American comics: From Hogwarts to God on Earth

Chapter 269 Who doesn't love laser eyes, biubiubiu?

Mephisto's greatest desire was, of course, Rune's soul; someone who could wield such immense magical power must have a delicious soul. Next, naturally, was a way to escape this apocalypse. Finally, there was the immense magical power emanating from Rune.

Mephisto, of course, was unaware that Rune was the key figure capable of leading everyone to escape the Secret War. As for the method to escape the apocalypse, well, Rune was indeed powerful, but at best, he could only contend with beings of the Heavenly Father level. Mephisto believed that Rune's reliance on resolving such a terrifying catastrophe involving the multiverse was mostly due to some unexpected artifact. Driven by this greedy thought, Mephisto, in the moment of weakness after Rune used the Death Artifact, brazenly chose to blackmail him.

He wasn't ashamed at all; on the contrary, he was proud.

"Look at what you're saying!" Mephisto laughed in response to Rune's question. "Of course I want everything you have! Like your magic, like the artifact that can save us from this multiverse catastrophe, and like—your soul!"

"You're too greedy."

Faced with Rune's accusation, Mephisto became puzzled. He frowned and stared intently at Rune: "Wasn't this what you humans taught me?"

He's right. Mephisto has seen countless human souls, but among humans, the most numerous are selfish and petty people; heroes have always been a rare breed. And his cunning, greed, and treachery were indeed taught to him by humans.

Rune nodded. "I see. Can I take this as an attempt to extort money from you?"

"Suit yourself, but you'd better hand over the stuff now—" Mephisto grinned maliciously, black flames raging around him, clearly preparing to strike with malice.

"Since that's the case, I have nothing more to say. Unfortunately, our deal has fallen through." Rune understood Mephisto's meaning.

Judging by his appearance alone, Rune did indeed look like he was on his last legs. His right arm still had large areas of exposed bone, with buds struggling to grow back. However, due to the obstruction of a black force, Rune's arm was growing very slowly, and the bones were covered with black patterns.

But this is not a bad thing. If Rune can survive this, his right hand's defensive ability will be slightly improved in the future. Moreover, through this experience of using the laws of death and experiencing it firsthand, he will be able to learn death-related magic and make related alchemical items with ease.

Just when Mephisto thought victory was assured, Rune suddenly spoke in a cold tone: "I don't know what you're thinking, Mephisto, and I can't understand your greed and stupidity. But since I've summoned you, this notorious fool, I have ways to deal with you. Did you really think I had no defenses against you?"

Rune closed his eyes and took a deep breath: "You know, my cousin has an ability. Behind his retina is some kind of light-reflecting organ, which allows him to use the solar energy stored in his body as a basis to resonate countless photons at the same frequency and in the same direction, and then shoot out an extremely hot beam of light."

"What are you trying to say?" Mephisto became alert. He could certainly understand what Rune was saying; he had consumed the souls of many physicists and biologists over the years. Could it be—

"As for me, I actually possess a similar ability, except that mine is based not on sunlight, but on magic. Initially, this ability consumed a tremendous amount of magic," Rune opened his eyes again, his gaze fixed on a tiny white light. "But I wonder, if I could compress the emitted magic into a single point—would this attack be even more powerful?"

"What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" Rune chuckled. "I'm compressing all my magic into a single point!"

The next moment—

Buzz!

An extremely thin yet bright magical shockwave, bright enough to blind mortals, shot out. Its diameter was about the size of a pencil lead, but it was almost pure white. The air it passed through was instantly ionized, forming a straight vacuum channel.

Mephisto's pupils contracted sharply. He instinctively tried to raise his hand to summon a magical shield for defense, but it was too late.

Pfft!

The magical shockwave passed through his palm without hindrance, as if piercing through the air, then through his chest, and finally shot out from Mephisto's back, leaving a multicolored plasma trail several kilometers long on the distant horizon. It was a beautiful sight, but the price was extremely high.

"Aaaaaaaahh ...

Mephisto let out a piercing scream. The huge, penetrating wound in his chest didn't even bleed; instead, it appeared as black, crystalline as soil baked by extremely high temperatures. And most terrifyingly, Rune was ultimately using magic.

Therefore, the terrible dark magic did not dissipate, but instead continued to corrode his body like a bone-deep ailment.

"No, no, no, that's impossible. You couldn't possibly still have such immense magical power—"

As the lord of hell roared, he tried to annihilate the terrifying dark energy with the magic power within his own body. However, this dark energy had a very powerful origin. Its master was a great demon who had conquered countless worlds. It was a truly powerful demon with a unique and multifaceted nature. Therefore, the lord of hell found this dark energy to be exceptionally stubborn.

Foolish! Who said the scale of magic power is related to the destructive power of magic?

Unlike its exaggerated destructive power, Rune didn't actually consume much magic power. This was because all his magic power was poured into and compressed into a single point. What was consumed more was his energy. However, he was unwilling to use this move now, because the impact of the extremely compressed magic power would also cause Rune to suffer a terrible price. For example, now—Rune's eyeballs began to smoke, his iris and lens carbonized and peeled off under the backlash of the ultra-high energy, and countless drops of blood were evaporated by the powerful heat before they could seep out. The skin around his eye sockets cracked like dry clay.

The attack power was so high that even with Rune's defenses, he couldn't withstand it at all. Comparing it to how easily the Fallen One had used this move before, Rune knew he still had a long way to go.