The moment his eyes landed on us, I could feel an invisible pressure on my body. Even though Trigon opened his mouth to speak, I had no intention of letting him. Without hesitation, I pooled all my ki into the rotating sphere in my hands before my arms pointed at him.
[Kamehameha]!
The ki blast erupted from my hands, bursting towards Trigon ferociously. The ki beam cut through the pressure and then through the dark miasma that Trigon had released, burning a path directly into Trigon's face.
The bright blue light almost prevented me from seeing what was happening besides the beam clashing against something, but I could feel it. Although I hit something, I felt myself being pushed back.
Raven's darkness that seeped into the landscape was more durable than the land prior to its existence. It was solid energy that had drilled itself into the realm, making it much more resilient even if it was eroding it, but despite this, I was pushed back with my feet digging into the ground.
My hands trembled from the continuous output of violent energy. It was almost too much to handle, as a lack of focus would cause the energy to be released uncontrollably.
Raven's darkness and Trigon's miasma were being illuminated by the light of my Kamehameha, as if it was trying to disperse them. The ground and even the air shook from the released energy, but despite its seeming glory, it was meant to be short-lived.
I couldn't support the output and the ki shrank until it faded from this realm. My arms and my entire body were trembling from the strain. I slowly lowered my smoking hands to look at Trigon's glowing red eyes.
"Impudent mortal." His voice boomed in my ears and it appeared as if the entire realm trembled from his words as the ground shook. He had a frown on his face as he looked at me, but his attention was quickly stolen by a black tentacle that wriggled around his neck like a noose before tightening. The tip of the tentacle pierced into his neck, but it didn't penetrate deeply.
Trigon reacted quickly and ripped the tentacle apart before waving his arms behind him at Raven. A hail of hellfire spawned and swept towards Raven like an unstoppable tornado. In response, an enormous shadow raven appeared behind Raven's back, her soulself enveloped Raven, blocking the attack. The hellfire dribbled over her soulself like rain on an umbrella.
Of course, I wasn't idle as I watched this. I let the strength of the Oozaru flow into my body, empowering it as the energy turned into the craziest pump I had rarely felt. It was almost like my body was trying to balloon itself to accommodate the influx of energy, and the pain caused by Ikari was ever-present.
I knew my body couldn't handle an increase of more than 120x my base, so I stopped and pushed the newfound strength above my head as I raised both my hands. A thrumming vibrating ki disk formed above my hands and extended until it reached 10 meters in diameter. Before the technique could collapse, I took a step forward and threw it at Trigon's neck with all my might.
The disk sliced through the sky, drawing a line through the air as if it was trying to divide this realm in two. It almost instantly reached its target, but it still wasn't fast enough. Trigon reacted as if he had some kind of clairvoyant and moved his body slightly away, even without turning towards it. The disk clipped the base of his neck, wounding Trigon before it flew into the distance.
As if we had timed it, Raven's tentacles shot out of her soulself and pierced through the drops of hellfire, letting them explode and harmlessly wash over the tentacles as they aimed for Trigon. Her timing was impeccable. The tentacles wriggled their way into Trigon's wound and crawled right underneath his skin as they headed for his brain.
Trigon roared as dark flames appeared all over his body before his body disappeared altogether only to instantly appear just a few dozen meters away like he had displaced his existence somewhere else. The tentacles that were inside of his body were left untouched by the teleportation and were left behind. Raven retracted them quickly as she hovered above the ground.
Trigon's eyes were glowering, burning with fire as he looked at us. I dragged my hands and pointed my open palms at him. The ki disk was big and dense with energy, making it hard to control, so it required a lot of effort and slow deliberate gestures to move it. The disk responded to my will and shot towards Trigon from the distance.
Trigon didn't seem to be aware of what I was doing or cared little for it if he knew. The surrounding flames and dark miasma grew in size, enveloping his entire body before they shrank and were pulled back into his body. My jaws clenched as I felt the change in the atmosphere. The flames shrank, and so did his body. His power was condensing.
The strength was becoming so dense that I was getting the shivers, even though I couldn't properly sense the scale of its might. The familiar change in his life force was already terrifying.
It felt similar to Ikari, but instead of preventing his body from expanding, he compressed his body to a smaller size while keeping all his strength. It was how I imagined attaining Super Saiyan 4 would feel like. All this, though, couldn't deter me from using his open guard to ambush him.
Just when the disk was about to cut into Trigon's body, he raised his arm and unceremonially blocked the disk with his forearm. He smirked at my surprise when I witnessed the disk shattering into thousands of pieces.
I looked at the shards of the attack as they faded away like sparkling fairy dust. "Damn... Am I the Krillin here?" I muttered before Trigon teleported in front of me. Even as I moved backward, he caught me with an uppercut to the stomach, launching me into the sky.
Spit left my mouth as I shot into the murky sky. Just a second later, I extended my arms and legs and, with a burst of energy, I instantly stopped my ascent. This was insane. My strength was already amplified to 120x of my base and I was barely able to react to his sudden attack.
Just before I could muse about the new height of might Trigon had revealed, sharp pain in my lower back made me gasp for air. "What are you daydreaming for, boy?" A deep demonic voice asked behind me as the ground that was almost completely covered in Raven's darkness below me was approaching rapidly.
