Chapter 248 How Best Can I Hurt You?



Abaddon did not believe that he was close enough with his uncle to spout something like he would take revenge for him.

And if they had not had this conversation before everything went to hell, Abaddon would have been significantly less shaken by Pythias' betrayal.

But Belphegor had placed his faith in Abaddon. 

And the demon lord viewed any who placed their faith in him of their own volition as special existences who no harm could befall. 

The fact that it was Pythias who had tried to harm one of Abaddon's special existences was already more than enough to send his anger shooting to an unhealthy level. 

But the mention of his beloved Eris and the rest of his wives was far too much. 

Abaddon's anger had reached a never before seen height, and he knew that there was no longer any telling what he would do. 

As he removed his weapons from the ground, he used his last shred of rationality to warn his subordinates of the danger he wold pose. 

'Kanami, this is an absolute order.... take your siblings as far away as you can, and do not return until I have called for you.' 

The leader of the Euphrates felt a wave of fear pass down her spine, as she had never heard her lord and master sound more like a demon than he did right now. 

Above the clouds, fifty or so presences vanished from the area at once without saying so much as a goodbye. 

The death knight scowled as he saw how slowly Abaddon was moving and he mistook his tempo as a sign of cowardice.

"You hesitate?" Pythias mocked. "Then I will gladly-"

BANG!

In the blink of an eye, Abaddon had appeared before Pythias and swung his massive greatsword at a near blinding speed.

Pythias was only barely able to perceive the dragon's frighteningly fast movement, and it took a great deal of effort on his part just to raise his own sword in time. 

'The hell?! Why is he so strong?!'

Now that Abaddon was closer, the death knight could see the dark scales that had formed on his jawline and the third eye that had opened up in the middle of his forehead. 

Pythias had thought he would see an expression of great rage on Abaddon's face, but instead there was only... sadness?

"What is that look fo- AGHHH!" 

Abaddon had used his unencumbered spear to stab Pythias directly in the leg, and the death knight released an involuntary cry of pain as his quadricep was pierced by a barbed blade made from the dragon's own blood and scales. 

"It has been so long since I have experienced these feelings... Probably not since I came to this world.." Abaddon muttered. 

Pythias' eyes widened from both the pain of being attacked and the absurdity of his opponent's words. "...What did you sa-"

BOOM!

Abaddon felt vehemently disgusted every time he heard Pythias' words enter his ears, and he made his feelings known by raising a powerful leg and kicking his opponent directly in the stomach. 

Pythias was sent flying, but the death knight was able to quickly recover in midair and sprouted two sickly green wings from his back. 

"No more tricks!" he roared. 

The death knight unleashed two powerful swings of his sword and a bright green energy burst forth from the tip of his blade. 

Abaddon seemed unbothered by the ferocious attack, and he merely covered his claws in a bright blue icy energy.

"Self deprecation... it has been so long since I have lamented my own inadequacies like this... it almost makes me feel human again."

Bang!

Crash!

Abaddon easily caught the two attacks that were trying to carve him up, and crushed them within his palm. 

"In this moment, I could not despise myself more for my own inferior intellect and expertise...."

Suddenly, Abaddon's body began to glow with an ultraviolet light as he activated his latest power from Tor'Baalos, the second abyss king.

Flash!

Moving at the speed of light, Abaddon appeared directly in front of Pythias and grabbed his face with both hands. 

"Mmph?!"

The light within his hands began to glow brighter and brighter, and Pythias' formerly immaculate white skin suffered catastrophic effects. 

Unlike regular light, black light contains much higher levels of radiation. 

Abaddon's magical abilities were further enhancing this trait and as a result, he was now forcing nuclear levels of magical radiation directly onto Pythias' face. 

Muffled screams filled the air as the skin of the death knight underwent severe necrosis and stripped him of vision in both eyes. 

He began to feel nauseous, delirious, and his mouth was quickly filling up with his own black blood. 

"I do not know enough adequate ways to hurt you. I hate myself for not studying torture more extensively in either of my lives, so that I might know the perfect way to cause you anguish and strip you of all that you are."

Pythias began to struggle within Abaddon's grasp, and though his efforts were harmless, that did not prevent Abaddon from hurling the death knight into the ground and placing a clawed foot upon his chest. 

BOOM!

Even though the death knight was experiencing delirium, he was painfully aware that this situation was most definitely a reality.

But this... should not even be physically possible. 

