I wasn’t sure what my self-proclaimed rival was up to.
Was he mad? Yeah… that wasn’t even a question.
Exorcists surrounded him, and even Ellen was here. His demons around the city were all dead, and knowing him, probably the Red Tails members too.
"I’m glad to see that I can get my revenge so soon," Ellen's gaze turned cold.
A demon burst out of the ground; its body was twisted like a rope but was made of two intertwined humans. The demon wrapped itself tightly around the Demonic Exorcist.
He tugged at the demon and tried to pull it off. “Huh, so this is the rumored strongest tamed demon? This thing isn’t even budging no matter how hard I pull, it lives up to its reputation.”
The Demonic Exorcist bit his lip, blood flowing into a small needle with a thin line of blood connected to his lip.
Pew!... The arrow was fast and tried to puncture The Lovers Demon but stopped halfway and dissipated into thin air.
Ellen smiled when she saw that. “Last time we saw eye-to-eye, that traitor stabbed me in the back-”
“Yeah, his special ability allowed him to lock his intentions in a way your demon couldn’t sense,” the Demonic Exorcist spoke over her.
Veins popped on Ellen’s forehead, and she looked ready to rip him apart. But the Demonic Exorcist didn’t seem bothered and continued speaking. “Your demon’s ability works something along the lines of; as long as you hate someone, you won’t be able to attack them. They might be laxer on you as the demon’s Master, but they still apply. Abilities like this who don’t take power into account always have some kind of drawback-”
“Can you stop babbling on for so long? You’re boring me to death,” Ellen scratched her ear in a very unlady-like manner.
Their conversation was like a political debate, and they always interrupted each other. I could barely keep up with what one said as the other intervened in the middle of the sentence.
Ellen even shooed away the other exorcists and ordered them to escort the civilians out, as none of their attacks would be effective in the fight because of The Lovers Demon.
As long as someone had any kind of emotion, I wouldn’t be able to attack. But for me that wasn’t much of a problem, emotion control was my specialty.
{Perfect Me}
‘Order, slash once at the Demonic Exorcist’s neck.’
I slashed at his neck in one fast draw. But only the sound of my sword stopping rang out as a blood net wrapped itself around my sword.
“As expected of my rival, he can easily handle something like this. Though, it seems like while I can’t attack, defending myself doesn't seem out of the rules. Let’s see if self-defense is a thing in these strange laws.”
The blood net around my sword morphed and turned into a javelin heading straight for my eye, but it stopped an inch away, and the blood dissipated into nothingness.
“Now that’s unfair. I can’t even act in self-defense?” The Demonic Exorcist complained. But he had a smile on his face that showed he enjoyed this. “Oh, what shall I do? Have the heroes finally got the power of love on their side? Also, this ability is such bullshit.”
I understood where he was coming from, as Ellen’s ability broke the power levels. It didn’t matter how strong someone was; as long as they fell under her demon’s ability, they had to apply its rules.
I might have complained if someone had used such a thing on me. But this thing just made the fight completely to my advantage!
Since Tamamo… or whatever her name was… wasn’t released, things had played a hell of a lot differently than they had in the original timeline. Somehow the Demonic Exorcist had come out alive, so it was safe to assume he had gotten something out of this ordeal.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“What a shame,” the Demonic Exorcist sighed. “I didn’t want to reveal my cards so soon.”
When he said that, I knew the chances of the Demonic Exorcist making a joke were slim to none.
I grabbed Ellen and jumped backward. Lava burst out like the eruption of a volcano from where she had previously stood. The molten rock flowed toward the Demonic Exorcist, and he grunted at the intense heat.
Even in this situation, Ellen couldn’t stop herself from throwing snide comments. “Fool, do you think silly powers like that can harm my demon?”
The Lovers demon was at the cusp of becoming an Ultimate Class Demon, and most demons at that stage had names that usually showed their power.
Anything other than true love couldn’t touch this demon.