Without fanfare, Trigon kicked himself off my back just as we landed. With a loud bang, I crashed into Raven's darkness-covered territory. I couldn't help but groan. My face was numb, and I was pretty sure I broke my nose and cheekbone. I was pretty sure some of my ribs were broken, too.
I saw his shadow covering me, so I instinctively pushed myself off the ground to the side, barely escaping his grasp. With utmost speed, I burst backward, while throwing a ki blast at him, which he swatted away like a fly with a smirk on his face. He was standing still as if he had everything under control and couldn't bother to pursue me. Truly an infuriating dipshit.
It wasn't until I had lost his figure behind the horizon that I landed in a city that Raven had taken over from one of the sins. As chance would have it, I landed next to Raven on a crumbling building. Raven looked a bit disheveled, but she had seen worse days. I should know, my training sessions weren't for the weak-willed.
"How much time do you need?" I asked hastily, even though I was out of breath. The reason was simple: Trigon was approaching our location. He didn't seem to hurry and just walked towards us, though my eyes seemed to deceive me since his pace didn't match his legs.
His speed was more like a Flash on crack. No wonder he seemed so leisurely about his pursuit; he knew he could catch up with me, eventually.
"I don't need more than 5 minutes. He won't be able to do much in this realm anymore since it is already considered mostly mine, so you just need to hold on in a fistfight. You can do that, right?" Raven worriedly asked as she glanced at Trigon, who was gaining on us.
"Hold on?? You better hurry or you will only have to blame yourself if I end up kill stealing." I responded as I placed two fingers on my forehead, charging up and condensing another attack that might help me punch through that thick skull of Trigon. Raven smiled slightly before merging with the building's darkness. Her life force popped up back at the seal that had trapped Trigon.
Several life forces that carried some resemblance to Trigon popped into existence where Raven was, but I couldn't worry about her. Usually, dealing with the father of a girlfriend I was seeing wasn't that dreadful. And I wasn't even with Raven!
I smirked just as Trigon floated over the railings of the building I was standing on. He raised an eyebrow as he watched me. "Fuck you!" I screamed before pointing my two fingers at him.
[Special Beam Cannon]!
The twirling beam arrived at Trigon's chest at lightning speed, crashing into him at full speed. The rotation and power of the beam generated a massive output that cracked the darkness of the building. A blinding light ensued as my beam clashed against the demon, but Trigon just stood there, seemingly unaware of the attack I had released on him.
The energy released by the impact of the attack was blinding and moved the realm and even the murky clouds in the sky, which I could see in the periphery of my vision. The stalemate lasted for half a minute before the attack ended in an explosion.
I jumped backwards, minimizing the brunt of the explosion, but I didn't expect for Trigon to pursue me through the explosion. It was a haunting experience when he reached for me through the thicket of the dark smoke, unperturbed in the face of my attacks.
At this point my mind was blank, and I just created a simple ki blast in my right hand and threw it at him. Unexpectedly, he just ate the attack and flew through it as he demonically laughed at my attempt to stop him. The two antler-like horns lit up with fiery magic before red lightning extended, weaving their way through the air in an unpredictable manner.
The attack hit me squarely in the chest. Lightning was coursing through my body, paralyzing my body for just a moment long enough for Trigon to finally reach me, crashing into me with his head. His horns pierced through my armor and my ki-enhanced skin as if it was nothing before he picked me up on his horns. The surroundings suddenly changed, and we were back at Trigon's previous resting place.
He tore me off his horns before throwing me to the ground. Without me being able to react, he stomped on my calve, crushing the bones like some twigs. My jaw clenched as I suppressed the pain-filled scream threatening to be released, instead I gathered my energy, empowering my body to the limits.
Trigon picked me up by the hair and held me up as he presented me to Raven, who absorbed a dead demon before shouting at her father furiously to let me down. I grabbed his fingers, trying to pry off his hold on me, but he just responded to my action with a kick to my thigh. The crack and the pain I felt indicated another broken bone.
I could feel his scalding breath as he looked over my shoulder at Raven, while pulling my arm down and behind my back before pushing it upwards until I could feel my joints under intense pressure. The sharp pain made it hard to breathe. Even with my entire body filled with seemingly indomitable strength, I felt helpless.
"You know, I have to thank you." Trigon began, loud enough for me to hear through the pain and surely for Raven to hear as well. "It took me years of efforts to make her accept her demon side, but here you come and convince her just like that." He snapped his fingers to underline his speech. "Convincing her to go around and kill her siblings and take their power. Honestly, I thought it would take a lot for her to go down the deep end. Hahaha."
He chuckled slightly as the pressure on my arm increased until a distinct snap sounded out. He covered my mouth, muffling my pained scream.
"STOP!" Raven screamed, but Trigon just ignored it besides pointing his claws at my throat when it looked like she wanted to rush at him.
"Who would have thought she just needed someone to love? If I had known that, I wouldn't have wasted so much effort. Well, my savage little monkey, I just wanna say that I'm a huge fan of your work." He turned his sight to Raven was clenching her fists hard enough to draw blood.
