Point-of-View: Fuo Wesroh

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Today was the 16th of October, about a month had passed since Kuro suppressed his emotions, and...I was actually starting to miss him teasing and annoying me, not that I'd ever admit that, and definitely not that I liked being teased or annoyed, but...it was preferable to this blank, emotionless version of him.

"Yes, I agree, but it is also undeniable that this way, he stands a far better chance of defeating Shiro. That imposter is likely starting to lose his patience and calm, he really may be considering the possibility that Kuro has given up and plans to avoid fighting so that both of them will die. Kuro has been randomly teleporting all over the world from time to time in order to further confuse and unsettle Shiro," Pointed out Atticus.

Yeah, but is it really necessary to wait so long before attacking? I don't think he needs to train this hard or for this long, I know that's not very convincing coming from me, but he's been using his new abilities fairly efficiently almost as soon as he figures out how to use them. After all, he's got way more abilities than Shiro does, most of which are completely unknown to that imposter.

"I suspect that it is a matter of maximizing his chances of success. After all, since he is now thinking from a purely logical perspective, factors such as impatience are irrelevant to him."

I suppose you have a point...

Just as planned, Kuro had managed to hunt down both the Beast King and the Devil King within the same day...actually, within the same hour. After he consumed the life force of the Devil King, we teleported straight to Platinberg, using one of the monsters he'd summoned when he fought the Reptile King.

And since then, he'd been training hard with his new abilities, as well as working on improving his proficiency with his old abilities...the Vampires were helping him with the training, he'd spar with them regularly in his weaker forms. I joined in too, but not very often, I found keeping up with him to be an impossible task. It wasn't just to strengthen himself though, but having the Vampires fight him, they'd get firsthand experience of how truly powerful he is, which would let him command their loyalty even more effectively.

As for the abilities he gained from consuming the life forces of those last two kings...from the Beast King, he got several new powers, including flight in his normal state, the ability to blast out fire from his mouth without consuming any Mana, he could envelop his entire body in flames, he could grow a horn out of the middle of his forehead that could gather energy and fire it in a rainbow-colored beam, he could fire off wind slashes from his fingertips without using Mana, and of course, the ability to summon the monsters under the Beast King's command.

The ability to fly likely came from either Pegasuses, Phoenixes and/or Griffins. The ability to breath fire at no Mana cost came from Firefoxes, while the ability to envelop himself in flames was from either Firefoxes or Phoenixes. Those flames burned a lot more intensely than the flames he could produce using Fire Magic and Mana, so his Elemental flames were now kind of redundant to him.

The retractable horn was definitely from Unicorns, and the rainbow colored beam it fires doesn't do any physical damage, but instead makes the victim's Mana flow go berserk and unstable, which prevents them from using magic and also makes them feel incredibly nauseous and dizzy...I knew from experience, since he tested it out on me, that jerk.

The wind slashes from his fingers came from Griffins, or maybe Phoenixes. He'd also gained a strength boost and increase in agility, from the Four-Armed Apes and Chimeras, respectively. Oh, and I almost forgot, he got one more ability from the Phoenixes, an extremely powerful ability...resurrection. It was an ability that he could use once a day, and once it was activated, if he was killed, he'd go up in flames and resurrect.

Yeah, so to kill him once this ability is activated, you'd need to kill him twice. So, yeah, he gained a significant boost from consuming the life force of the Beast King. The Devil King's life force didn't quite turn out to be as fruitful, but still gave him a few more useful abilities to add to his incredibly large and growing arsenal of powers.

The monsters that are under the Devil King include Devilpenguins, Devilmonkeys, Devilgoats, Devilbats, Devilrats and Devilsharks. Kuro had gained a heightened resistance to the cold, increased agility, the ability to fire out sonic blasts from his mouth, and a heightened sense of smell. Actually, he did gain a few other abilities too, like breathing underwater, but these particular abilities overlapped with abilities he gained from previous monster kings.

For instance, he got the ability to breathe underwater from the Devilsharks, but he'd already gained that ability when he consumed the life force of the Reptile King. Anyway, as for how the fight against the Devil King went...it was even shorter than the fight against the Beast King. Kuro killed him before he even had the chance to say anything.

It was clear to me that he was now significantly stronger than Shiro, and I'm sure he knew that too, but...I got a sense of dissatisfaction from him. He had ruled out consuming the life forces of any more Vampires and he seemed to be sticking to that, but I couldn't think of any other way for him to get more powerful.

He had now consumed the life forces of every single monster king, excluding the four that were trapped in the remaining Forbidden Zones, of course. Consuming human life force wouldn't do anything, and he'd assured the Vampires that he wouldn't go after them so long as they served him...so, then, what was his next move?

...

...

A few hours later, around late evening, he'd finished training for the day and was resting, so I decided to go talk to him and find out what he was thinking. We were staying in the Platinberg castle, and the bedrooms were incredibly luxurious, with the most comfortable beds I'd ever slept in. I made my way to the room he'd been staying in and opened the door, walking in.

"Hey, Kuro, can I talk to y-...?" I began, before trailing off as I took in the sight before me, inside the room.

Kuro was standing there, drops of water running down his body while he ran a towel through his hair...and he had nothing else on. He turned around with an inquiring look as I caught myself staring. I quickly turned around and slammed the door shut with a stutter, as I felt my face turning red and my heart began pounding.

Th-that was unexpected, and absolutely mortifying...I felt like I wanted to bury my head in the ground. I took a deep breath to try and calm down, while forcing myself to erase that sight from my memory...to no avail. I got way too clear a look at it, there's no way I can forget that anytime soon...

After I calmed down and waited for a couple of minutes, I tapped on the door and cleared my throat, trying to keep my voice as even as possible...

"C-can I come in? A-are you dressed?"

"Yeah, sure, come in."

I opened the door and entered, averting my gaze as I walked in. He was seated at the edge of the bed with his legs crossed, giving me another inquiring look as I headed inside.

"You, uh, should lock the door when you're changing," I muttered awkwardly.

"You should knock before entering."

He's got me there...

"F-fair enough, I suppose."

"Hm, you seem flustered...I thought you were only interested in the same sex, this shouldn't faze you."

"I don't think that's how it works! And besides, I told you, didn't I, I'm not exclusively into girls, it's not like I have no interest in guys at all..."

"I see. So, did you want to talk about something?" He asked blankly.

With his emotions suppressed, he really has no interest in small talk, does he? There really was no trace of his emotions whatsoever, all there was was cold logic...

"Yeah, um...I just wanted to know what exactly your plan is. You've got about two and a half months left before the deadline, so like you've been saying, you do have time, but do you really think that you should be waiting till the last month to make a move?" I inquired skeptically.

"There isn't a problem, this is for the best...the longer I take to make my move, the more impatient and panicked Shiro will get."

"Well, yeah, but won't that panic dissipate when you head back to the Rustlands?"

"To an extent, but all the psychological damage inflicted in the time until then won't just instantly disappear without a trace."

He's answering all my questions without any pause, he's really thought this through, hasn't he?

"So, then we'll be staying here until December?"

"I never said that...no, before I attack, I want to get one more boost in power."

The way he said that...

"Wait, have you figured out how to do so?"

"Yeah, I have...I'm going to enter the Demon Forbidden Zone...and let one of the Demons possess me."

...huh!?

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