Scarlet

I feel absolutely nothing as Pain Diffusion takes away all of the pain as the nightshades claws cut a large chunk straight out of my back and through around my side. But on the other side of the coin, Blood Retribution and Bloody Thorns leave the nightshade screeching in pain as it hurriedly rushes back again while trailing along a trail of bloody steam. And after just half a minute, my wound fully heals, leaving me back to searching for the nightshade.

This could work.

Considering how much the nightshade slowed down after that attack in terms of its rate of attacking in general, it’s either wounded and recovering slowly, or it’s smarter than I thought it would be. But despite that, I continue to use Blood Retribution against it every time I sense it coming in for an attack, even if it’s too fast for me to dodge. And every time it lets out a screech of pain.

But at the same time, I know this won’t be enough to kill it. At most I’ll be making it anemic. Not killing it.

Especially a nightshade, whose blood is special in that its body doesn’t necessarily need blood to run at all times. Sure it’ll die eventually without blood, but it can last quite a while without it.

A random fact I learned at the university back when I actually went that I never thought I’d need to know.

Not sure how that works exactly though. Don’t really care either.

The two of us continue our little dance with the creature very gradually slowing down its speed. Almost to a point that I can actually keep up with it.

By now though, the creature seems to be beginning to summon fewer and fewer shades to help it. Likely a sign that its mana is starting to run low so it’s preserving it.

I on the other hand manage to use a mana potion to restore my mana, giving me an edge over the nightshade who is too-

My thoughts are interrupted when I see a flash of blue light shining from amidst the shades, following which more shades appear.

Oh.

“You spoke too soon,” Tar comments.

It used a mana potion too. How it managed to do that while lost in its Sin is beyond me, but it did it.

This battle… might take longer than I hoped.

I sigh at that before noticing the Noble approaching again and letting the nightshade hit me right after using Blood Retribution. Then the whole process of it steaming blood happens again, following which it vanishes amongst its shades like an annoying pest.

The battle continues on and on, but one thing is changing throughout it still.

I grin as I see the nightshade finally slowing down enough for me to actually dodge it. But I don’t dodge it. Instead I turn slightly, letting its claw pass harmlessly by me before I grab its arm and toss it, making it hit the ground only for the thing to immediately back away and vanish into a wall of darkness that appears out of nowhere.

It’s still accumulating plagues for days from me.

The nightshade has to be in severe pain right now from the dozens of plagues the thing has.

We continue our dance for quite a while, me switching back to taking all of its hits and using Blood Retribution. But instead of only taking the hits, I’ve also started attempting to counterattack the thing. To very little success.

The nightshade is clearly still able to lucidly react, unlike the demons I’ve fought before who were lost to their Sin.

Then again, this is the first Noble demon I’ve ever fought or seen lost to their Sin before. So it might just have a different effect on them.

Eventually I just scowl and push Crimson Overdrive to the max, burning a massive amount of life energy that far surpasses the amount I’m stealing from the nightshade and its shades. Then I finally manage to return and attack by doing that when it next strikes, only to not actually do as much damage as I was hoping.

I definitely deal damage, but only five claw marks that drag on across it extending about an inch or so deep.

A very much nonfatal wound that cost me who knows how much life energy to deal.

That’s incredibly annoying.

After that I stop retaliating and instead focus on dodging its attacks when I can since life energy isn’t regenerated anywhere near as quickly as my body. So I just dodge and drain its own life energy instead for a while.

This process continues on for what feels like hours as I gradually restore my life energy while trying to save up my mana a bit too. Because mana potions have a limit. A limit I know all too well.

From my judgement, I should only be able to use a few more mana potions, and if this battle continues to drag on, I might end up in even worse shape than the last battle. Mostly because I won’t have Gramps here to heal me since he can’t exactly come to Earth.

And even if I ended up winning the battle through that, it’s not exactly worth dying. It would be like winning the battle just to lose the war.

After all, what would the humans do without me at this point? They’d lose the war even with that one month window.

Gramps would be pissed too.

Oh, and Satan would probably be dead via angry Gramps.

“Good to see you haven’t changed much since you fell unconscious,” Tar says, sounding vaguely amused. Then he adds, “And I’m glad to see you actually have a sense of self-preservation now. Sorta.”

Yep.

Also, I’m very much not looking forward to when I have to feel all this pain later.

“It’s your fault for fighting like that,” Tar says with a snort.

Blame Gramps for making the fighting style like this.

“No, I blame you for your skill set,” Tar retorts, making me smirk as I duck under an assassination attempt by the nightshade that goes straight for my throat. Something it started doing when it was losing strength in its attacks and seems to be panicking, rushing to kill me. And making its attacks more sloppy.

After a few seconds of pursing my lips in thought, looking at my total mana that is just a bit above 70%, and dealing with the surrounding shades, tearing them to shreds, I eventually jump backwards and let out a roar.

I can recover with a potion after this.

So let’s see how it deals with Blood of Ruin.