The Devil"s Evolution Catalog Chapter 96: Pain
Even though I didn"t know this unfortunate soul, there was no way I could let her die before my very eyes, not even if I closed my eyes...and so I did something completely anathema to my supposed ident.i.ty, save her!
While my evolutions hadn"t given me much in the way of strength, they had instead, given me an equivalent boost in speed and agility. It wouldn"t be an exaggeration to say that speed was a forte of mine given that no other two-star devil could compare to me.
Stretching out Shadowfang"s two meter long body, I managed to deflect the ice spikes from taking the life of this terrified girl.
"Haha, you actually saved that girl. I"m not hallucinating am I? A devil actually saved a human!? You are such a disappointment!" He laughed maniacally at what he thought was the most absurd thing he had ever seen.
He couldn"t wrap his head around the fact that a devil saved a human, a human he didn"t know at that. To him, devils were vile heinous creatures who should care about human lives as much as they cared about the dirt on their feet.
Regardless of his confusion, he continued his unending barrage of spells, never letting up even for a second. In fact, he had increased his speed upon seeing me rush to save the girl.
A second later, another fireball came hurtling towards us. I swiftly sliced it apart as usual but unlike the previous times, I didn"t manage to retract the blade in time. In my anxiety to save the pregnant girl, I had overestimated my own endurance.
Having reached the limit of my strength, I was unable to retract Shadowfang in time, fully exposing my fatal weakness to the occultist. It was in this dire situation that the next ice spike came flying towards me…
The weight of this enormous blade had always been an issue for me. Normally I would have this burden split between me and the Grimoire of the Dead but now...I"m not sure if it was pretending to be dead or something but either either way, it wasn"t helping me anymore.
Without the grimoire"s help and the constant need to dodge, my stamina was rapidly exhausted, leaving me unable to swing in rapid succession and deflect the oncoming spike…
Sh*t…if that ice spike hits me...I can safely prepare for my next reincarnation...a.s.suming I had one. Comparatively speaking, our ice resistance was as weak as our fire resistance was strong. In fact, it was in the negative range. An ice spell like this could definitely be said to be our nemesis.
d.a.m.nit...I still haven"t avenged Nicole yet...I don"t want it to end like this...
Even so, all I could do was close my eyes and smile bitterly at my incoming fate. Time seemed to slow down as my last few breaths were painfully drawn out...drawn out...wait I"m still breathing!
As I opened my eyes, I was filled with a joy that could only come from having survived a disaster by sheer luck.
The Grimoire of the Dead had acted as a shield at the critical moment and blocked a fatal blow for me once again!
The grimoire which had laid silent ever since I came to the Western Human Realms had leapt into the air at the very last moment and collided with the ice spike. As the ice shards scattered all over the grimoire, the ice mana rapidly chilled the black book, turning it into a block of ice.
With no time to spare on the falling grimoire, my fingers tightly wrapped around Shadowfang as I raised it above my head in a sprinting overhead chop that caught the occultist off guard!
Unfortunately, he was only stunned for a moment before his quick reflexes allowed him to pull out another scroll in time. Given our proximity however, any offensive scroll he planned on using would hit him as well. On the other hand, if he were to hesitate for even a second, Shadowfang would cut him in half before he could even rip the seal off the scroll.
Shockingly, he decisively tore open the scroll and fearlessly locked eyes with me as if there wasn"t a razor sharp blade rushing at him this very second. Was he going all in as well? Or was gambling on the fact that I would cherish my life more and block at the last second? Either way, there was no way I"m withdrawing my blade now!
Even if it costs me my life, there"s no way I"m letting someone who dared to hurt Nicole off the hook! At most, we"ll die together!
With that determination in heart, Shadowfang swung down without any hesitation.
Seeing me advance, the occultist suddenly revealed a sinister smile as if his plan had worked out: "I knew you would try to cut me, unfortunately for you, I"ve made preparations long before this. There"s no way you will ever harm me!"
As he said this, he activated the necklace that hung around his neck. Having received a mote of his mana, the necklace began to glow a radiant blue hue, shortly after, a magic barrier the shape of a semicircle appeared in front of the black robed occultist!
It was probably this piece of equipment that gave him the courage and confidence to tear open his scroll so decisively. At the same time as the barrier was finished forming, the magic in the scroll began to activate, firing off the same flurry of wind blades.
While my vertical slash had sliced apart the majority of the oncoming blades, a sizeable amount still managed to make their way towards me.
On the other end, the occultist was in a similarly dire situation. Under the horrified gaze of the occultist, the gleaming black blade tore through the seemingly fragile yet surprisingly st.u.r.dy magical barrier.
Amidst his panicked retreat, Shadowfang bore down upon him, slicing through his nose and lips before making its way down his loose robes...if it hadn"t been for that single step backwards, he would"ve been bifurcated.
At the same time, I was buffeted by numerous wind blades. My horn was sliced off while my face and body were covered in a field of cuts. Fortunately, none of these were fatal, the only major injury was my horn whose loss would affect my mana, everything else was minor.
Similarly, the occultist was spared from any fatal injuries. Putting aside the blade wounds on his face, the cuts on his body were merely paper cuts compared to those on my own. However, his reaction was...how should I say it...magical? Either way, it was amazing.
