Chapter 2 – Merciless Battles

"AAAGHHRR" The bull demon cried out, as he was hit in the gut by Azazel.

Both of the demons were shocked at being interrupted by a third party. They looked towards Azazel, the bull demon out of anger while clutching his gut and the mazzikin out of confusion and waryness. Azazel just grinned towards the mazzikin before once again attacking the bull demon. Altough the mazzikin was still wary of him, it decided to help, so it could defeat the bull demon.

After a bit of fighting, the bull demon was on the brink of death. Despite the bull demon clearly being stronger then the mazzikin, it just couldn't compete in a 2 against 1. Azazel, who had almost no wounds, rushed towards the bull demon and dealt the final hit.

[Defeated Level 1 Lesser Bull Demon!]

[You Leveled Up!]

[Level: 1 ==> Level: 2]

[Gained 5 Statpoints and 1 Skillpoint!]

At this point, Azazel smiled maniacally towards his notifications. As he was thinking about where he should spent his new statpoints, the soul from the bull demon slowly started to come out of it's body and float upwards. Azazel quickly snatched the soul and ate it.

[Gained 1 Soul!]

He was a bit sad, that he couldn't level up from souls but he guessed that the skill create ability will probably be worth it. Right?

As Azazel was thinking that, the mazzikin was raging behind him. It just got all the injuries from the fight but nothing as a reward, which angered him greatly. Just as he was about to attack Azazel-

[Agility: 5 ==> 10]

Azazel easily killed him in one quick swipe. 'Barely survived but want to attack me?' Azazel mentally laughed. He was just helping the mazzikin, so that he would get both kills but it wanted to attack him as it was already injured that much? 'Laughable!' Azazel thought.

[Defeated Level 1 Lesser Mazzikin!]

'No level up? Well it too weak.' Azazel ridiculed in his mind.

[Gained 1 Soul!]

'Atleast good for 1 thing' Azazel thought as he ate the soul.

After Azazel was done with his fights, he looked around him and saw that already alot of other hatched demons were fighting. Azazel understood that the start is the most important time, so he immeadietly started running towards the nearest fight. Thankfully he used all of his statpoints on agility, so that he quickly reached the next battle.

[Observation!]

[Level: 2]

[Race: Demon]

[Evolution: Lesser Demon Frog]

[Level: 1]

[Race: Demon]

[Evolution: Impling]

[Level: 1]

[Race: Demon]

[Evolution: Impling]

[Observation - 3 ==> Observation - 4]

The next battle was between a single demon frog against two implings. The implings looked exactly like the mazzikin, the only difference was, that they were red. There was also a third impling on the ground, probably already dead. The 2 implings looked pretty healthy but the frog was a bit more beat up.

Azazel wanted to wait and steal the kills again but since he quickly wanted to move on to the next battle he couldn't do that. He used his high agility stat to quickly jump towards the 2 flying implings and attack them. He landed a few hits on one of the implings before he fell to the ground. As he was falling, he was already thinking about how he would attack them again but unfortunetly he was too hasty.

"KHAAG!" Azazel cried out from pain.

In his fall, the frog demon shot out it's tongue and attacked him. It hit him in the right shoulder and sticked to it. The frog demon then threw Azazel against the ground and smiled provocative. As Azazel slowly stood up, he spit out a bit of blood.

'Maybe me too impatient?'Azazel wondered. Since he recognised, that attacking too many opponents too fast is a mistake, he waited a bit to plan out his attack.

The frog didn't pay any more attention towards Azazel and instead went for the easy prey. It attacked the already injured impling with it's tongue and defeated it easily. The soul was quickly eaten by the frog demon before the other impling even noticed it's kin dieing. As the impling noticed it's kin's demise, it was clearly scared but still attacked the frog out of anger.

At this point, Azazel intervened and attacked the impling. Since the impling flew a bit down, to attack the frog, Azazel had more time to attack the impling and easily kill it with a few hard hits.

[Defeated Level 1 Impling!]

[You Leveled Up!]

[Level: 2 ==> Level: 3]

[Gained 5 Statpoints and 1 Skillpoint!]

[Gained 1 Soul!]

[Agility: 10 ==> 12]

[Strenght: 5 ==> 8]

Now with a higher level then it, Azazel thought that he should be able to easily win against the frog demon, so he attacked again. What he didn't expect, was that the frog could still keep up with his movements. He thought about it for a moment, while dodging the frog's tongue and then felt a bit more angry then he would've liked.

'Why I can't eat souls to become stronger?! Why me not normal?' He thought angrily.

