The Great Demon System
chapter-173

Moby, who was still in a state of shock, was on the dirty, muddy ground, staring at the black night sky above him that was unobstructed by any trees due to him breaking them during his impact.

His face bore the impact of what like a canon, despite his efforts of trying to block it in the last second. Luckily, although he felt extreme pain in his shaky face, there seemed to be no bones cracked or broken which would have taken a bit longer to heal with his demon regeneration.

Moby could have easily forced himself to stand back up and fight but he decided to play dead for a bit longer just to have time to himself as he needed to completely rethink his plans of attack.

When he read that he had a sound ability, he had no idea that it would lead to what happened. In his mind, he thought that he would have extremely loud screams that annoyed and messed with people's ears allowing him to attack while his enemies were distracted, but he was sorely mistaken.

The ability that Jason used was unlike anything he had ever seen or read about in his hours of ability research. However, that was to be expected, there was no way he would know everything. So, that only meant that he had to decipher his ability with the knowledge that he now knew.

It seemed like a snap was what activated his ability. He snapped, and in the next second, he was already right in front of Moby's face. The only sound-related explanation that Moby could formulate was that when he snapped, he was able to travel through those sound waves at incredible speed to reach his destination, and his powers would only be activated as long as the sound wave lasts, making him need to snap once more. He also determined that Jason was not actually turning into sound waves, but his body just becomes really fast as he travels through them, which means that it is possible for him to be hit in the middle of his ability usage.

However, all of that was, for now, nothing more than a theory. He had no idea if Jason needed to snap to activate his ability and if he was limited to only travel through the sound waves of his snap. He also did not know if he was only able to move linearly as he had just done or if he was able to move non-linearly as well. And last but not least, he did not know if what he had just shown him was the full extent of his sound powers or if there was more, which he had no doubt in his mind was the case due to his stats in mind.

Assuming everything he had just stated thus far was true, his ability seemed to be like a weaker version of blink, that gave instant movement instead of the speed of sound. Plus, blink did not require the user to do any hand gesture to activate, but the only downside was that its range was fairly lacklustre compared to Jason's ability that allowed him to travel as long as his snap reached. And from the volume of his initial snap, it seemed like his metal gloves amplified the sound, making it reach farther which also reinforced the fact that he needed to snap to activate his ability, otherwise he would not have needed such specially made gloves.

Since Moby was able to defeat Natalia with worse equipment and fewer skills when they had around the same power level, in theory, he should be able to do it much easier against Jason who he could more easily block, track and predict due to him having to snap before each activation. If he just didn't allow him to snap, he had nowhere to flee.

He knew that it would still be a tough fight, but if he used his trump cards and current knowledge to his advantage, he felt like victory was already assured, making a smirk appear on his still bloody face.

"Hey, Nags… It's been a few minutes now… Do you think I killed him?"

"Did the boss really expect that kid to be worthy of taking your place as the third seat? He wasn't even able to survive a single punch…"

"If you killed him then you should be prepared to die by the hands of the boss,"

"B-but I didn't know he would be so fragile!"

Then, suddenly, in the middle of their conversation, a sudden blast of purple energy appeared out of nowhere, striking Jason in the face with immense force when he least expected it, creating a dust cloud in front of Jason's now bloody face, causing him to shout from the unexpected pain as he was unable to see his opponent, putting his hands in front of his face for protection.

The only thing he was able to see through the dust cloud was a pair of 2 glowing eyes, confirming that his attacker was non-other than Moby.

Then, suddenly, he felt several immense clanking sounds of metal clashing against metal coming from both of his hands, making his entire body shake but feel no pain as he panicked threw a random kick in front of him that seemed to have hit absolutely nothing.

This made him inwardly curse as he prepared himself to snap away. However, when he moved his hands, they for some reason, felt extremely slow, and before he even got the chance, his hand was struck by an immense force that did not allow him to snap as his guard was almost completely blown away.

At first, the attacks that were hitting him were fairly weak as they just bounced off of his armour, almost like they were nothing. However, the more they came the stronger the attacks got as well to the point of them being able to cut through his armour with moderate difficulty, allowing who he could only assume to be Moby, to be able to strike his flesh.

He noticed that the brunt of the attacks were directed at his hands and arms that were blocking his face instead of his armoured yet exposed body right under.

"Get the fuck away from me you filthy bug!" Jason screamed in outrage as he completely ignored snapping as it didn't work the last time, opting to roll away out of the dust cloud instead.

