Chapter 93- The Hold.
Leo recalled the name. He’d heard it once, or may be twice on a news broadcast.....
...
The devil gave them no time to recover, pressing forward with another attack.
Caelum didn’t waste breath on words either. He read the devil’s movements..... every twitch of its shoulder, every flex of its claw, every windup.... and stepped inside the arc of its swing before it had even finished throwing the punch. His blade traced a shallow line across its forearm, just enough to learn what he was up against.
[Damage Dealt: 114]
[Lesser Devil HP: 149,886/150,000]
The devil answered with a backhand. Caelum twisted away at the last instant, avoiding the worst of it, but the blow still clipped his left shoulder and sent him skidding across the ground.
He kept his grip on his sword tight, weight low, ready to strike or dodge at a heartbeat’s notice.
Rook appeared beside him.
"On your left," Rook said.
Caelum shifted without even looking, stepping straight into the devil’s blind spot as its claw swept through the space where he’d been standing a moment before.
"Watch the knee," Rook warned — but when Caelum turned, a massive foot was already filling his vision.
He dropped. The devil’s knee passed just over his head, close enough that he felt the air stir his hair. Before it had even finished, he drove his blade up into the joint above him.
[Damage Dealt: 114]
Rook’s strike landed in the same instant. To anyone watching, it looked like it phased straight through the devil’s hide — a trick of the eye, an illusion....
But Rook felt it connect with something underneath.
"...Soul?"
[Soul Edge: Phase Strike]
[Damage: 2,890]
[Lesser Devil HP: 146,729/150,000]
The number hung glowing above the devil’s head — a brutal hit, and yet barely a dent against a pool that deep.
And then the regeneration kicked in.
Fast. Too fast.
[Regeneration]
[HP: 146,729 → 148,929/150,000]
Rook watched the bar climb back and felt the color drain from his face.
"Fuck. Is this thing even killable?"
"It’s regenerating," Caelum said, eyes narrowing. "Ten thousand a second, maybe more — the display’s only catching every fifth tick." He clicked his tongue.
Leo’s stomach dropped as he watched the number climb. "It’s almost back to full."
He turned to Rook. "Can you do that again?"
"If I can get close enough," Rook said, jaw tight, fingers flexing on his hilt. "But it’s fast. I can’t keep up with it."
Caelum pushed himself up, wiping blood from his lips. "You’ve got the nerve to say that? You’re level nine — how the hell did you land a hit that heavy?"
Rook just shrugged. "Because I’m older than you brats."
Caelum shook his head. "It’s fast, sure. But something about it feels off.... Like.. this isn’t its real body. Its movements feels like its being controlled. They are readable — predictable, even."
The lesser devil lunged, claws extending straight for Leo.
Leo let out a breath, gathered everything he had, and drove the strike to sever the incoming claw.
Qi and eternal flame surged into his blade without him even meaning to summon them.
[Slash]
[Damage: 1,847]
[Lesser Devil HP: 147,082/150,000]
A solid hit — but the recoil punched back through his arms hard enough to nearly rattle the sword loose from his grip.
The devil didn’t even flinch. It closed the distance again in a blur, swinging another backhanded slap at him.
Leo saw it coming and dodged.
"That’s not going to work a second—"
He never finished the sentence. The devil followed through with a roundhouse kick that sent him flying straight back through a market stall.
Leo hit the ground rolling, came up with dirt on his face and a crack across his shoulder plate. His ribs screamed. The Blood Chanter’s defense had absorbed most of it, at least — he hadn’t lost much HP.
[Damage Received: 312]
[Leo HP: 3,088/3,400]
The devil was already airborne, both arms raised, coming down to flatten him.
Leo sidestepped and answered with [Rising Forge].
His legs coiled like springs beneath him, launching him up to meet the devil mid-fall. He read the arc of its raised fist, slipped past it, and drove his blade deep into its shoulder.
[Rising Forge]
[Damage: 2,312]
[Lesser Devil HP: 144,770/150,000]
The devil glanced at its shoulder, then at Leo. Still no flinch. The bar barely moved.
The regeneration was already crawling back in.
[Regeneration]
[HP: 144,770 → 146,970/150,000]
"That’s just cheating," Leo muttered, clicking his tongue.
"Brat, quit staring at the damn number and fight," Rook barked.
"You two want an old man doing all the work? Shame on you both." He lunged again.
The devil nearly ignored him — until it remembered the sting from the last time after this particular ant had bitten it. It dodged instead, and countered with a wide swing.
Rook barely managed to pull his strike back and duck the claw.
"Fffffuck... that was close."
Caelum went next. He leapt straight into the devil’s incoming claw, used it as a springboard, and launched himself toward its eye —
— only for the devil’s other hand to snap out mid-flight and catch him, hurling him straight at Rook.
