"Boooom!", a bright yellow lightning energy projectile accompanied by a loud explosion was released the moment Daimon thrusted the spear, reaching the black shadow colosseum almost instantly.

"Crack!", to everyone’s surprise, the lightning energy projectile only drilled a hole into the wall of shadow colosseum before the electricity was absorbed into it, leaving behind a small hole which allowed Daimon to see many chains hanging inside of the colosseum before the damage was repaired.

Which made Marcus let out a sigh of relief to his insides, he was really worried that the lightning energy would pierce through the whole colosseum and then reached the origin of the shadow lioness.

That being said, he didn’t dare to relax because the black colosseum hell was supposed to be... unaffected by external interferences and it was especially reinforced to deal with anything of the positive energy spectrum, since Marcus created this hellscape to deal with Adam as he had stated before.

"Hssss!", crackling sounds echoed through the vicinity as bright yellow lightning exploded around Daimon’s body, apparently the little tiger girl’s energy really hated the black colosseum hell, so it reacted quite fiercely to it.

"Swift Step", amused by Dana’s energy which acted pretty much like the little tiger girl, Daimon turned into a flash that reached Marcus a fraction of a second later, the spear which he was still wielding exploded in bright yellow lightning as he slashed it towards Marcus.

"Clang!", only for the now golden armored lioness to intercept it with her black claws, however the lioness’s eyes contracted as her body radiated black shadow devil mana clad in a tinge of golden light.

"Boooom!", the lightning energy on the spear was released as an explosion which had the intention to reach Marcus and burn him into a crisp, but the lioness blocked it with her shadow mana, sending as much of the explosion as she could into the shadows.

Now that she could work in the outside world, she wasn’t damaged by resorting to the previous, however the lightning was too fierce so the lioness was still forced backwards due to the impact and Marcus had to retreat if he didn’t want to be thrown down from the lioness’s back, and more importantly harmed by the explosion which spilled lightning energy all over the place.

"Black Devil Hell Step!", with a sour expression on his face, the devil ruler system user flashed away, leaving the armored lioness to her luck, while he ordered the haunted locust tree general to shoot arrows at Daimon so that he couldn’t chase after him.

"Black Devil Hell Arrow Rain!", though the special curse that was casted on the arrows was now useless against Daimon, the one-time transition between ethereal and physical as well as the invisible aspect granted to them by the bow and the illusion field of the wraiths remained.

And now that the black lioness could defend Marcus at distance and also actively participate in the fight outside, the long-range suppression of the general became quite effective.

"Roar!", while the armored lioness charged head on towards Daimon, his instincts instead warned him of danger from every direction, but Daimon now had a way to trigger the one time ethereal-physical transition effect at distance quite easily.

"Hsssss!", the large reinforced green wood energy shield that floated behind of Daimon was clad in bright yellow lightning which then exploded spreading currents of electricity that expanded with Daimon as the center.

"Crack!", continuous shattering sounds could be heard coming from random "empty" directions, those were the arrows which had been forced to use their one-time special effect when met with the first wave of lightning energy and then were destroyed by the next ones.

Of course, not all the invisible arrows were destroyed, since Daimon’s control over Dana’s energy is not precise enough to make every electric current equally powerful, some carried more strength than others, however all the arrows were forced to trigger the one-time ethereal transition, so now they were just invisible arrows with a low explosive power.

Not to mention that the previously inescapable net of invisible arrows had a lot of holes through which Daimon could navigate without the need to resort to use a movement martial art like before, such was the value of having "battle aura" in the form of the little tiger girl’s lightning energy.

’Femi’s energy is quite strong and though it focuses in defense it increases offense power indirectly but external release of it requires a high grade of mastery, Tessa’s energy is incredibly flexible offering both reinforcement and multiple special effects but its external release doesn’t focus in attack power, but in control as it suppresses negative oriented energies, Dana’s energy on the other hand is initially hard to control but for that same reason it has a strong attack power and is easy to release it’, thought Daimon.

The arrows weren’t made with extreme negative oriented devil mana, so Tessa’s energy didn’t affect them, therefore even if Daimon radiated the nature energy the things wouldn’t need to use the ethereal transition the same applied to his silver energy since it is also not attack oriented though with it Daimon could burn away the invisible spell of the wraiths the arrows would still remain.

