The World of Witches and Demons

Even Isla and Winona felt the brute strength of that attack. It was one grade above what they could manage, and it wasn't even showing off its presence. That only meant that this level nine was more powerful than it looked like… or what they want to believe.

Nonetheless, they were already in its thumbs. There was no other way to survive but to fight.

Isla summoned her hamster balls and fired straight at Genevieve. The hostage was already lost; if they held back, they would be the ones dying in this dump. Her spiked ball and chains also dropped from her sleeve, and she launched an attack.

Winona moved in as well. Her whip grew less opaque and had become purely made of light. It would stretch as far as Winona wanted and attack with its awfully sharp blade of a body. Luca ran to Alessa who was struggling to get up. However, she had already deployed a healing light to fix her body.

"Stand aside." Alessa summoned her blades and went into the fray without even looking at Luca.

"Okay…" Luca stepped back and slung his gun to aim and shoot at every possible blind spot he found.

"How pathetic! You think you insects could suppress me!" Genevieve laughed out, and she retreated a few steps back after taking on their hits head-on. There was no damage to her vessel, but she grabbed the woman's lower jaw and tore it down to widen the mouth.

Breath! She breathed out despite the blood dripping from the sides of her mouth. Loads of flying insects came from inside her mouth and swarmed around the women. They had their own ways to deal with the swarm, but there were simply too many.

Isla made her ball rotate around her, making use of the generated heat to burn the insect with white flames while Winona swirled her whip to shred the insects in a move. Alessa didn't care much about the insects and dove towards Genevieve like a flying drill.

The demon only directed her breath at the approaching Magi, but she realized that it wasn't slowing down the woman. Genevieve jumped out of the way to avoid Alessa. However, the Magi yelled as she sent some of her blades forward, refusing to let the vessel go and swiping down at it.

Bang! Her attack caused a dust mist to rise from the ground. Genevieve hopped out of the mist unscathed while Alessa continued to chase the demon. Isla sent out three hamster balls and impeded the distance Genevieve could use, and the demon got hammered down by Alessa again!

Bang! Another dust mist rose, and the ground trembled once again.

Luca's eyes were so wide as he watched the three level sevens fight against a level nine. Even if their attacks got canceled out a lot, the kind of energy in the room was too much. Luca's heart began to race as he fought the urge to shake in fear. Wait, no… he didn't feel fear…

He wanted that kind of power. How good would it be to be able to protect Noah?

"Ahhhh!" A scream echoed in the room, and it was Genevieve's voice. Soon, the copies all stopped their slow movements and jerked their heads up for Luca to look at. The eyes and mouth were hollowed, and the face was graying. Despite that, Luca could tell they were staring at him.

"It's you… you have taken my husband away from me…"

Luca twitched as the voice spoke again, and his ears seemed to be shutting out everything else but Genevieve's voice. "You took away my husband. You and Montana… you deserve to die!"

Roar! The copies of Genevieve suddenly roared in a very low pitch. The mouth got pulled down, and they all swarmed towards Luca. Luca knocked the closest one away with his gun and used his power ring to create a shield to push away the others. He got away from their encirclement and retreated.

The copies chased him around like how Alessa chased the level nine. Even if one of the sisters wanted to help out, they didn't want to risk letting the other two be overpowered by the level nine. Luca could only shoot down the copies, even if they wouldn't die from that.

"Mrs. Connor! Randy died in the explosion! The man in the hospital was never your husband!" Luca cried out and increased the output of his saint tech gun. Even if it pained him to blast each copy into pieces, he had no choice. "Richard tried to tell you multiple times!"

"There's no point in talking to a remnant soul, fool." The demon laughed out as she grabbed Alessa by the neck and hurled her far away. She then caught the white and swung Winona to hit Isla. The demon then gestured at Luca. "But by all means, feel free to try, Luca! I love to watch you suffer!"

"What?" Luca's eyes quivered. That sounded very strange. It was as if that demon knew him differently than how the demon knew his sisters. Why was it always trying to communicate with him? What's with strong demons talking to him like he was supposed to know them?!

