DEMON SUMMONER: DESCENDANT OF THE CELESTIAL SOVEREIGN

Chapter 5: Dance of Death

Drops of volcanic ash rain once again struck the ruined toll road asphalt. A cold wind blew fiercely, carrying the metallic scent of blood and spilled guts. The suffocating silence was instantly shattered by the delayed roars of hundreds of demons.

Time began to tick again.

The terrifying gravitational pressure that previously forced the Hellhound and Kuro-Oni to submit vanished without a trace. The Hellhound shook its massive head, looking confused. Liquid magma dripped from the giant dog's jaw, burning the human bones beneath its paws. Kuro-Oni quickly stood back up. He gripped his serrated katana tightly, scanning the area to find the source of the pressure that just forced him to kneel.

However, no entity had descended from the sky. No god stood on the street. In the middle of the cracked little crater, there was only Eka's body lying face down, covered in blood.

Suddenly, a low chuckle was heard.

"HAHAHAHA. FINALLY. I CAN FEEL THIS SENSATION AGAIN."

The voice came from the body of the half-dead young man. Initially, it sounded like someone choking on a pool of blood in his throat. Eka's body trembled slightly. The laugh gradually grew louder. Its tone shifted into something incredibly deep, heavy, and echoing across the entire rotting toll road. The voice clearly did not belong to Eka. It was an arrogant laugh that looked down on all forms of life in the mortal realm.

The sickening sound of bones cracking rang out. Eka's body was forced to rise slowly. The leg and arm muscles previously torn by the C-Rank Demon's scythe were now forcibly fused together by flows of thick red pure Qi. The blood vessels all over Eka's neck bulged like worms. His skin tore in several places, spraying a thin mist of blood because the E-Rank Hunter's body could not contain the density of the energy possessing him.

Eka lifted his face. There was no white left in his eyes. Those eyes were now pitch black like a bottomless abyss. A terrifying killing aura seeped out of his pores, freezing the puddles of blood around his boots.

Sabeni, now taking full control over Eka's body, reached out his right hand. His fingers gripped the hilt of the God-Slaying Sword embedded in the asphalt.

The moment the sword was drawn, a wave of red wind swept the dust away in a twenty-meter radius. The sheer weight of the sword made Eka's shoulder bones creak loudly, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. Sabeni did not care at all about the damage to his mortal vessel. The man grinned widely.

"Insolent brat. How dare you give an order to the strongest human." Sabeni spoke to the empty air, complaining about Eka's final words in his subconscious. His tone was cold and filled with the annoyance of a king taking orders from a slave.

At the front line of the enemy forces, the C-Rank Demons stepped back instinctively. Their survival instincts screamed warning signs.

A B-Rank Demon stepped forward, parting the ranks of its subordinates. Its form resembled a giant gorilla covered in magma rocks. Intense heat radiated from the creature's body, turning the rainwater around it into boiling steam. The demon snorted angrily. Its pride as an elemental master felt insulted seeing an E-Rank prey act so arrogant just because he held a weird sword.

"Don't expect us to be scared by your bluff, you E-Rank mortal trash." The B-Rank Demon pointed its fiery claw at Eka's face. Its voice was hoarse and heavy. "You only managed to kill one C-Rank Demon out of pure luck."

Sabeni stopped laughing. His left hand slowly lowered from his blood-soaked face. Those pitch-black eyes stared straight at the magma gorilla. The temperature in the area suddenly plummeted, freezing the hot steam escaping the demon's body.

"Did you just call me trash?"

Eka's lips curled upwards, forming a horrifyingly sinister smile.

"Alright, you damn brat. I will grant your request."

Sabeni took one step forward. The thick asphalt beneath his boots crumbled into fine dust. Eka's body shot through space, completely ignoring the laws of physics. The B-Rank Demon widened its eyes. The creature didn't even have time to take a breath, let alone raise its fiery claw to block.

Sabeni swung the God-Slaying Sword from the bottom up in one casual motion.

The red blade sliced through empty air. A blood-red wind slash shot fifteen meters forward with an ear-piercing shriek.

The B-Rank Demon's body was split into two perfect halves, from its groin all the way to the top of its head. The severed halves fell to the left and right, spilling foul-smelling internal organs and liquid magma onto the street.

It didn't stop there. The red wind slash continued flying backward. The wind decapitated ten C-Rank Demons standing tightly packed behind the gorilla. A dozen demon heads rolled onto the asphalt almost simultaneously, spraying black blood that created a localized rain shower.

"How is it? Can the human trash in this mortal world kill like me?" Sabeni stared at the pile of corpses in front of him with a bored look. He twisted his wrist to flick the blood off the sword's blade.

