Chương 17: Chapter 16: The Strongest Ancestral Demon and the Strongest Human

The group of demons arrived on the battlefield, and with their arrival, the human side brought their forces forward as well. With them, the old man from before came again to face off against the group of demons. However, this battle looked far more favorable towards the demons, with that level 3, 421 ancestral demon joining the battle. To my surprise, the humans also had a secret high-leveled human, too. This man appeared at the front lines just as the demons got very close.

The strong man wore a body full of armor and carried a massive, two-handed sword strapped to his back. His face was covered in deep battle scars, he had long white hair, and he was a tall, muscular, elderly man. At level 3, 124, this strong old man was by far the strongest human I have ever seen, far outclassing the previous old man. As the demons were closing in, the strongest level 3, 421 demon stopped and started speaking after seeing a familiar face.

Looking closely at the elderly strong man, he sneered, "It's you again. I don't know how you constantly manage to live so long and get in my way every time, but this time, I'll kill you and take this land for myself. We have been at it for far too long, and it's time to end it. Do you hear me, Randel?" The strong, elderly man named Randel rested his hand on his sword and replied, "I'll say the same to you, Phelian. You have lived far too long, even for a demon, and it's time to end that life of yours.

This time will be the decisive battle." Hearing the threat, the demon Phelian led his army to charge at the humans, signaling the start of the war once again. The humans immediately did the same, drawing their weapons and charged forward into the fray. I was still watching the chaos from the side and realized this was, by far, the largest battle I had ever seen since arriving in this world. I had never encountered either of these extremely high-leveled beings before.

They had been hiding so deeply that even throughout these past thousand years, I hadn't caught a single glimpse of them. These two were so highly leveled that I could tell if I were to face both of them at once, I would either lose outright or not fare very well. I continued to watch the battle unfold as the two massive sides finally clashed. As the chaotic battle began, Randel and Phelian closed the distance between each other, deciding to fight their own duel while their armies clashed around them.

They both shifted into their combat stances. In the next moment, they flashed toward each other, moving so blindingly fast it was almost like they had teleported. The demon Phelian started the exchange with high-level magic, conjuring and shooting large, dark spears made of pure magic directly toward Randel. Randel didn't flinch. He managed to cleanly cut through the dense spears of mana, closed the gap, and swung his heavy sword.

The blade was completely covered in a glowing sword aura unique to high-level melee fighters. To counter the strike, Phelian instantly created a dense wall of magical energy. Randel's sword slammed into it, resulting in the magic shield cracking loudly under the pressure, though it barely managed to remain stable. Phelian quickly repaired the cracks in his shield.

Seeing that his attack was starting to lose its effect, Randel rapidly unleashed a barrage of sword strikes, aiming at a single spot to break through the barrier. After a massive effort, Randel's sword finally shattered the shield, though the intense process was visibly starting to tire him out. Noticeable exhaustion crept over the elderly warrior, and Phelian immediately took advantage of it. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The demon cast a mass-freeze spell, instantly trapping Randel's legs in place. Phelian then summoned a massive ball of dark magic the size of a mountain, hurling it directly at the trapped human before quickly backing away to avoid the impending blast radius. Unable to move, Randel had a split second to make a decision. With no time to dodge, he couldn't afford to conserve his energy anymore. He channeled a massive amount of power into his blade and swung his sword the moment the ball of darkness reached him.

The sword collided violently with the dark sphere. After a tense moment, Randel managed to slice the mountain-sized ball cleanly in two. Both halves flew past him into the distance, detonating in a pair of massive explosions. Panting, Randel shattered the remaining ice trapping his legs and spun around, only to see that Phelian had already launched a follow-up attack. This time, the demon unleashed a dense swarm of small, rock-sized balls of darkness.

Because there were so many of them, it was impossible for Randel to deflect them all. While each individual projectile only did minor damage, the sheer volume slowly wore him down and completely shattered Randel's armor. Capitalizing on Randel's growing exhaustion and injuries, Phelian conjured another wave of dark spears, drastically increasing their speed. Randel, barely recovering from the previous barrage, looked up to see the incoming projectiles.

They flew far faster than before; he managed to deflect the brunt of the assault, but several spears still grazed him. Annoyed that the fight was still dragging on, Phelian decided to pour significantly more energy into his spells. He summoned several mountain-sized balls of magic at once, each imbued with a different attribute: ice, fire, darkness, and earth. Though this heavily drained Phelian's own magic reserves, he felt it was a necessary sacrifice to finally put an end to the fight.

With a ruthless glare, he shot them all forward at the weakened human. The elderly man, Randel, was starting to run dry on energy, but he channeled whatever he could muster into his sword and tried to cut through the massive balls of magic once again. After intense exertion, he managed to slice through all of them, but the cuts weren't clean; they all detonated, hitting Randel with their weakened residual force. This left Randel covered in ice, severely burned, heavily bleeding, and collapsed on his knees.

Seeing that the fight was finally coming to a conclusion, Phelian began channeling more magic to finish off the old man for good. Suddenly, a beam of light shot directly toward the demon. Because he was so preoccupied with Randel, it caught him completely off guard. Barely managing to turn away in time, the beam struck one of Phelian's arms, obliterating it into nothingness. Phelian angrily turned his attention toward the origin of the beam, furious that a surprise attack had just cost him an arm.

He quickly spotted an old man holding a strange staff, realizing the elder was the one who had unleashed such a destructive spell with full intent to kill. Phelian then saw that the two ancestral demons he had brought were also dead, likely having fought with the old man up until the moment he shot the beam. The two ancestral demons Phelian brought weren't weak.

Though Phelian didn't bring the full force of the Demonic Continent, as he couldn't leave the continent empty, the two demons he brought were still among some of the strongest—each being level 2, 867 and level 2, 913. This should have been enough to deal with the rest of the human army while he dealt with Randel. Yet, the man who shot the beam managed to kill both of them, which was strange to Phelian, especially since the human even had enough energy left to unleash one more attack.

Due to this final attack, the man who shot the beam crumpled to the ground dying, turning into a beam of light and disappearing. Phelian guessed the man had used his life energy to output more power than he should have into the powerful magic staff. This must have directly killed the man from over-exhaustion. Randel, who had seen the human side lose another powerful being, felt some regret. He was too weak to deal with Phelian himself, and it had cost the human race another fighter.

Getting up in his battered state, Randel wanted to take advantage of the sneak attack from before and kill Phelian. The two began to clash again, but this time, the fight was far more even than before since both were heavily injured. As the battle dragged on, both of them were finally exhausted to the point that they couldn't continue their assault.

Seeing the fight stretch out without a definite conclusion, both Randel and Phelian knew today wasn't the day to settle things, as it could mean the death of either side. It was not worth the risk to continue; if either one of them were to fall, it would give the opposing faction a massive advantage later on. The two looked at each other, seemingly sharing the same thought, and then turned to retreat.

I, who was still watching from the side, realized the situation and decided now was the best time to intervene since both sides were completely exhausted. I then brought the girls with me to intercept them.