Night became day, and yet the sky was still dark.

A groggy Lucius was awakened by the sound of morning doves; he'd fallen asleep against a tree, blade resting near him. The man had unsavory dreams– one of his past. He vividly remembered the church that raised him and the demons that desecrated it. God, how Lucius wished it was only a dream.

Putting his traumatic thoughts on hold, Lucius got to his feet and hoisted his sword over his shoulder again. He tread through the field, his route demon-free, until he stumbled upon a remote, humbly-constructed, and worn-down town interconnected with dirt paths. The town was quiet– save for the songs of praise which rang from the disproportionately-sized place of worship in its center.

Lucius had encountered a town of people in the middle of a church gathering. This was a town of faithful men, women, and children, just like the one he grew up around. Lucius thought, no, he knew that this many people gathered at once is bound to attract demons, so he'd attend; not out of his beliefs, but out of the unholy ones he could potentially take his blade to.

As he made his way to the church doors, he noticed the town's residents outside of their homes giving him fearful looks, as though he was in danger. Something was off. He attempted to speak to one of the inhabitants, but they shelled up, mentioning not speaking to outsiders in the name of the Lord. This piqued the demon hunter's interest, and so he continued towards the place of holiness.

Lucius finally approached the church doors, pushed them open, and was greeted by the mood lift of a singing choir and the beautiful sight of its bedazzled interior. It helped a little, but it still reopened old wounds. Nevertheless, the man took a seat in one of the rows unnoticed– perhaps they were too caught up in song. The doors, unbeknownst to Lucius, locked behind him and the cross affixed to the top of the church's roof turned upside-down.

Time passed, and the worshiping went from song to preach.

"We gather here today to give our praise to God, who is our lord and savior. We give our praise to him because... demons," the pastor said with caution as to not offend the churchgoers by merely uttering that word, "will continue to walk amongst men if we don't devote ourselves to His grace. If we continue to give praise to our everlasting and eternal God, then He will surely vanquish the demons from our lives, because His love will protect us all. Can I get an amen, people?"

The church then erupted with amen!, but Lucius was the only one who didn't join them. He admired the people's hope and faith, but he knew what the pastor was preaching was not true. He learned a long time ago that there is no savior. There is no lord that loves humanity and will protect them from demons.

Loud banging was heard on the locked doors, prompting the pastor to raise his voice in his preach with a look of worry on his face.

"AND WE WILL CONTINUE TO PRAISE HIM! TO WARD OFF EVILS SUCH AS THE ONES OUTSIDE OF THIS CHURCH AS THIS VERY MOMENT! NOW, LET US BOW OUR HEADS FOR PRAYER."

And so the people–except for Lucius–did.

"DEAR FATH–"

The preaching was then interrupted by the sound of glass being smashed; someone jumped through one of the roof's painted glass designs. The churchgoers looked in awe, the pastor in horror, as the intruder dropped down and landed in front of the altar, silence sweeping across the entire room.

Lucius assumed this was a demon in disguise–given the pastor's panic–so he gripped his blade's handle and rushed the intruder at the altar. He wasn't going to let another place of gathering be massacred by a demon. Not if he can stop it.

But it was too late.

The intruder, without a moment's hesitation, brandished a pistol, aimed it at the man's face, and pulled the trigger, letting off a shot that broke the silence and silenced the pastor. Gun smoke trailing from the intruder's barrel, the blood of a saint had been splattered across the altar.

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Lucius could only watch as the man of faith was assassinated. But, his human appearance faded away as fast as his life did, revealing that the pastor was a demon in disguise.

The intruder turned to Lucius, noticed the sword in hand, and warned him:

"Get ready to fight. This is a trap."

On cue, the atmosphere–on a dime–shifted from upbeat to malicious as the churchgoers stared at the dead demonic pastor in horror, and then at Lucius and the intruder with homicidal intent.

Their cover had been blown.

The religious men, women, and children's human disguises faded away as well, revealing their hellish appearances. Lucius and the intruder had been stuck in a tight space full of demons– there had to be 15 of them.

