The Red Hand

Chapter 357 – Sore Loser.

"Again!" Halifax demanded yet another rematch after Akagi's blade reached her neck for the dozenth time. She'd been utterly shocked by Akagi's ability to win despite her precognition, and hadn't taken it well, demanding further bouts to prove that it was a fluke.

*CLANG* *CLANK* *BANG*

"Dammit!" Halifax hissed as she was knocked to the ground, the Black Sunrise pressed firmly against her temple as Akagi's lips had long since formed into a nasty smirk.

{HOW?!? THIS MAKES NO SENSE!} (Halifax)

"Now, don't get me wrong, I'm down to kick your ass as much as you want, but don't you think it's time to call it quits?" Akagi laughed as she bopped Halifax on the head with her blade before withdrawing it.

"Tell me how?!?" Halifax yelled as she slowly got up and dusted herself off. "How the hell are you able to do this?!?"

{It makes no sense that you're dominating me! If we're fighting at equal power, it should be IMPOSSIBLE for me to lose if I can literally see the future, but you keeps beating me!} (Halifax)

"Come on, you should know the answer to that already." Akagi said as she slid her blade back into her shadow. “Just think about it for a moment.”

"There is no way in hell that I'm going to believe that you can predict the future and somehow use that to counter my ability to ACTUALLY SEE IT!" Halifax hissed, still not wanting to let it go. "Come on, Akagi! I know you've got crazy bullshit power, but that's far beyond what's logical or reasonable! You can't just predict your way around my continuous view of the future!" Halifax didn't want to believe it was possible for a precog to somehow lose a battle like this, and her pride was far more injured than Akagi'd expected.

{I suppose even Divine Blades can be sore losers.} (Akagi)

"Seeing the future is admittedly a powerful tool, and one that most others could never even hope to compete with." Akagi shook her head. "However, since you rely on it so heavily all I need to do is sift through my calculations to figure out what you're going to do in response to what you're seeing the 'future me' do. With that in mind, I can easily coax you into taking an action that puts me in an advantageous situation since I know exactly what you're going to do." She smirked, noting that it was the same problem with taking only the most optimal moves in chess. "Put simply, if I can predict it, I can account for it, and if I can account for it..."

"You can counter it." Elariel said as she walked over, finishing the Demon's sentence.

"Elariel, you can see into the future even better than I can, so you have to understand how hard it is to believe that anyone can pull something like this off!" Halifax said, hoping the Goddess would debunk Akagi's claim. "Predicting an opponent's move is simply a form of combat, and I buy her having the brainpower to basically out-predict everyone. But to say she can predict the future so accurately that she can use my precognition to set me up for failure-"

"You lost, Halifax." Elariel cut her off, not wanting to listen to her uncharacteristic whining. "It's not like you to get like this, so calm down and think things through. If Akagi couldn't do what she was claiming then, then how else could she have beaten you?" She locked eyes with the Divine Blade. "I know well the power of future sight, not to mention that what you and I possess is the ability to see the true future, and unlike those who can only see the possible future, what we have should be unrivaled.” She continued. “Being able to know exactly what will happen next should mean that you can't lose in a straight-up fight with an evenly powerful opponent, yet you did. So unless you mean to tell me you believe that Akagi won with some kind of cheap trick, then I think it's clear that she's telling the truth."

{I watched the fight, and I can confirm that she did no such thing. However outlandish such a thing is Akagi isn't lying.} (Elariel)

"That kind of power... Even for a Demon Lord, it's insanity! Vikes couldn't do something even close to that!" Halifax retorted. "I understand that Akagi has more power than him, but such prediction ability is just ridiculous! I'd even go so far as saying it defies all logic and reason! A being, Demon Lord or otherwise, shouldn't be able to do something as radical as predict and exploit my reactions to future events in such a manner as to prevent me from countering her!" She'd figured that any move Akagi made to defeat her would be telegraphed by her precognition and that she could easily react and defeat her. However, every time Akagi had beaten her in a sparring match, she was given essentially no time to react as Akagi's blade was perfectly positioned to slip past her own. Halifax was fully aware that precognition did not make her unbeatable, and that a sufficiently powerful enough opponent could simply launch attacks she could deal with. But what Akagi was doing was essentially creating situations where the only future Halifax could see was her defeat inevitable and unchanging defeat, something that baffled her.

