Chapter 316 - There Are No Humans Like Me
The oddly colored sky and dusty ground disappeared, leaving both Daniel and the oni into the depths of darkness.
"Useless tricks." Said the oni before pushing his terrifyingly intense essence out of his indestructible skin, which corroded Daniel's dark essence the very moment it came in contact with it.
Whenever his body moved, the demon's essence incinerated Daniel's and left gashes of clearer space which would be filled right back with constructed darkness the very next moment.
"I can still feel your presence, puny human." Added the demon before bashing his club on the small patch of sand above which Daniel was standing. However, the club went through his body as if nothing tangible was there to begin with.
A second Daniel appeared right beside the massive demon's shoulder. He was only able to pat the skin of the demon before being slapped by the latter's free hand. This time too, he disappeared leaving no traces behind.
For the following two hours, Daniel would linger in the darkness, and only appeared next to the demon's for mere fractions of a moment. He would touch the demon's skin before being hit right back.
To the demon, Daniel's actions had absolutely no purpose except for making him angrier. Each pat was as strong as that of a common human, and left absolutely no damage to his body.. But despite the lack of effect, Daniel kept going.
This went on for a long while until Daniel, after touching the demon thousands of times, finally decided to stop. The complete darkness retreated back into his hand, allowing the demon to once again be able to observe his surroundings. Daniel was sitting on a rock a few hundred meters in the distance, and observing him calmly.
"Giving up already?" asked the demon while turning to look at his direction, and keeping on emitting shocking amounts of power.
Daniel looked back at the oni in confusion for a few moments, then said "What are you talking about? You have had your chance to kill me, and now you are already dead." His tone was confident, and he truly appeared to believe what he was saying.
The oni was not sure whether to laugh at Daniel's words or be outraged, but the moment he decided to strike, he found something unusual happen to his body. His power, while nearly infinite and horrifying, was slowly being absorbed.. But that was not the most shocking part. The worst part was that the more power he emitted, the stronger the absorption would be.
"What is this?! What did you do!?" Asked the demon in anger as his power moved voluntarily out of his control, and disappeared. It was only after examining his own skin, that the Oni found out what was truly going on.
In each patch of skin that Daniel had touched, he had left hundreds of microscopic black holes that, instead of being torn apart by the oni's power, would remain passive, and welcome it in. This power would then turn into energy for the black holes, and add to their gravitational pull.
The demon had failed to notice this when he still had the time, and now that he was covered in them, and had been feeding them without a care, he was unable to stop them anymore. The absorption of these black-holes was getting closer to the demon's output of power, and the more energy he produced to fight them back, the more they would absorb and become stronger.
Daniel quietly observed as the Oni was stripped of his power, and turned back into his basic demonic form.
Unfortunately, the microscopic black holes were unable to absorb the essence that was keeping the molecules of the demon's body together, which meant that while he was unable to accumulate his power into his body before it got absorbed, he was still too resistant for Daniel to injure.. And the demon was aware of that.
As every inch of power contained in the oni's body was absorbed, the black holes that covered him were not able to stop his rage from growing out of proportions.
"DO YOU THINK THAT I NEED ANY ESSENCE TO SQUASH YOU!?" Shouted the crazed demon before using his sheer physical power to grab the massive rib he had used as a club until now.. But as soon as he lifted it up in the air and he walked a few steps in Daniel's direction, he fell back on his knees.
For a few short moments, he had felt the ground disappear from underneath his feeling.. only to reappear the moment his knees touched the dusty ground. The very idea of what he was doing had escaped his mind along with the very ability to keep himself from falling.
As soon as he fell, Daniel approached him step by step, only stopping when the two were facing each other.
While unexplainably exhausted, the demon's size was still massive, and even on his knees, he was still a few meters taller than Daniel, who looked up to him with the eyes of a person who had seen positive results to a test he was conducting.
Finally, the demon understood.
While there was a moment in which he had the advantage in the fight, if Daniel had been any demon at his level, he would have died a thousand times over.. but he had underestimated him. Daniel was someone he knew nothing about, and had used his human ways to deal with him.
With Daniel so close, it wouldn't have taken much for him to squash him into a red paste once again, but for the life of him, he could not bring himself to think about moving his arms and legs, nor could he emanate any of his power.. So he looked at Daniel with the first hint of helplessness he had ever felt in his life, and asked "..w-what is happening to me?.."
