Is this really a Game?!



'Not bad, these guys are holding on much longer than I anticipated.' Reign thought as he looked at the three demons in front of him. The peak Tier IV demon was in the middle, with two high-grade Tier IV demons on each of his sides. The one that could control souls was there, and the other one was the one that had the most talent in utilizing soul power and attacking with it.

Reign had been using his soul army and was attacking the demons from afar with his lightning spears this entire time. He also used his lightning bullets, he used his magic missiles, his light and darkness manipulation, everything.

The cost for all of that was not light, however, as he had not only used up a lot of his soul power and was now struggling with the three remaining demons, but he had also used up a lot of mana, with about a quarter of it left in him.

"You're talking as if you have everything under control, you do realize that if you don't manage to take the lead in this fight right now, you're going to be in a lot of trouble, right?" Aethion asked Reign with a serious expression on his face as Reign nodded his head.

Aethion was right, Reign had to admit that he had underestimated the demons. Their control over soul power was better compared to his, but he had more soul power, more souls, as well as the cheat-like help of Aethion, which allowed him to contend and even win against all 8 of them.

Upon taking the soul of the first Ethereon Demon he had killed, however, the demons all entered a crazed state and fought without a care for their safety. They knew that if they didn't manage to win against Reign, their very souls would be taken by him, and used as weapons.

Even though the souls of the Ethereon Demons were not as valuable as other souls that Reign took since injuring their bodies meant injuring their souls, making them weaker and frailer, they were still quite helpful and he could learn some new techniques and tricks about utilizing soul power from them.

The three last demons were not in good shape at all, but Reign was confident that he could deal with them. They were now not fully focusing on his army of souls, which had dwindled down to 30 souls, while they had 22 remaining and were also focusing on him since he could still attack them while commanding the souls.

They had done this ever since Reign started his attacks and were slowly getting used to it, which was the biggest reason why they had managed to survive against him for so long. Just like Reign, they were also running out of gas. Their soul power was low and their demonic energy was also running low, luckily, they could replenish it faster than Reign since they were in demon territory.

"This human, how can he be so powerful, even against all 8 of us, he managed to kill 5 and is still contending against us!" One of the two high-grade Tier IVs said through clenched teeth as he continued attacking the souls that were relentlessly coming at them. He was the one keeping them at bay as their own army of souls had fewer souls and couldn't go against all 30 of the remaining souls.

'Hmmm … she is doing fine, that weapon is really something else, she shouldn't have any problems with the demon.' Reign commented in his head as he glanced and saw the battle between Liara and the demon, which was the exact same moment when Liara glanced up to see how his battle was done.

Their eyes met, and Reign smiled and waved at her, which made her look aside and scoff.

"Trying to look strong for your girl?" Aethion teased Reign whose face dropped as he glanced at Aethion coldly.

'She's not my girl.'

"Ah, just a friend then, one with certain … benefits, ay?"

'How can such an old man be such a big pervert?' Reign asked as he shook his head, to which Jared laughed before opening his mouth, "It is probably because he was always surrounded by undead creatures, master has to understand, mister Aethion had probably been lonely for a very long time in the past."

"Hey, shut it you bastard, I was not, I had plenty of girls back when I was the court mage!"

'Yo, while you're mentioning that, didn't you say you were discovered by the elf queen and then had to fight against the entire world, weren't you defeated by a captain that detonated a crystal inside your hideout?'

Aethion suddenly scoffed as he thought about that event.

"What battalion captain, that fool had only been able to destroy a portion of my hideout, I simply hid after that and changed my identity, that happened before I was a Transcendent, it was later that my true identity was revealed, which led to my downfall."

'So the diary isn't true, weird, the system told us that you were defeated there.'

"Did it really tell you that, I remember it saying that everyone 'thought' I was killed there, and that was it, it never mentions what happened later, which I had told you."

"Yes master, it is after that event that Mister Aethion was left to be with only the undead, he must have been so lonely at that time," Jared said once again in a robotic voice as Aethion glared at him.

"You're doing that on purpose aren't you, you damned bastard!"

"Jared has no idea what you mean, Jared is just an AI, Jared not be smart enough to do such things."

'He's definitely doing this on purpose, this bastard.' Aethion thought as he controlled the army of souls, only to suddenly stop and stare at Reign.

"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"As you have said, I can't just continue like this, I have to change things up, take the lead, otherwise I might not be able to win against these guys." Reign said as he suddenly called back his army of souls, which led to the confused expression of the demons being shown to Reign as they stared at him.

He took out his swords and smiled at them before suddenly charging.

"Dammit, he is trying to get rid of us directly now!" The peak Tier IV demon said as she suddenly extended his arms forward, sending forth the army of souls and causing the ground around Reign to cave.

"Gravity?" Reign commented as he felt his body get heavier, even standing became harder and harder as the ground continued caving.

"Attack him, quickly!" The demon said as she knew that her power wouldn't last for much longer. Controlling gravity was an incredibly powerful ability to have, but the amount of mana / demonic energy it took was immense.

The demon was already low on demonic energy, so she knew that she could only do this for a couple of seconds before needing to stop in order to not suffer any backlash.

The army of demons charged down at Reign while the two demons started their attacks as well. The high-grade Tier IV demon that was also controlling the army of souls extended his hand and created a large fireball in it. The fire was red and had an ominous aura around it.

The other demon used his soul power and created a large hammer made out of it before launching it toward Reign. He also used his demonic energy and created a large wind spike above him. The wind was purple, as it was no ordinary wind, but the 'Wind of Desolation', was a higher ranked ability than normal wind manipulation, but one that was riskier a lot since the wind could hurt the user as well.

The demon already winced in pain as the wind made a couple of cuts on his body, it was demonic wind, one that could injure the very soul and was incredibly dangerous.

All of the attacks and souls were hurled at Reign who looked up and smirked.

"Now this is what I'm talking about, why haven't you done this from the start, it's quite strong!" Reign said with laughter as he suddenly started channeling all of his remaining mana.

Wings suddenly appeared on his back, but it wasn't because of his transformation as that was still on cooldown, it was simply his light and darkness that he called forth and used in such a way.

The wings started moving toward his swords, coating them both as his lightning exploded around him and he even poured soul power in the next attack.

[ Lightning Discharge ]

[ Mana Coating – Sharp Edge ] – similar to the saw version he used in the past, just a different way of coating them that makes the swords sharper.

[ Severing, Sword Four ] 

Reign suddenly pulled both of his swords back and arched his back as much as he could. He stared at the attacks that were coming at him and suddenly added one more skill.

[ Compact Punch ]

Reign stabbed forward and used the fourth sword of the severing series while using the compact punch, but instead of punching, he transferred the power over to his swords that shook heavily.

The combined might of four skills was something that Reign had never seen before as the maximum he had tried before was a combination of 3 skills, which were the first 3 skills he used.

As he stabbed forward, an explosion that shook the battlefield suddenly appeared.