"Raven, be a good girl. Surrender and I will let him live. You decide his fate." Trigon smugly gave her an ultimatum as he pierced his claw into my neck, drawing blood. Raven hatefully glared at her father, while her eyes were watering as she glanced at me. The intense aura and her soulself around Raven slowly shrank into her body as she looked dejectedly at the ground.
The sight of her and the feeling of being hopelessly outmatched just one step away from succeeding in our battle plan made my emotions boil deep inside me. An unyielding rage of my circumstances all the way, from my past life until now, blossomed. I instantly seized that opportunity and pulled on it, letting it bubble to the surface.
I hadn't realized it, but since attaining Ikari, it had somewhat changed my body. There was a depth to it, which I hadn't known before. Maybe it had been mutating my cells similar to what the Super Saiyan transformation did. Either way, I needed, no, I wanted that strength to destroy my enemies!
Now I pulled on it from the deepest depth inside me that I could reach. I tugged at the strength gained through Ikari, letting it grow further until it extended and enveloped the Super Saiyan power, destroying the already unstable balance between the two sources of strength. An image of a golden orb surrounded by a green flame entered my mind.
Trigon continued to taunt me, not realizing that I had pulled out all stops. A move that I had figured might kill me, but what choice did I have?
"A wise decision. Hahaha. I guess I won't need-" His voice stopped as he lost his grip on my snapped arm.
My strength soared.
The golden aura changed, now being surrounded by a green aura as it reached into the sky, illuminating the surroundings with a bright light and incomparable pressure as I forcefully called upon these two powers at all costs with the single goal of empowering me and giving my rage the tools it needed to end Trigon.
The golden orb pulsated with power as energy was released out of it. Instead of being distinguished by the green flame, the golden energy forcefully dragged a portion of the green flame with it as it extended outside my body. It was ripping my body apart, while just my sheer willpower was holding it together.
I turned around and raised my arm. A blazing ki blade created out of a portion of irresistible might extend out of my arm and I just swung at Trigon. He raised an arm to block the attack, but my blade tore through his arm and then across his waist.
The power was too violent and intense to keep it controlled to function like a blade, so when my energy passed Trigon's body, it wasn't a hot knife, but more like a chainsaw shredding its way through butter.
The demon lord was torn in half with bits of flesh scattering around, but living up to his reputation, his wounds were already trying to heal as tendrils of flesh tried to reconnect to his other side. I was about to swing again, but the might was too much and my body had taken too much damage.
Blood burst out of my mouth and nose. I could feel tears of blood running down my cheeks from my eyes. My ears popped and began ringing as I felt liquid running down the side of my neck. The surrounding noises were getting duller, and it was difficult for me to hear.
I was still on edge, but this was how far I could go. With no strength supporting me anymore, surprisingly I didn't fall, but floated in space with no gravity affecting me.
With this, I knew I had already done enough when Raven rushed towards Trigon. The realm encompassed by her darkness converged to a raven's claw over her hand as if it was attracted to it like a black hole.
As we had fought against Trigon, she had continued to take over the last bit of the realm. With the entire realm now under her authority, she used all the energy of this dimension and created this weapon. The sheen of darkness over the claw revealed the power hidden beneath its simple appearance. The tips of her claw dug into Trigon's chest with surprising ease.
Her arm dug into his chest until she stopped before pulling her arm out. A fountain of black blood burst out of his chest as his heart was pulled out. The two halves of Trigon's body floated in this realm as the gravity of the ground ceased to exist after being converted to her weapon.
The black heart was still beating until Raven clenched her fist. Blood flowed down the black claw before merging with the claw and Raven. Her tendrils of darkness extended out of her soulself and pierced into the two halves before taking away any power Trigon had left without his Heart of Darkness.
"Hahaha. Wh-who would have th-thought... I would end like this... Usurped by my first daughter... Al-though I would have liked... to have you beside me... when I spread my terror... Having... my daughter kill her siblings... before usurping... replacing me..."
"I will never be like you, father," Raven said with determination, looking at her father's dying form with a complex expression.
He cackled at her words, finding endless amusement in them. "The power you gained today... oh you will be... you will… and I will be so proud of yo-" His words faded as his head turned into pure energy, empowering Raven even further as she siphoned it all away to permanently end Trigon.
Raven's eyes widened as she watched her claw before she looked at me. "You alright?" I asked before she quickly approached my floating self and placed a hand on my chest.
"I am sorry," She responded guiltily before extending her arms to my chest. I could hardly stop her in my weakened state and had no choice but to let her do as she wished.
"What are you doing?" I asked, but she didn't answer. She just smiled wryly at me. Strangely, though, even after she took her hands off my chest, I had felt nothing. Raven's hair had already turned completely white, resembling her father's hair, though I couldn't lament those things as something else happened.
She sighed slightly as she let herself relax for a moment. Finally, getting rid of Trigon must have felt good, but I focused on something else. It was like remembering something which had been ever present on the tip of the tongue. Now my mind remembered and focused on the interaction with Sloth.
I realized that there was no chance I would have let Sloth live just because he appeared to want nothing to do with spreading evil. Even if that was true, I wouldn't risk Raven's increase of power just because Sloth wasn't as evil as his siblings.
