Chapter 95
Ren clicked his tongue as he realized the wind was starting to blow harder, making it impossible for him to keep hiding within the black smoke any longer.
He immediately pulled the black smoke back while swiftly retreating and observing all of their movements.
The seven of them exchanged glances, whispering among themselves as they saw the other four drawing closer.
"We can't let this continue," said Harann, staring at all of them with an unusually deep gaze.
"So," a woman named Febrica spoke, "are we going to fight, or run and join that group?" she asked while watching the four people walking several meters behind Ren.
"Let me be the distraction for that gunman," Vabian said while glancing over, signaling Keilta and Kharensya to join him.
Then, realizing the situation had changed and not wanting to linger in this place for too long, Vabian quickly added in a calculating voice:
"The three of you deal with the other two," he paused briefly as hesitation tightly gripped his mind. "Niva... You."
The sentence never finished.
"I already know," Niva cut him off, her face showing not the slightest trace of hesitation.
Their plan was simple; they wanted "The Devil is here" to split apart so they would not have to fight them all at once, and they had already confirmed that the group was far from ordinary people, just as the information they received from the 'Intersection Society' had stated.
Once again, Narissa's face darkened the moment the siblings' gazes met. But this time, Narissa had steeled her resolve and was truly serious about doing what she had said earlier.
"Hey, useless older sister," Niva said loudly. "If you want to capture me, or more accurately, kill me, then chase me with everything you've got."
After saying that, Niva immediately turned around and ran away from her companions, searching for a suitable place to fight.
Without the slightest hesitation, Narissa immediately stepped forward, causing the four of them to frown as she passed right through the six of them as though they were no threat to her at all.
'What a pain,' Harann thought. Deep down, he had absolutely no intention of fighting.
However, the moment he looked at the opponents standing before him, that laziness faded away, replaced by a desire to put on a dazzling performance and dance amidst the battle.
He smiled before pulling out a pair of poker cards from the pocket of his tailcoat, playing with them briefly before throwing one card toward them.
As the ace of diamonds shot forward before reaching them, Harann opened his mouth as though whispering to someone.
"Nellie, now!"
Hearing her master's command, his contract creature, Recipestele, appeared and floated above his left shoulder, then quickly snapped her fingers.
Snap...
The card transformed into colorful paper fragments like a party popper used during celebrations or birthday parties.
The paper fragments scattered in every direction before sticking to their hair and clothing, causing them all to retreat at the same time, signaling that the battle was about to begin.
In the blink of an eye, three of them; Vabian, Keilta, and Kharensya, rushed toward Hagi and Ren.
Veranica was startled and thought about trapping them inside her barrier to finish them off from within, but that attempt never happened as her arm was struck aside by Mizofra, who had suddenly appeared right in front of her.
Elmer wanted to help her, but abandoned the thought the moment he saw two people approaching him while the Recipestele condensed the wind and blasted several parts of his body, sending him flying backward and tearing his coat apart.
Three of them; Mizofra, Febrica, and Harann, would fight the two of them, forcing them into a ruthless battle where they intended to kill without mercy.
Reluctantly, Elmer broke through the two of them and aimed for the Recipestele because that creature was truly giving them a huge advantage.
As he opened and closed his palm several times, a poker card suddenly shot toward his face at incredible speed. He was startled, but managed to dodge the attack as he repeated the same movement again.
The two of them were confused, but just as Febrica pulled a knife from the pocket of her cream-colored jacket and aimed its sharp tip toward Elmer's chest.
Realizing the knife was getting closer while two other poker cards flew toward him, he immediately ran faster before tightly grabbing Febrica's arm, hard enough to force the knife from her grasp.
His right hand emitted a blazing pale purple aura that immediately surged toward Febrica's face, blurring her vision for a moment.
And just a few inches before the purple aura touched her face, something quickly shoved Febrica's body aside, followed by two poker cards acting as a diversionary attack that then destroyed the gas lamp post by the roadside.
