Narrator POV.
Isagi moved along the back of the house, carefully stepping across the slanted roof. The old wood creaked and groaned beneath his feet, protesting with every step he took over the loose, worn tiles, as if the house were on the verge of collapsing entirely.
Bam!
A brutal impact shook the structure from within. Part of the roof exploded outward into fragments, sending dust and splinters flying through the air.
"What the hell, man?"
He approached the massive hole that had just been opened, sunlight pouring freely into the interior of the house. When he leaned over to look inside, the scene was as grotesque as it was clear: below stood a giant bat, sickly green in color, with enormous wings and a grotesquely oversized head.
Clutched between its fingers like a broken toy was Power.
Without any ceremony, the devil tossed her straight into its mouth and swallowed her whole, not even bothering to chew. It was clearly planning to let its stomach acids do the work slowly.
Sadistic bastard of a devil.
"She's gonna give you indigestion," Isagi mocked calmly. Knowing Power, hygiene wasn't exactly her strong suit. If it weren't for Makima, she probably wouldn't even bathe.
Isagi stretched lazily, his back cracking, as if he were about to start another normal workday.
"Time to work… those rewards won't earn themselves."
As was customary whenever Isagi was near a devil, the creature froze abruptly. Its nose twitched as it sniffed the air suspiciously. The massive head slowly turned until its gaze locked onto Isagi, who already had his katana in hand, its blade reflecting the sunlight.
The devil twisted its face into a warped grin.
"Perfect…" it growled in a rough voice. "I need something to wash away the bad taste that human from earlier left in my mouth."
"Alright… we can do this two ways." Isagi calmly raised one finger, as if explaining simple paperwork. "You spit out my teammate before you get sick, and then I skin you alive. Option two." He raised a second finger, smiling dangerously. "We kill each other right here, and I give you a one-way welcome to hell."
The bat devil roared in fury, the sound thundering through the house like a contained explosion. Its massive wings spread wide, kicking up a blast of fetid air.
"Insolent human!" it bellowed. "You humans exist only to satisfy my hunger… and my mate's."
Annoyed by Isagi's arrogance, the devil raised one of its arms—connected to its wings by flaps of skin—and lunged forward, trying to grab him in a single motion.
Isagi didn't move. Not out of fear… but for another reason.
His mind went blank for a second as he took in the creature properly: a gigantic humanoid bat, covered in greenish skin, with countless sharp teeth packed into an impossible mouth, large unblinking round eyes, and arms connected to its torso by fleshy membranes that served as wings.
It had a mate.
—(A demon is going to beat me! A demon is going to beat me!) —he thought in absolute frustration. In his entire life, Isagi had never had a girlfriend… and now this.
Even that horrible thing, straight out of Area 51, had a partner. It was humiliating on far too many levels. Isagi clenched his teeth. The joke was over.
"I can't let this slide," he said with complete seriousness, taking a combat stance as he positioned the katana to draw. "A devil is beating me! Denji, stop counting damn chili peppers, man!"
"Habjske…"
Denji barely managed to babble meaningless sounds. The blow to his head, combined with being squeezed like a lemon by the devil, had left him even more brain-dead than usual.
His vision was blurry, as if someone had smeared grease over his eyes. The figures of the devil and Isagi moved distortedly before him, barely recognizable—shadows coming and going.
"You're fucking useless, Denji," Isagi muttered irritably, still annoyed. Not so much by the situation… but by being defeated in love by a devil.
Yes, it was a direct hit to his pride. A heavy one.
But if anything was bigger than his pride, it was his love for work.
Cursed energy began to flow through the blade of his katana, coursing along it like invisible electricity. The air around him vibrated faintly. Isagi tightened his grip on the hilt and raised the weapon above his head, taking a firm stance.
The bat devil bared its fangs, drooling shamelessly. Its tongue slid across its palate as it imagined the taste of human flesh.
"You'll make a fine meal, little human," it growled, hunger and saliva thick in its voice as it imagined what Isagi might taste like.
Isagi exhaled slowly.
"Wind Breathing!" he shouted. "Form I just made up… Cutting Pressure!"
Reinforcing both the blade and his arms with cursed energy, Isagi unleashed all his strength in a brutal downward slash.
The air shrieked violently.
A blade of compressed air shot forward like an invisible guillotine, slicing cleanly through the devil's hand with devastating precision.
Blood splattered through the air. The fight had just leveled up.
The remains of the house trembled under the devil's weight and recoil as it let out a piercing roar of pain. Ironically, the attack had struck the same arm it had regenerated moments earlier after drinking Denji's blood.
Its purple blood stained the ground, thick and dark, continuing to pour endlessly from the open wound.
"Damn you, human!" it roared in fury.
The bat devil clutched its freshly injured arm, rage boiling inside it. Abruptly, it lifted its head; its jaw tightened, and before anyone's eyes, its mouth began to deform. Flesh stretched and compressed until it grotesquely reshaped into the barrel of a gun extending from its face.
Isagi's danger sense activated instantly. The familiar spike behind his neck surged like an electric shock, forcing him to dive sharply to the left. The spot where he'd been a second earlier exploded in a violent blast of compressed air fired from the devil's weaponized mouth.
Like a living machine gun, the bat began firing consecutive air blasts, violently whipping its head around in an attempt to hit the evasive Isagi, who sprinted around it at high speed. Each shot tore chunks from the ground, sending debris, dust, and splinters flying everywhere.
The attack didn't stop until Isagi's figure completely vanished into the dust cloud covering the area. Only then did the devil cease fire.
Silence took over, broken only by the sound of small stones clattering to the ground after being blasted loose.
"Your scent betrays you, human," the devil growled. "This dust is nothing when you smell this good. So stop resisting and let me eat you!"
Even with its mouth still deformed into a cannon, the devil spoke with disturbing confidence. It abruptly turned around and fired another compressed-air shot. The debris flew aside and the dust was blown away, revealing a massive crater in the ground.
But there was no one there. Only a smear of blood on some of the rubble.
Swish!
A black blur burst out from behind the lingering dust cloud at the devil's back, leaping through the air at brutal speed and shattering the silence.
A chill ran through the devil's entire body.
That feeling… it knew it all too well.
The fear it instilled in humans now flooded it completely.
Isagi smiled.
His clenched fist slammed directly into the back of the devil's neck. For a fraction of a second, space itself warped, and black lightning exploded outward in every direction. The power of the blow multiplied by 2.5 in a perfect instant.
A Black Flash—straight to the head.
The devil's eyes rolled completely white as its body was launched forward. It crashed heavily into the ground, kicking up a massive cloud of dust, as if thrown by an invisible force.
Isagi landed on top of it a second later, planting one foot on its back, a mocking smile etched across his face.
"You think I don't know, idiot?" he said disdainfully. "I'm fully aware that my blood is a beacon in the dark for you devils." He rested the katana casually on his shoulder. "That's why, when I disappeared into the dust cloud you created, I cut my hand and let some blood fall… so you'd detect it and think I was still there."
Despite appearances, Isagi wasn't as brain-dead as Denji. He could think. Thanks to having given blood to Power, he'd learned something important: when exposed, his blood smelled even stronger than when it flowed inside his body.
So he used the intense scent of spilled blood to mask the passive aroma he constantly emitted.
Simple.
Functional.
Effective.
---
End of the chapter