Not to mention that his mere existence would continue to spread suffering. If I had been in a normal headspace, I would have taken the burden off of Raven and killed him myself, but I wouldn't have let him go. A dreadful feeling appeared in my stomach.
My senses expanded and reached his previous location. "Sloth's life force changed. Wait, it's gone now." I would have struggled if I used my body to move, but with telekinesis as my assistant, any movement was doable. I frowned as I looked in the direction where Sloth should have been. "All the humans we had left behind had gathered there."
Raven looked surprised before she frowned. "It's not just them. I can still feel Sloth in this realm." With that, she dragged us towards Sloth across the empty realm. The only thing that hadn't converged into her claw was the borders that kept the outside darkness away. We had discussed how we would give Trigon the finishing blow, but we couldn't ignore what would await us outside this realm.
I had the feeling that we would die outside, so I had asked her to keep the borders, not realizing how difficult the fight would be. Even if I couldn't have defeated Trigon on my own, I had thought that Raven would be capable of keeping his magical abilities at bay, and I could just hold him off long enough on the physical side.
It should have been something easily accomplishable, at least that was what I had thought. The fault of my hubris. I had clearly underestimated Trigon's powers.
It didn't take us long to arrive where we had left Sloth, only to find a much weaker version of Trigon staring back at us with a vicious smile on his face. "See you around, daughter, son-in-law." He called out before Sloth seemed to implode, collapsing the empty realm with him.
The few humans and demons that had survived were completely stripped of their skin, flesh, and blood as it turned into a magical rune, which shone with a blood-red light. The power pushed us away, and the light was blinding.
Only after the light had dimmed were we able to see what was going on. A hole inside the realm's bounds was ripped open, with just a faint magical rune hovering above it. The hole revealed the outside darkness looking especially sinister compared to Raven's darkness I had gotten accustomed to. The outside seemed to crawl along the inside of the bounds.
Raven grasped and absorbed the half-burned head of Sloth, which was all that was left after Trigon had escaped. "Hold on tight," Raven said before hugging my waist. She raised her hand and the bounds of the realm trembled as cracks appeared all around us. The bounds broke into pieces before Raven swung her hand at where Trigon had disappeared.
The elastic glass-like pieces of the realm's bounds homed in on Trigon's exit, turning into pure energy before slamming into the rapidly fading magical rune, empowering it. Raven didn't hesitate and dragged us into the brightly glowing rune.
I felt like my body was being stretched infinitely into a noddle before the feeling vanished again. The surroundings were bright, and it was hard to keep my eyes open. "Nathan, are you okay?" Raven's voice called out with an echo. My ears weren't healed yet perfectly, but I was pretty sure the weirdness of it wasn't because of my injuries.
"Yeah." I lulled out with difficulties. "Where are we?" I decided on telepathy, to which she responded in kind.
"I don't know. We should be where Trigon was since we used the same spell... or we overshoot." She concluded as she looked around. It was only then that I realized she had surrounded us inside a barrier and I was lying down. Her look was still demonic as well.
"You good?" I asked as I tried to sit up, but was pushed back down with her hands glowing dark. The claw was still donning her right hand. My body was quickly mending itself under her care, I realized. I had long dropped out of my transformation. Too injured to put my body under the strain of my transformations. With my eyes closed, I pulled on my normal ki and used it to aid in healing my inner wounds.
With Raven's empathetic healing and my aid, I was recovering rapidly. I really had to figure out how to heal myself during the battle. Even if I couldn't beat my opponent in strength, I might be able to outlast them, but these were thoughts meant for training, not when I was drifting through an unknown realm while being half-dead.
Just a few moments later, I was fine enough to stand up inside Raven's barrier. I looked at her demonic self and remembered the fact that she apologized to me before doing something to me, but I dropped it for our immediate survival. Shelving it up for later, after we arrived in a place where we could rest for a few moments long enough to have that kind of discussion.
Just as we were musing on how and where to leave this place, something whooshed beside us. The sounds were clear that it had moved at incredible speeds, but I hadn't been able to see anything. I looked at Raven, who turned to me as well, but she just shook her head. Suddenly, our surroundings seemed to influence us.
Or at least the surrounding colors seemed to change. "Are we moving?" I asked, as I didn't feel any change, especially with the lack of gravity indicating any sense of direction.
Raven responded confused, "I am not sure... but I think we are." As after she finished, her barrier suddenly cracked, and we were thrown to the back of her barrier. This time we felt the increase in speed. It was even increasing in pressure as if we were pushed into the seat of a speeding car.
Our speed increased, seemingly infinitely. Just as I thought it might increase until we were crushed by the pressure, the surroundings changed again. The surroundings were still colorful, just with more blue mixed into it. It also looked like colorful lines pointing in one direction, almost like we were in a tunnel.
I wasn't sure if an injury inside my brain erupted because of the pressure of the speeding barrier that was gaining more and more cracks, but I could almost swear I was able to hear a voice speaking to itself.
In the next moment, we seemed to have entered a reality as we slammed into something solid, creating a massive boom. The resulting crash whirled up a cloud of dust. The barrier broke, and I lay there exhausted with Raven on top of me.
"I really need my beauty sleep," I mumbled as I watched the pieces of metal fly through the air inside the room we had arrived in. My ki senses picked up several powerful life force signatures surrounding us.
