“<Possession: Lucifer’s Soul>!”

A black flash covered the room. In the place of the human, there should only be a hole in the ground, nothing else remained. That was what the feijiang had expected.

But that wasn’t what he saw. As the smoke began to clear, a figure could clearly be seen through the smoke. The figure was not the same as that of the human before though. Not fully. Large feathered wings the colour of the night extended out from his back, two grey horns grew out from his head. His clothes were in tatters, allowing one to see the runes that seemed to cover his entire body. The entirety of his body was now covered in a dark aura.

“Phew. I can’t believed I was forced into this,” David remarked. With no other choice, he decided to utilise more of Lucifer’s powers to nullify the <Shadow Eradication> sent at him. Although he succeeded, he wasn’t happy about it. After all, this allowed Lucifer to read his thoughts far easier.

“Heh, instead of getting annoyed, you should probably focus on the battle,” Lucifer laughed.

Ignoring Lucifer’s comment, David turned back to the battlefield. The mezuki, gozuki, and manticore seemed to be ready to attack at any time. The feijiang was glaring at him with a surprised look on its face.

“Surprised?” David chuckled.

Hearing that, the feijiang indicated with its right hand for two undead, as well as the manticore around David to attack. The gozuki was the first to attack. It charged towards David like a mindless bull, raising its hammer high up in the air. The manticore flap its wings and rised high up in the air, before taking a dive towards David.

As the hammer smashed down, David focused his mana, causing the black aura around him to thicken. Instead of crushing him, the hammer did not seem to be able to bypass the aura, The gozuki placed more strength into the hammer, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the aura surrounding David.

David wasn’t even paying attention to the gozuki. Instead he wrapped his blades in the same aura that surrounded his body, then slashed at the manticore coming down at him.

The blade cleanly sliced through the manticore’s stomach. Blood gushed out and splattered over David and the gozuki.

“One down. Three to go,” David muttered.

The mezuki tried to use this chance to put down David, thrusting its halberd out towards his abdomen. Having noticed this, David used the blade in his left hand to parry it, and utilising the motion, he stabbed forward with his other blade. It penetrated the mezuki’s shoulder.

Instead of retreating, the mezuki moved forward, allowing the blade to penetrate into the flesh more. It was determined to hold its enemy in place so that the gozuki could finish him off. The pain in its shoulder was trivial compared to the success of the elimination of the target.

David wasn’t flushed by this at all. Letting go of his blades, he turned around, and did a roundhouse kick on mezuki’s head, knocking it to the side. A ‘crack’ could be heard as parts of the mezuki’s skeleton shattered upon impact. The effects of <Possession> depended upon the powers of the user’s soul. Lucifer’s Soul seemed to increase his physical capabilities further and also granted him a greater mana pool to use.

The mezuki stumbled backwards. Not missing this opportunity, David quickly leaped towards the mezuki with the aid of his wings, and brought his blade down. It sliced cleanly through the neck of the mezuki, beheading it instantly. Blood spurt forth as the body dropped onto the cold floor.

Seeing two of its servants fell, questions began to fill the feijiang’s mind. At first glance, the human before it did not seem to be anything special. In fact, making it here was already enough to raise suspicion about that person’s identity, but the feijiang had disregarded this earlier suspicion after seeing the human’s struggle. Yet, the being in front of him did not seem like a human any longer. It was something far more, nearly resemblance to a demon, yet not being a demon. It was enough to cause the feijiang to actually fear for its own immortal life.

It decided then, instead of watching its servants fight, it would enter the fray. Perhaps through a combination of <Shadow Eradication>, <Darkness Falling> and <Eradicate Life>, the enemy before it would…

But it didn’t even get a chance to finish the thought. It was surrounded by a firestorm. It tried to assemble some form of defence, and tried to cast several advanced and saint ranked water magic to nullify the firestorm surrounding it. <Hydraulic Aegis> and <Tidal Embrace> did not seem to weaken the power of the firestorm. It desperately casted the monarch ranked <Oceanic Typhoon>, but even that had no effect.

Seeing this, the gozuki rushed to the feijiang’s side and started pouring its mana into an attempt to extinguish the firestorm. It was a futile attempt. Instead, the gozuki began to heat up and became engulfed in the expanding firestorm.

The firestorm burned quickly and wildly. The flames seared everything in its surroundings. Some of the flames came close to David, but it didn’t burn him at all. The aura of darkness protected him. As he watched the flames flicker, he let out a sigh, “It’s finally over.”

“Well done. You have performed splendidly,” Lucifer congratulated him.

“Did it all go according to your plan?” David commented, while breaking free of the <Possession>.

