Point out any errors I made in the chapters, as I'm very lazy and sometimes can't be bothered to reread them. Also, give your opinions on something I should change or add.
Note: A small amount of soft porn but nothing explicit.
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System: First Phase completed. The Second Phase of the World Summit Trial shall now commence.
"FUCK!"
God Mode was truly ruthless.
Even while partaking in the Asure World Summit Trial, the challengers would at least be given a thirty-minute break between phases, whereas in Hell Mode players could choose when to start the next phase.
But when taking on the highest difficulty, no rest was given as the next round immediately began after clearing the First Phase.
Beating the Trial Creature had taken everything out of Feng, with his remaining HP, Stamina, and Concentration all being nearly nothing, needing some time to recover before he could fight again. Furthermore, all of his strong skills were on cooldown at the moment.
And that's the least of his problems without mentioning that he was in a Heavily Weakened state.
Dealing with a challenge that was definitely going to be even more difficult than the First Phase would naturally be impossible after coming out of a fight in that condition.
If nothing, Feng had thought that he'd at least get a breather to recover from such an intense battle.
Not caring for his thoughts or feelings, the Second Phase began merely seconds after the First Phase's Trial Creature had been vanquished.
Black smoke similar to what the replica of Feng in the previous phase had formed its shape from began to appear on the trial grounds several dozen yards away from him again. This time, however, there wasn't only one small cloud of fog, but many, many dark humanoid figures appeared as the darkness manifested.
Moments later, upon their full completion, hundreds of Fengs stood in formation some distance from Feng, all staring directly at him with murderous gazes. Stunned, Feng stared ahead at the army with a dumbstruck look.
Thankfully, the World Summit Trial would not be so merciless as to make a challenger fight hundreds of Trial Creatures that were versions of themself with much higher tiers and strength. In fact, all of them were Tier 1 the same as him and possessed everything Feng had, similarly to the Tier 5 duplicate in the First Phase; their combat standards being the same for the Realms of Refinement while each of their movements had a Bronze Combat Technique integrated into it.
This, though, would be considered a challenge much harder than the First Phase by players, as instead of simply facing one opponent that was stronger than them, even if it was by a considerable amount, having to fight multiple enemies with the same strength and abilities as them while being besieged from all sides was an entirely different level and type of difficult.
Even Feng would stand no chance at clearing the Second Phase in his peak, much less while he was in a Heavily Weakened state. After all, the clones would have the same skills as him.
They wouldn't be able to use Soulharvest Synergy same as the Tier 5 Trial Creature in the First Phase, but that would hardly matter due to the number of Tier 1 replicas participating in the battle.
Which was another factor that made the Second Phase of the World Summit Trial basically impossible. The sheer number of Trial Creatures the trial creates.
In Hell Mode, players only had to fight ten versions of themselves possessing the same tier and strength as the player and having Truth Realm standards, whereas when taking on Asura Mode the challenger would be facing off against fifty Trial Creatures with replicated strength and Ascension Realm standards.
For God Mode, though, Celestina apparently thought it was fair to make the trial taker fight five hundred duplicates of the player that possessed the same strength and abilities while displaying Transcendental Realm combat standards.
Fighting one would be difficult enough without any spare resources to overpower the replica, while even having to consecutively defeat them one at a time would be too draining and overall impossible.
All five hundred at once was naturally not worth considering. Feng wouldn't be able to win regardless even if this was the First Phase in his peak condition with all the items and Consumables he had prepared not having been used up, because his survivability was simply too high, meaning that getting rid of one Tier 1 Trial Creature would be nearly as difficult as taking on the Tier 5 clone.
His duplicates could simply spam all his strongest attacks while taking turns using Berserk Skills to entirely exhaust Feng. Hence there is no shot at victory here.
As the Second Phase began, numerous Fengs charged directly at Feng with high speeds, splitting into multiple groups in a synchronized manner, surrounding Feng and attacking from all sides. The ones charging at the front activated Heavenly Dragon's Power at the very start of the fight and attacked with Thunder Flame Explosion while executing Bronze Combat Techniques with their every move, along with an Advanced Bronze Combat Technique to enhance the power of their attack.
Right behind them followed more Tier 1 Trial Creatures that activated Power of Darkness and sent Earth Splitters flying at the weakened Feng, the swordlights moving along with the vanguard Fengs without interfering with their attacks and adding additional pressure.
Their formation was perfect and left no gaps for Feng to evade the attacks, nor would he be able to block all of them when the clones had launched a coordinated assault from all sides so that he wouldn't have any chance of surviving their combined onslaught.
From just the first exchange, it was clear why the Second Phase was many times more difficult than the first. The Trial Creatures are intelligent enough to only send two hundred of their forces at the beginning and distribute their roles amongst each other, along with having an understanding of the skills they had inherited from Feng, without communicating; making for an opposition that one simply could not contend with.
The person taking on the World Summit Trial would, in order to beat the Second Phase, have to either have unparalleled combat standards which the trial could not copy, or a huge number of items available to use against the Trial Creatures.
And that would only work for Hell Mode in most cases.
Players had managed to clear Hell Mode using such brute forceful method, but failed in Asura Mode due to the large number of Trial Creatures, their higher intelligence, coordination with each other, and combat standards; with even the experts coming from the Greater God's Domain failing in their attempts after relying on items to beat the First Phase.
Naturally God Mode was even less likely to be passed like that, and even Feng would fail; no amount of resources and Legendary items having the capability to allow him to clear the Second Phase considering everything the Tier 1 Trial Creatures had inherited from copying him and the level of attacks they were capable of exhibiting like just now as the replicas jumped Feng.
That being said, the First and Second Phases were not the same and had different rules, so Feng still had a chance to clear the trial. The change in rules between the phases was also why Feng had confidence in passing the Second Phase as long as he managed to defeat the Tier 5 Trial Creature; not caring about him falling into a Heavily Weakened state during the process.
Unlike in the First Phase, summoning creatures was allowed now as long as they weren't summoned from outside the trial space, so Feng, in his current state, wouldn't be the one fighting the five hundred Trial Creatures.
