The Jester of Apocalypse
Chapter 87: Weaklings

Marven stared at the cave opening, gripping the brittle branch, unsure whether it would even serve the purpose of a weapon. However, the qi of a platinum path cultivator was not to be underestimated.

As long as he supplied it with energy, he could pull every shred of potential out of the branch. Judging by what little he knew of the demons, he feared it wouldn’t be enough.

Without his spirit powers, especially without paralysis, he felt vulnerable. More sweat trickled down his back whenever he heard another footstep.

Marven noticed the others picking up branches, likely intending to fight. "Don’t bother,” he stopped them. “Go hide in a room and wall it off if you can! I will rush to face it outside. If I fight near you, you will all just become a liability! Hurry!"

Gabrias was already running before Marven finished his talk, while Harel hesitated the most. Eventually, Hunter ran to a room, and Harel followed.

He gripped the branch tighter.

An unknown enemy he wasn’t sure he was prepared to face…

Marven couldn’t help but grin a little.

Just like the good old days.

At his youth’s unwelcome return, he allowed himself a shred of excitement. It was better than pure terror. Rather than waiting for his opponent to appear, he rushed to face it first.

He blazed through the darkness, and the striding creature appeared within moments. It was a grey, rotting demon with tendrils of darkness wrapped around its limbs. It had no eyes, at least not where they were meant to be.

Teeth, eyeballs, and claws sporadically spread through its nasty skin. Marven noted all the critical details, and his sword lit up with a technique.

The branch shone blue, and Marven, gripping it in his left hand, thrust it straight at the demon. It stood frozen, not reacting to Marven’s attack until the last second—when it bent out of the way of the attack and sent a kick flying at his face.

He moved his head right and twisted the trajectory of the branch. The demon had committed a mistake, and now it was overextended and out of balance, so he turned his body out of the way and gripped the back of the branch with his right hand.

Pushing with his right and pulling with his left hand, he turned the branch and spun his torso, sacrificing the clear shot at the stomach for a graze on its side, fearing losing his weapon if it got stuck.

It was still a solid strike, spilling demon guts and putrid blood everywhere as the demon tumbled through the air from the impact. It twisted in the air and landed on its feet, but Marven didn’t allow it to recover, instead pressing the attack, landing a clean thrust on its chest and another through its mouth.

The demon ignored the damage and prepared a retaliatory strike, catching the cultivator slightly off-guard with its self-destructive behavior but still catching a foot to its stomach, the strike he prepared to follow up on his previous attack. Blue mist exploded out of the point of impact, and the demon slammed back-first at a wall, partially impaled on an obsidian protrusion.

Unceasingly, he charged at it, but just as he was about to land another blow, a tentacle stretched from the demon's foot and wrapped around his leg, immediately pulling andtrying to put Marven off balance, but the cultivator’s foot stood firmly planted in the ground, white mist shining around the soles of his sandals.

A vertical slash landed on the demon’s torso, leaving a shallow but long gash over its body, and its reaction, or rather the lack of a response to any injury, freaked Marven out, but that was far from the most unusual characteristic an enemy of his had had.

It kept trying to compromise his footing, but he used the technique again, keeping his leg planted firmly in place, but to his surprise, the creature had expected him to do that, as it used the leverage to pull itself off the spikes and swing its body behind him.

It spun through the air, again landing gracefully and readying its weapons.

Marven clicked his tongue. This was his least favorite type of enemy, something that didn’t have any apparent weaknesses to exploit.

However, the damage was piling up. Marven rushed at it, swinging his blade from the right, but the demon bent its torso to avoid the strike and swung a dagger at his head. Marven’s weapon suddenly accelerated, passing inches from the demon’s body and releasing a flying strike.

The blue qi blade pushed deep into the demon’s torso, and Marven used the angular momentum to spin into another blow, this time aiming to cut his opponent’s head off, but just as the attack was about to connect, it raised its arms, putting the daggers between its neck and his strike in a futile effort to—

Against Marven’s expectations, the demon jumped, curling its legs, and as Marven’s attack landed, the knockback spun the creature around, and it moved the daggers to the other side. As it finished its acrobatic move, it slammed the back of Marven’s weapon, canceling the spin and sending his strike out of balance.

He immediately reacted by discarding his weapon and pulling back, but the demon swung the daggers at him, cutting the tip of his middle finger open and persisting, not letting him fetch another weapon as it ran at him, readying the blade in its left hand for a thrust at his face.

Marven sank under the incoming blow, grabbing the demon's arm. However, that proved to be a fatal mistake.

The demon’s tentacles extended, pulling its left arm around Marven’s with such force that it broke its own bones to tie him down, and then it kicked off the ground, moving its legs under and around his other arm, wrapping the tentacles around and pushing him off balance while it swung its right arm dagger at his torso, landing a reverse grip dagger strike he was powerless to defend against, and knocking the air out of his chest.

The blade couldn’t penetrate deep into his body, but it still managed to pierce his lung.

Instantly, Marven regained his composure. He used a qi technique to strike the ground with his right foot, and once it came flying up, he used another technique, kneeing the demon in the head.