The demon dashed towards Luca as soon as he was sent into a daze. Genevieve opened her big mouth and produced teeth that could pierce through the bone. Luca only twitched awake when the demon was meters away from him.

Grab! Someone grabbed Luca's collar and pulled him out of the way. A blue flame ball came towards the demon, and the demon took the hit head-on. Unlike how it reacted to Alessa and the other's attacks, the demon felt her face burn. Genevieve retreated from where she was before glaring at them.

"You! You dare breathe on my face?! I will show you no mercy, you bastard dog!" The demon shrieked so hard, its eyes almost popped out of the skull.

"Are you okay?" Noah asked Luca who he had pulled down. "Aim for the eyes."

Luca nodded as they quickly got to their feet. In their dispersal, Gianna opened her eyes and entered a state where she was deploying magic and was oozing with the power of a level eight. She then yelled as she sent purifying shock waves all over and broke all the gray copies in one blow.

Tabitha rode the blast and used her shield to bash at Genevieve. The demon was momentarily frozen by the blast, and she received the full power of Tabitha's attack. Genevieve was thrown away, but before she could recover, Alessa dashed towards her and spun against the demon.

"Bastards! Insolent fools!" Genevieve screamed as the vessel was almost torn apart. She kicked Alessa away and fell to the ground with a loud plop. The poor vessel had been broken into pieces inwardly, and yet the demon continued to wear it like it was new.

"You think you can win over me?! Who do you think you are to even dream of trampling me?! A demon prince!"

Its words hit everyone like some kind of needle popping the balloon of confidence they had to win. All of a sudden, a deathly pressure waved all throughout the room. Bang! Everyone fell to the floor, blood shooting out of their mouths as their insides were instantly injured.

Alessa only bit her lip as she tried to suppress the trembling in her body. A level eleven?! This was a level eleven?! Why was there a level eleven in the human realm?! Her eyes moved up as the shadow of the beaten woman began to change into the shadow of what seemed to be a gigantic fly.

"Beel… zebub…?"

"You humans had forgotten what it is to fear the real owners of this realm!" Beelzebub laughed out as he moved the vessel towards Tabitha and was planning to stomp her body into a blood mist. "Then, let me show you! Let me show you why you should fear us one more time!"

Noah glared at the demon and felt like his entire body was going to be destroyed if he took a single breath. However, he couldn't sit still and watch as the preposterous demon prince of gluttony even dared to enter the realm and cause chaos in it. Wasn't it against the rules?

Damn, did these rules come affecting them? Even Mephisto wouldn't go against a demon prince, right?

Once again, this feeling started to course through his entire body. It was the same burning anger that he felt when Mariz was planning to kill Luca. If anything, it was very unsightly, and even if Noah couldn't stand against a demon prince, there was no way he would only watch…

And then die pathetically against a demon prince.

No…

'You always thought of dragging Luca everywhere you go like you can keep him alive.'

Gianna's stray words from earlier when they were resting came back to his mind. He didn't pursue the topic with her by then… as he knew he didn't have a good answer. It was true, he couldn't keep on pretending that he could keep Luca safe at all times.

When they came down here, he swore inwardly that this time, he wouldn't have to ask Luca to pathetically escape. This time, they would be able to kill that demon and accomplish their mission without needing help aside from the White Magi and two more level sevens.

Seemingly, he had calculated wrong. This world of witches and demons was very different from the world Arsene had brought him up in. Everything here wouldn't just die from a fatal wound or just a bullet to the head, no matter how talented they were.

It's just that… Arsene's world wasn't the one Noah needed to be in. This world was the one he chased after, and he would thrive. Until he could crush the real Bomberman's head with his hand, he wouldn't die even if a demon prince was in front of him. No… it wouldn't sit in perfectly…

No matter how illogical it was.

Noah's eyes suddenly changed from blue to white, and his surroundings seemed to have entered a strange stale state where everything stopped moving. However, Beelzebub only paused as he chose not to stomp down his raised foot.

His fly eyes met Noah's gaze one moment… the next, blue flames swiped down at his face!