Story: I'm a Daemon, so what?
Disclaimer: I do not own the original setting.
Chapter 80: Rematch!
There are up to 15 chapters ahead at p@treon.com/theogbasilisk
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- Hinata Sakaguchi -
"It seems that you'll need to practice controlling your newfound power a bit."
She opened her eyes and nodded. She was able to get her Aura under control, but it required more effort than she was happy with, and even now, some of her Aura was still leaking out of her.
Being unable to fully control her power would likely cause issues later down the line. Even her experience in controlling Chloe's power didn't allow her to control her new power perfectly; she and Chloe were different.
Felix smirked at her. "Well, why don't we see how much you've improved?"
She could feel her lips curl up. She'd like to see how she matched up to Felix now, especially with the new power she could feel lying within her, waiting for her to call upon it.
Felix offered his hand to her. "Let's go then."
She took his hand and they vanished.
She could feel the new power within her, Mathematician had evolved into an Ultimate Skill, the Ultimate power in this world.
The sheer knowledge she now possessed when it came to manipulating the Laws of the World was immense, and even though Usurper and Vendetta were still Unique Skills, using what she knew about her new Ultimate Skill she should be able to potentially elevate her Unique Skills' abilities to the Ultimate tier if she pushed herself, though she doubted they would be as strong as a true Ultimate Skill, merely one step into the Ultimate tier which was still useful in of itself.
She also knew that her Ultimate Skill had been modified somewhat, many of the abilities present in it she should not have been capable of unlocking on her own, it seems that Felix's partner was to blame for that, but she could only be grateful, the stronger she was the better for her goals.
As they appeared in what she assumed was The Dungeon, she looked around the area. "The same area as before?"
Felix nodded. "Yeah, I just split Veldora's Floor in half for us to use for our sparring session, he didn't mind."
Hinata nodded.
"By the way, I upgraded the Blessing I gave you, so your Space-Time abilities should be strengthened." Felix said as he summoned his katana into his hand.
It seems he was taking things seriously from the start, something that caused some pride to stir within her.
She nodded to Felix's statement. "Yes, I do believe I know what form your Blessing has taken."
One sub-skill of her new Ultimate Skill was Space-Time Manipulation, which was likely one of the forms Felix's Blessing had taken as Space-Time Manipulation granted her incredible control over Space and very very minor control over Time, to the point that manipulating Time would be useless in battle.
It would be useful for teleportation, however.
The other sub-skill she suspected to be influenced by Felix's Blessing was the Multi-Dimensional Barrier. It was an absurdly powerful ability, a barrier that almost no one could even hope to bypass.
From what she suspected, this was likely the last layer of defense she luckily managed to break through when she wounded Felix.
It is a barrier-type Skill that achieves Absolute Defense through the utilization of an always active Multilayer Barrier in combination with Dimension Fault, the upgraded version of Distortion Field.
With it, almost no attacks could reach her. It was also very flexible; if there was an attack that could bypass it, and she understood the attack, then she could instantly modify the Multi-Dimensional Barrier to defend against the attack.
She did not think even Luminous had such a powerful defense.
But one thing she was curious about was why Felix didn't already know about her new Skill, Chloe had told her he had the ability to copy Skills and whatnot; did he perhaps have some sort of conditions he needed to fulfill?
"Do you not already know the abilities of my new Skill? According to Chloe, you can copy Skills."
Felix groaned in annoyance. "Of course she knows." He sighed. "I'll have to make sure she doesn't spread that around; that could become annoying." He ran a hand through his hair. Hinata had to stop herself from staring at the attractive image he was currently presenting too much.
"Seriously, what was my other self thinking…." He shook his head. "Whatever, I'll worry about that later. As for your question, Hinata, I could learn about your new Ultimate Skill if I wanted to, but where's the fun in that? I want to see what you come up with in this spar of ours, and after that, I'll take a closer look at your abilities."
She nodded. "Very well then."
She was somewhat annoyed at his ability to copy Skills, Arts, and Magic just like that, but she was at least somewhat relieved that it was Felix who could do such a thing and not someone she disliked.
Saare also had a similar ability to copy Arts, which was very powerful. However, he needed to master those Arts on his own, which could be difficult depending on his own affinity with the Art he copied.