The strike sent a shockwave through the cavern and caved its skull in, yet Marven knew better than to assume that that had ended the fight as he put his leg back down to prepare for another strike.

The demon bit Marven’s right arm and swung its body between his arms again, and once it passed back around, it used the momentum to twist Marven’s hand, keeping its teeth firmly planted in Marven’s flesh as it bent and twisted it out of shape.

Once its feet were facing away from Marven’s body, the demon shot a tentacle toward the ground, embedding it into the soil and pulling itself further down until its feet touched the ground again, when it kicked off, using one foot to block Marven’s incoming kick and accelerate further, bending its legs and pushing them out as it perfectly landed a double-legged kick right at Marven’s jaw.

The world went dark in Marven’s eyes. He barely maintained enough composure to, rather than free his hand, push his fingers further inside, gripping the other side of the demon’s throat and planting a firm grip on its skull.

He jumped, swinging the demon's body away before it could wrap its tentacles around him, and spun into a front flip, pulling his legs back. As the demon swung away and under him, Marven landed, planting his feet firmly on the ground and throwing his arm over his head.

His right arm lit up with red mist as he swung the demon’s body, firmly smashing it into the ground. The impact left a crater on the floor, shaking the entire cave and crashing a part of the ceiling.

The force of the impact had pushed a ton of air and black liquid out of the demon’s mouth, allowing Marven to free his mangled hand.

Just as he was about to swing his leg down and finish the demon off…

ҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾҾ

Marven groaned and gripped his bloody hand. A strange influence was trying to penetrate his body through the black liquid that now poisoned his blood, but his spirit wasn’t that easy to invade, and within a second, his arm was gushing out a morphing black mist, ejecting the foreign substance—but it was a second too late.

Before he could notice it, the demon had already gotten up. It pulled its hand back, stretching a tentacle to grab a large stone. Its other tentacles firmly gripped other parts of the wall and obsidian branches as it pulled back.

The massive boulder flew toward Marven, and he blocked it with his arms. It crashed against his body, crumbling to pieces without doing much damage.

"Shit!"

Panicked, he had overreacted to that attack, and now, the demon bent beneath Marven, swinging an arm straight at his stomach, and as the nasty black dagger approached, he knew he couldn’t avoid the strike.

Marven tightened his abs and pushed his arms down, hoping to disrupt the stab before it could do too much damage, hopefully avoiding disemboweling himself—

Thunk.

But before he could do anything, the demon disappeared.

He blinked and frantically looked around, only to spot the demon firmly embedded into the side of the cave, unmoving.

His son stood beside him, eyebrow raised. "How did you get your ass kicked by an average demon, old man?" Neave’s gaze was so pitying that, for a moment, Marven felt ashamed until—

"A—!?" Marven couldn’t believe it. That was an average corrupt demon! There was no damn way that was true!

The demon shifted in the wall, trying to crawl out.

Neave looked surprised, "Tough, aren’t ya!? Whelp, it's sleepy time."

In a fraction of a second, the pink-haired child appeared and swung a fist at the demon’s stomach. The impact caused a small flash of light purely from the force Neave could exert. The withering body was crushed into a fine paste, and deep cracks spread throughout the side of the cave.

The old cultivator subconsciously took a step back as his gaze flicked between the smear that remained of his fearsome opponent… and his son.

That had been a simple punch. There was nothing special about it. No technique, true strike, or spirit power. Not even life force had been used.

His shoulders slumped. If they were to be of any help to this… monster that stood before him… they would have to work very, very hard.

***

Neave pulled his arm out of the crash site, turned to his father, and frowned, "If you guys are going to be in trouble for every minor danger that appears, then I think I have to help you get sorted first." He turned and ran back toward the cave, "Follow me."

Once he had appeared back in the room, Neave looked around, "What are you guys doing?"

Gabrias appeared, peeking from inside a room, "Is–Is the thing dead!?"

Neave shot him a flat look and sighed. "Okay, everyone gather. It’s time for a meeting!"

Once they had all gathered, he observed them sitting around him.

His father sat to the side, gripping his wounds and breathing slowly. He was on the platinum path, so he could easily use life force to recover from his injuries; he just had to be careful not to spend too much, or he would have problems.

As someone on the platinum path, however, he had plenty, and Neave asked him why he was taking so long.

Marven found the question absurd, "I can’t just infuse the wound and force it to heal! It’s considerably more complicated than that!"

He couldn’t believe it. Getting up, he reached his father, and a small tendril of liquid spirit appeared, one that he pushed into the wound. His father winced as he felt the agency over his flesh be usurped.

Within seconds, the wound healed right back to normal. Soon enough, the mangled hand was whole, too.

"You…” the old cultivator gaped. “You can do that with life force alone!?"

Neave stared at him incredulously. He rubbed his forehead and went back to the center of the room.

Harel sat to the side, away from everyone, gripping her knees. Dukean and Hunter sat close to one another, although Hunter seemed to awkwardly reposition himself from moment to moment, looking for the right distance. Gabrias stood close to the room he had barely convinced himself to leave, eyeing the cave the demon was defeated in.

Neave took a deep breath and asked, "Alright, first, can you explain what you’ve been doing since I've been gone?"

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