Roar!!!
Despite losing his reason, Charles still instinctively used Dragon Slayer Magic.
"Fire Dragon's Crushing Fang!"
His hands, now transformed into dragon claws, frantically clawed out, colliding with Lucifero's four arms. The dull sounds weren't just from the clash of fists and claws, but also the tremendous noise of air being compressed and exploding.
Mixed within was an abnormal sound - the sound of Lucifero's fingers breaking under the dual effects of flames and tremendous force.
Lucifero gritted his sharp teeth, his rage toward everyone present surging wildly.
He hated these lowly humans for interfering with his complete descent. Otherwise, with his full power, how could he possibly be suppressed by a human?
He also hated how these people kept pestering him persistently, refusing to accept their fate of despair.
In short, Lucifero was beginning to fall into a state of impotent rage.
Charles's condition wasn't too bad though. Although he had lost his reason, his combat ability seemed to have become stronger.
When learning martial arts at the Divine Dragon Temple, the Grand Elder had told Charles that the highest realm of martial arts had two paths.
One was the path of ultimate mastery, where all martial arts融为一体 and could be wielded at will. To reach that realm required arduous training and accumulated experience from countless battles.
This was also the realm that countless martial artists pursued and climbed toward. Even Charles hadn't reached that realm.
Opposite to this was the path of nature. This path extremely tested talent - without a clear childlike heart and extraordinary martial arts talent, it was impossible to reach that realm.
This realm could be said to be innate. Such people didn't need to learn any martial arts, modeling themselves after nature, yet could clearly perceive flaws in opponents and instinctively strike to exploit them.
Charles probably never expected that after dragonification, he would actually set half a foot into this realm he thought he would never touch.
So Charles hadn't forcibly seized back control of his body until now, only wanting to experience the feeling of displaying 120% combat power once more.
Dodging, parrying, attacking... Charles only felt that the movements his body made were all familiar to him, but somehow when executed now, whether timing, strength, or angle were all perfectly appropriate.
Lucifero's four arms swung almost into a continuous blur, yet were all accurately intercepted by Charles.
His vertical pupils flashed as Charles threw a heavy punch, shattering Lucifero's two arms that had reached their limit before directly closing in.
Lucifero raised his foot to kick, wanting to send the advancing Charles flying.
Charles seemed to already know what actions Lucifero would take, pressing his dragon claw toward Lucifero's leg and instead using the force to flip up.
"Flame Dragon King's Roar!"
A pillar of fire condensed almost like a laser shot from Charles's mouth, directly hitting Lucifero and smashing him into the ground.
A massive mushroom cloud rose - a phenomenon produced by fire elemental magic power compressed to its limit being detonated.
Lucifero's half-destroyed body began rapidly healing, but Charles had already pursued.
Lucifero used his remaining arm to heavily strike the ground. The thick rock layer was torn apart like a sheet of paper.
Lucifero fell directly through the crack, and Charles naturally pursued.
Just as Lucifero was getting a headache, he suddenly heard loud shouting.
Turning his head, Lucifero saw Asta and others who had also fallen into the crack, caught off guard.
Although Asta, Yuno, and Noelle all had flight abilities, they hadn't reacted in time to the sudden event. Asta's loud voice thus attracted Lucifero's attention.
Then Lucifero suddenly made a rather undignified decision.
He extended his now fully recovered hand, powerful gravity forming a small black hole in his palm. Surrounding broken rocks rapidly gathered into it, compressed together.
A key-shaped mountain was directly compressed into a fist-sized stone cone. Just thinking about it, one knew this stone cone's hardness was absolutely comparable to the strongest weapons.
Then Lucifero unhesitatingly fired the stone cone toward the three's direction.
Lucifero was quite clever. Using this attack method, even Asta's anti-magic couldn't dispel the tremendous force carried by the stone cone with its amazing mass.
For the mighty Devil King to use such methods to escape in battle truly caught everyone off guard.
Charles in dragonified state pursued battle and victory, so his choice was to continue attacking Lucifero.
This was also the most correct and wise choice. After Lucifero did these things, he no longer had a chance to defend. Attacking now would surely succeed.
But some things couldn't be judged by gains and losses, so Charles's reason awakened and took control of his body.
Being able to step into the natural realm this time was actually the effect of coincidental opportunity plus divine inspiration. Charles himself hadn't hoped to replicate it once.
But Charles didn't hesitate, nor would he regret it.
His figure flashed as Charles, who had been pursuing Lucifero, caught up to the stone cone and shattered it with a wave of his hand.
