Vanguard of the Eternal Night

translator: xiin

editor: kara

In the world of magic, Hell was not a plane but rather a place where countless planes overlapped. Some Hells were famous and even had nicknames that made people scared; some were unknown and were simply called the Xth thousand Xth hundred level of Hell.

The indigenous people of Hell were demons, and the most famous races among them were: the little devils (for their ugly appearance and cutting remarks), succubi and incubi (for their beauty, beauty, and beauty), and… fire demons (for their strength and terrifying appearance).

As long as a fire demon could materialize themselves, they would definitely become the Lord of a territory in Hell. Like other demons, they had curved horns, arrow-shaped tails, and a pair of bat wings. But for them, the wings were just decoration.

--Because their bodies were too big. At over three meters tall, they often weighed over seven tons and were not born to be a flying species.

The lower body of a fire demon often consisted of strong, lizard-like limbs that could easily kill any mortal they passed by simply stomping and sending out the fire surrounding them; they had a pair of burly arms, and the left hand often used a whip made of fire while the right wielded a huge sword with a blade larger than the adult human body.

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Tyron had previously been involved in a war between the God of Slaughter and a section of Hell. Over a period of several decades, he had hunted down and killed several fire demon lords.

Even the master assassin, who had been an astral body at the time, had to admit that fire demons were a type of very thick-skinned and fleshy enemy. (The master assassin quietly added: they would even self-destruct!)

At this moment, he looked at this virtual 'fire demon' and thought leisurely in his heart: There's still a bit of a difference. This fire demon obviously has no magical powers and also… he was still young, too young.

Demons in the world of magic weren't merely monsters with physical strength. All demons were cunning, greedy, and ambitious creatures. However, in this interstellar world, it was obvious that the demons had been designed as reckless and direct fellows.

The only threat came from the fact that all the stats of this demon were about five times that of a balanced regular player.

Perhaps this was because no matter how hard human beings tried to imagine it, they were still unable to reproduce the thoughts of real creatures from Hell and could only constantly exaggerate their strength instead.

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Returning back to the present.

The fire demon that was summoned out of the demonic gate directly flicked out the flame whip in his hand, sending it lashing towards Tyron as quickly as a snake in an attempt to wrap around him.

Tyron had only just emerged from the spell of stopped time. Faced with the whip, he didn't back down and immediately dashed forward so quickly that he just narrowly missed the tip of the burning flame whip.

Then, the huge beheading sword in the other hand of the fire demon roared as it slashed down from a height of several meters!

The strong wind it brought along even caused a whining sound in the air, and the powerful force made the card summoner nearby feel a sudden shock through the ground.

It was the shock of the huge sword landing into the open ground, causing earthquake-like tremors.

Tyron and the fire demon were like a cheetah facing off against a giant elephant; and Tyron's abilities reflected this exactly, forming a stark contrast to the fire demon's slow movements--

In this moment, Tyron even managed to step on the blade of the huge beheading sword and rush straight at the demon's heart.

Later on, many members of the audience still wouldn’t understand how he’d been able to jump onto the blade without getting hurt. At that moment, he seemed to have no weight at all, as though he was as light as a feather.

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At this time, the flames twisting around the fire demon’s body had already surrounded him completely, causing the view of his figure to distort.

Nobody had thought that the assassin would directly charge into the fire demon's melee range--everyone's first reaction when seeing a fire demon was to run! Run as far away as they could! The further away from that terrifying sword and whip, the better!

Only Odin would jump in so comfortably and remain in the flames.

While he was suffering damage from the flames, the short sword and dagger in his hands flashed with a brilliant, cold light.

Windmill combo!

After such a tense and difficult close combat move, he was still able to use the leverage from that instant to rotate in mid-air--

The endless knife lights were once again connected into a perfect arc.

And to everyone's surprise, while Odin seemed to be precariously, dangerously close to the fire demon, in fact, the fire demon was unable to attack him directly--its horns, long sword, and thick tail weren't flexible enough to bend around to his chest. The flame whip, which was flexible enough, still needed to be recovered back through inertia!

During this attack that only lasted around 1 second, the accurate grasping of a close combat angle allowed the assassin to finish half a combo on the three-plus meter tall fire demon's body.

He seemed to be dancing with the God of Death and in the midst of a few thrilling and terrifying close encounters, he still managed to keep up a graceful and elegant pace.

All the spectators were dazzled and overwhelmed, but Goddess, who was still on the battlefield, calmed down and took advantage of this extremely precious opportunity to draw cards for the third time.

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Opportunities were fleeting.

Before the fire demon's flame whip could return to wrap around Odin, Odin turned and jumped back to avoid the deadly attack.

He then took advantage of the power of the fire demon's huge beheading sword to dash out like lightning, directly leaving the fire demon's attack range.

He stepped on the enemy's weapon to get close and stepped on the enemy's weapon again to get away.

--What was this if not contempt? If it wasn't provocation, then what was it?

