Rise of the Rejected Deity from Chaos

The demon's eyes widened in shock as Seiya used an ability belonging to one of his kind. His breath hitched as his hearts shot toward Seiya at a blinding speed. Without a second wasted, the demon followed, darting toward his hurtling hearts in hopes to stop them from reaching Seiya.

However, the demon couldn't reach them in time. Instead, just before the hearts could fall into Seiya's grasp, he conjured a curved woven trap that encased Seiya's palm in a tight ball, preventing the hearts from reaching him.

With thin woven vines, the demon caught his hearts mid-air and yanked them back to himself. As he took up his hands to take back his hearts, his hands trembled, shaken from what could have happened had Seiya managed to get his hand on them.

Relieved, the demon carved a large open wound on his own chest that had already healed from the previous injury, and placed back his hearts inside. Writhing muscle fibers and veins wriggled out as they snatched the hearts back in, connecting them back in place.

The open wound healed before he turned his attention back to Seiya. He stepped forward, halting just beside him and casting low his gaze on Seiya.

Did you not claim you had no awakened ability?" the demon asked, his voice low but still grating. "Then how is it that your ability mirrors one of my own kind's? Did you kill him and take his power?"

Seiya remained silent, his chest rising and falling as he concentrated on his breath. The evening had deepened, the air turning cooler, and the breeze stirred against his wounds, making them sting more painfully.

Overlooking Seiya's silence and disregard toward him, the demon pressed on. "As far as I know, Denga is still alive. Likely out there, causing mischief like he always does. He is a coward who knows when to fight and when to run, after all."

"What I want to know," the demon continued, his voice darkening, "is how you're able to use Denga's ability."

Despite the demon's menacing stance, gazing down at Seiya with growing impatience, Seiya remained unruffled, silent as ever, showing no sign of yielding.

"Very well," the demon muttered, raising his hand. "It seems we're both wasting our time. This time, I'll carve you into pieces and make certain of your death."

Before the demon could bring down his hand to do anything, Seiya once again, curved up his other wrist and instantly, vines of woven rattan like the very ones the demon use, sprouted from the ground and slithered up to wrap the demon's mouth in a tight grip.

The demon's hand froze mid-air, eyes wide open as he was yet again shocked by Seiya's actions. First, it was one of his kind's ability, and now, it was his.

However, what Seiya had thought was a tight grip around the demon's mouth, wasn't tight at all. Since it was already late into the evening, Seiya's sight had worsened—he couldn't see any better than he did during the day, it in fact, had worsened.

The demon wrenched the vines off himself, confusion wrapping his senses as he stood still, waiting for an explanation.

But Seiya wasn't ready at all to waste anymore time, that too, to explain things to a demon he had resolved to kill. Wordlessly, his staff that had been sealed, shot forward through the cold air, racing toward him.

As it shot forward, the demon didn't budge—confident in himself that he had sealed the staff, hence, certain that Seiya could do nothing with it.

But the moment the staff reached Seiya, the rattan vines binding it exploded outward, unraveling like threads snapped free.

Once again, the demon was caught off guard, unable to react in time. The staff floated above Seiya, its blunt tip gently resting on one of the vines, and in an instant, the vines erupted in silence, loosening from Seiya as they fell away.

Seeing Seiya free, the demon recovered from his shock instantly, desperately stretching forth his hands in an attempt to put up something to stop him. But before he could, Seiya snapped to his feet, coiling his woven vines tight around the demon's neck.

As the demon fought to break free from the vines' chokehold, Seiya crouched down, blood seeping from his wounds as he picked up one of the vines the demon had used to seal him.

"So, it's this one," he said, examining the vines, studying it with careful attention for a moment before letting it drop to the ground.

The demon broke free from the constricting vines, his long, spindly arm whipping forward in an attempt to seize Seiya. But Seiya leaped back, effortlessly staying out of reach, lashing out his vines forward in retaliation.

As Seiya's vines sought to ensnare the demon's arm, he swiftly countered with his own, and from the distance he had leapt to, Seiya and the demon clashed fiercely, their woven rattan strands snapping through the air and about.

"So, you lied about not having an ability," the demon sneered, sending a spiked net of woven rattan toward Seiya to entrap him. "Your power is clearly one that mimics others. You must have deemed me unworthy of the truth."

"I do not lie," Seiya replied calmly, raising a wall of woven rattan to deflect the demon's net. His staff, resting on the ground nearby, Seiya called it. He seized it, muscles tensing and coiling, before hurling the staff with deadly speed. It shot forward, straight toward the demon with unrelenting force.

Accustomed to the staff's brutality, panic surged within the demon as he hastily erected multiple layers of towering walls, enclosing himself in a desperate defense.

But the staff had merely been a distraction. Seiya lunged forward, climbing the demon's woven walls with fluid grace before perching at their summit, gazing down upon him.

"I'm sorry, but…this is where I end things."

Without warning, thick vines spiraled upward from within the walls, binding the demon's form in a tight, unyielding grip. He struggled fiercely, twisting and thrashing in a futile attempt to break free, while Seiya watched with a growing sense of exasperation.

"Were you not the one who had said these vines were meant to seal, and cannot be broken unless by their owner?" Seiya remarked, irritated at the demon's actions.

"Or, were you under the illusion that you could break free, thinking these vines were yours?" Seiya pressed. "They are not yours, but mine. And you cannot break free unless by me, so stop the struggle."

Squatting comfortably atop the woven walls, and bathed in crimson glow, Seiya added. "It's pathetic."