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."

designed to capture

"Interesting..."

help but curl

know your opponent's

easiest of tactics as it narrowed my choices by a lot, but

Crack—!

loosened my joints

going to

***

the thick vegetation of the demon world, I looked back

"Fucking.."

from my mouth as I

Bang—!

that exact moment that a powerful energy blast shot in the direction of where I was, tearing

"Damn it."

another sharp turn, I let out another

Bang—!

ground beneath me tore apart as bits and pieces

my direction, all of whom had bloodthirsty expressions on their faces. Not all that, but all of

Yup.

indeed was an ambush in the

not been for the fact that I was using drifting steps coupled with Eyes of Chronos, I would've probably

I abruptly changed my direction

WHIIIIIZ—!

to get

and Drifting steps at the same time was quite taxing for me. I could

was almost

like I was cornered,

a goal

was only a

I really can't

"No."

entered my

"Shit."

It came to my unfortunate attention that I could only act as bait

the demons behind me as they were slowly starting to increase. It had gotten to the point where

Bang—!

shot behind me. This one was a lot closer

"Shit."

and

much further do I need to

I voiced out.

my other self staring at me with a nonchalant look on his face. I further enhanced Eyes

"Not much."

He answered.

the

soon though.

"...Fine."

I glared up.

know, if I die, you die

"Yes, I know."

his head and patted

sure you

"Tsk."

tongue, time started to speed up once

Bang—!

"Huh?"

This time, however, the explosion was a lot more powerful than any

suddenly found myself losing my footing, and I stumbled a couple

I actually ended up crashing against a nearby tree

"Ukh."

as I rolled

stopped rolling, what met my

"Well, fuck..."

at the sky. I didn't even

could hear my own

"Useless."

I bitterly laughed.

I looked into the distance and

Marquiss ranked demon

ended up being completely surrounded by multiple demons. Scanning the demons around me, my eyes locked onto a particular

'It's him.'

mine, stood a demon that emitted a radiating pressure

of him was so immense that I actually started

definitely a Marquiss

tell that he wasn't an opponent

was planning on fighting him in the first

you the

voice shook the surrounding vegetation as I heard the rustling sound of the

body up,

"You can say so."

like the

my confirmation, the demon's eyes squinted. Feeling his gaze

a while, he