The moment his eyes landed on us, I could feel an invisible pressure on my body. Even though Trigon opened his mouth to speak, I had no intention of letting him. Without hesitation, I pooled all my ki into the rotating sphere in my hands before my arms pointed at him.
[Kamehameha]!
The ki blast erupted from my hands, bursting towards Trigon ferociously. The ki beam cut through the pressure and then through the dark miasma that Trigon had released, burning a path directly into Trigon's face.
The bright blue light almost prevented me from seeing what was happening besides the beam clashing against something, but I could feel it. Although I hit something, I felt myself being pushed back.
Raven's darkness that seeped into the landscape was more durable than the land prior to its existence. It was solid energy that had drilled itself into the realm, making it much more resilient even if it was eroding it, but despite this, I was pushed back with my feet digging into the ground.
My hands trembled from the continuous output of violent energy. It was almost too much to handle, as a lack of focus would cause the energy to be released uncontrollably.
Raven's darkness and Trigon's miasma were being illuminated by the light of my Kamehameha, as if it was trying to disperse them. The ground and even the air shook from the released energy, but despite its seeming glory, it was meant to be short-lived.
I couldn't support the output and the ki shrank until it faded from this realm. My arms and my entire body were trembling from the strain. I slowly lowered my smoking hands to look at Trigon's glowing red eyes.
"Impudent mortal." His voice boomed in my ears and it appeared as if the entire realm trembled from his words as the ground shook. He had a frown on his face as he looked at me, but his attention was quickly stolen by a black tentacle that wriggled around his neck like a noose before tightening. The tip of the tentacle pierced into his neck, but it didn't penetrate deeply.
Trigon reacted quickly and ripped the tentacle apart before waving his arms behind him at Raven. A hail of hellfire spawned and swept towards Raven like an unstoppable tornado. In response, an enormous shadow raven appeared behind Raven's back, her soulself enveloped Raven, blocking the attack. The hellfire dribbled over her soulself like rain on an umbrella.
Of course, I wasn't idle as I watched this. I let the strength of the Oozaru flow into my body, empowering it as the energy turned into the craziest pump I had rarely felt. It was almost like my body was trying to balloon itself to accommodate the influx of energy, and the pain caused by Ikari was ever-present.
I knew my body couldn't handle an increase of more than 120x my base, so I stopped and pushed the newfound strength above my head as I raised both my hands. A thrumming vibrating ki disk formed above my hands and extended until it reached 10 meters in diameter. Before the technique could collapse, I took a step forward and threw it at Trigon's neck with all my might.
The disk sliced through the sky, drawing a line through the air as if it was trying to divide this realm in two. It almost instantly reached its target, but it still wasn't fast enough. Trigon reacted as if he had some kind of clairvoyant and moved his body slightly away, even without turning towards it. The disk clipped the base of his neck, wounding Trigon before it flew into the distance.
As if we had timed it, Raven's tentacles shot out of her soulself and pierced through the drops of hellfire, letting them explode and harmlessly wash over the tentacles as they aimed for Trigon. Her timing was impeccable. The tentacles wriggled their way into Trigon's wound and crawled right underneath his skin as they headed for his brain.
Trigon roared as dark flames appeared all over his body before his body disappeared altogether only to instantly appear just a few dozen meters away like he had displaced his existence somewhere else. The tentacles that were inside of his body were left untouched by the teleportation and were left behind. Raven retracted them quickly as she hovered above the ground.
Trigon's eyes were glowering, burning with fire as he looked at us. I dragged my hands and pointed my open palms at him. The ki disk was big and dense with energy, making it hard to control, so it required a lot of effort and slow deliberate gestures to move it. The disk responded to my will and shot towards Trigon from the distance.
Trigon didn't seem to be aware of what I was doing or cared little for it if he knew. The surrounding flames and dark miasma grew in size, enveloping his entire body before they shrank and were pulled back into his body. My jaws clenched as I felt the change in the atmosphere. The flames shrank, and so did his body. His power was condensing.
The strength was becoming so dense that I was getting the shivers, even though I couldn't properly sense the scale of its might. The familiar change in his life force was already terrifying.
It felt similar to Ikari, but instead of preventing his body from expanding, he compressed his body to a smaller size while keeping all his strength. It was how I imagined attaining Super Saiyan 4 would feel like. All this, though, couldn't deter me from using his open guard to ambush him.
Just when the disk was about to cut into Trigon's body, he raised his arm and unceremonially blocked the disk with his forearm. He smirked at my surprise when I witnessed the disk shattering into thousands of pieces.
I looked at the shards of the attack as they faded away like sparkling fairy dust. "Damn... Am I the Krillin here?" I muttered before Trigon teleported in front of me. Even as I moved backward, he caught me with an uppercut to the stomach, launching me into the sky.
Spit left my mouth as I shot into the murky sky. Just a second later, I extended my arms and legs and, with a burst of energy, I instantly stopped my ascent. This was insane. My strength was already amplified to 120x of my base and I was barely able to react to his sudden attack.
Just before I could muse about the new height of might Trigon had revealed, sharp pain in my lower back made me gasp for air. "What are you daydreaming for, boy?" A deep demonic voice asked behind me as the ground that was almost completely covered in Raven's darkness below me was approaching rapidly.
