Sinner System

Chapter 575: X-Aces vs The Demon Lord (Part 2)

Excellent, we finally landed a direct hit with petrification, this is our chance.

I shot towards Vaszel’s petrified body as it plummeted, getting ready to open Treasury and seal him away.

After he petrified Cleo, I managed to catch her before she could crash down and shatter, and then put her in Treasury.

It seems, while petrified, a person is counted as an inanimate object, meaning I can store them in Treasury.

Now, I just need to grab his petrified body and put it in an empty slot, and keep him in there for eternity, I-...hm?

As I closed in on the plummeting statue and reached out, I frowned as cracks suddenly spread out across it, deepening and widening rapidly, before the entire thing burst and shattered to pieces, a wisp of red and black appearing in its place.

There it is again, is it his soul? In that case...!

I manifested Drain, expanding the jaws around the wisp and snapping shut around it-...what?

Right as the jaws began to close around the wisp, they froze before suddenly getting repelled away, bones and flesh forming around the wisp rapidly and taking shape, before I quickly flew back while expanding the jaws of Drain in front of myself as a blast of Disintegration shot towards me from the rapidly forming fleshy mass, just barely swallowing it up.

Blasts of Ether and Negative Energy shot in towards the mass from either side, right as it finished taking shape, a dark look on Vaszel’s face before he let out a snarl and unleashed a devastating shockwave of Negative Energy around himself, blowing the incoming attacks and me away as the energy erupted fiercely, generating immense force.

His weapons flew back up towards him as he let out a slow exhale, grabbing hold of them as they got back within his reach, swinging his spear across with a low growl as he cracked his neck.

Ai, why did Drain get repelled like that?

No, it’s still too early. I’m only going to use those when we have a clear opening, and I’d prefer to wear down his Mana and stamina a lot more too...so long as he has energy left, he might still have some bullshit way of surviving.

We don’t know the full extent of how foolproof his Immortality is, and the trump cards are a bit of a gamble...and if we’re going to gamble, we need to wait till we have the best chance of success.

Because if it fails, our defeat is all but assured.

Even petrification doesn’t work on him, he shattered it and regenerated from scratch in just about a couple of seconds.

Still...it looks like that stunt shaved off a sizeable chunk of his Mana, so it wasn’t pointless.

That said, we’ve been significantly worn down too. Aria and I have about five minutes left with Descent, but I have less than a minute left with Enrage, thanks to the multiple blasts of Obliterate I’ve been firing off.

My MP is down to less than a fifth of my full capacity, I won’t be able to resummon the Apostles before much longer at this rate.

Aria’s been switching her Blaze Ignition: Supernova on and off between attacks to conserve Mana, but she’s running dangerous low on MP.

Ira, Acedia, Gula and Avaritia are all currently mostly fully intact, but if they get destroyed, I won’t be able to resummon them more than once or twice, at most.

And everyone else is either dead or incapacitated.

"Only two of your humans remain, and I can tell that both of you cannot maintain your current levels for much longer.

I’ll admit...you’ve put up a far better fight than I ever could have expected, I underestimated you. Or perhaps I overestimated myself.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter. The final outcome will not change, this battle will end with my victory. No matter what you do, you cannot overcome my Immortality," Stated Vaszel, as he glanced between us.

He definitely looks more wary of us than he did before, and based on his expression and posture, he’s struggling to manage the fatigue that’s built up, he probably hasn’t felt anything close to this level of exhaustion in a very long time.

As for his MP, it looks like it’s down to somewhere between a quarter and a third of his full capacity, and I think the rate of his Mana recovery has slowed down too, probably due to his fatigue.

Since Monsters’ Mana is a lot more closely linked to their physical abilities than human Mana is, fatigue and Mana consumption likely affect each other.

In other words, the more we wear him out, the slower his Mana recovery rate will become.

"I wouldn’t be so certain of victory, if I were you. You’re incredibly powerful, but you aren’t omnipotent," I responded, as the Apostles fanned out to surround him.

"How foolish. But very well, I suppose I can humor you. Struggle in vain, Kaivel Intrix, struggle until you can’t struggle anymore. Struggle until the moment I kill you and end this, once and for all!" He snarled, as he shot towards me, unleashing a burst of Negative Energy to propel himself.

Thirty percent...

As he closed in and drove his spear towards me, I swerved across to my left, a deep gash across my right bicep as the edge of his blade sliced through, before I raised my left hand and unleashed Obliterate and thirty percent, erasing his head before he could react, a bright flash of purple bursting out.

As his headless body plummeted, I unleashed a barrage of Negative Energy blasts down towards me, Aria following my lead as Ira joined in with a volley of Ether blasts, while Acedia, Avaritia and Gula rushed in towards him.

As our blasts peppered his body, he manifested Reflection as his head finished regenerating, his back slamming against the ground as we flew away as our attacks came shooting back towards us.

His gaze darted about as Acedia, Avaritia and Gula closed in on him, before his activated Binding Chains, snaring them before they could reach him, wrapping around their necks before constricting sharply, crushing their throats and tearing their heads off...