Imp to Demon King: A Journey of Conquest

Adam watched as the flurry of steel shredded his flames, reducing them to flickering candlelight. They faded into smoke, revealing Oberon’s unblemished skin beneath.

’Not how I imagined things would unfold...’

Before a frown could creep across his brow, Oberon spoke again, his forceful voice seemingly bending reality to his will.

"I wear armor no weapon can ever pierce."

Instantly, mana wrapped around the fairy king, then condensed into tight-fitting materials that seemed both made of metals and stones. Lines crawled on its surface, etching straight patterns that sprawled from the adamantine pauldrons down to the clouted boots.

His eyes narrowed on the sleek helmet split by a blazing visor, his back leaning forward. The defined muscle sections and how they blended into one another like a sculptor’s masterpiece reminded him of those sci-fi battle suits from video games more than a set of antique armor, which unsettled him—just for a split second, though. freewebnσvel.cѳm

The thousand blades hovering around Oberon as if ready to rain death didn’t allow his thoughts to wander. He wouldn’t allow them to either. The plan was clear: hold Oberon back until Mab, Garduck, and Mordred killed Titania. Once together, the fairy king would have no chance. And yet, his blazing eyes narrowed.

’I’ll kill Oberon before they return. I must. Not for pride or glory—I’ve never cared about them. To prove my journey wasn’t vain, to prove I have what it takes to challenge the kings of pantheons and ancient monsters older than humanity itself.’ His fingers tightened into a fist. ’To prove to myself that I can become the undisputed number one. Not with words—with actions.’

A sneer escaped his lips. "Just a thousand blades? You should have added a few zeros. Or are they the limits of your imagination?" Dark glee flashed across his face. "I expected better from Mab’s son."

Oberon snorted with a simple command. "No flames can exist around the tree of life."

The demonic flames burning on the plain and the sylvester walls instantly vanished, snuffed by a ripple from reality that made Adam frown in suspicion.

"Do you like my imagination better now? No space, no flames. You’re powerless..." His voice trailed off, his eyes widened beneath the visor.

"Do end your sentence by all means. Powerless? As good as dead?" Adam’s colossal figure burned brighter. "I’m the Scorch of Genesis. My fire burns outside of time, persisting despite inactivity, consuming endlessly, mesmerising, devouring all indiscriminately, volatile and explosive yet covetous and imitating. Six remnants, the fragments of six devils sublimated by Kagutsuchi’s essence and reforged in the depths of my chaos into something the universe has never seen. So, tell me. Do you really think your imagination or reality holds any power over me?"

The dark blaze forming his body roiled, condensing into his natural size as he gripped his God Slayer and smirked. "Quite an arrogant belief, don’t you think so? In fact, I’m pissed by your and the other gods’ condescension." He flicked his middle finger. "Damn you all, bastards."

Without giving Oberon time to answer, plasma crackled behind his back. Nine jets vaporised air as they propelled him forward. Although the wind ruffled his hair and battered his fiery body, he didn’t hear its sound. Instead, the noises came with a delay, circular ripples, and thunderous booms.

His hand reached for Oberon’s shoulder before his mouth fully opened. Even though the fairy twitched in reaction, his speed dwarfed him entirely. And yet, he jerked his hand back.

A golden flash cleaved the space between him and his target. He frowned, his eyes reflecting a downpour of blades streaking at him. Physical strikes shouldn’t work in this form. Yet, he sensed something unsettling from these blades. Was it the sharpness or the enchantments? He didn’t know and didn’t want to discover the answer the hard way.

Instead, he moved his left shoulder a centimeter back, his right arm snapped twenty degrees up, and his torso bent slightly.

Three whistles, three blades, three dodges with minimal movements.

But 996 remained. He moved like a serpent, each movement controlled. But the pressure only increased as the number of projectiles dwindled.

Their trajectories shifted from straight lines to thrusts and curved slashes, as if sword masters wielded them. No, it was much worse. With each second crawling by, their strikes became sharper, relying less on a wielder’s limitations as they should.

They twirled around him after he dodged, only to strike again from behind. Others spun, turning into golden disks of divine steel. Screeching like a choir of banshees prophesying his death, they shot at him from every direction.

Jaw clenched and eyes darting between them, he swung his hammer. The sharp beak crashed against the first disk in a sea of blinding sparks. The blade clanged, stubbornly refusing to halt... and he had no time to contend against it. ’Brute strength won’t work. Finesse, then.’

He tilted his hammer, altering the disk’s trajectory slightly to make it graze his cheek instead of slice through his head. A searing pain ran across his flames, but his eyes only narrowed with colder intensity on the next disk.

With a swing of his hammer, he threw the blades plunging at him off. Simultaneously, he blurred below the disk and thrust his God Slayer at the center of the spinning hilt. Not to halt it—to adjust its trajectory better.

Oberon snickered from afar. He had taken the chance to create distance between them and was already drawing his ancient bow to finish Adam once and for all, while a part of his focus worked to bring Titania back from the dream world. Yet, his brows creased into a frown as the multicolored arrow formed.

His eyes widened as he saw Adam flick his wrist before, then hurl his own blade in his direction. The disk drew a radiant arc, crackling like a divine saw.

Cursing, he channelled his mana urgently. The weapon scraped a white mark against his armor before turning ethereal. It vanished before piercing it, but another one already shone on it.

Even worse, Adam turned his own strategy against him out of nowhere. That couldn’t happen! Fragarach could slice through anything. More than a divine weapon, it was an extension of Lugh’s divine authority. And there was no way his could contend against the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann.

But the most frustrating part was that the bastard didn’t give him enough time to crack Mab’s world. Titania was in danger. He had to save her from his mad mother. But first, Adam had to die and quickly.

Instantly, the blades hurled at him vanished in a rain of sparks as his arrow brightened. Inspired by Gae Bolg, he spoke with a command that made the world ripple.

"This arrow can destroy souls, can’t miss, and can’t be deflected. It reverses the laws of causality, making the moment I let it loose the moment my target dies."