Without fanfare, Trigon kicked himself off my back just as we landed. With a loud bang, I crashed into Raven's darkness-covered territory. I couldn't help but groan. My face was numb, and I was pretty sure I broke my nose and cheekbone. I was pretty sure some of my ribs were broken, too.
I saw his shadow covering me, so I instinctively pushed myself off the ground to the side, barely escaping his grasp. With utmost speed, I burst backward, while throwing a ki blast at him, which he swatted away like a fly with a smirk on his face. He was standing still as if he had everything under control and couldn't bother to pursue me. Truly an infuriating dipshit.
It wasn't until I had lost his figure behind the horizon that I landed in a city that Raven had taken over from one of the sins. As chance would have it, I landed next to Raven on a crumbling building. Raven looked a bit disheveled, but she had seen worse days. I should know, my training sessions weren't for the weak-willed.
"How much time do you need?" I asked hastily, even though I was out of breath. The reason was simple: Trigon was approaching our location. He didn't seem to hurry and just walked towards us, though my eyes seemed to deceive me since his pace didn't match his legs.
His speed was more like a Flash on crack. No wonder he seemed so leisurely about his pursuit; he knew he could catch up with me, eventually.
"I don't need more than 5 minutes. He won't be able to do much in this realm anymore since it is already considered mostly mine, so you just need to hold on in a fistfight. You can do that, right?" Raven worriedly asked as she glanced at Trigon, who was gaining on us.
"Hold on?? You better hurry or you will only have to blame yourself if I end up kill stealing." I responded as I placed two fingers on my forehead, charging up and condensing another attack that might help me punch through that thick skull of Trigon. Raven smiled slightly before merging with the building's darkness. Her life force popped up back at the seal that had trapped Trigon.
Several life forces that carried some resemblance to Trigon popped into existence where Raven was, but I couldn't worry about her. Usually, dealing with the father of a girlfriend I was seeing wasn't that dreadful. And I wasn't even with Raven!
I smirked just as Trigon floated over the railings of the building I was standing on. He raised an eyebrow as he watched me. "Fuck you!" I screamed before pointing my two fingers at him.
[Special Beam Cannon]!
The twirling beam arrived at Trigon's chest at lightning speed, crashing into him at full speed. The rotation and power of the beam generated a massive output that cracked the darkness of the building. A blinding light ensued as my beam clashed against the demon, but Trigon just stood there, seemingly unaware of the attack I had released on him.
The energy released by the impact of the attack was blinding and moved the realm and even the murky clouds in the sky, which I could see in the periphery of my vision. The stalemate lasted for half a minute before the attack ended in an explosion.
I jumped backwards, minimizing the brunt of the explosion, but I didn't expect for Trigon to pursue me through the explosion. It was a haunting experience when he reached for me through the thicket of the dark smoke, unperturbed in the face of my attacks.
At this point my mind was blank, and I just created a simple ki blast in my right hand and threw it at him. Unexpectedly, he just ate the attack and flew through it as he demonically laughed at my attempt to stop him. The two antler-like horns lit up with fiery magic before red lightning extended, weaving their way through the air in an unpredictable manner.
The attack hit me squarely in the chest. Lightning was coursing through my body, paralyzing my body for just a moment long enough for Trigon to finally reach me, crashing into me with his head. His horns pierced through my armor and my ki-enhanced skin as if it was nothing before he picked me up on his horns. The surroundings suddenly changed, and we were back at Trigon's previous resting place.
He tore me off his horns before throwing me to the ground. Without me being able to react, he stomped on my calve, crushing the bones like some twigs. My jaw clenched as I suppressed the pain-filled scream threatening to be released, instead I gathered my energy, empowering my body to the limits.
Trigon picked me up by the hair and held me up as he presented me to Raven, who absorbed a dead demon before shouting at her father furiously to let me down. I grabbed his fingers, trying to pry off his hold on me, but he just responded to my action with a kick to my thigh. The crack and the pain I felt indicated another broken bone.
I could feel his scalding breath as he looked over my shoulder at Raven, while pulling my arm down and behind my back before pushing it upwards until I could feel my joints under intense pressure. The sharp pain made it hard to breathe. Even with my entire body filled with seemingly indomitable strength, I felt helpless.
"You know, I have to thank you." Trigon began, loud enough for me to hear through the pain and surely for Raven to hear as well. "It took me years of efforts to make her accept her demon side, but here you come and convince her just like that." He snapped his fingers to underline his speech. "Convincing her to go around and kill her siblings and take their power. Honestly, I thought it would take a lot for her to go down the deep end. Hahaha."
He chuckled slightly as the pressure on my arm increased until a distinct snap sounded out. He covered my mouth, muffling my pained scream.
"STOP!" Raven screamed, but Trigon just ignored it besides pointing his claws at my throat when it looked like she wanted to rush at him.
"Who would have thought she just needed someone to love? If I had known that, I wouldn't have wasted so much effort. Well, my savage little monkey, I just wanna say that I'm a huge fan of your work." He turned his sight to Raven was clenching her fists hard enough to draw blood.
