"What did you just say? That you're going to make us pay with our lives? Yeah… that's not happening."
Jason let out a short snort, but the confident smile he had worn while fighting Amelia and Aria was gone.
In its place lingered something far more irritating, an unsettling feeling gnawing at the back of his mind.
It wasn't fear.
It was closer to apprehension, a quiet, creeping sense that something was off.
Focusing, he extended his senses toward the lesser demon.
The presence he felt now was completely different from what it had been just minutes ago. Subtly, but unmistakably, it had changed.
Stronger.
Not by an explosive margin, but enough.
His gaze sharpened as he assessed it.
The demon's power now hovered somewhere within [Rank-2: Enhanced].
It was roughly comparable to the level of a younger high demon they had faced before.
Jason frowned.
"Why did its power suddenly spike?"
Even if the lesser demon was still far weaker than them, he didn't like this.
An unknown variable appearing in the middle of a fight was the kind of thing that got people killed.
Then, without warning, a sharp urgency surged through him.
A need to eliminate it, now.
In that instant, the lesser demon rose above the two high demons in his mind, becoming the greater threat.
Jason didn't hesitate.
He lunged forward, closing the distance in a flash, his blade already moving, aimed straight for the demon's neck, intent on ending it in a single strike.
Slash!
The attack was executed flawlessly, yet it failed to touch even a single hair on Zyel's body.
He evaded with effortless precision.
His movements were so minimal they appeared almost natural, as if he were barely moving at all.
In reality, Zyel was pushing himself to his absolute limit.
Despite being slower than Jason, every dodge consumed the full extent of his current speed and power, even if it didn't look like it.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
One strike after another tore through the air.
The holy sword in Jason's hand, glowing with a menacing white aura, lashed out repeatedly, each swing aimed to cut Zyel down.
But no matter how many times Jason attacked, the blade never found its mark.
It only sliced through empty air, grazing past Zyel without ever landing a single hit.
'What the hell is going on?'
Jason's grip tightened as frustration showed in his voice.
'This demon is clearly a full level below me, so how is he dodging everything?'
His teeth clenched, anger rising with every failed strike.
Each miss fueled his growing disbelief as Zyel continued to evade him without effort.
Zyel had entered a state he had never experienced before, a state born from the ability he had just awakened when the assimilation of his [Divine Blessing of War] reached 30%.
Blessed Abilities
Blessed Abilities were powers derived from a person's divine blessing, granted by a god or a group of gods.
Each ability carried unique effects, carefully aligned to maximize the potential of that blessing in controlled and efficient ways.
Anyone who possessed a divine blessing had the potential to awaken a Blessed Ability.
Much like spiritual weapons, relics, innate abilities, and bloodline powers, divine blessings were deeply tied to a person's desires and emotions.
As a result, the abilities born from them could evolve unpredictably, shaped by the user's will and intent.
Although Blessed Abilities originated from divine blessings, the way their power manifested ultimately depended on how the user wielded them.
At this moment, Zyel's desires were overwhelming.
He wanted to fight the heroes.
He wanted to save his lover.
He wanted revenge against the wretched beings who had harmed those he cared about.
And yet, he did not even know how to throw a proper punch.
As if responding to that contradiction, the [Divine Blessing of War] within him reacted violently to his desire to fight, to spill blood, and to wield power.
Its assimilation accelerated under the weight of his emotions.
And in that moment, a Blessed Ability was born.
[Battle Instincts]
An ability shaped by Zyel's overwhelming desire to fight, to kill, and to dominate any opponent through his own strength.
---
[Blessed Ability: Battle Instincts]
-When activated, you enter a state where your consciousness and instincts merge, creating Focused Combat Awareness.
-While active, your body operates in overdrive: all physical, spiritual, and soul-level abilities, as well as other capabilities, function at their absolute limit without conscious effort until the ability is deactivated.
-You can execute all skills, techniques, moves, methods, martial arts, and physical actions as if they were second nature, including those you have not practiced but have knowledge of or observed in others.
-During this state, your body continuously learns from and adapts to any external threat.
---
Zyel was acting on pure instinct, yet at the same time, he retained complete control over it.
