Thus, the Shadow Vanishes

…

"This… is not the end for me. Not… yet…"

Toma is already on the verge of defeat. His entire body no longer has shape. Every dismembered limb was exposed to holy magic that somehow came from Scias' sword slashes. It hardened him from regenerating. Despite those hardships, the demon general refused to dissolve.

Meanwhile, Ognist and Scias stop their attacks and witness the falling shadow to the ground. Scias felt exhausted, but not significant enough to hamper his overall ability. Ognist on the other hand gasped as he finished his magical attack, his wounds from previous fight bothered him. But fortunately, both Scias and Ognist did not suffer any damage in this fight.

It is all thanks to one person. The one who could perform supportive incantation spells.

Earlier moments ago…

When Ognist, Scias, and Pio were about to depart into the battlefield, Aily halted them. She called them softly, "Please wait…"

The three turned around and gazed upon the young girl. She held her scepter tightly while looking down to dirt.

"What is it, Aily?" Pio asked cutely.

"Is there something you wish to say?" Ognist asked.

Scias, on the other hand, remained silent while keeping a blank stare at her.

Briefly, Aily looked at her sister's face. Nina sincerely smiled at her and nodded, letting Aily speak her thoughts out.

"When those strange dark waves thingy approached this village, I had done so little compared to what Pio did. I was… traumatized by something. I could not help but to give only a dot of my magic to improve the barrier that defended this place."

Aily brooded, but soon she clenched her fists hardly and glared at the three.

"I wish to help you guys. Though, I am only a burden in a fight. But still! If I could not help you that way, then allow me to use my magic to help you beat that demon!"

"…I know I've been rude to you. But will you at least allow me for once to help you? Please?" Aily begged specifically to Ognist. She felt guilty for her actions beforehand, though Ognist had forgiven her and forget it.

Ognist and the rest paused briefly, letting a short silence fell upon them. When Ognist opened his mouth, he accepted her offer.

In a bright smile full of spirit as if blazing flames in the dark night he reached her hand.

"Very well, young lady, I accept. Show me what you're capable of!"

Scias scratched his head in wondrousness. "It's just a defensive magic, right?" he asked with a straight face.

"Yes!" Aily replied. "But, there's something I want to try…"

Aily used [Ironclad] magic on Ognist once.

And then, she took a long breath and began casting more magic. She used [Ironclad] magic again to Ognist, hoping to improve Ognist's defensive stats.

Shockingly, her magic did not merge with the first casted. Instead, they overlapped it, making her shielding doubled. Aily herself was surprised to see this result and decided to cast more of the same magic to Ognist. She stacked up to seven [Ironclad] magic to the fire dragonian.

Ognist examined himself. Aily's magic left him in awe. "I've never seen supportive magic being used this way… impressive!"

"That's cool, Aily! I didn't know if you can stack magical effects like that!" Marco yelled excitingly for Aily's achievements.

"T-Thank you, Marco,"

It was a dazzling sight to see for everyone. But time was growing shorter. Ognist implied that they must go quickly.

Aily's mana energy also began to thin out due to her excessive usage of level four support magic. Because of that, Scias received only two magical effects stacked to his body, meanwhile Pio did not get any.

"I'm so sorry, Pio… I ran out of mana energy." she wailed as she apologized to her. She sweated much as an expression of her exhaustion.

Pio shook her head softly, "Nng… It's okay, Aily. Pio fight with speed, not vitality."

Ognist thanked her. He even bowed to her. "This will be a great help. I assure you, we will bring victory, no matter what!"

In the cradle of her sister, Aily nodded. "Nh. Go forth and crush that demon!"

…

..

.

"Truly, her magic probably is the key to win against this demon," Ognist stated.

Scias nods, "U-Uh, I agree."

But… the demon still refuses to admit defeat.

Toma Zil forcefully reforms his entire body and retakes shape. His unstable form makes him look like an abomination of limbs positioned wrongly. He even grew some limbs that resemble more abomination of jacked up limbs of arms and legs.

