Chapter 348: 348 - Bel"s Stroll
"Whatcha gonna do?" Lilith asked, as the fireb.a.l.l.s loomed closer, one of the monsters still unharmed.
"Everything," he said confidently, pouring almost all of his leftover mana into fire spikes and blades. The fiery weapons flew through the air wildly, as the pained screeches of the monsters resounded. And as the head started to creep even further, Noah teleported back towards his sister with the very last mana he had, standing exhausted by her side.
"Noah! Are you okay?!" Maggie asked, rushing towards him as soon as she saw him emerge from the flames.
"Yeah, I"m just tired and out of mana..." As he said it, two large consecutive explosions resounded, loud enough to silence the painful screams of the monsters. Noah took the chance to send away all imps that weren"t killed by the explosion. leaving behind with him only the ones which were accompanying them, as he felt his mana quickly replenish itself from the burning bodies.
"... We barely had a chance to do anything," Carlos complained in a low tone, slightly disappointed.
"So what, look at all those monsters burning alive," Maggies voice sounded from the side, with a weird nuance that made Carlos turn towards her surprised. Her eyes were wide and her mouth slightly open, a soft flushing on her face as she stared in delight at the burning monsters in the distance.
"Noah... Your sister is becoming weirder by the day. I feel this is taking a weird turn, you know?" Carlos leaned over and spoke in Noah"s ear, side-glancing at the strangely satisfied girl, who was glancing at the flames with glee.
"It"s fine, let her be. There"s nothing we can do about her pa.s.sion for burning things alive," he shrugged, half laughing, as he turned to see her, only seeing a cute girl.
"Noah, I feel you see your sister through... slightly biased lenses," Lilith told him in his mind, as he looked at maggie the same way as when she was just eating an ice-cream.
"Might be, but I don"t see where the problem is," he said, shrugging, as he walked towards the burning monsters, doublechecking he had defeat them. "But there"s something strange about these—" Noah was about to talk, when a sudden pressure a.s.saulted him, the same one from earlier, just leagues stronger.
"What in the living h.e.l.l was that?!" Carlos exclaimed, as he fell to his knees, holding himself from collapsing my using his hands to support the extreme weight on his body. Noah didn"t feel nearly as bad or threatened, but the sudden pressure was not something to mess with. Maggie, still endulging in the burning monsters, also seemed only slightly uncomfortable, much to everyone"s surprise.
"Oh, well... The girl must have a ton of willpower," Lilith turned her head around, staring at the girl, who was still just looking at the fiery carca.s.ses despite the pressure.
"That she does have. If she didn"t, she would"ve never made it here," Noah responded, a hint of pride in his voice, as he looked into the distance. "But the monster that is causing this pressure is around here somewhere. Should we go?" he asked, ready to drop the two off and head over.
"I don"t think that"s... The mask is gone, you know?" Lilith"s sentence made Noah widen his eyes and reach for his face. Indeed, the mask was nowhere to be found. He still had the [Devil Form], but who knows how those people would react, if they wouldn"t think he was another monster.
"Still... Do you think they might give me a shot if I show up hitting the monster or whatever?" he asked lending a hand for Carlos to stand, who was finally getting used to the overbearing presence.
"I mean, we could try. I wouldn"t take those two, though." Noah looked down to see Lilith staring at Maggie, and realized the danger of taking them along.
"Maggie, Carlos, I think it"s best if you guys go back to the ice-cream store," Noah was dead serious, and Carlos nodded immediately, walking towards Maggie.
"What?! But we barely did anything, and the fun part is about to begin. I don"t wanna lose all the best action," she protested, stoping her foot on the ground as she looked at Noah with an angry expression.
"I know Maggie, but this kind of pressure comes from a monster that is at least at the peak of C-Rank. I can"t know what could happen if you guys went bacause I can"t be sure I"d be able to protect you," he reasoned with her, seeing the girl go from angry to sulking.
"I get it... I know I"m not strong enough yet to fight with you... But I wanted to at least be able to see the fight," she said, saddened, which pulled a string in Noah"s heart.