Part of the street where the gas lamp once stood faded into darkness, while the lamps beside it continued illuminating the road ahead.
Elmer stood still while observing the attack, thinking that they truly had no hesitation in doing that to their own companion.
Then he turned toward Harann and spoke in a restrained voice laced with mockery.
"Attacking your own friend? That's something unforgivable, you know."
Harann let out a short sigh as Nellie, his Recipestele, flew toward him with a sulking expression.
'I had no idea what would've happened if that man touched Febrica's face. And forgive me for doing this to you,' he thought while watching Elmer perform a movement he had seen before.
Before he could think any further about what Elmer was planning, the man had suddenly appeared right beside him and once again thrust his palm toward him. He barely managed to dodge because his Recipestele redirected the attack with a gust of wind, causing Elmer's hand to veer away and making him slip past him.
But Elmer did not stop there. He immediately pulled a pistol from his pocket and pointed it directly at the back of Harann's head before pulling the trigger.
Bang! Bang!
The two bullets flew toward him, but the attack was easily deflected when several poker cards wrapped in the pale white aura of his spirituality altered the bullets' trajectory.
Meanwhile, Febrica quickly got back up from where she had been thrown and landed in front of the porch of an abandoned house. Then she stepped forward until both feet were fully planted on the stone pavement.
Her mind was instantly flooded with questions regarding the earlier battle.
'I can't fight someone with that much combat experience who also masters supernatural abilities. I need a plan, but... will I even be able to pull it off afterward?'
After thinking for a moment and finally coming up with an idea that might be able to defeat Elmer, she immediately rushed toward Harann to help him.
But only a few steps later, she suddenly realized something about her companion, Mizofra Mivoras.
She looked around, staring at the two people ahead of her, only to realize that all of them had vanished without a trace.
"How horrifying, now that I understand how this world works," she whispered before continuing forward.
Elsewhere, on a different road from where they had met earlier, Veranica was fighting desperately against a man named Mizofra, a Hollow whose Recipestele could destroy her barriers with terrifying ease.
Whenever she was cornered, she often hid herself within clouds of smoke borrowed from one of Ren's Controller abilities and used it, though nowhere near as skillfully as the original owner.
The effects of that ability were truly real. She could no longer move as freely as before, nor could she see clearly because the fog had overtaken her vision.
Receivers of Prefence, at its first level, Suffering.
Besides trapping enemies inside her pale blue barrier, a color synonymous with the first level, the barrier could launch extremely fast attacks from within in the form of small explosions, preventing anyone trapped inside from escaping while enduring the relentless barrage.
Every Receiver with a certain ability, whether at the lowest, middle, or highest level, possessed a different fighting style even if they shared the same supernatural ability.
Like Felina's habit of trapping targets or launching pale blue light attacks in the form of invisible tiny needles, Veranica did none of that because her fighting style was far more brutal and distinct, relying on oppression, or rather, taking abilities from other powers within certain categories and using them herself. More often than not, she preferred blowing things apart from the inside instead of trapping her targets.
Ren and Celina, despite having the same ability, possessed similar fighting styles. But Ren was different because he fully understood how Controller worked, making it perfectly compatible with weapons like his pistol. It allowed him to move freely through the manipulation of black smoke, shift positions effortlessly within the smoke's range while firing, combine it with bullets capable of piercing objects like walls through solidification, and even wield superior abilities such as small purple spheres capable of erasing an opponent's existence down to a fundamental level.
Although using it could render the user unconscious for an entire day and heavily burden the body upon awakening from that long sleep.
Veranica narrowed her eyes and furrowed her brows as she looked at the two people approaching her.
Then, after taking a deep breath, she raised both hands as if intending to surrender, but it was merely a trick to make Mizofra lower his guard and stop approaching her.
She wanted to buy more time to recover her condition, while every breath felt as though something were burning her throat, leaving her with no other choice but to do it.
However, the deception immediately fell apart once the Recipestele realized it was nothing more than a bluff meant to waste Mizofra's time.
