“BANG!”
A gunshot, then a dull thud and squelch of something large hitting the ground echoed through the alley.
“… huh?”
Having closed her eyes out of fear, Anten slowly opened them again. Apart from a slight ringing in her ears from the close gunshot, she did not feel any pain or anything else that would have resulted from a bullet in her body.
“Hey! What are you doing—”
“BANG! BANG!”
“Clang! Clang!”
She could hear the loud shout from one of the Enforcers who was right behind her, followed by two more shots, but they were met with loud clangs as though they had hit hard metal and ricocheted off.
“Fuck!”
And lastly, she could hear a familiar voice swearing without control coming from another one, and as she quickly connected the voice to a person she knew, she had a number of questions that came to her mind.
“…”
Turning around to confirm her suspicions, she saw an unexpected scene unfolding in front of her, starting with the body of Father Cassius, who was lying on the ground motionless with a shotgun wound in his chest.
“Come on, assholes! Fucking shoot me already! I’m not scared!”
In front of her, the three Enforcers who she believed had been ready to shoot her in the back had seemingly turned against each other. More precisely, one of them had turned against the other two, and as she listened to the angry and familiar voice coming out of the armored helmet, her questions were immediately answered.
“… Blake?”
“Damn it, so that’s why you were acting so weird! I knew it!” the Enforcer roared as he pointed his shotgun at his sudden attacker, who was likewise pointing his guns straight back at him and his comrade and unwilling to lower them.
“Go on, pull the fucking trigger!” the person who she believed was Blake behind the Enforcer armor shouted back with a distinct gleeful and excited tone in his voice that she could hear, “but I won’t go down so easily!”
“… ugahhhhhh!”
She could see the Enforcers visibly hesitate for a moment before they both let out a charged-up scream and pulled their triggers at the same time.
Damn it—
Before Anten could respond to try and help her friend out, someone else had already come in to do it for her. With a single flash of fire and metal, the two Enforcers were sent tumbling to the ground, their armor plates chipped and charred.
“Gah! Agh!”
As they lay groaning on their sides, the sudden man who had arrived moved forward in response until he was right on top of the both of them. Raising his fire sword up, he plunged it down into their necks in quick succession, where there was a noticeable gap between their helmets and chest pieces.
After a while, they soon stopped groaning and moving as well, and the man stepped away heaving an exhale before turning to face Anten, who had a disappointed frown on her face as she looked back at him.
“Dauma, what are you doing here?”
Although it was still a wild guess without concrete evidence, she had not forgotten what they had done the previous night. While a part of her was glad that they had managed to escape the grasp of the Enforcers, and she deeply wanted to express that feeling out loud, another part was absolutely infuriated with the both of them.
“I can’t believe this,” she immediately began to scold the devil standing in front of her, “I gave you two one simple job, and you somehow managed to screw it up! How—”
“Hang on a second,” Blake abruptly stopped her reprimanding as he moved away from the dead Enforcers, his head turned away from the both of them, “we have another problem.”
“Ah?!”
Turning towards where he was looking as well, her anger disappeared and was quickly replaced by perplexity as she saw what he was seeing.
“Ughhhhh…”
Even though he had been motionless as far as she could tell, Cassius had begun to move once again. Completely speechless, she watched in shock as he stirred, groaned like he had just woken up from a nap, and stood up on his own two feet despite still having a gaping hole in his chest.
From the bloodstains on his robes, it was clear that he had not worn any kind of bulletproof armor or any external layer to protect himself from the shotgun, and yet here he was, standing freely as though it had not affected him in the slightest.
“Tsk, another of these fuckers. Devil, try your thing. Let’s see how it will fare.”
“Mm.”
Dauma nodded in acknowledgement to Blake’s vague request before picking up one of the Enforcers’ dropped shotguns and emptied them before taking two rounds out and gripping them in his hand.
“…”
After a short moment, he put the rounds back into the shotgun before raising it in the direction of Cassius, who by now had already begun to shout in fear as he looked at him.
“D-devil! You’re a de—”
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“BANG!”
Before the sentence could be complete, the elite Church member’s head had exploded into tiny chunks from the shotgun fired by Dauma, a loud bang indicating the sheer destructive power of the weapon.
“Whoo… let’s see you recover from that, you bastard.”
“W-what? Huh?”
Unsurprisingly, Anten was left thoroughly confused by what had just happened, as she watched Cassius’ headless body crumple to the ground once again, supposedly this time for good.
Turning back to Dauma with surprise, she could see that the shotgun he was carrying in his hands had begun to warp, appearing as though it was melting from the inside out.
“Dauma… for god’s sake, what did you do?”
“I can answer that,” Blake stepped in and unabashedly answered for him, “it’s a little skill we’ve been trying using devil powers. Essentially, it’s fire bullets, bullets infused with devilish fire, devastating in its effect. You see—"
“I… I… you know what, never mind,” she raised her hand up to stop the explanation while pinching her forehead tiredly with the other, “I have a lot of questions, but we don’t have the time right now.”
“Do you want us to at least explain how we got here in the first place?”
“No!” she shouted frustratedly in response, “we need to focus on the big problem first!”
“… okay then. What the hell is going on, Anten?”
“… I’ll talk on the way,” she bluntly answered Dauma’s question as she turned away from them and began to hurriedly run in the opposite direction, “for now, we need to leave this alley.”
“…”
As they watched her move in a panic, Dauma and Blake both silently looked at each other and shrugged before they swiftly followed her, zooming through the twisty alleys and back towards the main part of the Church compound.
**********************
“What is happening?”
“Sister Anten?”
“Is that a…”
“My god, what is that thing?!”
