He was wrong! So very wrong! She's no angel! She's a demon through and through!
That was his realization as he ran for his through the forest. That morning he'd been woken by Griselda, who had found him a black long sleeve shirt and a glove that he could used to hide his arm from view.
She had briefly asked him about why he wanted a sling. He had told her that it would make people underestimate him, that was he had a trick literally up his sleeve.
She said she'd request one for him but it would have to wait.
At breakfast he got introduced to the children under Griselda's care, aside from Xenovia who shot him challenging glares.
Next thing he knew however he was being chased by Griselda armed with not one but two Excalibur fragments! One he recognized as Excalibur Destruction, the second one wasn't any he knew.
The sword wasn't really a sword, if anything it was closer to being a spear than anything.
It was likely Excalibur Mimic in a form different from the one used by Irina Shidou.
More than once he'd had to dodge a series of rapid thrusts from the spear, only to nearly be pulverized by Excalibur Destruction!
"I need to think of something fast!" Cassius thought as he dodged through another series of thrusts.
He suddenly spotted a large treebranch and immediately had an idea.
He lashed out with his covered demonic arm and used the summoned phantom limb to vault himself into the tree, where he used the branches to jump from tree to tree further avoiding any more attacks from the Nun.
Once he was sure he'd lost her, he took the time to catch his breath and try to figure out the situation and take stock of his resources.
Satanael was in his inventory, and while he could use it to fight back, he really didn't want to explain where he'd been keeping a diablofied gunblade.
He had a few Blood orbs that he gained from fighting the blade-winged spider-faced devil Aetna, that he could use to increase his stats... but it seemed like a waste.
He could use the skills he gained during his awakening... but seeing a devil còntrolling light mìght set the woman off.
"That only leaves-!" He leapt from the tree just in time to watch his former perch explode.
He land on another tree branch with wide eyes.
Griselda walked slowly through the smoldering crater of what once was a tree. Dead center of the pit was Excalibur Destruction. Her other weapon had shifted from a spear into a Bow of all things!
"You trying to kill me?!" He shouted in disbelief and horror.
"Yes. Now when are you going to start fighting back?" She asked him colder than ice.
In that moment he felt something snap, not in the metaphysical sense, but the mental.
"Fine! How's this?!" He lashed out with his devil bringer and snatched Excalibur Destruction right out from under her, much to her shock.
When the holy blade reached the open palm of his waiting right hand it immediately reacted to him. But not in the way most would expect.
[《Passive Skill: Dark Knight's Dominance has Activated. Right to wield Excalibur Destruction recieved.》]
"Huh?" Cassius blinked at the window for a split second before his focus as ripped back to the sword in his grasp.
The blade glowed with a brilliant and warm holy light. To him it seemed like it was greeting him as an old friend.
He couldn't help but feel giddy as he held the blade in his hands.
The words Griselda spoke next made the feeling intensify.
"It... accepted you? It really accepted you?" She was heavily shaken by the sight.
As a general Rule Holy swords did not accept devils as their wielders. Exceptions have been seen, but even then there were certain circumstances and conditions.
Excalibur on the other hand had never been wielded by unholy hands.
For Excalibur Destruction, the pickiest of the fragment which hardly even allowed angels to even touch it, to accept a Devil, albeit a Half-Devil, was simply ludicrous.
It could only mean one thing...
"Cassius... that's enough for now. Come here, I have to check something." Griselda instructed the boy who looked sceptical at the sudden cease in their "training", but nevertheless he approached her.
Excalibur Mimic shifted into a rather plain looking sword, like one any ordinary person from the middle ages could obtain.
"Take it." Griselda said as she held the weapon out to him.
He blinked at that.
"Pardon?" He asked confused.
Griselda narrowed her gaze at him and he shivered as a chill went up his spine. He felt it best to just do as she asked.
He stabbed Excalibur Destruction into the dirt, ironically like how the legend of its complete self started, and took its counterpart into his human hand.
[《Passive Skill: Dark Knight's Dominance has Activated. Right to wield Excalibur Mimic recieved.》]
Just like before the system window appeared before his eyes, and the holy sword of mimicry began to glow with the same warm light as Excalibur Destruction.
"I knew it... for Excalibur's fragments to accept you despite your heritage... you must either be a natural born holy sword wielder... or a descendant of King Arthur's line!" Griselda looked strangely excited at the thought of him potentially being related king Arthur.
Cassius could help but sweatdrop at her reaction, he really didn't have the heart to tell her the truth.
"Sorry Mother Griselda... but it's because of this skill..." he thought as he looked at the skill in question.
[《Dark Knight's Dominance-Lvl:MAX Type: Passive. Description: The Dark Knight Sparda and his kin were masters of any weapon they touched, be they holy or demonic. Grants user the right to wield even Holy weaponry. Increases Weapon Mastery Skill Exp gain by 20%》]
"This skill is so broken..." he thought as he reads and rereads the skill window multiple times.
