY!! I feel like there is something off coming from her, I think you should kill her now! It's not worth keeping her alive!' A sudden female voice popped up in his head, startling him and catching him completely off guard. 

He could not believe his ears, he knew that it must have been an emergency of massive proportions, if Avilia, the person who wanted answers far more than anyone else was urging him to kill and destroy her along any chance of knowing her secrets.

However, by the time Moby heard Avilia's voice in his head, it was already too late… 

Suddenly, the pumping heart that was previously stabbed through by his sword had begun to move and shift, now no longer in its previous spot, his sword no longer stabbed through it… 

The sound of bones cracking filled the air, the body in front of him jittering and moving with a feeling making it seem like it almost grew… A horn suddenly growing out of the right side of her head with a blueish silvery burning flame growing and sparkling from it, her hair suddenly turning completely silver as she quickly stood up from her previously kneeling position despite there being a sword planted through her chest.

'What the hell is going on!? What the fuck is she!?' Moby inwardly screamed in panic, adrenaline-pumping threw his veins and immense power from the outburst of emotions coming from his opponent. 

Instinctively, his katana still in her chest, he slashed horizontally, aiming to split her in half, yet before he got the chance, he felt a sudden pain in his stomach, lightning-quick that he could not even perceive what had happened, making him cough up a mouthful of blood on the orange ground and tumble back, his sword no longer in her chest. 

And, before he even realized what had happened to him, no chance to move or catch his breath, he was once again hit in the same area once more, only this time it was even more powerful than before as he saw the flash of his opponent's foot crashing against his stomach, causing him to fly away at incredible speed causing several sonic booms, his vision growing hazy from the unexpected shock. 

He skitted on the hard, rocky orange ground, smashing straight through several boulders like they were not even there, his bones cracking and his face becoming bloody, holes through his black wings and several cracks on his horns before he ended his journey by crashing into a mountain a few hundred metres away causing a massive crater in the wake of his collision, making the entire mountain shake from the impact which was so powerful that he coughed up buckets of blood and felt like his eyes were going to pop straight out of their sockets as he was now glued straight to the wall with gray, dead eyes, the pain almost too sudden and extreme for him to stay conscious as he dropped face-first on the ground, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists, heavy breathing through his broken, bloody teeth. 

He could not believe what just happened… He was winning, his victory all but imminent before everything suddenly changed out of nowhere in the matter of a split second… It was too unreal to him… What did his opponent turn into? What happened? So many questions ran through his busy clouded mind, Everything happened so fast that he was barely even able to take in and witness what had happened to him and there was only one way to know for sure… 

Using every ounce of energy left in his still rapidly strengthening and regenerating body, he managed to look up and glance at his opponent only to find that they were no longer there, his panic and confusion growing even more than before, only for his thoughts to be interrupted once more by what he was only able to described as a bird, making him look up above. 

When he did, his bloody eyes grew wide, the disbelief and shock in his eyes now even more than before as the sight in front of him was unlike anything he had ever imagined seeing…

Flying up above in the orange sky was Emilia… Only that it was not Emilia... her face, skin, hair, height, everything about her completely different than before almost like she was an entirely different person, the only reason he was able to recognize who she was due to the distinct crimson armour that she wore. 

Her skin was now fair and white as snow with what looked like slight silver flames on her eyebrows, her pupils bloodshot red, a single, white flaming horn growing out of the right side of her face, a single red line coming down from her right eye down past her neck, her hair long and silver falling down a little past her waist that seemed to be even slimmer than before, a demonic, laughing expression of a mixture of many, many, emotions all on her face fighting for control like she was a complete maniac, flapping her blueish, silvery phoenix wings up and down in the air with a blueish white fire surrounding her and her armour in the form of a phoenix which was no doubt her spirit mode. 

The doubts and questions in Moby's eyes were immediately washed away as from but a single glance, he was able to tell exactly what she was…

'SHALKER!'

It was the same creature that had taken his parents away from him many years ago, something he could never forget or forgive as now, they too once again planned to take away everything he knew and loved and leave him with absolutely nothing…

"HAHAHA! How does it feel now you little arrogant piece of shit!? That was the taste of your own medicine! Not very pleasant it now is it? You should have gone for the head! Killed me when you had the chance! But now, I will make sure to make you suffer and pay! Pay dearly! I'm going to make you wish that you were long dead, buried in the ground and forgotten about for the rest of eternity for what you have done to me! The Great Villanova Igris! Now fucking perish you, little runt!"