"What the fuck do you think you're doing?! Urgh! You little shit, this won't work." Kalahad exclaimed, grunting in pain.
All of the demon's limbs were completely immobilized by the half-wolf, who appeared to have three times as many arms to hold him as efficiently as he was.
In reality, Luke was using a basic immobilization technique he learned from Yoelona during his childhood. He used this same technique to defeat Shiro when the young knight challenged him to a match of Luck or Fight on the half-wolf's first day at the Strogueher mansion. Luke had confidence in this immobilization, not only because of its positive track record, but also because it was the only way to make Kalahad give in.
All the ways the demon tried to escape were completely useless, as if Luke already knew about each of these attempts and knew exactly how to stop them.
Kalahad's bone armor began to crack at his shoulders, where Luke was applying pressure with his arms, and at his waist, where the half-wolf's legs were gathering a lot of strength.
The demon did not give up and at one point tried to get up. Luke didn't allow him to do that, throwing as much weight as he could back onto the floor.
Usually, immobilization fights end in the opponent's giving up, but this time there was no such option. One of the two would die that day for sure.
Soon, Kalahad could no longer contain his cry of pain. "Arrrggggh! You bastard!"
Containing that demon wasn't easy for the half-wolf either, who was using as much strength as he had. Thus, blood began to flow from Luke's nostrils, his veins became visible and marked on the skin, his muscles began to tremble. Most of all, Luke was just a half-beast, and Kalahad was a higher-level demon.
[Luke, I managed to find this demon's name!] The voice in the half-wolf's ear gave him a little hope. [The Blood Knight, Sakonoth!]
'You could have told me that a little more in advance, don't you think!?' A vein popped out of Luke's forehead, and Scale couldn't tell if it was because he was angry or because of the force he was pushing. 'Anyway thank you!'
"Arrrrghh!" The demon continued to growl.
Soon, the armor finished cracking at the points that were being pressed, however inside the armor there was not a human as Luke thought, but an endless void. This void adopted the matter of a dark mist, which began to leak out through the cracks.
Luke was startled, but he didn't dare release Kalahad's hold, even as the mist filled the entire room around him.
The lack of stamina and strength coming from Kalahad gradually became more pronounced as the mist spread, which made the half-wolf think, 'Is this his real body?'
The moment Luke asked himself that, he remembered the first demon he'd ever fought, and he remembered a very important characteristic of demons, or rather, a power.
"Luke, get out of there now!" Hazor's voice reached the half-wolf's ears. "Kalahad will use his domain!"
Within a domain, demons are virtually invincible. They can control the environment, the monsters that spawn, and even the laws of the real world get confused. Being within a demon's domain was practically a trip to another universe, a universe in which they had complete control and power.
Luke listened to Hazor's warning, but by the time he lifted Kalahad's empty body, tossed it aside, and stood up, he was no longer in the common room.
Suddenly, a little boy ran in front of Luke, laughing. "Haha ha! You can't catch me!"
"Hey, wait! I'm getting tired, let's stop for a while!" A girl passed right behind him. Both appeared to be the same age.
The half-wolf looked around him and noticed that he was on top of a small ridge, on which there was just him, a wooden bench and a large tree.
"What the hell does this thing think it's doing?" Luke wondered aloud.
In that place, there was a cool breeze that tossed his hair a little to the side, as well as making the leaves on the trees rustle. It was the middle of an afternoon, and the sun on top of the sun was warming the short grass on that ridge. It all seemed so real and so fantastical at the same time, because there probably wasn't a peaceful place like this in the whole world anymore, a place where children could run and play freely.
"Showing me all this will only motivate me more, you know that, don't you?" said Luke. He knew that Kalahad, or rather Sakonoth, could hear him and could see him.
Suddenly, a shadow appeared behind where Luke was standing. Sitting on the bench under the tree, this shadow did not have a face, it was semi-transparent, but mimicked the silhouette of a human. This thing didn't have a face, but it still had holes for eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
"This is a beautiful place, isn't it? Believe it or not, this was once the setting for a small village called Jorme." said the thing, calmly. The voice was the same as Sakonoth's.
Luke didn't say anything, instead he sat beside the silhouette on the wooden bench and looked out to the horizon. In fact, there was a village on the slope of the ridge, and this little village had less than ten houses, a humble-looking place, blessed by a small stream that provided water for the people and small plantations.
"However, there was a secret slumbering beneath the foundations of Vila Jorme, something that not even the landowner, the Emperor of Melki, knew at that time. When this secret finally broke out of the land, none of the nearly one hundred people who lived there managed to survive. That day, the seal that had held me since the time of the Calamity weakened and I was finally able to break free."
As Sakonoth told the story, the panoramic view of the village grew worse and worse. The soil rotted, the leaves on the trees in the woods below went dry, the tree trunks went empty, and the little stream dried up.
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