The Lost Lord Ch. 24

"You don't see pure elementalists too often." Reginald muttered under his breath.

Elementalists referred to magic users who wielded more than one of the natural elements, with pure elementalists wielding all four. Though that didn't stop Teras from using her favorite wind and lightning magics.

"I can't let her outshine me, who'll definitely be a new district leader." Reginald, with newfound determination, laughed out loud and released his chest tattoo, the fiery maw of a dragon. A cone of fire erupted from his chest, searing every enemy demon in front of it.

One demon, however, wasn't fazed and blocked the fire with the twirling of his spear.

"Move out of the way, I'd like to visit Miss Teras." The demon wore a set of thin, regal armor and wielded a peculiar spear.

"Uh, I don't recommend it, she's likely to castrate you and force feed your own dick" Warned Reginald sarcastically.

"While I'm fully aware of her deadly, sadistic nature... I can't help that she's so beautiful!"

'Watch out, we've got a weird one here.' Reginald shook his head in mock despair, "Even so, you're obviously an enemy. You can meet her after you kill me. Not like that's ever going to happen."

"Don't get too ahead of yourself, while I hate boasting, I'm sure you've heard of me- I am Renning, leader of the Legion of Renning."

"What a self absorbed name for a mercenary group. It can't mean all that much, sounds like a weak name." Reginald knew who Renning was now that he heard the name, one of the various mercenary groups Arazra had hired.

The most famous groups he had hired were Huracan, Black Steps, and the Legion of Renning. Before playing the death game, the Parish had researched all of the groups that were hired. Renning in particular was no different in power next to Xizaen, despite not being a black demon. That was mainly because of his weapon of choice, a soul weapon from the human world called Ascalon. What power did it possess? That secret was only told to Renning's trusted few and those he killed.

"Pah, I'll kill you if you get in my way, shouldn't take more than twenty seconds for there to be some sweet death."

"Oh? That's your prediction? Then I'll be killing you in those twenty seconds."

With both men ready, they ceased their constant stream of 'I'll kill you' phrases and actually got to fighting.

...

Meanwhile, close to Teras' position, she found her main opponent for the war after some searching, the eighth district leader called Ornias.

The two have never liked each other and clashed with words on multiple occasions. And considering their status, they could not engage in actual battle in the past, now was different. Now was a time to end each other's stain of hate for each other with the detergent of death.

The two didn't even bother with words, they just saw each other, glared, and smacked their lips as they readied themselves for the kill. Ornias conjured his dark armor and weapon while Teras wiped her sword clean of blood, even tasting a little bit of it.

Teras danced the tip of her cane sword around the opening of a wound an injured enemy demon had that was lying by her legs. Sadistic thrills danced up her spine and sending shivers down to her moistening snatch, she wasn't called the Sadist of Lust for nothing. Oh, she relished thinking of the ways she could have fun with Ornias. Cutting off his finger and toenails. Mincing up his tail and slicing up the veins along his wings. She wouldn't touch the horns, no, that would be a waste. Teras imagined the ways she could pierce Ornias' own body on his own horns and her mind went increasingly dark and black. Anyone not used to such dark and painful fetishes would surely faint from delving too far in Teras' depraved mind.

Ornias took action first, tossing several solidified dark daggers. They would have hit their target if Teras didn't block them all with a shield of ice. Then, using that shield, Teras struck the shield with her palm, sending shards of ice towards Ornias. The eighth district leader sidestepped the shards and dashed even closer, forming a solid dark lance. He lunged for Teras, aiming for her abdomen. Teras laughed haughtily and flew up in the air, allowing her wind to carry her wings and body some ways away. Though before she landed, Teras stabbed her cane sword several times at Ornias, sending charges of lightning at his position. Only one of the charges hit him, but it did nothing but make him tingle as the charge splashed against his dark armor.

In terms of overall power, the two could be comparable. In terms of versatility and ingenuity, Teras would always win. The sole reason why Teras would win this fight is because she had an extremely large array of attacks to use and could crush Ornias with. However, Teras didn't want to win that way, she wanted to humiliate Ornias. To show him that even without her magic, even with her weak muscle structure, she could still easily defeat him in melee combat.

Teras wasn't strong, but she was most definitely fast. She thrust her sword multiple times at Ornias, it almost seemed as if each stab happened at the exact same moment. Ornias, unaccustomed to this level of speed could only block two stabs and the rest rained blows on his dark armor. The two contrasted each other, Ornias excelled in strength and defense while Teras excelled in speed and agility. The main problem was that while Teras could hit Ornias, she could not damage him, and while Ornias could deal severe damage to Teras, he could not hit her.

'Hm, maybe I should stop being stubborn and use some magic?' Teras pondered to herself as she continued to rain down a series of attacks on Ornias, many of which bypassed his defense and pricked his dark armor but could not go through. 'Fuck that, all I need to do is focus on one spot. After all, he can only keep up his dark armor for so long, and the dark power seems to need to regenerate in any spot I attack.'

Teras then formed a wicked smile, "Ornias, it's been a joy, but let me show you how truly weak you are..." She dragged her tongue across her lips, like a predator about to pounce on its prey.

Because the two have never actually fought before, both could not guess the other's level of strength, and they went into this fight blind. Ornias, for the first time in this war, showed fear. "Damn sadist, what are you planning!" He formed two spikes in his hand and tossed them at Teras, his first attack in a small while.

