What?! The Gamemaster And The Top Player Are Dating?!

This fight just got a lot more hopeless. 

The first question Zhihao asked when he saw this was 'why?'

Why were the regenerative abilities of this Akuma increasing? 

He thought about it for a while and at this moment the demon king was ready to once again punch The Akuma's face. 

However, this time Akuma opened his mouth and the fist that was supposed to dig into his face was now inside his mouth. Literally.

Zhihao looked at the scene without much thought, almost finding it funny. 

The demon king had his fist in the mouth of the Akuma, and no matter how much he tried to pull back, he couldn't get it out. 

The Akuma looked at the panicked expression on the demon king's face and gulped. 

He gulped down the fire that was covered around the demon king's fist. 

Zhihao's eyes went wide as he suddenly realized something. 

How could he have missed this?

Akuma's regenerative abilities increased, but it wasn't because of the heat in the land. The two things were completely unrelated to each other or maybe they were related, but not in the same way as Zhihao had first thought. The heat wasn't affecting the regenerative abilities of this demon to increase, if anything, it was the complete opposite. 

This demon god was eating energy. 

The attacks that it received from Zhihao were all consumed by Akuma. So by attacking Akuma again and again, they were actually feeding him and making him grow stronger. 

Zhihao had wondered why Taki had such weak stamina, but now he realized that it wasn't due to the demon's weak stamina, it was because, with every attack, Akuma was taking away his powers. 

Zhihao wanted to warn the demon king, but before the "careful" could leave his mouth, the demon king had already reacted. 

Maybe the demon king had been faster than Zhihao at noticing this thing and so he cut off his own hand that was in Akuma's mouth. 

Zhihao looked away as he saw the man chopping off his own hand. Zhihao wouldn't naturally feel this way towards an NPC, but this demon king had the face of his father so seeing your father cutting off his hand was really something he wasn't looking forward to seeing. 

The demon king was bleeding from the open wound on his arm, but it was soon covered in fire, stopping the bleeding. 

Akuma didn't look to be fazed by this sight as he didn't let go of the chopped arm in his mouth and instead, it took another deeper bite on the piece of meat in his mouth. 

Zhihao felt like he would puke at any moment now. 

Just what was the Gamemaster thinking when he created these cruel creatures. 

Akuma chewed on the arm and gulped it down his throat as if it were really just a piece of tasty barbequed meat. 

Zhihao didn't like this sight and his dislike was clearly displayed on his face. His dislike was directly connected to the fact that this demon king looked like his father and his subconscious had already fixed the eaten arm as his father's. He was angry and wanted to cut down this Akuma, but he didn't dare act carelessly. 

If he were to act hastily and attack Akuma, he would be doing more good for the opponent than damage. 

He had to think of a way out. He had to find a loophole. Something he had missed. If he were to do that, he would most certainly be able to win this level, but so far, he had nothing. 

He was depending on strength till now, but now that the strength was rendered useless, he didn't know what he was going to do. 

Think. 

Think. 

Think. 

He chanted the words as if by doing so he would be able to find a way out. 

Akuma had lost an arm, but so had the demon king and now the two handicapped demons were having a glaring competition. 

The demon king had his hand eaten in front of him. This was... Ridiculous and made his blood boil. There was no way he was going to let this demon god get away with it. 

"Wait." Zhihao looked up with hope-filled eyes. His amazing brain had once again worked its magic. 

He had an idea! 

"That's right." Zhihao smacked his head with his right hand. He felt like he was dumb. 

He was looking at it the wrong way. 

There was something he had missed. 

Something major that he should not have missed. 

His original strategy to beat this Akuma didn't have to be wrong. He was just taking the wrong approach to accomplish it, but the plan wasn't wrong. 

Zhihao looked at Akuma and he couldn't help but smirk as he saw the face of the blood-thirsty demon. 

At this moment, the demon king decided to attack again and this time the Akuma was even more impatient. 

The demon king was going to get killed if this went on and so when he got ready to attack for the third time, Zhihao stopped him. 

"Let me handle him," Zhihao spoke confidently. 

The demon king looked at his son and although he was proud of this behavior, he was still reluctant to let his son fight this. He felt like he had a better chance at winning than his son did. 

"This is my fight," The demon king replied as he smiled, but it was hardly noticeable on his face, almost making it seem like mockery. 

Zhihao looked at this father of his and shook his head. He didn't need a bait anymore, so why was this bait still willing to buy time for him? It was almost ridiculous. 

"This is my responsibility, father. Not yours." 

