Chapter 44 - The Darkness Reeks To Blood

The frantic noise of steps was the only thing that could be heard as a group of cloaked figures desperately ran through the alleyways.

With nimble steps, Vera made her way through the darkness, careful of any wisp of light she would get, sometimes, she'd regret that light as the darkness it portrayed was beyond her wildest imaginations.

Wails of pained souls, despair.

As she ran daggers in hand, she caught a glimpse of two red eyes that flashed through the darkness, a demon with a sword lounging at her!

*WOOSH!!*

*PUCHI!!*

A trusty arrow moved at breakneck speeds through the darkness and impacted right through the demon's skull, it even emitted the gruesome noise of the skull tearing apart.

"Don't stop!!"

Vera grit her teeth and took the arrow from the fallen demon's head as she continued running together with Fayette, the latter only had seven arrows remaining with two of them being in Vera's possession.

They have been running nonstop, as of now, she doesn't even know where they are, fuck the plan... they just ran as demons kept flopping from all around, some of them were the ones that were in their pursuit, the others... just the greenhorns that saw some tasty humans to torture.

As they ran, Fayette prepared her next arrow as she grit her teeth, Valentine is not behind them.

But she trusts he's okay.

The two ladies reached a momentary stop when they came upon a cross street, the ground itself seemed to be muddy, but they know better, this is not mud...

"Where to?!"

"..." Fayette didn't know where to go, while fending off the upcoming demons with arrows and daggers, she had lost the directions, but she could roughly guess where the main street should be, to the right.

Therefore...

"Wait a moment... if we see any demon... take the left..." She turned around to glare at the dark alleyway they came from that only got a wisp of moonlight.

Nothing's coming... no demons, no Valentine...

Vera covered Fayette's back and watched out for the other three paths in case anything popped out.

...

They waited and waited until they heard the noise of footsteps!

!!!

Fayette raised her bow, ready to shoot the moment she saw two horns or purple skin.

*THUMP!*

*THUMP!*

*THUMP!*

The heavy footsteps of a big thing resonated through the corridor as Fayette furrowed her brows, should they run!?

But then Valentine ran out, with a cloak covered in blood!

"Take the left, quickly, I'll catch up, don't take any other interception!"

!!!

They did so, but rather than follow them, the bringer of euthanasia kept moving up front!

"GIVE ME YOUR SOUL, BASTARD!"

The heavy demon soldier appeared through the darkness with a great hammer and a gaping wound right through his chest, he followed the blurry figure of the person that ran to the front!

*THUMP!*

*THUMP!*

*THUMP!*

....

Valentine ran through the dark corridors that became progressively narrow.

'That demon is fat and slow... he's way slower than Bellcroft, moreover... his weapon is blunt... I can do it.'

Not only he can do it, but this is also the best place to do it.

Therefore, he came to a stop right at the place where the alleyway became narrow enough, crouched down in the darkness and waited, feeling repulsed at the horrid smell, but... he had been through worse.

...

*THUMP!*

*THUMP!*

*THUMP!*

The demon arrived shortly after, but just as Valentine's expected, his eyes aren't like those of humans.

Valentine didn't wait for the gigantic hammer to crush his body.

"WHAT? DO YOU THINK I CAN'T SEE YOU!?"

*WWOOOSHH!!*

He immediately lunged with his two knives in hand, right towards the demon's legs that had the knees uncovered.

*BOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!-------------

"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!*--------"

The Ruby knife went through the bone, not like butter, it took effort compared to the Red Thorn, but it pierced!

A loud banging noise followed by a cloud of dust covered the entire alleyway when the hammer impacted right where Valentine had been.

Not slow at all, but way slower compared to Bellcroft.

The reaper's barrage was far from finished.

As the demon yelled in pain and hunched down, yet another piercing pain rocketed his demonic brain, this time, a gaping wound yet again on his uncovered chest.

*WOOOOSH!!*

The demon retaliated with a fist, letting go of the slow hammer that made him lose in the agile battle against this disgusting human, but Valentine's fiery eyes saw that coming from miles away, he evaded it and used the momentum to kick the wall and reach a higher place.

*SLASSH!!*

*SPLURT!*

The neck!

This exchange continued for several minutes, Valentine kept slashing the demon's skin as if he was a pig in the slaughterhouse while evading the demon's retaliation that progressively became slower.

The neck, the eye, an arm...

Eventually, he had to stop, and that was the moment Valentine's entire arm went through the demon's eyesocket to extract the brain!

*CRUNCH!*

The noise of the optic nerve being torn apart from the brain resonated through the relatively silent accursed alleyway, portraying a scene no less grotesque than what it had already been through today, but no doubt... this alleyway hadn't seen a demon soldier being so mercilessly slaughtered amidst its corners in a long time.

After throwing the eye away, Valentine once again invaded the dizzy demon's eye socket, but rather than extracting the brain, he directly pierced the grey matter to take out a stone.

A shiny red stone much like the one Bellcroft had...

*BOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!-----

The demon's body fell down like a piece of trash, utterly powerless and lacking the primal life.

A Demon Soldier is gone just like that.