"Just tell her they"ll probably record it for the internet or something. You know, the kind of stuff that always happens anyways," Lilith"s words were sound, which gave Noah an idea.
"So, there"s probably gonna be cameras and people recording it anyway. Why don"t you wait to see if it shows up on Vutube or tv. I"m sure there"ll be at least some pictures. If I get something from the fight, I"ll give it to you, since you won"t be able to see. How about that?" To him, it was reasoning, but even to Carlos, it just sounded like he was pampering her. Not that anyone would voice out their concerns, since they wouldn"t want to hear pure and absolute denial anyway.
"Okay... I"ll look forward to my gift!" she said, turning towards the way they had come from, before looking around, as if searching for someone, and turning back to Noah. "Brother, have you seen Bel anywhere?"
Noah and Carlos froze on the spot, looking around to realize the boy was nowhere. Lilith was the only one who had not a hint of worry, after all, she was very aware of how powerful he used to be, and that he was doing his best to recover his powers. Not that he was having that much progress. "Come to think of it..." She paused her thoughts, "Since when do I know how powerful Bel was?" Lilith suddenly realized she had some memory of Bel, who she until a few days ago had no idea who even was. "Noah, I think I"m remembering more things," she said, only to realize Noah was already tunneling his way deep into the destruction, heading into a seemingly arbitrary direction. "Noah?"
"Yeah. I heard something this way. I think this is where Bel is," he told her, who stayed in silence, but Noah could feel she was deeply troubled. "Is there anything you remembered that is important?" he asked, thinking about the dream, where Bel was literally bathing in the blood of his enemies.
"Not much, just how strong he used to be and a little of his powers," she said, closing her eyes, and arranging the pieces of memory in her head to form something relevant, much like solving the first pieces of a puzzle. But Noah"s voice interrupted her thinking.
"There he is," he said, teleporting once again, Lilith"s head running around crazily as she tried to find where he had seen Bel. And, to her surprise, she saw the boy with a wicked smile on his face, jumping from under the lizard-like monster, the same they had fought many times a few minutes ago, and a red and blody-like arrow appear around his head, as he disappeared into the monster.
Less than a second later, the tip of the b.l.o.o.d.y arrow emerged, now bathed and spraying real blood, from the top of the monster, as he himself emerged, and the monster slumped to the ground, dead, a human-sized hole piercing straight through its heart.
"Bel, there you are," Noah called him out, and the boy turned toward him, shy, and curling himself as if a child caught up in the act of doing something wrong.
"Father?! Mother?!" he called, his eyes wide. His hands were unquiet as his fingers fiddled around.
"I"m not—...nevermind," Lilith started protesting in Noah"s head, but rolled her eyes as doing so to him was futile, and she couldn"t just speak out of nowhere.
"It"s ok. It"s good to see you are okay, but don"t go disappearing like this again. I was worried," Noah, on the other hand, was incredibly calm, and just bout the boy closer, hugging him, which drenched himself in the lizard"s blood.
"Noah, your clothes!" he exclaimed, looking up.
"It"s ok, I don"t care about them, but I do care that you are okay," he said, looking down, his eyes and Bel"s meeting, and a smile on his demonic face. And that was one point he had forgotten, while in his [Devil Form], Noah looked exactly like Lucifer when he was punishing tormented souls in h.e.l.l, and he had not taken the second to correct Bel"s calling him father. Although he himself did not know why he didn"t feel any sense of oddity from being called that. "Also, it"s good to see some of your powers are back," Noah said, looking at the half dozen bodies of lizard monsters around.
"Hehe, I only recovered a tiny fraction, though," Bel said while smiling broadly, a stange sentiment of innocence taking over, despite his b.l.o.o.d.y figure.
And suddenly, the presence from before hit them even harder, almost as if they were right next to the monster. "Lilith, Bel, we should go there now. Something bad is happening," Noah said, realizing the entire feeling of the monster"s aura had changed. It was no longer the threatening and heavy feeling from before, but rather, the rage of a monster gone beserk.