’Mmm, that arrow which carried a technique alongside earlier combined the outburst of Dana’s lightning energy plus the martial art and the power of the condensed reinforced energy weapon was on the same level as one of my spells or martial arts in a normal state not to mention that lightning pillar which was created by thrusting an energy spear upwards, rivaling my normal output at its highest, so the offer is quite tempting, however... how do I "help" the lioness?’, thought Daimon.

Earlier that lightning pillar was produced by him changing one of the shields into a spear and thrusting it with a martial art towards the sky, he did it because the lightning energy guided him.

As a result, the lightning that descended from the sky collapsed a third part of the whole one hundred frontal face of the colosseum, you must take into account that the hellscapes are all early-stage Arch rank creations and that the shadow colosseum was built with extreme toughness as its concept.

In fact, out of all the hellscapes Marcus had, that one has the strongest defense, because it is supposed to endure Adam’s attacks in case, he tried to target the lioness’s weakness after being frustrated by the protection she gave to his enemy.

So Daimon who in his normal state can output a maximum amount of damage enough to reach the peak of the Lord rank and slightly cross to the Arch rank, without taking into account his magic weapon in other words either Disaster or Gram, but only limiting himself to the usage of spells or martial arts, calculated that the descending lightning equaled that.

In other words, helping the lioness would allow him to recover his normal attack power even if to achieve it he had to combine the basic methods of three different energies for it, it was worth it, especially because there were still three more energies to go.

’Oh well, since that little tiger girl’s lightning seems to hate the shadow colosseum, razing it to the ground sounds like a good plan of action’, ultimately decided Daimon.

Of course, as someone that was trained in the art of war by Erin, the first thing that came to Daimon’s mind was to destroy the chains that were holding onto the blood specter of the lioness, but when that large lightning descended, its original target was said chains, however the shadow colosseum forcefully drew the impact towards it.

Apparently, it had a similar function to the ability of the lioness to drag attacks into the shadows, with the difference that as a building it couldn’t open that portal but only absorb the attacks into its walls which contained shadow devil mana, so the damage was reflected that way, in exchange it could self-repair so it was tit for tat.

Therefore, if Daimon wanted to reach the lioness he needed to demolish the vast majority of the colosseum fast enough so that it didn’t have the time to recover before he released the blood specter of the lioness.

Having decided on what to do next with a snap of his fingers, Daimon transformed four of the shields into gauntlets and boots, while the fifth one was changed into a spear and the last one got its damaged reinforcement repaired.

"Damn it!", seeing the previous Marcus couldn’t help but curse, another of the many golden hills disappeared and similar to before golden metallic armor plaques were attached to the lioness drilling into her flesh once again, but it didn’t end there.

As much of a bastard as Marcus is, he obviously knew that having her body blasted and regenerated as a whole did tire the lioness.

"Burning Mind Hell, Coordination Flame Boost!".

"Golden Opportunity Mountain Hell, Mana Boost!".

With two different orders, dark pink flames gathered on the lioness’s neck, forming burning collar while also altering her original amber eye color to a neon pink one, that was the same spell that the possessed black flame horse was using on the locust tree general, in other words it was a mind-body link boosting spell to increase reaction time.

The second spell was the classic boosting one from the golden imp, but this time focused in mana and that basically, at the cost of a third part of a golden hill, replenished the mana reserves of the lioness, as a result the armored lioness was ready for a second round.

"Hsssss!", in response to the previous, bright yellow lightning arcs started crackling around Daimon’s body, boosting and recovery spells can’t be just cast on someone infinitely, they come with a toll on the one receiving them, Daimon knows it better than anyone, after all besides the mana reserves to which he has access normally, there is a huge amount of mana stored in his slacker of a magic core, out of which he can draw more mana to replenish his own reserves, alternatively he can also borrow from Disaster if needed.

