My System Academy

A demonic figure harshly landed on the blackened ground and continued rolling for several hundreds of meters, colliding with small hills before hitting a hard section of a cliff.

The space from afar warped as a ray of light was shot out, heading toward the hanging demonic figure.

It suddenly raised its head and gathered a huge amount of dark essence upon its hand, swiping the attack to the left.

The ray headed to an inconspicuous mountain followed by a blinding flash of light and a huge explosion, obliterating the landscape to nothingness. Fortunately, most of the resulting shockwave traveled in the direction where the ray of light was headed.

Otherwise, the demonic figure wouldn't be able to dodge the successive attacks of magical spells thrown at it.

"Coward! Come out and fight, old man!", Mahiista cursed.

"Hahaha! Aren't you a demon? Weren't you supposed to be stronger and faster physically?", Elder Flock mocked, "Come and get me, your grandfather!"

"Impudent human!", Mahiista shouted while dodging a fast-approaching fireball, then blocked the strong gust of wind that pushed him farther, hundreds of meters away.

'I need to ignite more of my demonic essence! I don't care if I end up dying, there's no escaping this damn archmage!'

"Demonic Carnation: Asura's Empowerment!"

Demonic essence imploded from his body. Along with it were the demonic howls of ancient demonic creatures that crawled on his enlarging body. It looked like they were chanting some demonic sutras of unknown origins that quickly and heavily enhanced Mahiista's combat abilities to a higher level.

"This is your demise, archmage!", he grinned, 'With the empowerment, the explosive power brought by my demonic symbols inside my demonic core is multiplied a hundred times!'

If Eluard was here, he would notice that Mahiista's previous 734 demonic symbols now became 73,400, comparable to a graferhar which could battle archmages or radiant knights.

From a small karagero to a bigshot, one could imagine the effect of Asura's Empowerment on someone like him.

"That's more like it!", Elder Flock wasn't afraid and became ecstatic instead, 'A noble demonic carnation, huh?! And what's more, it's from the ancient bloodline of the legendary demon, Asura!'

His eyes narrowed while his aura slowly changed, 'If I remember correctly from the scribbled records that were retrieved from the ruins, Asura was a bloodthirsty demon who sought unfathomable strength and conquered the many dimensions that exist in this universe.'

'Just his entire presence crippled warriors alike, and all mystical powers were nothing to him.'

'To think I'd meet a descendant from that demon's bloodline. This one's going to be exciting!'

Mahiista noticed that the old man was deep in thought. Thus, he shouted and interrupted him, "Old fool, you'd think I'm still someone you could toy around?! Do you still dare underestimate my power?!"

Elder Flock's eyes widened in joy, "Definitely not! But I know you won't win this regardless!"

The old man was confident of his skills, "Allow me to present to you what a true archmage is!"

His archmage aura was fully unleashed, releasing a huge wave of pressure that restricted Mahiista's movements and froze the wind.

"Magical Metamorphosis!"

Elder Flock underwent a transformation.

Divine gold-colored fire erupted from his body, engulfing it and changing into a floating humanoid-shaped fire surrounded by glowing golden lights transfixed on the edges of the raging flames.

Mahiista snorted and dashed, thrusting the enlarged devil fork, enhanced by demonic essence, straight out of Elder Flock's chest.

Elder Flock smiled under the raging flames and let his body explode outwards, dodging Mahiista's strike.

'Escape? You'd think it's easy to escape my grasp?!'

Mahiista passed through the gap and his figure blurred in place, slashing or thrusting in all directions a thousand times in a second. It reached out to the surroundings, tearing the earth and air apart.

The demonic essence also tried to tear the divined fire elements but he could only do so much until Elder Flock shouted.

"Divine Roaring Fire Dragon!"

Mahiista's eyes widened, 'Impossible, that didn't inflict damage on him?!'

He turned his head around and saw multiple fire streams burst out of the old man's body that headed toward him.

The devil fork on his hand trembled as demonic essence flowed.

"Demonic Embrace!"

The demonic essence on his devil fork was released. A huge umbrella-shaped blanket covered him against the fast-approaching fire streams. Not long after, he felt that something collided with his shield.

"Heh!"

Much to his short-lived arrogance, he noticed that the exerted force of the impact fell out of place.

'Wait!'

Mahiista's eyes darted upwards and saw multiple fire streams falling from above which soon covered the entire sky.

'Shit! He retracted his magic spell and re-directed its path around the shield?!'

From a distance, it would look like a flood of fire devouring Mahiista's demonic shield. He then heard sounds echoing from the fire streams.

"What's the matter, demon?!"

"Tch! Demonic Slicer!"

Multiple sharp and thin slicers formed around him and shot them out, targeting the fire streams. It sliced through and cut them in half. Some were extinguished due to the inhibiting aura exuded by the demonic essence.

Just as he was about to celebrate, the branching fire streams seemed to have a mind of their own and continued on their trajectory that was him.

