The Lost World Ch. 05

And so without regard for what may happen within the next hour, Rainer brought himself to a quick sleep.

...

Abaddon wasn't weak. In fact, the magic was wearing off sooner than normal. He could wiggle his fingers and toes. He could finally blink again and contort his face. His wings trembled with the electric impulses he sent in his body. "Hm, the effect is weakened to the perfect degree."

It was a fairly obvious solution. Why wait for the effect to completely disappear when you could break free of the paralysis while its effect was weakened.

The Warmaster's body thrummed with power unique to only Archdemons. The energy constricting his body attacked every bone, organ, and blood vessel in his body, threatening to put him out of commission.

However, the Warmaster of Wrath would not allow himself to be defeated this easily... No. Of course he won't. (Don't tell me that brat is underestimating me, Satan, the Warmaster of Wrath... That little shit.)

Despite what ran through Abaddon's mind, he also fully knew that breaking the paralysis early would still damage him to an extent, giving Rainer a clear advantage over this round. However, Abaddon didn't care about losing this round, he still had two more rounds to win and test the strength of the new Lord of Lust. Right now he simply wanted the Lord of Lust to taste some fear.

As quickly as he forced the end of the paralysis, the magic ended. There was nothing notable to mention other than that everyone who curiously watched Abaddon and looked closely could see a few drops of blood seeping from his eyes and mouth.

The Warmaster wiped away the small rivers of blood with his tongue, sending the iron liquid back into his body. Leaving everyone behind, Abaddon wasted not a single second in pursuing the Lord of Lust. He flew into the air approximately one and a half kilometers into the sky. He thrust his hand out, as if grasping for a weapon.

Then something curious happened. The area around his hand distorted and crackled with a sound similar to chirping birds. The air opened up, as if the invisible gas had folded and folded into a dense pocket and now opened up.

Abaddon reached inside this pocket and pulled out a handgun. This was no normal handgun; it was infinitely more powerful than any gun created in the human world. The barrel was at least half a meter long with a perfectly cylindrical shape.

"Tracer bullet." Aiming the handgun upwards, Abaddon pulled the trigger.

A small ball of red light shot out from the barrel and spun in circle until it halted in the direction of a round lake. After halting, the light sphere shot forth in the direction of the lake, or rather, a beach besides the lake.

"There you are..." Abaddon smiled, "Gatling gun." After Abaddon chanted those two words, the amount of barrels on the gun he held multiplied by eight. Once again, the black demon pulled on the trigger, releasing a hail of bullets from his eight barreled gun.

...

Rainer opened his eyes and jumped up. As sleepy his short nap made him, he was instantly jolted awake when he heard the whizzing of high speed projectiles racing through the air. With reflexes far superior to any ninja or martial artist, Rainer dodged the dozens of bullets aimed at him. Each bullet left a small crater around him, blowing sand omnidirectionally.

"Eh... Isn't this supposed to be tag?" Worried for a second about Abaddon losing the gist of the duel, Rainer then barely noticed a black blur out of the corner of his eye.

The young Lord of Lust sidestepped and ducked his head in a frantic move. A palm went over his shoulder with the force akin to a tank shell. Rainer kept with his momentum and jumped to the side, making trail marks upon his landing in the sand.

Time until the hour was over: eighteen minutes.

"Ahhh, you came sooner than I hoped. Well, this still can't be easy for you to move, can it?" Rainer acted rather relaxed, but he was somewhat worried in his mind.

"I'll admit I am impressed by your magic. And yes, I am somewhat weakened by the aftereffects. Though that is temporary, and I am at least going to finish this game of tag by making you work for it, maybe win if I'm lucky." Abaddon raised the gun in his hand, which had returned to its original single barrel, and pointed it into the air. "Rocket barrage." Several cylinders sprouted from multiple areas of the gun barrel, each with a cone at its tip.

Rainer watched with a tense sort of intrigue as the rockets attached to Abaddon's handgun screeched into the air. After forming a parabola with the smoke trail, the rockets began homing in on Rainer.

"Isn't this just a straight out battle?!" Shouted the young black demon as he took off in the air, swerving around to dodge the rockets that continuously followed him like heat seeking missiles.