He made a mental note to look through his skill list, he only looked at his stats the previous day and that was pretty much it.
"Plus..." he began as his eyes looked to something next to his HUD. "I need to figure out what this timer is for..."
Indeed there was a timer next to his name, currently the timer showed [《12hrs, 54 min.》]
He has a bad feeling about that timer... and it needed to be addressed as soon as possible.
For the time being however...
He returned his attention to the blade in his hands and smirked.
Griselda for some reason didn't like that look. Her feelings would be proven correct when he suddenly flourished the blade, which turned into what could only be considered to be the picturesque image of a holy sword. A pale blade of white with intricate designs along the blade that meld into an equally intricate hilt.
The blade glowed with holy light as he took a two handed stance with the blade horizontally parallel to his face, the tip of the blade pointed forwards at a nearby tree.
Griselda watched with bated breath as he suddenly thrust the blade forward, a beam of pure light shot from the weapon and punctured a hole into the tree, but he wasn't done yet.
Suddenly the sword shifted into spiked whip, which lashed itself around the trunk of the tree and dug large gashes into the wood before returning to a coiled state.
Once again the weapon shifted, but this time it split apart and covered his hands in glowing light. The light dissipated to reveal that his hands were now wrapped in some kind of black metal, that held an almost demonic appearance, with yellow flames of holy energy roiling from the weapon.
Cassius took on a boxing stance, for an out boxer. His demonic arm was positioned lower than his right, which protected his chest and vitals, the left protected his lower body.
Within the stance he bounced a few timed on his toes before suddenly closing the distance between himself and the tree in an instant.
His lowered demonic left arm shot up in a quick series of jabs to the poor tree, before he bounced back as if to dodge an imaginary attack, only to return with a brutal haymaker from his right hand that shattered parts of the tree.
He continued the assault until the tree could not bare it any longer and toppled.
Cassius spun to face the stunned woman and bowed, to reveal a rather flattering image of an angel winged Griselda surrounded by rose thorned vines carved from the wood.
"Viola! An angelic statue for an angelic woman." He said with a cocky smirk.
Excalibur Mimic glowed once more before shifting back into the plain looking sword from before.
"Not bad... honestly I think this one might be my favorite." He said as he handed the blade back to the nun, who took it and Excalibur Destruction from its place in stunned silence. Her gaze never leaving the carving in her likeness.
It was this moment she couldn't but wonder... just who exactly was Cassius.
The rest of the day found Cassius being left to his own devices, so he took the time to go over the system's features again, especially his skills and that timer he had noticed prior.
[《Skill List:
Dark Knight's Dominance-Lvl: MAX.
Demonic Regeneration-Lvl:N/A (Dependent on user's VIT/DT stat)
Devil Bringer-Lvl:???
Devil Trigger-Locked.
Alpha Stigma-Lvl: 1
Conjure Holy Energy Blade-Lvl: 3
Sword Mastery(Novice)-Lvl: 5/20
Gun Mastery(Novice)-Lvl:5/20
Gunblade Mastery(Novice)-Lvl:5/60
Fist Mastery(Intermediate)-Lvl:7/60
Whip mastery(Novice)-Lvl:1/20
Blood Orbs: 10,000》]
Overall his skills weren't bad... for someone his age at least. By far his highest level skill was Fist mastery, likely due to his past as someone who practiced Mixed Martial Arts in Highschool, prior to an accident that left his left hand partially paralyzed.
A glance at the demonic limb made him smile. He could finally fight again, sure he was stuck fighting devils and other supernatural beings but the details didn't matter in the long run.
"So you can smile after all." A certain girl said as she approached him.
He looked up to see Xenovia looking down at him.
"Pardon?" He asked.
"You smiled. Since we met yesterday I haven't seen you genuinely smile. Just looks of fake confidence and cocky smirks. And when you're not being cocky or a show off your stoic and uninterested in the world around you." She said.
He blinked at her level of observation.
"Well aren't you observant... for a brat that it." Cassius teased.
Xenovia didn't like that very much.
"Who are you calling a brat!? We're the same age!" Xenovia snapped at him comically.
Cassius merely snickered at her reaction before returning to looking through the menus.
The timer was now down to 3 hours and 2 minutes, and he blinked at that.
Had time really gone by that fast, since his training session with Griselda that morning?
Xenovia, thinking that Cassius was now ignoring her after making fun of her, found her face turning red with embarrassed fury.
"Stop ignoring me you jerk!" She threw a punch at the boy's sitting frame.
Before he could even stop himself, his body reacted on instinct.
Narrowly dodging the fist by simply leaning back a small amount, his covered demonic limb shot up in an uppercut that would have surely removed her head. Had it actually impacted that is. Instead he managed to stop himself from following through with his retaliation, be mere centimeters.
