Biding Time

Alan backed away as quickly as possible while he stared at the creature.

The system told him to run, so he immediately tried to follow by moving away. Sadly, he still hadn't learnt to run with this weak skeleton body so all he could do was quicken his steps away from the creature.

The creature continued to stare at Alan, its white pupils expanding and contracting every so often, making Alan feel creeped out.

The creature opened its mouth, black smoke emanating from within it as it looked up and gave a piercing screech.

"GAHHHHHSCCRRR"

Alan covered his head with his hand, feeling his head shake from the creature's awful scream.

'Shit!' Next moment, the creature went on all fours and pounced at Alan, its mouth opened as wide as his skull, ready to swallow it whole.

With no time to react, Alan used soul transfer.

[Soul transfer Activated]

A dark blue beam shot out from his hand, straight to the creature's opened mouth as it backed away from contact, giving another wrenching scream.

"GAHHHSCCCRRR"

[Soul transfer is useless against Shadow Demon]

[Shadow Demon can not be guided]

'Eh?'

Seeing the system prompts, Alan understood what that creature was and remembered that one of his weekly quota was to kill a shadow demon.

Alan continued to move away from the demon as it continued its piercing screech.

However, it did not last long as the demon once again charged at Alan, who used soul transfer again.

Though it can't guide the demon, it seemed to cause it some pain, so Alan wanted to use it to hold it off.

The demon though was not stupid and dodged the beam, closing in on Alan with its mouth wide opened.

'Shit!' Alan activated Soul bind.

[Soul Bind Activated]

Just before the demon could close its mouth to destroy Alan's head, it froze in motion.

Alan took advantage and moved away from the clutches of its mouth and hastened to a nearby building.

[Shadow Demon broke out of Soul bind]

Alan did not even get to phase through the building walls when he received a prompt from the system and the next moment the demon extended its claws straight for Alan.

'Dammit!' Alan activated Soul Bind again.

[Soul Bind Activated]

Once again, the demon was halted for just a few seconds, but it gave Alan enough time to enter the building.

This time, though, Alan aimed his arm towards the wall he phased through, activating Soul transfer and waiting for the demon to appear.

[Shadow demon broke out of Soul Bind]

Alan wanted to vomit. Each time his skill was broken, he felt a piercing pain.

Soon after, the shadow demon phased through the wall but Alan's beam was all that welcomed it.

Normally it would have dodged, but it just phased through the wall so the demon never expected to be greeted with a beam.

"GAHHHSCCCRRR"

The demon used its arms to block and phased back outside but Alan's soul transfer beam could go past walls, so the demon was pushed further away until the beam could no longer reach it.

"GAHHHSCCCRRR"

The demon screeched from its far distance as Alan continued to quickly walk through different buildings, hoping to lose the demon.

However, even though Alan moved through different buildings and turned right and left, the demon could always find him.

The worst part about it was that Alan's energy was depleting dry, the demon was ridiculously fast and Alan could only use Soul Bind to momentarily hold it to step away.

But soul bind cost energy and when the demon broke it, it used more energy up as drawback. Alan also had to use his soul transfer to really push the demon away from him, but he had to use it with great precision and at right moments, making him stay alert constantly.

The surrounding environment really didn't help as well.

It was dim and black fog filled his surroundings, making him feel sick to his core but also limiting his vision.

He couldn't help himself by turning soul's eyes off because it seemed the demon's presence prevented him, which meant he was constantly losing energy to unwillingly maintain soul's eyes.

"GAHHHSCCCRRR"

Another screech echoed through Alan's surroundings.

'Shit! Alan made his way up the building, though the stairs were very unstable, as a Grim Reaper, he didn't seem to weigh anything so he was able to climb up without much worry.

The same could not be said about the shadow demon. When it jumped on the stairs, they immediately crumbled, making it fall down.

Alan looked down at the fallen demon 'Huh? These Shadow demons can affect physical objects?'

To Alan, it seemed that the shadow demons had some capabilities on affecting the physical world, unlike him.

Alan didn't continue watching for long as he made his way up the broken down building until he reached the teared and destroyed roof.

There were only a few places he could stand, as most of it had holes leading straight back down.

*Boom*

*Boom*

Underneath Alan, he could hear noises of rubble 'The demon is really trying to get up here…' He felt quite depressed at the demon's relentless behaviour on killing him.

'I hope this building won't collapse…' After seeing the demon's struggle to get up the stairs, he went to the building's rooftop to bid some time.

First, he needed to rest and recover as much energy as he could, but since soul's eyes were always on, his energy recovery slowed down.

Next, he wanted to wait till the midnight of his Reaper time zone because his two skills, Absolute Restoration and basic country teleportation skills will be usable again

He felt his only hope of getting out of this situation alive was teleporting anywhere else but here. This place was too dangerous for Alan, and he cursed at the system for actually giving him a task to kill a shadow demon.

An hour passed since Alan encountered that shadow demon

He only had one hour left…