Chapter 308 - 308 Dark Souls
"What did you just say?" Noah, who was checking on the battle across the fire turned in anger, his eyes burning in rage, as he subconsciously activated a skill he had planned on hiding tonight.
"HIIIIE!" Earning a deafening shriek from the man on the ground, who was now staring at the devil himself.
"Oh, s.h.i.t did I activate the [Devil Form]?" he asked Lilith, instinctively.
"I, you fell so good, wait, yeah. I"m pretty positive you did." Lilith inadvertently let a part of her inner thoughts out, as she ought to answer his question, but she managed to recover her usual seriousness by the end of the sentence.
"f.u.c.k," he said out loud, staring at the man now trembling powerlessly on the floor. "Good thing these walls of fire won"t let anyone see me like this," he muttered, soft enough that the Hyu Family leader thought it was some kind of devilish incantation, rather than just his mumbling.
"You, what are you?! You"re a monster!" the Hyu Family leader exclaimed, trembling, sat by his sword, now embedded into the ground with no hopes of being removed. His arms felt like wet noodles, and his legs felt as heavy as pure lead. He wanted to run, but couldn"t find any strength within himself to even stand up, let alone move away from this imminent and, at least from appearance, unavoidable threat.
"Me? A monster? Maybe," Noah cackled, as he pondered about his own appearance, now as the distorted demon Lucifer himself thought to be a good image for the punisher of all h.e.l.l. He lowered himself to one knee, holding the Hyu Family leader"s face by his chin while looking him in the eyes, before whispering "But I am a monster you guys created. Just like you did to that poor soul that was tortured to improve her blesing." He spat on the man"s face, who was trembling in fear, even more so than before.
J. Hyu was the next head of the Hyu Family.
Noah stood up, circling him, while speaking.
"You take families that are about to fall apart, give them hope, just to pull the rug from under their feet. You and your family are the worst kind of sc.u.m," he said, full of scorn, as he walked around the terrified man, before a small dagger of fire manifested in his hands. "I"ll make you pay personally for what you did to her," he lowered himself behind the man, whispering into his ear, before lowering his hand.
"GHAAAAAH!" A loud and desperate scream ensued, as the man"s hands rushed to hold the wound on his ear.
Noah had clealy sliced off a third of his right ear-lobe, just out of spite. The heat from the flames was slowly creeping in, and he knew for a fact by this point that this guy was useless without a blade, or so he thought.
"You! I"ll f.u.c.king kill you!" The sudden change in the Hyu Family leader"s tone was so abrupt Noah was shocked, but not enough he would miss the cue to take a step back.
"So it was all just a plot to get my guard down," Noah said, sighing, relinquishing over the fact he had held a minimal amount of empathy for this being. Not that it was enough to stop him from killing him anyways.
"Of course it was! My blessing isn"t that weak to need a large sword! All I need is an edge, even my nails would work," the Hyu Family leader spat on the floor, as he locked eyes with Noah, before lowering his stance into that of a swordsman.
"Does he really think he can use a knife in the same stances he would a sword? What the h.e.l.l is wrong with this guy?!" Noah thought to himself, though this also made him more wary of the person across from him. There had to be something hidden to this skill he was so boastful of, enough to blow his cover with full confidence.
"Behold!" Noah held himself back from rolling his eyes as he heard the tasteless choice of words, as the pitiful man rose the small dagger he"d pulled from somewhere within his clothes and jumped forward.
"Fast," Noah thought as he saw the man almost turn into a blur as he flew towards him, a golden trail of light left by the dagger in his raised hand above his head. "But that"s all there is to it." Noah teleported to the place the man had jumped from, vanishing in a flock of flames, and watching as the warrior swung his tiny blade downwards like a kid with a fruit knife trying to slice a flying insect.
"Stop running!" Noah couldn"t avoid rolling his eyes this time, as the man yelled before looking both sides, searching for him.