A crystal ball filled with dark fog was retrieved from the Space Ring and held in Feng's hand. Moments later, just as the Earth Splitters and Thunder Flame Explosions were about to rip Feng apart, a stunning woman dressed in a maid outfit appeared next to Feng.
Grabbing the Pandemonium Lashblade from Feng's numbed hand, coldness flashed in the girl's blood-red eyes as the Demon Sword split apart into multiple sections and she moved her arm.
Slashing it around Feng and herself, the chain sword became covered in dark purple flames, creating a cone around them like a wall of purple fire that spread and blossomed out in the shape of a lotus.
Tier 4 Skill, Cruel Lotus!
Celestina warded off the Trial Creatures and blocked the attacks with the Tier 4 Skill, the purple flames devouring all the other skills as the lotus spread out, forcing back all the duplicates lest they get caught up in the range of Cruel Lotus.
Unlike them or the Tier 5 Trial Creature, the Demon Empress's utilization of high-ranking skills and control over Mana was absolute, greatly surpassing anything they could accomplish, so even though the power of their Thunder Flame Explosions had reached the Tier 4 standard as well, they were all still overpowered upon getting engulfed in the firey purple lotus.
Within the Cruel Lotus that would continue to burn several seconds after its activation, Feng and Celestina stood in a small area free of the purple flames at the center. Having neutralized the attacks and saved them from danger, the demon girl turned to Feng, wanting to ask him what the hell was happening and where had he summoned her to.
Before she could, though, ten Fengs with Heavenly Dragon's Power boosting their strength appeared around them using Instant Strike, most of them sending out multiple attacks with Chop, Double Chop, and Earth Splitter to force the challengers into defense and preoccupy their attention while three of the clones prepared to follow up with Thundering Flash; which had a slightly longer activation time.
At the same time, a few more Trial Creatures on the outside jumped high in the air, leaping up above them and attacking from the sky with Thundering Flashes.
Sensing all the incoming attacks and their power, Celestina's expression turned serious. Knowing she couldn't defend all these attacks coming from every direction simultaneously, and that she needed to protect Feng as well after having sensed that he was in a weakened state, the Demon Empress immediately responded with the most optimal move.
Stabbing the Pandemonium Lashblade into the gray earth, three pitch-black barriers emerged from the ground around them and connected to a tip above their heads, forming a miniature three-sided pyramid.
Tier 4 Taboo Skill, Safor Sig!
The slashes and rivers of thunder crashed into the black pyramid, causing it to shake and tremble under the tremendous force, but it managed to withstand the powerful blows.
Without letting up, the Trial Creatures sent more attacks Feng's and Celestina's way, cracks gradually appearing on Safor Sig as it began to reach the limit of its defensive threshold.
"Can you tell me what the fuck is going on!? And why are there so many humans that look like you!?" Seeing that they were temporarily safe, the demon maid quickly questioned Feng, hoping to get informed on what kind of situation this was before the defensive skill got broken by the replicas' bombardment.
Sitting down and releasing a relieved sigh after finally being able to catch a break, Feng started explaining "We're in the Second Phase of your God Mode World Summit Trial. You need to-"
"Dumbass!" The Demon Empress cut Feng off mid-sentence upon learning he was attempting to clear the God Mode World Summit Trial, and she began berating him in anger "The hell were you thinking challenging the God Mode difficulty with your feeble strength? Are you courting deat- Kyaa!" A sharp pain that caused Celestina to yelp out interrupted her scolding of Feng.
Glaring down at the human whose hand had gone beneath her maid dress and pinched her leg, the Demon Goddess had an incomparable urge to kick Feng in his annoying face, but restrained herself while gritting her teeth.
"Don't interrupt your master," Calmly rebuking as he disciplined the demon girl, Feng pulled back his hand after pinching the supple flesh of her thick thigh and resumed his orders "You need to buy me time to recover and protect me from the Trial Creatures. I have a way to deal with them even if you're unable to kill all the replicas, so just make sure to stall out the fight for as long as possible while keeping me safe."
Irked beyond measure, Celestina could only follow his instructions. However, she still felt insulted by Feng forcing her into the role of a bodyguard and grossly underestimating her strength by insinuating she wouldn't be able to simply kill off all these Trial Creatures.
Although the Demon Empress sensed that they were powerful, they were all just Tier 1 humans; mere ants to a being of her caliber.
Determined to show Feng he was making a mountain out of a molehill, Celestina planned on slaughtering the replicas, getting some much-desired satisfaction from killing Feng-like creatures and making the difference in strength between them clear at the same time.
During their short exchange, dozens of more Fengs bombarded the small pyramid with attacks after Cruel Lotus's effects faded, its smooth surface having large spiderweb cracks and obviously about to shatter.
Noticing this, Celestina stopped quarreling with Feng and became battle-ready. Pointing two fingers to the sky while chanting a short incantation, a huge pitch-black Magic Array spanning over two hundred yards around her appeared below everyone's feet.
Mana rapidly gathered from the surroundings like a whirlpool had appeared and entered the Magic Array, causing the Trial Creatures to quickly and decisively run, trying to get out of its range.
But within a single second, the Magic Array was already done drawing in Mana and a black beam rose from the center of the Array, expanding out to over two hundred yards.
Tier 5 Spell, Hoofing Madness!
The black beam turned the ground into nothingness and evaporated anything it touched as it spread out. However, it didn't manage to reach any of the Fengs and eliminate them, some of them managing to get out of the Tier 5 Spell's range in time using their immense speed while having a Berserk Skill active, whereas the rest simply escaped by relying on their Life Saving Skills.
Having forced all the Trial Creatures to retreat by over two hundred yards, Celestina took the chance to lift Feng and fly high up in the air using her demonic wings; the two of them remaining safe from Hoofing Madness despite being in its epicenter thanks to Safor Sig and the Demon Empress's protection.
Not intending to let her get away with Feng, the Trial Creatures who had escaped from the Tier 5 Spell, as well as another one hundred from the original group that had stayed behind as backup, followed after Celestina who flew out of the encirclement and distanced herself and Feng from the large group of duplicates.
Since they couldn't fly without unequipping the Blood Emperor's Armor, which would significantly decrease their strength, and most of them already had Berserk Skill active, only the one hundred Fengs that had joined the battle used Imperial Ascendance to achieve flight and follow the two of them in the air using the blood wings, while the rest had to move on the ground and run after them.
