Dance With the Nightingale - Chapter 28

‘Was this the so-called escalation of the situation…

From a normal small-time spying job, to spying on a Demon Contractor!!??’

‘Fuck my life.’

I thought as understood the severity of the situation.

A [Demon Contractor] also known as a Vessel.

A person, an individual, that broke the taboo and made a deal with a demon, giving the said person a portion of demon’s power.

But the power came at a price, it tainted the person’s Mana with a vile demonic attribute, making it quite similar to demonic energy that demons used.

This also meant that the person gave the demon some of the ownership of his body, meaning things like possession at lower levels and descent at higher levels of contract were possible.

Such a person had two options, first, hide and live, and second, to die.

And standing in front of a Demon Contractor’s house, I did a mistake.

I tried to observe him, to spy on him.

A simple sounding, yet a critical mistake.

Yes, I had my stealth artifact on, but was that enough to fool a Demon Contractor?

No.

It wasn’t.

Rather than a matter of probability it was a fact.

My only option here, was an escape.

But should I just escape?

Should I just leave this alone?

A Demon Contractor is living in my Estate, and I have to leave it alone?

Really?

I questioned myself, as I was still rooted on my spot.

And that was my second mistake…

Just as I made my mind to escape and report this…

Before I could react, it happened…

-BANG!!

-BANG!!

-BANG!!

Three explosions.

Three explosions of vile demonic mana, that razed through the area. Shaking the whole building, on whose roof I was standing on.

But that was it.

Nothing else happened.

Not because the explosions didn’t have enough fire power, no that wasn’t the case, the explosions had enough power to level the whole square.

Rather the reason I was unscathed was because of a barrier.

A giant barrier that appeared a split second before the explosion covering the whole blast radius, containing it, and subduing it.

-Huuuuuuu

And along with the barrier came a sigh, a sigh in a ‘Oh so familiar~’ voice.

My expression that had been going through a rollercoaster, finally lit up, but it turned gloomy again as I heard what the voice said.

‘You did something unnecessary again, Rayne. All the resources, all the hard work, all the time I spent on observing this guy stealthily, all of it, was wasted because of you.’

‘I’m sorry…’

I said, timidly in my mind, to the Magus after I heard his tired voice.

‘No, no need to be sorry. I don’t want your apology, just clean up your own mess and I will forget this ever happened. After all, I won’t be there always to clean it up for you.’

‘Clean up my own mess…?’

I was confused, or should I say disbelieving at first, but when the barrier that contained the explosion split open, I knew…

…this wasn’t a joke.

As terrifying as the thought was, the Earl telling me to fight him, to kill him, to kill a Demon Contractor.

FUCK!!

I cursed once, before placing a completely dumbfounded Mora on the roof, she was so shocked by this development that even her legs gave out.

Thankfully, I didn’t let her come alone, I thought, while also cursing my stupidity.

‘Fucking shit! I’m so stupid! How can there be a Demon Contractor on his territory without his notice?’

‘In the end, all I did was to mess up his plans!’

I felt a strange frustrating feeling as I thought this, and using this feeling I somehow made up my mind.

My mind to fight.

My armor appeared on my body, followed by my sword, as I walked towards the hole opened in the barrier, with resolved steps.

Seeing me walk towards the hole, finally brought the Maid out of her trance as she shouted in a completely flustered voice,

“Wait!, where are you going!?, stop!, Young Master stop!, it’s dangerous there!!”

Her legs were still frozen just like the rest of her body, so all she could do was shout.

But I didn’t listen.

“I have to clean up my own mess…”

I lightly mumbled, as I clenched my sword tighter.

Honestly, I was afraid, I had to face an abomination after all.

And this being my first true fight just intensified that fear.

But I knew, the Earl was right, and I knew it was inevitable.

As unexpected as the situation was, if I ran away now, I will run away forever.

That was why, I got ready.

For as cringey as it sounded I didn’t want to be a coward, I didn’t want to run away…

And as a matter of fact, I needed some real combat experience, and ‘A fight watched by a Magus, where else could I get such a safe environment?’

‘Plus, I wasn’t just dancing in the last month, I worked on a lot of things, and they will help me here…probably…’

I thought as I gulped and jumped into the barrier, into the Demon Contractor’s cage, while activating all my skills.

And as expected.

I wasn’t even gifted with a landing.

Instead, I was greeted with another ball of Vile Mana, mid-air.

But before it could explode straight on my face, I created an Acceleration magic circle and twisted my body straight through it, abruptly changing my direction.

Thankfully, the ball didn’t have any homing ability or something like that, so it just passed by me and got smashed on the barrier.

-BOOM

But that was not the end of his attacks…

Just as I was about to land, something silver flashed in the darkness, flashing along with a familiar – whooshing – sound.

In an awkward position, I rolled out of the place, as a sword embedded itself just in my place, with a – BOOM.

I somehow managed to dodge it, but sadly, I couldn’t dodge everything.