{I've seen myself lose in the future more times than I can count, but how can someone figure out what I'm going to do in reaction to something they haven't even done yet?!? There's an uncountable amount of variables there!} (Halifax)

"I hate to break it to you but it's not because I'm a Demon Lord that I can do this." Akagi sighed, clarifying that it wasn't inherently a Demon Lord power. "I was was born with ability to calculate the future based on available data at high speed and with incredible accuracy, and have been since I was born. Back when I was 'Human' I could only do it on a very simple level, largely due to biological limitations. However, now that I'm a formless being there is no delay between thought and action, and with my shadow body I can freely overlap layers of my consciousness creating hundreds, thousands or even millions of different minds running their own high speed data processing. I know that this explanation won't mean anything to you, but the best way I've found to describe it is imagining as if I'm operating multiple operating systems on the same hardware. Now, it's true that my power as a Demon Lord does allow me to do even faster calculations, but its not specifically because I am a Demon Lord I can do this." She didn't expect anyone else to understand her ability or how it truly worked. Even Kana with her extremely high intellect and inherited power from the Demon couldn't replicate even a fraction of what Akagi did and likely never would even after her full power was unlocked. "And if you want to be really technical, it's not even something exclusive to me. It's theoretically possible for others to do it too, they just lack some key parts of the puzzle. Heck, I've tried teaching it to Kana and Hishya, though neither could really do anything with it."

{Many headaches and nosebleeds were had during the harsh training.} (Akagi)

"I've heard of warriors and mages being able to predict their opponent's moves, but what you can do is far beyond that." Elariel said with a bit of exasperation in her voice. "Even we Gods can't do what you've described, and we certainly cannot split our conscious mind like what you say you do." Some had tried to do something like that before, but as Elariel explained prior it never worked properly or safely.

"Well, I don't know what to say other than I can, and I do." Akagi gave an over dramatic shrug as she looked at some dark, gathering clouds in the distance. "But enough about me and my multi-core mind, that up there looks like quite a lot of magic."She said as she pointed into the sky.

"That's..." Halifax's eyes moved to the clouds, her eyes going wide indicating that she instantly knew what was coming. "Ah! Akagi, quickly! Put up some kind of barrier! That's not just a storm it's a kind of Magical Disaster!"

{And from the looks of it, its going to be a bad one!} (Halifax)

“I suppose its about time I got to see one up close.” Akagi said as she motioned for the nearby Zephiria to erect a barrier around the base, which didn't take long for the caster to create. Her barrier was a large translucent bubble that stretched over the entire base, and it was put up just as the sky slowly dimmed as the clouds grew closer while lightning rumbled in the distance.

"All done! And with plenty of time to spare!" Zephiria smiled as she finished reinforcing it. "That should be able to handle whatever is coming, but I can make it stronger if you want."

"I think it will be fine. But keep in alert, this will be our first time seeing one of these Magical Disasters that I've heard so much about." Akagi said as the black clouds exploded outward, covering the sky and causing it to go pitch black within a few seconds. "Turn on the lights!" She yelled for the ninja to activate the various bright lights around the base, lighting it up like a beacon in the darkness.

"While this one is a more powerful example, storms like this are not uncommon, especially down here in Simoea." Elariel explained that Simeoa's corruption made it a magnet for such disasters, largely due to the higher ambient magic in the area. “It should blow past quickly, though it will be quite the show.” She said as the wind picked up to levels even higher than within a Typhoon.

*BANG* *CRACKLE* *WOOSH*

As Akagi and the others stood under the barrier, the storm intensified as blue and purple lightning crackled overhead. Akagi could tell that the storm in question was highly unnatural, and she noted several instances where the explosion of lightning revealed tears in the fabric of reality itself, each manifesting as brief flashes of light and energy that quickly closed.

