1939 Chapter 1939. Separating the Clone from the Devil
At Sangrod Front, Grace and the others also fought Belphegor for almost two days. Like Asmodeus, Belphegor didn't have as high an IIP bar as Leviathan. Unlike Asmodeus, he could not cast recovery spells. What he had was his clones, which healed him a great deal of IIP when he consumed them.
Ile just consumed another clone. Ile had only one clone left. Even so, he was not nervous.
While he fought the four outworlders, his army continued battling the defenders. The defenders spared many troops to form a wall to block his demons from coming to his aid. A useless move, in his opinion. None of his demons would come to his aid unless he called them over. He never thought of the need to call them over, even when these outworlders forced him to consume his clones to the last one.
Due to the Sangrod army's maneuver, the defense on the walls was greatly weakened. After more than one day under the situation, many parts of the walls had fallen. The Montu Spider was there defending the walls with its faction members. It used sticky webs to seal the broken walls. Yet, it couldn't be everywhere. As more parts of the walls were destroyed, the demons charged through. Following the breach, many siege weapons were destroyed. With only the independent natives, outworlders, the Council of Hybris' members, and the nagas, they couldn't fully defend the walls.
Arlcard had told the supply teams to prepare, so those teams retreated before the demons breached the walls. They continued to push the defenders until near the hidden traps area. They then turned around and focused on the Sangrod army behind them.
"The four of you are good, Belphegor praised. "I still can't kill even one of you after fighting for so long, and you keep on forcing me to consume my clones. However, from the look of it, your army won't last long. Let's see if you can force me to consume this last clone before your army crumbles?"
The four could last this long mainly due to Grace's healing capability. She had two passive healing abilities. One was from her legendary-grade armor. The other was the healing orb she gained from suffering damage. The Healing Domain from her pinnacle class was also very potent. Aside from that, she possessed multiple non-standard healing spells.
Another factor was the four were getting better at fighting together, particularly Grace and Red Death, Grace served as the main tank and engaged Belphegor directly. Nameless served as a supporting tank to limit. Belphegor's movement. The devil was too fast in his bodybuilder form. Hence, they needed two tanks to keep him in check.
Red Death adjusted to their movements and sneak attacked when there was an opportunity, She shone the most during nighttime. With her Death Shadow, she was practically undetectable while skulking in the darkness.
Badass attacked from afar and called out summons whenever they were off cooldown. These summons helped restrain Belphegor's movements further.
Belphegor's clones continued to cling to the devil. They no longer attacked. Their sole purpose had become the source of Belphegor's recovery. They were safe as long as they were with Belphegor. I le transformed his ice orbs into shields to protect the clones.
Now that only one clone was left, only one ice shield accompanied that last clone. The other ice orbs reverted to ice weapons and merged with the ice chains in Belphegor's hands. The ice chains became more deadly with those ice weapons.
While fighting, Grace sent a message in the party chat. "We can't go on like this. We have to take him down before Arlcard's army collapses."
"Easy for you to say, sister. Do you think any of us is holding back in this fight?" Badass responded.
"Still... We have to do something!"
"We have to take out that clone before he consumes it," Nameless said.
"How?" Badass asked.
Nameless didn't reply.
It was Red Death who did. "If someone can separate that clone from Belphegor, I can probably do something"
"I low?" Badass asked again.
"The Spinning Carnage I have been using is not the complete art. It is the starting movement of a different art. I only used Spinning Carnage because I haven't mastered this other art. Now, I do."
"Huh? I don't understand. You haven't mastered this art when the battle started. You didn't train or use the art during this fight, but now you have mastered it?" Nameless asked. The fact was, every time Red Death used Spinning Carnage was the same as training the complete art. She pictured the complete art in her mind during every execution. She was confident she could pull off this art now.
"I have," Red Death replied. She didn't bother to explain.
"Are you sure you can take out the clone with your art?" Grace asked.
"My art has a high chance of wounding the opponent," Red Death answered.
"I took out the head of a clone with my art, remember? It is still alive even after losing the head."
"If my art hit, that clone will lose more than a head."
The chat went silent for a while before Grace said. "If no one has a better idea, we will go with Red's."
"I suggest we wait until Belphegor's HP is low," Nameless suggested. "He might get desperate and call his army if all his clones are gone. If his life is still near full like now, it will take us a long time to deplete it. His army might have arrived by then."
"I agree," Grace said. "If we kill his clone around the moment when he is about to consume it, that should catch him by surprise. We also won't have too long a window to take out his remaining HP"
"This means we have to make sure we can pull it off in one go," Badass said. "Are we sure we can pull it off in one go?"
"Are you sure you can execute this art you mentioned?" Grace asked Red Death.
"If you don't trust me, then forget the whole thing!" Red Death returned. Grace sighed. "All right. Let us bet on this."
They continued to fight as they were, decreasing Belphegor's HP little by little. Grace and Nameless alternated between themselves to use their buff skills and Devilize. One of them always had to have a boost so they could cope against Belphegor's tremendous strength and speed.
As for Red Death and Badass, they used their boost or Devilize whenever the skills were off cooldown. Depleting Belphegor's HP was their responsibility.
The battle went on for some time until Belphegor's IIP again fell below half.
"He might consume that last clone any time now," Nameless sent a message.
"All right, let's do this then!" Grace exclaimed.
Nameless still had his God's Protection active. If it was before, Grace would wait until
Nameless' buff expired before using hers, but they were planning an all-out assault at this moment. She used the spell she had kept in reserve, the Seraphic Possession. Three pairs of wings made of light sprouted from her back.
Badass summoned High Demon Lord. His strongest summon, the Archdemon Lord, had
been slain not long ago.
Nameless tried taking Belphegor's attention by charging at him using Shield Charge. Belphegor casily smacked him to the side with one swing. The devil then swung his other arm at Grace, who was flying over. The ice chain on that arm shot forward. The ice weapons attached to it carved the ground as it advanced.
Grace's keen eyes saw the attack. She moved away from the ice chain's path before it arrived. Under Seraphic Possession, her speed and reflex were above the norm. She also gained standard ranged attacks and was given access to several healing spells and offensive spells that she didn't possess otherwise. She was casting one of the offensive spells while
charging.
The spell discharged many rays of light that traveled at high speed and without discernible patterns. These light rays went in zig-zag patterns before stabbing into Belphegor from
every direction.
When the first batch of the light rays hit Belphegor, he swung the ice chains in his arms. This move created a hurricane of ice and blades. The remainder light rays were destroyed by the hurricane before they touched him.
Grace followed up with a second spell. Her mace turned into a long lance made of light. She drove this lance into the hurricane protecting Belphegor. The light lance pierced through. Belphegor was forced to use his two arms to block.
"You people haven't been this fierce since the beginning of our battle. Are you up to
something?" Belphegor asked.
"We do!" Grace answered. Her mace split into two. She used Phantom Beating Sticks to rain down rapid strikes at Belphegor
While Belphegor was busy receiving Grace's rapid strikes, a flaming whip shot behind him and coiled around the ice shield that protected the clone on his back.
The flaming whip was the Iligh Demon Lord's weapon. He was now pulling the ice shield with all his might. The ice shield moved away and revealed Belphegor's clone. Nameless returned then, He used God's Branding and struck the spot where the clone was holding onto. The impact forced the clone to let go.
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