Femi’s energy on the other hand couldn’t be released that way at the stage of control of it in which Daimon was, though if he made a construction with it and made it intercept the arrows then they would waste the one-time special effect they had.

Unfortunately, there was a limit of the energy constructions Daimon could wield at the same time, and to intercept the arrows coming from all direction using that method, he would need to make at least another two shields meaning that he would have to say goodbye to the boots or the gauntlets.

But that problem was solved thanks to the little tiger girl’s lightning energy, since while at its initial form it’s hard to manipulate meaning that unlike Dana, Daimon can’t condense it for close combat to make the tiger claws and other constructions that she learned to use, the lightning energy is completely attack type and it’s easy to use by simply releasing it like Daimon did, which is the most basic usage of battle aura.

Simply put, Dana’s lightning energy was fierce and hard to control at its initial stages, but that could also be a strength instead of a weakness, depending on how it was used.

Now that the arrows couldn’t change to ethereal mode, Daimon simply charged and the arrows exploded upon contact being completely blocked by Femi’s energy which projected armor on the points of impact, so Daimon moved unbothered by them.

"Clang!", the lioness on the other hand did require more of his attention, as Daimon using the reinforced wood energy spear to block her black claws, suggested.

Also, unlike the tree general who lacks the capacity to use spells or the wraiths and the golden imp which under normal circumstances need Marcus to order them to use their spells, the lioness was the first completely independent being that came from a hellscape, she was capable of using her spells without any need of Marcus’s interference.

This is of course not out of Marcus’s goodwill nor appreciation for the black lioness, but because she is supposed to guard him from the shadows, so she has to be able to react to different situations in which Marcus mind would be occupied with something else.

"Black Shadow Surge!", with the lioness as the origin, devil shadow mana in the form of fluid black light expanded in every direction, however Daimon could tell that this wasn’t an attack type spell, the lioness wanted to obstruct his sight most likely to create an opening so that Marcus could attack him, it’s also worth mentioning that this was the first time Daimon heard the lioness’s voice.

The green energy wood mask covered Daimon’s face, but surprisingly enough instead of seeing through the veil of shadow devil mana, his sight was instead directed to what lied inside of the lioness’s shadow realm, which was basically an empty black land with some craters here and there caused by the attacks she had transported here earlier.

’Heh, it’s a good trick’, thought Daimon, though the lioness couldn’t block the effect of the nature energy mask to see through "obstacles", she managed to redirect his sight into the shadow realm, of course it wasn’t as simple as the lioness simply radiating a lot of shadow devil mana, she had expanded the entrance to her shadow realm through all the length of the shadow veil she casted to achieve this, in other words she really put a lot of effort into covering Marcus’s back.

"Shattering Step", Daimon’s right foot exploded in bright yellow lightning as he stomped it making the ground in thirty meters around him shatter before lightning spilled in every direction as well.

"Boooom!", the lioness blocked both the shockwave and a vast majority of the lightning energy explosion by sending it into the shadow realm and tanking the rest with her armored body, unfortunately the invisible arrows which were supposed to pass through her body to then reach Daimon from the front, had their special effect triggered by Dana’s lightning energy, so they instead landed on the lioness’s back. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Of course, they were also absorbed into the shadows so she wasn’t hurt, but it costed her devil mana, and more importantly they further divided her attention since she now had to open the portal not only at the front of the shadow veil but also at the back.

"Swift Step", that small distraction cut off the next step in the lioness’s plan allowing Daimon to easily flash upwards, where Marcus had just appeared as he was about to cast an attack spell towards Daimon.

"Damn it, Black Devil Hell Cannon!", with a rushed voice since his ambush was interrupted, the devil ruler system user pointed his right hand frontwards and black flames gathered to form a sphere which he shot towards Daimon.

"Booom!", the black flame sphere exploded before it could reach Daimon, because he threw the reinforced energy spear which was clad in lightning to intercept it to then appear close to Marcus.

"Clang!", however at the last second before Daimon’s fist could reach Marcus’s face, black claws came out of Marcus’s shadow intercepting his punch, still the lightning energy gathered on Daimon’s fist exploded hitting the devil ruler system user head on, which forced him to retreat just in time for the lioness to arrive in order to prevent Daimon from chasing after Marcus.

