Inside Tin’s home

  The battle between Koi and the possessed mother was intensifying. Not only had her appearance morphed beyond human likeness, her reflexes had become unnaturally sharp. The attic now crawled with swarm of flesh-eating insects, that seeped from her wounds like stream of blood. These insects attacked in unison, biting off flesh and chewing straight into bone marrows as if tearing through papery surface.

  Several Angels had already collapsed to the floor, some unable to keep up with the phase, while others had sustained fatal wounds and were dragged to the back of the room in hopes of receiving the limited medical aid that was still available. Captain Koi, on the other hand, had not slowed down on his unwavering assault.

  With the remaining Angels focused on deflecting any incoming attacks from the demon, Koi managed to charge towards her close enough to lash his whip across her face in slicing sequence, leaving her no room to dodge. Chan stood several feet behind his captain, fending off the insects with a rapid blast of holy coins. Each strike cracked through the incoming swarm attack, dispersing their form. Multiple sigil circles were also casted to shoot laser light and made way for the captain.

  The demon was pushed back to the corner. Reading a change in her movement, Koi shot an explosive talisman at the ceiling above her and tore the rafter, causing a part of the roof to collapse on her.

  Rain poured in immediately, filtering all the edges with a blurry touch. The Angels wasted no time and surrounded the weakened demon, but what seemed like a victory was a short-lived illusion. Several tentacles made of wasps spread out from below the debris and snapped at the group of Angels.

  Unruffled by the aggression, Koi recited a spell to light up his sword in flame and drew consecutive slashes down the advancing tentacles, before throwing the blade straight through the rubble, where the demon was buried beneath. It shredded the demon’s shoulder, but missed her crown. The demon laughed at the missed opportunity and gathered all her wasps to form one huge blade.

  “Step back!” Chan alerted the group as the blade fell diagonally down the centre of the room, crashing some Angels, while wounding many others.

  Hundreds of insects quickly crawled into their wounds, one by one, carving bite-sized holes that connected and burst the veins. Blood splattered across the scene in blooming patterns, turning the backdrop of this ongoing battle, a prominent shade of red.

  The demon was thrilled. She rose from the rubble and started to attack in a frenzy, leaving little time for coordinated action.

  “Switch to defence!” Chan ordered, but his command was quickly deflected by Koi, who yelled back to keep on advancing.

  That conflict of order left the Angels disoriented and broke the momentum of their attack. Chan felt a heavy weight on his chest as the fight unfolded into chaos. But he could not defy the words of his captain.

  I should have known better. You will always be unhinged, even if all of us are getting killed.

  What seemed like a resentful thought, left him withered in a shell of dull emptiness. Not that there had ever been any real rage to begin with. Since the first day he joined the Exorcist organisation, it had been made clear to him that the success of the mission always comes before any lives. Perhaps, Captain Koi was also shaped by that same mentality.

  Chan skipped to the front of his captain and began chanting the Summon of Four Gates spell. This spell called forth four inward-facing portals from the North, South, East and West. Each gate transmitted distorted waves of symphonic chants by tuning in to the suffering of every casualty, dulling demonic minds, and taunting them to attack the caster.

  “I will sustain the hit, you guys go ahead!”

  The group of Angels was taken aback by their Lieutenant’s move.

  “Don’t tell me that’s The Summon of Four Gates!”

  “That’s a highly powerful and risky spell, that tied the caster to the energy of all the sufferings the gates are tuning in. If Chan fails to hold the defence, it can break his soul!”

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  “There’s no time to waste!”

  The Angels drew sigil circles in the air, this time shooting lines of holy flame at the demon and her insects. Building on this attack, Koi also set his whip on fire and lashed at the deranged demon, who had started twitching aggressively, as if her muscles were being pulled taut, strand by strand. Despite this, her movement had not slowed down the slightest bit and just like a mad woman, she reached Chan and began choking him with claws sinking into his skin, and insects feeding on his veins.

  Koi’s lashes scorched her skin and torn off some parts of her flesh. Sensing her weakening strength, Koi twirled his whip in a swift arc, binding the demon and throwing her off her feet into the wall with a crushing force.

  “Anchor her now!!” Koi shouted.

  The Angels acted instantly at his command and snapped out their chain whips to coil around her ankles and yank her to the ground. The demon fell on her back, leaving her crown wide open. Koi stepped forward and, with a stroke of his whip, slashed her crown energy open.