If what she suspected was right and Felix did have a Manas, then perhaps the Manas allowed him to easily control the abilities he copied; if so, then Felix had an incredibly broken skill set.
She would ask him about his Manas another time, but for now, she wanted to test herself.
She summoned her armor and rapier from the bracelet Felix gave her. She sighed in pleasure as even more power was channeled through her, her armor and rapier's energies being added onto her own far more significant reserves.
"It seems your armor has grown more powerful with you." Felix said with an impressed nod.
He was right; the amount of energy both her rapier and armor now contained was greater than it was before.
Felix raised his katana in a defensive stance. "You can start."
She nodded and began releasing the new form of Haki she had developed, Holy Haki.
Her Haki was strong enough to easily incinerate even Disaster Class demonic beings instantly, and yet Felix seemed wholly unaffected by it.
Holy Haki was basically a variation of Hero's Haki, but with more capabilities. She could freeze weaker targets in place and bend them to her will; however, even her Haki now would have a Holy attribute that could incinerate demonic beings instantly if they were too weak, and that was not all. Her Holy Haki was even capable of purifying things; what she could purify depended on her power, but as she was now, she knew she could purify former Humans who became Majin, turning them back into Humans, she could purify a corrupted environment and all manner of other things.
"Well, that's new. You're going to need more than that, though." Felix taunted.
She ignored Felix's words as she activated Thought Acceleration and then began using one of her new sub-skills, Calculation Domain, which was the evolved version of Predictive Calculation.
With Calculation Domain, she could easily calculate the exact trajectory of an incoming attack, which, while useful, wasn't something game-changing. What made it a truly powerful ability was that it could do what Predictive Calculation could: it could predict the future to a certain extent.
Using the information she already possessed she could basically run simulations of the possible futures to have a better understanding of her fights, this could be used in the short term to merely predict the next attack her opponent would throw at her, or it could be used to telegraph an entire fight if she possessed enough information.
Her eyes practically glowed as data flowed through her, and yet she did not get the answer she wished for.
In each of the simulations, Felix would defeat her with contemptuous ease once he started letting loose. The power he showcased that caused her entire evolution was still multiple times greater than her own power, and his swordsmanship was able to match hers.
He now knew about Vendetta as well, and Hinata did not doubt that he likely copied its abilities and was aware of its sub-skills.
However, it wasn't like everything was completely hopeless; Sword Flow would cause Felix some trouble as long as he was careless, but her biggest trump card in this fight would be her Virtual World.
She knew what she had to do to merely have a chance in this fight, and she doubted she even had the full picture of all Felix's abilities, her calculations were likely already flawed since they were based around what she knew of Felix.
Felix likely had other abilities he had yet to use against her, so she did not know of them, which influenced her calculations.
But she would have to deal with that when the time comes.
For now, she wished to test her new power against Felix, after that, she will activate her trump card and see how Felix reacts to that.
Her rapier blazed with Holy Power, and Divinity, the Divinity portion was somewhat chaotic, causing her to waste some energy, but she was getting the hang of it quickly. Calculation Domain also ran calculations on how to best control her power as well after all.
All of a sudden, a random thought came to mind, could she calculate how to best sedu– no! She would not go there.
Unfortunately, it was too late, she felt her eyes widen as she took in her Skill's suggestion for seducing Felix.
She gripped the hilt of her rapier tightly as she attempted to distract herself.
She dashed forwards, breaking the sound barrier in the process. Her rapier was raised high as she slashed downwards, leaving shockwaves in her wake.
Felix blocked her strike with contemptuous ease, but that was fine as she spun around and redoubled her attack.
She smirked as Sword Flow's effects began making themselves apparent.
For each consecutive strike, her attack's power would be increased by 50%, Holy Power, Divinity, Fighting Spirit, practically everything would be strengthened by 50% which was an incredible increase.
The surroundings were ravaged as the increased amount of energy rampaged around them.
If she were to imbue her rapier with 1,000,000 EP worth of energy, then after the first strike it would become 1,500,000, then 2,250,000, and so on; it had the potential to become truly overpowering.
