Magic stones spilt from Evan's inventory, and he quickly harnessed the energy inside them to empower the hundreds of flaming weapon projectiles that materialized in the air.
'Elemental Weapon Barrage!'
The weapons rained down with the fury of a hailstorm, each one exploding on impact, whether it struck a target or simply hit the ground.
Evan also summoned his Frost Thunder Guardian, giving it one simple command: swing its massive 20-meter-long, 5-meter-wide sword around. With a blade that size, it was bound to land a hit on at least one or two dragons with each swing.
Meanwhile, his Factor Mimic and Einherjar continued to bulldoze even more devil dragons, especially the Einherjar, who was stacking up kills even faster than Evan himself.
Honestly, Evan would've been annoyed if it didn't. The amount of magic power that thing consumed every minute was just ridiculous.
With a potion juice pack dangling from his mouth, Evan unleashed the full might of his skill arsenal.
The power boost from BoD's First Activation made the job a hell of a lot easier. Every strike now ignored durability and dealt True Damage directly to the soul.
Combine that with Mesarthim, which had a fixed chance to bypass a portion of his opponent's defences and deal damage based on their max health, and it turned into an absolute bloodbath.
Only the dragons above Level 700 could even put up a fight. As for the few that were above Level 750, Evan left those to his Einherjar.
From inside the World Isolation Barrier, Azzonnin watched the carnage unfold, his face frozen in stunned disbelief.
He knew Evan was abnormally strong for his level, but he hadn't expected this level of ridiculousness.
'And what the hell is with that absurd number of skills?!'
Every single move Evan made activated a different skill. Azzonnin's Thought-Accelerated mind had already counted up to 25, and Evan was still going!
What made it worse was that Azzonnin couldn't even sense the activations. He only realized skills were being used because of the distinct soul fluctuations that accompanied an activated skill.
And then there was BoD.
In fairness, Azzonnin couldn't really be blamed. He had no solid intel on its true nature and hadn't seen Evan use it during the Volcano Dungeon attack.
The only information he had came from the other Archdevils afterwards, and even they hadn't been attacked by it. Their assumption was that it simply granted Evan a raw power boost.
No one said anything about guaranteed durability ignoring!
Furious, Azzonnin devoured dozens of his stored souls, rapidly mending his wounds and amplifying his power. Then, he began pounding the barrier, unleashing blow after blow after blow.
The World Isolation Barrier, even as a pseudo version, wasn't something easily broken. But because it was a pseudo version, its durability didn't match the real deal.
Evan had cast it without using the Akashic Page, since bringing that thing out would've opened up a whole can of worms he wasn't ready to deal with.
Azzonnin alone was already enough of a problem. He didn't need causality sticking its nose into this mess too.
After a full minute of continuous strikes, cracks finally began to creep across the barrier's surface. Channelling all his energy into one last punch, Azzonnin shattered the dome imprisoning him.
At that exact moment, Evan, who was mid-air, swinging two dragons around with his Everlasting Chains, suddenly winced in pain.
He flung the dragons aside and crashed to the ground, a sight that made Azzonnin's eyes light up.
'Spell backlash!'
Without hesitation, Azzonnin launched himself forward, feet kicking off the ground, arm drawn back and glowing with immense magic power and law energy.
He shot toward Evan's position like a bullet, but just as he was about to strike—
**BOOM!!!
A burst of spatial energy exploded behind him, courtesy of Evan's Factor Mimic who used Space Warp. The burst of energy made him stumble forward, nearly planting his face on the ground.
"This fucking clone!"
The soul devil snapped, spinning around and obliterating the Factor Mimic in one punch. But as he spun back to face Evan, he froze.
There was Evan, lying casually on the ground with his elbow propped up, chin resting on his palm, and a playful smile on his face.
"Say 'ahhh'..." Evan said lightly, almost like he was teasing a child.
From his open mouth erupted a condensed mass of Destruction Law energy fused with Prismatic Flames.
The energy torrent shot out in a blinding beam, punching straight through Azzonnin's reflector and slamming into his actual body with overwhelming force.
The soul devil screamed in agony as the beam launched his body like a cannonball into the distance. He crashed into the distant mountain range, obliterating the top of one of the peaks in a fiery explosion of rock and energy.
Evan, the one who had sent him flying, finally closed his mouth and coughed.
"Damn," he muttered, sitting up as smoke curled from his lips. "Full-powered breaths really do a number on my throat."
He pulled a vitality potion from his inventory, downed it in one go, and winced as the burning sting in his throat slowly faded. His dragon heart pounded in his chest, pumping fresh magic through his energy circuits.
To help it along, he followed up with a magic replenishment potion, only to click his tongue in irritation a moment later, noticing the diminishing returns from repeated use.
Getting to his feet, he glanced toward the mountain range Azzonnin had disappeared into.