However, while that allows him to continue fighting for a longer time than others, fatigue accumulates, and that can’t normally be erased with spells, but has to be naturally dispelled with proper rest, the current sole exception to the previous being the effect of "Sanctuary" which can get rid of fatigue, and more recently with Jasmine’s "Pandemonium" which is her version of the former.

You can see how rare spells that target fatigue are, since Sanctuary was obtained through the oath that signaled the relation between his Dracolevia lineage and the one of an ancestor from the Brightstar lineage out of which Freya’s users, Aurora, her daughter and lastly Jasmine descended, while Pandemonium was obtained by Jasmine overcoming the sad end of her Brightstar lineage’s potential being exchanged for a pair of extra lives for someone else.

"Shattering Thrust", with the enraged lightning covering his body and the spear, Daimon flashed towards Marcus who immediately sent the lioness his way.

"Stop him!", completely recovered, no, further enhanced by the mind-body boosting spell, the golden armored lioness fiercely slashed her claws at Daimon who met her head on with the spear.

"Clang!", the black claws collided with the edge of the reinforced spear producing sparks and the sounds of metals colliding, however the lightning energy didn’t attack the lioness, instead it was released into a bright yellow stream that flashed upwards and to the left.

"What!", Marcus whose real self was replaced by an illusion earlier, became visible in the same direction where the lightning stream was going.

"Crack!", however at the same time, five large mana claws emerged from within Marcus’s shadow intercepting the lightning stream, unfortunately before Marcus could relax, he felt danger and instantly flashed away from his previous position.

"Black Devil Hell Step!".

"Boooom!", Marcus had just used his movement spell when the lightning which was clashing against the black claws suddenly exploded with power more than five times what originally carried, destroying the claws to then advance into the distance, ultimately landing on the shadow colosseum destroying the part of the frontal wall which had recovered and another small portion of it on the spot.

However, Marcus didn’t have the leisure to pay attention to that though, because Daimon let go of the spear with which he was clashing with the lioness, and moved the shield to block her as he transformed the spear into a bow.

"Shattering Arrow", with a strong pull force, Daimon shot a lightning clad arrow at the devil ruler system user whose face had become ugly, he was being targeted even when the lioness was facing the enemy head on.

Sure, with the improved reaction time that the lioness now had, she could protect him and buy time for him to react, but since when has he been the one suppressed by others.

"Black Devil Hell Breaking Arrow!", thus he decided to not be chased around, but intercept the enemy’s arrow, with one of his own instead, or in this case one shot by the locust tree general.

"Crack!", the lightning arrow and the flaming one met on the air, the arrow didn’t use its special one-time ethereal transition, because Marcus knew that the lightning would render it useless anyway, besides he wanted both arrows to destroy themselves.

Unlike the normal arrows shot by the general, this one was a spell and it carried a strong attack power, so it indeed managed to intercept the energy arrow shot by Daimon.

"Boooom!", on the other hand the lightning energy which was released exploded once the arrow was destroyed, once again advancing Marcus’s way, but thanks to the previous he had bought more than enough time to change his position and with that he had indeed escaped the previous miserable situation in which he was being chased around by the lightning.

"Keep the arrows coming, intercept all of that masked bastard’s attacks aiming at me!", ordered Marcus to the general.

"What kind of lame devil ruler needs a bodyguard to block his opponent and a bodyguard to protect him from the aftermath of his opponent’s attack just so that he can dodge, at least have the dignity to return the attack back to the opponent", casually said the ghost-like administrator girl from the side, with a smile that wasn’t smile on her pretty face.

"Shut up, unless you are going to lend a hand stay out of this!", retorted Marcus, that’s what he was planning to do, but now Lezabel has given away his next course of action.

"Black Shadow Shredding Claws!", the lioness who was blocked by the reinforced shield used a spell to slash at the energy shield, finally getting rid of it as she sent it flying back to Daimon who instantly repaired the brown-red metal energy layer with a wave of his hand.