Of course, this overpowering ability did have a limit; her power could not be strengthened by more than 5x the initial power, but with her newfound increased power, she could afford to imbue her weapon with more energy, thereby increasing Sword Flow's limit.
Felix sensed the increasing energy in her weapon, and narrowed his eyes.
Hinata used Calculation Domain to read his next attack. She immediately figured out that he would be teleporting behind her before kicking her across the training room.
She immediately spun around before Felix even teleported, her eyes widened as the calculated outcome did not happen, no, Felix merely dashed forward and struck her with his fist.
"Guh!" She groaned in pain as Felix's Fighting Spirit attempted to rampage within her body. She quickly regained control over herself and began fighting off Felix's Fighting Spirit as she quickly spun around.
Her weapon no longer had the boost in energy, she only got the boost in energy when she was making consecutive strikes, after that the energy would scatter, and no matter how much she fought to keep control over the energy she would fail.
Felix looked at her with interest. "Did you think I would appear behind you or something?" Felix asked with a tilt of his head. Seeing that she didn't answer, he continued on his own. "Some kind of prediction ability, then? Mathematician had something similar, so that must have been what evolved, though I already suspected that it was either Mathematician or Vendetta since you aren't weakening me with Usurper."
Her lips twitched at Felix's correct analysis. "It seems that this prediction ability is far from totally accurate, especially against another precog, so do keep that in mind."
Her eyes widened as she took in Felix's words. "You have precognition?!"
He nodded. "I do, I got it from Laplace, he was likely reading you like a book because of it."
Her eyes narrowed. Laplace did always seem to know what she would do before she would even make her moves.
She would have to keep in mind that Calculation Domain proved to be less effective against other precogs then. But now she knew more about what abilities Felix possessed, her Calculation Domain was already recalculating everything since she knew Felix had precognition.
She nodded. "I see, that does make sense." She mumbled as she rubbed her belly where Felix had punched her.
Her regeneration had also been upgraded by her evolution, yet Felix's Fighting Spirit was very potent.
Felix twirled his blade. "Now again."
She nodded as she began channeling Usurper's weakening powers into her rapier, coating it in a layer of energy that would suck some of the energy out of Felix's attacks.
She bent her legs slightly before dashing forwards at speeds she had never moved at before.
Less than a nanosecond later, she was in front of Felix. Despite her incredible speed, he managed to react, his eyes narrowing as he deflected her strike and twisted to the side, attempting to stab her. She quickly reacted with a backflip, and with a gesture of her hands, numerous Magic Circles appeared, immediately firing various Elemental Magics at Felix.
Each of the Spells had been elevated by her own improved understanding of the Laws of the World, they weren't quite at the Ultimate level just yet, however, they were approaching that level.
She knew none of her attacks had any hope of reaching Felix yet, his defenses would make quick work of them, even Disintegration would likely fail.
Using her spells as cover, Hinata dashed forward, causing a sonic explosion behind her. She used a sub-skill of Vendetta's, Hunter, which allowed her to spot weaknesses in her opponent's form. Of course, it failed to work on Felix. Whether due to his flawless form or a block on her Skill, she did not know.
Her Holy Haki cratered around her as her blade met Felix's in the middle, some of the energy surrounding Felix's blade was drained, but not nearly enough in Hinata's opinion.
Grunting, she pushed more and more Holy Power into Divine Moonlight, to the point where her rapier shone like a star. The ground of The Dungeon cracked under the pressure, yet it still wasn't enough. Felix matched her energy output perfectly, as if merely testing how far she could go.
She leaped backward before charging at Felix with renewed intensity. The two began their deadly dance, each of her attacks flowing seamlessly from thrusts to swings to jabs. Felix blocked each one in a carefree dance of his own.
She could hear herself laughing as they met blade for blade, it was as if they were putting on a show for an unseen audience as they tested each other's limits, though she was well aware it was primarily Felix doing the testing, seeing just how far she could now push herself.
Space itself was rendered apart in the midst of their clashes, before long Felix leaped backwards. "Very impressive Hinata, the amount of power behind your attacks is something even mid-level True Demon Lords would be careful of."