Xenovia felt a rush of air blow her hair upwards but her eyes stared wide in shock into a pair of chillingly cold but dazzling iceberg colored eyes.
She stood there stunned, neither's eyes broke their lock on the other's.
Xenovia was afraid, but most of all... she was intrigued. Mother Griselda had always told her that she should find herself someone strong to be her partner.
She thinks she might have just found them.
Cassius broke the staring contest with a sigh.
"Sorry... I reacted before I could help it." He apologized with a scratch of his head.
She found herself shaking her head at his apology.
"N-no... I'm sorry for attacking you... you have good reflexes. Most can't block or dodge my attacks." She said.
"Probably because you're a Holy Sword prodigy..." Cassius deadpanned in his head.
"Well... not everyone is half-devil like myself." He said with a shrug.
She nodded to herself with a thoughtful hum.
"What is it?" He asked her with a raised brow.
"I was just thinking... I want you to be my partner for the Exorcist Exams in a few months." She said.
"The exorcist exams?" he asked with curiosity.
She nodded.
"Yes. The exams are closer to a live stray devil hunt but in a controlled environment. The top 5 examinees get the opportunity to be chosen by Excalibur fragments and various other holy swords the church has collected." Xenovia explained to him.
He blinked at that... the time line didn't make sense here. He knew that Xenovia and Irina go to Kuoh shortly after becoming holy sword wielders, with Irina receiving the Light crystal produced by the holy sword experiment to boost her holy power to allow her to touch the weapon.
Did that mean something happens to prevent such events from happening earlier?
He had a bad feeling.
"So you need a partner?" He asked her.
"Typically the Exam is a team of one, but there's no rules saying that applicants can't work together, it's actually encouraged." She said.
"I'll take that as a yes then." He said as he extended his human hand to the girl.
She said nothing in response and instead took his hand and shook it.
Unbeknownst to either of them an exasperated Griselda was watching them.
It seems that her daughter had misunderstood her when she said, "find a strong partner." But it was a start at least.
Later that evening Cassius sat in a secluded part of the forest, specifically the place where Griselda had made a crater out of a tree.
He was currently sat in the middle of that crater eyeing his system HUD warily.
There was only five minutes left on that timer and he couldn't help but be nervous. None of his attempts to identify the purpose of said timer had bore any fruit, for all intents and purposes... it was just there.
And that scared him.
He'd read a lot of Video game themed manhwa in his day and usually there's a daily quest like in Solo Leveling to aid in the player getting stronger quickly... but he'd noticed no such feature... and he had a feeling that the timer was related to such a feature.
The next five minutes passed a little too quickly in his opinion, and soon enough he was holding his breath as the timer reached five seconds.
[《5.》]
He felt his nerves strain as he watched it tick to four seconds.
[《4.》]
Cassius glanced around just incase something would come out of nowhere.
[《3.》]
He suddenly felt the urge to check his gear as he open his equipment menu.
[《2.》]
Quickly equipping Satanael as his weapon he waited.
[《1.》]
He bit his lip just in time to see...
[《0.》]
[《Daily Challenge countdown has run out. Challenge is Incomplete due to tutorial assignment. Beginning Challenge Tutorial stage. Teleporting to Tutorial Challenge. WARNING: Any nearby entities within 50 feet radius of user will be teleport alongside user.》]
"Wha-!?" He barely made a sound before he vanished from the forest in a flash of pale blue light.
The forest fell silent as it seemed to process his disappearance. However a mere 30 feet northeastern from where he had been... was a thick tree that was littered with several fresh gashes made by sword.
"-at!?" Cassius finished as he appeared in a new location.
The world around him was completely lacking in color, but he recognized the location.
"This is... Fortuna." he muttered as he looked at the place that he had only seen in a video game.
From the looks of it, the city almost identical to how it looked in the fourth game... but something seemed off...
He was unable to put any more thought into it as a new window popped up.
[《Tutorial Challenge: Repel the demon invasion accepted. Tasks: Eliminate Demons around the city. Rewards: 1 random skill book, 1 random gear set box, 30000 red orbs, 1 gold orb.》]
Before he even had time to register what the window had said, the world gained color and a cacophony of noises flooded his ears.
Demonic cackling, people screaming in terror, building crumbling as they burned to the ground. The sound of Xenovia struggling in her fight against a group of scarecrows.
"Uh wait what?" Cassius whipped his head around to see Xenovia surrounded by a group of nine scarecrows, her back against the wall... with a young boy of eight years cowering behind her leg.
She was barely able to fend off the wild and quick strikes from the scarecrow's arm/leg blades and had clearly been cut on numerous occasions.
Before he realized what was happening, he was already running towards the group of demons with his left arm, which was still covered, glowing. Satanael appeared in a rush of steel gray flame, just in time to cut through the blade of scarecrow that was attacking from Xenovia's blind spot. Immediately after repelling the attack, he aimed his gunblade at the same demon and pulled the trigger.
