Chereads / Angels' Demon / Chapter 14 - The Hunter Named Nicollo

Chapter 14 - The Hunter Named Nicollo

The demon walked through the lawn of the cathedral-like medical center with confidence in its stride and a number of bodies in its wake. It had somehow breached the medical center and the first thing it did was to kill off the guards with heavenly pacts, then toyed with the guards with guns before finishing them off.

A guard attempted to send a distress signal to The Garden but for some reason, the distress signal failed. He was able to get a message to The Garden while being choked to death by the demon.

"Please…help us…the m-medical…facility has been breached,...by a demon."

His message was followed by the sound of a bone being broken.

The demon was stout with its entire body black except for its neck portions and face. It had horns mounted at the side of its face which curved out to the front as well as large obsidian eyes.

After making sure he had killed the guards, the demon walked into the building and turned to its left.

"Where would the vessel be?" It muttered to itself as it ran its hands along the walls as it walked through the halls.

It is said that when a demon could speak, it usually had a well defined ability and was stronger than the gross populace of demons who could only make growlings and grunts. That was especially true for this demon. It wasn't born special like Itami or Kamikaze, it had grown stronger overtime relying on one thing and one thing only-instinct.

Whatever its instinct dictated, it did without thinking. That was how he made it as far as it had, killed a lot of hunters and got the respect of a lot of other demons; and that's why it suddenly turned around and cocked its head to the left only to see a bullet pass right by his head. It had just barely dodged it by a couple of millimeters.

The demon looked up to see a young man of about 23-years-old, a bit over six feet tall with long brown hair that flowed wherever it went, deep brown eyes and a smooth skin complemented by a rough and rugged appearance and a quite handsome face, holding a handgun in its direction. He was one who had trained Derrick, the hunter named Nicollo.

"You brat!" The demon growled with its eyes widened in a belligerent manner and clear hatred brimming in its words.

Without responding, Nicollo shot at the demon once more. The demon, purely on instinct, moved out of the way to dodge the moment it saw Nicollo's hand pull the trigger. 

It managed to dodge the bullet but then its pride kicked in.

"Why am I so pressured to dodge against a mere human?" It asked itself. "Bullets shouldn't be a problem for me."

For the sake of its pride, it resolved not to dodge the next shot but take it on fully to exert its dominance. When it saw Nicollo move to pull the trigger, it put its hand out in front of its chest and in the path of the bullet, expecting to stop it or catch it. 

He pulled the trigger, causing a BOOM sound to reverberate the walls. The bullet traveled through the space at a blinding speed headed for the demon who had its hand held out in expectation.

It had already planned its next line after catching the bullet. When the bullet was just a few centimeters from its palm, it had arched its fingers, getting ready to catch it. To its surprise, the bullet went into its palm, came out through the back of its palm, went into its chest and came out through its back.

It had a look of utter shock plastered onto its face as it fell to its knees with its head bowed. Thick purplish liquid gushed out of the holes made in its body. He instinctively placed its other hand beneath its jaw as a similarly thick purplish liquid was coughed out of its mouth.

"What is this? It's so warm." It asked itself as it felt the liquid. "Oh! I see…"

It added, finally coming to realization. It then yelled out in a high pitch tone.

"BLOOD!!! IT'S MY BLOOD!!!"

Nicollo tossed away the handgun then picked up a bow staff lying at his feet then clutched it in a combat prepared manner and faced against the demon.

"Shall we continue?" He said calmly.

"You!" The demon spat with murderous intentions reflected clearly in its large obsidian eyes, "I will be the end of you."

"Alright, hurry up then." Nicollo responded with passive calmness. He had a tone to his voice that did nothing but piss the demon off.

Its wounds had healed completely, so it got up and dashed towards Nicollo with its hands stretched out to grab him. Nicollo twisted and dodged. The demon was about to rebound on another attack but it had forgotten about Nicollo's staff which it twisted upwards, smacking the demon in its jaw.

Without giving it any time to adapt, Nicollo hit it with a barrage of attacks in quick succession. While being hit, a dark spiral formed in the demon's palm which it launched at Nicollo.

Nicollo's speed seemed to double as he dodged the attack. The demon's jaw dropped in surprise. Immediately, he shoved his staff into its mouth and jerked it violently, dislocating its jaw. 

"How dare y-" The demon intended to say as it healed its jaw but was cut off from saying it as he got smacked in the face by Nicollo's staff which tossed him to the wall.

He made a weird movement which the demon couldn't follow, then dashed to kick the demon. It narrowly managed to dodge the kick which put a hole clean through the wall.

"What the hell are you?" The demon asked, looking gassed out. Even though their exchange was brief, he was feeling incredibly weak. It speculated that it must have been caused by the first bullet it had gotten shot with.

It's instinct, the very thing it had relied on from the beginning, kept telling him to run away; but it couldn't. For the sake of its pride, it wanted to fight. 

It got up to its feet barely then realized that Nicollo had opened his mouth to say something. 

"I am merely a tool for justice, a sword and a scale." He said in response to the demon's question.

"I have no idea what you just said right now." The demon said getting prepared to fight.

"I have a question." Nicollo said in a calm yet mildly dangerous tone. "I thought those demons who could speak were stronger than most who couldn't."

The demon merely nodded in response then Nicollo continued. "If that is so, then why are you just so weak?"

The demon's head exploded out of rage. A large dark spiral clothed it as it yelled about all the ways it could kill Nicollo. It felt like it had gotten the upper hand; yet, for some reason, its instinct kept pushing it to run away now more than ever.

It took The demon a moment to realize that Nicollo had picked up the gun he used earlier.

He heard something like grumbling from Nicollo which sounded a lot like "Sorry, I'm done playing."

He shot the demon through the head. The dark spiral around the demon disappeared as it fell to its feet then to its face as its body disappeared.

"My work here is done."

Meanwhile, in the room where Derrick was unconscious, a clicking sound was heard as a pair of dark eyes and sharp white teeth stared at the boy then grinned as body emerged from behind the darkness.,