She preened under Felix's praise. He raised his hand, palm upward, his fingers loosely curled as if cradling an invisible treasure. A faint shimmer danced in the air above his palm before condensing into a brilliant blue sphere. It hung there, a seemingly innocent orb, but its presence was anything but benign.
The space around it rippled unnaturally, bending and distorting as though the air itself struggled to escape its pull. The blue light pulsed faintly, sending tremors through the ground at her feet. Objects near its edge subtly shifted toward it, dragged by an invisible force.
The power it radiated was incomprehensible, a paradox of serene beauty and obscene levels of raw power. It didn't emit heat or sound, yet the sheer weight of its existence pressed against her chest, making it hard to breathe.
"Blue." His ethereal voice muttered as he launched his attack at her. She raised her blade in a defensive stance.
The attack approached her at speeds she was unable to follow, so she simply closed her eyes and allowed her instincts to guide her.
Moments later she swung her rapier towards the attack. "Full Counter!" She yelled as she channeled another one of Vendetta's sub-skills.
She grit her teeth as her own power fought against Felix's attacks for dominance. His Blue was at the Ultimate level, and at the peak of it too, even if Felix only casually fired this attack and didn't reinforce the Laws it functioned on it was still incredibly difficult for her to deflect the attack with merely an elevated Unique Skill. Perhaps if Felix put more weight behind his attack then she wouldn't have even had a chance at deflecting it.
After a few moments she came out on top as she deflected the attack back towards Felix with double the power.
Space was rendered apart as the Blue soared towards Felix, sucking up everything in its path. However he merely raised his hand which was now coated in his Demon Lord's Haki and slapped his own attack to the side, from the corner of her eyes she could see that the wall the Blue hit was completely destroyed, there was a large hole going straight through the wall, on the other side of the wall was simply empty Space.
"Full Counter, huh? The Voice of the World sure knows how to make jokes." Felix laughed. "I was wondering when you would use that, it would be really powerful if used at the right moment."
She nodded. "Still, now that we've established a baseline for your abilities why don't we go a bit beyond?"
She could feel her lips curl up. This entire fight Felix was likely merely testing her limits, seeing just how strong she was after evolving, but now he would truly begin to pressure her.
She nodded decisively as her rapier lit up in a new layer of Divinity further reinforcing it before releasing the floodgates on her Holy Power that she had been containing.
Her evolution to Divine Human increased the quality and quantity of her Holy Power, now the mere release of her Holy Power could incinerate stronger demonic beings.
"Very well then." She replied.
The moment after she spoke Felix dashed forwards leaving multiple sonic explosions in his wake.
She raised her rapier to defend as quickly as she could and only barely managed to block on time. The loud boom of their blades meeting echoed throughout the dimension. She grit her teeth as she stared into Felix's smirking face as he put more and more pressure behind his attack.
Felix's own katana was alight with Divinity and Fighting Spirit which was slowly overwhelming the layer of energy she had on her own rapier. Felix's was of higher quality and density, and yet she still doubted that he was going all out.
Perhaps she had mythologized Felix in her head, but with the amount of power she felt him release she knew she was right.
She attempted to warp Space to teleport a distance away, however Felix locked the surrounding Space making it so only he could manipulate the local Space, he practically became the administrator of Space itself.
She grit her teeth as she leaped backwards putting some distance between the two of them. "Grr asshole!"
Felix shot her a smug smile. "I live to please!" He said as he slashed his katana in her direction, her Calculation Domain told her that he would be using an Aura Slash but she had quickly learned that he Calculation Domain was unreliable against Felix.
She just lacked the proper information.
She blinked as Felix sent multiple Divinity imbued Aura Slashes her way at speeds multiple times greater than that of sound. It seems Calculation Domain was right this time. In a burst of agility she quickly dodged the speeding Aura Slashes. She winced as she heard The Dungeon wall behind her collapse, those Aura Slashes packed a punch.
"Why don't I make this a bit harder now." Felix said as he snapped his fingers.
Hinata winced as she felt gravity's hold over her intensify hundreds if not thousands of times over. Felix had increased the gravity in the surrounding area. "I made it fair this time, so my own gravity has been increased as well."