He had absorbed the sin of sloth, and even now he was still slowly gaining strength from the army that was still sleeping all around him. 

But for some reason... the power flooding into his body was not nearly enough to even scratch Abaddon, much less faze him. 

What Pythias did not realize was that his understanding of the sin of sloth was only surface level. 

He had no idea how to properly utilize the power that he was being given, nor did he understand that the powers of the sin of sloth were so much more than simply putting people to sleep. 

But because he could not take his focus off his awful wounds that were not healing, he could not expand his mind to bring out more of the sin's power. 

Not to mention the fact that Abaddon was now a true dragon.

They are beings who were literally created to stand at the apex, and a fourth stage death knight on a training ground of a world would never be enough to pull one from it's rightful place at the top of reality. 

Abaddon held a clawed finger up to the sky and a small flame sparked to life. 

Unlike his previous flames hat were a sinister black and purple color, his new flame was mostly white with faint purple sparks. 

The small flame at the tip of Abaddon's finger began to grow larger and larger, and even though Pythias was now blind, he could still feel the enormous amount of magic that was converging together above him. 

And to make matters worse, this god awful heat was already melting his pristine silver armor. 

"W-What are you doing!? You're insane!"

Abaddon glanced down at Pythias with empty and emotionless eyes. 

The death knight's face had been completely ruined, his skin was now a rotting grey color and parts of his jaw had been fully exposed. 

His blind milky white eyes contained an unimaginable level of madness, but to Abaddon he was no more than a lowly and pitiful creature. 

"Since I lack the knowledge to properly torture you, I have no choice but to be creative with your destruction."

The fire at the tip of Abaddon's finger had grown in both size and heat, and it was no longer a stretch to say that he was holding a miniature sun. 

He had created a fire that was so horrifyingly large that it now had it's own gravitational pull, and if the dragon had not had the presence of mind to protect the nearby demonic army, they would have already been sucked into his hellish attack. 

Even though the sun in Abaddon's hands was large enough to touch even the clouds, he had no trouble holding it's weight and it was as if he was holding up a feather. 

"Infinite Shemesh... fall."

Finally, Abaddon dropped the sun on both himself and Pythias, and allowed the overwhelming and indescribable heat to wash over his body as he listened to Pythias' anguished wails. 

Normally, an attack of this magnitude would have reduced the death knight into ashes instantly. 

But Abaddon considered that to be too easy of a death, and instead controlled his flames so as to burn Pythias slowly and roast him alive. 

He wanted to feel everything in this moment. 

He wanted to feel his enemy struggle underneath him as his body was cooked beyond recognition, and he was burned all the way to the depths of his soul.

Abaddon didn't know how long he spent listening to his enemy scream and cry, as he eventually closed his eyes and simply listened to it as if it were ASMR. 

Eventually, he realized that he could no longer hear anything and that his opponent had already been reduced to a charred husk. 

"How regrettable...it is over already." He muttered in disappointment. 

Abaddon snapped his fingers and his flames disappeared immediately allowing him to see what his attack had reduced his surroundings to. 

For starters, all of the grass within several miles had burned to a crisp, and more than a few birds were falling from the sky, dead from the hellish heat. 

But alas, it was not all bad. 

Several black domes of shadow had been hastily erected at the last minute so as to protect the bodies of the still slumbering demons. 

Whoosh!

Suddenly, a small ethereal ball left Pythias' charred corpse and floated directly in front of Abaddon's face, as if it was begging for him to claim it. 

"Ughh... you are quite the showy one, aren't you?" 

Belphegor stumbled up to Abaddon clutching his abdomen and looking like he had just been rudely woken up. 

"You're alive." Abaddon said. 

"I am a demon who is nearly as old as the deceiver himself. A wound like this certainly does not tickle but it is not enough to kill me either..." 

Belphegor moved past Abaddon and took back his original sin of sloth and held it out for Abaddon to take. 

"Didn't intend to make you fight for this, but somehow it ended up that way. I. hope you've learned your lesson about hesitating when others offer you gifts."

Finally, Abaddon's boiling anger panned out and a humorous smirk threatened to break out across his lips. 

"Indeed I have... I do not intend to repeat such a mistake once again."

Abaddon held out his hand, and accepted the sin of sloth from his uncle without waiting another moment. 

As the ethereal ball passed into his chest, he felt a cooling relaxed sensation spread throughout his body, and he felt as if he was floating on a lazy river without a single care in the world. 

"So... this is the sin of sloth..."