With a draw of its single breath everything before it was frozen. Frozen from head to toe by the moisture around him, his movement was restricted causing him to worry that the silasmandra will use this opportunity to come and attack him.

  (Real life battles are full of surprises and not duals, I was foolish to not have a barrier around me at all times more so when considering why I'm here, I'll melt this ice real quick).

  If he wasn't frozen he felt he would have slapped himself but at the moment he focused on freeing himself conjuring a fire around the ice trapping him seeing as it was actually not thick. With the fire burning right next to it the ice began to melt, before he could even break free from it, the fire was sucked into the silasmandra's mouth. Seeing the fire get sucked into its mouth he now understood.

  (It is absorbing the energy all around it, so this is what she meant).

  Nell had warned him but this is not what had come to mind. With that knowledge a plan came to mind, if it absorbed the energy before he could unfreeze himself then he just had to release an incredible amount of it.

  (Let's see if you absorb this too, explosion).

  Thanks to the explosion and him being near its centre, Noir managed to break free from the ice. Now free he ran towards it with sword held in hand, the ground he was running on began to break and rise, when he looked around he saw even the trees and all the other flora were breaking apart and flying to the silasmandra's mouth, deconstructing beyond dust to fine energy by the time they reached its mouth.

  "I was wondering why that head did not close its mouth even after everything was frozen but now I get it, and it seems the barrier is able to block it somehow".

  He looked at the fragment of the ground he was riding on, within his barrier the fragments stopped deconstructing and only flew. Seeing him getting close it stopped absorbing, this led to him jumping into the air as the fragment fell and with him being high up he could reach its heads. Noir who was falling towards it brandished his sword preparing to slice off at least one of its heads. But what he did not expect was that it would not rely on it's body to retaliate. The descending Noir was met with a beam from the second head, even while seeing it head straight at him he smiled because this time he had a barrier. The beam hit the barrier slowing his decent, he heaved a sigh of relief he was glad it didn't send him flying back. Before he could loose his forward momentum he changed the barrier's shape. Now it was at an angle in which the beam caused him and the barrier to rotate while falling beside it and it was redirected to fall onto the ground. The ground melted on contact, even turning it into plasma. But this did not concern him, it barely registered in his mind.

  (Damn thanks to that blast one head is out of range).

  Now that he was just beside its head, the energy emission head, he aimed at its neck intending to decapitate it. Using the rotational force he was able to do a descending spiral slash, as a result the slashes were not focused on a single spot but distributed across the neck and the head was not severed. Upon landing on the ground he barely had the time to evade the uninjured head that was in pursuit, chasing him as he rolled under it. Maybe from the pain of the neck being injured or because he was under it, it began stomping on the ground. This gave him no chance to strike its under belly. He was in the midst of jumping out to evade being stomped on when he was met with its tail. The tail came unexpectedly that he had no time to counteract, when it hit, the barrier tanked the damage and he grabbed onto it. He did not know for sure if he could do it or not but going with his intuition he pulled the silasmandra by its tail throwing it. It crushed into the trees, while it was still struggling to get up he swang his sword towards it and balls of fire emerged and followed the direction the sword pointed in.

  "Let's restrict it's movement with this".

  With a wave of his hand the ground around the silasmandra rose up in form of pillars, trapping it in place. Even when the bombardment of fire balls struck, the pillars were not shaken. Even though it was still struggling and trapped in the fire, its absorption head drew in its breadth once more, the pillars froze and began to deconstruct while the fire grew small even with the fire balls that continued to bombard it.

  "Damn with that head I can't rely on anything aside from my sword. It has to be dealt with first".

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  He looked at his sword only to see that it had corroded.

  (When did this happen, is its blood a corrosive type of poison, I'll burn it away).