Despite being angry, that he couldn't eat souls to boost his stats normally, he didn't really have time to be rage, since he was still in constant attack from the frog, which he only dodged because of his high agility. Having made up his mind, he started closing the distance with the frog.

As he reached the frog, Azazel started to attack it with a variety of punches. Unfortunately, it looked like the attacks didn't do that much damage to the frog. Most of his punches slipped and didn't hit correctly because of the slime on the frog's skin. Thankfully however, it looked like closing the distance was still a good idea for Azazel, since the frog had a harder time hitting Azazel, with it's tongue, when he was so close.

The frog couldn't really attack with anything other then it's tongue, so altough the punches from Azazel didn't really damge it much, he slowly knocked the frog down. After a bit more of fighting, the frog slowly lost it's ability to stand and fell down to the ground.

"Ahhh...Haaa...Ahhh" Azazel breathed heavily, since he didn't use any statpoints for vitality.

As Azazel had his guard down, the frog used that moment to attack him one last time, with it's tongue before it died.

"AGHR!" Azazel painfully shouted, as the tongue hit him in the face.

'Why me so stupid? Me can't fight?!' Azazel angrily thought.

He was angry because he made multiple mistakes in this fight and paid the price for it. He had his hands in his face, while blood was ticking out of his nose. The only good thing was, that he gained a lot out of it and that he knows, not to repeat his mistakes.

[Defeated Level 2 Lesser Demon Frog!]

[You Leveled Up!]

[Level: 3 ==> Level: 4]

[Gained 5 Statpoints and 1 Skillpoint!]

[Gained 2 Souls!]

Azazel was a bit confused why he got 2 souls and thought about what was different before then now. 'because level 2?' Azazel wondered. He shrugged it off, since he didn't have a definitive answer yet. He then thought a bit about where he should use his new statpoints and finally came to the conclusion, that these would be the best to level up for now.

[Agility: 12 ==> 15]

[Vitality: 5 ==> 7]

He leveled up more agility, because being able to dodge the frog's tongue, was the deciding factor between life and death in this fight. Also, the vitality was important, so that his wounds heal faster and that he has more stamina. As Azazel was deciding, which fight he should go to next, the black crystals suddenmly started glowing red.

Then, as if in trance, all the demons and devils that hatched, started walking towards the same direction. Azazel's body was also in this trance like state but his mind was completely normal. He was wondering why all of them, including himself, suddenly started walking towards that one direction. As he was walking, he noticed that there were a lot more demons then he was able to see at first.

He used his observation on the ones that were near him and noticed that there was not a single devil among them. Only demons. This confused him alot but unfortunately he couldn't do anything against that. While he was walking, he checked his status for any changes.

[Name: Azazel Fenriz Damballa...Mania]

[Level: 1 ==> 4]

[Race: Devil]

[Evolution: Lesser Dokkaebi]

[Stats:

-Strenght: 5 ==> 8

-Agility: 5 ==> 15

-Vitality: 5 ==> 7

-Intelligence: 5

-Charisma: 5

-Luck: 5

Statpoints: 0]

[Racial Skills:

Observation - 4

Universal Language - 1

Skill Create - 1

Devil contract - 1]

[Skills: None

Skillpoints: 0 ==> 3]

[Souls: 0 ==> 5]

'5 Souls? Then me should skill create.' Azazel tought. He finally wanted to find out if that skill create ability is really enough to make up for not gaining any stats from souls.

[Skill Create!]

[Specify the effect of your skill and give it a name!]

Azazel thought on the whole way about what kind of skill he should create but unfortunately he didn't find anything that he liked. He thought about all those things that he already saw, the imps flying, the frog's slimy skin, the bull demon's headbutt but unfortunately, none of those ability's really appealed to him. The imp's flying ability would be the only good one but he thought that he could probably gain flying from evolutions, so he didn't want to waste souls for now.

Altough he said that he didn't want that ability, he wanted to atleast see how many souls it would cost. So he tried creating the skill.

[Skill: Flight

Effect: Gives you the ability to fly.]

[Cost: 50 Souls]

'50 Souls?!' Azazel was confused for a moment, why it should cost so many souls but then he understood. Gaining the ability to fly is a great bonus, especially if you have a ranged attack and your opponent doesn't. He thought about how he would do against a flying frog and understood, that he would've easily lost against it.

~~~

Anyway, after much walking, Azazel finally reached an active volcano. He then saw how many demons crawled, flew or some other way, went inside the volcano, trying to reach the floor. Every minute or so, the volcano spewed out a bit of magma, which killed a lot of the not-so fire resistent demons.

'I have to go down there?!' Azazel wondered, as he was looking towards the floor of the volcano.