"Useless! How about doing something that will boil this old man's blood?!"

Triggered, Mahiista gritted his bloodied teeth and chanted, "Asura's Foul Karmic Strike!"

Huge scarlet arrows burst out of his body, leaving a trail of scarlet fog behind. The arrows emitted an ominous feeling but it didn't hinder Elder Flock's advance.

"Good gracious! Something of a challenge!"

"Divine Dancing Firebirds!"

Screeches of firebirds rung on Mahiista's ears. Five of them extended out of Elder Flock's elemental body and dove straight at the arrows with extreme ferocity.

They left a trail of divined gold-like fire that scattered around, countering the scarlet fog that tried to take control of everything.

At the last moment, they screeched again before exploding which pushed the scarlet fog back. The two different forces fought but the scarlet fog couldn't last for long as Elder Flock drowned it with both the screeches and explosions of his firebirds.

Hundreds of meters of the area of land were devastated. Worse, the lingering heat of the firebirds permeated, creating a strong fluctuation of winds in the atmosphere.

"What in the actual… Fuck it, that was just his primary spells and not the big ones!"

Mahiista had long moved from that dangerous battlefield. Both his hands were scorching hot, left by the scalding effects of the screeching birds.

'Even at this level, I am beaten down! No wonder Der Henderral nor that crow demon didn't mess around directly! Their power is stronger than what we, naïve ones have thought!'

The resoluteness in his eyes intensified, 'But that doesn't matter if I lose! Allustro told me something new about demonic reincarnation. I have no choice but to hand it to that thought now.'

He grabbed his large pitchfork and taunted the old man, "Come 'ere you damn old bastard! Can you not take good care of a demonic shit like me?! Haha!"

The pitchfork was pointed at Elder Flock before trembling in place and conjuring a small dark sphere that warped the space around it.

'Deathly Demonic Beam!'

Mahiista shot it out straight at his enemy. It didn't matter whether they dodged it or not. He wanted to experience as much as possible before he'd die. There was no way a lowly demon like him could last long, especially against a true expert.

Elder Flock did as he predicted and the two exchanged attacks with one another, moving from one battleground to somewhere kilometers away.

Even a group of magical beasts that were far away who were heading to Arsolo Stronghold trembled in fear at the remnants of their unending clashes.

"This is...?"

A heavily-feather flying beast gasped before its eyes widened at the presence of the divine and demonic essence traveling outwards.

"The bigshots are fighting over there. Move further away and regroup later!", the beast alerted.

It turned its head in the direction of that world-shaking fight and thought, 'Is the culprit finally being confronted? I hope the Lord is doing well.'

The beast flapped its wings and vanished from its previous location.

Meanwhile, Elder Flock noticed the sudden change in Mahiista's behavior. His mockery intensified and was bent on agitating him to kill it.

'This demon is planning something. I don't know what it is but keeping this fight won't end up too good.'

"Hmph! Making a fool of me, demon?!", he extended his right hand and pointed at the ground where Mahiista was about to land.

'The old man caught up!', The demon couldn't redirect his trajectory on time and was stuck in the air.

There were huge invisible chains that bound everything on his body. With the additional presence of divinity coursing through the chains, he was unable to gather the demonic essence within him.

"Heh, a restriction spell?! Old man, you truly want to give me to those people, huh?!", Mahiista remained unyielding.

His grin almost hid the fact that he was about to self-destruct. Unfortunately, Elder Flock saw through it all and snorted.

Mahiista suddenly felt his mind lightening up, 'Th… is… no…', and soon lost consciousness.

"What a fool of you to think that I can't see through your head, demon."

Elder Flock landed in front of the knocked-out Mahiista and slowly extinguished his transformation. This warm-up was nothing to him but due to the strange feeling earlier, he had no choice but to prematurely end their short confrontation.

He waved his hands and undid the restriction on the demon. He kicked Mahiista's head and vented his frustration.

"We'll get to know more of your plans soon, Otherworld. Tsk, these demonic creatures are sly enough to remain unnoticed until they have wreaked havoc."

"I wonder what happened with those dragons. I hope they didn't mess things up and accidentally killed that demonic summon."

He raised his head and felt the space vibrate.

As time passed, a huge tear in the sky appeared and the dense aura of demonic essence permeating the entire northern glacial continent seemed to have lightened up and was diffusing quickly.

"The spatial anomalies that they have set up are loosening. That escaping demonic essence will definitely alert the various factions and will investigate what happened here."

While talking on his own, several thin golden needles struck the vital points of Mahiista and completely halted the flowing of demonic essence around his body.

"I don't know if the Heavenly Magic Academy wants their presence to be known this time. I'll presumably think first that they want to remain hidden. For now."

He grabbed Mahiista's body and made his way back to Arsolo Stronghold, 'I'll warp the memories of the lowly warriors and keep those of the Elders and High King Garron intact.'

The air boomed as his speed went supersonic. A flash of glint appeared in his weary eyes.

'Just like what happened at the ruins.'