  After burning the blood on the sword the flames remained, with it being this way it would not continue to corrode. After successfully standing it stopped absorbing the fire and used its other head to shoot blasts of energy towards him. While thinking of what best way to evade while getting closer he saw the shadows of debris cast by the blasts that he deflected and thought of an idea. He'd never done it before but he already had proof of it working, the daggers. He jumped into the shadows and reappeared right below it. But the silasmandra was no fool, it was aware the daggers came out of the shadows. While he was appearing its heads were already descending on him. Its emission head was first, it was right above him about to have him in its jaws, he kicked its lower jaw snapping it's mouth shut and sending the head back. This led to an opening, which the absorption head did not miss. He was caught and stuck in its mouth, the reason he remained was the barrier and the sword he changed into a staff, preventing it from closing its mouth. And with his predicament another idea came to mind.

  "Now while I'm in contact with it I can manipulate its composition matter".

  While he tried to break down its molecular structure, it was trying it's hardest to destroy the barrier and eat him whole. While it was succeeding as cracks began to form around it, he on the other hand was failing.

  "Dammit, it's not working".

  There was a strong resistance that prevented him from changing its matter he could feel it. Looking at the barrier with cracks all over and close to being destroyed. He made one last move that served as both escape and attack. This move was only possible because he was in its mouth, making it impossible for it to absorb energy, he caused an explosion greater than the one he had done before. With it being right at its throat it involuntary loosened its jaws and the force of the explosion shot him out. It thrashed around from the pain, wailing as it did so. With determination in his eyes, the flames around the sword increased in intensity. Now was the best time to get rid of one head, its emission head was slow from neck slashes he had done while its absorption head was out of commission.

  "With the absorption head gone the emission head will be just a head".

  Unlike before when he entered into the shadows he appeared about 3 feet away from it and with his appearance a giant fist rose from the ground, punching its head, while another hand appeared beside it. The head landed into the other hand and was stuck in between, with the hands trying to crush it. At the same time Noir went for the absorption head, the flames of his sword increasing in length and width. Using its neck like a whip it tried to whiplash him aside but he was faster, with a thrust from him the flame sword pierced through its neck followed by a drag slash, effectively severing its head. It fell on the ground with a thud, but it was not over the other head still remained. He directed a vertical slash at the base of its necks. With its tail it broke one hand and used it as a shield to block the vertical slash. But Noir could see the end to this so he increased the intensity of flames, melting it at incredible speed but with one hand less restraining it, the head broke free shot a beam at him. This forced Noir to retreat before penetrating it's defense, he had thought it would no longer be able to shoot anymore beams without the absorption head. Looking at himself he wasn't that injured, he looked around him, the area behind him was barren for a good distance and the trees beyond were frozen, Nell was nowhere to be seen but he was confident she was safe. He took a deep breath watching as his wounds heal and the silasmandra about to charge at him. It manifested blasts of energy like he had done with the fire balls, bombarding him with them one after another. Every blast it shot he intercepted with a fire ball. While busy with intercepting the blasts the silasmandra began to undergo a transformation. It became smaller, the neck of the severed head fused with the remaining head, the neck wound and all of it's other injuries healed during the transformation. Noir had no time to interrupt this transformation, he was busy dealing with the blasts, and he could not use shadow movement because the blasts suspended in mid air around it, illuminated everything leaving no place for shadows to form. Meanwhile Nell was watching at a distance ready to step in incase of an emergency. While observing Nell was impressed with Noir's use of the barrier.

  "If he had used it from the beginning I wonder how things would have turned out, any way what was he thinking using fire to melt the ice around him when he can directly manipulate the ice itself. Sigh, he's lucky it has low intelligence"..."Fool he should have realised its emission head was not reliant on its absorption. And its heads are actually a weakness, it cannot use both at same time and each head wants to wreak as much havoc as the other so they take turns. With one head left it'll be much more fierce".

  She even wanted to shout at him, telling him to use his natural attribute, darkness, but this was an awakening ceremony she could not interfere unless his life was in danger. All demons had to go through this rite of passage, the first stage of awakening in order to become full fledged demons. The purpose of the rite of passage was to stimulate and cause them to develop in shorter time than needed.

  After its transformation the silasmandra was no longer overwhelmed and was instead on even footing with him. That wasn't all, it's new form came with a regenerative ability. The battle went on for a long time that the day past, but at this place it was still just as bright perhaps even brighter, even though it was night.