Even he didn't fully understand how it worked. Instincts were supposed to be automatic, unconscious reactions, things the body did on its own.
And yet, right now, it felt as though he was directing them, issuing silent commands that his body followed without hesitation.
As he fought the heroes, Zyel began to grasp the limits of this strange ability.
In this state, his mind and body had become one.
Everything stored within his mind, every fragment of knowledge and every observation, was now accessible, and his body could execute it flawlessly in combat.
Normally, there were attacks Zyel wouldn't have been able to dodge simply because he didn't know how.
He understood in theory that they could be avoided, but without ever having performed the movements himself, his body couldn't respond in time during a real fight.
But in this state, that limitation no longer existed.
He didn't need practice.
He didn't need conscious thought.
The knowledge was already there, and his body simply acted on it.
It was, in essence, like Ultra Instinct... except he could still think, feel, and act on his emotions without disrupting the seamless flow of his movements.
Another strange effect of this state was his complete awareness of his own capabilities.
Even abilities he had never consciously realized before were now clear to him, and he could push them to the absolute limit his body could handle.
But at this moment, Zyel wasn't in any state to reflect on any of it.
His mind was consumed by fury.
By vengeance.
He wanted to hurt them.
He wanted to kill them.
The fight continued for a couple of minutes before Jason grew frustrated with the lesser demon constantly dodging his attacks.
With a powerful leap, he jumped back, creating distance between himself and Zyel.
As if it were a signal, Atsuji, the hero who could create ice instantly, summoned dozens of ice shards and launched them toward Zyel like bullets.
The shards tore through the air at inhuman speed.
Zyel moved to dodge them. He managed to avoid a few, but only a few.
Rip! Rip! Rip!
The remaining shards struck him cleanly.
Some pierced straight through his body and exited from the other side.
His shoulders, chest, legs, thighs, stomach, and even his neck were embedded with fist sized, razor sharp ice shards.
Blood poured from every wound.
As if that were not enough, a beam of energy suddenly cut through the air at incredible speed and struck his shoulder joint.
In the next instant, his left arm was gone.
Zyel's body dropped to his knees.
His right hand clutched his left shoulder, trying to stop the blood pouring from the severed limb.
"I will finish this right now."
Seeing Zyel kneeling, one arm gone and his body riddled with ice shards, Jason rushed forward without hesitation.
He swung his holy sword in a deadly arc, aiming to split Zyel's head in two.
Just before the blade could reach his neck, Zyel, who had seemed frozen in pain and completely weakened, suddenly moved.
His right hand shot up at inhuman speed and caught Jason by the forearm.
In the same instant, he yanked him forward with overwhelming force and slammed him into the ground.
As if losing an arm meant nothing, Zyel leaped into the air.
He pulled his right arm back, then drove his fist downward with all his strength, enhanced by gravity, straight into Jason's solar plexus.
The impact was far beyond what a human body could endure.
Zyel's fist tore through Jason's skin, then muscle, then diaphragm.
It ruptured blood vessels, shattered his spine, and burst out through his back before striking the ground beneath him.
And just like that, Jason died.
His eyes remained wide open, still struggling to understand where he had gone wrong, how a lesser demon had managed to kill him despite the countless injuries covering its body.
The moment Jason died, Zyel felt something warm inside him, as if something was merging with him, making him more than complete, making him stronger.
At the same time, his left arm began to regenerate.
First, the bleeding stopped.
Then bone tissue began forming from the stump at the shoulder joint.
His upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, and fingers rebuilt themselves.
Muscle fibers formed and attached to the bones.
Tendons and ligaments connected and restored movement.
Blood vessels spread through the new limb, and tissue layered itself into proper form.
Finally, skin grew over everything, sealing it.
Within a few seconds, his entire arm had regenerated.
It looked brand new, stronger and more resilient than the one that had been destroyed.
As if driven by an unseen force, the ice shards lodged in his body shattered into pieces.
The wounds they left behind closed rapidly, and within moments, Zyel stood in peak condition once again.
His purple eyes slowly turned toward the remaining two heroes, who stared back at him as if they were looking at a monster.