The demon's head completely dissolved from the bullet of demon energy enhanced light that had been fired from the weapon.
"Cassius?! You're here too?!" Xenovia asked in shock.
"No time to explain! Just take the kid and run!" Cassius shouted as he swatted another scarecrow away with his covered left arm.
Xenovia was about to retort but knew he was right. This really wasn't the time for explanations, a child's life was at stake.
"Alright... but I demand an explanation after this is over." She said before using the opening in the demon group that Cassius had created to run, practically dragging the boy, who Cassius now noticed was crying and covered in blood, behind her.
Once he was alone he looked back to the remaining scarecrow demons.
"Alright..." he began as he slipped off the glove and rolled up the sleeve that covered his arm to reveal his Devil Bringer.
"Let's get this show on the road!" He finished as he lashed out with the arm at the nearest scarecrow. The sheer forced of the blow sent the demon flying back into its companions, creating a domino effect.
Cassius snorted at that. This was going to be a piece of cake.
With that in mind he rushed the demons, gunblade at the ready.
Xenovia panted as she sprinted from alley to alley, her grasp on her light sword never slackened for an instant, all the while she pulled along the crying boy she had saved from getting killed by those scarecrow looking things.
She didn't understand what was happening, one second she was training in the forest the next she was in this unknown city surrounded by the scarecrow creatures. She was able to fight them off with little issues, but as she investigated her surroundings and came across the boy being attacked... that was when things went to shit. She had never needed to protect someone and fight before, so she didn't exactly know what to do in this type of situation. She had trained for all out attacks, not this!
She was afraid... this was the first time she'd ever actually been in life threatening danger before.
Yet for some reason... she'd never felt more excited.
A lone Scarecrow crossed her path, and before it could react she'd already taken her light sword and cut the creature in twain.
The boy released a slight whimper at the sight of the demon, but knew it was dead.
Xenovia looked around quickly and found an over turned dumpster more than large enough to fit her and the boy.
"In there!" She said before dragging the boy into the dumpter alongside herself to hide, making sure to close the lid over them.
Xenovia and the boy sat in silence for several minutes, well mostly. The boy did sniffle a few times due to his tears.
Now that they were safe for the time being, she took the chance to examine the boy. He had white hair and the same blue eyes as Cassius, in fact... the resemblance between the two boys was almost uncanny.
She had half a mind to say the two were related in some way.
The boy was also dressed in some kind of hooded church garb, but it was purple with a red hood.
As she looked him over, she noticed that his clothing was covered in blood. She hadn't had the time to really notice before.
"Were you hurt?" She asked the boy.
He shook his head.
"N-not-... Not my blood." he whimpered as tears welled up in his eyes again.
Xenovia's eyes softened. He must have watched his parents be killed by those things, she realized.
Gently she pulled the boy into a hug, and simply let him cry into her. They sat there for several minutes, with Xenovia petting the boy's white hair to put him at ease.
It seemed to be working from her point of view.
Then the banging on the dumpster began.
Xenovia and the boy tensed in fear, their eyes looking to the closed lid to their hiding spot.
"Uh... did someone order a pizza?" A familiar voice asked from outside their cover and Xenovia had never felt more elated.
"Cassius!" She called as she rushed to open the lid to see Cassius standing there holding an actual Pizza.
"... Where did you get the pizza?" She asked him incredulously
"Well..." Cassius trailed off.
A half hour prior.
"Where the hell did those two go?" Cassius wondered aloud as he walked through the city. He'd already been searching for five minutes already and now he was hopelessly lost.
There were a lot more areas to this city than the game had ever allowed.
He also hadn't run into any more demons since killing the Scarecrows from before. He'd even received items from killing them. In total he'd relieved two vitality star S', three Scarecrow limb blades, five sacks of demon ashes, and 350 blood orbs.
Surprisingly the Demon ashes and Limb blades were crafting materials. He knew that most gamer systems had a crafting system, but he didn't think his would... considering it was based off the devil may cry system... for the most part anyways.
But apparently he did in fact have a crafting system.
As he walked he took the time to go over the crafting menu.
"Ok... so I can make new weapons and gear... however I need materials for them... that the only way to get materials is to kill demons? Sounds about right..." he muttered to himself.
Apparently he could create his own Devil Arms like how he had with Satanael. He could either take an existing weapon, like the light gun (or a motorcycle like Dante did in DMC5), and combine it with demon materials and a demon's soul or essence. Or... he could make an item from scratch using demon materials then kill demons with it to complete the item.
Deciding to test out the second function he took the materials he'd gained and combined them with the use of the 350 blood orbs he'd gained. The results weren't much, just a crude pair of knee high steel greaves with kneecap guards shaped like jack-o-lanterns, the eyes of which glowed with a dull orange light.
