As we retreated, the clan head’s gaze turned to his daughter.

Delia had a pale face and wasn’t looking all that well. Her breathing was erratic, and she kept coughing as if she were choking on something.

How long could she endure this?

Delia was crazy and a psychopath. But she had stayed behind and risked her life for me, and if she died now… I didn’t want any guilty thoughts weighing me down. I already had a lot on my plate. “Uncle, let’s stop here. I will do some first aid on Ellen.”

He laid Ellen on the ground. She had a large gash to her side; the wound was nasty, and the dagger had pierced her liver and lungs. If it were anyone else, they would be dead by now.

Actually, how the hell was she alive?

I didn’t ponder a second longer and activated my special ability.

{Perfect Me!}

‘Order: First aid to Ellen. Stop after twenty seconds.’

My body moved like it was being puppeteered, my fingers unhesitantly plunging into her wound. Warm blood and viscera enveloped my hand as I felt around her organs.

It was nauseating work that I couldn’t stomach without Perfect Me.

Ellen gasped in pain as I finally managed to figure out how she had been keeping herself alive until now. She was manually controlling her organs to do their work and kept them revitalized.

Though it wasn’t anywhere near Perfect Me, Ellen’s Ord control was at a monstrous level. Human organs were complicated, yet she had managed to keep multiple of them running while dying.

My Ord invaded Ellen’s body, and instead of her inner energy pushing me out, it welcomed me in.

Was she still conscious? Maybe she was forcing her own mind to remain conscious.

My Ord spread out, and I noticed some impurities in her blood. Not only was Ellen injured, but she was also poisoned.

The best idea I had was to force cell division and healing. However, Perfect Me had a better idea: I guided the poisoned blood toward the liver and then forced the liver to work at multiple times its capacity.

This might cause Ellen to develop liver issues in the future. But right now, we were more concerned with the present.

“Cough! Cough!” Ellen coughed, and her eyes opened wide. She stared into the distance and then back at me.

Following her gaze, I saw Pixie and World had followed us. The Demonic Exorcist wasn’t with them, so that was good news.

But the bad news was that they were still forces to be reckoned with.

“Shit! She’s lucid!” The World Exorcist stopped and didn’t come closer than fifty meters. “Pixie, be careful! Ellen is conscious! We have to retreat!”

“Who cares if some injured hag is conscious?! These guys killed Roc, and I won’t let them get away with this!” Pixie’s face was morphed into that of a wolf, and her arms turned into eagle wings, while her legs became those of a horse with claws at the top of her hooves.

She kicked off the ground and closed the distance between us in one step.

The clan head got ready to activate his special ability, but before he could do so, Pixie stopped. Her eyes widened, and she fell to her knees.

“Shit!” World retreated and didn’t wait to confirm if Pixie was still alive.

Pixie clutched at her stomach. “W -What’s happening?!”

Before she could do anything, she started screaming in pain, and her body morphed back into human form as she lost her concentration.

Her belly and chest bulged, and a pair of eyes could be seen at the back of her throat. She bled out of her eyes, coughed a mouthful of blackened blood, and then collapsed.

Just like that, Pixie was dead.

That was the power of Ellen’s demon. It was why she was known as the 6th strongest exorcist in the world.

If you have hate in your heart, you will die; if you are attracted to someone, you can’t harm them.

That was the general gist of Ellen’s tamed demon.

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I didn’t know the exact specifics, but her demon fed on others’ feelings and couldn’t directly attack someone. Because of that demon, Ellen gained the epithet of The Lover Exorcist.

“Ellen, can you heal him?” I pointed at Delia.

Ellen was lucid enough and nodded. I laid Delia next to her, and she gave my cousin a soft peck on the lips.

Color returned to Delia’s face almost immediately, and she stood up. Now that she was standing up, it was clear that Delia was a girl, and Ellen’s eyes widened.

Wait, she didn’t know about this part of her ability, did she? Well, in the original story, there had been a running gag about her kissing girls and healing them accidentally. As long as she believed they were a man close enough to be considered a ‘prince’ or ‘noble’, her ability would work like normal.

“Why am I wearing such a shitty t-shirt?” Delia snorted.

I ignored her and instead addressed the clan head. “What do we do now?”

The clan head said nothing. But he glanced toward where the World Exorcist had run off, and his eyes grew cold.