The sword embedded on the ground lit up as spell imbued on it exploded with another – BOOM.

my armor protected me from the spell itself, but its shockwave sent me flying.

-Fuck!

I cursed, as I quickly activated some enchantments in my armor that finally stopped me in my place, but instead of relaxing, rather I tensed my body.

For the Demon Contractor finally showed his face.

With dark vile Mana, completely covering his body, only his face and his sword were visible, showing his unnaturally pale complexion.

His expression was unfocused as if he was in a daze, but his movements, his magic was so smooth that it was actually impossible to believe that.

And right now, his movements were all that occupied my mind, for his sword was already in a slashing motion, inching closer to my face.

-CLASH

With all my skills activated, I somehow managed to block him with my already unsheathed sword.

But again, I was sent flying, though not that far this time, just five meters.

Before I even stopped, another slash was on its way aiming for my waist, while I could faintly sense the gathering of Mana with my now half-established Mental Avatar.

‘Fucking Bastard has the tempo of the fight in his control.’

-CLASH

Another clash, and once again my posture was broken.

If it was just physical strength, then this guy was definitely stronger than me and that was when I already had upgraded my strength to D- rank.

-CLASH

Another strike, this time a diagonally downwards one, but it wasn’t a simple slash anymore, rather at this moment the whole great sword of my opponent lit up with demonic Mana, glowing in an ominous red light.

As I expected the slashes earlier were nothing more than a way to keep me occupied, for this real strike.

But, unfortunately, or fortunately for me, he failed.

Thanks to my skill, Parallel Minds, I could split my thought process perfectly, so even if one of my thought process was completely occupied with the fight and my physical moments, I could still cast magic.

And just like his, my magic was ready.

Now all that was left was to see, whose Magic was superior.

-SLASH

With both of his hands, the Demon Contractor slashed.

The ominous light covering his sword expanded and formed a much longer and wider sword of darkness that was tens of meters long as the sword finally came down.

The slash was so powerful that the paved ground within 50 meters was destroyed.

And that was when the pavement itself was enchanted to resist anything below C- rank.

But even then the demonic being’s face wasn’t good, rather for the first time, the dazed looking face showed some emotion.

An emotion of anger.

Why?

“Come bAck herE You SWiNe!!”

Because I wasn’t there.

My plan was simple, I didn’t use Magic to escape out of the tight situation to bait him in thinking that I’m too occupied by him to cast anything.

That made him use a spell that totally focused on power for according to him without Magic I couldn’t escape.

Poor sod didn’t know about my skills, which made my task easier.

As for how I escaped, it wasn’t much difficult, just another Acceleration, of course it wasn’t the normal spell, rather it was a variant type spell that I created within this month.

Actually, acceleration wasn’t a spell used on living things, it was material type spell that only worked on projectiles, or inanimate moving objects…

But here was when my attribute along with my spell allowed me to do something interesting…

When I used Attribute Infusion, my attribute made all the equipment I infused it with to become a part of me, but this wasn’t only a one-way transfer, rather when the equipment became a part of me, I became a part of my equipment too!

And that made the Acceleration spell work on me.

As for the spell I used now, it was a simple overlap.

Using this spell, I could use Acceleration 500 times without any mental effort, apart from the single spell forming and the increased 20% Mana usage with each use.

No one would waste this Mana if they couldn’t use the spell directly on their body, but since I can…

…I did.

And as a result, …

I stacked five Acceleration spells at once, moving at a speed that the Vessel couldn’t react, and before he even knew, my sword was stabbed deep in his gut.

…I created a terrifying spell.

But a sword in his gut wasn’t enough to kill him, rather this was nothing but a scratch to him, the demonic Mana running through him, healed him in almost an instant.

Yet, I wasn’t disappointed because for now, I just needed scratch him more.

And that was what I did.

Disappearing before the abomination could slash at me, I reappeared again and again and again, slashing and stabbing at his neck, thigh, gut, chest, arms and anything slash-able or stab-able.

My every moment left a shockwave on my wake, as with five stacks of acceleration, I breached the sound barrier repeatedly.

The rest of the fight was more or less continued like this, I slashed, hacked and stabbed while the Vessel was on receiving end.

Sometimes, my opponent defended or even tried to hit me, but with Split Second activated, I was easily able to control my speed, hit him, and most importantly escape.

I was more or less like the Flash, as I kept using this tactic, even recasting the spell whenever my 500 Accelerations were used up, as I kept slashing at the Demon Contractor.

Eventually, my tactic worked, slowly but surely I was getting him, slowly but surely my scratches accumulating, slowly but surely I was killing him.

With more and more wounds on him, he couldn’t defend properly nor could he actually cope up with my speed, so after another few minutes of his futile struggling, I finally got him.

Finally, my sword got through his heart, finally I stopped, and finally I won…

…Or at least, I won this round.

For I knew, it was time for round two….