CHAPTER 77: THE THRESHOLD OF TERROR

The flame demon did not wait for an invitation.

The moment the barrier around its circle dissolved, the entity surged across the stone floor like a localized eruption. It had watched the Arachne fall to Caius's new mechanics, and its primal pride demanded retribution.

Despite its wild appearance, the demon possessed an unyielding, instinctual genius for combat. It did not rely on rigid forms or memorized sequences; it fought with an erratic, predatory tempo that made predicting its strikes through ordinary means nearly impossible.

It lunged, driving a rapid flurry of molten claws toward Caius's upper body.

Caius stood his ground, letting Stage 2 of his technique take the brunt of the assault. The two tethered shadow arms hovering behind his shoulders moved automatically, their black blades intercepting, parrying, and binding the demon's fiery strikes with precise, rhythmic clangs. Nightdancer remained lowered in Caius's physical grip, ready to exploit any opening.

The match locked into a brutal, even exchange. Every time the demon attempted to flank Caius or strike at his blind spots, the autonomous shadow arms swept in, neutralizing the threat.

Frustration boiled over. The demon's flaming body turned a violent, incandescent white as its rage peaked. It roared in fury, realization dawning that its wild physical strikes could not penetrate the human's extra limbs.

Caius's Far Sight locked onto the entity instantly.

Within the creature's internal structure, a terrifying surge of energy began to build, cascading directly from its crown core into its primary core. The heat radiating off its body doubled, then tripled, vibrating the very air within the Crown Core.

The demon planted its feet and unleashed a localized sea of primal flame.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

A wall of white-hot fire erupted outward in a three-hundred-sixty-degree radius, consuming the courtyard and sweeping over Caius before he could step away. Stone cracked under the extreme thermal pressure, and the air vaporized into scorched light.

Caius reacted at the final fraction of a second. Channeling his Black Core, he condensed a dense dome of pitch-black energy around his frame. The sea of flame slammed against the barrier with roaring violence, singeing the edges of his clothes and burning through the outer layer of his shield before the inferno finally dissipated.

Caius lowered the flickering black dome, smoke rising from his shoulders.

He looked at the demon, his eyes cold and unbothered.

"You want to fight that way?" Caius murmured quietly. "Fine."

Caius centered his weight and let his Black Core unlock completely.

The pitch-black sphere in his lower abdomen spun at extreme velocity, radiating a wave of heavy, absolute darkness that expanded across the courtyard floor. The light in the domain vanished, replaced by an ink-black tide of residual necrotic energy.

The Black Sea.

The tide swallowed the lower half of the demon's body instantly. The entity let out a horrific, garbled screech as the necrotic rot surged through its fiery legs, creeping up its skeletal torso toward its neck. The residual energy reacted violently with the demon's internal heat, decaying its elemental structure and consuming its fire from the inside out.

The demon thrashing stopped. It collapsed to its knees in the middle of the black tide, half-submerged, its body trembling uncontrollably as the dark rot neared its throat.

Caius walked forward, his footsteps silent across the black surface. He stopped directly in front of the kneeling entity and looked down into its flickering eyes.

"Do you want to die?" Caius asked casually.

The demon froze. For the first time since its essence had been bound to the stone spiral, the creature felt genuine, absolute terror. Looking up at the fourteen-year-old human, it did not see a ward or a boy; it saw something far more terrifying than a demon lord.

With a quiet breath, Caius deactivated the technique. The black tide dissolved into wisps of dark mana and vanished, leaving the courtyard silent once more.

Without a word, Caius turned his back on the entity and walked casually toward the temple steps, taking his seat against the stone pillar.

The flame demon dragged itself up from the floor, thoroughly subdued, and slowly retreated back to its circle without making a sound. Across the courtyard, the Arachne princess sat in absolute silence, her multi-faceted eyes wide. She did not mock the demon, nor did she laugh. She simply stared at the boy on the steps, consumed by the exact same fear.