’Just how much of those damn energies does that bastard have, he has been throwing that lightning, changing the constructions and repairing them non-stop since earlier!’, cursed Marcus to his insides, he was fine because each hellscape was an external source of mana for him, so his own mana consumption was minimal.

But the enemy has been using his own energy, since Marcus could see the silver energy changing into the bright green, brown-red and bright yellow ones, so he was sure that Daimon was using his own reserves.

And he was right, unfortunately for the devil ruler system user, Daimon’s energy reserves were massive to begin with, the only thing he lacked was attack power and the capacity to use techniques, not to mention that each new energy form he unlocked came with an increase in energy reserves, so he won’t be running out of it anytime soon.

"Shattering Step", with lightning gathering on his reinforced right boot, Daimon stomped his foot on the ground.

"Crack!", the shockwave stopped the advance of the lioness’s shadow mana which was secretly moving towards Daimon, while the lightning currents which moved like frenzied snakes on the ground advanced in all directions bypassing the area covered by the portal to the shadow realm that the lioness used to block the attack.

"Booom!", as if injected with adrenaline, the electric currents exploded with a second wave of power travelling through the ground all the way to Marcus who snorted in response, countless invisible arrows landed in front of him blocking the electric currents which continued their way until they clashed against the shadow colosseum instead.

"Black Devil Hell Step!", angered due to being targeted this time by the ground instead of through air, Marcus flashed away from his previous position appearing next to the lioness.

"Shattering Thrust", naturally Daimon welcomed him with a thrust of his lightning clad spear which was blocked by lioness head on.

"Black Shadow Surge!", with her body as the origin, a veil of devil shadow mana expanded in every direction colliding with the lightning energy that Daimon was radiating dragging it into the shadows while she stopped the spear with her claws.

"Black Devil Hell Shredding Claws!", taking advantage of the previous Marcus used his right hand that was covered with the clawed gauntlet to slash at Daimon’s chest, only for the reinforced shield to intercept his attack.

"Clang!", the attack was blocked for a moment before golden sparks were added to the spell, the golden imp had boosted it after the initial clash on purpose of course.

"Crack!", the enhanced spell broke through the layer of Femi’s energy and reached the wood shield below, the impact was nullified but Marcus did manage to smack the shield away.

"Hsssss!", of course that’s when Dana’s lightning came into play, like a tiger who was waiting to pounce on its prey, the lightning only exploded after Marcus had used his spell on the shield.

"Booooom!", luckily the explosion was blocked by shadow claws that emerged from the ground, covering Marcus while sending the impact into the shadows, though the remaining lightning advanced into the distance.

Seeing Daimon whose left hand was forming a fist, Marcus jumped onto the lioness’s back and retreated alongside her, he absolutely didn’t want to be punched on the face with that lightning energy after all.

Now imagine his expression when he saw Daimon changing the shield into a reinforced sword, so now he was holding onto two weapons abandoning the shield, it was as if he was saying "I don’t need to defend against you", which made Marcus give a secret signal to the lioness to then say.

"Go!".

"Black Shadow Charge!", using her movement spell, shadow mana exploded on the lioness’s legs as she turned into a black flash that rushed towards Daimon, who for a change used two martial arts at the same time, what’s more they were two martial arts with different focuses.

"Shattering Thrust", the first resulted in an explosive thrust coming from his right hand with which he was wielding the spear.

"Swift Slash", as for the second one, it was a lighter but much faster, slash from the sword on his left hand.

Now, the previous would make one believe that the spear attack would be aimed to the lioness while the sword one was for Marcus, but no, with the help of the wood energy mask, both attacks were used in the direction where Marcus was coming from.

"Domain, Shadow Guardian Beast!", knowing that her usual method won’t be enough to cover her master, the lioness directly used her Domain, which interestingly enough was completely different than the one used by Reyna.