***

‘Fucking monsters!’ Apollo swore under his breath. He was widely known as The World Exorcist and considered a powerful person in his line of work. Many dreamed they could be in his place. However, Apollo would give anything not to be in this situation!

He had counted on killing Ellen! But with that bitch still alive, he was doomed!

‘As long as I can regroup with the Demonic Exorcist, I should be okay. There’s no way an injured Ellen could do anything against him… probably.’ He didn’t even want to think about his ‘teammate’ possibly giving him up to the enemy just for shits and giggles.

Apollo arrived at the exit where he had left the zombie and the Demonic Exorcist, and he was shocked by the scenery.

There were craters everywhere, the centipede demon was diced into pieces, and the floor and walls had many wide cuts as if they were made by a titanic razor.

The Demonic Exorcist stared at his undead opponent's leftover parts; an arm, half a face, and parts of his ribcage.

When Apollo got closer, he noticed that even the Demonic Exorcist wasn’t unharmed as he had a large gash across his chest. But the blood around his wound wriggled as if each cell had a mind of its own, and the wound closed up, leaving behind only a barely visible scar.

“The enemies will swarm us if we don’t get-”

“Shut up and pay your respects, or I will kill you,” the Demonic Exorcism interrupted him.

Apollo almost cried. How did he end up in a situation like this? Every person here was so monstrous they could barely be considered human!

“He was a great warrior. Sadly, a zombie’s body doesn't have the instincts of a living human. Due to how rotten he was, it must have been at least centuries since his death. He was nowhere near his strongest!” The Demonic Exorcist clenched his fist, and a tear rolled down his cheek. “Old warrior, I would have given anything to fight you at your peak! Ah, how regretful! If only I had been born in your generation!”

‘What the hell is wrong with him?! Why am I surrounded by crazy bastards like him?!’ Apollo wanted to run away but he didn’t dare move a muscle.

If he had known this was how things ended up, he wouldn’t have accepted that mission from the higher-ups.

With Shuten Doji’s recent activities, many assumed he was building up an army. Apollo’s mission was to unseal the Tamae No Mae and have it attack Shuten Doji.

It was supposed to be a simple mission on paper. The hardest part was supposed to be him acting like a double agent.

Presumably, an avatar of the nine-tailed fox (the same one that massacred the Seimei Clan) was a part of the Red Tails.

An avatar was like a part of the demon, but without its memories and very little of its powers, so many considered it that demon’s child.

But the daughter wasn’t as strong as her mother, so her ability to control the power of an Ultimate Class demon was dubious at best. Yet, Apollo wasn’t naive enough to assume this was the only plan the higher-ups had in mind.

He glanced at the Demonic Exorcist.

Unlike the other members of Red Tails, this guy was a wild card. But from what Apollo had deduced so far, the Demonic Exorcist was after the Tamae No Mae and wanted to unseal it so he could tame her.

Yes, the Demonic Exorcist wanted to be the first human to tame an Ultimate Class Demon.

‘That is a useless endeavor that will end in his death. I’m not going to stop him. I would encourage him to a faster death if I could.’

Apollo got an idea and asked. “Sir, shouldn’t we go now? Since the unsealing will start soon, and we have to be there, or the boss will scold me.”

Actually, the Demonic Exorcist didn’t need to be there. Only Apollo was required because of his special ability to unlock everything.

“You’re right,” the Demonic Exorcist stood. He had red and puffy eyes, and he bit his finger, and a drop of blood landed on the corpse of his centipede demon.

What happened next, Apollo could only describe as a miracle.

The dead demon’s flesh moved as if each part of its body was a puppet being assembled back together. In a few seconds, the demon was back to perfect health.

Apollo stared with his mouth agape. He had read a report on the Demonic Exorcist, but there was no mention of him having an ability like this!

“I will summon a flying demon for us. So we can get there faster,” the Demonic Exorcist yawned and returned to his usual shenanigans.

…

Ten minutes of flying on the back of a crane demon, and they arrived at the foot of the golden pyramid.

A red-haired man was waiting for them. The man stared at Apollo and said. “The World Exorcist, you’ve betrayed your country, and I am here to deliver judgment on you. Your punishment for betrayal is death!”

“Oh? You’re Emer, the Sun Exorcist, right?” The Demonic Exorcist scratched his chin.

Emer didn’t answer, as the surrounding heat rose and the rocks below his feet melted. “The Demonic Exorcist, your crimes are countless. I will take your life too!”