Its knee descended like lightning, tearing through the air and ripping down into his gut.

  The impact completely shattered his ribs, crushed the organs beneath and sucked his energy dry. Each broken shard became a dagger, piercing deeper with every desperate attempt to breathe.

  The impact had even carved a deep crater into the ground beneath him, dwarfing him within the cold grip of concrete. He felt small. Insignificant. And dying. There was a part of him that truly believed this had happened before. That he’d died before.

  The demon towered above him, its elongated fingers flexing as a predatory smile split its head. There was no rush in its movements. Just the calm certainty of a beast who knew its prey couldn't escape.

  Akuma, however, hadn’t registered a lick of it.

  His strength ebbed away with each heartbeat, the rhythm growing fainter by the second. He couldn't even muster the strength to breathe, let alone defend himself. His body instinctively gasped, desperate for air, but he was met with only the thick warmth of blood flooding his throat and the sharp, stabbing pain of punctured lungs.

  That's when he saw the boy again. The same boy who made his life a living hell.

  He looked to be ten years old or so, wearing a tattered prisoner's uniform and a single shackle sealed around his left wrist. Three silver chains dangled from it, each link inscribed with strange symbols Akuma couldn't read.

  Three years now. That’s how long Akuma had dismissed this child as a mere hallucination. A symptom of stress or trauma. But now, as death reached for him with greedy fingers, he started to believe. Believe in his existence.

  The angelic child hovered above the battlefield, his massive wings the color of morning light unfurling behind him. The air around him seemed to ripple like heat over asphalt, reality itself bending in his presence.

  “This was not supposed to happen…” The winged child muttered, his voice carrying to Akuma despite the distance.

  He couldn’t show it, but Akuma was surprised to hear the child speak. So much so that he groaned a bit, as if trying to get his attention.

  “It seems someone is trying to alter your fate, Akuma. No… They are trying to defy fate entirely.”

  The monster looming above him raised its fist, molten energy gathering around knuckles the size of Akuma's head. One more blow would end it all. Or at least, that’s what he’d think if his attention wasn’t glued to the apparition.

  With divine grace, the angel child raised his shackled wrist. The chains swayed almost hypnotically as Akuma gazed at them.

  “If you were to die now, then I have a feeling you’d remember it this time…” The child said to no one.

  His small fingers gripped the lowest chain, and his voice became something older and deeper. He sounded just like Akuma.

  “First Seal. Break!”

  In that moment the world shuddered.

  Concrete split like dried clay around Akuma's beaten body. Buildings groaned. Windows shattered in perfect synchronicity, raining glass for blocks in every direction. The very air seemed to compress, then expand violently outward as if screaming out in pain.

  Power surged through Akuma's ravaged body. Not the familiar strength he knew, but something divine and terrifying.

  His broken ribs knitted together.

  Punctured organs sealed themselves.

  And blood evaporated from his lungs.

  As he rose from the crater, two arms of light unfurled from his back, stretching toward the heavens. Soon a shackle-like halo materialized above his head. His black hair bleached itself white, as if aging decades in seconds.

  But as strange as that was, it paled in comparison to what was happening in his mind.

  He saw secrets of martial arts, specifically his. Fundamental truths about reality itself, like the existence of angels and gods. And the precise nature of the creature before him. Centuries of knowledge crashed into his consciousness like a broken damn, threatening to drown his sense of self.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “A Mephisto-bringer…” He said, the word unfamiliar on his tongue. “A lower demon created by Mephisto, the demon of flames…”

  He tilted his head, accessing information he shouldn't possess. At least, that’s what the demon had been told before he arrived here.

  “And the only attack than can truly destroy you, is one done to the soul.”

  The demon crept back, recognition dawning in its inhuman eyes. Its overwhelming arrogance had been replaced by a more primal and instinctual feeling. A feeling that resides within all living creatures… Fear.

  “First Planet Series…” Akuma whispered, tracing a perfect circle in the air.

  The speed of the gesture left trails of light that lingered like afterimages.

  “Mercury Hammer.”

  He darted forward, the demon’s sense of time too disrupted to even perceive him. Like a sledgehammer, his fist connected with the demon's right liver, the impact sending ripples across its flesh forcing a painful growl to escape the beast. It was the area he’d been slowly weakening during the fight and from the sounds of it, it paid off.

  “Second Planet Series…”

  The words came to him instinctively as gathered his stance.

  “Venus Celestial Chain.”