He should also mention that they seemed to have a trio of small curved blades on the outsides of them, like a demonic pair of Hermes' sandals.
[《Unnamed Devil Arm created. Kill demons and absorb their blood to complete the item. Complete the item to name it.》]
Equipping his new pair of steel greaves, he was surprised to see that they weighed about the same as a pair of tennis shoes, and were just as comfortable.
"Not bad..." He muttered with a few experimental high kicks, for an instant he thought he saw the jack-o-lantern faces flash orange before sputtering out.
"Tch... looks like I'll need to feed you if I want to find out what you can do." He muttered, while noticing an empty meter added to his HUD.
Luckily for him he had some company.
"Well... look what the cat dragged in!" He laughed as he turned to see another group of seven scarecrows, however this time they were joined by a Mega Scarecrow.
"Aw... let me guess. You got tired of being bullied so you got your big bwother to help you?" Cassius taunted with baby talk to the demons.
The scarecrows all hissed at him, with the Mega Scarecrow flexing its six arm blades like claws.
"Well..." he bounced on the balls of his feet before taking up a stance, and waving at the group with his human arm.
"Come on!" He gave them a savage smile.
He didn't have to wait long as one particularly stupid Scarecrow (Arm) lunged at him with its blade poised to impale him. Only for the blade to be knocked skywards by a kick too fast for it to see. The low class demon was soon sent spiraling up after the blade. Cassius met the demon at the peak of its impromptu flight and delivered an axe kick that sent the demon hurtling towards the ground, where it exploded into red orbs.
The orbs were absorbed by the greaves the second he returned to the ground.
A flick of his eyes told him that the Meter had filled up a very small amount.
"Looks like I'm gonna need more of you. Why don't you call some friends? I can wait." He taunted as he folded his arms over his chest.
No such luck however, as the remaining scarecrows including the Mega, all attacked him in unison.
Cassius jumped back a bit to allow the attacks to miss him, before retaliating with a high kick to one Scarecrow, following up with a spinning back kick to another scarecrow. The force behind each was enough to make them explode into red orbs, which filled the meter up very slightly.
"Tch stingy little..." he was annoyed at the lack of progress and decided to go on the assault.
Charging a pair of Scarecrows, one Arm and one Leg, he sent a round house kick to the Arm's head which sent it flying into the Leg's raised blade, killing it.
To deal with the Leg, he unleased a hailstrom of rapid fire kicks, the trio of curved blades on the ankle of the metal boot pierced through the creature's body repeatedly, before he finished it off with kick generated by a back flip.
The resulting red orbs made the meter fill to about one fourth of the way.
"Better..." He said before jumping above a three way pincer attack from the three remaining demons.
Doing a front flip in midair he stomped down with his right boot and crushed the head of another scarecrow leg.
Upon landing he dropped down to sweep the leg of the last remaining scarecrow arm, before launching it and himself upwards with a vaulting handstand. Lashing out with his devil bringer, he flung the demon back to the pavement where it exploded with blood colored orbs.
Another lash of his devil bringer brought him close to the Mega Scarecrow, he tried to drop kick the demon, but it tried to entrap him with its six blade arms so he had to bail out of the attack, by jumping off its face.
Unfortunately he misjudged the amount of force he'd put into his jump and accidentally rocketed himself into a nearby window.
"Ugh..." He groaned as he shook off the remnants of his impact.
"That's what I get for getting cocky..." he grumbled as he sat up.
He was glad that where he'd landed was at least soft, considering it was a padded bench.
He looked around and saw that he was in a restaurant of some kind, broken tables and chairs littered the area, likely from his flight.
As he looked around he saw something that made him stop.
It was a box... but not just any box... it was a...
"Pizza!" he shouted with excitement as he rushed the box to see what was inside.
"Mmm Pepperoni and Olive." He hummed at the delicious sight before him, he reached into the box and was about to take a bite when a large double barreled shotgun was aimed at his face.
"Back off demon!" a gruff man shouted as he stood from his hiding spot behind the counter.
"Ok one... Half-devil and two..." Cassius whipped the shotgun out of the man's hands in an instant.
"I'm a demon hunter." He finished just as the Mega Scarecrow burst into the room, only to receive a shotgun blast to the face.
"You wait your turn!" Cassius shouted at the demon before looking at the man who was insanely pale.
"I-I'm-I-I'm s-sorry, please don't-"
"Don't what? Kill you? Sure. I don't kill humans anyways. Just monsters. Although... I will be taking that Pizza off your hands." Cassius replied as he places the slice he'd still had in his hand, back into the box. Turning away from the man he faced the demon that writhed on the ground from the blast to the face.
"Tch... if this was a devil arm that thing would be dead already..." He muttered as he placed the shotgun into his inventory, much to the man's shock.
"Oh look a jukebox! What's party without a little music!" Cassius exclaimed with excitement before he kicked a chair to the Mega Scarecrow that had managed to stand up.