"It is your mind. The spatial and dark essence that is draining you of your natural essence is not only welcoming in your natural essence, but your mental power as well." Responded Daniel, choosing not to lie. At the same time, he kept patting the skin of the demon, and adding additional constructed black holes which could speed up the process.
The demon barely had the mental power to understand Daniel's words, which to him, sounded like the most absurd thing he had ever heard of. The helplessness he felt turned into unwillingness and fear, as he failed to remember all of the enemies who he had killed in the past despite how many times he tried.
Before losing his consciousness, the demon used his last wisp of consciousness to ask "Is.. every human cultivator.. As terrifying.. As you.."
Daniel looked back at the massive demon, who was about to pass out while still on his knees and straight back. For how evil this being was, Daniel could not help but respect his power, so he stopped his fall the moment his arms gave out by moving his hand upwards, and while adding more and more black holes near his brain, he responded to the oni's question by saying "..there are no humans like me."
A faint smile appeared on the demon's face, as his closed never to open them again.
The moment the demon passed out, Daniel placed his hand on the demon's head, and released a large amount of his immortal essence, which he then forced into the demon's nostrils. Once close enough to his brain, he turned that essence into a singular powerful black hole which erased all that was left of the demon's consciousness.
He then looked at the demon, who lied on the ground in front of him in a vegetative state for a few moments.. Before taking a fist sized rock from within his spatial ring.
He looked at this rock with narrowed eyes, and said "You know what the system can do. Try anything suspicious, and I will cast a karmic redemption on you, then erase you once and for all."
This rock, was the vessel inside which Daniel had trapped Sewah's consciousness.
There was no reaction from the rock, which he surrounded with his immortal essence before forcing it into the demon's mouth. He then walked a few meters away, and sat on a chair which took shape right underneath him as he lowered his body.
Once seated, Daniel observed the immobile body of the demon in silence.
A few minutes passed with no changes.. But instead of thinking of a failure, Danuel said "Stop playing dead. If you can't take control, I will kill you right away."
Almost as if reacting to Daniel's words, the lips of the demon curved into a smile. "You have always lacked a good sense of humor. This is why we never managed to like each other." said the demon while opening his eyes, and trying to stand up with a fair amount of difficulty.
"We never liked each other because your whole existence was based on eliminating mine." Responded Daniel while cleaning his fingernails with a metallic pick he had formed with his immortal essence.
After Sewah became used to the demon's body and finally managed to stand up on his feet, Daniel looked at him with a stern expression, and said "A thousand years from now."
"You know that in this form I could turn you into meat paste in a matter of moments, right?" Said Sewah while feeling the extreme power that was moving through his newly obtained body. A power he had never felt before, and that he was far from reaching even when he had been in possession of Daniel's body.
"Its previous owner was unable to.. Feel free to try." responded Daniel with a smile that sent a faint shiver down Sewah's back.
The moment Daniel had left the main hall of the Na'roga family, and had tried to store Sewah back into his mind, was the moment he had realized that his body and spirit had merged with his consciousness.. And while he was ecstatic about it, Sewah's reaction was far from it.
He had lost the gift that was rightfully his, and would now have to exist as a bodiless consciousness under constant threat.
At first, Daniel had decided to erase Sewah completely. After all, it was his fault if he had been separated by his friends, not to mention that he had almost killed him when taking control over his body.. But he stopped after hearing Sewah's proposition.
A thousand years of servitude in exchange for his life, and a body.
Daniel felt a deep hate for Sewah for what he had done to him, but aside from the failed assassination attempt, Sewah had never touched his friends, and even allowed his family to live in his planet. That alone was enough for him to reconsider his decision.
Luckily, Daniel had found the right body for Sewah right away. The body of a being powerful enough to be of use, and that possessed enough negative karma to be in a serious threat in case Daniel decided to use karmic retribution on him.
Another reason why he had agreed, was that Sewah did not know the changes inside Daniel's body. He simply knew that it was impossible for him to merge with Daniel's body no matter how powerful his consciousness would become.. So even if Sewah tried to rebel, Daniel would have the weapons to kill him at any moment.
Sewah noticed how confident Daniel was, so instead of pushing his boundaries, he smiled and said "Ha, you know I have a dark sense of humor. Don't mind me.. What is this thing's karma anyway?"
Of course, Daniel did not expect Sewah to bend right away, and just as he thought he would, his first question was a probe regarding the amount of damage he would receive if he misbehaved.
However, Daniel did not fall for it, and without even looking up at the number above the demon's head, he muttered "I don't think there is a word to describe that many digits."