"You cannot deceive us lowly humans," the Recipestele shouted loudly, its voice echoing briefly in Veranica's ears.
Veranica sighed as she straightened her posture again and prepared herself to withstand the destructive attacks of the Recipestele, attacks powerful enough to destroy and burn the house behind her.
The air itself seemed to freeze as the two stared at one another. Mizofra did not move from his spot at all as he felt something strange swirling inside his head while looking at Veranica's overly confident gaze.
"Attack her," he said with uncertainty after seeing his Recipestele flying toward Veranica in poor condition.
While clutching her left arm, Veranica stared sharply at the Recipestele, waiting for the perfect moment to kill both of them in an instant.
But just as Veranica moved her hand from front to back as though pulling a rope, a thunderous sound erupted not far from their current location, causing the ground beneath them to tremble while all three of their gazes shifted toward the sky filled with blazing orange flames.
The Recipestele flew even faster after noticing Veranica let her guard down, and the moment it snapped its fingers, an invisible attack rushed toward where Veranica stood, followed by dust scattering everywhere.
However, Veranica survived by blocking the attack before fleeing to find her companions, especially Elmer, whose location was not far from hers.
'Damn it, fighting that creature really makes my body feel exhausted,' she thought while staggering around in search of a hiding place, realizing that the creature could not be defeated easily because its regeneration was absurdly fast and she could not touch its owner at all.
Veranica realized the man she was fighting was truly unfair. Then, after reaching an empty house, entering it, and taking a few steps from the door, she collapsed weakly to the floor, her chest rising and falling with ragged breaths.
Elsewhere, on the main road, there was alley number five, far from the location of alley number eight where Veranica and Mizofra were fighting.
There, Hagi and Ren were struggling immensely against Kharensya, Keilta, and Vabian, whose combat dynamics perfectly complemented one another.
Ren repeatedly fired while adding magnetism to his bullets, but none of them hit their targets and instead destroyed the surrounding houses.
The same went for Hagi. He could only blur their vision while his eyes had yet to fully recover, and he also had to destroy the sleep talismans launched by Keilta, who always remained behind them.
Several minutes had passed as all of them continuously exchanged attacks and counterattacks.
The impact of their battle tore apart the stones on the road and destroyed portions of nearby houses. Their bodies bled heavily as their spiritual energy steadily drained over time.
At the final moment before Ren could no longer move at all, he glanced at Hagi and gave a brief signal with the fingers of his left hand. After that, he waited until Hagi truly carried out what he had ordered.
Cold air mixed with white mist as Hagi's hands began moving rapidly like a conductor controlling the tempo, rhythm, and dynamics of a song upon a stage.
Once the mist had spread evenly, Ren immediately moved and fired several shots to draw their attention.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bullets pierced through the fog, and one of them shot straight through the left side of his chest.
A scream of pain instantly echoed out, and hearing that, Ren immediately pulled the bullet back, forcing it through the same wound again and making Keilta scream even louder than before.
And while the two of them failed to react, the more they moved, the more it felt as though they could no longer find a clear direction.
Several seconds later, Hagi helped Ren locate Keilta, and once they reached him, Ren calmly aimed his pistol and shot him to immobilize him.
This was the moment he had been waiting for, and Ren had absolutely no intention of wasting it before his consciousness faded away.
"Tell me," he said coldly, "do you know a man who recently became a wanted fugitive, whose name has been spreading rapidly through the underworld?" he asked while preparing to pull the trigger.
Keilta let out a gurgling sound because his throat was now filled with blood, and he could no longer endure the pain from the gunshot wounds that had pierced both of his legs, both of his hands, and his stomach.
He could not answer, or more accurately, he wanted to answer but physically could not.
Realizing there would be no answer, Ren, breathing heavily, pulled the bullets still lodged inside Keilta's body. And the moment the bullets came out, blood poured out far more heavily than before as Ren pulled the trigger again.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The bullets shattered his skull, destroyed his mouth, and pierced straight through his heart.