Approaching the Jukebox with a leisurely pace he pushed the play button.
Play: Rawkfist By Thousand Foot Krutch
He tapped his foot to the beat for a few seconds before he backflipped over a swipe of three blades from the Mega Scarecrow. Landing behind the demon with one leg raised, he waiting for the demon's next attack, which forced it to turn to hit him, however he deflected the blades with a flick of his raised leg, which he then brought straight down onto the demon.
The force made its legs buckle and fall down to its knees, right into the waiting Cassius' next attack. Executing another series of rapidfire kicks, not dissimilar to Dante's million stab skill, the mega scarecrow began to spout out a continuous stream of blood orbs which was continually absorbed by the unnamed devil arm.
Cassius noticed the meter was being filled at a greater pace and was now close to being full.
He spun to deliver another back kick to the demon, just as the last of the blood orbs from the still living Mega Scarecrow was absorbed by the pair of greaves, completely filling the meter.
The demon was sent flying backwards into a wall.
[《Devil Arm Completed. Generating Name... Complete. Devil Arm: Hollow S. Jack acquired.》]
He glanced at his hud and noticed that the meter was still there.
"Open Devil arm description." He muttered to the system.
[《Devil Arm: Hollow S. Jack- A Stingy weapon that demands payment in return for it's powers. Absorbs blood from demons with every attack, and by killing demons. Once the blood gauge is filled, the absorbed blood will ignite to deal fire damage. If Stingy Jack can't keep it, then he'll burn it. Warning: All blood orbs obtained while Devil Arm is in use will not go to user and will be lost when the blood burns.》]
Cassius rose a brow at the weapon, it reminded him of Dr. Faust with how it used blood orbs to fuel itself.
"Greedy little fucker aren't you...whatever, eat your fill I don't give a damn." he said before leaping at the Mega Scarecrow that hobbled back to attack him.
The instant his foot made contact with the demon, the eyes of Hollow S Jack's twin pumpkin faces burst into flame, along with the ankle blades.
The Scarecrow screeched in pain as it thrashed from the flames that dealt it great harm.
Cassius vaulted off the demon's face and back to the floor... only he never touched the floor.
The flames of Hollow S Jack provided enough propulsion to allow him to simple float mere inches from the tile flooring.
"Ok this is pretty sweet." He laughed before charging at the still burning demon. He dove into a breakdancing spin, with his legs in the air and his hands being used to generate momentum, the flames of Jack spouted to created a wheel of flame around them.
Once the demon was stunned, he used his current position to vault kick the demon into the air.
Getting to his feet he unleashed another assault of rapid fire kicks, however this time each kick generated a blast of fire shaped like jack-o-lanterns.
He made a mental note to call this move Kick-O-Lantern.
A glance at his HUD made his notice that the blood gauge was almost depleted.
"Time to finish this." He thought before kicking the demon once more into the air. As it seemed to hover there, he summoned his phantom arm and used his light blade skill to summon the blade.
He immediately noticed that the shape of the blade was different. During his fight with Aetna the light sword had appeared as a proportionally accurate (for the phantom arm) bastard sword. Now it was a wickedly curved Sickle.
"It changes based on what Devil Arm I'm using?" He wondered before guessing that it must be tied to his devil trigger form in some way. He knew that the DT could change forms depending on the Devil Arm that was being used.
He didn't have much time for any more speculation, he had a demon to kill.
He narrowed his eyes at the creature before commanding his Phantom arm to deliver the final blow. It swiped with the light sickle and ripped through the still airborn demon.
The demon burst into Red orbs, which were promptly absorbed by Hollow S. Jack before Cassius could switch to Satanael.
"Tch... greedy fucker..." he clicked his tongue at the devil arm.
The next second he could have sworn he heard a little burp from two pairs of grinned mouths.
Turning back to the stunned pizzeria owner, and approached.
The man watched him pick up the pizza and turn away.
"You got some good taste in music. Later gramps. Thanks for the Pizza. Oh and the shotgun, I'll be sure to put it to good use." Cassius waved goodbye as he walked away.
"N-no problem kid..." the man stuttered, just in time for the boy to vanish through the hole in his store that the Scarecrow created.
Cassius once again found himself walking through the city streets in search of Xenovia and the boy she was with. But it wasn't all bad, he had his pizza, so that was a plus.
Although he really did hope that the girl was alright, the boy too he guessed. Truth be told he wasn't sure if this place was even real, or just something created by the system to train him. Either way he'd gotten stronger in the short time he'd been here, and that was fine with...
He paused midstep as he heard a sniffle echo from a nearby dumpster.
"No... really?" he turned to face the dumpster. He sensed two familiar entities inside the metal box... and decided he should knock.
"...It's a long story." He said as he finished recalling the past half hour.
Xenovia narrowed her eyes at him before huffing.