The reaper's gaze remained in the red palpitating core... but he shook his head and stored it.

Had he eaten one of those before?

It's hard to believe, it looks grotesque and disgusting... not much different than eating actual dumps from dogs.

He searched for the demon soldier's body and marvelled to find a total of five hundred thousand amethyst coins divided into different cards with different numbers in them.

Aside from that, there were... miscellaneous... such as human and demon's eyes... with different colours, pierced and turned into a collar.

'Disgusting!'

Leaving the filthy demon's corpse to rot, or worse, be devoured... he went on his way.

The bloodied reaper walked through the dark alleyways shrouded in blood, regarding the ruby knife.

It's not as good as the Rose Eagle Thorn but it will do.

'There is nothing better than the Rose Thorn...'

**

**

For the entire while, Vera and Fayette encountered three more demons, casual ones that had been torturing some humans.

"Thank you..." they heard one of them say, a man... he was naked with scratches all over his body.

"No need to thank, go on your way." Fayette said coldly, not even bothered to keep addressing this fellow, the other one, a man on his thirties said something else.

"!$!&·%&%/"·!"

????

"What did you say?" Vera thought she hard wrong.

"He's not from this circle, you won't understand him..." The man from before said as he prepared to flee, these girls don't look like pushovers, look at the size of that knife!

"What do you mean?" Vera and Fayette didn't get it, but the blonde had indeed met such a scenario before when she was attacked, different circle?

"As repayment for having saved me from that bastard... I will tell you this piece... I thought you were all experienced but it doesn't look like it... the netherworld has different circles depending on the sin that you committed... and we can't understand each other... no matter how much we try."

!!!

"What other circles do you know? is it the same from Dante's Inferno...?" Fayette had naturally recognised the word 'circle' it's a fairly well-known book on the Earth from the famous Dante.

"Dante? who is that...? anyway... I only know the circle of wrath we're in... and also, the circle of Envy and Lust... who knows where this poor bastard is from." The man said at last before departing

'Envy...? there is no such a circle in the book...' but still, the correlation with the book is undeniable, however, that might also be subjective to the bible's interpretation... those are, after all, common sins.

Seeing that communication was impossible, the other man departed too, whether he had a destination or not, the girls didn't know... the two ladies were left in this small corner to wait for Valentine's return.

Vera handed Fayette her arrows as the two made themselves small and prepared in case a demon prepared to test his or her luck.

**

**

The bloody reaper appeared with his two daggers shortly after, receiving a hug from Fayette.

"I never doubted..." She hugged him, not caring about the disgusting smell that permeated from him, she's not lying, she never doubted he'd be okay, but that doesn't mean she wasn't worried.

In this accursed place one never knows, she'd be more confident in sending him in deployment to the middle-east than half an hour in these alleyways.

Vera also took his hand, a little more restrained and smiled, she too had been confident in her success, in fact, she felt proud of herself and her performance tonight, despite the despairing situation they were placed in, she had remained calm and assertive unlike the beginning for her journey when she would struggle to kill even a mutated wolf.

This sharp rose thorn also gave her confidence.

Valentine also embraced the two of them and kissed their foreheads, that had been a quite hectic situation, but...they made it... they lost those demons, but this is just half of the entire thing, now...

"Do you know where we are?" They're supposed to head to the southern gate, but right now he doesn't know if this is north, south, east, west, drunk or not...

"I have no idea... but I think the main street is the other way around, do you want to explore, now that we lost them, we're in a better position, I don't think they have as much control of the city in the alleyways as they do outside." She asserted mainly due to the number of rogue demons and humans that were in here, whoever this organisation or group is, they mostly take action in the middle of the city. 

"I don't know if this works but... I recall that the three moons were to the 'north' the first time we entered the gates, perhaps... if we use them as a guide, it might work just like the Earth?" Vera suggested, the problem is, those moons move as well, they're not always in the same position.

So erratically in fact, that Valentine doubts they're actual moons, they might be more than just lights shining high above the sky.

The ex-commander and the ex-assassin didn't even want to begin to think about astronomical and geologic implications of this netherworld, it is just a free headache they don't want.

"Where do you think we should go, Vera?" He asked and Fayette lifted up her eyebrows slightly before glancing at the Russian beauty.

!!!

'W-Why are you asking me?!'

She understood that they wanted to take her input into consideration.

"I'd keep going down this way... away from the direction those demons came from... moreover, I'd also run in the direction those guys from before went to... they must have lived here longer than us, and if they consider that direction safe... then I'd rather meet humans than demons." She gulped slightly and gave her opinion, hoping to not have made a fool of herself.

"That's a good idea, let's do that... what guys is she referring to, Faye?" Valentine asked after considering her input.

"Some poor fools that we saved from being tortured... you see them?" She pointed at the demon corpses that were either bisected or had their heads crushed.

"They were abusing some humans and torturing them... it seems like that 'abounds' here... and indeed, like Vera said they headed that way." She pointed to the continuation of the alleyway they currently were.

"Furthermore, Vale... one of those guys gave a valuable piece of information."

The blonde started to tell him the details about the 'language exchange'.