Read Novel Full Chapter 554: Klever
Chapter 554: Klever
Their necks were proud and long, and their faces, even with the evil shining in their eyes (black sclera and blue pupils), had a lethal beauty to them. Their hair was a nightmarish black, and they sported horns of the same shade coming out of the sides of their heads.
The two had one horn each; Both horns were barbed like thorns and coiled twice a few inches above their heads like some decadent version of haloes, ending with the sharp tip pointed at the heavens.
"We are Klever!" The Demons had announced right after their arrival had stopped Aurelius short in his run so he could face their challenge.
As the two spoke, Aurelius saw that all of their teeth were fangs and were as black as their hair and their horns and dripping with saliva that could have been venom. He knew instantly that he had no interest in confirming which.
The two demons were identical in almost every aspect; the one thing the two Demons differed in was the weapons they wielded;
One had a massive war axe with dark blue cracks like lightning all over the blade. But as he eyed the weapon, Aurelius didn’t even nurse an idea that the weapon was damaged or could be destroyed. In fact, it caused him to shiver and, just as he had decided with the fangs, his goal was to keep the Axe’s blade from making contact with his body.
The other held a staff. It looked simple, hewed from wood that was most definitely not from any wood in the human world. There was just something terrible about the grain of the wood— like it went against the natural order in a way Aurelius himself couldn’t very clearly explain.
"There are two of you," Aurelius had said to address the pressing issue of the unfair challenge.
"Good," said one of the Demons.
"You can count," said the other.
Even their voices were identical.
As they spoke, Caius saw their tongues were barbed. Like they could strip the skin off their prey with just a lick. He shivered and was starting to consider amending his first thought of them from ’Lethal beauty’ to just ’Lethal’.
"There’s only supposed to be one of you," Aurelius said with narrowed eyes.
It wasn’t even that the two together would only make one formidable opponent as a unit, because he could sense that they were both boasting Fifth Circle energy. Belron the Fiend had technically been stronger, but Aurelius had still had help to face that challenge, and it had even taken Divine Intervention of two Major gods to overcome, and even then, he, Caius, and Delia hadn’t been unscathed.
To have to face two demons now on his own...
’I can do it!’ Aurelius said to himself, stopping short all doubts.
’But I need to be smart about this,’ he added as he began to pace slowly.
To distract the demons and not have them attack him right then, he asked.
"Which of you is Klever?"
"We both are," the Demons said as one.
"That must get confusing," Aurelius said.
"Why would it?"
"I mean, sisters sharing names," Aurelius said with a vague wave in their direction.
"Who said anything about us being sisters?" Klever asked with a sneer that showed its horrible fangs.
That made Aurelius pause.
Was he to believe these two just happened to look identical but had no relation? Before he could press the point, though, Klever spoke again.
"You had the guts to jump Belron with your little godling friends," said one.
"Let’s see how you fare with the tables turned," said the other.
And the sealing cube was erected, cutting Mason’s Haven off from the outside world. Immediately after that, Klever attacked. The one with the Axe charged at Aurelius with its axe swinging towards his face.
As the Demom approached and he drew his sword from his storage ring, Aurelius couldn’t help but make a few more observations of the two identical demons;
They had claws on their hands and feet. The claws were the same nightmarish black shade as their hair and horn, and the one on the Demon’s feet ripped through the earth as it charged at Aurelius, who tried to parry the Axe attack and found his fingers turning numb as he went flying back.
And so, the battle began.
Aurelius harnessed the Divine Energy he possessed, said a prayer to his goddess, Aether, and cast his most powerful spells, but he could never overcome the deficit of facing two opponents.
While he was moving closer to the Fifth Circle, Aurelius was still only at the Fourth, and no matter how much he tried to boost himself with Divine energy, he was always on the back foot. He could have managed if it were a single opponent, but against two and two of such different fighting styles, he was struggling and failing.
Klever the Axe wielder left him no quarter. It was faster and stronger than him and left him no room to breathe.
And on the off chance that Aurelius did manage to get some breathing room, attacks from the distance, cast by the staff-wielding Klever who acted like a mage, came at him, forcing him to either defend against it and leave himself open to the Axe-wielding Klever or try to endure the attack and somehow still have the strength to face the Axe-Wielder who was going to attack no matter what.
Aurelius tried taking to the air with his ~Freyr’s Footholds~ spell so he could attack from above, but he soon realized this made him a clearer target. Neither of the two Klevers even bothered to try to fly/jump up to meet him, as the attacks they could send at him while he was in the air were as strong as what they could do if he were on land.
Hell, the Axe Wielder coated its Axe blades with Demonic energy and struck out an attack that destroyed Aurelius’s foothold and almost destroyed him with it, if not for his ~Mandala~ defensive spell.
He couldn’t even try to make them tire out; Even if they didn’t have demonic resilience to make the fight go the distance, it was still two on one, with each of the two more than capable of contending with him individually. So far, he hadn’t even forced them to properly defend themselves or made them worry for their safety.
The two were practically toying with him while he was truly doing all he could not to die. If anyone here was going to get tired first, it was most certainly going to be Aurelius.
He couldn’t let things go that far or that long.
Even if he didn’t know how he was going to manage it yet, Aurelius knew he needed the fight to end quickly if he had any chance of survival.
So he stopped with the footholds and began to cloak and disperse his presence, flitting around behind the many stone formations in Mason’s Haven.
Light can be very tricky. It can cause you to see things where they are not, and if done well, even mirages can look and feel real. The Klevers learned this when they began to find it difficult to know exactly where Aurelius was, chasing one mirage or afterimage only to realize it was a fake at the last second and feel very stupid as a result.
"Come out—"
"—and face me—"
"—You coward!—"
Aurelius knew it wasn’t going to take long before Kelver’s frustration reached a boiling point, and it just destroyed every single stone formation and left him nowhere to hide, so he did one last thing while he still had cover;
He pulled out a Loqui-Link.
’Well, she did offer to help,’ he thought as he contacted the unique Loqui-Link signature to connect him to Aylin Khione’s device.
"Hey, how are things—" Aurelius started, thinking to ease into the issue at hand when he was interrupted by an explosive bang that shattered a stone formation right by his side, and he knew he had to hurry.
"So listen, there’s been another challenge. You’re probably not in the Capital anymore anyway since Lochxen is on break, but I thought you’d want to know.
It’s at Aristide Man—"
*BANG!!!*
This time, it was the stone formation Aurelius was resting against that was destroyed, interrupting his message and sending him flying. As he hit the ground and rolled to one knee, glowering at the Axe-wielding Klever, he realized his Loqui-link had fallen out of his hand.
It lay at the demon’s feet and, without any change in expression to show that it knew what it was destroying, Klever took a step forward and crushed the device with a claw-tipped foot while grinning so wide that it flashed its entire row of fangs.
"There you are," Klever said, "For a defender of your world, you sure are weak. Relying on tricks to live just a little longer.
But tricks always end, and when they do, what do you have left, I wonder?"
Aurelius let out a sigh.
’Oh well,’ he thought, ’The Loqui-link was a last-ditch effort I didn’t think would work anyway.’
He stood on his feet and became adorned in resplendent light while still mulling his thoughts.
’Do communication links even travel out of the Sealing cube? Well, I suppose the recording crystals were able to broadcast images out of the cube last time. So she might have gotten the message.
Even then, she’s not going to be able to get in here. Not with the sealing cube in place.
*sigh* Either way, it really is just me.’
So, Aurelius prayed.
’Aether, arm thy servant so thy will may be done!’
And then, he charged the demon.