Chapter 40 - Lord of Wrath

Carefully, the Imp stepped through the streets filled with purple light, nervous at being possibly attacked by someone. First, he needed to find out where the children were, they just had to be nearby, the Imp knew it.

And then, the Imp suddenly reached the edge of the town, where not only the gate, but also the stables with the carriage was. It was good to know that this part of the town was just like normal, at least.

But starting with the gate itself, the Town became completely different. The Gate was far, far larger than it was before, and a single figure stood in front of it slowly letting the 'people', or rather Demons, in and out of the town.

It was everyone that went through there a question, where the Imp heard the same words from before over and over again. The Imp figured that if he could find the children anywhere, it would be in the demonic town surrounding them now.

And so, the Imp just joined the line. He would have preferred to kill all of them and just rush through, but the Imp knew that he would die immediately if he tried to do that. No, if he wanted to survive, he had to play along with what the other Demons were doing.

Just a few minutes later, the Imp then found himself in front of the figure at the center of the gate, which then asked him the same question as everyone else.

"What is your sin?" It asked in a slow and deep voice, and the Imp slowly repeated the word that the Shadow said to him before. "Wrath."

Immediately after that word, the Imp heard the other Demons around him somehow... gasp in surprise. He didn't know why, but he didn't care either. Although, no matter what he did, he couldn't stop listening to them.

"A Demon of Wrath?"

"Aren't they dangerous?"

"What if it attacks us?"

With immediate, pure annoyance, the Imp turned toward the source of those voices. One of the Demons was sitting on a human's back, while the human itself was on all four's. Another one was stuffing its face with the food that cost so much in this town. And the last was simply staring at the Imp, eyeing his weapons and outfit jealously.

While clicking his tongue, the Imp slowly turned back toward the Gatekeeper, who looked intensely back at him. "You are rare. Lord Wrath will like you." It told him, and grabbed the Imp's whole body without him being able to do anything against it, and started to walk off while a different, nearly identical Gatekeeper took its place.

"Where are you bringing me?" The Imp asked angrily, but the Gatekeeper just stayed silent and continued to carry the Imp in its giant hand through the Demonic Town.

No matter what the Imp tried, he wasn't able to get out of it, and he wasn't able to move his arm to touch the Gatekeeper with the cloth either. But in the end, maybe this would help the Imp figure out where the children were. If there was a 'Lord Wrath', there should be a 'Lord Gluttony' or 'Lord L.u.s.t' as well, right?

Soon, the Imp was brought over toward one of the giant structures that were built on the side of the mountains, and the closer they got there, the emptier it got. But soon, the Gatekeeper stepped through a large open door into a giant, empty room, with nothing but a single seat on the other side.

"What do you think you are doing?" A loud and angry voice asked; its source being a figure sitting on that seat.

With a broad, dumb smile, the Gatekeeper got closer and held its hand out to show off the Imp inside of it. "Found Wrath Demon." It explained, and with a slight laugh, the man on the other side of the room stood up and approached the Gatekeeper, letting the Imp actually properly see him.

He had dark red skin and two large horns on the side of his head, and his skin itself seemed as if it was made of rock in sharp angles and cracks, making the Demon seem more than just intimidating. It gave off a pure feeling of anger that the Imp was able to recognize fairly quickly. After all, he knew anger pretty well.

For now, the man was smiling, but soon, he held his hand forward toward the Gatekeeper's face before his expression changed so grim and horrid that the Imp could feel his whole body tense up.

"What took you so long?" The man asked, and with a loud crack followed by splattering, the Gatekeeper's head was simply shattered into a million pieces that all shot backward in the direction they came from.

The Gatekeeper's body collapsed and its grip loosened, letting the Imp squeeze himself out of the hand, while the Demon in front of him kept speaking.

"Useless creature, now the floor is dirtied. Shadows are the ones to judge others and bring them to us, not you." The man said with a disgusted expression, before he turned over toward the Imp. "However... This time it seems that it was right. A Demon with the sin of wrath is quite rare. Although, you seem to be pretty special already... There aren't many Demons born in the realm of the living either. I can see why it thought it should show you to me." The man said with a seemingly pleased expression, leaning in closely toward the Imp, who simply took a step backward in response to him getting closer, but the face of this man just turned sour immediately.