Rook caught him, and the two of them skidded back together across the stone.
[Damage Received: 287]
[Rook HP: 2,513/2,800]
All three of them were on the ground now, except for Hugh, still some distance off.
The devil ignored them entirely and drove both claws back into the dragon skull.
[Dragon Skull Integrity: 61% → 42%]
[Devil Energy Surge: Escalating]
Darkness swept through the square again, swallowing the whole town in devil energy.
Leo triggered his Forge Sight.
[Forge Sight: Structural Analysis]
[Anchor Points Detected: 3]
[Convergence Pattern: Triangular]
And there it was — three veins of crimson energy converging in a triangle beneath the square, all feeding into a single point: the spot where the gate had torn open.
One of the three veins had a fracture in it, hairline-thin — but even as Leo watched, the devil was pouring its energy through the skull to seal it shut, to make the gate self-sustaining.
"It’s channeling energy from the skull to fix a damaged vein — one that’s feeding the gate!" Leo shouted. "We have to stop it, or the gate stabilizes on its own, and we won’t know what else is going to walk through that!"
Caelum’s eyes flicked from the gate to Leo, and he nodded. "I’ll keep it busy."
His eyes shifted color, a faint blue halo flaring around them, and his speed exploded — just fast enough now to edge past the devil.
He carved into its knee, then its elbow, then its throat. None of it was lethal, but he was shaving off chunks of HP faster than it could regenerate, and the devil couldn’t catch him no matter how it tried.
Rook, hunting for an opening, finally found one.
[Soul Edge: Phase Strike]
[Damage: 3,412]
[Lesser Devil HP: 141,358/150,000]
[Anchor Line Alpha: SEVERED]
The devil screamed — a sound like tearing metal — and for the first time, something like real anger crossed its face.
It blinked into existence right in front of Rook, claws already reaching.
Hugh moved first, throwing up an Ashen Flame barrier between them, buying Rook a few precious seconds.
The devil’s claw slammed into it.
[Ash Flame: Barrier] → [Barrier HP: 9,200 → 8,400]
Bang. Bang. Bang.
[Barrier HP: 1,800 → 920 → 0]
Hugh hit the ground hard, ash-flame spent, his whole body shaking from the effort. The barrier shattered, and the avatar reached for the skull again.
Caelum cut its wrist open, a second wound layered over the first. Rook scrambled free of the rubble, blood streaking down his face, and drove Soul Edge straight through the second anchor line.
[Soul Edge: Strike]
[Damage: 3,412]
[Lesser Devil HP: 137,946/150,000]
[Anchor Line Beta: SEVERED]
Meanwhile, Leo had reached the top of the dragon’s skeleton. He pressed both hands to the bone, pushing his forge sense and qi sense through it, tracing the convergence lines. Two severed. One left.
He was sure he could sever the last one himself.
But at that exact moment, the devil’s hand closed around Rook’s throat. Its claws tightened, and crimson energy coiled around him like roots, threading into his skin.
This ant was the only thing that had ever hurt it. It wasn’t going to let that slide.
Rook’s eyes went wide. Something was pulling at his core, dragging at his soul through his own throat. His spiritual integrity dropped. His hands shook.
[Rook HP: 2,201 → 1,800]
[Soul Extraction: Active]
The devil was trying to rip the soul straight out of him.
Leo ran. He didn’t think — he just ran.
He slammed Qi Smash into the ground, twisting the shockwave mid-channel and compressing it into a focused lance aimed straight at the extraction thread. Eternal Flame followed, Golden fire eating through the crimson strand like paper.
[Qi Smash - Connection Breaker]
[Damage: 4,120]
[Soul Extraction: INTERRUPTED]
The thread snapped. The Devil’s Avatar recoiled, releasing Rook — but the backlash hit Leo like a truck. The devil’s mark on his armor flared white-hot, and something inside him screamed. Energy from the severed thread surged straight into the Blood Chanter, and the mark drank it down.
[Devil Energy: 56 → 58]
Leo felt the desperation clawing at him. He couldn’t risk Devilization, and he didn’t dare call down Gungnir’s Descent in the middle of a city.
The avatar rose, tearing free of its last remaining anchor, and brought both claws down toward Leo’s skull.
But right at this moment....A shield caught it.
.....
The town’s registrar had arrived, knights in tow.
The registrar drove his blade into the flagstones and dropped to one knee, the impact spreading cracks through the stone beneath him. The avatar’s strike landed on his shield hard enough to crater the ground under his feet. His arm shook. His knee buckled. But the shield held.
[Damage Absorbed: 520]
"Knights!" he bellowed. "Shield wall! Hold the line!"
...