Her lips twitched at Felix's remark. Instead of responding she merely dashed forwards, her speed was still blinding, however it was far slower than her peak.
She grunted as she swung her rapier down, the amount of force she had to put through was significant.
Felix blocked her strike before counterattacking with his own.
She had a feeling this fight would become rather annoying.
–
She groaned in exhaustion, she wasn't truly capable of sweating or anything similar, but she did not have unlimited stamina or energy, it would take her time to regenerate her reserves again.
They had been fighting under the enhanced gravity for who knows how long, she was sure the increase in gravity would make for a very good training booster, but now it was just plain annoying.
"Fine." She mumbled. If Felix wanted to be annoying then she would be annoying.
She gripped Divine Moonlight tightly. "Virtual World!" She gasped as a significant portion of her energy was used to materialize her Virtual World into reality.
Felix's eyes widened. "A World System Skill?!"
She felt her authority surrounded the area around them, overwriting the texture of Ramiris' Labyrinth with her own personal world. The surroundings had shifted into a digital space of sorts, they were no longer in The Dungeon, they were in her own personal world that she had overlaid with reality.
She knew it was possible to contest the authority she held over the world, however to do so one would need greater power than the one who deployed the World System Skill and enough willpower to contest against her own authority.
She was sure if Felix wanted he could do so which would turn this into a contest of willpower, but he seemed to be content to see what she would do.
Her eyes narrowed as she exerted her authority over the world, she was able to alter reality by exchanging virtual information for real information and vice versa. The first thing she did was make it so Felix's gravity alteration no longer applied to her.
She winced as more energy was drained from her due to her alteration of this reality.
She couldn't do anything like change reality so that Felix was unconscious or anything like that, if someone weaker than her was caught in her Virtual World then they had already practically lost, however if someone was much more powerful than her then they could resist the effects of the Virtual World.
She was sure if she exerted her authority to make Felix lose the fight in some way he would fight against her. Not to mention she likely didn't even have enough energy to create such a large alteration in reality.
The more probable something was the easier time she would have with changing virtual reality with real reality, or if she was stronger than her opponent it also wouldn't be as draining to change their reality.
However one thing she could do was change her own reality, she couldn't give herself monstrous strength like Felix, but with only a thought she got rid of any exhaustion she was feeling, she increased the regeneration rate of her own energy.
She could easily introduce various elemental effects, however she was sure that wouldn't hinder Felix, theoretically it was possible to make it so that Felix's various Resist Skills were no longer effective, however she lacked the power to do that at this moment.
However she already had a few ideas as to how best to use the Virtual World in this case. She used her authority over the world to create a perfect illusion of herself, one that was even radiating the same Holy Power she was while she vanished from sight as she changed reality so her presence was completely hidden, no form of detection should be effective on her anymore.
Felix's precognition would still theoretically work however hopefully the illusionary version of her would throw him off slightly. Felix's senses would be muddled due to the nature of the Virtual World.
Felix's spatial lock no longer applied in this world of hers so she appeared right behind Felix as her illusionary form approached from the front.
All of a sudden Felix kicked backwards while also throwing a Spatial construct towards her illusion.
"Tsk." She clicked her tongue as she dodged his kick. "Is it your precognition?" She asked, her voice coming from all directions to keep her current location hidden.
"That was super trippy. And yes, I could tell I would be attacked from behind due to my precognition, but I also wasn't sure what was up with that other you, I couldn't tell if it was real or not so I attacked it as well just in case."
"I see."
If she wanted to harm Felix she would need to find a way to deal with his precognition, either that or just grow strong enough that his precognition didn't matter, Felix knowing where and when she would attack wouldn't matter if he just couldn't keep up with her.
But against a weaker foe, it was practically impossible to take him off guard when he could literally see what moves she would be making ahead of time. That was a large reason Laplace managed to do what he did.
It was like Calculation Domain but more absolute, likely due to only allowing Felix to see a few short seconds into the future.
What she could also do is launch an attack that Felix was incapable of dodging with the few seconds notice he will get, but she did not currently have such an attack in her arsenal.
She grit her teeth as she decided to go all out, she would use all her remaining power on this last charge.
