The day of the hunt came and all goblins ready to become the next leader stood at the gate. The goblins had a final moment of silence for their fallen leader and headed out to find and kill Akio.
**Meanwhile in the heart of the forest**
Akio and Roland devised a plan so Akio would have a chance to survive the hunt. They spent most of the 2 days making a mental map of the forest and laying traps at spots where the goblins would most likely pass. They also made extra arrows and quivers and put them up in the tree he was hiding up in.
After parting ways with Roland, Akio waited on a tree branch for 20 minutes until he noticed that a branch he labeled as "SW" fell which meant that his first trap in the south west region of the forrest went off. He then stood up and moved to another branch pointing in the direction of the trap. After a couple more minutes he began hearing movement from the area.
"What is that sound? Are those vibrations?" Akio thought.
What Akio was hearing was the sound of the goblin's muscles contracting in the bushes. He heard it so accurately that he was able to put down all 3 of them with his arrows.
"If I just stick to this position I should be fine. As soon as I'm off the defensive I'm dead meat." Akio thought.
He sat in the tree for hours hitting anything that made his traps go off. Sometimes he'd hit goblins and other times he'd hit random creatures. After a couple of hours he learned the difference in vibrations between the goblins and the other creatures of the forest.
"How come I didn't hear these vibrations before?" Akio thought with a very confused expression on his face.
In the short span of time that Akio was off guard wondering why he only then gained this special hearing, an axe was thrown at him from below. Akio saw it when it was less than a meter away from his face and still managed to shoot an arrow at it and knocked a bit off course so it spun closely to his face. As the axe got stuck in the tree Akio felt the branch he was standing on start to shake. He jumped on to another tree and looked down at the stem of the tree he was just on and saw a very muscular goblin lifting the tree out of the ground. Akio tried to pull an arrow out of his quiver but before he could take one out, the goblin pulled the tree out of the ground completely and swung it at Akio like a baseball bat. The hit landed directly and sent Akio flying to his right. Akio then hit his back on a tree horizontally and fell to the ground.
"How the hell am i still alive?" Akio thought as he stretched.
The goblin looked at Akio with hate and contempt.
"I find it hard to believe that a lowly demon such as yourself was able to kill my brother." He said angrily.
"IT WAS AN ACCIDENT!" Akio yelled.
"How do you kill someone by accident!?" He yelled back.
"It's complicated." Akio said as he looked down and sighed.
"Whether it was an accident or on purpose, blood must have blood." He said as his face became slightly feral.
The goblin went into a battle stance.
"I am Joshua of the third tribe, but you can call me your demise." He said as he rushed at Akio.
Akio jumped over the enraged goblin and made him crash into a tree, bringing the tree down completely.
"Can't we just talk about this?" Akio asked feeling fearful for his own life.
Joshua grunted and attacked once again and knocked Akio through a tree.
"Yup that definitely broke something." Akio said with a cough.
Akio stood up slowly and walked forward while holding his rib cage with his left arm.
"Alright you got a hit in, are you done?" Akio asked in pain.
"That was just a warm up." Joshua said with a feral smile.
Akio gulped and ran away.
"I DON'T WANNA DIE!" Akio screamed as he ran through the forest.
"GET BACK HERE YOU BRAT!" Joshua yelled as he ran after him.
As he ran further and further through the forest he noticed that he didn't feel anymore pain in his rib cage.
"That's weird I swore I broke something." Akio thought.
Akio looked back and noticed that Joshua was gone. He then stopped running and took a breather. A couple second later he heard the sound of a cracking branch and looked up, he saw Joshua attacking from above like a meteor. The lightning fast attack left a crater in the ground with lots of dust flying around the area. When the dust settled all that could be seen was Joshua's hand inside of Akio's chest and Akio's hand gripping on to an arrow that he lodged into Joshua's back.
"Well I guess you had some backbone after all, but sadly you wont have a heart." Joshua said before he pulled out Akio's heart with a smile.
