800 Hell Knight King - Final (1/2)

”Card Activated, Moloch Form!”

”What?!” When Baal heard the name, he quickly tried to stab the cotton toy but little did he realise Moloch's soul had already transitioned into Jin's body. A wave of light emerged from the System Driver, which indicated that it was going to transform once more.

”I will not allow you to complete it!” Baal declared as he dashed towards Jin, but the Hell Knight King was being parried.

”Heh. Your flames…they hurt you know.” Jin said as he held onto the large sword in his hands. Even though Gaeru had left, he had allowed Jin to hold onto Masamune for a while longer.

”One of the many debts had been repaid to my Master,” Gaeru said as he remembered Jin bestowing him his sword for the fight against the Valgs.

”Masamune, you are annoyed that you didn't even have a taste of this delicious creature, right?” Jin asked as he could feel the shifting of living armour is near to completion despite still being engulfed in dark flames. The sword howled a little as if he acknowledged the temporary wielder and at the opponent who was denying him the chance to feed.

”You insolent fool!” King Baal pushed his sword further and used the impact to retract his sword up so that he could go for another strike.

”I do not usually like to do this but!” Jin strenuously opened his eyes, allowing his Inverse Eyes to activate. ”Zeru!” Jin shouted out in his mind and only then did the System realise the loophole that Jin seemingly discovered.

As the living armour plates were shifting, it was actually Moloch attempting to acclimate to Jin's Astral Body before he could take over Jin's body. But what Jin did was to call upon Zeru to fuse with his soul for a split second before Moloch took it over completely.

Jin's sensei did not hesitate, knowing that time itself was both the strictest and opportunistic in nature. If humans can dissect time further, Zeru basically zoomed into the most crucial moment and delivered a cut towards the weakest point of Baal's armour.

The strike that was seemingly faster than the speed of light caused the demon's armour pierced and King to bleed. The Sword Saint immediately left with a wide satisfied smile and at the same time hoped he did not cause even more damage to Jin's body and soul.

”What?!” Baal did not even see that split second strike and Masamune was already howling with excitement since it finally tasted the blood of a demon infused with the energy from Hell and the wretched crown.

”Ah shit, I forgot the crown was on him. Ah whatever, Moloch, the stage is yours. Try to live as long as possible.” Jin said as he felt his consciousness damped after Zeru's forceful takeover, rescinding to the back.

As the plates formed correctly, Moloch stood there, finally feeling the flames which burnt his master's life bit by bit away. Thanks to his own demon attribute, he had some fire resistance attribute enhanced onto the black and red living armour plates, but it was not enough to counter the dark flames from Baal.

”Ani! Ototo! At my behest! Come!” Moloch shouted, and suddenly two coloured pauldron plates came flying from the System Driver and attached themselves to Moloch's existing shoulder armour. After learning that Pei had managed to recruit them, he was dying to try out this combination, and he was delighted when it worked out as perfectly as he imagined it to. The Living Armour proceeded to cover them and swiftly, the flames were dying out from their appearance.

”MILORD! THAT HURTS YOU KNOW!”

”i cannot deny and only concur that my brother is right. that really hurts. please hurry with whatever you want to do as we won't be able to endure this for long.”

”At the very least, you two stopped it.” Moloch praised the Pauldrons as he swung the berserk sword a little, noticing that it became heavier and oppressive than Jin's body was aware of. As the other two monsters were considered as 'leeching parasitic' armour, it fused with Jin nicely. His body armour also did feel very comfortable to be in. (Also, the plate armour on the System Rider was so stylish that Moloch was proud and envied Jin for having such a fantastic device with him.)

”WE CAN ONLY DO IT ONCE! HURRY!” Ototo reminded Moloch where he was, and the Minotaur Lord nervously chuckled. The two brothers had been part of his bodyguard entourage, and they were famous for their combination technique that could create an anti-magic field to remove any spell no matter how strong it was.

This technique was also the reason why the Minotaur brothers had been feared and later on why they were permanently polymorphed by King Baal previously.

King Baal did not know whether the human had discovered the weakness of his armour or if it was just a desperate but very lucky strike. But one thing was for sure, no more mistakes could be allowed especially against Moloch who had now seemingly fused with the human.

”You are not even a sword user, to begin with!” Baal shouted as his bastard sword was burning with flames, and as Moloch clashed against the Hell Knight King, he felt the weight of the impact from the bastard sword. It was intense enough to cause the ground to crack from every blow and gave way to the rider's boots. Not only that, the enchanted flames instantly burnt him.

