"Oh? Paris? As expected of a Special Exorcist, I couldn't sense you at all. Thankfully, my wife is amazing like that," Leo said while putting an arm around his wife's hips and bringing her closer. Both husband and wife seemed to have a strong and loving relationship.

Paris analyzed everything she could and tried to come up with a solution.

They were in an enclosed space, and she didn’t think she could use her special ability before Leo could kill her.

But deep down, Paris was more wary of the woman. She knew the general power of Leo's special ability, and she was confident that she should survive as long as it didn’t develop into a fight where the result would be decided with raw power.

However, the woman was a mystery. Paris knew little more than the woman's name. She was called Omara, and she was Kon's mother. Also, she used to be in the same exorcist team as Leo when they were younger.

‘It is safe to assume that this grape demon is hers, and she is a Master, just like her son.’ Paris concluded. She still remembered this woman bawling her eyes out when Delia had brought back the unconscious Kon.

Leo eyed her like a predator staring down his prey. "If you take out your book, for whatever reason. I will kill you. I am a weak man. Unlike most, I can't afford to be careless."

Well, that was bullshit.

Leo was less famous and likely weaker than his brother. But that didn’t make him any less dangerous; some people were still terrified of Leo’s epithet: The Bomber in Black.

His brother might be the face of the dark sword clan, but these two siblings working together gave the small and weak Dark Sword Clan such a dangerous reputation. Before their generation, the Dark Sword Clan was just a tiny exorcist family full of nobodies.

"Why did you kill the King's Brother?" Paris asked, trying to delay the battle.

"She's trying to buy time," Omara said. Her decapitated heads in the gray demon opened their eyes. "Don't worry. My ability isn't the kind that kills other humans. That's why I usually have my husband to protect me on missions."

If Omara didn't have decapitated heads on her hands, that motherly smile would have won her over.

"I didn't think someone who kills people for pleasure would have such a good heart." Paris’s voice was laced with sarcasm. ‘This bitch is as crazy as the rest of that clan.’

Leo frowned, clearly disliking that his wife had been insulted. Omara on the other hand had a smile on her face and looked unbothered. "Yes, I can see that you think everyone's life is valuable. But you're wrong. Some people's lives are cheaper than others."

Paris didn’t say and let her talk and slowly devised a plan. Since the couple and their demon had blocked all the exits, she simply had to create a new one.

Also, Omara was an excellent sensor, and escaping her would be hard. Paris was confident in her ability to suppress her Ord and erase her presence, but Omara had found her even despite that. So what she was sensing likely wasn’t Ord.

‘She’s probably using one of the five normal senses to find me. But with Leo here, I don’t have the luxury to figure out her ability.’

Paris decided not to wait any longer and swiftly punched the ground below her feet, cracking the ground as she descended to the floor below.

Leo’s eyes widened. Ord enveloped his body, and he gave chase.

Before the dust could even settle down, he was down there, and the murderous look in his eyes was palpable. It sent chills down her spine.

But she broke a wall and started running away before he could attack. She opened another door and was in the hallway; the grape-like demon was there waiting for her on the other side.

Paris froze in shock for a split second.

One of the decapitated heads in the demon was her own! Though it was only half-made, everything below her nose was just wriggling grotesque flesh!

‘Shit! I wasn’t the only one buying time!’

Paris’ mind went through hundreds of possibilities in a second. But the ones that stood out were two of the most dangerous ones, which would explain why Leo hadn’t attacked immediately.

One of those possibilities was that the demon was stealing her memories.

Paris tried thinking of the past, but there didn’t seem to be any serious gap in her memories. So it had to be the other one!

Suddenly one of the demon’s decapitated heads leaned forward, and as the head plopped to the ground, a body spurted out from the nape of its neck. A naked and emotionless human stared at her creepily.

This was the second option she had thought of! Omara had a human control ability that created clones of the original!

Paris backed off as more of the human heads fell on the ground. Naked men and women stared at her and started giving chase.

But that wasn’t the only worry as Leo burst through the wall. He was in full dark armor that looked remarkably high-tech. It was a Special Ability that lived up to his nickname as the Bomber in Black.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

‘Should I kill these clones?’ That second of contemplation cost Paris as Leo quickly moved next to her, his dark armor glistening.

But Paris stood her ground and didn't move. Instead, she waited for the clones, and as soon as one got close, she flung it toward Leo.

He didn’t hesitate and punched the clone, causing an explosion when the punch made contact, and it splattered the clone’s body into chunks of meat.

'As I expected. Leo isn't trying to kill me. He's just buying time until he can create a clone of me. For an ability like that, there had to be a lot of conditions to fulfill.' Paris thought, and she deduced that the couple likely wanted to use her as a scapegoat for the murder.

The naked clones crawled like bugs, their bones creaked, and they looked like humans possessed by demons from the horror movies.