"Fire Sword Art – Vortex Fire"

Ognist tried to stop his odd regeneration process and successfully struck him down. Shortly, a loud demonic scream was let loose. The demon general regenerates harder, not wanting to lose shape.

"Shite, how do we suppose to stop this nerve-wrecking demon from growing back?" Ognist grunted.

Then, Scias yells out, "Step back, Ognist."

"Instantaneous Art – Shining Blade"

*SLAAASH*

Scias sent a horizontal flashing slash to the demon, but surprisingly, Toma managed to evade the incoming strike by cutting his lower half body. He soon regenerates his entire body within seconds.

"Tch, he began to catch up with my sword play?" Scias muttered to himself.

"Told ya, that demon is getting more powerful," Ognist shouted from the distance.

"Then we just need to do what we did again." Scias tilted his sword, causing it to reflect light strangely.

For a short time, Scias thoughts of something, "This demon is far more persistent than that moth demon back in Napre. He refused to die, even after getting sliced to tiny bits. But what piqued me is his immense will to survive. He fled from that little kid, which would've been in his favor if he kept fighting her. Well, it matters not, though. All we need to do is to complete this task."

"Let's go! Sir Scias!" Ognist shouted with spirited voice. His hands are blazing out fire until the hilt of his sword up to the blade. Scias simply nodded.

Scias takes a stance, ready to swing his katana. Together with Ognist, Scias attempts to use fire magic and imbue it to his weapon.

"Sir Scias…" Ognist felt thrilled and awe as he saw Scias' activates a small fire magic.

"Let's finish this and go home!"

Shockingly, an unexpected thing happens.

From the forest not far from their location, some trees felled. Slight tremor is felt several times, only to increase its intensity. Suddenly, a dragon snout plucked out of the forest, opened widely, showing its terrifying dragon teeth that could tear down anything.

Toma is immensely shocked to see a dragon suddenly showing up out of nowhere. He then realizes something. "T-That dragon… im-impossible!"

It is Zeugen who appeared, with Taizun above his head.

"AYYAA! Take zis!"

Zeugen sucks all the wind around him into his mouth and merged it with his steam air. His actions took Toma Zil's attention completely. Being too distracted, Ognist and Scias used this chance to silence the demon once and for all.

Toma attempts to start Accursio Malison altogether with Accursio Anathema, but then something hampered him from unleashing his ability towards the steam dragon. His demonic eyes already cracked terribly and trembled endlessly. He then realized that the core of his body is unveiling itself.

And when he turned his head around, he saw a malicious breath of fire rained down to him.

"No…!"

Scias and Ognist combined their magic and did a perfect combination that formed a new improved fire magic.

"Let loose now, Sir Scias!"

Together, they cast.

"Napalm!"

Two powerful fires merged into one, incinerating the grass as it travelled through the field and towards the demon general. Toma had no time to avoid as he was distracted.

"T-This is a lie… the purgatory… is upon me…?"

Raging fire engulfs the demon. The heat wave released caused the environment to burn as well. Slowly, tongues of fire licked every part of the shadow demon, covering him completely with nothing but fire. Toma was helpless. He could not do anything to ward off the fire.

"OOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRAAAAAARRRRRAAAGGHHH!!!"

The demon screamed as loud as possible. Marco and the rest could hear the scream from the village so loud that it shocked them.

And as the fire finally wipes out, the demon is left with nothing but only a half of his head in midair. His head became extremely light that it did not fall to the ground instantly as if his head is as light as leaf.

His head is evaporating. The core of his body has disintegrated. He can no longer regenerate.

Ognist, Scias, Taizun, and Zeugen watch as the demon loses shape. The demon stares back with only one of his demonic eyes left. He watches as the human and the dragonian patiently wait for him to dissolve quickly.

Seeing them made Toma reminisces a certain past. An imagery that he failed to remember, but now he finally found it reenacting in his last moments.

"Damn… you…" he muttered silently. "Damn you… Dantalion…! You… liar…!"

He did not curse the humans or the dragonians that destroyed him. He remembered it clearly. Dantalion spoke of something that Toma etched in his mind as a caution:

"Dragonians are our most dangerous enemy. Though their numbers are little, but them being holy elementalists pose a major threat. Beware of that, Toma Zil."

