Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Immediately, the Armor reeled slightly and its entire body creaked with the sound of rusted metal, only for a second. Mark had used Heart Input on it and all its Mindpower had been consumed—-whereas Mark\'s own Mindpower was replenished by the Black Water in his World Space.

The Armor stood still. It had been ready to face any kind of attack from Mark. Dream, heart, and even dungeon-type attacks, it was ready to face.

It had predicted all kinds of attacks from Mark\'s side and had decided that Mark was no longer much of a threat to itself unless he used that weird power that he used on the savages some days ago to commit genocide.

"This is not a heart, dream, or dungeon-type attack," it said coldly. "Your mutated bloodline gave you access to true mind-related powers, to the point that I made the mistake of gauging you with common sense."

All of its Mindpower had been consumed!

Mark smirked. Now, he had Mindpower and his enemy did not. He could use demonic tricks and the enemy was limited to only using its physical strength. He had essentially won!

The enemy who couldn\'t be harmed at all by the clone of a Demon Emperor, he had made it suffer a huge blow!

But at the same time, Mark no longer had his hands, he was handless and he didn\'t have healing-type demonic tricks to heal himself. And more than anything, his throat was stuck in the enemy\'s vice grip.

They both stood still, Mark floating in the Armor\'s hand.

One by one, the many eyes on the Armor\'s surface vanished and it became a very normal-looking Armor.

Mark\'s face grew vicious as he struggled to breathe. It was going to suffocate him to death. Until now, it had wanted his Seal of Destiny and Alchemical Shapeshifting but now, it had clearly decided to end him.

From Mark\'s body, ethereal vines came out and stuck themselves onto the Armor.

Parasite!

If the enemy had zero Mindpower, he could possess them and become their Parasite. They would become his host, his vessel. And now, he was going to transform this Armor into his own second body—now, here, it will become his!

Calm as ice, the Armor hurled him away from it and Mark slammed into the cave\'s wall. Immediately, his wings popped out and he began to fly around it with immense speed. Behind his savage mask, he had a truly vicious expression.

There was solely a single weakness to the Armor and that was its lack of infinite Mindpower. Maybe, at some point, it had also absorbed a World Core and had its own World Space to use like Mark himself, but now, it certainly didn\'t have such a thing.

Maybe, when it fell to this world as a broken junk, the Savage World had absorbed the World Core in it.

"I know what you are trying to do," Mark said. "You want to kill the Dungeon Demon in this dungeon, you can kill others to heal yourself after all. Who knows, maybe you can even kill others to gain Mindpower."

The Armor stood still, looking around with its main two eyes to follow Mark\'s quick movement around it. To think a mere Middle Demon ant had put it in such a dire strait, truly, it felt that it had rusted!

"You overestimate yourself," it said coldly. "I didn\'t think you would have any powers at the level of that touch to change shape Trick, but it seems you have a lot more of them than I thought. The power to drain an enemy\'s Mindpower, how deadly!"

Mark smirked. "You said you don\'t have dreams, but surely, you have a mind. A heart. And you no longer have the power to resist me from owning that side of yours. I shall make you call me your master!"

When he uses Heart Input, he slows down. And when he used it, the Armor noticed the second of slowness immediately and moved with its sheer physical prowess. In a second, it was upon him, ready to pummel him down. But then, Mark kicked back the punch, having canceled the Heart Input mid-use.

Punch! Punch!

It moved fluidly, gripping his legs, and slammed him onto the ground. Then, before Mark could move, it tore off its own hand and threw it like a javelin toward the Dungeon Demon lying motionlessly on the floor.

If the Dungeon Demon died, the dungeon they were fighting in would vanish and Mark would die together!

The armored arm hit the Dungeon Demon like a small bomb and its figure exploded into smithereens. Mark had predicted what it was about to do but that didn\'t mean he could stop it.

Mark opened his mouth and bit into its other hand, releasing the vines of the Parasite ability and trying to enter it once more. He was honestly helpless, too. The dungeon was disappearing and if he released the hamster, Dona, or Yuri, it would just kill them, too.

A guttural roar escaped Mark\'s throat.

He didn\'t have any way to kill the Armor, once he lost the power of Alchemic Shapeshifting, he was much weaker against it. He had no way to kill it anymore. Now, the only chance of him winning against it was by using Parasite to possess it and there just was no other way.

