Underworldly Dealings IX

"You can hear them? I can't hear anything." Kies tried listening with his ears but didn't hear anything other than crickets and the sound of other nocturnal critters. Were a demon's ears more sensitive than his?

"You can't? They're sure loud as heck." Ammine lightly pushed Kies out of the way and left the door. She stood just outside the door and stretched her body. "Come out, I know you're here!" she shouted out loud. It was seemingly random and didn't look like it was directed at anyone but within seconds, figures emerged from behind the shadows of the buildings around them.

The enemy was all spread out and Kies thought that there might be a few behind their house as well and he quickly turned around to investigate but found none. All eight of them or more were in front of them, behind the house Falte was in.

"You're not soldiers," Ammine observed. "Who are you?" she demanded, expecting them to answer her. They didn't look like the type to answer questions or give away their identities given how they were attacking them in the middle of the night.

As expected, none of them answered Ammine's question and continued to stare silently at her. Ammine's tired eyes looked around at the hooded attackers and saw that someone was off. "I only see six of you here. There's some missing. Where are they?" She counted six of them which meant that there were at least two still hiding, but she didn't specify the number to make them think that she knew exactly how many of them there were in total.

After hearing her say that, the assailants all glanced at each other nervously. They had not expected her to know their numbers and were getting a bit worried. Had they picked the wrong opponent?

"It doesn't look like you're going to answer. Alright then, let's force it out of you then. Falte, do it!"

"Kuk!" one of the attackers suddenly cried out. Everyone's heads turned to them and saw that there was a long dagger sticking out of their chest and another person behind them. The assailants all jumped away from their fallen comrade as Falte showed himself to them. The demon pulled the dagger out in one swift motion and the body slowly fell over onto the cold dusty ground. A pool of dark liquid spilled from the body and soaked into the dirt.

"Ah, what a headache. Couldn't you have done this in the morning or something?" Falte yawned. He was taunting them all by sounding like they weren't big deals or anything. The demon was wide open while yawning but none of them dared try to attack him.

"Oh, and you over there, behind me, on the roof. I wouldn't recommend trying that against me," Falte addressed seemingly no one. Just like he said, a person appeared from the roof of the house that was behind him and threw something at him. "Didn't I tell you not to do that?" Falte caught the object at one of its ends as it was about to hit him and threw it back with twice the force and hit the person square in their face.

There was an impaling sound as the sharp object pierced through their skull. The body rolled off the roof and landed right in front of Kies and the other demons with a thud. Kies looked down at the body and saw that the person's eyes were still open and that there was a long knife in his head and blood was trickling down from it.

"It's better if you all just give up and tell us what you're after," Ammine offered the hooded figure. But that only agitated them even more.

One of them took out something from beneath his cloak and threw it at Falte. "Did you not learn your lesson?" Falte caught the item with only one hand and chuckled. He was about to return it back to the person who threw it at him but stopped and looked at what was in his hand. "Hm? What's this?" He turned the item around and it suddenly exploded with a loud hiss. A cloud of green gas filled the air.

"That idiot! Cover your noses and mouths, it's poison!" Ammine warned everyone.

"What about Falte?" Kies asked. The demon took a direct hit from the blast and needed their help. There was even the chance that he was already dead after having it explode in his face.

"He's fine, don't worry about him. We have to worry about ourselves. They're coming!" All the hooded assailants jumped out from their hiding spots and started attacking them. Ammine pushed Kies into the house and backed into it herself as well. She quickly grabbed the door handle and pulled closed the door. Not a second later did a wave of knives hit the door and almost broke the entire top half of it.

Ammine opened the door again and charged out with her fists flaring with purple magic. Kies turned around and saw that Jasyeu was pretty scared and Messa still had an expressionless look on her face. They didn't look like they could fight so Kies told the two to stay in the house and ran out right after Ammine to help her against the enemies.

One of them jumped right in front of him as he exited the house and he almost took a knife to the stomach but grabbed the attacker's hands just in time. The two of them pulled and pushed the weapon, trying to gain control of it. This continued for a couple of seconds before Kies ended the struggle by stomping their ankle as hard as he could.

This caused his opponent to weaken their hold on the weapon for a split second, but that split second was all he needed. Kies pushed the enemy away from him, and as they were stumbling back he blasted them with a gust of wind, causing them to lose their balance and fall over.

It wasn't going to take them long to get back up so Kies had to be quick. He looked around and began shooting wind at every enemy that he saw. He was able to hit three people before the one he knocked over before got back up and charged at him again with the knife.

Kies pushed the enemy away again with his wind and also knocked the knife out of their hands as well this time. Having lost their weapon, the enemy pulled another knife out of their cloak and repeated what he just did. But before he had the chance to, a hand appeared around their neck from behind and they were lifted off their feet.

"You're the one that threw this at me aren't you?" Falte's voice said. The demon was absolutely livid and his face was a mess from the poison. Like Ammine said, Falte was somehow fine even though he took a direct blast of poison to his face. "And you." Falte turned to Kies. "Can't even handle one guy? What are you doing? Don't hold back, just kill them!" As if to demonstrate to Kies, Falte plucked the knife out of the wiggling enemy's hand and stabbed them on the side of their stomach, killing them instantly.

Falte then dropped the body and pulled out his own dagger and cleaned up the rest of the assailants alongside Ammine in a matter of just seconds. Before Kies knew it, most of them were dead and the remaining few were running away. But they have the chance to get very far as Messa appeared from behind the door and walked past Kies and sniped them all down with her magic.

The fight was over and there were no survivors. No, it couldn't even be considered a fight... It was a massacre.

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