"Of course, wrath is born out of grief, and grief is born out of betrayal. It makes sense for you to be careful; however..." As the man spoke, he slowly pressed its hand around the Imp's neck.

"I don't like it at all... Not in the slightest. Do you know why Demons of Wrath are rare?" As the man's grip tightened and his fingers started boring themselves deep onto the Imp's skin, close to breaking through into his flesh, the Imp tried to furiously escape.

"It's because Demons are unable to resist their personal sin. And when a Demon of wrath and another meet, it usually doesn't end nicely." The Demon, the Lord of Wrath, added.

"Demons of Wrath are rare, because I killed them all. Same with anyone from that town of disgusting humans who were inflicted by wrath. Without a single exception, they are all dead. Now, you piss me off quite a lot, so how about you-"

All of a sudden, the Lord of Wrath stopped speaking, feeling a burning pain in the arm he was grasping the demon with.

Immediately, it let go of the Imp, who dropped to the ground immediately and grasped his own throat. Good thing that he managed to reach this man's arm, otherwise he would probably be dead now.

[Lord of Wrath -1215 Damage]

"You damned..." The Lord muttered quietly, the whole air he was giving off immensely and insanely intimidating to the Imp. But of course, he just had to do something, anything to be able to get away from this Demon.

As quickly as he could, the Imp ran back toward the entrance, but the Lord of Wrath seemed many, many times faster than the Imp.

"How...? How did a measily, lowly Demon get a hold of Holy Energy?" The Lord asked and once more tried to grasp the Imp, but he quickly tried to use the card that he pushed into his glove. And immediately, a ring formed around his right hand with the cloth around it, although he activated it with his left, and the blade slowly sprung out from it and started floating around.

But the Imp didn't care, and just tried to use the swift quick blade to move toward the Lord. It seemed like he didn't care much about it, because he didn't think it could even hurt him, but to both his and the Imp's surprise... the blade made a small cut on the Lord's chest that soon started to sizzle and give off steam.

[Lord of Wrath -13]

[You attacked using the Opponent's Bane. Damage Multiplied by 30]

[Total Damage: 390]

The Imp stared at the notification and then back toward the Lord, who seemed to be just as confused as the young Demon, but then just stared at him with pure hatred. "You... You..." He exclaimed, but the Imp didn't leave him much time to think and just tried to sprint away. For some reason, the Lord stopped for a few moments, and the Imp got the time that he needed to get out through the door. Now, there were two sets of stairs next to him leading back down to the streets, but the Imp, without thinking much, stopped there for a moment, just for a single moment.

But that single moment was used to the fullest by the Lord. With a single movement of his hand, the railing behind the Imp shattered into pieces and the Imp was thrown off of it, dropping down toward the streets with high speeds.

There was not a single being down there below him, and nothing that could stop his fall. If he didn't come up with some sort of idea, he would just die immediately.

At the very least, that's what the Imp was thinking at first, but then it was as if his body was acting on its own, on reflex, an his mind was getting to a single decision as if pulled toward it.

The Imp ripped his mask off his face and took in as much of the air into his body as he could, and then, all at once, used his whole body to push downward toward the ground while pushing all of the air back out of his body.

With the help of an immensely strong gust of air, the Imp managed to somehow stop his fall for just a split moment, before he started to fall again. But at that point, he was only a meter or two in the air, and the drop was no longer lethal to him.

[-67 Health]

While heaving for the air that he just lost, the Imp tried to start moving again. He was overcome with tiredness because he used up a lot of his 'Heat', or mana, so he had a lot of trouble actually getting back up. But, there was still some of his mana left inside of the weapon around his finger, which he quickly pulled out.

It wasn't a lot, but at the very least, it let the Imp get back up and start running. He couldn't take whoever or whatever this Lord was on, so he wouldn't be able to take on the other lords either. But from what the Lord of Wrath just told him, the Shadow that was there before sent the children to them.

So he had to go to these other buildings to get them back.