Chapter 44: Nightout
In quick response Death, Eve, Lilith, and Lucy surrounded him defensively.
Space split open once more and Blade stepped out with that same mischievous smile just as the summons closed in even tighter around Night.
Blade:
(≖‿≖)
"Let’s have fun," Blade announced cheerfully.
Night, entirely unamused replied, "What fun? Don’t you know Devils roam at night? Please bring us back. This is not funny. We might lose our lives."
Night:
(￣ー￣)
"Since you know that, then it’s all the more important you follow me. Just so you don’t get lost and disappear in the dark."
Blade:
(ΦωΦ)
Scared, they followed close behind her. Her tail wagged slowly side to side making it clear she was having way too much fun.
Birds of a feather flock together, Night thought. No wonder she is Sara’s friend. One tells scary stories, and the other actually does scary things. I don’t know who is worse.
He seriously wondered whether being friends with them was actually good for his health...
They strolled through various dark, secluded and shady alleys. It was almost like she knew exactly where the worst places in the city were.
In one particular alley, they even heard sounds only meant for adults making Lucy completely embarrassed. Good thing Blade changed directions then.
After some time, they reached a park.
This time, he saw exactly what Blade did to travel. She casually swiped her hand and the very fabric of space was cut open.
She stepped through.
Helpless, they followed her inside.
They were now inside a massive garden. The park looked huge, featuring rows of trees, perfectly trimmed bushes and clean, paved paths. Everywhere they looked, there were structures resembling different types of playground slides.
They kept walking over the grass. The atmosphere here was a little more pleasant, but Night kept feeling increasingly uneasy.
As they ventured deeper, this feeling only intensified. Lucy, Death, Eve, and Lilith were all on high alert; they could easily sense his mounting uneasiness through their bond.
Soon, they reached a wide clearing stripped of any trees or bushes.
The grass on the ground looked completely dried up and gray, as if the life had been violently sucked right out of it.
There, in the middle of the clearing, they saw a mass of dark energy twisting and turning as it floated in the air, defying gravity. It was growing at a fast pace. Standing right beside it, watching it patiently was an unassuming middle-aged man.
He was wearing a black tuxedo and a black top hat, and he leaned on a brown cane. He wore vintage-style round gold-rimmed eyeglasses Holding a cigarette in his left hand, smoke drifted lazily from his lips into the night air.
As soon as they spotted the man, he spotted them too.
He looked momentarily startled when he saw Blade, clearly not expecting to run into something like her here but he reacted swiftly.
He also spotted Night and his gang; though slightly curious, he quickly ignored them upon sensing they weren’t even Level 10.
His aura shifted from being practically non-existent to exploding outward like a suffocating tide.
Before engaging, Blade spoke to Night without even turning her head. "Destroy the Devil before it forms. I’ll take care of the big one."
The man sighed, "What a mess," as he lifted his cane dropped the ciggerate and tapped it lightly against the empty air.
In response, Blade swiped at the air as well. Both of them looked like they were just casually messing around but the ground between them violently exploded. Shards of soil and rock blasted outward; proof of their invisible exchange.
Suddenly, the transparent ghosts of various people emerged from the man’s body and his aura spiked. He dashed forward and Blade responded in kind a white single-edged blade materializing in her hand.
Both of their weapons clashed, blasting away soil and pieces of rock with every impact.
They moved at a speed that was completely invisible to Night but every single clash caused sheer devastation to the ground around them; which wasn’t even their target, revealing exactly where they were fighting.
Night didn’t have the luxury to sit and ponder why he was in a situation like this. He quickly sprang into action.
Eve, Lilith, and Death dispersed and return in the Nightmare Domain as Lucy grew in size and scooped him up.
In a seconds he was standing right before the mass of black energy.
The eyes behind the man’s glasses grew darker as he fought Blade. "Do you think weaklings like that can kill even a newborn Devil?"
Dodging a lethal cane strike while simultaneously slashing back with her blade, Blade replied with a menacing smile, "If he cannot kill it, then I will... right after I kill you."
The man shifted to the side in amusement, ignoring the threat. "Ohhh... I wonder what a monster like you is doing here, deep inside this human city."
