When Ryan teleported to where Lucifer was, he confirmed his fears. The demons’ presence hadn’t disappeared yet. Not to mention, his flash was slowly moving to the place where his heart was supposed to be.

            Ryan prepared to attack and destroy even the atoms of his body. Still, then Ryan noticed that all the energy he was supposed to have stored thanks to Conversion had vanished… all the energy he had obtained while enduring a supernova for several minutes had vanished.

“Oh, shit… this is bad,” Ryan opened his eyes widely. “I guess Femradiel needed that energy… oh well, I guess that confirms that Ymir has been defeated. He couldn’t endure this much energy, could he?”

            Regardless, Ryan didn’t have time to waste thinking about that. He had to turn Lucifer’s body into nothing. He began to bombard those bits of flesh with temporal and holy arrows. Still, while he caused damage, Ryan failed in destroying them completely. At some point, all the flesh stopped moving and then began to tremble. Ryan didn’t like that and increased the output of the attacks. However, it didn’t change anything. Those numerous pieces of flesh began to grow, and in the blink of an eye, they became ten meters tall replicas of Lucifer.

  Lucifer

  Class: ???/???/???

  Race: —

  Rank: —

  Health: ???/???

  Mana: ???/???

  Stamina: ???/???

  Strength: ???

  Dexterity: ???

  Speed: ???

  Intelligence: ???

  Endurance: ???

  Control: ???

  Mentality: ???

  Luck: ???

  Recovery: ???

  Willpower: ???

  Coins: —

  Status: —

  Skill List

  Offensive Physical Skills: ???, ???, ???

  Passive Physical Skills: ???, ???, ???

  Spells: ???, ???, ???

  Support Skills: ???, ???, ???

            Ryan used Absolute Appraisal, but he only found the same status screen in all of them. After a while, all the replicas opened their eyes and glared at Ryan. More than ever, they really wanted his blood.

“You surprised me,” Lucifer said. “I find it hard to believe that someone aside from those two would be able to do that… ah, Ymir just died. You people are really something else.”

            Despite his calm attitude, Ryan didn’t let Lucifer fool him. One can genuinely master wrath when it can control it… being angry without losing their cool… That was the worst type of enemy Ryan could think of. Another thing that proved that Ryan’s guess was correct was the fact that each replica was growing bigger. At first, Ryan couldn’t quite imagine Lucifer being able to destroy the universe, but now he could.

“You seem exasperated instead of happy, why?” Lucifer asked. “You should feel happy for your friends accomplishments.”

            Some of the replicas flew toward Ryan, and even though he stopped them with his arrows since their overall power was smaller than before, Ryan still got hit from behind when another one used Teleport. Ryan didn’t see that one coming, but he felt his spine almost breaking…

            Before the next attack came, Ryan used Foresight in one of his eyes while he used the other to attack the Replicas. Even when dozens of them surrounded him, Ryan still managed to fight back and stop their advance. However, Ryan felt the number of presences around him increasing. His face turned pale when he saw Lucifer creating even more replicas of himself. What was scary was the fact that the replicas weren’t connected to each other like the replica he could obtain using Aphrodite’s power. Those were powerful in their own right and could even grow stronger or die without affecting the real Lucifer. There was even a real Lucifer now? As far as his senses were telling him, all those replicas were real enough to become the real one in case the others died.

“This seems like trouble,” Merlin said, for the first time sounding really worried.

            If those were real, then that worked well for Ryan. He used Wolf’s Greed and began to steal their dexterity. This time, Ryan felt Lucifer’s anger increasing. He was pissed that Ryan was using his technique against him… that was really stupid, so Ryan just continued.

Your Dexterity has increased by 2000 points.

Your Dexterity has increased by 2000 points.

Your Dexterity has increased by 2000 points.

…

            Eventually, Ryan was forced to stop because just like he could steal the status of all of those, they could steal his mana. Since there were so many, Ryan lost all his mana instantly. Ryan was lucky, though. If it weren’t for Lucifer’s pride, he wouldn’t steal only his mana. He would steal all his other status. Thinking logically, it would be the best way to defeat him, but Lucifer’s pride wouldn’t allow him to do that.

            The replicas began to teleport around and attack Ryan. Although he could fight back using the mana he was regenerating, Lucifer stole the rest of his mana to prevent Foresight, so Ryan began to get hit again.

“Hey, Ryan, I have an idea,” Merlin said while Ryan was being used as a volleyball by the replicas. “If you fight without that bow and keep doing that for a while thinking that you want to defeat him by yourself, you may gain the sin of pride. The power of pride given by the system will strengthen your status up to ten times.”

“… No thanks,” Ryan said while he was using Conversion to turn the pain and the impacts into energy and immediately transfer them to his Soul Eater. “I tried to create a path for myself without relying on anyone’s help, but I eventually learned that I didn’t achieve anything by doing so. I only accomplished this much because I finally gained true friends. Besides, this was my plan to begin with, if I don’t do my part of the plan, I will look really stupid.”

“Oh, well… I guess you have your own weird pride,” Merlin said.

            After he got sick of being hit like a ball, Ryan suddenly attacked. Using Power Shot, Angelic Arrow, and Time Skip, he bombarded a single replica of Lucifer with dozens of projectiles in a single instant that the replica turned into dust in front of his very eyes.

You obtained 555.369.252 coins.

“I guess this is doable,” Ryan said after raising his chin and facing Lucifer.