"Fine. But you still owe me an explanation." She said.
"All in due time my dear. For the time being let's find a safe place to take this kid and then find out how we can get back." He said before looking at the boy. He seemed strangely familiar to him, but he couldn't quite place it.
"Hey kiddo. Any ideas where we should go?" Cassius asked the boy gently.
The boy sniffled and pointed to a large building just down the road.
"T-the church." He whimpered.
Cassius smiled and ruffled the boy's hair.
"Atta' boy. Come on. Let's get you to that church." Cassius said with a look to Xenovia, who nodded.
She took the boy's right hand in her left, while Cassius took the right.
Together they walked towards the church.
They encountered no demons on their way, and eventually arrived safe and sound.
Cassius hesitated at the gates and Xenovia immediately noticed and understood why.
"... wait here." She said before leading the boy through the gates. Cassius took the opportunity to pull on his glove and cover his arm with his sleeve.
He watched the pair enter the gates and froze when he saw them greeted by a teenage boy with a sword and a young red haired girl the same age as the boy.
"Nero!?" The girl ran up to the girl and hugged him tightly. The teenager looked at Xenovia who was now walking away.
"What of his mother?" he asked.
Xenovia stopped for a second before turning her head to look over her shoulder.
"Gone... she was dead when I found him." she said with a deep sadness.
The girl who Cassius knew to be Kyrie, gasped in shock before hugging the child Nero even tighter.
The teenager, aka Credo, hung his head in shame. He was meant to be there to protect her... it was his duty as a holy knight, and he had failed.
Credo looked up and saw the girl walking away again, but he saw her join up with a boy her age. He bore a striking resemblance to Nero with his white hair and blue eyes.
He noticed that the boy's left arm was covered by a long sleeve and glove. In his right hand however was what could only be a Devil Arm, a weapon born from the souls of a Demon. A gunblade made of some unknown model of pistol and a wickedly curved blade, with featherlike blades protruding from the flat of the blade to give it a winglike appearance.
He'd heard tales of a white haired devil hunter, but didn't think he'd be so young.
As he watched the pair leave he looked to Nero, who was still being held by his little sister. The girl was smitten with him, that he knew, even at their current age. Perhaps he should take the boy under his wing... he owed him that much at least.
"Come you two... let's go home." He said as he gently guided them with a hand towards the church.
Cassius spared a glance back to the church one last time, his gaze focused on the trio, or more specifically... on Nero. The combination of Fortuna and his existence in this supposedly "fake" world made Cassius have to rethink about his earlier questioning on whether this world was made by the system or not.
He was starting to think that it wasn't however, he knew the dimension gap in the DxDverse could potentially be used to travel to other dimensions and universes... so perhaps the system had simply sent, and Xenovia, to the DMC universe? It did seem like the best place to train his powers as a devil...
Cassius turned away from the church and made to catch up with Xenovia, who was standing near the entrance to a nearby alleyway.
She was clearly waiting on him with an impatient tap of her foot.
He approached with a sheepish scratch of his head.
"Alright alright... I'm gonna say that you want that explanation." He deduced.
"No shit sherlock." Xenovia snapped at him with a glare.
"Wooow... what would Mother Griselda say?" Cassius commented on her foul language with a teasing smirk.
Xenovia stomped on his foot before he could react.
"Ow! Sheesh sorry!" He hopped on one foot for a few seconds before returning to a stable standing position.
"Explain... now!" She demanded with a fierce glare.
"Alright alright! I was getting to it!" He said with palms raised.
"Alright... where to start... ah... well I have... a rather unique sacred gear. One that, according to Michael, has never been used by anyone ever. It's the main reason I've been recruited regardless of my species. He wants to keep me as an Ally rather than as an enemy." He began.
Xenovia raised an eyebrow at that.
"What does your sacred gear have to do with this?" She asked him, while gesturing to the city around them.
"Everything..." he replied.
She narrowed her eyes again.
"Continue." She demanded.
He nodded.
"My sacred gear is a little hard to explain but... well... do you know what a video game is?" he asked her.
She nodded.
"Well my sacred gear basically grants me the stat and ability customizability of a video game character." He said with coy smile.
She blinked.
"You're fucking with me aren't you?" she said with annoyance.
"No not at all. Here I'll prove it." he said before sending her a party invite.
She blinked as the invite window popped up in front of her face.
"Gah!? You weren't kidding?!" she asked, startled by the pop up.
"Just accept the invite. And open the stat menu." He sighed.
She did as asked and looked at her stats.
"Uh... are these stats good?" She asked him.
He peeked over her shoulder.
[《Name: Xenovia Quarta
Lvl: 7
Race: Human
Titles: Holy Sword Trainee/Exorcist Trainee.