Joshua crushed Akio's heart and looked at Akio's lifeless body for a few seconds before turning his back and walking away.
"You know I learned something interesting yesterday." Akio said with a couple coughs between his words.
Joshua turned around with a shocked expression on his face.
"BUT I CRUSHED YOUR HEART!" He yelled.
"Normal demons have 1 to 3 hearts, Mid class demons have 3 or 4 hearts, and high ranking devils such as myself have 4 to 6 hearts. Lucky me, I was born with all 6." Akio said with a smile.
He then slowly got back on his feet while his heart quickly regenerated along with his flesh and skin.
"When I kill you I think I'll take that nice sword on your hip as my prize." Akio said with a confident smile.
"What makes you think that this changes anything? You can regenerate quickly, so what? I'll just have to cut you up faster than you can heal." Joshua said with an angry look on his face
"Try it!" Akio said as he opened his eyes and revealed his menacing blood red eyes.
A chill went down Joshuas spine as he laid eyes on them.
"You think that you can beat me because your eye color changed? I'll kill you!" Joshua said as he unsheathed his sword and rushed at Akio.
Akio dodged Joshua's attack, grabbed his shoulder and threw him through a tree that was about 10 meters away. As Joshua got back on his feet he noticed a change in demeanor in his enemy, he somehow went from a scared little brat to a warrior with all the confidence in the world.
"What is your name demon?" He asked.
"Akio Takaha- I mean Akio of Tartarus, child of lord Sanguis of Tartarus." Akio replied.
"So I was right. Those red eyes could only be from one demon lord. I'm just surprised he sent an idiotic brat like you as his first ever apostle." Joshua said with a serious gaze.
"What the hell are you talking about? I know I'm the first demon that Sanguis ever sent to this world but what's this apostle business you're going on about?" Akio asked.
"You really are just an ignorant fool aren't you?" Joshua said with a facepalm.
"Why does everyone say that? I just got here! It's not like this world came with a manual!" Akio said in defense.
Joshua proceeded to explain to Akio that all Demon lords have specific ideologies, ideologies about leadership and how the world should be. Demon lords who's ideologies have the same end goal live in the same quadrant. These quadrants are the North, aka the dark realm; the south, aka the realm of nightmares; the east, aka the realm of despair; and the west, aka the realm of annihilation. The Demon lords send apostles down to earth to
"Do you understand brat?" Joshua asked.
"It all makes sense now." Akio replied.
"Glad that I could give you your last history lesson." Joshua said as he gripped his sword tighter.
Joshua rushed at Akio and began swinging his sword at great speeds, Akio dodged and threw some punches in return.
"How the hell are you moving at the same speed as me?" Joshua asked in a very surprised tone.
"I'm just getting warmed up." Akio said with a smile.
His overly cocky demeanor got the goblin more riled up than ever before. They continued to try and hit each other but they were so evenly matched that none of them could get a decisive blow in.
"I'd probably enjoy a fight like this if I weren't fighting the demon that murdered my brother in cold blood." Joshua said with a smirk.
"I truly didn't mean too!" Akio pleaded.
"Blood must have blood regardless. The fact that he saved your life doesn't help your case either." Joshua replied.
"What do you mean?" Akio asked.
"The river that you were near was one blessed by the gods to repel pure blooded demons from the forest. I don't know how you got here but my brother sensed your presence and wanted to stop you from killing yourself. He could've just sent someone to do it but I guess he was curious about you."
After hearing this Akio's heart shattered. He couldn't justify what he did anymore, his eye color changed back to black and he dropped to his knees. A single tear dropped from his left eye as he looked at Joshua with a face filled with remorse.
"Your will to fight is pitiful, after hearing something like that you're already willing to let me kill you? I can't believe you were the one that killed my brother." Joshua said enraged.
Akio didn't know what to say, he just watched Joshua with an emotionless stare as if his mind just broke.
"Allow me to take you out of your misery." Joshua said.
He gripped his sword tightly and gave Akio a deadly stare.
"I will end you!" Joshua yelled.