Mark\'s demonic tricks—Dream Shock, Dream Gambler\'s Mortal Puppet, Soul Devouring, Dungeon Heart Seed, and Alchemic Shapeshifting—were all useless against it in this battle!

Only Parasite and Heart Input worked against it and he needed some time to use both of them. Then, there was Clown\'s Circus, which might not be useful at all.

The Armor was no fool, it had just been at a huge disadvantage from the very start.

There was an old and legendary adage in all battles. Know thyself, and know thy enemies and you shall come out victorious in a thousand battles.

From the very beginning, Mark knew all of its abilities and it didn\'t know much about Mark. Experience was something that made a person hard to defeat, but it didn\'t make one invincible. Thus, now both of them were in a situation of utter tie.

Yet, when the Dungeon began breaking, both Mark and the Armor knew that the Armor had taken back its advantage. When the dungeon fully disappears, it will win—as long as Mark doesn\'t have some sort of physical ability that could boost his physical power and escapes its vice-like hold in time.

And Mark didn\'t have such a power.

If he wanted to survive, as soon as the dungeon disappears, he would have to release the hamster, Yuri, or Dona. And the moment he released them, they would die because they were just Tier 2 beings and the Armor was essentially a Tier 3.

The hamster was Tier 0!

"In the end, if you had just used your powers better, you could have won. But oh, small little pup, you just weren\'t good enough—and your powers weren\'t an all-around perfect combo. When you lost that alchemy ability, you became weak."

Mark growled. "If I had a healing ability, you would be the one losing!"

"I commend you for that. Not many had made me this on the edge—and even you wouldn\'t have done it if you weren\'t lucky. And now, its over."

The Dungeon was almost completely gone… any moment now. His vines had also climbed into the Armor by 50% but that was not enough, before it reached 60%, the dungeon would vanish.

Mark sighed, seemingly having accepted his defeat. But then, his face turned cold and he kicked the creature\'s side with his knee, it only made a clanging noise. They had almost entirely the same level of physical prowess.

One of its fingers clawed at his face and sank into his eyes, making it as painful as possible.

Mark gritted his teeth and right when the dungeon was about to vanish… summoned it. It was a beautiful woman frozen inside a big piece of ice, and the moment she appeared, another dungeon was created around them.

Indeed!

Mark had summoned Reol\'ran\'s frozen body. It didn\'t have any combat power or whatever but around many meters surrounding it, a natural dungeon existed. When Reol\'ran was in the Hunter World, a whole laboratory was turned into a dungeon just because of her presence!

And now, a dungeon was around them with her as the center.

60% possessed it!

"The Heaven Soul\'s physical body!"

The Armor growled, sinking another of its fingers into Mark\'s healthy eye. With that, he had become blind. But his Soul Sense replaced his vision for now.

Both of them forgot about grace and all sorts of tactics and just rolled around on the ground, biting and clawing at each other. Mark was often nearly suffocating due to it grabbing his neck tightly but he stayed safe.

Luckily, the armor also had just a single hand and Mark had metallic wings other than his hands, too.

But even as he lost eye and ear, the enemy was just a steely armor, so he could do nothing to it other than resist and use Parasite on it in the hope of possessing it. At that moment, he wished like a fool to have had more demonic tricks, more demonic arts that weren\'t just supportive abilities.

Parasitic Dream Shock, Heart Parasite, and Parasite of Heart and Dreams were all support types! And all of them interfered with possessing the enemy using Parasite alone!

For now, he could only resist the pain of losing his eyes and getting scratched by the enemy. At least, killing that Dungeon Demon didn\'t give the Armor more Mindpower.

"Did you think you\'d win?" It asked, suddenly and surprisingly too calm.

Mark felt his stomach sink.

"You did make me surprisingly reach such levels of desperation, but it\'s over." At some point, the Armor had locked him in a weird, uncanny position.

It hadn\'t been clawing aimlessly, it had the plan of making him reach this unmovable position since the start!

It punched with its free hand, the force headed directly for Mark\'s weak spot, the genital.

Mark finally decided it was time. He widened his bloody eyes and took a breath in.

Clown\'s Circus!

Would the Armor\'s greaves give it resistance to Clown\'s Circus, too? Or will Mark finally get some free time to battle it in between the stopped time?