’Arrgh!’, on the surface Marcus was fine, he was only exposed to the lightning up-close for a second, but on the inside, he was cursing because it hurt like hell, it was different from the burning effect caused by the silver energy of Daimon, as that was just the result of the conflict between the silver energy and negative oriented things.

Though that still hurt, he could reduce the effect by adding other energies like the golden one from the opportunity mountain hell for example, but Dana’s lightning was an actual attack focused energy, so it didn’t give a damn about orientation, like a fierce tiger it ripped apart its target, so Marcus felt as if countless needles were prickling his skin for a second there, which naturally transformed into anger as the lioness had failed to protect him once again.

This time she couldn’t be blamed though, not only did she have to block Daimon but even Marcus’s order for the general to shoot arrows at every single chance he had, ended up distracting her, well, the previous time wasn’t her fault either, not like Marcus cared about that as one could see when a black flame whip condensed in his hand before he... lashed it at the lioness.

"Hssss!", the moment the black flame whip landed on the lioness’s back, sizzling sounds were produced the wound wasn’t deep but apparently Marcus’s mana had an absolute effect of suppression on the lioness, it was as if the strong body and the armor on the lioness were non-existent causing her to softly growl due to pain for the first time.

’Shut up, you useless thing, no matter how broken your body gets, nothing will happen since your origin is inside the colosseum hell, so stop wasting time in dodging or protecting yourself, just focus in blocking and restraining that masked bastard so that I can kill him!’, cursed Marcus in a voice that only the lioness and his administrator could hear, since the anger in his heart didn’t subside even after that, he was about to lash the lioness one more time at least but he was forced to return to the real world when a sensation of danger assaulted him.

"Shattering Arrow", Daimon who was now holding onto a reinforced green energy bow, let go of the string and a yellow star-like flash was shot by him, that was an arrow which constantly had lightning energy crackling around it.

"Black Devil Hell Step!", not daring to waste even a fraction of a second Marcus directly made the golden imp buff his next spell which was a movement one as he disappeared from his previous position, the lioness sank into the shadows in order to not have a hole pierced through her body.

"Booooom!", the star-like arrow passed right where Marcus was standing and made the ground explode just by the shockwave it carried before crashing against the shadow colosseum turning into a storm of lightning energy upon impact.

Once the explosion subsided, a scar shaped like five claws resulted in a hole the size of the lioness to have been blasted on the wall of the shadow colosseum, which made Marcus who had reappeared feel a chill running down his spine.

’If that thing had landed, I would have had to sacrifice an arm to block it... fucking hell!!!’, he thought.

He wasn’t the only one surprised though, Daimon was actually the same, earlier when he was preparing to shot the arrow, Dana’s lightning energy suddenly grew incredibly fiercer than before.

’Three, no, the power of that arrow was five times that of just the lightning energy itself, and it only costed twice the energy I was originally planning to imbue into the arrow’, thought Daimon as he gathered a bit of lightning energy on his hand, the thing had returned to its normal state already, apparently the previous was an outburst of some kind, an interested light flashed through Daimon’s eyes behind his mask.

That arrow basically carried the power of a technique plus the power of the martial art he used of course, it was especially obvious since the impact left five clawing scars on the colosseums wall before a large part of it crumbled apart leaving behind a normal hole.

And speaking of which, this time the damage on the shadow colosseum was taking longer to be repaired, though everything inside of it was pitch black, letting only some barely noticeable chains to be seen from the outside, at least until a green energy wood mask appeared covered Daimon’s face, allowing him to take a peek at the inside of the colosseum.

In truth it was mostly empty, besides many cells like those of an ancient prison in which there was nothing, the only other thing that could be seen was a lioness which had chains restraining her body, the interesting part is that Daimon could tell it wasn’t a flesh and blood living being, but an energy condensation similar to a blood specter.

"Roar!", back to the fight, the lioness who had sunk into the shadows to avoid the arrow earlier, emerged from the ground to then charge at Daimon, shadow devil mana exploded around her body as she used a spell.

"Black Shadow Field!", the shadow devil mana pouring out of the lioness body expanded and then condensed creating a giant shadow dome which trapped both Daimon and herself inside of it.