Feng didn't have many ranged skills, and whatever he had for attacking from a distance simply didn't have the attack range to reach the height Celestina had ascended to, so the Trial Creatures on the ground weren't a threat and only the ones that had activated Imperial Ascendance could launch an offensive on Feng and his demon maid.
No longer besieged from all sides while having to worry about Feng, the Demon Empress didn't bother flying any further, especially since only one hundred clones were coming at them right now in the air.
She simply stopped, not even bothering to fight with both hands as she held Feng in one and wielded the Pandemonium Lashblade in the other with its Splitting effect activated to increase her attack range.
To Celestina, regardless of how strong Feng is right now, he was still only a Tier 1 human, so even a hundred of him was not a fighting force worthy of her getting serious, hence she merely relied on wielding the Pandemonium Lashblade, which, although a One-handed Sword, is more practical to use with two hands while utilizing its mechanic as a chain sword, with one hand while carrying Feng.
This way, since he'll be by her side the entire time, the Demon Goddess didn't have to worry about Feng getting surprisingly ambushed when she was not paying attention and couldn't protect him in time.
Feng easily understood Celestina's thoughts and what she was planning the moment she stopped to face the flying Trial Creatures, having enough understanding of her character to be aware she wouldn't be willing to run away from these clones.
However, he said nothing to the confident demon girl, simply frowning slightly. It would do more harm than good if he were to force Celestina into running away by ordering her since she'd definitely be upset and feel disrespected as if Feng was underestimating her in that situation, which would result in the arrogant Demon Empress begrudgingly following his orders.
He didn't want Celestina to get even more pissed off and bitchy at him than she already was; at least not in that manner.
Thus, Feng allowed her to stay and attempt to fight the replicas, even if he knew it would be a futile effort. After having a go at them and witnessing firsthand the power they could wield, the Demon Goddess would quickly understand that the Trial Creatures' strength was not something she could simply brush off and would become more prone to listening to him.
At that point, it hopefully won't be too late, and they could adjust to the situation properly in order to win using Feng's plan. Either way, this would still buy Feng some much-needed time to rest and recover, so he didn't particularly mind as he knew Celestina's confidence was justified, and her thought process would be quite logical and correct if the opponents were someone else's clones.
One could not blame Celestina for thinking that she could easily massacre the Trial Creatures.
In fact, even though she had been incredibly weakened and only possessed a minuscule fraction of her original strength, at Tier 4, even a billion Tier 1 creatures together would not have the strength to fight against Celestina, much less merely one hundred of them, so she was actually giving Feng a lot of credit by first flying into the air and distancing herself instead of immediately fighting the duplicates head-on due to knowing that Feng was much stronger than other Tier 1 beings.
But she had still severely underestimated him.
After all, this was Feng they were talking about.
From the first few exchanges, the Demon Empress immediately realized that she had made a slight miscalculation. This bastard was much stronger than she had originally thought!
Although each of her attacks succeed in forcing back the Fengs, Celestina did not have as much of an upper hand as she expected she would against a bunch of Tier 1 creatures. They all moved and attacked perfectly in sync, chaining their attacks without giving her the opportunity to properly retaliate.
Additionally, it took a significantly greater amount of effort to clash against the group than what one would think considering the enormous gap between the Demon Goddess and the Trial Creatures.
Even while possessing higher attributes while fighting casually, along with having Beyond Transcendental Realm standards with Celestina integrating a Silver Combat Technique into her every movement, executing attacks that possessed unparalleled power, the replicas could still cope with her onslaught; managing to make some counter-attacks in the process.
No matter which move she used, the Fengs would always escape death's clutches using some skill, switching places and roles with their partners to draw the Demon Empress's attention so that the injured ones could recover, always launching attacks from all directions that possessed considerable power.
Now Celestina was starting to get really annoyed, having used Tier 4 Skills, Spells, Taboo Skills and Curses, Tier 5 Skills and Spells, Advanced Silver Combat Techniques, a couple of Gold Combat Techniques executed at a weak standard, Mana Techniques, and even a few Saint-ranked Mana Techniques, all to no avail.
Despite the Demon Goddess throwing out so many powerful attacks one after another, the Trial Creatures always somehow managed to handle them, either avoiding them in time, one of them using a strong ability to stop her attack at the price of receiving a huge amount of damage, or the Fengs working together like brothers in arms to combine their strength and block whatever she tries to eliminate them with.
It was borderline absurd for them to have survived this long and accomplished such a feat, regardless of there being one hundred of the Trial Creatures. Frustration could not begin to describe how Celestina was feeling as she continued exchanging blows with the Fengs and the fight dragged on far longer than expected.
But she also grew cautious from fighting them, even beginning to feel a tinge of fear. In spite of merely being Tier 1, Feng had managed to amass such power, having gained unprecedentedly high attributes, items, and abilities. More concerningly, however, was the high combat standards and proficient combat level his clones were displaying, along with many powerful Combat Techniques; there being no lack of Silver Combat Techniques in their arsenal.
Since the Trial Creatures could do such things, then it was safe to say Feng was perfectly capable of them as well, and perhaps much more.
Moreover, even after trying to murder them for a couple of minutes, the Demon Goddess has yet to kill any of them; merely managing to severely injure a dozen or so Fengs while doing large amounts of damage to the rest.
Of course, she was still much stronger, and these one hundred could never defeat Celestina, but they were still taking a lot of energy for her to take down.
Thankfully, the rest on the ground could not threaten her in any sort of way, so the demon girl just had to focus on killing off these ones or fighting them off until the duration of Imperial Ascendance ran out.
If the other four hundred Trial Creatures, which were currently silently observing the fight, were to use the Berserk Skill as well, then they'd stand a shot at actually cornering Celestina, but she'd just be able to stall out or try to run in that case while waiting for their Imperial Ascendances to end.
