The Author's POV

"Anything to report regarding the fly that has been running rampant recently?"

A deep voice echoed inside a small room. There were clear and visible hints of anger in his voice as the room quaked a bit.

The voice belonged to Marquis Kornivor, an executive sent by the Greed clan to handle the situation. Although sub-branches weren't particularly important, the loss of over ten of them was still felt by them.

Furthermore, with their pride, how could they allow such flies to continue to exist?

"This..."

Replaying to him was a demon whose body trembled.

"Regarding...the white death, we don't really..."

Crack—!

The sound of something shattering echoed throughout the room.

"Useless."

Opening his hand revealing fine black powder, Marquis Kornivor turned his attention toward another demon in the room.

The moment their eyes locked, the demon started to shake even more than the previous one.

Marquis Kornivor shook his head. Extending his hand, he asked.

"Send me a map of the branches that this fly has attacked."

"Y...yes!"

Stuttering a little, the demon took out a small map and handed it to Marquis Kornivor who took it and unfurled it on a small desk.

Scanning the map with his eyes, a minute eventually passed.

"Haa..."

Letting out a long sigh, he raised his head and stared at all the demons standing in the room. Every time his eyes would pause on a demon, they would start to shake uncontrollably.

"Bunch of cowards..."

He ended up muttering.

Raising his hand, he pointed toward a certain section of the map and declared.

"The fly will attack this branch next. Muffling."

His statement caused every demon in the room to open their eyes in shock.

Staring at each other, they all had the same question. How could he tell?

"It may not look like it at first, but the fly or white death is actually targeting all of the branches that are bordering with the Pride clan. In order to make it seem like his pattern is random, he also attacks those that are outside that range, but in general, it is safe to assume that this Muffling going to be his next target."

A look of sudden understanding appeared on the faces of the demons present as they looked at the map.

This was especially so for the higher-ups as they looked at each other with an embarrassed expression.

How could they have missed something like this?"

***

Over the next few days, I repeated the same thing over and over again. Find a demon, beat them up, and propose them the same deal to them.

Obviously, the words that I would say differed as they eventually started replying back to me.

It wasn't long before we were able to come up with a deal. Well, sort of.

Knowing just how the demons were, I never trusted them to hold the end of their deal, therefore, I never took their words seriously.

It would be nice if they did in fact keep their words, but that seemed unlikely.

As soon as I finished helping them, the first thing they would do would be targeting me.

"Well, it doesn't really matter anyway..."

Staring into the distance, a large red fort appeared in my vision. The fort's circumference was about a couple of kilometers in length, and its outer layers seemed to be made out of hard red sandstone. An eerie and chilling atmosphere enshrouded the whole fort as demons appeared to move to and fro at the entrance of the fort.

I muttered to myself as I lowered my hand.

"If we're going with the same pattern, that should be the last sub-branch I need to attack."

At first, I thought that I had been targeting the demon sub-branches at random patterns, however, as time passed and I realized who I was dealing with, I knew that the situation wasn't as simple as this.

Therefore, after contemplating the matter for a while, I realized that we had been indeed targeting the sub-branches at a set pattern.

It wasn't exactly clear at first, however, as I looked back at all the branches, I realized that we had been eliminating all of the sub-branches near the borders of the Pride clan.

If the demons weren't dumb enough, they would be able to predict my pattern and set up an ambush there.

Licking my lips and locking my eyes on the fort in the distance, my eyes began to squint.

"That sub-branch over there should be a trap."

trap designed to

"Interesting..."

help but curl at

predictable to know your opponent's

it narrowed my choices by a lot,

Crack—!

my neck, I loosened my joints

going to be

***

of the demon world, I looked back from time to

"Fucking.."

mouth as I

Bang—!

energy blast shot in the direction of

"Damn it."

I let out

Bang—!

ground beneath me tore apart as bits and pieces

dozen demons heading in my direction, all of whom had bloodthirsty expressions on

Yup.

indeed was an

that I was using drifting steps coupled with Eyes of

foot toward my right, I abruptly changed my direction and dodged

WHIIIIIZ—!

starting to get

time was quite taxing

almost at

looked like I

a goal in

only a slight

I really can't fight

"No."

entered

"Shit."

escaped from my mouth. It came to my unfortunate

the numbers of some of the demons behind me as they were slowly starting to increase. It had

Bang—!

behind me. This one was a lot

"Shit."

again and took another sharp

do I need

I voiced out.

a tree in the distance, I found my other self staring at me with a nonchalant look on his face. I further enhanced Eyes

"Not much."

He answered.

into the distance, he

soon though. Just keep running

"...Fine."

I glared up.

so you know, if I die, you

"Yes, I know."

patted the tree branch

sure you don't die

"Tsk."

tongue, time started to speed up once

Bang—!

"Huh?"

the explosion was a lot more

so strong that I suddenly found myself losing my footing, and I stumbled a couple of

going so fast, I actually ended up crashing against a nearby tree and my

"Ukh."

repeatedly changed as

stopped rolling, what met my sight was the

"Well, fuck..."

the sky. I

me, I could hear

"Useless."

I bitterly laughed.

my head up a little, I looked into the

not my fault a Marquiss ranked demon showed

by multiple demons. Scanning the demons

'It's him.'

large muscular that was about three times the body of mine, stood a demon that emitted a

so immense that I actually started to feel a little

a Marquiss

tell that he wasn't an opponent that I

on fighting him in the

you the

his deep voice shook the surrounding vegetation as I heard the

up, I nodded

"You can say so."

didn't like

squinted. Feeling his gaze scrutinize me carefully, I

while, he opened his