"Fine, we'll take your so-called deal and split up. I'll escort Bell, but you don't get to choose who goes with Lucas. That's for him to decide."
"I don't mind either way," Lucas did care about who he went with, but for obvious reasons couldn't display that.
Alastor grinned slightly after hearing Lucas speak. "Don't you want to go with Kinetsu? She's quite the beauty on Sabaoth. Of course, I don't know your preferences since you came from Aurora."
"She's fine. Let's just get this over with," small parts of aura started to leak out of Lucas. Tainting the environment red, Alastor easily suppressed it. "Looks like you have a lot on your mind."
Spoken with a grin, he gestured towards Asta, "Dear brother, be so kind as to open the way forward for us."
Gritting his teeth slightly, he turned around, only for Lucas to cover his back. Even if they were going through the trials together in a sense, anything before and after was free play, and Lucas wasn't going let such a simple gap in the deal obstruct them.
Asta walked up to the monolith and placed his hands on the large stone door. As he did so the door began to light up. In an instant, the ground underneath them started to shine brightly, as a massive array around the monolith was activated.
A flash of light blinded them all, and by the time they opened their eyes, they were in a darker room made from flat stone, similar to the monolith. Lucas' had never closed his eyes, as he kept staring at Alastor, who kept his grin the entire time. Lucas hadn't stopped spilling some of his aura, constantly ready for battle.
Stepping forward, Alastor opened his arms wide, "We've reached the inside of the Monolith, thank you dear brother. There are three arrays here, each for their own trial. Since we don't need you anymore, you can choose to stop here."
As Alastor made his way to on of the arrays, his two companions each took their own. If they were fast enough they would be able to start them without Astaroph's group, but Lucas was already standing next to Kinetsu. His glare was more than obvious.
Morior, feeling the tension, joined Alastor without any kind of command, giving enough time and space to Bell and Asta to come together on the final array.
Having Morior stand next to him, Alastor lost his smile for a small moment, "Did I give you an order to move?"
"But sir..."
"This was the perfect chance to sow distrust and chaos."
"You said this was how we would split up."
"Since when does a mage speak in truths? It's fine, this was an optional goal in the first place."
Standing on the arrays, they suddenly lit up without anyone signal, they vanished from the room.
Burning his eyes through the white light, Lucas never let Kinetsu exit his vision. The moment they arrived at their trial, did Lucas retract his aura.
"Hmpf, so you know at least the tiniest bit of respectful behavior?"
"Who are you?", Lucas didn't bother entertaining her, he needed information. Kinetsu had a modest but alluring figure. She wore light purple-tinted clothing and had her cleave somewhat obscured by a fishnet.
"Are you certain that you should be curious about me right now? We're in a trial," pulling a small knife from seemingly nowhere, she pointed to the side where a group of golems stood strong. The humanoids were massive in size, easily two to three times their size.
Yet Lucas didn't even inspect them closely, he was purely focused on her.
'She has great control over her mana and weaponry. She was able to pull it out of a subspace with minimal mana. I didn't even see it.'
'She's a danger, we should kill that harlot.'
'I agree she's a danger, but I can't get something out of my mind. Why her? Out of all the people Alastor could've chosen, why pick this unknown girl?'
'Idiot, the correct question wouldn't be who, but why.'
'Why?'
'Why only three people. I get Alastor's a bastard, a monstrous genius, but the fucker isn't sympathetic enough to give us a chance by limiting participants.'
'There were three trials, so wouldn't that be it?'
'Even so, why limit it to three people each, why not five? He has more resources and capable men. If anything, he would benefit from it.'
'He claims it wouldn't be interesting, but no matter how smart he's supposed to be, why make things harder than they need to be? And why bother with her as well? No, it doesn't make sense!'
'Exactly! He knew from the start.'
'Then the intel he gave us...'
'Fake, who would hold him accountable? Who could even tell he wasn't speaking the truth? That bastard knew it all along, he probably knows more than we do right now.'
'Then the reason there's three people isn't just for the trials, that's just a superficial reasoning, a veil to keep the true reason hidden until it's too late. The fact that he also wants to disrupt our group means that these trials aren't everything.'
'Yes.'
'Depending on who went with who, the chances of us staying with one of his members is guaranteed.'
'That's why he needs her, because he knows the chances of one of his companions dying is high.'