Without the ability to fly, they could not do anything to her, but all of them using the Berserk Skill at once and trying to overwhelm her with numbers was unlikely to work out either. Meanwhile such small forces of one hundred or so only had the capability to stand against her for some time. The replicas could naturally resort to simply flying after Celestina using their regular copied wings, but without their strongest Berserk Skill active to bridge the gap in attributes and the Blood Emperor's Armor no longer boosting the clones' overall strength after unequipping the Legendary Chesplates, the powerful Demon Empress could easily just swat away the Tier 1 Trial Creatures.
Hence, Celestina believed that her victory was just a matter of time and that there was no need to truly run from the Fengs as if she couldn't slaughter them all.
That's when things took a turn for the worse, as if to completely contradict the Demon Empress's thoughts.
From the group of two hundred Fengs that had previously besieged Celestina, half of them activated Nine Dragons Slash, each creating twenty-one phantom Abyssal Blades that floated above the group, causing the air to be cluttered with over two thousand flying swords.
As if the sight wasn't stupefying enough, the one hundred Fengs who had summoned the hovering weapons all jumped up onto one of them each, before controlling all of their phantom Abyssal Blades to simultaneously fly up towards Celestina.
Seeing the two thousand pitch-black swords flying at her from below at such a high speed, along with the addition of another one hundred Fengs, the demon girl was no longer able to maintain her calm demeanor.
Setting aside the increased pressure on her from more Trial Creatures attacking at the same time, even if these ones couldn't fly as quickly or move as agilely due to standing on swords instead of flying with wings, the two thousand weapons were a major problem as even though Celestina could easily block and defend herself from the phantom Abyssal Blades, their sheer quantity made them a huge pain in the ass considering that the Demon Goddess would now have to spare some of her attention fending off the swords at all times.
Furthermore, these weren't simple projectiles that had a set pattern which Celestina could predict and smack away. Each of them was being controlled to get past her defenses by Half-step Beyond Domain Realm experts, and since the Fengs only needed to manipulate twenty-one flying swords each, there weren't any problems like some of the phantom Abyssal Blades performing mediocrely or the army not being able to sustain this level of control over the two thousand weapons.
Within less than ten seconds of the one hundred duplicates and their flying swords joining in on the fight, the Demon Empress was already slightly struggling.
The phantom Abyssal Blades weren't that strong even though they possessed 100% of Feng's Strength since the Magic Weapon and its skill were still only Tier 3, which limited how much of Feng's true power they could display, so Celestina could effortlessly send any of the swords flying with a hit of her Pandemonium Lashblade even if ten of them were to come at her simultaneously. But there were simply too many of them.
With two thousand flying swords coming at her from all directions and needing to constantly fend them off at all times since there was no stop to their barrage under the Trial Creatures' expertly control, leaving her with no choice but to stay on the defensive the whole time because Feng couldn't defend himself right now, the Demon Goddess had no time to even properly defend against the replicas' attacks, let alone attempt to fight back and kill them with counters.
Thus, Celestina was continuously forced into a passive position while accumulating more and more damage as well as expending sizeable amounts of her Stamina and Concentration.
Feng wasn't at all surprised upon seeing this development.
In this fight, quantity trampled over quality.
No matter how strong Celestina was, she could not fight off so many attacks from so many sources, including two hundred Fengs, at once. The only reason this fight has lasted for as long as it did was because the duplicates wanted to first observe the demon girl and assess her combat power before coming up with a plan of action to eliminate her and Feng.
As long as the entire group of five hundred Trial Creatures moves together while properly coordinating to take the Great Demon down and the army uses all of its abilities, Celestina would still fall under their combined onslaught while at Tier 4.
If she were to fight them to the death while going all out, Celestina would naturally do huge amounts of damage to the group, the Demon Empress' full power being no joke and not something the current Feng or his replicas could handle, but Celestina would, at best, only manage to kill off one to two hundred of them.
She'd eventually run out of steam in the process and get overwhelmed by the Trial Creatures, especially if they were to immediately bombard her with all of their strongest and most effective abilities; in which scenario Celestina wouldn't even last that long.
This was a very predictable outcome to Feng as he knew the Demon Goddess could not defeat the combined effort of the clones to raid her like a Boss Monster, so it was inevitable that the situation would end up developing as such due to the outrageous difficulty of the God Mode World Summit Trial.
Feng himself had struggled a lot and had faced an enormous amount of trouble to pass the Second Phase of the Asura Mode World Summit Trial during his previous life, only managing to clear it due to possessing a large amount of Legendary items, along with a few Fragmented Divine Artifacts, as well as having made ample preparations beforehand to deal with the first two phases after hearing the information about them.
Even then, he only barely managed to scrape by through thinning them out and ever so slowly whittling down the fifty Trial Creatures one by one.
Being many times harder than Asura, God Mode would naturally take much more to clear.
Until now, Feng had merely been giving Celestina the chance to see for herself that it was impossible to kill the clones using such a method, waiting for the demon maid to come to that conclusion without him saying anything.
By now, she had surely understood that as well, so he felt it was about time for them to bail before it became too late.
"We can't win like this. Retreat from the fighting zone and fly away at your fastest speed," Providing Celestina the out to run away through the simple command without heavily wounding her pride even more than it had already been torn apart in this battle, Feng made sure to add another piece of crucial advice "Also, be wary of those clones getting close, and keep them twenty yards away from you at all times no matter what."
"Sure." Scoffing slightly to the order, the Demon Empress no longer planned on not following Feng's words or fighting these bastards.
Inwardly, though, she still felt pissed off that they had to flee, especially since the main cause was a skill like Nine Dragons Slash that would normally not be of any threat to her if only one person used it in a fight.
Throwing out a powerful Tier 5 Skill, Celestina forced away all the flying swords and duplicates around her, before turning towards the area with the least amount of obstacles and flying through at a very high speed.
Upon realizing that the demon girl was trying to get away with Feng in tow, the Trial Creatures immediately upped the pressure on her, doing their best to keep her in the encirclement.
Combating so many sources of danger at once while trying to run away made it difficult for Celestina to properly carry out Feng's instructions, particularly the one about maintaining a twenty-yard gap between herself and the replicas.
Stopping all of them from entering a twenty-yard radius from her was naturally impossible in this situation, and Feng hadn't thought that the Demon Goddess would be able to accomplish such a thing right now, but simply intended to bring the matter to Celestina's attention and have her do so as much as feasible.