Anything other than true love.
Most attacks needed someone to be touched; unless someone could control the wind or blood inside other creatures’ bodies.
As a byproduct of its abilities, when the Lovers Demons wrapped themselves around someone, the victim could only be released if they knew and had experienced true love. The only other way to escape was for Ellen to order the Lovers Demon to release its victim.
“This ability, don’t tell me,” Ellen narrowed her eyes as she wrapped an arm around my neck and stood beside me.
A man walked out of the magma. It was Emer, the Sun Exorcist. He looked just like before, except he was now wearing a new pair of clothes, and his eyes were empty, as if he was under some deep hypnosis.
“Neat, isn’t it?” The Demonic Exorcist tried to get a reaction out of us. “My tamed demons still hold on to their hatred and emotions as that’s what gives them power. But humans do not need any of that, so I keep them emotionless and dazed.”
He explained how his power worked. It was as if the word mystery didn’t exist in his dictionary.
Did he have some kind of rule in his ability that would strengthen it if he explained it to his enemy? Because that would be smart and actually logical. But this was the Demonic Exorcist, a crazy bastard who rarely followed logic.
Though, this bastard was also a genius. While Ellen had the record for taming the strongest demon a human ever had, the Demonic Exorcist had tamed the most demons anyone ever had. Also, he outpaced the second place by a wide margin; the second place after the Demonic Exorcist only tamed ten demons.
“At this rate, the bastard will find a way to free himself,” said Ellen as she flexed her Ord, and the Lovers demon released the Demonic Exorcist and returned to her.
It wrapped itself around Ellen, and slowly she grew a pair of horns, and her skin turned pink as the demon fused with its master. Her pupils became heart-shaped and pink.
“{Metamorphosis: Bad Romance!}”
I closed my eyes as soon as she said that. Yet there was a strange temptation within my heart that I wanted to do some perverted things to Ellen. But despite those feelings, I knew that was just a fake sense of lust that wasn’t mine!
A part of me was tempted to open my eyes, but I kept them shut.
“What a dangerous ability. I felt my heart skip a beat,” said the Demonic Exorcist.
“It seems like the rumors were true,” Ellen mocked her opponent. “Despite all the power and taming so many demons, you can’t achieve fusion with your demons. And they call you the strongest Master? That’s ridiculous! You’re not even in the top twenty!”
The Demonic Exorcist was silent, and the quietness made me nervous.
“You see your demons as nothing more than pawns, and you know you can never achieve the peak of a Master,” Ellen added. “That must bite you at the deepest parts of your insecure soul.”
“Hey, hey, you’re hurting my feelings. Remember, this is a battle and not a friendly conversation,” the Demonic Exorcist’s Ord went deathly quiet.
I heard the wind of something rushing past me and opened my eyes. The Demonic Exorcist was in front of Ellen, and instead of punching her, he punched at the ground and pulled out an enormous pig’s head. “Fly away for a bit. I will deal with you later.”
The pig demon opened its mouth, and hundreds of demons poured out; dozens of them died before they could even approach Ellen, as her aura killed anything with such deep resentment as a demon.
But such a defense wasn’t impervious as a couple of humans were mixed amongst the demons, and one of them kicked Ellen away.
“Now that all distractions are gone, how about we continue our battle?” said the Demonic Exorcist as Emer walked beside him.
Panic and nervousness filled my heart, and my hands shook. But as soon as it came, such a feeling disappeared. “If I’m going to die anyway, then I will do so in a cool fashion.”
Those words were meant more for me to lift my own spirits. But the Demonic Exorcist nodded. “As expected of the guy who impressed me even a week after becoming an Exorcist. I wonder how much you have grown?”
As I came to terms with my death, I felt my mind calm, and I couldn’t help but smile.
I was going to see many new special abilities in this fight, which was exciting. “I will have to disappoint you because I haven’t grown that much. Also, I’m not that much of a competitive person.”