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At the same time that Nightmare Steed charged, I pulled Jeerah behind a golem to take shelter. With its combat strength at the level of a Seven-stars and its defensive capabilities nearly reaching that of an Eight-stars, blocking a blow or two from a Nightmare Steed should be fine.

Boom

The Nightmare Steed charged right into my Winged Abyssal Golem, but it failed to leave a dent on it, even with a Nightmare Steed’s impressive strength. After all, my golems were built with insane defensive and physical capabilities in mind. In a competition of brute strength, my golem wasn’t at all at a disadvantage against that Nightmare Steed. In a contest of agility however…

The collision between golem and horse failed to produce a winner. My golem was unharmed, but so was the Nightmare Steed. Yet when was a fight ever so simple? Strength was one thing, but so was speed.

Compared to my lumbering golem, that Nightmare Steed was a speedy cockroach riding on clouds of fire as it weaved around the air. Even the combined efforts of three of my Winged Abyssal Golems failed to hurt it. All it needed to do was to speed off at the last second and it could avoid any damage. Which it did.

“Blasted insects!” The hot headed Nightmare Steed cursed loudly before diving downwards once more. He deftly avoided three swipes in a row. In her eyes, their fly-swatting movement might as well have stationary, hardly a threat at all.

A split second later, the Nightmare Steed galloped up to us, its fiery red eyes barely meters away from us. Then, I heard the phrase that once left me shivering in despair..

“Dream…”

“…” It felt like a hammer had come crashing down on my head. My surroundings went silent like time itself stood still. Yet unlike my previous encounter with Shade, I never entered a nightmare.

“Impossible! My dream didn’t work on you?!” The Nightmare Steed was stunned by what it had just witnessed. But before it could even recover from that shock, a giant fist came crashing down from behind. Like a paddle to a ping pong ball, the Nightmare Steed was instantly sent flying away.

Tumbling through the air, it was forced down towards the ground by the momentum of the golem’s punch. Yet just when I was expecting a deafening crash, it actually managed to regain control of its body forcefully, straightening out its balance in the nick of time. It immediately flew back up into the air, eyes still wide with disbelief. “That Shade… what did he mean “reincarnation of the Devil King”… you’re clearly just some Devil immune to psychic magic! He just bumped into a unique Devil, that’s all. I should’ve known that he would come up with some phony story about the reincarnation of a Devil King just to shirk responsibility.”

Naturally, my so-called immunity was just Ferti’nier at work. But I wasn’t going to tell her that. “And how do you know I’m not the reincarnation of a Devil King?”

“Hah! Don’t overestimate yourself. The seat of a Devil King isn’t just something you can achieve by big words alone! Do you know how many Devil Overlords have tried and failed in the end… let me tell you… don’t think so highly of yourself!” As she yelled, she came galloping towards me, barely taking a second to do so. “I originally wanted to let you die in comfort, but I’ve changed my mind… I’m going to make your last few seconds hurt!”

“Protect me.”

I was already prepared for her attack this time around. With just a simple command, my Winged Abyssal Golems formed a tight ring around me. In fact, they barely left any breathing space for me at all. The only reason I could see the sky was because they had their arms raised!

With the coordination of my golems, they easily blocked that hot headed Nightmare Steed with sheer brute force.

“Have a taste of my flames then!”

Yet just as it looked like she was about to ram into my wall of golems, she suddenly stopped mid-air and breathed a cone of black flames at me.

The black flames crashed into the golems like a tidal wave. So strong were these flames that they didn’t need anything other than air to burn. Yet the flame resistance of the golems were simply too strong for it, reaching the point of complete immunity.

The golems brushed off the flames on their bodies. The moment they did so however, the flames stuck to their hands. Even though the flames had no way of burning through the golems, they showed no signs of extinguishing either.

‘There’s something up with these flames…’

“Curses!” Seeing that her flames were useless, the Nightmare Steed immediately switched tactics, choosing to try out her melee attacks once more. Unfortunately, there were a tad too many golems around me for her to break through. Finally, she had to give up after several tries. Even though my golems only had the combat strength of a Seven-stars, anyone would still feel the pain if one of them sent a giant slap flying their way. After all, even a Nightmare Steed’s sturdy constitution didn’t mean that it could completely ignore the titanic strength of my golems.

Still, no permanent damage was done. Just like before, my golems were unable to hurt her.

“Hey…those two Nightmare Steeds are at least Eight-stars right… there’s no way you’ll beat them…” Just as I was considering my next plan of action, Jeerah suddenly broke her silence. However, her eyes weren’t on me at all. Instead, they were on those low level Devils of hers who had all but fled at this point. “Those b*stards aren’t reliable at all…all they ever do is suck up to me, but the moment the going gets tough…”

“That’s just the nature of Devils, this is a fact that is hard to change. Besides, your Psychic Enthrallment isn’t up to par yet. Unless you keep your eyes on them at all times, it’s easy for them to break free.” I gently gave her a shove. “Take shelter with the golems first. Their target is me so they probably won’t try and attack you.”

“You’re trying to use me as bait?!”

Shameless Self-promotion

If you liked my work translating Devil’s Evolution Catalog, feel free to check out Song of Adolescence. Also, every comment is appreciated even though I might not reply. I do read them.