Paris wondered if they went through rehabilitation, would these people be able to return to normal?

It was thoughts like these that stopped her from acting. She glanced at the grape demon and saw that her face was almost formed on the demon. Meaning they could create a clone of her.

Tightening the grip on her cheap knives and crouching down, she dug the blades into the floor. Her knives were imbued with Ord and effortlessly cut through stone and other regular steel.

Then she created a circle around herself and fell one more floor.

As soon as she landed, she noticed a window and jumped out. But the ground was quite far, and she would likely break her legs if she fell like this. Paris stabbed the knives at the hotel’s wall and slowed her descent to a manageable level.

The civilians stopped and looked at her weirdly. Some pointed at her, and a few even took out cameras and started taking pictures.

“Woah! That’s cool! Are they shooting a movie?” A kid pointed at her.

“Actors nowadays do crazy stunts,” an older man shrugged. “But back in my day, we had to walk through rain, mud, and mountains to get a camera from the neighboring town. I even had to fight eight demons on the way back.”

‘Shit, this is going to be bad!’ Paris winced. She pondered her choices. If her face was in the pictures, many would assume she was the culprit, and she would get hunted down like a dog.

So she went back into the hotel and yelled at the receptionists. “Get the hell away from here! Or I will kill you all!”

She pointed a knife at them, and the female receptionist scattered in fear. The guard was carrying a flintlock pistol, but before he could fully draw the weapon, Paris threw a knife and sliced the handle straight off.

The overweight guard stared at her wide-eyed. “A -An Exorcist! P -Please don’t kill me. I have a wife and daughter!”

“Get out of here before I kill you!” Paris yelled out, trying to scare them to submission.

While she cared for human casualties, she doubted her opponents would.

Then she went to the receptionist’s desk and touched the button with ‘ANNOUNCEMENTS’ written on it. The receptionists used this to broadcast in case of an emergency. No matter where they were, they wouldn’t be able to escape!

She contemplated who to target first and went for the weaker one. Getting rid of the tracker would give her a chance to escape.

Paris leaned while holding down the announcement button and spoke into the microphone. “Omara, you’re accused of murder on two accounts. You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say will be used against you in a court of law…”

Paris continued reading. Usually, she read people’s rights before them and let others assume she needed to be there to read their rights. But no, that wasn’t the case at all!

Whether it was an announcement or a recording, Paris could even use the town's intercom communication center for emergencies, announce to the entire city, and kill her target.

No one could escape the grasp of justice!

The hotel shook in the middle of her speech, and the next thing she felt was a large blast.

BOOOM!... Cracks spread through the walls, and the building exploded.

***

This time, the cruise ship experience was safer, and no one killed one another.

My standards for what I considered safe nowadays were extremely low.

Bets and I played chess on a table near the pool. Nothing was better than getting a tan while cheating in a chess game against your friend.

He was close to checkmating me with his pawn and Queen, but I still had a Rook. So as long as I kept checking his King, he wouldn’t be able to finish his plan.

“Is it me, or have you grown worse at chess?” I asked Bets, trying to unnerve him a bit.

Unless I was playing mind games or distracting him, I stood no chance against this guy.

If we were in my last world, Bets could have become a chess master.

“When you trash talk, it’s always a telltale sign that you’re close to losing,” Bets smirked, leaning forward and causing the sun to reflect on his bald head and hit my eyes,

“Damn! Put on a wig or something!” I complained.

Bets leaned his head and tried to shine the sunlight in my eyes as I moved away. “I’ve dealt with your trash-talking all day. You should have predicted that during mid-day, I would be at my peak strength! Mahaha!”

“Cannonball!” Gem and Agon jumped on the pool and caused water to splash on our chess board and flip over our chess pieces.

I froze for a few seconds and then turned toward Agon and Gem.

Gem gave me a thumbs up. “What’re you looking at? This is a pool. Go and play chess somewhere else if you don’t wanna get wet, nerds!”

It was during these moments that I remembered just how dumb Gem acted. “You know I have a water-controlling demon, and you still pull shit like this?

His eyes dawned in realization, and he grimaced. “Sorry! The past me who did that no longer exists! I was being foolish back then!”

“May God forgive you for your sins because I won’t!” I clapped my hands in prayer and then pointed at the two bastards. “Carpy! Drown that bitch!”

“Hey, man! I wasn’t even part of this!” Said the collateral damage… I mean Agon.

But before I could carry out my attack. I caught sight of a golden pyramid in the distance. It was the size of a mountain, and a coastal city was next to the pyramid. This was the place where the finals would be held.

“Aren’t you going to let them go?” Bets pointed at the two bastards in the pool.

Bets and Agon had water balls around their heads, and even though they tried to push the liquid away, their hands would sink into the water.

I would have drowned them a bit more. But Agon might go into rage mode.