As the three stepped back out into the light, free from the dim shadows of the alleys, they could see that a small crowd of people had already begun to form in front of them, understandably drawn in by the loud gunshots they had heard a few minutes ago.
The people, all of them Church followers, had broken out into a rowdy commotion as soon as they saw them, loudly expressing numerous thoughts that most prominently involved the obvious and plainly terrifying devil creature with Anten and an Enforcer.
“… oh man,” Anten remarked with slight regret as she stared at the gossiping crowd, feeling troubled by their presence.
“I don’t think you need to be concerned about them,” Dauma replied in an attempt to reassure her, “now, where is the place housing the Particle?”
“Nnnh… it’s right over—”
However, before she could even relax for a slight moment and point in the direction of the underground chamber, she noticed something emerging from the gathered crowd.
She had just barely missed it, but it had appeared out of the corner of her eye, conspicuous enough to be seen. It was not just some random thing either, but a person, or to be completely exact, something in the shape of a person.
What…
“… hello.”
Within a single blink of her eye, he had already appeared right in front of her, brandishing a long staff that he mercilessly shoved in the direction of her body.
“Simon?”
The name had not even registered in her head before the tip of the staff shone with a bright light and promptly fired off in his hand without a second wasted.
With its sudden activation, a concentrated white beam of light, something that she had not seen before, quickly discharged from the staff and struck her fully in the chest.
“Ggh!”
The beam, which felt as though she was being pushed by a weight equivalent to a giant’s foot, quickly lifted her off her feet and sent her flying off in the air before she had time to resist.
“Anten!”
“Angel!”
Dauma and Blake both immediately responded to the attack as they swiftly turned in the direction where she was flying and watched her quickly disappear from their sights, down into the buildings in the far distance.
“… you!!!”
Their shock soon turned into anger, and Blake yelled as he turned and aimed his shotgun towards the young-looking man who had unexpectedly showed up in front of them, pulling the trigger at once without any concern for possible consequences or said man’s unusual appearance.
“BANG!”
“…”
However, the man did not move even as the shotgun rounds hit him. Instead, they were easily deflected off of him with a quick movement of his staff, leaving him without a scratch. In fact, he did not react to them either as he seemingly brushed the attack off like it was nothing.
“… agh!”
Dauma had also reacted, as he created his sword, and swiftly swung it towards him, aiming to at least injure or incapacitate, and subsequently give them some time to analyze the situation.
“…”
This time, the mysterious man did react to the sword, immediately creating a similar one that had the same pure-white color as Anten’s light arrows in his free hand and parrying the flaming orange blade right away without any noticeable effort.
“Gh… gh…”
What the hell is with this guy? He’s too… powerful!
Feeling an extremely strong resistance pushing back against him by the unexpected weapon, which was almost the same feeling he had when he fought Blake in his feral mode, Dauma grunted as he found his devilish strength somehow getting beaten by a freakishly surprising power.
“…”
To make things even more confusing, as he blocked the strike, the man was simply staring silently at him the entire time with a look in his eyes that he could not easily tell.
Was it pride? Was it recognition? Or was it boredom? He did not know.
OUTPUT: 50%
“FUCKER!”
Blake swore out loud as he charged at him with his fists ready to attack again, but before he could reach him, the man suddenly and unexpectedly reacted, though it was not to him.
“Gah!”
In a strong motion, he pushed Dauma’s sword away with his own, forcing him to step backwards, before he quickly followed up with a swift turnaround, twisting his body in one particular direction.
Before Dauma or Blake could stop him again, he flapped his wings and took off, appearing to be heading towards the area where he and everyone else had seen Anten fly off to.
“… shit!” Blake cursed as he abruptly skidded to a halt in the middle of his charge and immediately turned towards the same direction, displacing some dirt from the ground, “come on, devil! We need to chase after him now! Who knows if the angel can fight back!”
“Right!”
Dauma promptly agreed, but right as he prepared to move, he was interrupted by an sudden voice in his head.
Bzzt.
Hey, Dauma! Can you hear me?
“Anten?”
“What?”
As soon as he heard the devil say her name, Blake stopped as well and looked at him with some impatience, eager to continue moving and fighting.
Listen to me, Dauma. Is Blake still with you?
“Yes, he is. Where are you though?”
I think I’m in a toilet.
“… ok, never mind. I think our sudden attacker is coming for you. You have to move now.”
You couldn’t stop him?
“No.”
Alright, then follow what I say. Whatever you do, don’t go after him, or try to find me.
“What?”
I need you and Blake to find someone else for me, someone who I believe can help to fix our current problem.
“Really? How?”
… I can’t explain right now. Her name is Sister Renare. She has purple hair and eyes. I don’t know where she is right now, but she might be near the arena below the Great Hall.
“And where the hell is that?”
It’s the largest rectangular building in the area with three big spires on the roof. If you can’t find it… I guess you can ask Blake to ask the others, I’m sure they’ll have the answer.
“Seriously?”
Oh, and find Miss Yuu too, she might be near there as well. Let me take care of Simon. Gotta go, bye.
Bzzt.
“So? What does the angel want?”
“I don’t know,” Dauma turned back to face Blake as soon as the connection was cut and responded, “but whatever it is, we should probably do it. After all, she sounded sort of confident, and I’ll take whatever she says at this point since we still know next to nothing.”
“Ugh man, I swear…” Blake rolled his eyes in frustration, “you and the angel, I don’t think I’ll ever understand you fucking weirdos. Why did I even decide to follow you guys?”
“Quit complaining. We better find this ‘Sister Renare’ girl and Yuu fast, before the situation gets much worse.”
“Fine,” Blake groaned in response before cracking his neck and stretching his arms, preparing to run again, “but if she’s lying just to save that fucker’s skin for some ungodly reason, I won’t be following you or her.”