Even though Ani and Ototo were covering his flaw of being incompetent with swords by simultaneously controlling his arms, they did not expect such overwhelming odds from Baal himself. Moloch also believed that if it was a normal high grade sword, it should have broken or at least got chipped long ago, allowing Baal to slice him into two despite being armoured.

”Hard work eh, Masamune?” Moloch asked as he started chanting and cards subsequently appeared behind Baal. Yet the Hell Knight King was not oblivious about his former advisor's way of fighting and swung his free hand around to shoot at the cards.

”Too bad, I have decades of magical power imbued into this crown. You do not have a chance at all Moloch. Just lose this place to me, and your death will be swift!” Baal ordered.

”Heh, to think you would show me mercy after what we had revealed between each other? Is it on the account that we used to be friends in Hell? Or are you just desperately in need of returning back home?!” Moloch then shouted a magical word and those cards that had seemingly been burnt by Baal's magic swiftly reappeared and flew towards the wound he had incurred from Jin previously.

Upon impact, it exploded, again and again, using his own magic against him. King Baal had no choice but to move backwards and tried to reorganise his thoughts from the sudden attack. ”You are not the only one to have picked up a few new tricks, 'old friend'!” Moloch taunted as he tried to remain afoot after the immense pressure and burns he received from Baal.

Those cards were actually absorption cards meant to take in the enemy's magic and deflect them whenever at will. However, Baal's infected hell magic was too strong to contain for long despite the strengthening of the cards via Maqi. And thus System Rider Moloch quickly took the opportunity to hit Baal's weak spot.

For the second time, he was bleeding visibly, and Masamune cried louder than ever. Without any permission, it slipped out of Moloch's hand and went straight for the wound. ”Shit! I think it is addicted to the crown's energy!” Moloch thought, but there was no way he could stop an insane sword from moving its own.

”Impudent for a sword to have a will of its own!” Baal shouted as he wanted to deflect the sword away, but in a split moment, the blunt sword managed to cut through his bastard sword and stab him through the side of the waist where the most profound bleeding was.

”What!” Moloch could not help but feel aghast at the situation. Did King Baal lose to a living hungry sword? Masamune continued to stick on him, refusing to move at all.

”Weird, this is the first time I see Masamune look so worked up,” Gaeru informed him through the System Channel as he was not able to teleport into the sacred arena. Moloch grinned for a moment before he conjured a card up with a broad axe picture in it.

”Impossible! How is this sword taking my powers away?!” King Baal raged as he tried to pull Masamune out of his body. He even self immolated, hoping the sword would burn in the thousands degrees heat.

Still, the sword was not budging a single bit continuing its feast.

With Baal distracted, Moloch proceeded to move towards the Hell Knight King with his axe, Armads, the Axe of Hell's Thunder. Unfortunately, it was not real as the axe was conjured similar to what he had possessed in Hell with the aid of Bam and Boo. The authentic relic was still kept within the Hell Plane, and thus Moloch could only settle for this. Without the System's aid and Living Armour, the Minotaur Lord might not have been able to create this.

”If you want to have my blood, then allow me to command you!” Baal shouted as he conjured even more strength out from the crown and placed it on the hilt. To Moloch's surprise, the sword compiled to its hunger for more power as it allowed Baal to draw it out of his wound and defend the miraculous thunder strike from Moloch's replica weapon.

Baal laughed as he saw how easily the sword changed owners and defended him. At the same time, he used the time to close the side deep wound he incurred from the sword. Moloch had no chance to win against the power-hungry sword, and Gaeru became extremely quiet throughout the change of owners.

”This is really an unexpected turn of events.” Jin had regained some consciousness from the short little rest he got. ”I honestly can not keep up with who betrayed who at this rate.”

”Ha Ha. Very funny master. At this rate, we are the ones who are going to lose!” Moloch reminded Jin as he held tightly on Armads. King Baal realised how much of an advantage he had right now. With his new sword, wretched crown and the infused three form he had embraced to take advantage of all the traits of his crossbreed nature, he felt all powerful.

”There is a brilliant sword. I will finish you once and for all!” King Baal announced as he dashed forward and with the power hungry Masamune, he fed even more energy to it and saw the blade itself shimmer with bluish heat.

He had never seen such a high concentration of energy being stored in the blade as if this was the perfect blade for him bestowed to him. ”Begone! and thank you for the sword!” King Baal shouted as he burst dash, closing the distance between System Rider Moloch and him.

Moloch saw the incoming attack and knew there was no way it was able to defend it. ”Sorry Master, you'll have to continue this fight yourself… Disengage!” The Minotaur Lord shouted as his half mask popped out of the System Rider Helmet and a manifestation of his cotton toy appeared along with the Minotaur half mask.