'So the death of whoever ended up with us was already calculated. We need to kill her.'
'Yes.'
'I'll give you the chance to do so, you figured it out earlier than me.'
'Gladly.'
In a split second, Lucas held a large debate in his mind as he stared at the woman who was the source of all his questions.
Kinetsu had taken the time to study the golems instead of eyeballing Lucas. The golems didn't have a center of magic or a core, they simply moved by energy provided from the room itself. Checking if she had to search for the source of energy she suddenly felt chills. Jumping to the side in an instant, all she saw was Lucas staring at her.
"What are you doing?", she almost let her voice crack from the fear she felt. It was only for a moment, but she could feel the killing intent choke her. Kinetsu took out a few throwing knifes, unable to keep her attention on the golems.
Cracking his knuckles, Lucas cared little for the trial, "The hell do ya mean?"
"What do I mean? You're the one who suddenly emits such a murderous intent!", angry, she retreated a bit more to distance herself from the approaching golems. They didn't look like much, but their fist made from pure stone and the amount of energy consumed to make them move could only result in a devastating attack if one of them punched her.
Lucas stood still and chuckled slightly, "Murderous intent? You've got it wrong honey! This, is killing intent!", focusing his aura on her, she felt the hairs on her arms stand up. Warning signals inside her head blared as she felt instinctual fear from the man. Trying to force a smile through the fear, she saw one of the golems had gotten too close too Lucas.
Raising its arm in the air, Lucas turned his head before his right arm turned slightly metallic gray. Meeting the golem's punch with his own, he blasted the arm apart, not that the golem cared as it raised its other arm next. Without giving the creation the time, Lucas punched the chest, blasting the golem into pieces.
"Girl, you know nothing of Alastor's plans, do ya?"
Kinetsu frowned slightly as she threw a few daggers towards the golems behind Lucas. The knives got stuck between the gaps of the stones used to build the golems. A second later, they exploded into a large ball of flames. Lucas hadn't moved a single step, not intimidated in the slightest.
"I know more than you think," she eventually responded as she took out a few more throwing knives.
Lucas turned his head to take a look at the results of their attacks. A few golems were destroyed, leaving only a few behind. "This shit's probably the easiest trial we've faced so far, huh?"
'Speak. With. Your. Thoughts.'
"Yeah. Girl, do you know why Alastor wanted there to be three participants in each group?", throwing a simple question out, Lucas hoped to gain some intel, but was immediately faced with reality.
"Because there are three trials."
"Then why bother getting that dumbass Bell on your side?", crossing his arms with a snide look, Kinetsu's eyes suddenly widened.
"How do you know that!?"
"Oh, poor little girl, you're not in the game, are ya? You're just a throwaway pawn. Well, I don't really give a shit. Your existence is a roadblock for my own plans, so excuse me, miss, but it's time for you to die."
Lucas' voice almost contained pity, a sense of sympathy, but the massive grin on his face showed anything but.
"You think you can kill me?", throwing a few more daggers, the rest of the golems exploded into pieces. Releasing her aura, the air around her started to turn light purplish.
"Hahaha! Idiot, I choose my opponents, and I've never lost against someone I pick."
A dangerous glint appeared in Kinetsu's eyes as she spread her aura far and started to throw random throwing knives. Knowing the power the possessed, Lucas just dodged them as he rushed towards her.
Kinetsu smiled as the knives she threw suddenly stopped in space and turned around. Feeling the danger approach, Lucas released some of the spells he held in his body. Shields, steel skin, and a simple fireball.
Shooting it behind him, he let it explode, catching the other daggers, yet they just flew through it.
The daggers easily penetrated his shields and punctured his skin before exploding right on his back.
"Hah! That's what you get from underestimating me."
Her surprise attack always hurt her opponents incredibly. Most people underestimated her strength. Her special weaponry were capable of piercing through most defenses. If a dagger pierced someone's body and exploded from within, most mages died instantly.
Kinetsu was proud of her technique, even if it meant it was mostly viable when others looked down on her and slipped up in their defenses. This time was no different. Lucas was barely able to conjure up a few shields, which weren't even powerful enough to stop the forward momentum of the daggers. A slight smirk appeared on her face as she felt the battle was already in her favor, until a cold voice appeared from the cloud of smoke.
"Daggers containing Dark Magic to pierce through the barriers in case they're necessary, but are kept in the tip until it touches something. So my fireball wasn't enough to remove those. A neat little trick."