Vit:8
End:20
Ftg: 10%/100%
Str:13
Agi:5
Int:5
Wis:4
DP: N/A
Hol:50
DT: N/A》]
"Damn... for a Human these stats are insane. The average human has stats of five. Hell with an endurance stat like that it's no wonder you have trouble sleeping at night. Then there's your Holy stat... a whopping 50?! That's probably the most a nonenhanced human has ever had naturally... you're sure to get picked by a holy sword with a holy stat that high. Even mine wasn't that high before I awakened as a devil." Cassius said with no small amount of amazement. Even though he already knew she would get Durandal.
Xenovia found her face heating up, not just from the compliments but from how close Cassius' face was to hers.
That was until she registered what he had said at the end.
"Wait... you possessed Holy powers before you awoke your powers as a devil.
"Well... yes and no. You see... there was a project called the Holy Sword Project, which was an experiment to create exorcists that could wield Holy Swords artificially by boosting the Holy energy within a human. I was one of the experiments. After I awakened my powers as a devil, my Holy powers split and the larger amount went to my DP stat or Demonic Power." He explained.
"Did the Project work?" She asked him.
He shook his head.
"No... it failed and as a result... Valper Galilei ordered all the subjects to be disposed of... me and two others are the only survivors." Cassius informed her.
Xenovia went pale when he told her that the subjects were disposed of.
"How did you survive?" She asked.
"I crawled out a window and ran through the surrounding forest eventually I was found by Father Isaac McCormick and a stray devil. The stray cut off my left arm, that was what triggered my devil powers to awaken so I could survive." He said.
"And the other survivors?" she asked.
"One is in a stasis barrier created from her sacred gear and is under the church's protection. The other... I don't know. There were signs of someone having climbed out the window before me, but I never saw them." he said with a shake of his head.
"I see..." she said with a solemn tone.
"Anyways back to the topic at hand..." He said refering to their current location.
"Right. Please continue." she said.
"Alright... I first noticed it this morning but next to my Health bar was a timer counting down. I saw it when it was counting down from 13hours so I'm assuming it starts as 24." he said with a shrug.
Xenovia nodded.
"Well... the timer ran out while I was in the forest and then a window popped up saying something about a daily challenge, and how anyone within a 50 foot radius of me would be teleported with me to the challenge... so I... kind of dragged you into this by accident." He said with an apologetic look.
Xenovia stared at him for several seconds before speaking.
"So basically you didn't have a choice but to be taken here... and I was just at the wrong place at the wrong time." Xenovia sighed in resignation, there wasn't any point in being angry.
"Yeah that about sums it up." He replied with a sigh of his own.
"What's the challenge?" She asked him.
"Hm?" he blinked at her.
"The challenge? What was it? Maybe if we complete it we'll get sent home." She reiterated for him.
He nodded.
"I was thinking the same thing." he said.
"Then what was the challenge?" She asked him once again.
"Just to Kill demons around the city and stop the demon invasion." He said with a shrug.
"Did it give you a number of how many demons you need to kill?" She asked him.
He shook his head.
"No it wasn't really specific in how many need to be killed." He informed.
Xenovia gained a thoughtful look.
"Maybe there's a boss you need to beat to stop the invasion?" She suggested.
He shrugged.
"Probably but I haven't seen any signs of any high tier demons around the city." He said.
"Well... what about outside of the city?" She asked.
He thought about it forna second before he came to a realization.
"Ah shit... I think I might know where it is." He told her with a strained look.
"That's great? Where?" She asked him.
He didn't reply to her and instead he turned and walked away. Xenovia decided to just follow him and see where he was leading them.
First off I wanna say thanks for reading the first chapter and say yeah I'm alive. My job takes up most of my time nowadays, due to me waking up at 3am to be at work by 5am to work a ten hour shift that ends at 3:30pm... and by the time I get home it's almost 5pm and I got to be asleep by 9:30 if I want to have any decent sleep before I have to wake up and do it all over again. I don't exactly have a lot of time to do the things I like doing. At least not as much as before anyways. I've only recently managed to adjust to the schedule to find the time to write. So I'll try to update what I can, but like I said I don't have a lot of time to do much.
It's tough but eh it's not too bad. I like the job and the day passes by quickly. If I'm lucky I get some down time that I use to write whenever possible.
Anyways hope you all enjoyed this installment. Also... don't question any timeline inconsistencies... Dxd isn't very clear on when certain events happened. Hell before I even started writing the first chapter it took me a week to figure out the time lapse of the events of the holy sword project and the start of canon... and I still found jack shit.
Oh what did you think of Hollow S. Jack? It's a completely original devil arm. I even drew the thing when I was in the process of writing this. Btw the total sum of the blood/red orbs it absorbed/burned would come to about... 5000 orbs in total... ouch I can feel the pain in my blood orb wallet already. I based the weapon off of Stingy Jack aka the origins of the Jack-o-lantern.
Props to those who can guess what and where the weapons that Excalibur Mimic transformed into when Cassius used it.
Laterz.