The Moon Thief

As Heinald continued his way along the dark road, he heard a distant voice echoing. It was sound like a bear grunt mixed with a high-pitched girl's cry.

Heinald shuddered and his heartbeat quickened. Although he strained his eyes to see ahead, he was unsuccessful.

Before long, he began to hear footsteps approaching and went into alert state. His eyes quickly scanned his surroundings as he took slow steps backwards.

Soon the footsteps came closer and closer to him, and a figure came into his view. The eyes of this figure were red and had no pupils. Its had hundreds of teeth in his mouth, no nose. Its whole body seemed to be enveloped in a dark mist, with worms sprouting from under his thin black feet.

"This is a Tzavr'El! What is a demon species from the World of Ainsar doing here?" As Heinald began to look this figure, he immediately understood what it was.

It was a Tzavr'El and one of the most dangerous demons. This demon type normally does not have a physical body, but they are capable of taking over the bodies of those who practice the Dark Arts.

This Tzavr'El must have also managed to capture someone who had practiced the Dark Arts before!

Heinald could feel the intense waves of Dark Energy emanating from it. The waves emanating from this demon were almost as strong as his own.

"I have to be very cautious. My fear has come upon me..." Heinald's expression darkened.

"Krangk tes el vrtin!" Tzavr'El hissed.

Heinald more or less understood what it was saying. He had managed to learn some words from the Demon Language in some of the books he had read before.

"Your Spirit belongs to me!"

That's what Tzavr'El was trying to say!

Heinald was hesitant to attack it, unsure of the solidity of the ground he was stepping on. If this ground collapsed, eternal darkness would swallow him up. He wasn't comfortable at all, especially since the reason he was here was that the spells he had used before were damaging the ground.

Embers appeared as Heinald waved his hand. When he sent Magical Energy to it, intense heat radiating fire engulfed the sword. He twisted the sword around his wrist and waited for the demon to make a move.

His heart was beating like crazy, but he tried to ignore it. Normally he was confident in such conflicts, but the thought of fighting a dangerous demon alone in a place like this clearly frightened him.

"Calm down! You are an Ainsar, your aim is to get to the top and discover the truth of Magic. Demons are a part of the Magic Realm, I have nothing to fear from it!"

Heinald tried to comfort himself inside.

Tzavr'El opened his mouth, and dark snakelike lines began to emerge from its mouth and began to move towards Heinald.

Heinald immediately twisted his sword around his wrist and performed a horizontal slash.

He felt like he was trying to cut through a rock when his sword collided with the dark lines. These snake-like lines began to surround his sword. The flames could not destroy them.

"More power!" Heinald grit his teeth and sent more Magical Energy to his sword.

"KAKAKA!" Tzavr'El laughed, "Cormois pize mel gvouda..."

"It's trying to say my fire is not strong enough to surpass its." Heinald grit his teeth and muttered.

Heinald gathered all his physical strength in his arms and swung his sword. The black snake-like lines surrounding his sword broke off and disappeared into black smoke.

Tzavr'El spun around and black flames began to rise from its body. These flames did not radiate warmth, but Heinald felt with all his soul that they were destructive.

"Fire Vines!" Heinald shouted out in his mind.

Tzavr'El was wrapped by vines of fire rising from beneath. It tried to get rid of them with a strange scream. The flames that formed around it came together and began to fly towards Heinald.

Indignation of Ice!

An ice hand shot out from Heinald's arms, along with ice fumes, and collided directly with the black ball of fire.

While he was waiting for an explosion, something he never expected happened. No explosions or waves of energy appeared when the black fireball collided with the ice hand.

The black fireball destroyed the ice hand and continued towards Heinald. However, there was a great change on it, the Dark Energy emitted from it had greatly diminished, and its size had shrunk considerably.

Heinald immediately swung his sword at the incoming black fireball and cut it in half.

When the black fireball collided with the Embers, the red fire destroyed the black fire. The black flames immediately disappeared as the red flames spread around.

"So this is the power of a black fireball formed with Dark Energy. This black fireball was intended to directly destroy, moreover, the power of the Dark Energy emanating from this black fireball was less than the power of the Elemental Energy of the ice hand that I cast. Despite this, it prevailed over it."

Heinald had a hard look in his eyes. He had obtained two inferences from the attack swaps they had entered so far; firstly, this demon had low physical strength, secondly, this demon's spell cast time was longer compared to him.

He should have used these two advantages to the fullest!

Heinald gathered strength in his legs and dashed forward. He flew through the air like an arrow and when he came near the demon, he performed a triple slash.

"Nyaaargh!" Tzavr'El let out a scream of pain. Three burning cuts appeared on his body. It couldn't cast a spell fast enough to defend itself.

Heinald immediately twisted his sword around his wrist and made another sword strike, but this time Tzavr'El flew back a few meters, as if caught in a gust of air.

"Demons are not like Ainsars. They don't have much knowledge and they don't know much skill. They're just a little more conscious than Magical Beasts, he must not have many tricks left." Heinald observed the situation and grit his teeth.

Tzavr'El raised its black arms and palm-sized black orbs appeared between its long black claws. A massive amount of Dark Energy was emanating from both of these orbs. When the demon threw these two black orbs into the air, they both started circling each other and started to form a strange vortex around them.

"What is it doing!?" Heinald's eyes narrowed and his heart sank. He didn't know exactly how solid the ground was, so he didn't want to use high-destructive spes like Infernal Fireball or Divine Chaos.

So he decided to use his Spiritual Spell-Death Ray to destroy that black vortex before it got bigger.

The scorching red flames began to rise from his hands, and they began to emit an intense fire aura. As he pointed his hand at the black vortex, a ray of fire shot out of his hand and struck the black vortex directly.

As the black vortex and the scorching fire ray collided, intense heat and red flames began to radiate. The demon under the black vortex was terrified by these flames and immediately prepared to flee from that area and attack to stop Heinald.

As Tzavr'El spun around, it took the form of a snake and began to crawl towards him.

"Did it change? Does this demon type have such a skill?" Heinald was quite surprised when he saw the situation.

With just one thought, he activated the Blood Nightmare Shield and a pale red barrier surrounded his body.

When Tzavr'El, disguised in the form of a great snake, came near him, its mouth opened wide and it bit into the pale layer with all his might.

Meanwhile, Heinald had not stopped and continued to attack the black vortex with Death Ray. The black vortex could not withstand the intense firepower and slowly began to disintegrate like a piece of paper thrown into the fire.

"Tzavr'El seems to gain a certain amount of physical stamina and strength when it transforms. However, it must only choose it as a last resort after using all of its Dark Magic skills. Because this bite attack of it is not as strong as his other abilities." Heinald was assessing the situation while destroying the vortex.

Tzavr'El's bite attack had only reduced the energy of his Blood Nightmare Shield by 5%.

After the black vortex dissipated, Heinald aimed Death Ray at the demon in the form of a snake.

The scorching fires began to burn directly on its body. The physical stamina this demon gained after the transformation really surprised him.

Although Heinald's spiritual magic contained extremely destructive firepower, Tzavr'El had endured that fire for ten seconds.

However, there was a limit to his endurance. When its physical stamina was over, the scorching fire ray could no longer hold out, and its entire body was engulfed by red flames. When the black mist surrounding it was destroyed by the red flames, its current existence began to disappear as well.