"Anything to report regarding the fly that has been running rampant recently?"

A deep voice echoed inside a small room. There were clear and visible hints of anger in his voice as the room quaked a bit.

The voice belonged to Marquis Kornivor, an executive sent by the Greed clan to handle the situation. Although sub-branches weren't particularly important, the loss of over ten of them was still felt by them.

Furthermore, with their pride, how could they allow such flies to continue to exist?

"This..."

Replaying to him was a demon whose body trembled.

"Regarding...the white death, we don't really..."

Crack!

The sound of something shattering echoed throughout the room.

"Useless."

Opening his hand revealing fine black powder, Marquis Kornivor turned his attention toward another demon in the room.

The moment their eyes locked, the demon started to shake even more than the previous one.

Marquis Kornivor shook his head. Extending his hand, he asked.

"Send me a map of the branches that this fly has attacked."

"Y...yes!"

Stuttering a little, the demon took out a small map and handed it to Marquis Kornivor who took it and unfurled it on a small desk.

Scanning the map with his eyes, a minute eventually passed.

"Haa..."

Letting out a long sigh, he raised his head and stared at all the demons standing in the room. Every time his eyes would pause on a demon, they would start to shake uncontrollably.

"Bunch of cowards..."

He ended up muttering.

Raising his hand, he pointed toward a certain section of the map and declared.

"The fly will attack this branch next. Muffling."

His statement caused every demon in the room to open their eyes in shock.

Staring at each other, they all had the same question. How could he tell?

"It may not look like it at first, but the fly or white death is actually targeting all of the branches that are bordering with the Pride clan. In order to make it seem like his pattern is random, he also attacks those that are outside that range, but in general, it is safe to assume that this Muffling going to be his next target."

A look of sudden understanding appeared on the faces of the demons present as they looked at the map.

This was especially so for the higher-ups as they looked at each other with an embarrassed expression.

How could they have missed something like this?"

***

Over the next few days, I repeated the same thing over and over again. Find a demon, beat them up, and propose them the same deal to them.

Obviously, the words that I would say differed as they eventually started replying back to me.

It wasn't long before we were able to come up with a deal. Well, sort of.

Knowing just how the demons were, I never trusted them to hold the end of their deal, therefore, I never took their words seriously.

It would be nice if they did in fact keep their words, but that seemed unlikely.

As soon as I finished helping them, the first thing they would do would be targeting me.

"Well, it doesn't really matter anyway..."

Staring into the distance, a large red fort appeared in my vision. The fort's circumference was about a couple of kilometers in length, and its outer layers seemed to be made out of hard red sandstone. An eerie and chilling atmosphere enshrouded the whole fort as demons appeared to move to and fro at the entrance of the fort.

I muttered to myself as I lowered my hand.

"If we're going with the same pattern, that should be the last sub-branch I need to attack."

At first, I thought that I had been targeting the demon sub-branches at random patterns, however, as time passed and I realized who I was dealing with, I knew that the situation wasn't as simple as this.

Therefore, after contemplating the matter for a while, I realized that we had been indeed targeting the sub-branches at a set pattern.

It wasn't exactly clear at first, however, as I looked back at all the branches, I realized that we had been eliminating all of the sub-branches near the borders of the Pride clan.

If the demons weren't dumb enough, they would be able to predict my pattern and set up an ambush there.

Licking my lips and locking my eyes on the fort in the distance, my eyes began to squint.

"That sub-branch over there should be a trap."

A trap designed to capture me.

"Interesting..."

My lips couldn't help but curl at the thought.

'Acting predictable to know your opponent's movement.'

Not the easiest of tactics as it narrowed my choices by a lot, but it was sure as hell a damn effective one.

Crack!

Cracking my neck, I loosened my joints and jumped up on the spot.

"Alright, this is going to be troublesome..."

***

Running through the thick vegetation of the demon world, I looked back from time to time.

"Fucking.."

A curse inevitably escaped from my mouth as I took a sharp turn to the right.

Bang!

It was at that exact moment that a powerful energy blast shot in the direction of where I was, tearing a series of trees down.

"Damn it."

Taking another sharp turn, I let out another curse.

Bang!

The ground beneath me tore apart as bits and pieces of dirt hit my back.

Turning my head once again, I was able to spot over a dozen demons heading in my direction, all of whom had bloodthirsty expressions on their faces. Not all that, but all of them were ranked from Viscount rank to Count rank.

Yup.

Just as I had expected, there indeed was an ambush in the fort.

Had it not been for the fact that I was using drifting steps coupled with Eyes of Chronos, I would've probably been unable to run for as long as I was.

Planting my foot toward my right, I abruptly changed my direction and dodged another attack.

WHIIIIIZ!

"I'm starting to get tired..."

Using Eyes of Chronos and Drifting steps at the same time was quite taxing for me. I could feel my mana rapidly shrink.

Thankfully, I was almost at my destination.

Although it looked like I was cornered, I actually wasn't.

I had a goal in mind.

There was only a slight problem...

"Shit, I really can't fight back?"

"No."

A voice entered my ear.

"Shit."

Another curse escaped from my mouth. It came to my unfortunate attention that I could only act as bait at the moment.

The reason why I wanted to fight was so that I could reduce the numbers of some of the demons behind me as they were slowly starting to increase. It had gotten to the point where I was having a very hard time keeping up.

Bang!

Another energy blast shot behind me. This one was a lot closer than the previous ones.

"Shit."

I cursed again and took another sharp turn.

"How much further do I need to run?"

I voiced out.