"Saved! Thanks, Charles."
Asta spread his black wings and patted his chest.
Yuno was observant and had already figured out the cause and effect, frowning, "Did we hold you back!"
Charles looked at the three's dejected expressions and said, "Unwilling? Then go prove it!"
Charles's words immediately made the three look up.
Looking directly into their eyes, Charles said, "Go prove my choice wasn't wrong! Go prove you can also fight Lucifero! Go prove your power can also protect what's important to you!"
The gloom was no longer in their eyes, replaced by incomparably strong fighting spirit.
Charles smiled. Although his face after dragonification was somewhat ferocious, it inexplicably made the three feel incredibly reliable.
Turning around, Charles looked toward the now fully recovered Lucifero.
"Then next... let's defeat this guy together!"
"Yeah!" ×3
Then Charles took the lead, transforming into a fire meteor and crashing straight toward Lucifero.
Although he had exited the natural realm, Charles's attacks were still sharp.
"Fire Dragon's Sword Horn!"
Ring-shaped shockwaves spread from where Charles hit Lucifero. Although Lucifero blocked this strike, he was still sent flying.
Right behind him, a small star emitted light. Materializing in the starlight was Yuno holding Spirit of Zephyr.
Lucifero reached back to grab the magic power-formed battle axe, crushing it to pieces with just a squeeze.
Don't think that because Charles beat him so miserably that the Devil King was so easy to touch!
But Yuno had only attacked to draw Lucifero's attention.
"True Sea Dragon's Roar!"
According to the sea god himself, he had awakened from slumber to deal with the crisis of world destruction.
After contracting with him, Noelle's strength was naturally incomparable to before.
The current Noelle even displayed power surpassing Saint Stage.
A sea dragon with clearly visible scales opened its huge mouth and directly bit Lucifero, carrying him into flight.
"Damn! Damn! Damn! I'll kill every last one of you, your families, friends, everyone related to you - I'll kill them all without exception!"
While uttering the most vicious curses, Lucifero reached out and directly tore apart the sea dragon. But Charles had already arrived before him.
"Flame God Dragon's Crushing Fist!"
Dragon claws wrapped in flames of destruction formed a fist and struck out, not inferior even to attacks personally issued by Ignia.
Lucifero's chest exploded with a large hole as he roared in pain!
Just then, two black shadows appeared behind him.
Yami gripped a long sword wrapped in black, while Nacht beside him also held an identical shadow blade.
The two bosses of the Black Bulls returned to battle, providing assistance at the most crucial moment.
Both blades slashed Lucifero simultaneously. Although only leaving two shallow marks, black energy spread along Lucifero's body, entangling with a shadow domain that had formed below at some point.
Above Lucifero was a black moon created by Yami using dark magic.
The magic domains of dark magic and shadow magic combined together, their effect rising exponentially. Even Lucifero was restricted for a second.
Stars twinkled as Asta was transported by Yuno's star magic to before Lucifero.
"The one who loses... is you!"
Instantly entering devil assimilation, Asta gripped the Demon-Slasher Blade with both hands and chopped down.
"How could I possibly...!"
Lucifero roared, his arm breaking free from the shadows wrapped around it.
Charles descended from above, landing behind Lucifero, flames on his palm strike trailing a long mark.
"New technique - how about the name Dragon Slaying Secret Art: Flame Dragon Demon-Breaking Blade!"
Charles said this as his palm strike cut through Lucifero's body like breaking through bamboo, revealing the devil heart within.
The technique's inspiration came from a certain captain commander from Bleach, whose Bankai condensed sun-level heat into a narrow blade, giving it the terrifying power to erase everything.
Charles's strike was the same, condensing all flame power into his palm. Although not as flashy as other Dragon Slaying Secret Arts, its power was definitely greatly enhanced.
Charles had actually been conceptualizing this technique long ago, but unfortunately his powerful body in normal state couldn't withstand that terrifying power.
Only after entering dragonified state could this technique barely be used. Even so, quite a bit of flame still leaked out, not achieving the state of invisible flames like Zanka no Tachi.
But even so, the power was sufficient. Lucifero's body was cleanly slashed open.
Being directly slashed open, Lucifero naturally couldn't do anything and could only face Asta's fatal anti-magic attack.
At this moment, another black horn emerged from the center of Asta's forehead as the Demon-Slasher Blade fell, splitting the Devil King's heart in two.
"It's time to pay for what you've done, and we'll all live happily!"
The current Asta and Liebe had completely fused together, no longer distinguishable from each other. Perhaps this was true devil assimilation.
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