Uttering a short buoyancy spell which essentially gave Rainer the ability to walk on water, he landed on the lake's surface with the intent to begin casting some ice magic. "Damn, I'm really going to have to defend myself? So much for a peaceful duel!" He raised both of his hands and two clumps of ice perfectly sculpted into tower shields raised from the water. This was the Dominion spell of Ice, granting Rainer complete control over the concept of ice.

The shields shattered when the rockets exploded into them. It seemed that these rockets followed the straightest path to their target, disregarding any obstacles in the way.

Rainer kept his eyes on Abaddon the entire time, wary for the demon trying to make another attempt at tagging him. He saw the Warmaster fire several normal bullets, each of which Rainer dodged easily.

Those bullets, however, were simply meant to buy keep Rainer busy for even seconds. "Net round." Running forward as fast as his body allowed, Abaddon ignored the need for a water walking spell like Rainer and sped along the water's surface like a strider.

Rainer instantly noticed the incoming danger. Unfortunately he was too busy dodging the normal bullets to notice the next projectile. "Shit!" With a cry, Rainer became tangled in a yet made of an unknown but tough material.

He felt a light tap on the top of his head, which Rainer saw as Abaddon's head. It seems he was now the 'It'. Rainer of course didn't intend to lose, at least not like this. While he could lose this round and win the next two, he saw no point in simply giving in.

Rainer, while still floating, made his body cold. Rainer was now colder than ice and colder than the peak of the tallest mountain. It almost felt natural, on how cold his body temperature dropped, as if his body has always lived this way. And that was only a result of the magic gathering in one hand.

In the other hand, Rainer gathered the oxygen around him and incorporated it with the net covering his body. When that process was complete, Rainer froze the gathered oxygen and net together. He then lashed out with his limbs, shattering the net into more than a hundred pieces. The net was strong, nothing like the flimsy ones made by the craftsmanship of the seven circles or Earth. Of course it was obvious by the abilities it presented that Rainer knew the gun was clearly not a normal pistol.

It was magical. It was a soul weapon. It had a similar presence to that which he felt from Old Age and Disaster. This was, without a doubt, Strife. This gun is obviously one of seven shards of Death's Scythe.

Time until the hour was over: four minutes.

Rainer chanted the name of a second Dominion spell: Water.

He dipped one hand in the lake and threw it upwards. Instead of making a normal splash, one fourth of the lake entered the sky, taking on the form of harpoons and lassos.

Abaddon knew that he would be unable to counter this incredible magic due to the short term crippling he was enduring. In actuality, he had absolutely no cards he could play, at least none that would cause little in the way of destruction. His gun could not counter the large scale water attack without pulling out an attack of destruction.

If one thought about it, Rainer was actually not causing destruction by pulling out a fourth of the lake, he was actually assisting the growth of the gardens around him once the water was released, thus feeding the plants.

The water entered the sky and surrounded Abaddon. The harpoons were too weak to pierce his body, but they hooked onto the little amount of clothing he had. The lassos wrapped around his legs, arms, and neck in order to hold him in place.

"Tag, you're it." Rainer gently touched Abaddon's shoulder before leisurely flying back to the castle. He did not release Abaddon until the last few minutes were up.

...

The two Rulers of Sin flew together, neither sharing animosity nor discord among each other. It was something akin to mutual respect.

"That gun is Strife, right?" Asked Rainer even though he already knew the answer to the question.

"Yea, what about it? Nifty little item, I don't really use it that much, but I needed it to make up for this temporary weakness... Ah, I've recovered now." Abaddon flipped the gun around in his hand like some western flick cowboy.

"Although all of the Aspect of Death weapons are indeed dangerous, more so than any nuclear bomb, what exactly does the gun do that makes it so dangerous? I felt like you only used a small percentage of its true capabilities."

"You are quite perceptive. You mentioned nuclear bombs, an extremely potent weapon in the human world. This gun of mine has the capability to completely replicate any weapon created by the humans of scientific origin. From crossbows to long-range missiles and to whatever humans create in the future: I can use this gun to fire all of them. I could have used this gun to fire off a blast comparable to a nuclear bomb, however why would I? If I did, I would lose the round of this duel."