She used her authority over Virtual World to increase all of her attributes giving her a home field advantage of sorts, while it wouldn't be enough to put her on Felix's own level, every little bit of extra power helped.
Once she finished the last of her commands she dashed forwards at speeds she wasn't normally capable of.
Felix's eyes widened at the sheer speed she was approaching at, her speed enough to cause him to begin taking things far more seriously.
Due to her authority over the Virtual World she was able to manipulate different aspects of the world as long as it was part of her domain, she could even manipulate Time to a certain extent.
Normally such a thing would be impossible for her to do in the real world, however in the Virtual World, what is virtual can become her own reality.
The rules binding reality were far weaker in her world and so she was able to increase her own time which increased her own speed many times over, of course she had to pay a steep cost in energy, however a new use of Virtual World she had just come up with was to gather energy from outside the Virtual World and suck it into the Virtual World, at which point using her authority Hinata would instantly absorb all the energy.
It was far from enough to compensate for all the energy she had drained to make these changes to Virtual World, but it was something.
Felix just barely managed to raise his katana to defend in time, but she wasn't finished, she was relentless in her barrage of attacks. She had increased the force behind her own attacks further through altering gravity, and for once Felix was on the back foot, whether it was due to her unexpected speed or something else she did not know, but she would take advantage of it.
The effects of Sword Flow increased the power behind her attacks to the point that each time her rapier and Felix's katana met, Space would shatter around them.
She spotted a slowly growing grin on Felix's face… he was enjoying this.
"Haha, good, good! Show me more Hinata!" Felix yelled out.
She grit her teeth and used her authority over the Virtual World to alter reality further.
She warped the perception of Space, making both distance and direction ambiguous as Space was always changing, she could easily maneuver through the Virtual World thanks to her nigh-omniscience within it, she would know everything that happens inside of it.
She created realistic illusionary figures of herself that Felix would have a much harder time perceiving as real or fake thanks to her earlier distorting of Space, however she went even further beyond, these illusionary figures she created weren't quite fake, no they were all her at once.
In a similar manner to Split Body in her Virtual World she had managed to recreate virtual versions of herself and then brought them all to reality, they weren't as powerful as her of course, but the kicker was that she could instantly become anyone of them, basically changing her main body, this way even Felix's precognition shouldn't give him a perfect idea of what was truly occurring. They were basically her own virtual bodies.
Her final change was making it so that the Virtual World sapped energy from Felix's katana itself, Felix would likely be able to resist but that would just be another thing to split his focus, anything would help her at this point, she was stronger than she ever was and Felix still felt like a mountain she had yet to overcome.
"Interesting, you're really being creative huh?" Felix mumbled.
Before he could continue her onslaught of attacks continued, with each consecutive strike her blows became 50% more powerful, with each moment that passed more and more of her own energy was drained, she couldn't do this for long, she knew she had to do something if she wanted to gain more ground on Felix.
She activated Thought Acceleration to the max as she considered her options until she landed on a single thing that may give her a chance. She didn't know if it was possible, but if it wasn't possible then she would just make it possible.
Virtual World worked by exchanging the virtual information that she coded into reality with the real information already present in reality while also weakening the rules over reality in general within her personal world to allow her modifications.
She grit her teeth as she thought back to everything she had experienced so far, she knew she still had more of her journey left in front of her, and so she would not fail now.
She used her very Divinity to will one change into the reality of the Virtual World.
All futures are real.
She coughed out some of her life blood due to over extending herself, but she had gotten this far, she wouldn't give up now. One thing was certain though, she couldn't overlay her own rules onto reality willy-nilly, and she had very strict restrictions.
"What?!" Felix yelled in surprise.
Felix quickly ducked under the slash of one of her virtual versions just as she jabbed her rapier forward. However something he wasn't expecting happened, an illusionary form of her appeared behind Felix and punched forwards yet in an absurd show of speed Felix's movements turned into a blur in her eyes, and her eyes were capable of perceiving someone moving at multiple times the speed of sound as if they were in slow motion.
For Felix to blur in her own vision told her that speed wise she had no chance of keeping up without accelerating her own time like she had been.