”Break Polymorph!” Moloch shouted as he already had a card at his side. King Baal's so-called permanent polymorph was something Moloch had already broken in the early days when he was exiled, but he never used it, as it was a way to conserve energy for himself too. He knew one day, he had to fight against Baal and his ridiculous amount of magic preserved in that crown.

However, he did not know that he was going to use it as defence rather than offence.

”MILORD!” Ototo shouted and immediately disengaged himself from the System Rider. Ani also knew that this was the time to serve his lord. Moloch grew from the cotton toy he was trapped in into a bona fide minotaur. Both Ototo and Ani instantly appeared in front of Moloch, not as pauldrons but two red and yellow tower shields.

Despite their staunchest defence, Masamune cut the two of them easily, but it gave Moloch enough time to accumulate his strength as he held his clasped hands and slammed it forward. Baal smirked as he knew that the attack would be useless with his brand new sword. True enough, Masamune sliced Moloch's arms cleanly, but the Minotaur Lord was not done.

In fact, the arm slam was a feint for his real attack coming from his bull charge via his horns. Bustling his muscles with thunder, he slammed Baal right in the chest and lightning struck his metal plates. Unknown to Moloch, Slydra who was bored conquering the floating islands with her zaps of thunder, had felt the sensation of a lightning user.

”Playing cheat does feel good once in a while.” Slydra and Ayse grinned as they were to ones to secretly support Moloch, increasing the strength of this thunder strike by three-fold. Baal was none the wiser and received a blow strong enough to cause him to be knocked back.

Moloch, on the other hand, realised that Masamune was stuck in his heart.

”…This greedy sword. I am taking you with me so you will not interfere.” Moloch coughed as he magically took a card out and entrapped the bloodthirsty sword inside it. But before he could pick the card up from the ground, he started to turn into fragment pieces from the overuse of his magic. ”This should atone for my mistake of handing it over, Master.”

In the meantime, Jin got hold of his body, and the living armour plates shifted back to Panda form. There was no time to feel lost despite Moloch's sacrifice. It was important to press on though Jin's legs were not moving. The System also indicated that the living armour most likely could only hold one last transformation before the System Driver ran out of juice.

”Can't we just feed more black sludge crystals?” Jin barely held together his form and realised he too was at his limit. ”We have to stall him as long as possible so the others could take hold of the dungeon keys.”

”Negative. Unfortunately, the System Driver is near its breaking point. It is still a prototype and not some indestructible device. Excess usage will cause the device to disintegrate. Not to mention the toll on User has already surpassed the worst-case scenarios. Once this is done, you will have to rest until your vitals are checked, and we can be sure no long term damage has occurred.”

”I cannot believe this fight dragged so long.” Baal placed his left feet proper to stand up, but he realised the strain from using the crown was starting to get too much. Suddenly, the wretched crown started to light up, and Kiva's family jewel vibrated.

”Shit, no!” Baal didn't know that the invasion had been so long that it was a new day for the demons. As for Baal, he had to go through a 'sanity check' by the crown, and he knew he was in no condition to survive it. His mental will and physical body were severely beaten since he had been relying on the crown's energy to regenerate.

As if the crown was waiting for this chance, it took the opportunity to consume Baal in his latest form, and his entire brain suddenly blacked out.

”Warning, a sudden surge of energy arising from King Baal.” The System noted, and Jin saw that the crown shone a purplish light that made him feel like he had seen the face of true evil for the first time. The metal crown subsequently merged with the helmet as it tightened its grip over Baal's head and his body stiffened.

Suddenly, his legs changed shape, and stuff suddenly grew out of the armour greaves and boots Baal was wearing. Three Spider Legs emerged from the original pair of legs, and his hands morphed into webbed hands along with the armour. Not to mention those hands had cat claws emerging from them. Baal's armour slowly popped cat, human and frog eyes surrounding the entire armour.

The worse of all, the crown was emanating cries, weeps, and even screams. Those pleas of help got into Jin's head and he too felt his mind became heavier. It felt like ...the victims who King Baal had taken his energy from was asking for mercy. They were shouting desperately to be out of the crown and that itself was trying to take over the Hell Knight King.

”What is happening to me?!” Three slightly various shouts came out from his mouth simultaneously, and the helmet grew a mouth as if it merged with the human face Baal once had. Teeth were shown out when he shouted, and double drooling frog tongues were seen hanging out. As if it was not scary enough of an appearance, his entire armour had been imprinted with scared faces from the people entrapped within the jewel.