Chapter 598: Grand Duke Vs Demon Emperor

The gap between them closed with deliberate inevitability.

Asmodeus cracked his neck, feeling the tension jolt down his spine. His grip on his axe tightened until the steel creaked in protest. Across the rubble-strewn ground, Darius lowered his greatsword into guard, the obsidian blade trailing a faint smear of darkness along the air.

The first swing came without warning.

A sideways arc of black steel ripped towards him, and Asmodeus met it head-on. Blood Reaver’s edge screamed as it caught the blow, the force jolting through his arms. The clash threw a spray of sparks and a spatter of his own blood as the axe’s hungry edge bit into his palm, pulsing with power.

“Not bad, Human.”

“….Heh, you too, Demon!” Grand Duke Darius snorted back.

They pushed, slashed, and tested, each gauging the other’s weight. Darius broke the bind with a twist, stepping in with a vertical cut. Asmodeus shifted, the greatsword hissing past his shoulder and burying into the stone, carving a groove as deep as a man’s arm.

Neither of them had a human’s strength.

Both attained a much higher level.

Asmodeus retaliated with a brutal backhand swing. Blood Reavers’s crimson blade smashed against Darius’s armour, sending a shockwave of force through the wall beside them. Bang! Chunks of stone rained down into the street below, sending the invading humans falling into the vicious sea.

“Tsk…. still alive?”

Darius held himself up using his black greatsword, eyes focused on Asmodeus. “Tch, you’re like a beast!”

“True enough,” Asmodeus shot back, driving forward.

“En Guard!”

They moved faster. The following exchange was a flurry, axe and sword meeting in a squall of blows and sparks. Each block came with a thunderclap, each strike carrying enough weight to make the cobblestones groan beneath their boots.

On the third clash, Asmodeus hooked the axe’s blade over the greatsword and yanked. Darius stepped into his attack, his free hand slamming into Asmodeus’s chest like a battering ram. The impact drove him back two paces, the wall behind him cracking.

A dull throb spread through his chest.

However, he used the momentum to gain some distance, swinging Blood Reaver overhead in a vicious cyclone. The Duke caught it on his blade, but the force drove his boots into the stone, leaving deep impressions as Asmodeus smashed his forehead against the Duke’s nose with a low crunch.

“Argh!?”

“Hmph!”

Blood poured from the broken nose of the human, but he fought on.

The strain was starting to build after seven long clashes, the ground shattered, and their breaths came faster, deeper, almost panting with each heavy swing. Not that their power dropped, if anything, it grew… each clash they used more and more of their hidden power as if to test the enemy.

A downward chop from Darius split a building clean in two, the halves toppling into the street. Asmodeus answered with a rising strike that tore through the air and clipped the edge of a distant boat, creating a massive gash in the mast.

Around them, the battle raged on…. demon knights against the holy knights and soldiers clashing in the streets and atop the walls, but the place they fought was empty because no one dared to draw near.

Because every blow now shook the earth.

Every block sent cracks spidering through the wall around them.

And both men knew they were only getting started.

***

Clang!

“Just surrender, you monster!” The Duke became more violent and reckless, his greatsword a black arc that attempted to cleave Asmodeus in two.

Asmodeus answered with a distorted grin, the battle too exciting. He caught each strike with his body or Blood Reaver, the clash snapping the air like a thunderstrike. His boots slid back over the shattered ground, and the wardline flickered from the force of the shockwave.

Thier words became fewer.

Now only shouting insults and throwing killing intent.

The Duke’s next strike carried a black aura coming from above, followed by the sudden twist of his hips, whipping the sword low in an attempt to take his legs. Asmodeus leapt back, wings flapping as he left the ground, but the cut still tore through the ground and part of the wall at his feet as the black sword beam split stone clean in half.

He’s starting to recover his Divine Aura…

How…..

…….Wonderful!

“Huh!?”

The Duke’s eyes widened the moment his strike missed, gazing up at Asmodeus. He held Blood Reaver in both hands with a blood red aura fluctuating around him.

Asmodeus answered in kind.

A two-handed swing came from his left, the axe’s crimson edge glowing faintly as it cleaved a building and part of the defensive wall away.

The chunk fell, crashing into a knot of enemy soldiers below.