The demon king frowned as he heard this, "It wasn't you who did this so why is it your responsibility?"

Zhihao smiled as he heard this question. Thankfully, he already had a perfect answer for this, "He's my ex."

The demon king was silent as he heard this. 

Zhihao waited for a minute, but he got no reply from the other side so he concluded that he had won this verbal competition. 

There was really nothing this demon king could say since it really was his son's ex who caused all this ruckus so who was he, as a father, to stand in between the two and take responsibility?

"So stand back," Zhihao ordered as he glanced at his father. His heart was beating heavily, this was the first time he had ordered something to that face. 

If this was the real world, he would never be able to say something like that to his father so he took this chance to order his father around. He didn't know why, but it was oddly satisfying. 

The demon king sighed, took a step back and Zhihao thought the man had given up, but how was he to guess that in the next moment, the demon king decided to run towards Akuma. 

Zhihao realized what the man wanted to do, but he felt like the man was stupid. There was no way that was going to work. 

The demon king had realized that Akuma had a weakness at this moment and it was right behind him. Literally behind him, there was a fire pit. This was the inferno of hell and if the demon king could get Akuma to fall into it, this fight would end right then and there. 

The demon king wasn't too bright and had underestimated Akuma who moved away at the last minute possible, making the demon king head straight for the fire pit. 

It was over, he thought, and closed his eyes, cringing at his own stupidity. 

But before he could fall into the fire pit a hand pulled him back by the collar. 

The demon king opened his eyes and sighed in relief as he looked back at the face of the person who had saved him, he expected it to be his son, but when he came face to face with the twisted face of Akuma, he was speechless. 

Shit... 

He had almost survived death only to be met with it once again. 

Akuma smiled as he tore the demon king's head away from his body. 

Just one pull and it was divided like a chopstick with a crisp sound. 

Zhihao cringed at the sight and felt like his dinner had come up to his throat. 

Akuma chomped at the body and threw the head away into the fire pit. 

The ghosts who saw this panicked even more and none of them wanted to stay here any longer. They were already running around as if a dog was on their tails and now they were running into the forest like flies. 

This demon king was their hope and that hope was literally torn in two hence, their panic was self-explanatory. 

Zhihao closed his eyes, sighed, and shook his head. 

This was why he told the man that he would be able to handle it. 

Zhihao remembered something Alvi had said or more like something the demon king had told him. 

No matter how much you physically hurt Akuma, the pain would be felt by Kazan, not this demon god. Zhihao didn't think about it too much and accepted it just as it was, but now that he looked back to it he wondered why he did something so stupid. 

It should have been the first question he asked. 

Why would Kazan feel the pain? 

It was simple. 

Because although the vessel was accommodating the soul of Akuma, it still harbored the soul of its original owner. 

Kazan was in there. 

That wasn't the only thing Zhihao had realized. 

His initial plan was to keep attacking Akuma till it could no longer regenerate. That plan wasn't wrong, but the way he decided to execute it, was. 

If he used his powers, this Akuma would absorb it so what was a simple way around it? 

Minus the power.

The answer was that simple, but it wouldn't work with just anyone. It had to be Zhihao since he was the one who was role-playing Taki so basically it had to be Taki who was fighting this demon god. 

The reason for that wasn't because Taki was powerful against the demon king, it was because the demon god was inside the body of Kazan who was powerless against Taki both physically and mentally. 

Zhihao had realized it too late. 

So far, this Akuma kept on attacking his father back, but not once had it tried to seriously attack Taki. 

Zhihao kept cutting off Akuma's hand, yet nothing happened. Akuma didn't retaliate. 

It wasn't because the demon god liked Zhihao, it was because Kazan liked Taki. 

This vessel would not hurt Taki and this was a subconscious reaction. 

Zhihao stepped up to stand behind Akuma who was happily enjoying his meal. He tapped on the demon god's shoulder and Akuma turned around to see the person who dared to interrupt him. He still had a piece of meat in his mouth on which he was munching on when he received a punch on his face from Zhihao. 

Akuma fell back from the impact and looked up at Zhihao as he growled. 

Zhihao smiled as he looked down at Akuma, "I was so stupid." He kicked the demon god's face. 

The answer was so simple that he felt like it had been useless for him to wait so long or worry so much about it. It was like one of those riddles with the answer in the question, but nobody would be able to guess it unless you had a brain that was accustomed to solving such riddles. 

Zhihao tilted his head and took a step back as he gave the demon god space to stand up. 

He was looking for a fight that he knew he would be winning.