  Each strike flowed into the next with perfect harmony. First a knee to shatter the demon's leg joint, forcing it down to his level. Then a series of precise blows to its face, each one targeting not just skin but the soul as well.

  The air cracked with each impact, pressure waves expanding outward to shatter nearby windows that had somehow survived his initial surge of power.

  The demon roared, bringing its massive hands together to create a shield of molten light.

  Akuma, recognizing the defensive stance, sketched a five-pointed star in the air, before drawing over it once more.

  “Six Planet Two Folds Series...”

  Power coursed through him, his muscle fibers strengthening beyond human limits. And as he struck the demon's defense, his fist passed through as if the barrier were made of smoke.

  “Jupiter Thunderstrike!”

  BOOM!

  His fist ripped through the air, smashing into the demon's head and reducing it to a gruesome spray of flesh and bones that scattered in all directions. The demon's headless form collapsed, dark ichor spreading beneath it.

  Akuma sank to one knee, steam rising from his overheated body.

  The fourth shape, the star. It doubles one’s physical strength and is the only shape that can be stacked. But the physical strain afterwords is beyond excruciating. So much so that blood vessels burst beneath his skin and muscles threatened to tear from bone.

  “The soul…” He gasped, recalling crucial information about demons. “I barely scraped the soul.”

  Above, the angel child's face tightened with concern.

  “He’s learnt more about Kata, but not enough.”

  A shadow fell over Akuma. Looking up, he watched in horror as the demon's head began to regenerate. The creature's body swelled, growing to twice its previous size. Heat radiated from it in waves, melting the concrete beneath its feet. Even Akuma felt his skin burn against the heat.

  “Such is to be expected from the AntiGod…” The demon growled, its voice resonating at a frequency that made Akuma's teeth clatter.

  It raised both hands, creating a sphere of concentrated, molten energy that warped the light around it.

  “But even with the power of God, you're still just a human.”

  Akuma's newly granted power flickered. Specifically, the halo above his head cracked and the wings of light began to dissolve.

  “I can’t exactly break another seal… “ The angel child muttered, a bead of sweat trailing down his cheek. “I suppose I’ll have to improvise.”

  Akuma could see it once again. The greedy, decaying hand of death as it called out to him. This time wearing certainty like a crown. Akuma felt his connection to the surge of power fading. He was sure of it… In just a few moments, he’d be powerless against the demon's final attack.

  The angelic child reached into his own chest, the flesh parting like water without leaving a wound. From within himself, he withdrew a book that pulsed with a gentle white light. “Uncertain” was emblazoned across its cover. In smaller text beneath it, “By: The AntiGod.”

  With perfect aim, the child threw the book toward Akuma. It stopped in mid-air before him, hovering as if suspended on invisible threads.

  Akuma gazed at the unusual sight, the warm glow reflecting in his eyes. To him, it looked as if a firefly had taken the form of a thick book. For a moment, it felt as if the book was calling out to his soul, gently whispering his name.

  “AKUMA!”

  The child’s voice cut through the roar of the demon’s concentrating energy. His earlier wisdom filled demeaner had vanished and been replaced by the desperate cry of someone who had watched Akuma for longer than either of them could remember.

  “TAKE IT AND USE THE POWER OF YOUR DESTINY!”

  In that moment, Akuma finally understood it. The apparition he'd dismissed for so long wasn't some random hallucination. The child had been watching over him, guiding him subtly toward this moment. Not as a manifestation of trauma or a figment, but a guardian. Perhaps even…

  A friend.

  He grabbed the book as the demon unleashed its attack. As he did, crimson light washed over him, hot enough to vaporize concrete. His flesh steamed from the heat. His blood simmered in his veins. And yet, where there should have been pain, there was only comforting warmth.

  The book merged with him, a chain reaching out of the book and imbedding into his chest. The wings returned, stronger and larger than before. The shackle-like halo solidified once more and glowed far brighter than last time.

  With two powerful strokes of his wings, Akuma launched himself through the heart of the demon's attack. It parted around him like water breaking against stone. In an instant, he flew right through the demon, ripping out his entire torso in the process.

  “This... can't be...” the demon gasped as its body disintegrated. “You should have been reduced to ash.”

  Akuma stood calmly as the creature crumbled to dust behind him.

  “Tell me…” he said softly, the book fading in his palm.

  A smile crept across his lips, as he finally turned to the demon scattered on the wind.

  “Are you certain about that?”