"Black Shadow Hunt!", inside of the shadow dome, the lioness stomped her right frontal paw and shadow claws emerged from every direction, aiming to shred Daimon to pieces, or at least that’s what one would normally believe, but Daimon knew as well as the lioness that this spell was far from having the power to do that.

"Clang!", a reinforced green energy wood staff appeared for Daimon to wield, which was then used to deject all the incoming shadow claws before the reinforced shield which had been floating behind of Daimon, blocked in front of him.

"Boooom!", the lioness had pounced towards Daimon clashing against the shield, but that wasn’t the end of her assault, while colliding with the shield she actually used a movement spell.

"Black Shadow Charge!", and in case you wonder why would that be surprising, well, a movement spell is basically forcefully "running" at high speed for a mage, so what do you think would happen if you do that against a wall.

"Crack!", shattering sounds came from the lioness’s body as cracks formed on both the golden armor protecting her body and her bones themselves, as well as on the shield, she basically used herself as a hammer to break through a solid layer of Femi’s energy as well as the effect of impact nullifying of the green energy shield.

She did achieve her goal though, because with that the shield was forced to moving alongside her body thus pinning Daimon’s body on the ground as he used to be behind the shield but was now below of it, with the lioness pressing against the shield.

"Roaaar!".

"Black Devil Hell Shredding Arm!", with a loud roar as a signal, the black flame magic circle which Marcus had condensed on the air lit up before a house sized black clawed grey arm with strange engravings on it descended from above, instantly destroying both the shadow dome as well as the black lioness’s body before landing on the ground.

"Booooooom!", a thunderous explosion followed by a sea of black flames being released was the result of the previous.

Seeing the aftermath of his spell, Marcus nodded with sufficiency, the black lioness whose body had been blasted away regenerated the next second, the golden armor was gone and there was an obvious light of tiredness in her eyes, but she really came back perfectly.

"See, this is what you should have...", midway through his sentence, Marcus saw bright yellow electric currents start appearing among the sea of black flames.

"Hssssss!", a lightning pillar twice as thick as the grey devil arm from earlier suddenly rose, reaching the sky above the battlefield making electricity spill out of the clouds which was then released in the form of a huge lightning that landed on the shadow colosseum, destroying a third part of the whole frontal wall.

But for Marcus that was secondary, the sight of Daimon coming out from the middle of the epicenter where his previous attack had landed, nearly made him lose it, he was surrounded by six reinforced green energy wood shields which had some cracks on them.

’I see, so that’s the trigger, looks like that little tiger girl made a new friend, that must have been the strange change I felt coming from her aura after she finished her fight’, thought Daimon.

He could somewhat guess how the fights of his teammates went, but he couldn’t properly see them, since he didn’t have access to the infinity eyes, so Daimon of course didn’t know that Reina as the lioness decided to call herself, had joined Dana.

Daimon originally thought the little tiger girl’s lineage had suffered a variation, because don’t forget that she has a lion type magic beast as an ancestor, besides a tiger one like the normal Jolbaris, well, Leena and Dana’s brother are the same, that’s supposedly the origin of their white hair, rather than it just being a normal mutated characteristic, so Daimon mistakenly confused the lioness’s uniting with Dana as her lion’s lineage awakening.

But now he more or less understood what was going on, earlier he became able to use the lightning energy after Marcus suddenly kicked the lioness to then reinforce her with the golden armor that also wounded her body, then the lightning energy guided his first attack towards the colosseum.

After that, there was a momentary outburst after Marcus used the black flame whip on the lioness, so Daimon wanted to confirm if the violent fluctuations in Dana’s energy were caused because of how the lioness was treated.

Which is why he didn’t dodge the lioness attempt to restrain him, instead he dispelled all the other energy constructions, and made five extra shields with which he protected himself.

And as expected, the moment the lioness body was destroyed, he felt a surge in the power of the lightning energy.

’So, in exchange for helping her friend, she is offering me more power, that little tiger girl surely has grown a lot since the first time we met’, amusedly thought Daimon, it’s was as if Dana’s energy was "negotiating" with him.

Or more accurately, the lightning energy was asking for a favor while proving to be useful for him even if it was just a bit, as Daimon thought the energies really did resemble their owners quite a bit.