"M-Man... I wouldn't want to be out there..." Zephiria gave a wry smile as the storm raged overhead. It was far more powerful than she'd expected, and there was some doubt in her mind as to whether even she would be okay in such an environment.

{Being hit by all that...} (Zephiria)

"Take it from me, being out in that it's definitely not fun." Halifax recalled a time where she was caught in a similar storm and had to fight multiple opponents while also avoiding the lightning and anything else kicked up by the wind. It was an intense event that nearly got her killed, and she only managed to survive thanks to sheer luck. "And the worst part is that these storms are only growing more and more frequent as the days go on. Not to mention that their destructive power has only gone up over time. If something like this hits a major population center that doesn't have proper protection, it's going to be destroyed without a trace."

{I can imagine. The wind force aside such unnatural lightning would likely vaporize most things that it hit, and that's not even accounting for other issues like illness from the high amount of magical power in the air. I suspect that people of this world die from that in a similar way to radiation causing cancer on Earth.} (Akagi)

"Zephiria, create something to make a barrier around the camp at all times. I want it to be able to shrug this kind of storm off indefinitely and without need to keep someone on watch." Akagi glanced at the mage. "We can't rely on you or me to be here when this happens, and Silfana probably can't make a barrier like this."

"I'll get on it, and it shouldn't be that hard to make an automated barrier. I'll just enchant something with a spell and give it specific parameters for activation. Plus with the ambient magic in the air, it should never run out of power or need a recharge." Zephiria said as her mind got to work imagining exactly how it would work.

{We could use that formula and combine it with that one, yes...} (Zephiria)

"Good, then with that out of the way I think we'll be heading off here in a bit." Akagi called over to Yumi. "You ready to go home and relax?" She asked the Priestess.

{After I handle that unrelated matter of course.} (Akagi)

"I don't know, are you ready to go home and have Miji spoil you?" Yumi sighed as she dreaded losing her kitty to the young girl.

{My kitty will be stolen again...} (Yumi)

"Is that the only reason you're going back to Earth?" Halifax asked, accusing Akagi of wanting to go back for snuggles and nothing more.

"I admit nothing." Akagi laughed as she sidestepped the question. "Though if you're jealous and want some kitty action you're more than welcome to come with us! Act now and you can snuggle with the kitty as much as you want! Though you may have to wait in line since Miji is probably going to explode with joy the moment she sees me."

{I might actually have to start selling tickets at this point.} (Akagi)

{More like she will tackle you, squeeze you, and drag you off for naps. Which... Sounds nice...} (Yumi)

"Nah, I'll stay here for now." Halifax shook her head as she chuckled. "You won't be gone for long based on what you've told me, and there are a few things that I need to deal with." Her quick glance at Elariel told the Demon all she needed to know.

{Aw, you're going to do the drama while I'm away?!? I love drama!} (Akagi)

"Sounds good, just do me a favor and keep an eye on the place then." Akagi said as she turned to walk away. "Pet! It's time to go! And bring the girl too!" She called out to Amakusa, who was hoping to slink away in the crowd.

"W-We don't need to go back with you! Alm and I are happy right here, right?" Amakusa looked down at the girl that she was holding snugly against her.

{RIGHT?!?} (Amakusa)

"Help me... Sister's hugs... are too much..." Alm pouted as she was squished, which caused everyone, sans Amakusa, to burst out laughing.

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<??? POV>

"We've lost the Hold. Pull back and regroup at Zundar, we'll hold the monsters there." A Dwarven military commander said to a group of officers as he looked down upon a burning city. The Dwarven Kingdom had been under siege for weeks by a mysterious group of monsters that had suddenly appeared from the depths of the Under. They numbered in the hundreds and the most powerful among them were able to easily rip apart even the toughest Dwarven steel. The destruction of Elgol would mark the second Dwarven Hold to fall, and the creatures' murderous rampage showed no signs of stopping. Countless Dwarven lives had already been lost, and it was beginning to look like these monsters would continue on their hellish march to the Dwarven Capital if nothing were done. "I only hope we're not too late..." He said, his red beard swaying in the wind created by the blazes below.

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