The illusionary form of her was one of her futures brought to reality, normally in reality there is one single future that happens, what she had done was make it so that there were multiple futures, all of them happening in this one moment. The future was practically limitless when it came to the possibilities, and so she brought some of those possibilities to this reality. And yet Felix had still managed to avoid her attacks… for now that is.
"Tsk." She clicked her tongue as she paired Felix's slash before counterattacking with her own.
What she had done by making all futures real was basically disable his precognition. Thanks to Calculation Domain she knew that it was equally likely that in some future she may jab her rapier, in another she may slash forward, while in another she may throw a punch and so on.
Felix couldn't tell what was real or fake, because all of them were technically real.
For a few moments she attacked Felix in cohesion with her alternates, yet Felix managed to weave in between all of their attacks perfectly, she noticed his eyes were narrowed in focus.
Felix worked overtime to block, parry, and dodge all of her attacks, all of them equally as real as the next, without his future sight to rely on he had to rely on his instincts now, which while not as absolute as precognition was still more than enough to deal with all of her attacks.
A moment later she swapped with one of her virtual bodies that was coming at Felix from behind, her virtual bodies weren't dispelled after all. She blinked as she appeared literal centimeters away from Felix, and she knew this would be her opportunity, with Felix's precognition unreliable she may have a chance here.
The one rule of this world was that there were no absolutes. She refused to believe that Felix's precognition was as perfect as it seemed.
In a burst of speed Felix shouldn't have expected from a mere copy she boosted forwards, With her rapier aimed straight at Felix's chest, she knew that Vendetta's Guaranteed Strike would make sure she pierced through all of Felix's Barriers. Felix was still distracted dealing with the virtual body that she used to be, not even a millisecond had passed since she swapped into her virtual body, thereby making the virtual body the new real her.
Just as she thought she was going to hit him she felt something change in Felix. All of a sudden she felt pressure like no other, she almost crumpled to the ground as Felix's Demon Lord's Haki raged around them, all of her virtual bodies were instantly erased, unable to handle the sheer pressure of Felix's Demon Lord's Haki. All of the futures she had brought to reality ceased to exist under Felix's unrelenting power.
Her Virtual World was tearing apart at the seams, almost unable to handle Felix's reality rendering Demon Lord's Haki. If she wasn't actively supporting the Virtual World then it would have already collapsed, though she couldn't do so for much longer, her reserves were drained due to the previous fight, then establishing the Virtual World and the various modifications to reality she made.
She grit her teeth and let her Holy Haki rage against Felix's Demon Lord's Haki, and while that somewhat eased the pressure it was nowhere near equal to Felix's own pressure. She groaned as she was crushed into the ground, her bones would have been torn to bits if she wasn't made of energy.
She felt as slowly but surely the rule she set onto reality and the changes she made to reality all faded away as the Virtual World collapsed in on itself due to Felix's rampaging Demon Lord's Haki.
She sighed in relief as she felt Felix slowly leash his Demon Lord's Haki back into himself.
She groaned as she flipped over onto her back.
Truthfully, she knew she did incredibly well against Felix, according to her Calculation Domain she was hundreds of times greater than her previous Saint self, so it wasn't like she hadn't made progress, it was just that Felix was monstrously strong.
Greatness wasn't made in one day, and so she shouldn't expect to immediately come to match Felix after evolving into a Divine Human.
Honestly she was rather proud of herself even if she was disappointed that she never got that last hit in, she would always look forward to punching that smug face.
She had genuinely made Felix try, that was an accomplishment she could be proud of, especially with how overwhelmingly powerful Felix himself is, her Virtual World truly was a game changer.
She heard Felix walk over to her and sit down next to her. "That was a damn good showing Hinata." Felix groaned as he laid down next to her. "Stand proud, you are strong."
She rolled her eyes at what she was sure was some idiotic pop culture reference.
She sighed in pleasure as she felt power unending course through her being, for just a moment her reserves were linked with Felix's own and she felt unbeatable.
But as quick as all that power came it was also taken away, though her own reserves were completely filled up now.
"Did you give me energy through our Soul Corridor?"
Felix nodded. "Mhmm."
They both sat in silence for some time before she spoke up. "So a Manas, huh?"