Darius’s eyes narrowed. He stepped in and met the next blow directly, their weapons locking. Muscles swelled, armour groaned, and then the bindings broke in an explosive shove that flung both of them apart.

Their bodies clashed, landed, charged and met again.

The sound of steel on steel, aura against aura louder than the cannon fire below.

Asmodeus’s downward chop split the flagstones under the Duke’s boots, sending jagged shards spraying outward. Darius’s riposte drove the greatsword’s tip into the wall behind Asmodeus, the blade sinking deep enough to jut out over the city’s edge.

A roar built in Asmodeus’s chest. He stepped into the Duke’s guard and slammed a shoulder into him, driving him sideways through a section of battlement. The wall gave with a deafening crack, stones tumbling to the docks far below.

The Duke simply rolled with it, twisting into another slash that skimmed across Asmodeus’s chestplate, leaving a deep groove in the armour.

They were fighting at nearly full power, each blow backed by raw fury and pure power. The cobblestones beneath them crushed into a fine powder and dirt, fissures snaking across the surface.

“Haaa….damn….this……monster…”

Sweat poured from Darius’s head.

He fell to one knee, barely using the greatsword to remain focused.

Blood Reaver dragged against the broken earth, vibrating, pulsing as a blood aura swirled around the blade, swallowing all the blood that came from surrounding soldiers, knights and the two men fighting. He suddenly broke out into a dash, his steps faster and faster, the blade of his axe sparking flames as he wrenched it at Darius with all his strength.

“Die.”

The blow forced Draius’s blade wide.

He stepped in for the killing strike, but the Duke slammed a gauntleted fist into his ribs…. a burst of black aura jolting through his abdomen into his heart. The impact rang through him like a drum, staggering him a step.

Neither man gave ground willingly.

Each swing left marks in the wall, with chunks missing from the battlement, shattered stone cascading to the streets. Soldiers and demons alike kept their distance, fighting in the shadows of the duel but never daring to interrupt.

One mistake and either could end the other.

One perfect strike and the whole wall might come down.

“Demon!”

The next exchange was nothing short of brutal.

Blood Reaver came down in a sweeping arc, the crimson blade singing as it carved through the air. Darius met it, and sparks exploded between them. The force blasted a ring of dust outward, sending nearby archers tumbling.

They broke apart for half a heartbeat.

Then both surged forward.

The greatsword struck low, cleaving a trench through the stone floor. Blood Reaver answered high, smashing into a tower’s corner. The masonry groaned, cracked, and fell away, chunks of wall slamming into the dockside below with bone-crushing force.

Every blow now landed with enough strength to rattle the city’s bones.

Asmodeus’s muscles screamed with each swing, the Grand Duke’s divine blessing still heavy in every strike despite his exhaustion. Darius’s eyes burned with cold fury, his lips curling in something between a snarl and a smile.

They locked weapons again, and this time neither pulled away. The grind of steel on steel was deafening, their faces inches apart, breaths hot and ragged.

“You can’t protect them,” Darius growled. “Not from me.”

Asmodeus’s grip tightened. “You’ll die trying!”

With a roar, he shoved the Duke back. The sudden release sent the greatsword wide, and Bloodfeast came up for a killing blow—

—only for a shadow spear the size of a ballista bolt to erupt from the ground between them.

I missed one?!

Asmodeus’s mind screamed as the lance shot into the sky, whirling through the air with black light trailing like a spoke… as it rushed towards the inner wall. The force threw both men aside, plunging through broken stone.

“VELVET!”

Asmodeus rolled to a knee, coughing dust from his lungs, eyes locking on the Duke through the haze. Darius rose slowly, the shadows already curling tighter around him, reforming into more spears that hovered in the air.

The divine pressure pressed down on the wall, suffocating.

More of the battlement groaned and shifted beneath them. Cracks spidered out from where the shadow spear had hit, running under their boots. The section they stood on tilted, stone dust raining into the sea below.

Darius, wounded and bleeding, showed a twisted smile.

“You lost, demon.”

Explosions spread through the city as the spears detonated. Dozens, maybe hundreds of demon knights and adventurers vaporised into dust.

Struggling to his feet…

Asmodeus held a palm to his face, his eyes crazed and expression like a twisted aberration.

“What have you done…….

…….I will kill you!”