Rise of The Demon General-Chapter 690. Cooperate With a Demon
The Beta Puppet came to the Alpha Puppet’s rescue again. Its energy shield blocked the laser beam before it could tear into the Alpha Puppet’s internal mechanism.
Seeing that its laser beam couldn’t pierce through the Beta Puppet’s defence, the Soul Flayer redirected its beam to Amon, who was advancing on it again. Amon used Invisible Sky Steps to dodge the beam until it ran out of juice and stopped. He then executed Infinite Phantom Slash.
The Soul Flayer’s four tentacles elongated and spun. They blocked all the slashes from Amon’s martial arts.
The Alpha Puppet joined in on the assault. It swung its chainsaw sword and Morningstar flail. The Beta Puppet stayed close to block any counters the Soul Flayer would dish out.
The joint assault forced the Soul Flayer to take a step back. That’s when it realised another offence had appeared behind it. Two long, black tentacles burst out of the darkened air behind it. With it pinned by both Amon and the Alpha Puppet’s assaults, it couldn’t dodge the incoming black tentacles.
The two black tentacles wrapped around its body, holding it down, but that was not the worrying part. Sizzling sounds were heard at the point of contact. The Soul Flayer noticed the tentacles were eating into its thick hide.
Amon and the Alpha Puppet didn’t stop their offense after the Elder God Tentacles successfully caught the Soul Flayer. They continued attacking. With the spirit beast pinned down, its tentacles couldn’t block all their attacks. Some broke through and produced multiple wounds. Amon wanted to wound and weaken it before attempting to capture it.
Amon noticed nearby zombie beasts disintegrated again. He assumed the Soul Flayer used them to heal itself like before. The number of disintegrated zombie beasts was more than before. He attributed this to the Soul Flayer suffering more wounds than before.
When Amon saw that the dust from the disintegrated zombie beasts entered the Soul Flayer’s mouth instead of its wounds, he knew then that his assumption was wrong. The Soul Flayer wasn’t attempting a recovery.
With a powerful blow, a torrent of glowing dust emerged from the Soul Flayer’s mouth. The dust blew everywhere. Amon already retreated when he suspected the Soul Flayer was doing something different, so did his Alpha and Beta Puppets. He went behind the Beta Puppet, and the puppet erected a barrier that covered all three of them.
The glowing dust couldn’t penetrate the barrier, but Amon saw it flicker fiercely, indicating it was struggling to hold the dust at bay.
The glowing dust didn’t only target Amon, but it also flew around the cavern and stuck to his battle puppets fighting the zombie beasts. Amon noticed that the parts where the glowing dust had touched started to melt. He understood then that the glowing dust had a similar eroding property to his Elder God Tentacles.
The glowing dust also flew behind the Soul Flayer and stuck to the Elder God Tentacles wrapping around its body. While the black tentacles were eroding the Soul Flayer’s body, the glowing dust eroded those tentacles. Because the Soul Flayer’s defense was better, the black tentacles gave in first.
The Soul Flayer tore itself away from the partially devoured black tentacles that had weakened. It then turned more zombie beasts into dust and used the dust to heal its wounds. The glowing dust and the black tentacles continued to eat at each other until they crumbled to nothingness.
The Beta Puppet’s barrier withstood the glowing dust until the dust expended its energy and vanished. However, the Beta Puppet also burned up a lot of energy to empower its barrier. It might not be able to repeat the same feat.
As for the standard battle puppets, many had been eroded to scraps. The pieces of their remains were scattered around the cavern’s floor.
While the Soul Flayer seemingly won the round, it was not without sacrifice. The number of zombie beasts it had consumed to pull off the feat was substantial. Almost half remained from the zombie beast’s initial number.
Amon still had some emergency battle puppets stored inside his black space ring. He released them to replenish the fallen battle puppets. The Soul Flayer also extended its aura to resurrect the zombie beasts inside the caves and call them here. As both sides were preparing for the next round, Amon sensed Xan Chi and Sura Yao approaching.
"Tch," Amon uttered. The sound from the battle must have echoed through the cave and reached those two who should be far away. This drew them here.