Felix groaned. "I guess it would be pretty dumb to think you wouldn't realize." Felix said as he placed a barrier over them, one that she guessed isolated them from Ramiris' Small World so their conversation wouldn't be overheard.
"Indeed, after knowing about Chronoa, it was the most probable conclusion I could come to. So you do have a Manas then?"
Felix sighed. "Yup, she's been my partner since the start."
Her lips twitched at his admission. She could already feel the Manas taunting her.
"...I see. Do you mind explaining more? I am a bit curious about how you have a Manas."
Felix slowly nodded. "Sure… I don't think it would be a big deal, I trust you." Her lips twitched as she fought to stop them from curving up into a smile.
"Different from Chronoa who was basically born from negative emotions and your naming, my Manas was born from a Skill, an Ultimate Skill to be precise."
Her eyes widened, hearing Felix. "Manas can be born from Skills?!"
For a Manas to be born from a Skill would mean that Manas likely had the very same abilities of the Skill they were born from, those very same abilities were likely elevated to the next level, for a Manas to be born from an Ultimate Skill, the highest classification of Skill, that means that Manas was likely capable of absolutely monstrous feats.
Felix's perfection when it came to combat became far more understandable taking that into account.
Her Calculation Domain was running billions of calculations and all of them made Felix's power out to be far greater than what he had ever shown, having a Manas inside of him granted him absurd mastery over all forms of combat, even Magic and Arts weren't excluded from that.
"Yeah, they can be born from Skills, though they can only be born from a specific type of Skill." Felix added.
She tilted her head. "What kind of Skills?"
Felix gave her a look. "If you want a Manas for yourself, it won't be that easy."
She rolled her eyes. "I do not deny that having a Manas would be a great addition to my power, but if it was so easy there would be far more Manas out there in the world, to my knowledge there are only two, yours and Chronoa."
Felix nodded with a smirk. "Yeah, and Othinus is far better than Chronoa."
Great, he was bragging about his Manas now.
"As for how a Manas is born from a Skill, well it's kinda complicated. First off you need either a Virtue Series Skill or a Sin Series Skill."
Ah, that already made it impossible for her to acquire one from a Skill then.
Felix had told her about the Virtue Series and Sin Series, the two generally most powerful types of Skills in existence. The Virtue Series were once even the Skills of the Star King Veldanava.
"The Virtue Series Skills as the Skills of Veldanava have a dormant ego inside them, I'm not quite sure why they do but they do, and the Sin Series Skills as reflections of the Virtue Series Skills also have egos inside of them. As the ego is fed with interaction it begins to develop more and more until it is practically an individual of its own, naming it also works to boost the ego." Felix explained.
"I see. You have a Virtue Series or a Sin Series then?" She didn't actually know what Skills Felix had, she of course knew about the basic ones like Universal Sense and other lesser Skills, but she had no idea what his Ultimate Skills were like. She was sure he likely had a spatial Ultimate Skill however.
"My Skills huh? Well I did have a Virtue Series at some point, I've also got some Sin Series, but that's all I'll tell you." Felix said with a wink.
She rolled her eyes, she expected as much. "Fine then, keep your secrets."
"Pfft."
"What?"
Felix shook his head. "Nothing, nothing at all."
She truly didn't understand him sometimes, actually, most of the time.
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I am highly motivated by your guys' reviews and likes, so do that! I'll probably keep writing or something.
I have a discord server, come hang out if you want! https://discord.gg/VxR5Gn72Fp I also have a channel in Shiro's Gaming Omniverse.
Author's Note:
Sup guys, we got another chapter of Daemon and we have another fight scene in this one. I know I've been having quite a few of those recently, but I find the best way to show growth is through a fight scene, and Hinata has grown a lot, though I originally didn't mean for the fight scene to take up the entire chapter, that kinda just happened on its own due to the detail I was putting into it.
Virtual World is certifiably broken, I did make the abilities of that up myself sinced we have no idea what it does in canon so let me know what you all think of that. Also Hinata has improved a great amount, and I hoped I showed that with the fight scene above. The chapter ended up being told from Hinata's POV so it is what it is.
Anyways, thanks for reading, peace!
Thanks to @Bonvoyage, @Salante, and @Flowerman for beta'ing this chapter.