Just when he thought he had flawlessly dodged her attack, a small white blade appeared out of thin air right behind him, piercing through his back and leaving a small, gaping hole in his chest.
He quickly retreated to create distance, only to witness the most absurd sight of his life.
He saw the five weaklings standing in a circle around the newborn Devil, emitting a thick black fog-like substance from their hands while the Devil released piercing screams as if it were being actively butchered.
...
Moments earlier:
Night looked at the huge mass of dark energy and asked Lucy, "Do you have any idea how we can kill it?"
Lucy had tried to use her shadows to devour it but failed. The moment her shadow covered the newborn Devil, it simply shattered upon contact.
She shook her head, explaining,
"Devils are born at Level 20. Even if we had all the time in the world, we wouldn’t be able to do any damage with our pitiful levels."
"Devils are inherently strong to begin with and we are not even Level 10."
"If we had some high-level artifact, we could have tried something."
Looking closely at the newborn Devil, he could see the dark mass of energy at the center slowly taking form as time ticked by. It looked like it would be fully born very soon if they just left it alone.
Night suggested, "How about we leave it like this? Someone else who is strong enough will come and handle it."
Lucy immediately rejected the idea. "No. Devils have a special way of tracking their targets. This Devil, even though it is not fully born yet will try to find us after its birth simply because we attempted to kill it."
"Unless we kill it right now, it will actively hunt us in the near future."
Night:
(￣ー￣)
Taking a deep breath, Night made his decision. "Let’s try that."
Lucy:
(._.?)
"Try what?"
He quickly explained his plan which lit up her face with understanding.
Lucy: (⊙_⊙)
Eve, Lilith, and Death immediately stepped out of dark swirling portals to join them.
Soon, they surrounded the unformed Devil and began emitting the black fog from their hands.
They felt the [Pack] skill naturally enhance their synergy as they effortlessly enveloped the dark mass of energy in Night’s unique power.
Once they successfully covered the Devil, Night used his mental connection with the fog and commanded it to shrink.
As soon as the black fog began to compress, the Devil released piercing, agonizing screams. The dark mass of energy which served as its unmanifested body was being devoured alive.
...
Back to the fight:
Ignoring the hole in his chest the man quickly reacted, summoning hundreds of ghosts around him. All of them bore despairing expressions and emanated heavy, negative emotions.
At his command, they all charged furiously at Blade.
With blades now in both hands, Blade just smiled. Her hands moved at a ridiculous, blinding speed, slashing at the air hundreds of times in a fraction of a second.
Before the ghosts could even get close to doing anything to her, they were cleanly split in two.
They couldn’t reform or piece themselves back together, as the razor-sharp cuts seemed to have severed their very souls, killing them for good.
As the ghosts dissolved, the man used the brief distraction to close in on Night. Appearing silently right behind the boy, he lifted his cane and struck downward.
But before he could finish the lethal strike, a white mass that looked like a pointed spear slammed into him from his left. He quickly shifted his staff to block the impact while simultaneously releasing a small ghost to attack Night.
Before the ghost could even touch the boy, space split open, and a small blade shot out, piercing the ghost and instantly destroying it.
The man was blown backward by the force of the block. He still hadn’t managed to figure out exactly what it was that was hit him.
Before he could regain his footing, Blade was upon him once again, forcing him to use his cane frantically to parry her relentless assault.
Realizing the fight was dragging on longer than he wanted, the man’s shape started to change.
His body bulged unnaturally, tearing his elegant tuxedo to shreds. His muscles turned pitch black and his veins turned blood-red, becoming visible due to the stark color contrast. A green, ghost-like aura erupted around him. Without his glasses, his eyes were now clearly visible: he had no eyeballs; instead, his sockets looked like black holes.
Throughout the entire fight, Night and the others never even realized how close Night had just come to death. The speed at which Blade and the man fought was simply too high for their senses to process.
Even [Beast Instinct] never triggered.
By the time an attack came his way, it was already too late for the instinct to warn him and because the attack was neutralized immediately by Blade, the skill didn’t trigger retroactively either, since Night was technically safe the entire time...