Teras gracefully ducked and pulled her sword arm back, ready for a lunge. Hers and Caetorum's sword fighting were very similar, graceful fencing. Teras winked at Ornias and dashed towards his position, cheating a little bit by using her wind to gain a little speed. She traversed the distance between them, nine meters, with only five grand steps and thrust her sword with all her might at a single point in Ornias' body- his heart. The first thrust connected, piercing away some of the darkness that contained Ornias' armor. Then the second, and the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, up to eleven consecutive thrusts rained down on the exact same point on Ornias' dark armor with a sniper's precision. Little by little, Ornias' tough dark armor was chipped away until the eleventh thrust managed to hit home into his heart.

It had been a long time since Ornias had felt true pain, he had always relied on his dark magic to block any possible harmful intent on his body, thus he was not prepared to feel the pain Teras was about to give him. "GUAAAH! Da-DAMN, that fucking hurts!" Ornias sputtered as he recoiled from the extreme pain he was unused to. His lack of concentration erased all of his dark protection, completely unveiling his body for the world to see, and for Teras to toy with.

"Mmmhmm, and there you are! I'm going to have such fun taking you down a notch!" Teras giggled sadistically.

"Damn you, Sadist of Lust, why don't you kill me? Aren't I a traitor?" Ornias spat, knowing full well what Teras had planned for him and hoping he might gain a salvation from a great deal of pain with death.

"Nope! Asmodea said to capture you guys if possible for appropriate punishment that the little Lord of Lust may want to dole out. Though what I'm going to do will make you wish you could beg for your life to be taken." Then, turning to several of her subordinates, Teras ordered, "Paralyze him and take him to custody at the palace. Don't do anything painful to him, I want to do allllll of that myself!"

Her subordinates smiled and nodded their heads, they had done this before with Teras' personal captures, Ornias was in for a rough night if no one bothered for him before or after this war was over.

"Too easy... Though I guess his skills were just too easy for me to counter." Teras calmly reviewed the previous battle in her mind. "Now, time to have a little more fun until the main event tonight..."

-

"Emiel! You're actually going to do that?"

"Ah, that's SIR Emiel to you."

"Um, Sir Emiel, you're actually going to do that?"

"Wow, you actually said it. And yes, I'm going to free him. Why do you ask? Don't you want him dead as well?"

"I very much do, but it is obviously much easier to have him executed after this war. Shouldn't we go help out in the defense?"

"Luce, you know full well about the animosity between us two. And you know more than me just how powerful Xizaen actually is, I could only overpower him before because he wasted a great deal of his strength fighting and chasing after you. I cannot be satisfied with that victory, I will kill him in a fair fight."

Luce shifted uncomfortably as he walked beside Emiel. He had followed Emiel when he saw the green incubus head in a different direction than the tenth terrace walls, hoping he wasn't up to anything suspicious, sadly his concerns were valid. Emiel wished to free Xizaen and defeat him in a battle where both were equal, so they can finally end their eternal feud.

"Even so, it has hardly been a full day since he was captured, how could he regain his strength so quickly?"

"I know him, and if anything, I know he is never weak. He is constantly regenerating from his wounds and gathering his strength. I fought him once before, which resulted in a tie or else one of us would be dead, and while I escaped in order to recover, a report came to me that Xizaen had regained his full power and regenerated from his wounds in less than a day. Now, I devised a way to halt that progress with one of my crystal prisons, but it occurred to me that he might not have been put in a crystal prison here in the palace. Thus while he is bound, he is currently recovering to full power since before he fought you. He will escape, and I mean to prevent that."

"Yes, when I fought under him, I saw first hand his unbelievable recovery ability. No one healed him with cauterizing water nor did they speed his metabolism, he simple recovered somehow. Is it an ability unique to black demons?"

"No, else the black demons in this war would have done the same. It doesn't matter. All we have to do is kill him tonight. Neither I nor Xizaen will agree to run away, one of us will die."

-

"...[Sun]." Intense heat and light filled the scene, speeding off towards its victim like a bomb.

The victim was so beat up, that it couldn't dodge and could only take the blast head on. She received the full strength of the poisonous light, burning and bubbling her skin as if she was in a pot of water beyond the heat of boiling. She couldn't even scream out in pain nor react as well. All she felt was unimaginable pain coursing through her body. The rouge colored succubus instantly fell down, unable to breathe.

"...[Temperance] I'm sorry, Rouge, but I was ordered to eliminate you by Arazra. However, I can't let the Fetishes of Lust die, so please live."

The skin on Little Rouge's body was healed as quickly as the light burned it. It was as if a person was brought to the furthest depth of death and brought back to life like it was nothing. That was the power of Zazie's cards. The [Sun] brought intense solar heat and light to incinerate enemies, while the [Temperance] could heal any wound, no matter how drastic, on a person's body that the card's wielder deemed worthy.

"You..." Little Rouge tried to speak, but she fell unconscious, it was unlikely she would recover at all until after the war.

The two had fought a magnificent battle in a section of the tenth terrace near the mountains. Little Rouge, with her legendary stamina and combat ability, fought Zazie's unique strength and abilities to a standstill numerous times. However, in the end, Zazie defeated Little Rouge with the [Sun].

One would think, with all twenty-two cards of Zazie's major arcana that she would be invincible, she was anything but. Once she used a card, Zazie could no longer use that ability for a full day, which in the Land of Lust was around twenty-seven hours. Zazie had few cards left to use, and most of them weren't even combat abilities. However, Zazie made sure to save two cards, [Justice] and [Judgment] until the end, as, other than the [World], they were her strongest combative abilities.

This war wouldn't last another day, so Zazie would be forced to rely on what she had left. Of her usable cards, only six were left for use. She couldn't help but wonder, 'How is it that he... *blush* Can use the [Emperor] continuously?' Zazie cheeks reddened at the thought of the one of her desires.

"...Don't worry, Rainer, I will get the [World] back so you can win."