The fact that Abaddon cared more about winning the round than causing an ultimate explosion showed just how little regard he held towards life. Rainer truly saw this man as a demon.

...

"And so the Warmaster of Wrath loses the third round of this duel. Please choose the format for the next round, Satan." Ennariel calmly went through the exact same thing he had done several times before.

"Yea yea, for this round, I'm going to choose a favorite past time of mine: hunting. Hey, greedy bastard, we're going to my Waters of Wrath to hunt a kraken."

-

"The winner will be decided based on two aspects: the size of the kraken they hunt and the quality of the kraken they hunt."

The location had switched. In order to hasten the process of transferring, only the Rulers of Sin came along with two subordinates each. Rainer chose Lauren for her knowledge over beasts and Hanazae for a reason unknown to everyone who witnessed his choosing. It was unknown only to those he brought with him to the Gardens of Greed; those of the other Sins assumed that Hanazae was a powerful warrior or magician of sorts.

In fact, Rainer chose her for one reason only: her expertise as a maid.

Rainer and Abaddon both stood on the beach of the Waters of Wrath's second largest island.

"Size is self-explanatory. Quality will be graded on the completeness of the kraken's body and level of artistic beauty. You may now begin."

As Abaddon leapt into the ocean with an impressive dive, Rainer slowly tread into the water. As ruler of this land, Abaddon had a clear advantage over Rainer. He could swim with great speed while completely ignoring water resistance; he probably even knew the lay of the oceans to an eidetic degree.

Rainer needed magic to overcome his handicap. Magic to make him a being that could freely swim through the ocean waters even more effectively. No... That was too simple.

Why bother transforming himself into a being that could swim when he just become the water itself? (Sheesh, and here I used to be surprised by nearly every nonsensical thing I see in these damn circles. And yet now I'm doing one of these impossible things myself? I need to embrace the impossible if I ever want to be able to beat her, that Archangel. Unlike me, she didn't even enter her Ramiel avatar. Well, let's stop wasting time...)

Nearly the opposite of 'Dominion' was a class of spells called 'Form'. Where Dominion gave you complete control of a type of entity, Form literally gave you the form of that entity.

"The natural element of water, you are plentiful

You take hold in every one of our bodies

Now you will take hold in every part of my body

Until you and I are completely alike."

Rainer dissolved completely into a clear liquid tinted a faint blue and morphed into the great ocean.

"R-Rainer-Sae?!" Hanazae called her lord's name in fright after his disappearance.

"What the hell?" Lauren was equally surprised. Although she vaguely knew of the magic Rainer had performed, she had never even thought she would see it happen.

Her mother had taught her the dangers of such a magic. If you lost even a portion of your fluidic body, should you take on the form of a liquid like water, you would lose that body part forever. And you would not even know if you lost that body part until after you retook your original body. Her mother had even told her of a mage who had performed a Form spell for, believe it or not, alcohol (it was to ambush another man who drank copious amounts of alcohol. In the process, the mage's target accidentally spilled the beverage, resulting in a small portion of the liquid body to splash from the chalice the alcohol was held in.

Once the mage reformed his body in order to perform his attack, he instantly noticed that his body no longer had a head. That portion of alcohol that had spilled from the chalice used to be his head. The mage died instantly after spurting blood all over his target.

If Rainer did not keep his liquid body together, he could very well die.

...

Rainer surged like a miniature ocean current throughout the vast Waters of Wrath. He extended the reach of his liquid body in order to maximize his search distance for a suitable kraken to hunt.

(I haven't really practiced this type of spell very much. So I better concentrate as hard as I can.) With these thoughts in mind, Rainer obviously knew of the dangers of a Form spell. In fact, he nearly lost his demonic tail the one time he did practice. Rainer fully understood that if he had to become someone who could protect a world, whether it is the Land of Lust or Earth, he needed every trick in his hand to be fully utilized. And by that, he needed every single spell inside the vast text of the Grimoire.

Rainer didn't really know how he could 'see' while taking on a distorted figure of water resembling his body while stretched into thin strands. All he knew was that he could see, feel, and hear while in the water.

Another curious effect of the form spell was that Rainer could sense the exact locations, shape, and size of certain objects via the electric impulses in the water. It was similar to how a shark could zero in on prey when it thrashed about in the water.

