The Gray Demon

We saw Amaru flying over the city and the Elemental Demons continued their destruction. Even if we destroyed the Elemental Demons, they would just come back.

“We have to stop Amaru to make this end,” I said.

“How can we defeat him if he has the powers of an Elemental Demon and of the Eight Paladins?” Rita asked.

“He was also immortal because of his own Stanzas, right?” Helia was not feeling optimistic about this mission.

“Just leave this to me!”

It was Tangaroa, with his axes in his hands. He approached Amaru in the sky, flying with water around him like the head of a sea serpent. He raised both axes while inside the head of the serpent.

“Amaru! Meet your doom!”

He swung both weapons at him.

Amaru simply moved in the air. Even if he didn’t have the Sky Stanza, some other of his various powers made him very mobile in the air and the attack passed right beside him. We moved like a winter’s breeze and his opponent couldn’t reach him.

“Too slow,” Amaru said.

Tangaroa turned around in the air, ready for another strike.

Amaru raised both hands.

“Let’s start with a classic: Undying Flames!”

He shot a purple fire ball that hit the huge man with perfect aim. The sailor fell from the sky but quickly got back up. The problem was the purple flames consuming his shoulder and chest.

He covered himself in water, but the flames kept with the same strength as before.

“What?”

“What part of the ‘Undying Flame’ don’t you understand? Just like me, they are immortal. They will never extinguish, so you basically are already dead.”

The pain was visible on Tangaroa, his tattooed skin being consumed, but he just grabbed his axes back and stared at his enemy.

“If you flames don’t die, then I'll just hit you until you do!”

“But I’m also immortal! Are you even paying attention?”

Tangaroa ignored the man and went into the sky like a geyser ready to cleave his enemy in two. And even the powerful masked man in the sky screamed when he saw that.

“Okay, new strategy: Void Bubbles.”

But his Void Bubbles were different from Nina Nune’s. Hers showed an entire cosmos while Amarus’s were almost completely translucent.

The bubbles hit Tangaroa, and all the water around him was drained, with his body once again falling to the ground. This fall was worse than the first, but at least there was one positive thing about it.

“It seems that your Undying Flames are not so ‘undying’.”

Amaru looked at his own hands.

“So, I’m my own counter… That’s fine. It just proves that the Void really is the power I was after.”

Hurt and bleeding, Tangaroa got up, still in the fight.

“It proves you are not invincible.”

Tangaroa threw both of his axes, one in each direction. The blue-glass weapons spun around and got covered with water. Soon after, Tangaroa went to the sky again, with his weapons, it appeared to be a three-headed hydra.

“Let’s see you stop these three attacks at the same time!”

“Okay,” Amaru answered without any fear in his voice.

Coming from the ground, a massive earth wall rose and surrounded Amaru, both axes hit it but didn’t make a dent in the barrier. Tangaroa smashed his body against it and only he was hurt by it.

“The unmoving wall,” said Rita by my side. “The perfect shield of the Earth Paladin.

From the top of the wall, Amaru showed himself, looking below and pointing a single finger at Tangaroa.

“I think I’m going to keep your axes as a souvenir.”

For a second, a saw a spark on the tip of his finger, but what came from it was not a lightning strike but a powerful yellow laser that struck Tangaroa from above with so much power that I was sure he was dead.

“That was the unstoppable spear.”

“What you are saying is that he is not only immortal, but also invincible. I guess we can go home now,” said Helia.

“I don’t think he is either,” I said looking with attention to the man. Actually, his weaknesses were orbiting around him, we would just have to be able to get it.

While I was trying to explain my idea to the other girls the few sailors that could pass through the Elemental Demon came, trying to avenge their captain, but Amaru showed his power and with multiple yellow lasers he destroyed all his opposition and an entire block of the town.

We got a little bit of hope when a black shadow appeared and kicked Amaru. Unluckily, he blocked with his arm, but there was Acauã, with black wings, trying to stop the man.

The two were dancing in the sky and Acauã was very careful not to be caught by any of Amaru’s lethal attacks. He dodged Undying Flames, yellow lasers and Void Bubbles, but even after surviving all that he didn’t find an opening to cause any significant damage.

“The Original Poems! They are the fount of his powers! Grab yours and he will get weaker!” I screamed, and the masked man turned to me. I couldn’t see his expression, but just looking at the mask I felt my life in danger.

“You can come and try it!” he challenged us summoning a multicolored swirly cloud. It was all his Stanzas together and I could only imagine the destructive power, however his Void Stanza once again worked against him and the entire storm was drained.

Acauã didn’t wait a second, with sharp claws in both his hands he went through the body of Amaru cutting it in half. Amaru’s bottom side fell to the ground.

“That will not be enough!” I said thinking that Acauã had not listened to me.

The shaman had his back turned to Amaru after his attack and that was enough for the counterattack. The floating top half of the villain used both hands, covering Acauã in purple flames. No one could help him and another of our reinforcements was gone.

“So, these were the strongest people in the world? That’s cute.”

He then turned to us and slowly approached the front of the castle where we stood. Blue strings came from the place where he had been bisected, and it found his legs on the ground. Soon, they were brought together, and he was complete once again.

“The power of these Paladins comes in handy, don’t you think? So, who is next?”

We all froze in the face of the biggest threat we had ever encountered and he started laughing.

“Look! It will not even be me who will kill you, but an Elemental Demon,” he pointed at the sky, and we all saw one of them flying in our direction. “Poetic, if you ask me. That is… the Cyan Demon? Weird, they could always fly?”

But I looked closer, and the shade belonged to a Demon that I had never seen. With my glasses, I noticed the small silhouettes mounted on the Demon, and I had to contain my excitement.

“That is not cyan,” I said seeing my friends approaching. “I think that hue is more turquoise.”

“Turquoise?” Amaru showed confusion. “But that is of the Sky, I can’t even control that… oh, I get it.”

And a punch with the force of a hurricane hit Amaru. The strength was so much that we all lost sight of him in the sky. Nina Nune was the first out of the Turquoise Demon and hugged me with all the care of a sister.

With her was Ember, Hiyoku, Nikolay, who appeared to be the one controlling the Turquoise Demon, and Ishaan.

That was wonderful, but we still needed to come up with a plan to stop Amaru once and for all.