"STABH! SHRING!"
"AHHHH!" Two more Devils dropped to the ground before bursting into flames, lighting the area enough for me to see the despairing faces of the few Devils left.
As Sona had cryptically said, there had been quite a number of devils and demons coming into the area recently, and it seemed to have increased in a disturbingly exponential rate. Even during that period I was laying low, I had to take out at least ten on my way back home. No Sacred Gear Users so far, but this was becoming quite problematic.
And as of now, I just killed off number twenty for the day. Joy.
"Damn it! What is with this human?!" A black-haired devil hissed as his hands twisted horrendously into sharp claws. "I never heard of a human who can fight like this!"
"Is he an Exorcist? He has all those holy runes on him." A creature with a lizard-like complexion narrowed its eyes at me.
"No, he is not wearing the church's clothing." A crow-like creature tilted its head to a nearly bone-crunching ninety-degree angle. "Also he is using magic, and you know how those church-goers feel about magicians."
"I could care less, this human is making me mad!" The first one jumped forward to take a swipe at me, simultaneously conjuring up several balls of fire behind him so as to attack me from all angles when I dodged his first attack.
Too bad that he was not paying attention to the blades that were aimed for his limbs.
"STABH!"
"GARRRGHH!" The Devil yelled as he was brought to an untimely halt due to my blades impaling his legs to the asphalt, followed shortly by his arms getting cut off. Before he could try to free himself, I introduced a Black Key to his head, ending his yelling of pain.
"Shit! Split up!" The earlier two and four other Devils sprung from their locations and made off in different directions to avoid my attacks. They may have made it harder for me to aim, but they ended up making themselves an easier target for the crew I was with to take them out.
"Fireball!" Momo conjured up a huge ball of red flames and directed it at the crow devil, instantly incinerating it without a chance for it to scream.
"Here we go!" Tsubasa jumped out of her hiding spot and punched the lizard creature hard in the gut and sending it crashing to the pavement below, creating a two feet crater in the process.
"EEII!" Ruruko kicked a third devil right between the legs and sent him flying into the air, leaving himself open to Meguri who rushed in to stab him in mid-air.
"Damn it!" One of the strays tried to run into an empty alley only to have his face meet a metal gauntlet courtesy of Ise.
"Have some lightning on me!" Akeno gleefully let loose her attack at the devil, reducing it into quick ashes within a few seconds. The remaining two paled in the face of the opposition and tried a different direction, only to drop dead by the introduction of Kiba's swords.
"Well, I think we got them all." Rias commented as she looked around the area with a big frown. "But honestly this took a lot longer than expected."
"Indeed, this is most troubling." Sona concurred as she came out of her spot and surveyed the area. The small road junction of the area resembled more like something from a post-apocalyptic setting with huge cracks in the ground and the various sign-posts pulled out and bent like tissue. "The numbers have been increasing for the past few days now, and they seemed to be getting bolder in terms of getting to the school area."
"We will need to set up more detection spells in the area, but it seems that they are finding their way around them, we could only detect half of them so far." Momo frowned as she tapped her feet impatiently. "At least we have Emiya-kun to help find the remainder."
"Yes, maybe we could get some detection spells from him to help out. Would that be fine, Emiya-kun?" Sona turned to me only to pause. "Emiya-kun, are you okay?"
"Hmm?" I turned to face her from the lot of charred bodies near me. "Yeah, I'm okay. What's up?"
"I was asking if you could know any detection spells to place in the area."
"Oh, I see." I absentmindedly scratched the back of my head as I considered the number of spells in my head. "Yeah, I think I can lend you a couple of spells if it is just detection." She nodded while giving me a cursory glance. I merely turned back to the pile of bodies and sighed lightly while writing a rune to burn them.
Something was wrong with me; I am not sure what, but I have been feeling somewhat frustrated for the past few weeks, and I was not sure why that was the case. The only thing I know was that this feeling always come about after my hunts of these Stray Devils. What was wrong with me?
A sudden scent in the air broke my thoughts and I directed my attention to a drain nearby. The lid was blown slightly off from all the earlier attacks and the opening was enough to let the sewage smell come out of the opening. But that was not the scent that I caught, it was something more sulfuric about the scent.
The scent of a devil.
A quick projection directed at the drain and the devil jumped out of his hiding spot and landed right in the middle of the group. The relatively paled-face creature went paler at the sight of the Peerages all around him and started to scurry away. I immediately threw a dagger at him, but by some dumb luck he dodged at the last second, letting it sail past him while he jumped to the rooftop and made his getaway.
... You have got to be kidding me? I let a weak guy run away?!
"This one is mine." Before anyone else could refute, I channelled Prana to my legs, and with a big leap, jumped to the rooftop and started my chase with the Devil. It was a bit of a professional pride to take down a creature that escaped my attack.
It was a few miles later that I managed to corner him in an abandoned warehouse just a little near the closest hill from town. Try as he might, he was letting himself open in the back for a quick shot with an arrow.
"GARHH!" He stumbled for a short while before dropping face first into the ground, his body bursting into flames from the sword impaled into his back. I lightly landed on the ground and viewed the slow burning of the body, using that moment to keep stock of the situation.
As far as I could tell, it was just bad luck that there were more strays entering the area. The girl's cautious efforts to keep me and Ise under wraps were more than likely pure paranoia that someone was after us for our strengths. Still it was nice of them, and for Ise's case, he would definitely need the protection. It had been subtle, but during the training period, I could tell that he was not fully over the death of that Fallen Angel. Given the trauma he went through, that was a given.
Hah, I felt so old.
After watching the flames died out, I took stock of the area I was in and found myself wondering around the space. This was quite big for a small warehouse by the hill, this could easily fit my old house comfortably. It was relatively undisturbed and rather decent in fact. I have been thinking of finding an apartment or a small building to use as a safe-house in case I had to hide, and this spot was relatively remote and I could use some of the rooms at the sides as storage or even my workshop.
I must be lucky.
Without warning, my arms automatically moved to intercept a copper-colored spear aimed for my back, cutting it neatly in half and making the two halves pierce the ground hard. I only had a brief moment to look at them before they cracked and broke down into smaller pieces, scattering the remains on all over the ground.
I did not think about it too much as I started to move my body in time to avoid another spear, this time a red one aimed at my legs. But to my unpleasant surprise, the spear started to bend at an unnatural angle and headed straight for my head. I poured more Prana into Kanshou to extend the edge so as to intercept the spearhead, before jumping away in time to break my weapon and destroy the spear as well.
I quickly got my back to a column and lowered my center of gravity as I projected another blade and surveyed the area with a critical eye. That was close, I almost did not sense the killing intent behind those spears, and whoever it was could hide his presence very well.
But who was it?
...
Hey guys If you want an extra chapter you, need to throw some power Stones ;)
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Aerle