From the eleven demon corpses just killed, black crystals the size of marbles shot out. These pure Spirit Rune crystals flew rapidly and were sucked straight into Eka's chest.

As soon as the pure crystals entered, Eka vomited a massive amount of black blood. Sabeni clicked his tongue in annoyance. The internal energy channels in the young man's body were forced open beyond their limits. It felt like boiling liquid iron was injected directly into his nerves. Eka's skin turned red, blistering in some parts because it could not withstand the high-level Qi absorbed by the sword. Eka's heart beat at a terrifying speed. If Sabeni hadn't used his authority to protect the foundation of his vessel's internal organs, Eka's body would have exploded into pieces right then and there.

Across the street, the remaining demons on the toll road froze. The event they just witnessed was pure terror they would never forget.

Their pride as apex predators shattered to pieces in one second. A B-Rank Demon, a creature that mastered the elements and had skin as thick as steel, died cleaved in half without even being able to react to the enemy's attack. Pure panic took over their remaining killer instincts.

"Monster," one C-Rank Demon whispered, trembling as its feet stepped backward.

"Demon. This human is the real demon. Run. Save yourselves."

The formation broke. Hundreds of C-Rank Demons turned around, trampling and pushing each other in blind panic. The remaining nine B-Rank Demons threw away their pride. They ran, shoving their subordinates aside, desperately trying to get away from the young man with pitch-black eyes.

Sabeni laughed out loud. The laugh was filled with the arrogance of a god of death descending upon a children's playground. A thick, suffocating killing aura exploded from the God-Slaying Sword, spreading like a tidal wave. The air on the toll road turned into a wall of heavy gravity, slowing down the movements of all the fleeing demons.

"Do not expect to escape from me. Tonight, only two of you will survive."

Sabeni raised his sword high with one hand. The red sky above Jakarta reacted. The volcanic ash clouds were sucked away, replaced by an artificial night darkness that descended to cover the battlefield.

"Night Sovereign Sword Technique."

Sabeni swung his sword horizontally.

Darkness descended, blanketing a hundred-meter radius of the toll road and swallowing all the running demons. The demons' vision went completely blind. There were no roars. There were no sounds of clashing weapons or footsteps. Inside that darkness, there was only an incredibly high-pitched ringing sound. It was followed by the wet sound of flesh being sliced by thousands of giant scalpels simultaneously.

Blood-red energy blades danced inside the darkness. The energy severed bone joints, sliced neck muscles, and pierced the skulls of hundreds of demons mercilessly. The dance was incredibly elegant yet harbored absolute brutality.

One breath passed. Blood rained down on the asphalt like a monsoon storm.

On the second breath, Sabeni lowered his sword. The artificial darkness shattered instantly like a mirror struck by a hammer.

The morning sunlight finally managed to pierce the thick clouds. It illuminated the Gatot Subroto Toll Road, which had now truly turned into a lake of blood. The sight before Sabeni was horrifying. Hundreds of C-Rank Demons were chopped into millions of fist-sized pieces of meat. They were scattered across the asphalt, burnt cars, and concrete pillars.

Nine B-Rank Demons lay lined up in a fleeing position, yet none of them had their heads attached. Their elemental bodies were torn apart, pouring boiling blood into the toll road's gutters.

Hundreds of black Spirit Rune crystals floated up from the piles of minced meat. The crystals were forcefully sucked into Eka's body like a whirlpool.

Eka's body convulsed momentarily, enduring the agonizing pain of swollen internal organs. Fresh blood dripped endlessly from the young man's nose and ears. His Qi channels were forcefully widened to digest the pure energy of hundreds of lives. Sabeni snorted softly, holding back fatal damage so his vessel wouldn't disintegrate under the weight of his own victory.

At the end of the blood-soaked road, only two entities remained alive.

Kuro-Oni was kneeling on one leg. His left arm was severed by the energy slashes of the Night Sovereign technique, leaving only a protruding bone. His ancient samurai armor was completely shattered, revealing red skin covered in deep cuts. Beside him, the Hellhound lay sprawled in a pool of its own blood, gasping for air. Deep lacerations crisscrossed the giant dog's back, exposing its spine. Even the pure Qi of these two A-Rank Demons could not protect them when the dance of death occurred.

Footsteps slowly approached. Puddles of black blood splashed every time Eka's boots stepped on the asphalt.

The morning sunlight illuminated Eka's blood-soaked face. Those pitch-black eyes looked down coldly, degrading the existence of the creatures before him. The glowing red tip of the God-Slaying Sword pointed directly at Kuro-Oni's forehead, who was currently trembling in pain.

"Little demon. Do you choose to die beneath my feet, or forge a blood contract with the owner of this body?"