It was all Dantalion's fault that he was at this position. He remembered about more than one year ago, before the disaster struck that merged Tellus and Gaia.

He was in an elaborate chamber with the other demon generals. He saw Dantalion. He saw the bat-winged demon walk across the long hallway, followed by the other demon generals and finally followed by Toma himself.

He remembered Dantalion spoke to a certain man. He saw their interactions clearly that time. But suddenly, under unknown reasons, a strange force pushed them down to earth and forced them to kneel before that man. When Toma harshly dragged his head to look up, he saw Dantalion shook hands with that strange man. And before he even knew what's going on, he found himself already sitting inside a palace in Dantalion's castle.

Dantalion only told him that he was asleep for over five months long. Obviously, Toma could not believe what the demon had said to him. But Dantalion seemingly said the truth. He had no choice but to believe the cunning demon general.

Few months later, Dantalion disclosed news that the moth demon general has been killed. It was a massive shock to all of demon race. Dantalion revealed that dragonians were responsible for Mothrui's demise, which enlarged their fiery relation with the dragon race. Mothrui's death sparked anger and fear among the ranks of demons, even Toma himself.

Not long afterwards, Toma decided to run some researches to expand his skill in secrecy. He then found Yugos Village, a perfect place for him. Surplus of test subjects exist and ripe for the taking. But his plans were noticed by Dantalion. Coincidentally, both of them had the same idea of using test subjects, so the two decided to work together.

Unfortunately, as time passed by, Toma lost his underlings one by one. Most of his underlings were hunted down by the dragonians. While the rest were just… gone, and never seen ever again.

Then, when Dantalion and Toma set out to go to Yugos, that's when Toma realized something was not right. Dantalion proposed to switch powers in order to hide his presence. Though, he appeared later on.

Dantalion obtained usage of Toma's curse ability while the shadow demon general obtained Dantalion's mind control ability.

After threatening the people of the village, Dantalion never showed his face ever again in the research. Toma was alone and casted Dantalion's mind control ability to make sure everything went to his liking. It did succeed, but strangely, as each days passed by, he found more and more of his servants lying dead, scattered around the village. He never knew the cause of their deaths until Dantalion called him once again.

The demon general spoke that he wanted Toma to keep on going, only to be warned to not think of anything else aside their task at hand.

Toma felt furious for being ordered. He secretly cut his alliance with Dantalion and did an investigation and found out what Dantalion was trying to do. But his actions come at a steep price. He lost all of his underlings, leaving only Doutha as his sole surviving minion. Toma then believed that his minions and servants alike were killed by Dantalion's men.

He went furious and acted on his own. Severing alliances with Dantalion meant war, which was the reason behind the demons that approached the village with shadow wave. The curse magic that was used by Dantalion was disturbing for Toma, and he wanted to annihilate them until some strange people arrived at the village through teleportation.

Toma used his persona of a little boy to tell the problems he had to them. Unexpectedly, those people he thought of a hindrance was the one that cleaned his mess.

The curse magic and Dantalion's men were gone. No more threats bother him then. But things went south as soon as he saw dragonians appear in the village. When he did several investigations, he guessed that Dantalion must be the one who dragged the dragonians to come over to the village.

His frivolous actions of trying to kill the dragonians proved to be his downfall. He lost Doutha, his last living minion. He went mad afterwards, only thinking of killing, killing, and killing.

And now, Toma discovers the truth in his last seconds.

"It was never Dragonians that became my biggest threat. It was Dantalion, who lied to me. His lies led me to this very moment. I've never met a human that was fearless against me. They are the greatest threat that I overlooked. I was too scared of being devastated by those dragonians. And now… a steep price must be paid… with my life."

Toma lost his entire head almost completely. He speaks for one final time:

"Curse… y..ou… Dan…ta…lio..n… C…urse… y…o…u…."

He finally met his end.

The shadow demon's head dissolves entirely into thin air. The remains of his shadow form disintegrate and completely disappear.

Thus, the shadow demon vanishes.

The Curse Host is no more.