The fire demon raged, his mouth opening wide as he raised his stout front hoof high and then slammed it onto the ground--the flames and shockwaves he created were like a small nuclear bomb going off, spreading out in all directions.

This indiscriminate attack hit both players at the same time.

Goddess retreated three steps in a row, his face so pale it was almost bloodless. He held two cards between his fingers as he called out, "Summon Tilin! Summon the Elder of Fire!"

As the two summons joined the battlefield to protect him, Goddess once again pressed down on the two cards left in his hands and looked at his opponent Odin warily.

However, the master assassin didn't look at him at all. After being pressed back by the shockwave, he picked up another Roc feather that had just refreshed on the map and placed it in his palm.

The cyan and gold wings reappeared, and he flew up into the air

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For the next eight seconds, the entire audience experienced the baptism of a hellish battle scene!

They were left in an open-mouthed daze, even hugging their heads and shrilly shouting wasn't enough to alleviate even one tenth of the turmoil they felt in their hearts.

Because Tyron hadn't paid any attention to the card summoner to the side at all and instead began to endlessly harass the fire demon!

Such a powerful, undefeated fire demon had originally never been designed as a monster for players to fight. It was an existence whose purpose was to suppress the entire battlefield, so basically any fire demon that had been summoned wouldn't really obey its summoner's orders--because if they could command the fire demon, the summoner wouldn't have to fight at all and would still be able to become one of the top 50 professional players within the Alliance!

But it was precisely that same fire demon that seemed clumsy and stupid at this moment.

Its terrifyingly huge beheading sword always missed despite its great momentum, or was simply trampled under the foot of the hateful assassin; that pair of curved, ferocious horns stabbed the air several times, unable to touch even one of its enemy's feathers; its most flexible flame whip could only slowly whittle away at the assassin's health with the flames that surrounded it.

By the eighth second, the fire demon's roar shook even the audience, and they couldn't help but shudder under the terrible onslaught of power.

This kind of match was nothing like a friendly competition between two players in the virtual arena--

Just look at that assassin who dominated the sky!

Then look at the huge fire demon from hell that spewed fire and lava!

Did this look like an e-sports match?

Audience: If the scene was changed to that of an ancient oil painting or epic, it wouldn't necessarily create a discordant feeling! Did I fall into a western fantasy world and am now watching a scene from the myths take place right in front of my eyes?!

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And then, the audience was reminded that this really was a virtual game between two people.

Because the Emperor of Europe card summoner who had been huddled in the corner had drawn four rounds of cards. He now had six cards in hand and showed an expression of not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

After that, Goddess used five of them all in one go--

They all happened to be summoning cards. Almost all of the summoning cards in his deck had been drawn out!

When the five newly summoned creatures surrounded the Goddess to protect him, the audience was also left dumbfounded by his luck, "This can happen too?"

"Goddess summoned a team of bodyguards, then hid far away in order to watch the big play 'Angel's judgement against the Devil'???"

However, even with powerful summons including a scorpion-tailed lion, Goddess still didn't dare to go up and participate in that epic battle.

Because based on the fire demon's terrifying power, one sword strike was enough to flatten him into a meat patty.

These summoned creatures were basically insignificant before it.

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The match finally reached the 20th second.

The demonic gate had already been in existence for over half its duration, and the demons that 'attacked indiscriminately' when they came out of the gate had all died from the fire demon and Tyron's attacks.

The fire demon didn't care about those ant-like low-level demons at all and crushed each one he encountered with a foot. Tyron was even lazier about dealing with their harassment, and in between dealing with attacks from the fire demon, he would casually find time to take down a few that blocked his way.

Audience: collectively.trembling.in.the.corner.jpg

When the countdown bar reached 20 seconds, the master assassin swept towards the fire demon like a shadow from behind--

Then seemed to trample on the demon's horn by mistake. He borrowed that force to use a 'flash'!

Following the demon's deafening roar, Tyron's short sword and dagger pulled out of the demon's right eye, bringing out a large amount of sulfurous blood.

The fire demon's blood splashed everywhere like a rain of fire, and the places on the ground where it landed burned.

Tyron still had one foot on the horns; he straightened, opened up his wings for a moment, and seemed to be in complete control over the great demon.

The enraged fire demon that had lost sight from one side basically lost all its reason. Its huge body rippled slightly, and another human figure, Goddess, just so happened to appear in sight of his left eye.

The fire demon raised its huge sword, roared, and smashed its way towards Goddess!

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Goddess reacted very quickly, jumping up like a rabbit while simultaneously shouting, "Daddy, save me, daddy!"

He flicked out his last card:

Hermes' Boots, a support card that could increase the user's movement speed. The closer one was to the enemy, the faster they would move.

Then, the card summoner turned tail and ran off frantically!

But the fire demon continued its pursuit, its heavy footsteps making the ground rumble and flattened all of Goddess's summons that it encountered. It was like an armored tank chasing after poor flesh-and-blood creatures.

… And even further behind the fire demon was a winged figure who carried two cold blades, chasing disgruntledly from behind in order to slash and cut as he flew.