This one was actually more similar to the undead head maid’s one, as in her domain was given a form rather than it being a mass of mana that covered a certain extension with the mage at its center.

As for the shape, it was obviously that of a giant lioness, but it had the special effect of not being fixed to the lioness’s position, as it emerged from Marcus’s shadow, protecting him from the two martial arts Daimon used against him.

"Boooom!", despite the fifty-meter sized shadow mana lioness that enveloped Marcus, the two martial arts still fiercely continued their trajectory, though the impact ended up wearing out before reaching him.

"Swift Step", Daimon however disappeared from his previous position, becoming visible once he was in front of the shadow colosseum.

"Hsssssss!", lightning energy fiercely exploded out of his body as the attacked with the spear, sword and also stomped his right foot all at the same time.

"Shattering Thrust".

"Heavy Slash".

"Shattering Step".

Under Marcus’s eyes of disbelief, he unleashed three martial arts at the same time.

"Boooooom!", for a second everything turned bright yellow colored as a thunder-like explosion followed by a giant pillar of lightning engulfed the shadow colosseum.

"Crack!", once everything returned to normal, the sight of all the walls of the shadow colosseum having being demolished was revealed, the hellscape was still there as the slowly regenerating pillars of the thing suggested, but the bases to which the chains were tied to were momentarily gone.

’So that’s what you were aiming for, it’s useless you fool!’, thought Marcus as he used the trump card of the golden imp.

"Golden Opportunity Mountain Hell, Permanence Boost!", a third of all the golden mountains disappeared on the spot, turning into golden sparks that then rained on the shadow devil mana giant lioness that was enveloping Marcus.

"Her Domain and all the abilities she has, have turned into a permanent state, so even if you kill her, she’ll keep guarding me forever!", exclaimed Marcus with sufficiency.

Of course, he was prepared for the lioness’s origin being targeted, since he expected Adam to be able to reach it through their fight, so once she had used her domain Marcus used the trump card of the golden imp and now even if the lioness died, her domain would continue to fulfill her duty of protecting him, so long as shadow devil mana kept being poured into it, and that’s what the colosseum was for.

"Go, stall him with everything you have", just as Marcus was giving the lioness the order of slowing Daimon down, not to save her origin, but so that she could use what would probably be her last life to create an opportunity for him, a loud shattering sound echoed through the battlefield.

"Crack!", that was Daimon ripping the chains that restrained the lioness blood specter with his own hands which had bright yellow lightning crackling around them, to then cast a layer of silver energy on the lioness before he... turned around to leave.

"Go, he can’t order you around now, so you have nothing to do with our fight anymore".

"Humph, what are you...", midway through Marcus’s sentence, the lioness that was standing not too far away from him tensed her body.

"Grrrr!", with a loud growl, she forced the golden metal plaques to leave her skin while she used her sharp claws to break the dark pink flame collar around her neck, this was before she disappeared.

The previous happened because the blood specter lioness which was the origin of the flesh projection that was fighting for Marcus, had stepped out of the shadow colosseum to then... stand next to Daimon, in other words she had betrayed Marcus and thus her connection to the hellscape which is what projected the flesh version of her, stopped providing her with that ability.

"Pffft, I can’t, your own creation which was based in a sacrifice made by your own subordinate actually chose to side with the enemy~", as if to rub salt on the wound, the merry laugh of Lezabel which felt like nails on a chalkboard, reached Marcus’s ears the next second.

The most insulting part is that the lioness had even renounced to the boosts of the golden armor and the flaming collar before she did so, it’s as if she was saying "I don’t want anything from you".

"How dare you, a mere pawn created through a ritual betray your master, go to hell!", shouted Marcus to then shot a black flame sphere with golden sparks on it, at the lioness.

"Clang!", despite having become uncapable of using any spells, the lioness defended herself with her claws, ready to face death if that was the result of her choice, only to see a layer of brown-red metal energy armor covering the paw with which she slashed the incoming spell.