  The woman cried in bloodcurdling pain, screaming for them to stop. The humanness in her voice startled the wounded Chan, but Koi remained steadfast in his action.

  “What are you doing?! Take out the sacred pot right now!”

  Chan, as battered and bruised as he could be, got on his feet and positioned himself with the mouth of the pot facing the demon.

  “This is the last pot left! If we don’t want to sacrifice anyone or anything, we cannot miss it this time.” Koi exclaimed and started reciting the holy spell to force the demon out of Tin’s mother body.

  The possessed woman was now too weak to bear the demonic aggression. Her tied body had greatly disabled the demon within as well.

  Even if King Cobra is unmatched, this is just a useless body for him now! Chan reassured himself as he joined in the chanting together with other exorcists.

  As the splitting force enhanced, Koi kicked the woman in the face and took a spare sword to slice open the energetic wound on her crown chakra even larger. To their astonishment, a wave of dark energy gushed from the wound, exuded from countless polluted spirits that spilt out like a trail of black clouds across the floor. The holy energy sucked them all into the sacred pot, sealing away with it, a flood of unceasing cry.

  “What is that?!! Are all of these demons? Just how many of them are possessing her?!” Chan couldn’t contain his shock. What he witnessed left a taste of disgust in its wake. On the other hand, Koi’s glare remained detached, dragged down by the weight of an unspoken urge.

  The energetic wound on her crown enlarged, and five slender fingers peeked out from the line of crack.

  “Show yourself now!” Koi shouted with an authoritative voice.

  The demon replied with a breathless laughter, as if mocking his impatience. Koi gave an elaborate nod and drove the sword deep into the wound, before giving it an aggressive stir.

  A pale figure came crawling out of the gap, with the sword impaled straight through her throat, like a fish skewered on a hook. The only difference was that the figure looked nowhere near powerless. Wrapped in heavy bandages that clung to her skeletal torso and arms, she resembled a deprived patient in a forsaken asylum. And yet, a conflicting smile hung across her face, exposing a set of needle-thin teeth and a blood-slick tongue, which likened her to a gluttonous addict more than a victim.

  That appearance instantly put them off guard. Chan gawked at her, unable to look away.

  “Glad I stop you from eating her inside-out. Don’t try to heal yourself and run away!” Koi seized the demon’s hair and hauled her towards the pot.

  “Why would I do that? I am not trying to heal. My dear Angel, I’m just starving. It’s traumatising me. Please let me have some more.” The demon begged in between abrupt breaths that carried a tone of laughter.It’s hard to tell if she was serious at all.

  “Shut up and prepare for your torture.” Without a second look, Koi slammed the demon into the opening of the pot, and rested on one of his knees, panting heavily.

  Chan rushed to support Koi while an Angel was just about to tend to his injury. He looked over at her and motioned her to help the wounded mother and other dying Angels instead.

  Despite a look of indifference, Chan knew his captain well enough to be able to peel through his facade. He studied Koi’s thought for a minute, before braving his first talk.

  “This time we…we won’t need a human to host the demon, right?”

  “We won’t need that. This b**ch is perfectly capable of retaining herself without healing.”

  “I am a little lost. This…this weird thing was the exact one that attacked us last time and ate a lot of your energy, right? But it…” Chan held back his words to readjust his panicky tone and continued, “...she is not King Cobra, right?”

  Koi sighed loudly and stood up, “They are all his slaves. From the look of this nasty thing, it’s probably a prototype of King Cobra. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cobra has started experimenting with all the slaves he keeps to enhance his army.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Her energy matches closely to that of an elite demon, but her skills fall short.”

  “You mean an elite demon is even more powerful than this?”

  “Listen carefully, Chan. An elite demon, is not something that can ever be sealed in a pot.”

  “But you have been ordering us to seal her in a pot since the start of the battle. So you already know?”

  Koi made no effort to reply. Silence snuck in their conversation and Chan felt the back of his neck heat up with a rising tension. At this rate, he couldn’t keep up with the dumb game anymore. His clouded expression had given way to another wave of panic.

  “Then…where is the Cobra? Where is King Cobra?”

  Again, the question was brushed off in silence, but Koi’s rather still expression spoke volume.