“Well, you did defeat all of the undead here. So good job. Now…” Lucifer paused for a moment, as if considering something. “Time to get out of here.”

David walked towards the large metal door that he used to enter the room.

“Not that way. Use <Portal> to get above ground, then leave quickly.”

“Lucifer, is something wrong? <Portal>” Despite being confused about Lucifer’s sudden request, David still listened to it, reasoning that Lucifer must have had a reason to do so.

Casting <Portal> David visualised the place where he entered the entrance of the tomb.

“So, what was it? David asked.

“Exorcists. Right now, you’re not in any condition to deal with them.”

“Would they really attack? I just did their job for them… Unless its because of you?”

“Better safe than sorry right? And these exorcists seemed to radiate a celestial light.”

A loud explosion was heard, startling the three of them. They rushed along the corridor. The trail of bodies seemed never-ending. Every step they took, the ground was covered with puddles of blood, and flood of corpses, it seemed that stepping on them were unavoidable.

“What was that?” Hikari exclaimed. This mission definitely wasn’t going the way she had expected it to. She had presumed that it’d be a breeze in the park, followed by a few nights where she could relax and go out. Perhaps even hit the clubs or something. Instead they seemed to have been just a step behind a potential threat.

“Not sure, but judging from the sound, it definitely seems like a fight might be going on ahead. We should get going,” Guang replied.

“Wait a minute!” Ordered Lux. “Do you have any idea of what enemy you might face? Do you understand the dangers you’re stepping into? Don’t act so carefree! First of all, the target this time is not a normal feijiang, but one that has risen from the body of a powerful mage. Secondly, a lot of the corpses we have seen all seemed to have a pool of water around it. This indicates the use of water or ice based attacks, neither of them are what is commonly associated with the elimination of undead.

Telling you two to prepare [Divine Revenant] was definitely needed. The possibilities that the one responsible of eliminating the undead being hostile is not low. If they were not, they would have likely be local, and that we would have known about them. The fact that we have no idea of what could be ahead suggests heavily the dangers involved. So now stop acting like idiots and act like the exorcists you’re supposed to be!”

Hikari was surprised. To her, Lux had always been the cool older sister type of person that she admired. She believed that with Lux, anything was possible. For such a person to lose their temper and become worried, just how serious was this situation?

“Yes… Understood…” Guang and Hikari answered. Although Hikari had doubts on her mind, she still obediently apologized.

“Let’s hurry up.”

The three of them ran past several doors, but they ignored it. The explosion hadn’t come from behind one of those doors, but further down the corridor. As they went down further and further, they noticed that the atmosphere had changed. The three of them could feel an intimidating and oppressing aura seeping out from the darkness.

It didn’t take them too long to arrive in front of a large black metal door. Yet when they arrived, the oppressing aura had disappeared. Was it a fragment of their imagination? That would be impossible. It was not possible for three strong-minded exorcists to be influenced so easily. This had to mean they truly felt the aura. What was the source of it? Questions filled Hikari’s head.

Lux slowly pushed open the metal gate. The three of them stepped inside the room. The smell of burnt flesh filled their nostrils. Before them, was death. A dead manticore was lying on the floor with its stomach cut wide open. A mezuki had been decapitated. Near the throne-like chair, a badly burnt corpse could be seen. On the throne itself was a charred skeleton. The flesh on its bones seemed to have burnt away.

The scene in front of them contradicted everything else in the corridor before. It was as if a fire magician had arrived and burnt the two figures to dust. This sort of scene would have only been possible if there was a team that had arrived before them.

“Powerful fire magic as well as weaponry…?” Lux muttered. “This can’t be the act of a single person. But the ice before… I suppose being proficient in both ice and fire magic is unlikely but not impossible… Just what is going on here?”

Guang was also dumbfounded at the scene. In no way did he expect to see a scene like this before him. Masses of undead destroyed, a mezuki slain. Even a manticore, a ferocious beast that could endanger a small village as a cub, dead before his eyes. He had expected the person or group before them to be a rather powerful group, but to have slain such dangerous monsters, and then disappeared before they arrived. It was unthinkable.

Hikari was raking her mind to see what she could think of, but nothing. She didn’t know what to say at all. The mission hadn’t just turned serious. It turned completely dangerous as well. An unknown possible threat was loose onto the city, and they had no clue about it.

“Hikari, Lux. Let’s go. We’ll go and report the situation to the headquarters, then pour our efforts into finding whoever did this. They are far too powerful to be able to walk freely without us having any information on them. We need to understand everything in order to keep the people in this city safe. It is our duty. As followers of the almighty God and his angels. As exorcists.”

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