Chapter 739: Tartaros
"Demon."
Mira’s voice was firm as she stood beside Rhodes, eyes narrowing at the figure before them.
"He’s not human."
Rhodes frowned.
’A demon slaughtering a bandit gang here... was it for fun? To absorb power? Some kind of ritual sacrifice?’
The hooded figure didn’t move, but from the peculiar, three-lobed shape of his mouth came two guttural syllables:
"Shu–lu-"
A violent tornado erupted without warning.
The gale swallowed Rhodes and Mira whole, shredding the Kuza Gang’s stronghold as if it were paper.
The gate was ripped from its hinges, the walls burst apart, and a storm of rock, dust, and corpses was hurled skyward.
Bodies that had once littered the ground were flung into the whirlwind, tumbling like rag dolls down the mountainside.
But then, a dozen glowing purple magic circles materialized around the demon. He barely had time to turn his head before a deafening explosion rocked the entire ridge.
The tornado abruptly dispersed.
When the dust cleared, Rhodes stood tall and unscathed, his white Saint Ten cloak rippling in the fading wind. His right hand still pointed forward, faint wisps of magic smoke curling from his fingertips.
Beside him, Mira’s long silver hair whipped in the air, her stance calm and elegant. Her right arm was stretched to the side, the faint glow of her dispersal spell still fading.
It had been her who unraveled the storm.
As the last echoes of thunder faded, the demon’s cloak and tunic were revealed to be shredded, exposing his bronze, sinewy frame and long, dark-gold hair.
Rhode’s eyes narrowed.
"Seems he’s not a low-level demon after all."
He studied the figure carefully, curiosity glinting in his gaze.
Mira could probably unlock a new skin from this one, he mused half-jokingly.
"Hey," Rhodes said aloud, lifting his chin. "Can you understand human speech? Where are you from, what’s your name, and what can you do?"
Some demons loved boasting about their lineage and powers. It was worth a try.
And surprisingly, this one answered.
"I have no name. But humans call me Calamity. I am from Tartaros, one of the Nine Demon Gates."
Rhode’s eyes lit up.
"Tartaros?"
Well, that was unexpected.
The final pillar of the Balam Alliance, the most secretive and feared of all the Dark Guilds. And "Nine Demon Gates"... sounded like high-ranking elites, akin to the Seven Kin of Purgatory.
What was supposed to be a casual bandit sweep had suddenly turned into a raid boss encounter.
"So," Rhodes asked, his tone light but his magic quietly rising, "why are Tartaros members here?"
Calamity tilted his head slightly.
"That is confidential. For Tartaros has not yet... opened."
He paused, then straightened his posture, a cold, rumbling voice echoing through the ruined valley:
"Therefore, you two, join us, or die."
Rhodes blinked.
"That escalated quickly."
Still, his instincts told him the demon wasn’t lying. Whatever Tartaros was planning, it was big, something on the level of world domination... or world destruction.
That meant this creature couldn’t be allowed to walk away.
Calamity must have sensed the change in Rhode’s expression. He let out another "Shu-lu!"—shorter, sharper this time.
In an instant, his body was cloaked in whirling wind, and he shot forward like a cannonball.
Both arms glowed with concentrated air magic, and he swung his fists in a double strike at blinding speed.
Rhodes stepped forward, shielding Mira, and caught the blow with one hand.
The shockwave tore through the clearing, flattening the remaining debris, but Rhodes didn’t budge.
Only his cloak and hair billowed violently in the pressure.
"This speed..." Rhodes muttered, tightening his grip, "almost catches up to Laxus."
He paused, smirking slightly.
"Though that was Laxus two months ago. Not sure how much stronger he’s gotten since."
"Pop!"
The demon’s three-lobed mouth made another incomprehensible sound.
Blazing fire roared from his body, swallowing both him and Rhodes in a furnace of heat. The air itself shimmered; Mira felt the scene before her bend and warp under the inferno, yet Rhodes stood inside the blaze, unflinching, laughing as if it were a campfire.
"Winter’s over, and you’re doing your best to warm me up?" he called, grinning.
He signaled Mira to fall back with his left hand. His right transformed into a crimson dragon claw, palm up, as if to cup the very heat itself.
Beneath the demon’s feet the mountain split open, molten rock erupted like a miniature volcano, spouting lava and scarlet flame.
Down in the valley, onlookers stared in baffled terror: was that mountain always a volcano? Were the Kuza gang about to be swallowed whole?
Rhodes stayed calm amid the hellfire. The demon screamed in pain as lava and searing flame licked his flesh.
"M-ng—" came the pained noise.
He had not expected to meet such a powerful being on what began as a routine sweep. ’Could something this strong even exist here?’ the thought flickered through the air between them.
The demon’s mouth gave a heavy, staccato sound--thump, thump, and the surrounding inferno bulged, as if struck by an unseen force. For an instant the lava and fire were shoved aside.
But before he could counterattack, Rhodes was already airborne. His crimson claw clenched into a fist and slammed into the demon’s face with devastating force.
A blinding flare of red light burst between them; the impact echoed like thunder. The demon’s cheek collapsed under the blow; his neck snapped with a sick, grinding crack. He shattered the sound barrier, trailing vaporous rings as he spun, and crashed headfirst into the earth like a meteor.
Mira hovered, forced momentarily to keep her distance by the still-radiant heat. When the demon hit the peak, the whole mountain shook. A wide fissure spidered down the slope before vanishing into the rock, an ominous scar that hinted at deeper danger.
Mira flew to Rhodes’s side, breathless. "You really went too far."
"The mountain didn’t collapse, did it? I’ve got a sense of proportion," Rhodes replied, smug as ever, completely oblivious to how very Fairy-Tail that sounded.
"He shouldn’t be dead yet," Rhodes mused, watching the still form. "Let’s interrogate him again and then Take Over him."
This demon wasn’t a mass-produced minion of the Second; he was high-grade. Taking him over would be difficult. Two things usually made Take Over easier: (1) understanding the opponent’s structure, Tkae over Magic principle, and (2) weakening them sufficiently. The second condition now nearly held; perhaps the first could be bent.
Rhodes sent two krugs burrowing into the earth. They dug at the fallen body and hauled the demon free.
Mira placed a tentative fingertip on his temple.
The demon coughed, rasping, and then, surprisingly, spoke. "Give up. Human magicians cannot defeat me."
"Hm?" Mira began, but before she could do anything, the demon’s form detonated into a plume of black mist.
"Self-destruct?" they both mouthed, backing away with hands pressed over noses and mouths. The explosion itself was strangely impotent; it caused no shrapnel, no heat, only that instant black vapor, which rapidly billowed and enveloped the summit.
The corpse was gone. Only the mist, and a voice, echoing from the void, remained.
"I did not expect to encounter humans like you," the voice intoned, reverberating through the smoke. "I shall not truly die. You will perish foreverly within the Demon Barrier Particles, this is the true Calamity. I will return to the Underworld, and you shall follow!"
...
Bonus @800
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