"Raven, be a good girl. Surrender and I will let him live. You decide his fate." Trigon smugly gave her an ultimatum as he pierced his claw into my neck, drawing blood. Raven hatefully glared at her father, while her eyes were watering as she glanced at me. The intense aura and her soulself around Raven slowly shrank into her body as she looked dejectedly at the ground.
The sight of her and the feeling of being hopelessly outmatched just one step away from succeeding in our battle plan made my emotions boil deep inside me. An unyielding rage of my circumstances all the way, from my past life until now, blossomed. I instantly seized that opportunity and pulled on it, letting it bubble to the surface.
I hadn't realized it, but since attaining Ikari, it had somewhat changed my body. There was a depth to it, which I hadn't known before. Maybe it had been mutating my cells similar to what the Super Saiyan transformation did. Either way, I needed, no, I wanted that strength to destroy my enemies!
Now I pulled on it from the deepest depth inside me that I could reach. I tugged at the strength gained through Ikari, letting it grow further until it extended and enveloped the Super Saiyan power, destroying the already unstable balance between the two sources of strength. An image of a golden orb surrounded by a green flame entered my mind.
Trigon continued to taunt me, not realizing that I had pulled out all stops. A move that I had figured might kill me, but what choice did I have?
"A wise decision. Hahaha. I guess I won't need-" His voice stopped as he lost his grip on my snapped arm.
My strength soared.
The golden aura changed, now being surrounded by a green aura as it reached into the sky, illuminating the surroundings with a bright light and incomparable pressure as I forcefully called upon these two powers at all costs with the single goal of empowering me and giving my rage the tools it needed to end Trigon.
The golden orb pulsated with power as energy was released out of it. Instead of being distinguished by the green flame, the golden energy forcefully dragged a portion of the green flame with it as it extended outside my body. It was ripping my body apart, while just my sheer willpower was holding it together.
I turned around and raised my arm. A blazing ki blade created out of a portion of irresistible might extend out of my arm and I just swung at Trigon. He raised an arm to block the attack, but my blade tore through his arm and then across his waist.
The power was too violent and intense to keep it controlled to function like a blade, so when my energy passed Trigon's body, it wasn't a hot knife, but more like a chainsaw shredding its way through butter.
The demon lord was torn in half with bits of flesh scattering around, but living up to his reputation, his wounds were already trying to heal as tendrils of flesh tried to reconnect to his other side. I was about to swing again, but the might was too much and my body had taken too much damage.
Blood burst out of my mouth and nose. I could feel tears of blood running down my cheeks from my eyes. My ears popped and began ringing as I felt liquid running down the side of my neck. The surrounding noises were getting duller, and it was difficult for me to hear.
I was still on edge, but this was how far I could go. With no strength supporting me anymore, surprisingly I didn't fall, but floated in space with no gravity affecting me.
With this, I knew I had already done enough when Raven rushed towards Trigon. The realm encompassed by her darkness converged to a raven's claw over her hand as if it was attracted to it like a black hole.
As we had fought against Trigon, she had continued to take over the last bit of the realm. With the entire realm now under her authority, she used all the energy of this dimension and created this weapon. The sheen of darkness over the claw revealed the power hidden beneath its simple appearance. The tips of her claw dug into Trigon's chest with surprising ease.
Her arm dug into his chest until she stopped before pulling her arm out. A fountain of black blood burst out of his chest as his heart was pulled out. The two halves of Trigon's body floated in this realm as the gravity of the ground ceased to exist after being converted to her weapon.
The black heart was still beating until Raven clenched her fist. Blood flowed down the black claw before merging with the claw and Raven. Her tendrils of darkness extended out of her soulself and pierced into the two halves before taking away any power Trigon had left without his Heart of Darkness.
"Hahaha. Wh-who would have th-thought... I would end like this... Usurped by my first daughter... Al-though I would have liked... to have you beside me... when I spread my terror... Having... my daughter kill her siblings... before usurping... replacing me..."
"I will never be like you, father," Raven said with determination, looking at her father's dying form with a complex expression.
He cackled at her words, finding endless amusement in them. "The power you gained today... oh you will be... you will… and I will be so proud of yo-" His words faded as his head turned into pure energy, empowering Raven even further as she siphoned it all away to permanently end Trigon.
Raven's eyes widened as she watched her claw before she looked at me. "You alright?" I asked before she quickly approached my floating self and placed a hand on my chest.
"I am sorry," She responded guiltily before extending her arms to my chest. I could hardly stop her in my weakened state and had no choice but to let her do as she wished.
"What are you doing?" I asked, but she didn't answer. She just smiled wryly at me. Strangely, though, even after she took her hands off my chest, I had felt nothing. Raven's hair had already turned completely white, resembling her father's hair, though I couldn't lament those things as something else happened.
She sighed slightly as she let herself relax for a moment. Finally, getting rid of Trigon must have felt good, but I focused on something else. It was like remembering something which had been ever present on the tip of the tongue. Now my mind remembered and focused on the interaction with Sloth.
I realized that there was no chance I would have let Sloth live just because he appeared to want nothing to do with spreading evil. Even if that was true, I wouldn't risk Raven's increase of power just because Sloth wasn't as evil as his siblings.