But, just like before, his movements were still for some reason extremely slow, making Moby follow him once more as he created another cloud of dust that obstructed Jason's vision allowing him to continue his seemingly never-ending onslaught of attacks, cutting through his armour now with ease as he was able to cause some real damage to both Jason's body and arms as blood began dripping from his figure, dyeing his armour and the grass under him crimson red.

Moby followed him no matter where he tried to go. And whenever he tried to snap, he was always interrupted as his body kept on feeling slower and slower as the seemingly never-ending attacks that only seemed to get stronger every second kept on wailing on him. It was the first time he had ever experienced such a thing, the feeling that he was unable to snap away when things got dicey.

Moby Kane was much stronger than he first expected. He had no idea that he was so dangerous. He must have only pretended to be knocked out from his first attack. He was being too reckless and overconfident, he should have ended it when he had the chance instead of lazing around, waiting for him to stand up.

Jason now felt trapped, like he was being ensnared in a trap where there was no escape other than death. No matter what he tried to do, he was just too slow to do anything.

But, despite his heavily injured, dire situation, he was not ready to give up. There was no way he would allow himself to lose as a high ranking member of the Zexis gang. He would rather die than show shame to them, the same gang that took him in and got him to the level of strength he was at today. Without them and the boss, he was nothing, and he did not want to repay their help with disgrace, he would not allow himself to, no matter what.

Jason gritted his teeth, and strengthen his stance, his eyes narrowing down into slits, his anger and frustration became more and more immense as he prepared himself to use every fibre of his being to win the fight.

And, unannounced to him, his inner spirit felt their host's strong emotions and will to live, making it resonate more with him, giving him a way out of his predicament.

"Didn't you hear me the first time! Get the fuck away from me you filthy bug!" Jason screamed his heart out, letting out various shockwaves of sound that rang throughout the entire forest, and even made Nags's barrier slightly wobble from the strong shock waves.

The waves completely blew away the dust cloud obstructing his vision alongside Moby who had a devilish smirk on his face, about to deliver the finishing blow, who now crashed to the side of a rock with an immense clatter.

Although his ears seemed to somehow be unharmed, the damage from the impact was still somewhat significant. However, that was far from being the biggest problem, making Moby inwardly curse his seemingly never-ending bad luck as he tightly gripped both of his katanas.

Moby's plan was going perfectly. He waited until his opponent looked away from him due to his arrogance and carefree nature, giving him the chance for an easy blast when he least expected to both damage and obstruct his vision. Then, before he had the chance to react and snap away, he came into close quarters, using both his ice stick and his novice demon katana dual-wielded.

Using both of them at once did not give him any extra stats as it only took the stats of the more powerful item but, it allowed him to benefit from both of their effects at once. They were a deadlier combo than he had first imagined, especially against Jason who had to fully rely on snapping.

With his ice stick, he would ensnare his opponent until he became too slow to flee or get away from his combo, and with his novice demon katana, he would continue to attack with continuously stronger slashes. Once Jason got stuck in the combo, there was seemingly no escape as he was too slow to do anything.

Moby focused most of his attacks on Jason's hands, trying his best to attack and cut them off. Without his hands, he would be unable to snap and use his ability which would have no doubt guaranteed his victory.

At first, his attacks seemed to be doing little to no damage as Jason probably expected his opponents to be wanting to cut off his arms, so he made his armour much stronger in that area. However, with the strength of his novice demon katana, he was slowly but surely cutting away at it to the point that it only needed one more strike before both of his arms fell off.

But, he and his combo were both suddenly and abruptly stopped... All of his careful planning going to waste by what he could only assume was some ass pull, plot armour, power of determination bullshit he had seen in so many anime that Jayden had recommended him to watch in his free time.

Then, he remembered Leo's words about inner spirits and about how they could resonate with a person's feelings and emotions, especially in the middle of a fight, which only confirmed his suspicion.

Moby looked at Jason's heavily injured figure who was tightly clenching his teeth, heavy breathing with unbridled rage in his eyes that most likely made him ignore all the pain and damage he had sustained, he doubted that he would let his guard down so easily and he doubted that he would get off another deadly combo like he had before.

It seemed like his arrogant, superior attitude had completely disappeared as he was now completely driven and blinded by rage and the need for victory. Anything else in his mind was secondary.

Moby was now really annoyed but he was nowhere near ready to give up. He knew that he now had to use his opponent's rage to his advantage as he prepared to switch to plan B, looking straight at the river and waterfall in the distance that was still luckily in the area of Nags's barrier.