"You know I"m right here, right?" Noah teased, making the man turn harshly towards his back and repeat the same move once more. Noah, of course, simply teleported to a far corner of the fire dome.
"Got you!" the leader from the Hyu Family Exclaimed as he saw the leftover flames from Noah"s tunnel, quickly jumping backwards and turning mid-air, still making use of the skill, and trailing back the golden glow he"d left on his way, only to find that Noah was not where he thought he would.
"Did you seriously, for even a single second, think anyone would be so stupid to teleport using exactly the same move twice in a row?" Noah honeslty asked, with a pokerface, as he saw the skill on the dagger disappear.
"Shut up! You won"t keep that smile of yours for too long!" he barked back, making the though of "What smile?" pop up in Noah"s mind.
"Hey, Noah, don"t you think it"s about time you stop joking around and do something about him? That idiot with a shield is able to get in here. You know that, right?" Suddenly, his attention was caught back by Lilith"s words.
"Huh? What you you mean? Is he insane or something?" Taken aback, Noah asked out loud, tunnelling his way once again to minimize the effort needed to avoid the slash.
"I said, stop running!" Noah completely ignored the yelling, as he felt the air around him become slightly warmer... Which to anyone else would feel almost unbeareably hot.
"He could use that shockwave shield thing to make a hole in the fire. Even if you control it, it"s still fire," Lilith"s warning felt more like a foretelling, rather than just a point, which made Noah wary, but also less attentive.
"I see... I"ll try to—s.h.i.t!" A sudden warning from pyakugan made him jump haphazardly, rolling across the groundto dodge a sudden slash from the side, aimed at his throat. Before he could even stand, another slash from above forced him to follow with another roll.
"What is this? You can"t even stand up properly?" an annoying voice teased him, followed by a derranged laughter.
"s.h.i.t, I can"t fend him off, and there"s not enough time to use tunnelling without risking being read," Noah thought as he used his hand to push on the ground, halting his momentum and rolling backwards. The tension kicking in, Noah"s nerves felt like they were burning, as he rolled around, changing direction to avoid the man"s overpowered small dagger.
"What the heck is up with this fight? Are you plannning on rolling around until you find a chance to fight back?" Lilith asked, almost chuckling, as she tried to make sense of this never before seen "strategy".
"Don"t mess around! Can"t you see it"s getting complicated? Try stopping him for a second so I can fight back," Noah ordered her, strating to feel a little dizzy from all the rolling.
"Nyahahha, you dodge like an insect, rolling on the ground, serves you right!" Noah bit his lip in frustration, having fallen into the enemy"s rythm. Because of the worse positioning, the enemy"s higher agility was cornering him, even though he was yet to land a hit on him.
"Now!" As the blade approached him for an attack Noah did not even know for sure whether he could escape without a small injury, Lilith"s cue to action made him tunnel elsewhere. It was the moment he was expecting to turn the tables, teleporting to the middle of the air above the Hyu Family leader, who was struggling against her telekinesis.
"Got him," Noah thought, as he sliced down with his fire dagger, aimed at the man"s head. But in a split second, his certainty turned into the roaring fear of the unknown, as he saw the man move, and look ubove and straight at him, "f.u.c.k!" Noah thought, as his fire dagger clashed against his.
Noah had the advantage of the leverage, putting his entire body behind the strike while falling, but somehow, he was being matched in a duel of strenght. "So this is the power of a B Rank Blessed," he thought, realizing without his careful planning and Lilith"s support, he would probably have been struck down already. But he was still not using his all. "I"ll go for it!" he yelled at himself and Lilith, materializing another fire dagger in his other hand, and slicing from the side as his feet hit the ground, attacking the enemy"s uncovered side, in the hopes of making at least some damage.
"You won"t!" But as soon as he started moving, the enemy"s voice warned him he had been read, and his newly formed fire dagger had already been stopped dead on its tracks by another dagger equal to the one the enemy was using.