Though, that didn't seem to have achieved anything, partially due to the huge number of phantom Abyssal Blade and the Trial Creatures clustering around the two of them, and partially due to Celestina herself not thinking much about it.
Despite having just been proven wrong in her initial assessment against the clones, the stubborn demon arrogantly thought that troubling herself with such a thing was unnecessary.
Although she had seen the power of the Fengs' attacks, and was sure they still had more in store than what they've shown up till now, Celestina didn't believe the clones were capable of seriously hurting her without there being something she could do about it.
The most threatening attack she had witnessed was Worldly Purification that a couple of replicas had tried to ambush her with, but while the Tier 4 Skill was quite dangerous for Celestina due to her being a demon, the confident girl believed her instincts would be enough to preempt any attack capable of putting her life at risk before it was a problem; especially at a twenty-yard distance as Feng was implying the clones could threaten her wellbeing from that range.
So the Demon Empress thought that Feng was simply overexaggerating the clones' power since there shouldn't be any skill they could use at such a distance that would warrant her caution, focusing purely on breaking through the Trial Creatures' formation and getting away from them.
Little did Celestina know that Feng wasn't concerned about the replicas using some kind of ability that could do any direct damage to her, but something much worse. A skill that Feng wasn't sure if the Trial Creatures were aware of how to properly leverage against the demon girl, which if used correctly, would make Celestina's fight hell for her and possibly even incapacitate the Demon Goddess.
His speculations were well-founded as the Fengs utilizing that skill would spell their doom since the Demon Goddess would no longer be able to fight back against the duplicates, but Celestina had not taken his words as seriously as he would have liked.
Due to their large numbers and the opposition she faced from the Trial Creatures and their flying swords while trying to break out, Celestina was having trouble getting away, causing the Fengs to be clustered close as they slowed her down and blocked the maid's path.
When over fifty of the Fengs had gathered around Celestina within a twenty-yard range of her, Feng's fears came to fruition.
Lustful Domain! x56
Waves of prickling pleasure coursed through the Demon Empress's entire body which had become incredibly sensitive after getting caught up within over fifty Lustful Domains layering and overlapping over each other.
Although she naturally didn't get her sensitivity increased by the full amount from each of them, only the first few fully affecting her while the rest's influence gradually diminished, the combined effects from the fifty-six perverse skills made Celestina's condition extremely precarious.
Just the feeling of Feng's body slightly rubbing against hers through their armor and clothes as she carried him sent shivers down the Demon Goddess's spine, the Lustful Domains having immediately placed her in a Heavily Aroused state and made any physical contact very stimulating for the demon girl.
However, despite her mind growing cloudy and being unable to think straight from the sensation filling her entire body, Celestina was still the Demon Empress, an expert with immense combat experience and instincts sharp enough to block all of the attacks coming at them reflexively.
Even though the Trial Creatures had taken the perfect opportunity to strike immediately after they had used their Lustful Domains to distract Celestina, she still managed to see through the incoming threats and react in time to defend against everything they had thrown at her.
But that was the aroused girl's limit. Under the domain skills' effects and her sensitivity reaching such a threshold, even just clashing her sword against incoming attacks and feeling the vibrations sent stimulating signals to Celestina's brain, causing her to momentarily lose control over her body, the demon girl's grip loosening and the Pandemonium Lashblade slipping out of her hand.
Thankfully, Feng caught it in time using Blade Dance, having no other option but to use the Legacy Skill in his current predicament, and control the Demon Sword to fend off any nearby threats.
Knowing that Celestina could not fight in this condition nor even continue running away in her current state, while he himself did not currently have the strength to protect them from the clones, Feng forced the Demon Goddess to move through their contract, disregarding her own thoughts and even controlling her sensitive body to some extent.
Immediately after, just as more attacks were coming their way, Feng forced Celestina to use a Tier 5 Movement Skill and a Gold ranked Body Combat Technique while her mind wasn't functioning properly. Naturally, moving in such a manner and executing a powerful Body Combat Technique resulted in the Demon Empress feeling large amounts of stimulation and pleasure in droves, which would normally render her immobile and unable to maintain flight, but under Feng's direct control, she continued moving against her will.
With fumes of black energy shooting out from her body and repelling anything around her as the demon maid's speed skyrocketed under the Tier 5 skill's effects, Celestina and Feng finally succeeded in breaking through.
Giving chase, the Trial Creatures attempted to follow after the challengers, but with the speed they were going at thanks to the boost from Celestina's Tier 5 Movement Skill and Gold Combat Technique, the two of them quickly widened the distance and disappeared from sight.
Soon, Celestina had flown them thousands of yards away, creating a considerable distance from the army and buying some time for them to recover.
But she was quickly unable to maintain a high speed, even struggling to continue flying after Feng stopped controlling her. The effects of over fifty Lustful Domains had done a number on her, which made using her wings and overall moving her body difficult.
From the rushing wind to the flapping of her wings to the feeling of Feng's body pressing against her, every little thing was stimulating the demon girl. An arousing feeling that she rarely experienced made her mind go numb every once in a while, frustrating Celestina in more ways than one to no end.
On one hand, she was annoyed that such a thing was occurring, on the other, a different kind of unfulfillment that she felt while this aroused bothered Celestina even more. Normally, she'd be able to tune out the feeling or completely cut off such sensations thanks to the immense control she had over her body.
However, she wasn't able to do it now as the increased Sensitivity and Heavily Aroused state had already messed with her body too much, even causing some fluids to begin secreting from her lower lips.
In such a condition, there was no way a girl could even fly properly let alone fight.
"Let me take over." Being well aware of Celestina's situation and seeing how much she was struggling, Feng decided to switch roles as the Trial Creatures would quickly catch up to them if they continued flying at their current speed.
Squirming out of her grasp, which proved very easy since the Demon Goddess could not concentrate on anything right now, Feng held Celestina with one hand, halting her efforts to fly, and took out a pearly-white bone with a bright red scarf tied around it from his bag.
Suddenly, a giant skull of a creature that resembled a dragon's head appeared beneath them, and Feng landed on it like a feather while carrying the gorgeous demon girl. In the next moment, the huge skull shook slightly and took off, flying at a very high speed that surpassed even Celestina's and Feng's regular flying speed.