After a quick thought, he called Lin Li out again. Amon already conveyed his instruction through their mind links, so Lin Li already knew what to do. Lin Li transformed once she was out.
Xan Chi and Sura Yao arrived not long after. They were surprised by what they saw. They expected to see one of their comrades battling one or two spirit beasts. They didn’t expect to see a large-scale battle.
Despite the chaotic battlefield, they quickly spotted the important individuals because those individuals were rather eye-catching. The first was the Soul Flayer, which possessed a unique appearance. Xan Chi and Sura Yao had been briefed on what the Soul Flayer looked like, so they had no trouble identifying it.
The second was a humanoid being who looked like it was made of dark shadows. It wielded a long, flaming black sword. A quick scan with their cultivation senses revealed that the humanoid being was an infernal cultivator.
Then there was Amon floating close to his Alpha and Beta Puppets.
"A demon!" Xan Chi exclaimed after scanning the humanoid shadow.
Sura Yao didn’t say anything. He tapped Xan Chi’s shoulder and pointed. Xan Chi looked where his partner was pointing and saw a grotesque human fighting the battle puppets. Despite the distorted appearance, he still identified the human as Princess Huang Er.
"What happened here...?" He asked.
"Xan Chi! Sura!" Amon called while his Alpha and Beta Puppets supported the darkness demon in fighting the Soul Flayer. "It’s good that you arrived. Help us defeat the Soul Flayer!"
"Us...?" Xan Chi asked as he watched Amon’s puppets cooperate with the darkness demon. "Don’t tell me that the demon is on our side? Who is that demon?"
"I don’t know," Amon lied. "When I found them, the demon was already fighting the Soul Flayer. I negotiated with him, and we came to an agreement. He will help us capture the Soul Flayer alive if we let him take one small part of the Soul Flayer’s body."
"We can’t work with a demon! They are the enemy of humanity!!" Xan Chi shouted. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶
"We don’t have much choice! Princess Huang Er had already fallen," Amon shouted back while pointing at zombie Huang Er. "The Soul Flayer is much stronger than we expected. We can’t defeat it on our own, much less capture it alive."
"But, to work with a demon..."
"Think about the stake. We are doing this to save the world," Amon said. "If we fail, everyone is doomed. If we must accept a demon’s help, I said it is the lesser of two evils."
"But... Can the demon be trusted to hold up his end of the bargain?" Xan Chi asked.
"Don’t worry, I’m a good judge of characters," Amon said. "Even if he is a demon, I believe he will uphold his promise."
Xan Chi wanted to say that doesn’t sound convincing, but he was watching the fight between the demon and the Soul Flayer as he spoke. He admitted that they would indeed be at a disadvantage if they fought the Soul Flayer by themselves."
"Okay, let’s quickly complete this mission," Xan Chi stated.
However, Amon stopped Xan Chi before he lunged forward. Amon told him, "The Soul Flayer’s main ability came from utilising those dead beasts. Help me and my battle puppets destroy them. Don’t just cut them up. Burn them or grind them to dust. Without those dead beasts, the Soul Flayer will lose its teeth."
"Very well," Xan Chi said. He was actually relieved he didn’t have to fight the Soul Flayer. From the way it looked, he might only survive a few hits from the spirit beast. These dead beasts, however, seemed like good sports.
Sura Yao, on the other hand, had a different intention. He said, "You two do that. I want to fight the Soul Flayer." He dashed toward the Soul Flayer after finishing speaking.
"Lunatic," Xan Chi remarked.
"Let’s split up. You go there. I will take this side," Amon instructed.
Xan Chi didn’t object. The two went opposite ways and pounced on the zombie beasts. Xan Chi used his metal hammer imbued with the sharp rock enhancement to flatten the zombie beasts or rip them to shreds. As instructed, he ensured the pieces left from the zombie beasts were too small and were no longer moving before he continued his advance.
As for Amon, who was Lin Li in disguise, she fought using talismans. She couldn’t use Amon’s martial arts, but she had learned to use plenty of engraved-level talismans, and Amon had plenty of those talismans.
The ones Amon had given her contained offensive arts of the fire element. She used her superior strength and speed to incapacitate the zombie beasts before burning them to ash using the talismans.