The Waters of Wrath was without a doubt an extremely immense body of water. In fact, the bits of land scattered throughout this world were islands of varying size. And as fitting a world of mainly water, Rainer saw an ecosystem he never thought possible.

Imagine the entirety of the animal and plant kingdoms of Earth exponentially expanded upon and lazily tossed about in the ocean. Rainer recognized not a single animal in the water.

He saw a type of animal resembling a puffer fish, although it was drastically increased in size (by about a hundred meters). Rainer witnessed several of the spikes literally shoot out from the fish's body and pierce another animal which writhed in pain. The strange fish then reeled in its spikes and brought the prey to its mouth which it ate in one solid crunch.

Then, out of nowhere, a green blob which looked like a ball of moss, floating into the vicinity. The massive puffer fish shots its spikes out, presumably to either eat some more or defend itself. The spikes embedded themselves into the green blob, but as the spikes reeled in its prey, the green blob split itself in half. Then the blob enveloped the entirety of the puffer fish who shot all of its spikes in a frantic attempt to escape. It turned out to be a fruitless attempt as the puffer fish become completely swallowed up by the mossy green blob.

(Was that a sort of carnivorous plant? No matter, where shall I find this kraken?) Rainer went even deeper. He was only just below the surface of the ocean, a dangerous beast like a kraken would not be anywhere close to the surface unless during a special circumstance.

Beforehand, Lauren told Rainer everything he needed to know about how to find a decent kraken. They were nearly at the bottom of the Waters of Wrath's oceans, only coming up to feed on large quantities of food for decades at a time. It seemed they hibernated deep below water for hundreds or more years at a time, so the majority of the race of monsters would be there. Logically thinking about it, the largest krakens would be the ones who have lived the longest. The highest quality ones would be the krakens that have freshly fed up and returned to the ocean depths, although at least half of those would by damaged by the prey who defended themselves.

(That's the kind of kraken I need to hunt. One that has freshly fed for its decade close to the surface.) Rainer searched for a good twenty minutes, admiring the local flora and fauna along the way, until he found his first kraken.

It was monstrous, that was all Rainer could think to say about it. Around fifty tentacles, forty-four of which had those familiar octopus like feeling with suckers. The other eight looked like deadly clubs similar to dinosaur.

However...

(It doesn't look too tasty. I'm not hunting that one.) As his thoughts implied, the kraken had numerous bits of mottled skin and several scars. One of the tentacles even looked like it had been frayed to its core. It was quite large, but it had nothing in the quality department.

Either the kraken noticed Rainer's presence despite him being literally one with water, or it outright knew Rainer's location, but it slashed two of its clubbing tentacles at Rainer. If those tentacles severed the body of water Rainer had as his body, he would most likely die upon releasing the Form spell.

(Don't go underestimating me, you damn squid!) Rainer bunched his body of water together and began spinning like a drill. The club tentacles continuously attacked Rainer, but he effortlessly avoided all of them. It was simply an animal after all. It was too outmatched against an Archdemon.

When he was satisfied with the speed of his rotation, Rainer burst forward with a great bit of speed and pierce the kraken's main body like a drilling spear. After entering the disgusting body of the kraken, Rainer released his compressed body of water, effectively making the kraken explode from the inside out.

(Wait, what's that?) Rainer asked this, but he could already tell there was another kraken somewhere nearby. He just didn't know if it was suitable to his tastes.

Krakens were actually creatures with a moderate amount of intelligence. However they only showed that intelligence to their own kin. They were strange, despite their outright hostile nature to everything, it seemed they formed small peaceful cliques among their species and occasionally hunted in packs. Rainer recalled more information Lauren had taught him, perhaps this was an occurrence of that?

What Rainer saw surprised him. The kraken he saw was relatively diminutive in size, suggesting it was a younger kraken. It had a unique coloring to it, a dark hue of blue which allowed it to blend in with the ocean depths.

(That's it, that's the one I want!) Declared Rainer in his mind. He didn't know exactly what it was about this kraken, but he knew it would be perfect for his plan. After all, Rainer wasn't trying to win this round, but the next, using the kraken he caught as the deciding factor.