Juin shook his head, hard. It was not really Jim Mack. The voice, the body shape, and the little scar at the forehead of the creature"s face belonged to the Jim Mack that he met before, but everything else was foreign…
"Jim Mack?" the creature spat as it placed a hand that was glowing with an eerie dark green color over the hole on its abdomen. From the moment it felt the unique power that seemed to be targeted at its soul, the creature immediately diverged the corroding flames to attack its physical body instead.
After all, it could heal the physical body, but damage to the soul was harder to heal from.
Even so, its soul was still corroded slightly.
"Ah… I think that was the name of this pitiful body…" the creature said as it cracked its head from side to side.
As it talked, the hole on its abdomen was slowly healing; black strands of skin moved out from the open wound and connected with each other.
Juin noticed it, and fearing that he might be at the disadvantageous end, he immediately conjured two more fireb.a.l.l.s before shooting at the creature.
Swoos.h.!.+
Fast as lightning, the creature dodged to the side and jumped up before lingering in midair. As for the fireb.a.l.l.s, they hit the wall and dispersed without leaving so much as a dent.
The creature glanced at the wall briefly before looking back at Juin. When it sneered at Juin, its mouth opened slightly, revealing razor-sharp teeth.
"Demonic magic…" the creature murmured. "You didn"t have that ability back then… Did the other demon take over your body?"
It licked its lips as it "stared" at Juin, as if he were looking at a delicious piece of meat. Back then, when it was fighting the white-haired boy, it was heavily injured just by the aura of an unknown presence that leaked out of the open wound on Juin"s chest.
The aura had scared it sh*less, and out of self-preservation, it had to run off to save itself and recuperate.
Since then, it had always wondered if the other presence actually took over Juin"s body.
But it didn"t seem to appear so, not with that amount of strength that it just felt.
"W-Where"s Jim Mack?" Juin asked in a stutter as he slowly walked toward Lucifer. It was unnecessary because he could merge with the demon king no matter where he was standing, but he felt safer when Lucifer was within an arm"s length away.
The creature obviously couldn"t see or sense Lucifer, which made it a lesser ranked demon than the demon king. Hence, Juin was sure that if he could not handle it, Lucifer would be able to step in at any time.
No matter how Lucifer wanted to torture him, Juin knew that, at least for now, Lucifer"s life was connected to his. Hence, the demon king would not want his vessel to die just like that.
"A summoner who failed in his job should be punished, don"t you think?" the creature snickered as it kept its black, soulless sockets locked on Juin. "And a sacrificial lamb should be sacrificed properly, right?"
It then pounced on Juin with its left fist raised in a punch, but having been h.e.l.lishly trained by Lucifer recently, even though Juin was startled for a second, his reaction time was enough for him to escape death this time.
Unlike before, when he was taken aback, he was now more focused. In addition, the fear of being killed heightened his focus even more.
He ducked and rolled forward, before turning around quickly to face the monstrous creature.
The creature"s punch landed on the floor, making a hole in the cement floor.
As the heavy dust created by the impact slowly landing back on the ground, Juin gulped. If he had been hit by that fist, he would have been obliterated.
At that moment, an image flashed through his mind. It was Jim Mack, a slightly corroded version of him at least, and the man caught Ashton"s by the neck and punched him in the chest, causing the 12-year-old Ashton to fly across the room and collided with the wall.
"Ashton came!" Juin gasped when he remembered that memory, of hearing the sound of bones breaking and Ashton groaning in pain, and anger started to boil in his mind when he remembered how Ashton was injured.
He quickly threw both his hands out, palms up. With a fireball on each hand, he snapped, "What did you do to Ashton?!"
The creature ignored him and pounced again, with its teeth bared and its left hand that had talons as nails straightened out and aimed at Juin. Just as Juin prepared to dodge, the creature disappeared again, leaving behind an afterimage of a creepy, almost Ches.h.i.+re cat-like smile.
Seeing that his attacker suddenly disappeared in thin air, Juin"s eyes widened slightly.
"At your right!" a familiar voice warned.
Upon hearing the arrogant voice, Juin immediately dodged to the left.
BAM!
The creature landed on the wall behind Juin, making four sharp holes on it.
"How did you…" The creature frowned in disbelief.
Juin could see the creature again, but only a faint silhouette, almost as if it were not really there. But it was more than enough.
Lucifer floated above them. With his arms folded and his legs crossed, it appeared that he had chosen to silently watch the battle for now. With his usual haughty manner, he said, "Remember the training I gave you… Its invisibility power only lasts for a short moment."
Juin nodded, not daring to glance over at Lucifer in case the creature attacked again. When Lucifer first trained him, he not only trained Juin in physical strength but also in his senses. He might still be weak, but Juin"s senses had heightened a lot ever since he started his training.
The creature laughed, and its raspy voice sent s.h.i.+vers up Juin"s spine.
As it slowly walked toward Juin, it made a motion of clapping its hands slowly, as if it was trying to get rid of the dust on its hands. "Just come and be my vessel, kid… That"s what you are meant to be…"
It was delighted when it felt the presence of the sacrificial lamb that escaped three years ago. It was the perfect vessel, one that was supposed to be able to boost its strength. Even though it was not the intended demon, the human boy had a rare const.i.tution, meaning that it was able to house any demons with no problems.
Of course, no self-respecting demon would want to share their vessel with another.
"This summoner was too stupid… He didn"t even realize that a foreign soul had already taken the body of the vessel..." the creature spat in disgust as it stopped a few steps away from Juin.
When the creature"s soul was first summoned, it realized there was another soul in Juin; a powerless, shackled one. It tried to attack the soul, to completely get rid of it and gain complete control to such a special vessel, but to its surprise, the attacks that it threw at the dangling soul was sent back to itself, amplified.
After another try, it noticed that the soul was just there… dangling innocently. Hence, it gave up and decided to deal with it later since there was a more pressing matter at hand. It had to quickly take over the vessel"s body before the arrival of other demons.
"And that weird kid…" the creature growled when it remembered something unpleasant, and it clenched its hands into fists, caring naught for the cuts that appeared on the other parts of his hands.
Back then, when it was summoned, it managed to take over Juin"s body briefly, before it was forcefully ejected by a powerful spell that was conjured by a weird white-haired kid.
As it was still focusing on trying to take over the vessel"s body, it was taken aback by the spell, and thus, it was forced to find a second less-compatible body nearby, which was that of the summoner.
The screams of pain from the summoner when it forcefully took over his body still rang in the creature"s ears. And being in a less-compatible body had completely weakened the demon, even after it fully merged with the man.
The demon was thoroughly angered by it, as a less-compatible body meant that the body would be unable to maintain its own shape for long and would soon be destroyed. It would have to go through the ha.s.sle of finding another vessel, and it took its anger out on the white-haired kid.
"Are you talking about Ashton? Where is he now? Did you take him!" Juin asked when he heard the creature mention "that weird kid".
Looking at Juin"s excited expression, the creature cackled, "He"s dead! I devoured him for trying to interrupt my emergence!!!"