Hearing Lucas almost fully analyse her weapons in such short span of time with such a calm voice scared her. Seeing the figure walk out of the dust cloud with no visible wounds except his clothing being shredded, he looked completely fine.
'My daggers definitely pierced his skin, I saw it! The explosion should've torn him in half!'
"How did you manage to keep the darkness from eating the dagger?", the strange glint in Lucas' eyes scared her. He wasn't focused on the fight anymore, there was an obsessive look staring at her weapons.
"Like I have to tell you!", throwing a few more daggers around him, they each flew through the air, guided by willpower.
"You see, the furthest I've gotten is just this," opening his palm, a large sword of pure Darkness was manifested. Grabbing it with his bare hand, it didn't consume him in the slightest.
Raising his weapon, he sliced the air, removing a dagger with each slice without causing a single explosion. "Tell me, bitch, and I'll let you live."
Lucas released his aura slightly, letting it out loose, the purple aura from Kinetsu wasn't being absorbed or eaten like what usually happened. Finding another anomaly, Lucas started to like Kinetsu more and more, his smile widening with each unexplained variable. She held powers he hadn't seen before, and he had to know how they worked.
Kinetsu's eyes hadn't left the blade Lucas conjured the moment it appeared. 'It's... genuine, it's pure... how?'
The laws of magic were being twisted right in front her eyes. She had to use a clever trick to keep her darkness from consuming anything, but Lucas was holding the blade perfectly fine.
The Black Blade seemed to give off a strange aura, strands of Darkness escaped its form every now and then as if it was being held in a shape it didn't want to be in, constantly struggling against its restraints.
"Tch, it's still not solid. How annoying," pointing the sword at her, Lucas was starting to lose his patience. "Will you tell me or not?"
Locking in, Kinetsu pushed away her surprise and focused on the battle. She was impressed, 'But a sword's limit is it's reach. He'll never be able to reach me.'
Preparing her next attacks, Lucas suddenly rushed towards her. Throwing daggers towards him, they landed near him and exploded or were heading towards him, but a single swipe from his sword made the dagger vanish.
'Attacking him head on is useless, I can't even use the after effects to damage him. I need to get rid of that blade.'
Kinetsu stood still as Lucas was right on top of her, slashing the sword down, he cut right through her without any resistance. As his blade consume the floor from his wide swing, the image of Kinetsu dissipated into purple smoke. Feeling a threat behind him, he instantly turned around and swung his blade only to find a yellow dagger in front of him. Barely missing it, it simply hit his chest without puncturing it.
A blinding light flashed from the dagger, enough to even make Lucas close his eyes for a moment.
Barely able to open his eyes again, a sharp blade was headed right for his eyes. From the lack of feeling in his right hand, he knew his Black Blade was gone. He felt two daggers approach him from the back as well.
Closing his eyes and using willpower to detect his environment, he grabbed her blade in the nick of time, making a cut appear on his hand. The daggers pierced his back, but the damage was negligible.
Opening his eyes again, he found Kitsune standing on the opposite side of the room covered in purple mist. "Your Light Daggers won't work anymore, and your blade is weak. Did Alastor hire you just for your looks?"
"Hmpf, are you certain you should say that?", readying her blade, she held a rapier that had a rose as a handle.
Lucas raised his hand to find a large gash across his palm. Seeing the blood seep out, Lucas was actually impressed. His body was extremely sturdy after all, Kinetsu thought the same.
'With a body like his, dealing damage is tough, but any damage dealt will be hard to heal from. He's got a Black Core for certain, meaning his talents in other fields should be lesser.'
Staring at her smirk, part of Lucas knew what she was thinking. "Hah! You think that bitch can think that far? Nah, she probably thinks that it would cost a lot of mana to heal," shaking his hand once, the blood was thrown off as the wound was fully healed already. The revelation scared Kinetsu, but she couldn't afford to care for it, not now.
"C'mon, are you gloating at your performance from a little scratch? Should I give ya a piece of candy? Listen, you don't stand a chance, but I'll spare you if you teach me those techniques."
"Hahaha! You humans have a strange way of talking. If I can make such a wound on your hand, what do you think would happen if I sliced your neck?", the glint in her eyes grew sharp.
