Vermillion Archfiend

The Vermillion Archfiend is red-skinned demon who stands a little over 3 meters tall.^[2]

The Vermillion Archfiend is a caster and a primarily defensive fighter, using a number of barriers and summons to rather than attacking Jake directly. Jake described the Archfiend as a "frail mage that took serious damage even from Jake's regular arrows."^[3] Once Jake is able to overcome the defensive tools, the Archfiend is pushed beyond his breaking point to defeat.

Jake first encounters the Vermillion Archfiend when he is dispatched to backup William and Holstred in a three-way battle between forces from the Milky Way Galaxy and those from a galaxy led by the Nine Hells and another by the United Tribes.^[4] The Vermillion Archfiend was nominally concilliatory, while the Jagged Edge Behemoth was much more aggressive and certain of its ability to defeat Jake in a battle.

Once the battle starts, it becomes clear that the Behemoth and the Archfiend have struck a bargain to team up against Jake.^[5] While their team work is improvised, it is enough to make it difficult for Jake to focus his efforts, one always taking advantage if he tries to focus solely on the other. Eventually, when Jake begins to gain the upper hand, the Vermillion Archfiend summons a ten meter tall, red-skinned demon with tentacle-like feet and a divine aura, making it clear that the archfiend was invoking his patron.^[6] The summoned demon blasts them all with flames that Jake can feel in both his body and soul. Nothing he does is able to douse the flames. He eventually realizes that to get rid of the flames, he must kill the caster.

At this point Jake attempts to appeal to the Behemoth only to learn that their deal is that the Archfiend kills Jake, dies of the skill himself, and the Behemoth will keep his territory safe until he can return after the month-long cool off period. Bemused, Jake focuses on temporarily incapacitating the Behemoth so he can focus on the archfiend. Once the behemoth was out of commission, the archfiend attempted to go on the defensive, but can't hold out against Jake's superior offense. On his last legs, the archfiend triggers a destruction skill intended to kill his opponent, but Jake's danger sense warns him and he is able to escape further injury.^[7]

• Flame magic (beams, fire bullets, barriers, flame orbs)
• Obfuscation magic
• A momentum skill through which for every successful spell that hits, the subsequent spells deal more damage
• Magic circles
• Teleportation
• Sealing runes
• Invocation skill that allows him to channel a portion of his patron's power^[8] The skill then blankets the area in an inextinguishable flame that targets both the Archfiend and his opponents. This is a skill that creates an enforced timer. The archfiend must defeat his opponent before he is killed by his own skill.
• A near-death defensive skill that deploys dozens of defensive fire barrier layers^[7]
• A mutual destruction skill that attempts to kill his opponent upon his death.

• Observing the Archfiend's momentum skill helps Jake finally breakthrough on upgrading his Splitting Arcane Arrow Rain (Rare) to Arcane Arrow Storm (Ancient).^[3]