Not to mention that his mere existence would continue to spread suffering. If I had been in a normal headspace, I would have taken the burden off of Raven and killed him myself, but I wouldn't have let him go. A dreadful feeling appeared in my stomach.
My senses expanded and reached his previous location. "Sloth's life force changed. Wait, it's gone now." I would have struggled if I used my body to move, but with telekinesis as my assistant, any movement was doable. I frowned as I looked in the direction where Sloth should have been. "All the humans we had left behind had gathered there."
Raven looked surprised before she frowned. "It's not just them. I can still feel Sloth in this realm." With that, she dragged us towards Sloth across the empty realm. The only thing that hadn't converged into her claw was the borders that kept the outside darkness away. We had discussed how we would give Trigon the finishing blow, but we couldn't ignore what would await us outside this realm.
I had the feeling that we would die outside, so I had asked her to keep the borders, not realizing how difficult the fight would be. Even if I couldn't have defeated Trigon on my own, I had thought that Raven would be capable of keeping his magical abilities at bay, and I could just hold him off long enough on the physical side.
It should have been something easily accomplishable, at least that was what I had thought. The fault of my hubris. I had clearly underestimated Trigon's powers.
It didn't take us long to arrive where we had left Sloth, only to find a much weaker version of Trigon staring back at us with a vicious smile on his face. "See you around, daughter, son-in-law." He called out before Sloth seemed to implode, collapsing the empty realm with him.
The few humans and demons that had survived were completely stripped of their skin, flesh, and blood as it turned into a magical rune, which shone with a blood-red light. The power pushed us away, and the light was blinding.
Only after the light had dimmed were we able to see what was going on. A hole inside the realm's bounds was ripped open, with just a faint magical rune hovering above it. The hole revealed the outside darkness looking especially sinister compared to Raven's darkness I had gotten accustomed to. The outside seemed to crawl along the inside of the bounds.
Raven grasped and absorbed the half-burned head of Sloth, which was all that was left after Trigon had escaped. "Hold on tight," Raven said before hugging my waist. She raised her hand and the bounds of the realm trembled as cracks appeared all around us. The bounds broke into pieces before Raven swung her hand at where Trigon had disappeared.
The elastic glass-like pieces of the realm's bounds homed in on Trigon's exit, turning into pure energy before slamming into the rapidly fading magical rune, empowering it. Raven didn't hesitate and dragged us into the brightly glowing rune.
I felt like my body was being stretched infinitely into a noddle before the feeling vanished again. The surroundings were bright, and it was hard to keep my eyes open. "Nathan, are you okay?" Raven's voice called out with an echo. My ears weren't healed yet perfectly, but I was pretty sure the weirdness of it wasn't because of my injuries.
"Yeah." I lulled out with difficulties. "Where are we?" I decided on telepathy, to which she responded in kind.
"I don't know. We should be where Trigon was since we used the same spell... or we overshoot." She concluded as she looked around. It was only then that I realized she had surrounded us inside a barrier and I was lying down. Her look was still demonic as well.
"You good?" I asked as I tried to sit up, but was pushed back down with her hands glowing dark. The claw was still donning her right hand. My body was quickly mending itself under her care, I realized. I had long dropped out of my transformation. Too injured to put my body under the strain of my transformations. With my eyes closed, I pulled on my normal ki and used it to aid in healing my inner wounds.
With Raven's empathetic healing and my aid, I was recovering rapidly. I really had to figure out how to heal myself during the battle. Even if I couldn't beat my opponent in strength, I might be able to outlast them, but these were thoughts meant for training, not when I was drifting through an unknown realm while being half-dead.
Just a few moments later, I was fine enough to stand up inside Raven's barrier. I looked at her demonic self and remembered the fact that she apologized to me before doing something to me, but I dropped it for our immediate survival. Shelving it up for later, after we arrived in a place where we could rest for a few moments long enough to have that kind of discussion.
Just as we were musing on how and where to leave this place, something whooshed beside us. The sounds were clear that it had moved at incredible speeds, but I hadn't been able to see anything. I looked at Raven, who turned to me as well, but she just shook her head. Suddenly, our surroundings seemed to influence us.
Or at least the surrounding colors seemed to change. "Are we moving?" I asked, as I didn't feel any change, especially with the lack of gravity indicating any sense of direction.
Raven responded confused, "I am not sure... but I think we are." As after she finished, her barrier suddenly cracked, and we were thrown to the back of her barrier. This time we felt the increase in speed. It was even increasing in pressure as if we were pushed into the seat of a speeding car.
Our speed increased, seemingly infinitely. Just as I thought it might increase until we were crushed by the pressure, the surroundings changed again. The surroundings were still colorful, just with more blue mixed into it. It also looked like colorful lines pointing in one direction, almost like we were in a tunnel.
I wasn't sure if an injury inside my brain erupted because of the pressure of the speeding barrier that was gaining more and more cracks, but I could almost swear I was able to hear a voice speaking to itself.
In the next moment, we seemed to have entered a reality as we slammed into something solid, creating a massive boom. The resulting crash whirled up a cloud of dust. The barrier broke, and I lay there exhausted with Raven on top of me.
"I really need my beauty sleep," I mumbled as I watched the pieces of metal fly through the air inside the room we had arrived in. My ki senses picked up several powerful life force signatures surrounding us.