"Think what you will," grabbing a rock from one of the fallen golems, Lucas crushed it in his hands. Dozens of pebbles and rock fragments lodged between his palms, he threw them towards Kinetsu.
Raising a shield, she quickly delved back into her fog as the rock fragments, broke through her shield and ruptured the wall behind. Each tiny little rock fragment was covered in a tiny layer of Darkness, consuming whatever it came across. Paired with the massive velocity, blocking it was a fool's errand.
Coming out of the fog near the corner of the room, Lucas was starting to understand how the fog worked.
"Nah, you're wrong. It's not an illusion, just camouflage. The smoke can change colors," his arrogant tone started to piss Kinetsu off.
Nodding to himself, Lucas started to walk towards her.
"You think you know everything?! Try blocking this!", clapping her hands, ten forms of Kinetsu appeared around Lucas. It was easy to tell they were created from the smoke, but which one was real was hard to tell.
'Mana Vision makes her indiscernible from her mist clones, I've prepared two shields in advance, but they won't be enough to-'
"No need, I know which one is the real one."
The Kinetsu's around him shot forward, pulling out their rapiers and rushing towards Lucas. A bunch of rapiers were about to pierce him, yet Lucas closed his eyes and strengthened his muscles.
As the clones of Kinetsu all thrust their weapons forward, Lucas let his aura completely loose, turning the dark room into a hellish landscape within a second. All the Kinetsu apparitions around him didn't seem phased, except one. Lucas felt a hot blade pierce through his back. In less than a second, Lucas lifted his left leg and swung it behind him, hitting Kinetsu straight in the stomach. Flying backwards, she landed on the ground.
Rushing to stand back up again, she held her stomach as she puked her innards out.
The rapier stuck in Lucas body was pulled out as the wound closed instantly thanks to his other self's support. Looking at the blade, he put it away in his subspace. In the mere blink of an eye, Lucas was able to discern which was the true Kinetsu when she was shocked form his aura. Using that moment, he twisted his body to make sure her blade didn't pierce through his spine, but his guts.
Kinetsu regained her composure, but quickly faltered as Lucas didn't bother pulling his aura back, unleashing it to the fullest.
"I can't seem to eat your aura, but that doesn't mean you can escape it's affects."
She had just barfed, yet felt like doing so again. Then his aura suddenly vanished. With her mind thrown around, her aura was starting to falter as well, the mist dissipated in most places. "You poured mana and willpower into your aura to create those clones. How did you do that?"
Kinetsu didn't say anything, but her look was anything but approachable. "I see, it wasn't as fun as I had hoped. My adrenaline hasn't even gone up."
Raising his hand, he unleashed a large Dark Beam. Kinetsu gathered his mist and mana to create a beam of Light as a counterattack. While wounded, she was still one of the stronger demons out there. Making an instant decision, she used the most effective spell to get her out of harm's way.
Pouring her all into the beam, they balanced each other out almost perfectly.
As Kinetsu saw her own mana pool start to dwindle, she knew Lucas had to be suffering even worse. "Hah! How long can you keep it up, huh?!"
Knowing full well that Light magic was a lot more cost effective than Dark magic. The look on Lucas' face didn't change. His cold stare pierced through her confidence as the amount of mana in his beam started to increase.
Kinetsu was barely able to keep her beam active as the Dark Beam moved closer and closer to her. Panic started to set in, but moving through the mist now wasn't an option. The moment she would let go of this spell, her life would be over.
"How much mana do you even have!"
Not answering, Lucas pushed forward one final time to blast a massive hole into her body, ripping it in two. As her lifeless corpse fell to the ground, Lucas was sure to pick up her rings to gather her items. Sadly, her techniques weren't recorded anywhere.
'How strange.'
"What?"
'She's supposed to be someone of the stronger demons right? She's even Rank 3. Why didn't she develop a mana regeneration technique?'
"Couldn't tell ya, but I got a good look at those dagger earlier. I think I might be able to replicate it somewhat."
'Ah, yes, your Darkness project has already reached pretty far. This might be a beneficial step forward.'
"I don't like that sarcastic sound. You have it way easier."
'Oh please, you think I didn't spend years on it myself?'
"And your naming sense sucks ass."
'I think it's quite a neat one.'
"The Unkillable Project? That's arrogant even for you."
'Yes, yes, think what you like. Could you now please move forward? The trial isn't over yet.'
"I thought it was too easy."