"Even if I can't bring out the Akashic Page, I'm still its owner. As such, it's impossible for me to suffer spell backlash."
Evan had only faked suffering backlash to lure Azzonnin in, and though it was a tactic with a high chance of failure, it worked.
Just as Evan looked back to the dragon horde being torn apart by his Einherjar, a violent explosion ripped through the mountain Azzonnin had crashed into.
The entire peak disintegrated in a deafening shockwave, with massive boulders rocketing through the sky at supersonic speed. The already ruined land around was devastated even more as debris tore across it like cannon fire.
A few of the rocks hurtled toward Evan, but he teleported away with Blink, then turned his eyes to the space the mountain peak once occupied.
There, hovering in the air, was a pulsating orb of swirling magical power, radiating a vile aura that made Evan feel disgusted just looking at it.
Using Farsight, Evan could make out the silhouette of a humanoid figure within the swirling orb of magic, Azzonnin, the Soul Devil, but with a starkly different appearance.
His pupils now glowed amber, two horns jutted from his skull, white draconic wings unfurled from his upper back, and a long, scaled tail extended from his lower back.
His body was nearly fully coated in white scales, and unlike Evan's illusionary ones, Azzonnin's scales were real, or at least as real as an astral body could manifest.
Evan's eyes widened at the sight.
"The motherfucker got even stronger!"
Azzonnin had devoured every last soul in his reserve, empowering himself to a new level. He'd also activated every combat skill he had and assumed his half-draconic mode.
The moment Evan and Azzonnin's gazes met across the distance, the soul devil's body vanished in a flash, and Danger Sense screamed a warning.
Evan immediately used Space Warp, teleporting backwards hundreds of metres just as Azzonnin's strike annihilated the spot he'd been standing on mere seconds earlier.
The impact obliterated the earth, creating a crater that sank deep into the crust, molten light glowing from its rim.
Floating up from the smoking pit, Azzonnin locked his gaze onto Evan and bellowed.
"You…! Your soul is going to suffer at my hands. I would rip it from your body and use your own body to torture it day after day until it is reduced to dust!"
"??"
Time Difference activated the moment Evan heard those words.
'Soul? Body? Wait… is he after—?'
Evan didn't get to finish that thought before Azzonnin shot toward him, leaving multiple sonic booms in his wake.
Without hesitation, Evan shifted into full combat mode, pushing all distractions aside and dismissing the Einherjar to cut off their constant drain on his magic power.
He beat his wings once and charged at Azzonnin, his body cloaked in Mesarthim's Orange flames, his golden aura tinged with the crimson hue of Destruction.
Their fists collided mid-air with meteoric force, and the ground below exploded into fragments. The shockwaves flattened the terrain for hundreds of meters in every direction, leaving a massive crater beneath them.
The two tore through the air, trading a barrage of punches and kicks that split the clouds with each explosive impact, shockwaves sending tremors rolling across the land below.
Their clash carried them to the far edge of the mountain range, where they ploughed straight through the final standing peak, tearing through solid rock like paper.
The mountaintop exploded instantly, sending rubble and debris scattering in all directions.
Knocked back by the punch that demolished the mountain, Evan's body slammed across the shaved-off mountaintop, skidding for dozens of metres as a pained groan slipped from his lips.
Azzonnin landed just a few metres away and immediately opened his mouth wide, spewing a breath of white destruction.
Evan quickly crossed his arms over his chest, activating every defensive skill at his disposal. Even so, the force of the beam drove him back, his heels carving deep trenches into the scorched stone beneath him.
'Tsk!'
Blessing of Destruction: Second Activation.
Magic power erupted from his body as he threw his hands forward, unleashing a shockwave that dispersed the beam and knocked Azzonnin backwards.
Naturally, the burst of Destruction Law energy pulverized the mountain beneath his feet, but Evan simply stood on a Void Step, unbothered.
Simultaneously, he activated his Destructive Resonance Field, a ring of destruction energy that expanded outward for over a hundred meters in every direction, amplifying his power by another 15%!
Azzonnin immediately spread his wings to avoid plummeting as his footing collapsed, and at the same time, several magic stones appeared in Evan's hand from his inventory.
He crushed them, drawing out their concentrated magic power and mixing it with Destruction energy before firing it as a blast straight at Azzonnin.
The soul devil immediately crossed his arms in front of his chest, conjuring a reflector to bounce the attack back, but just before impact, Evan activated another ability from BoD's Second Activation.
"Marked Vulnerability."
A crimson 'X' instantly appeared on Azzonnin's forehead, and a second later, Evan's blast slammed into him, effortlessly shattering the upper limit of the reflector.
The blast hurled the soul devil through the air, and Evan, using Blink, teleported directly above him, his fist flooded with so much magic power that his blood vessels nearly burst from the strain.
"Reflect this, motherfucker!"