Apart from the items meant for offense, defense, summoning, and loads of other purposes, Feng had also brought a few flying tools, such as the Fragmented Legendary ranked item Skel Brof that he had just used to summon the giant dragon-like skull.
It was also his most powerful flying tool, being a top-tier Fragmented Legendary item since apart from being capable of going at incredible speeds, the Gaster Blaster[1] created by Skel Brof was also able to shoot out laser attacks at the Tier 4 standard; its strength varying depending how much Mana the user feeds it.
Instead of a flying tool it more resembled a Flying Mount, but its strength and potential were lacking, while it also had a limited duration.
Sitting down cross-legged on the Gaster Blaster, Feng commanded it to fly as fast as possible in the direction away from the Trial Creatures, before turning his attention to Celestina. She was currently breathing heavily with her eyes closed and face flushed, evidently having difficulty enduring the sensations coursing through her body.
If one didn't know any better, one would think that the girl had come down with some illness by just looking at her; while she was actually just very aroused and sexually frustrated.
After a while, Celestina began to slightly recover, at least enough to process what was going on around her and think straight. However, her body remained very sensitive even after several minutes, the effects from getting caught up in so many Lustful Domains fading far too slowly.
When Feng had gently ran his finger across her palm as a test to see how bad it was while the Demon Goddess was still lying on his legs, her entire body shook, and Feng heard a soft stifled moan nearly escape Celestina's lips.
'This is no good.' Frowning slightly, Feng realized that he had greatly underestimated Lustful Domain's effects, and that he hadn't the faintest clue how strong it would truly be when multiple of the Unique Skills were activated and stacked at the same time; even on a being like the Demon Empress.
Though, it wasn't like Celestina was weak or completely to blame, as several other factors had played into her falling into such a state; her being a complete virgin, Feng having been teasing and faintly arousing her the entire time ever since they signed the contract, adding onto him affecting her with the Seducer Subclass throughout it all, along with him being an Advanced Seducer right now which greatly heightened her arousal and the pleasure she felt.
If it was some regular guy that the demon girl was interacting with and getting touched by in this situation, the sensuality Celestina would feel from him would be many times less than from Feng.
But regardless of that, she was still in a bad condition, and fighting against the army of Fengs was out of the question. Of course, Celestina would still eventually recover. Only he had no idea how long that would take to happen the natural way, while the duration he could achieve flight for using his flying tools was quite limited.
Thus, Feng needed to figure out a way to help the Demon Goddess recover quickly.
And he already had a fairly good idea of how to do so.
"Looks like you'll be needing my assistance in releasing your pent-up pleasure and recovering." Concluding that there was no other way, Feng hastened his plans and informed Celestina after seeing that she was still red in the face and growing frustrated with her recovery speed.
"What do you mean by that? How can you-" The Demon Empress looked at Feng inquiringly and asked, unsure of what he could do to help her, when she suddenly felt the bastard's hand slip under her skirt, traveling along her inner thigh and moving towards the demon girl's honeypot. "WAIT! DON'T YOU DARE- AHhhhh~♡!"
---
The moment Feng and Celestina had disappeared from their sights, all of the Trial Creatures immediately sprang into action. Knowing that they had no chance of catching up to them while moving on foot, all of the clones unequipped their Blood Emperor's Armors and unfurled their wings, flying after the trial taker.
At the same time, without saying a word or so much as glancing at each other, they all moved in unison as if having already come up with a plan, half of the five hundred Fengs splitting up from the group and flying to different sides, taking the long way to circle around, while the rest flew after Celestina.
As Trial Creatures of the World Summit Trial, the replicas could all communicate and act as if they were one being, ensuring that they fight in the most optimal way possible. Hence, without any delay, the Fengs acted to reach and intercept the trial taker, using the most effective and efficient strategy for the purpose of fulfilling their objective.
---
There was no sound coming from the Gaster Blaster, none of the three creatures interrupting the silence taking place in the trial space.
Gripping Feng's arm tightly with a mix of rage, displeasure, disgust, and embarrassment, yet there also being relief, satisfaction, pleasure, sensuality, and even a bit of yearning swelling inside her, Celestina felt like killing herself as she leaned against his chest while breathing softly; having finally managed to catch her breath.
Never before in her entire long life had the Demon Empress ever felt this mortified and embarrassed.
She could not even bring herself to look up at him from the desire to find a hole and bury herself alive, the girl's face burning with a deep crimson color.
Feng said and did nothing, merely sitting still and letting Celestina rest in silence.
Since her problem was that she was too aroused and unable to shake off the pleasure caused by her sensitive body, all Feng had to do was make the Demon Empress cum. As long as she had a good enough release, the girl would start recovering much faster from the arousal and sensitivity.
This proved to be a trivially easy task for him with how inexperienced in sexual pleasure and sensitive Celestina was, not even needing to go far to make her finish within a minute just by playing around a bit using his fingers.
Considering her state at the time, Feng could have definitely gone much further and even deflowered the Demon Goddess right then without her offering any resistance, but he chose not to.
Although that would have definitely made the demon maid more obedient and provided an interesting development to their relationship, Feng was certain that it wouldn't give him the full result he desired later down the line. It might even come back to bite him in the ass one way or another.
Now was not the right time to pick that fruit, and Feng planned to wait for the perfect opportunity to fully claim Celestina; mind, body, and soul.
But it still enlightened Feng about a few things, gave him the chance to make Celestina experience the bliss of climax for the first time, and such an intense one at that, which would surely result in her eventually wanting to experience it again, along with him being able to taste the Primordial Demon Goddess's juices which had carried an odd vitality that nourished both his body and soul.
He was not sure if this was a trait Celestina's love fluids had or simply the result of the current her merely being the manifestation of the demon girl's soul through Feng's Spectral Animacell, but it was still a neat discovery for him.
Nevertheless, Feng did not intend to make any more moves on Celestina until she gets her head straight and what just happened fully settles in. At that point, her thoughts would gradually degrade and turn more perverse, allowing Feng to slowly whittle down at her resolution and apprehension.
Moreover, they were still in the World Summit Trial and found themselves in quite a predicament, so it really wasn't the time to mess around with Celestina.