Sitting on top of a tree in the distance, I found my other self staring at me with a nonchalant look on his face. I further enhanced Eyes of Chronos and timed slowed down even more.

"Not much."

He answered.

Turning around to look into the distance, he squinted his eyes.

"Should be soon though. Just keep running straight."

"...Fine."

I glared up.

"Just so you know, if I die, you die too."

"Yes, I know."

The other me nodded his head and patted the tree branch he was sitting on.

"So make sure you don't die "

"Tsk."

Clicking my tongue, time started to speed up once more and I took another turn.

Bang!

"Huh?"

Another terrifying explosion sounded behind me. This time, however, the explosion was a lot more powerful than any other explosion in the past.

It was so strong that I suddenly found myself losing my footing, and I stumbled a couple of steps.

This would've normally not mattered much, but because I was going so fast, I actually ended up crashing against a nearby tree and my face planted on the ground.

"Ukh."

My vision repeatedly changed as I rolled on the ground.

By the time I stopped rolling, what met my sight was the red sky.

"Well, fuck..."

I cursed at the sky. I didn't even bother getting up.

From beside me, I could hear my own disappointed voice.

"Useless."

I bitterly laughed.

Lifting my head up a little, I looked into the distance and sighed.

"It's not my fault a Marquiss ranked demon showed up out of nowhere."

It wasn't long before I ended up being completely surrounded by multiple demons. Scanning the demons around me, my eyes locked onto a particular demon.

'It's him.'

With a large muscular that was about three times the body of mine, stood a demon that emitted a radiating pressure that made it difficult for me to move.

The pressure coming off of him was so immense that I actually started to feel a little bit more concerned.

'He's definitely a Marquiss ranked demon.'

From a glance, I could tell that he wasn't an opponent that I could fight with my regular strength.

Not that I was planning on fighting him in the first place.

"Are you the white death?"

Opening his mouth, his deep voice shook the surrounding vegetation as I heard the rustling sound of the nearby leaves.

Supporting my body up, I nodded my head.

"You can say so."

Still didn't like the name though.

At my confirmation, the demon's eyes squinted. Feeling his gaze scrutinize me carefully, I remained motionless.

After a while, he opened his mouth.

"You don't look very panicked."

"Why should I be? You already caught me."

I shrugged my shoulders.

The demon's eyes squinted even more.

Nudging his head, a couple of demons disappeared from the spot.

'A careful one, I see.'

He may have looked like a hot-headed muscle-head, but it seemed like he was quite the opposite of what his appearance showed.

It reminded me of a certain phrase.

'Never judge a book by its cover.'

For a brief moment of time, silence enveloped the surroundings as I continued to stare at the demon in front of me. Neither one of us budged a muscle.

Rustle! Rustle!

A rustling sound soon broke the silence, and the demons from before showed up.

Walking up to the Marquiss ranked demon, they reported their findings.

"Nothing?"

A surprised look appeared on the Marquess-ranked demon as he heard their recounts. His forehead creased even more.

"Strange..."

He then turned to face me.

"You, what are you pl"

Stopping himself mid-sentence, his face changed and he glared into the far distance. His large wings began to spread behind his back and a powerful energy fluctuation started to emit out of his body.

"It's a trap!"

Unfortunately, he had realized all of this too late.

By the time he had gotten ready to fight, multiple demons appeared out of thin air. All of them released a bloodthirsty aura. Furthermore, their numbers were significantly larger than theirs, making the atmosphere even tenser.

Out of all the demons that had shown up, there was one demon that stood out from them.

He was tall, about the size height as me, or maybe even taller. His eyes held a certain light, were they green or were they the eyes of a serpent? I couldn't tell from where I was standing.

The darkness was kind to his features, but somehow there was a brooding sense of evil coming from out of his body, sending subtle chills down my spine. He unfurled his wings, bat-like, and then he smiled in our general direction, revealing long fangs and sharp jagged teeth.

"Sloth clan, Marquis Atheora."

The demon from before muttered in a heavy voice. The area started to shake, as a torrential wave of demonic energy sprung forth from his body.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Hehe."

Marquis Atheora let out a throaty laugh and locked his eyes on the large demon.

"It's been a while, Marquis Kornivor."

Rumble!

The shaking started to intensify as Marquis Kornivor's glare intensified. He then alternated his gaze between me and Count Atheora.

After a while, he started to show a look of understanding.

Taking a deep breath, he calmed down.

"I understand. This whole scenario was created by you in order to ambush us and deal minor damage to the Greed clan."

Raising his hands, Marquis Kornivor started to clap his hands.

Clap!

Gradually the claps started getting louder.

Clap! Clap!

Before long, the claps started becoming so loud that the air started to tremble as visible shockwaves swept the air.

All the demons that were below Count rank found themselves having a hard time floating or standing as some even fell down to the ground.

"Interesting."

In the meantime, laying next to me with his arms behind his head, my other self stared at the scene with deep amusement in his eyes. He was completely unaffected by what was happening around me.

Staring at him for a good moment, I sighed. Secretly, I felt quite envious of myself. I wanted to enjoy the show as well.

It wasn't every day that you could watch a fight between two demon grounds.

But I sadly couldn't.

"Count Atheora are you sure you want to do this?"

Replacing the clapping sounds was a loud and unshakable voice that shook the vegetation.

The smile on Count Atheora's face deepened. He then raised his hand.

Slowly, he lowered his hand.

"Of course I am..."

At the exact moment his hand lowered, all the demons in the air dashed toward the ground at incredible speeds.

"Now do me a favor, and die."