The demon hunter stared down the choir of devils as they swiftly enclosed the pair. He couldn't wait to rend their flesh. The intruder stood back-to-back with him.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah," Lucius replied, barely able to contain his morbid excitement, "duck."

"What?"

His blade's hilt had two hands on it before Lucius spun around on his heel, to which the intruder reacted with a surprised yelp and a hurried crouch. As he spun like a bladed vortex–with a deranged laugh escaping his lips–Lucius lopped the heads off the five closest demons at once, much to the rest of the crowd's rage.

The moment Lucius ceased wheeling around with his sword, another demon caught hold of Lucius's arm and chucked him–his shoulder making a POP sound–into a wall, putting a hole in it with a CRASH! sound. Pain rang throughout the man's body as he struggled to recover to his feet, and devils rushed him still. Worse yet, the demon dislocated the shoulder of his dominant arm.

The creature which threw Lucius then turned to face the now-standing intruder, who promptly hit his face with a gunshot. The bullet didn't end there, however; it drove through that demon's face, ricocheted off the wall behind it, whizzed past the intruder's face, and burrowed into the skull of the demon that attempted to maul him from behind.

Lucius refused to die here. Not like this. The warmth of his blood slicking down his face combined with the pain of a dislocated shoulder only reinvigorated his determination. So, he took hold of his blade's handle once more, and charged forth with his large sword held out in front of him. Like a rhinoceros with a sword for a horn, he gored each demon that attempted to rush him, each one stacking onto each other–a demon shish kabob–before pinning them all into the opposite side of the room's wall. He made sure to twist the blade once they were pinned for added pain. The demonic shrieking that escaped each of their lips was music to his ears.

And so Lucius had killed five more demons.

The intruder took a bullet from his clothing and reloaded his gun with it. Now, two demons approached– one in front, and one behind. In response, he brandished a dagger and fed it to the jugular of the monster behind him. He then shot the brain matter out of the demon in front's head, spilling blood and thoughts on the unholy place's ground.

With the last shot, the intruder soundly concluded the battle and silence fell over the church once more.

The pastor killer retrieved his knife from a demon's neck and stepped over the rest of their fading bodies strewn about to approach Lucius.

"Hey, you okay? Saw you get thrown into a wall," he mentioned while pointing at the Lucius-sized hole in the church's wall. "Could've died, y'know?"

Ignoring the man's jest, Lucius replied with a pained grunt, "Yeah, I'm fine, but you missed one," while motioning behind the intruder with his sword.

An exasperated huff and the intruder spun around before hurling his knife at a demon that ran at them, creating a THNK! sound as it plunged into its forehead. With that, every demon within the church had been definitively slain.

He swiveled back around and faced Lucius.

"Name's Noel. N-O-E-L. Means 'birth'. Say, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you're a demon hunter like me. I mean, the way you turned those demons into a shish kabob? Awesome. If you aren't, though, you should really consider it–"

"Lucius," he bluntly interrupted, "I'm also a demon hunter."

"Cooool," Noel replied. "Soo, what brought you here? If I were a betting man, I'd say you didn't know that this church was actually a soul-taking cult that takes advantage of people's faiths. Yooouuu," Noel trailed off as his glance traced the fading demon bodies littered among them, "probably figured something along those lines, right?"

Noel's mannerisms starkly contrasted Lucius's; the man appeared to be upbeat and fast-talking with a lot to say, whereas Lucius is brooding and concise with his words. The latter realized this early on; he's talking to a hyperactive chatterbox.

"I figured as much," Lucius responded with a distant tone coupled with labored breathing, focused on his injuries rather than the conversation.

"Yeah, duh. Anyway, this used to be a town of regular-degular people. But the pastor had all his followers give him their souls in exchange for 'salvation', when he was really a demon. Side note: I know this because a person who escaped this cult told me. And when they turned in their souls, that turned them into demons as we– awwww, shit."

In the middle of Noel's lengthy explanation, Lucius succumbed to his injuries and fell into unconsciousness, the sound of heavy weight being dropped on a marble floor echoing throughout the church.