Though, Feng was unaware that it was exactly his attitude and choice to not take advantage of her that was causing the Demon Empress to feel even more embarrassed.
Setting aside the fact that he had made her orgasm within less than a minute with so little effort, which was mortifying enough for Celestina regardless of the extremely sensitive state she had been in, what she perceived as Feng's blatant disinterest to go all the way with her made the Demon Goddess feel as if he didn't consider her worthy of doing the deed with.
The thought that he simply didn't want to fuck her while she was obviously under the influence of the Lustful Domains' effects never crossed Celestina's mind, as from her impression of Feng, he was a complete and utter perverted bastard who wouldn't hesitate to do whatever he wanted to her regardless of what kind of state she was in.
This behavior from Feng wouldn't have meant anything to the Demon Empress before, but now Feng not being interested in her body and only resorting to fingering her in order to help with snapping out of her aroused state made Celestina feel insulted as a woman.
Especially since, during the time she was reaching a climax, the demon maid even felt the desire for Feng to do to her what she had seen him do to the other girls. It only lasted for a few seconds in her hazed mind overflowing with arousal and lust, but the thought still appeared, making Celestina disgusted with herself over ever wanting to have sex with a mere human.
Her embarrassment grew with each new occurrence, and what Feng had intended to be goodwill to aid in his plans of seducing the Demon Goddess ended up upsetting and embarrassing her even more.
Then again, Feng not being familiar with or able to see through the heart of a woman wasn't exactly surprising, especially since Celestina's current behavior and thought process were very different from her usual attitude and what he'd expect.
Nonetheless, it would seem to have had a near-intended effect, so all's well that ends well. Now the only problematic thing was that Celestina was too embarrassed to function at the moment, but Feng felt that someone like her would be able to quickly get her act together and fight when the time came.
Waiting for her to rest up and recover from both the Sensitivity increase and expended Stamina and Concentration, Feng controlled the Gaster Blaster to continue flying, choosing to use the opportunity to recover his energy himself as well. When its duration was almost up, it was time for the Demon Empress to go back to flying.
But first, Feng wanted to check what the Trial Creatures were up to.
Fishing out a pair of orange glasses with swirly lines on the lenses, Feng put them on and looked back to the direction he and Celestina had originally come from. The sight that greeted Feng was numerous Fengs flying after them using their large angelic wings, moving at very high speeds.
'Where's the other half though?' From a simple glance, Feng could tell that only half of the five hundred clones were in the group right behind them, whereas the other two hundred fifty Swordsmen were nowhere to be seen.
Looking around, switching his gaze to the left and to the right, Feng narrowed his eyes as he understood their plan. 'Trying to intercept us, huh?'
Aware of how troublesome it would be for them if the replicas were to catch them in a pincer attack and block off all escape points, Feng controlled the Gaster Blaster to change its direction slightly, moving through the air at a different angle.
However, seemingly knowing what he was doing at all times, each of the five hundred Fengs changed their movements accordingly to continue with the same position while adjusting to Feng's location and the direction he was moving at, all of them moving in perfect harmony as if they were a single entity.
Feng attempted to outsmart them a few more times by changing his angle and even flying speed, but they always managed to adjust to him so that nothing changed, and he eventually had to give up.
Taking off the orange glasses so that he doesn't waste any more of his Concentration, Feng lifted Celestina and stood to his feet on the giant skull.
"It's time for you to take over. Try to avoid engaging in battle as much as possible and just stall for time. We'll eventually be forced to fight them no matter what, so just drag it and the confrontation out to the best of your abilities."
"Ok." Celestina merely nodded her head, showing obedience Feng had never seen before in any of his lives, there still being a rosy color on her cheeks.
Her behavior slightly alarmed Feng as he had no idea what had caused this drastic change, but he didn't have the time to analyze or speculate on the matter.
Soon, the Gaster Blaster began crumbling to dust under them, so Celestina picked him up and began flying.
By now, the sensitivity of her body had returned completely back to normal and she didn't have any difficulties with moving or flying. Aside from mental scars and trauma of the domain skill, everything else about the Demon Goddess was the same.
Flying quickly in the direction Feng ordered her to, Celestina flapped her demonic wings and settled her mind, tranquility returning to it.
All her embarrassment, unease, wounded pride, clouded mind, and useless thoughts disappeared in an instant as the Demon Empress completely locked in.
There was no time or point for distractions, Celestina knowing better than anyone how difficult the God Mode World Summit Trial was, so the demon girl knew that she couldn't afford to have her attention scattered like this.
Just focus on the task at hand. Everything else was irrelevant.
During their travel, Feng spent some time telling Celestina about all his skills and abilities, explaining their effects, power, durations, and cooldowns; wanting the Demon Empress to be as prepared as possible for the inevitable confrontation against the Trial Creatures. He also gave her several items that could be of assistance in the future, including a pair of glassy hands tightly gripping each other, and a silver-bluish shield that was twice the size of her body length.
These were Feng's two Legendary items that still had some of their abilities left unused. The pair of hands was Falmuth Sieze that, apart from having the skill to seal space near the user, could also freeze the space around five enemies within the user's proximity, whereas the giant shield was Revres Volu, which, despite its looks, was not an actual shield that could be equipped, but a Legendary Tool that had a few skills meant for defense.
Celestina stored the two items in her inventory-like ability and listened to all the information Feng had to give as well as his plans, continuing to fly in the direction he told her during the entire time.
Despite Celestina's impressive speed, after a while, the clones managed to begin catching up, having used many skills and literally every ability within their arsenal that increased their Movement Speed in order to bridge the distance.
They even spammed Divine Steps whenever it came off cooldown in order to instantly cross two thousand yards and get closer however much possible.
As for Spatial Shift, due to Celestina's Mana Domain having been deployed from the very beginning of the fight, she was preventing them from teleporting close to her, while using the skill to just get close by would be useless since Celestina could simply fly away using her skills again, and there'd be nothing they could do to stop them.
Meanwhile, continuously using a teleportation skill within the trial space's environment was very difficult and draining on the user's Concentration, especially for the Tier 1 Trial Creatures who also needed to endure the powerful mental pressure of the Legendary Shrine and World Summit Trial.