"Ah...it hurtsss...it hurts so mucchh...my face...my nose...my mouth...they"ve been split open...owww...it hurts so much…" He began tumbling on the floor, bemoaning the minor cuts on his body, his face more savage than handsome as the blood from his cuts smeared across his face.
Truth be told, I"ve had about enough of his whining...weren"t they just a bunch of minor injuries? If you"re a real man, you would stand up and continue fighting!
I had originally expected this to be a tough fight but who knew that this potato was such a wuss. A non-fatal wound like that actually scared him into submission. If this potato could still be considered a man, then what about me who shrugged off all these wounds like they were nothing? Was I Superman?
"Hey, you better pull yourself together right this instant." In order to prevent any further surprises, I immediately stepped up to him and gave him a vicious kick that sent him spiralling into another round of crying. In midst of this, I cut off both of his hands.
As a precaution, I wanted to cut off his tongue as well in order to prevent him from casting more spells with his tools. However, I remembered that I still needed him to tell me about Nicole"s location and so stayed my hand.
"Ahh...my hands...my hands…"
"Enough with the nonsense and bring me to the place where you"re keeping Nicole!" I forcefully suppressed my desire to kill him and lifted him off the ground. With a forceful push, I slammed the wailing occultist against the wall.
Probably having never experienced such pain before in his life, the will to fight had completely left the man. With the pain from his wrists and the force of my slam, the occultist slumped to the ground in a pitiful display of weakness.
As he did so, his bloodied stumps came into contact with the ground, welcoming another round of wailing that sounded like a pig being slaughtered.
Was it really that painful? To think that I didn"t even raise an eyebrow from being run over by a truck or from being bitten to death by goblins. Hmph, I guess this brother is a true man with blood of steel.
Having been shocked back to his senses by the pain, the occultist stared at me with wide open eyes as he stammered: "Your weapon...epic grade...impossible...even I don"t have such an equipment...you...don"t tell me you"re the heir of that devil lord…"
"Cut the useless chatter and bring me to Nicole!"
The occultist didn"t seem to respond to my command. Having lost my patience, I kicked on his back once more: "Didn"t you hear me? Bring me to Nicole!"
"What Nicole...I don"t know any Nicole…" He whimpered with a face full of snot and tears.
"She"s the owner of that wallet!" It was at this moment that I thought to find the wallet and the hair within. Unfortunately, they were nothing more than a pile of ashes now. My anger rose once more as I stared at the former wallet.
"You d.a.m.ned piece of dog sh*t, hurry up and bring me to Nicole!" I yelled while kicking him non-stop.
"But I don"t have any Nicole here..." By now, his face could barely be called a human"s. Even after all that beating and scolding, all he could do was curl into a tight ball while giving off an innocent and harmless look.
"Then die!" d.a.m.nit, how stubborn did you have to be in order to stonewall me even in the face of death. Just watch...I"ll slaughter you and have you as a side with a bottle of beer...no, this fellow mustn"t die...if he dies, I"ll be thrown back to the Prison of the Dead again...
Just as I was fretting about his stubbornness, the pregnant girl who I had forgotten about all this while suddenly came up to me and knelt. "Sir...Devil, I might know the location of the person you"re looking for…"
"You know of it?!"
"Yes...yes I do…"She lowered her head instinctively, clearly shaken by my fierce reaction. After confirming that I meant her no harm, she meekly continued: "I know the rough location of the slave pens…"
Her words were like a ray of light that brightened my downcast skies. In a moment of anxiety, I grabbed her shoulders and without giving it much thought, asked in forceful tone: "Bring me there, quick!"
My savior! Those two bald men mentioned that they broke her legs and hadn"t fed her in a few days...who knows what condition she was in right now…
"But...but…" That sudden touch startled her once more but thankfully, she had already determined that I wasn"t going to harm her. Suppressing the nervousness in her heart, she continued: "But I can"t confirm her ident.i.ty…"
"Then we"ll go through each of them, one by one. One of them has to be her!"
"Mhm...mhm..."
With her guiding me, I no longer needed that occultist and so I gave him another kick, knocking him unconscious.
And so, we left for the slave pens, my left hand dragging the unconscious body of the occultist while holding onto Shadowfang with my right. Along the way, his bloodied body painted a b.l.o.o.d.y trail…
There were a number of women locked up in this bas.e.m.e.nt but there was only one who had their limbs broken….and that woman a complete stranger...she"s not Nicole?!
After confirming multiple times that this crippled, dying and naked woman was the "owner" of Nicole"s wallet, I truly wanted to thank the heavens...she"s...she"s safe.
This search for the wallet"s owner had truly been a rollercoaster of a journey for me. Truth be told, I was a bit of a purist...I only read harem novels and not those tasteless s.m.u.t novels...furthermore, it must be the kind of harem that accepted all virgin women.
The reason why I was still a virgin at 35 was because my first girlfriend wasn"t a virgin...and also because we broke up...because I suspected that she wasn"t a virgin…
Throughout this journey, I constantly mulled over the question of Nicole"s status...what am I to do if she had been…
The result was that, even if I had break my teeth and swallow this bit of indignation, I would endure that bit of taint. Even though this decision pained me greatly, it was worth it for Nicole. That"s because my love for her was more than the love for myself, even though I still had that dream of starting a harem…
And then...I was given a serendipitous surprise. The dying girl in front of me wasn"t Nicole at all; instead she was a thief that stole Nicole"s wallet!
Footnotes:
Credits:
Special thanks to Steve Granger!!