Nerves snapped taut; almost at the exact moment the teleportation completed, Ryuya felt an intense surge of danger!
The Devil instinct was screaming warnings!!
Whoosh!!
Black Demonic wings fanned out behind him, and Ryuya instinctively stepped to the front-side, his body snapping sideways and sliding a full meter in an instant.
Ssshh!!
Something tore through the air.
"Ah—?"
A faint, surprised sound from someone.
A sharp stench of blood hit him; Ryuya, whose sense of smell had been significantly heightened, frowned.
Outside the sky had already dimmed; there were no lights on in the room, yet that didn't affect Ryuya's vision.
He scanned the direction the attack came from and took in the scene.
A sofa, a coffee table, a TV... it looked like a living room.
But alongside those ordinary pieces of furniture were utterly abnormal things.
The floor was soaked in fresh blood and littered with torn chunks of flesh — some pieces looked like liver...
On the living room wall, a corpse had been nailed up, body pinned to the wall while the skull lay on the floor...
Human. Female. Beside her was the remnants of a summoning circle — clearly the summoner who called forth a Devil.
Thick nails had been driven through her soles, through the center of her torso, and through both hands; her body had been cut to pieces, a chaos of wounds, and something shredded and broken had fallen out of the wounds — intestines!
The corpse was too horrific to look at.
One couldn't help but wonder if she'd had some deep, mortal enmity with someone who'd tortured her to death so cruelly.
On the wall, huge characters were painted in her blood.
"Evildoers shall be punished..."
Merely reading that line once brought a sudden pain in Ryuya's mind.
He snorted coldly, expression unreadable — he recognized it as the utterance of a saint, a chant specifically aimed at Devils.
"This is quoted from a saint's words, you know!!"
A brazen, unhinged voice answered from the shadows, and a young man slowly emerged from it.
Very young — seventeen, maybe eighteen — not much older than Ryuya.
A head of white hair, and his face was actually rather decent.
But his clothing marked him as clergy: the vestments of a church priest.
"Hm? Hmm~~? Oh my, my... isn't this a little Devil-boy?"
He laughed flamboyantly and wildly.
"Ahahaha, right, right! After all, you're the guy who crawled out of that summoning circle, aren't you!"
Ryuya kept his face cold and said nothing; a threat radiated from this human.
This one was dangerous.
The priest started laughing loudly and burst into a song:
"I'm a priest~ a dashing boy priest~~ Slaying Devils is my duty, with ruthless mockery~ I'll chop off your heads! That's how I make a living..."
Pure madness.
Ryuya spoke in a low voice, "Did you kill this person?"
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I killed her, oh yes! Who told her to summon Devils day in, day out? If not me, then who?"
His face twisted into an abnormal, exaggerated madness.
"My name's Freed Sellzen. I'm a lower-level member of some exorcist organization. Ah~~ you don't need to bother telling me your name — I won't waste brain capacity remembering it. You're going to die anyway, so it doesn't matter. You're going to die, and I'll make sure you do."
Hopeless.
There was no reasoning with him.
Ryuya's eyes stayed cold as he activated the servant's sigil engraved on his palm, silently sending a signal to Rias and the others.
Sensing the motion, Freed let out a derisive laugh.
"Useless! Totally useless! I've already had someone set up a barrier here. By the time your friends track your location, you'll be long dead!"
"Quite the big mouth," Ryuya said flatly. "A priest who tortures and murders humans... you really make me sick. Dying would suit you better."
"Hah—huh? You're lecturing me? A mere Devil thinks he can lecture me?"
Freed burst into mad laughter.
"Hilarious! Hey hey hey, listen up, you pile of Devil trash! You Devils feed on human desire, right? Anyone who relies on Devils is already finished!
They're beyond saving!
I killed her for her own good!
That's my job — I make my living hunting Devils and the garbage tied to them!"
As he spoke, he pulled from his coat a sword hilt with no blade and a pistol.
Bzzz~
The air hummed as a shining blade of light emerged from the hilt — a holy sword of pure energy.
"What's with that fake righteousness of yours, huh? It's disgusting. Can I cut you now? I can, right? Good, message received!! Devils are filth, just looking at you makes me sick!"
Muttering like a man possessed, Freed swung his glowing blade in a wild horizontal slash toward Ryuya.
In that instant, Ryuya summoned the Sword of the King. With perfect precision, he traced the sword's incoming trajectory and blocked it cleanly.
The next second, a bullet infused with divine light streaked toward him — but half a meter away, it distorted in midair, like slamming into an invisible wall, before fizzling out powerlessly.
A holy bullet — the exorcists' special anti-Devil ammunition.
Yet there had been no gunshot.
A silver shield appeared out of thin air, slowly revolving around Ryuya's body.
Just one exchange, and he'd already been forced to call upon it.
If the divine shield hadn't reacted on its own, that bullet would've hit him squarely.
Though human, Freed was undeniably strong.
If not for the faith contract that had massively boosted his power, Ryuya might not even have been able to react — he would've fallen to this madman instantly.
"Oh? You can block holy rounds too? Damn it, I underestimated you!"
Freed shouted, swinging his light-saber again, his speed shockingly fast for a mere human.
But Ryuya, blessed by two Knights, exploded with speed — striking faster even though he moved second!
With one thrust, his blade aimed straight for the priest's forehead.
Freed's eyes widened in shock — Ryuya was too fast! He abandoned his attack and leapt aside desperately.
Schkk!
The Sword of the King sank into his shoulder instead.
"AAAGH!! That hurts! Damn it, that hurts!! You bastard, how dare you stab me! I'll slaughter you!!!"
Enraged and wild-eyed, Freed went berserk, unleashing a frenzy of attacks on Ryuya.
Blades of light and divine steel clashed again and again, sparks bursting through the living room as both darted and weaved in close combat.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The furniture, once perfectly intact, was soon shredded to splinters by the storm of blows.
Slash!
Even the corpse nailed to the wall was caught in the chaos, sliced into several pieces. Freed laughed madly, grabbing a severed, mangled leg and flinging it toward Ryuya.
Ryuya's sword motion shifted in an instant; he caught the leg midair and hurled it back toward the wall. At the same time, he swung the Shield of God's Lament upward — BOOM! — smashing through the wall where the woman's remains had been pinned.
The entire section of the wall collapsed with a deafening crash, burying the corpse completely beneath the rubble.
"Ahahahaha... Did I see that right? You actually went out of your way not to hurt the corpse? What, got a necrophilia kink or something? Gross! Truly disgusting! Devils really are garbage!"
Freed mocked him, his once-handsome face now fully twisted in madness.
----
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