If not for the Trial Creature in the First Phase being a Tier 5 powerhouse, it would not have been able to teleport and move around so easily and freely, even managing to use Spatial Shift and Echoport while under Falmuth Sieze's space-sealing effects and turbid environment, while the clone doing so at the time had taken considerable effort and energy on its part.
Even for Feng, it was difficult to utilize the teleportation skills, requiring plenty of Concentration and effort.
Thus, using Spatial Shift as a means to move around and catch up to Celestina, only for the Demon Goddess to immediately bail, was not an optimal method.
The Trial Creatures were forced to trail after Feng and his demon maid the hard way, flying and using whatever skills they could in an attempt to reach and kill the challengers.
But their efforts continuously resulted in nothing, Celestina always managing to wiggle out of their grasp and escape using various skills. The only thing they managed to achieve was slowing her down a bit and forcing the demon girl to flee in certain directions.
Except, that was exactly their objective to begin with.
Over two hours quickly passed as they played the cat and mouse game.
Every time the Trial Creatures get close to close to attacking her and Feng, Celestina would always push them back and quickly escape the area, the replicas not managing to even do any damage to the two of them during this entire time.
As the Demon Empress continued to fly while carrying her master, a large number of Fengs suddenly approached them from the front. Counting them all, they totaled to one hundred and seventy-five Trial Creatures that intercepted them.
At the same time, two hundred and fifty more of Feng's duplicates reached them, coming from all the other directions. The moment they surrounded Feng and Celestina, all of them activated Nine Dragons Slash, creating eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty-five phantom Abyssal Blades that filled the air; on one of each, the four hundred twenty-five Trial Creatures landed and used to fly after equipping their Chesplates.
Not wanting to get besieged from all sides like before, Celestina prepared to break out of this cage formed from thousands of flying swords, when, suddenly, a Magic Array began to glow below them. Looking down, they saw that fifty more Fengs had jumped out of the void and stood at parts of the Magic Array that had appeared.
Moments later, a large magic barrier formed, enveloping the two of them along with the over four hundred Trial Creatures. The barrier seemed to be made up of dark smoke as it trapped them within, and from what Feng could tell, it was fairly strong.
The Magic Array's appearance had caught Feng completely off guard and surprised him, never having expected the Trial Creatures would be capable of something like this. Although he had known this entire time that the clones were planning something and that it was just a matter of time before they made a move and revealed their hand, creating a Magic Array wasn't within his speculations.
Considering that they were all Advanced Master Magicians, it wasn't too surprising that the Trial Creatures had the ability to design and make Magic Arrays, but doing so shouldn't be possible here.
After all, one needed resources and materials to create Magic Arrays. They couldn't be made from thin air. However, the trial grounds were barren, the endless gray floor stretching out without anything of notice anywhere, and nothing that would allow the Fengs to make a Magic Array.
As he wracked his brains on how they had done it, a thought appeared in Feng's mind, and he did a quick headcount of the Trial Creatures. Including the four hundred and twenty-five duplicates using the swords as flying platforms and the fifty on the ground that served as core parts of the Magic Arrays as they operated it and supplied Mana to the barrier, there were only a total of four hundred and seventy-five Fengs that he could see.
"So they sacrificed twenty-five of them to create this Magic Array." Celestina spoke out, seemingly coming to the same unnerving conclusion as Feng had been thinking; albeit he himself was unsure of how exactly they had turned the twenty-five Fengs into a Magic Array.
As a person very knowledgeable on Magic Arrays and having considerable experience with them, having reached a level even beyond Craftsman ranked Magicians in the department, though, the Demon Empress immediately understood what the Trial Creatures had done and had an idea of what the barrier was capable of.
"Guess they leave us with no choice."
"Indeed." Agreeing with Feng's words, Celestina seemed completely different from how she had acted before, remaining completely calm as she released a small sigh and switched the way she was holding Feng.
Escaping was now no longer an option. Since the barrier sealed them inside with the Trial Creatures, blocking her path, Celestina couldn't simply use a few skills to dash through and flee, and although the magic barrier most likely wasn't that strong and would not be able to withstand many of Celestina's attacks, it also wouldn't be so weak that she could easily shatter it.
Naturally, the replicas would not stand around to watch her wail on the magic barrier, and the over four hundred Trial Creatures would preoccupy all of her attention without giving the Demon Goddess an opportunity to destroy the barrier.
Hence, their only remaining choice was to fight.
With a swing around and a mighty throw, Celestina launched Feng high into the air, breaking the wind as he flew to the sky. The Trial Creatures all instantly pounced on Feng, quickly flying towards him on their phantom Abyssal Blades, but the demon maid had not done such a thing in order to serve her contractor on a plate to them.
A four-fold Magic Array appeared on Celestina's palm, from which a giant snake made up of pitch-black fire shot out and flew after Feng even faster than the clones.
Zooming past the clones, the fire snake reached Feng in the blink of an eye, circling around him quickly until a thin black barrier covered with zig-zagged lines of pitch-black flames formed and trapped Feng within it, with even gravity no longer working as he remained floating in midair inside the barrier which the flaming snake made up of Soul Fire was circling like a guard dog.
When the Trial Creatures launched attacks from afar, they weren't able to even disturb the barrier, the glossy black sphere remaining completely steady in the air. However, upon getting closer and trying to strike the barrier, they were met with the fierce opposition of the fire snake.
They naturally attempted to fight back and destroy the snake, but their attacks did not have a lot of effect on the fire creature, while none of the replicas dared to face head-on or even get near the flaming snake.
It was made completely out of Destruction Soul Fire, so the Fengs had no choice but to run from it. Their souls were still fairly weak, and since it was created from Celestina's ability, no one doubted that a single strike from the flaming snake could instantly kill the Trial Creatures.
Getting anywhere near the barrier protecting Feng was too dangerous, while luring the snake away proved to be impossible since it was controlled by Celestina, whereas ranged attacks did not have the necessary power to break the black sphere and kill Feng.
Left unable to get past the troublesome defensive spell, the Trial Creatures could only switch their attention to the person who had cast the spell, all of them gazing at Celestina with murder on their minds.
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1. Idea for the flying skull from Undertale.