He Who Cannot Be Imperfect

At the other end of the city, a young male model for a fashion magazine just arrived by the photo shooting location. The blonde young man, not older than twenty five, would without a doubt succeeded to make any lady fall for him. A charismatic tall figure with beautifully chiseled face, stood gallantly, truly a real world prince charming.

Three men approached him, however, the young model knew the men were not with the photographer. "Host of Beleth, Richard Caswell, prepare to meet your end." One of the men bravely declared.

"Oh? And I was wondering if the agency hired new people," He walked slowly towards the three. "Turned out it was just a bunch of thugs." Richard made a smile. "I'm utterly disappointed."

He gripped the locket he was wearing, golden ray emitted from it, coating him in blinding light. A lance and a crown entirely made out of shining matter formed. "Well then, shall we begin?"

Wearing the appearance was Richard. He charged with his lance, trying to strike the man in the middle down, however, the man jumped back. "Oh, not bad." Two men ran towards him from opposing sides at the same time. He swung his lance in a circular move, scraping the first man's abdomen and threw the second man back. "No blood?"

"Get into formation!" One of the men commanded the other two. The three made a triangle surrounding Richard. "Release!" Thick smoke appeared from the ground where the men stood, the smoke grew thicker and thicker. Richard tried to blow the smoke away by spinning his lance, it was a futile attempt. The smoke was almost as thick as sticky rice paste, it clung to his lance like a sludge of glue.

"Now this is getting annoying." He stabbed the ground with his lance, creating a pillar of light around him, dispersing the smoke. He let go of his lance and jumped to one of the men, kicking him away.

The other two abandoned their formation and charged at Richard. He clapped his palms together, two lances appeared before him. He took one and swiped an attacker with it, then he thrust the other right on his chest before landing a backheel kick on him.

He then took the other lance and use it to bash the head of the other man, as he lost his balance, he landed a knee against his chin, the man fell. Not wasting any second, he stabbed the fallen body. Strangely, blood did not come out from the stabbed bodies after receiving the fatal punctures.

The last man clenched both of his fists, black smoke engulfed both of his hands. He rushed towards Richard with both of his fists swinging. Richard jumped back to avoid a direct hit, however, a punch landed on him, corroding the shirt he was wearing, exposing a now scraped and slightly charred abdominal skin.

"Now you've made me mad!" He took his first lance on the ground and swung it in two semicircle motions in opposing directions. The man jumped back, however, he was not ready for a full power thrust. The strike blew a hole on his body, he fell to the ground as the smoke on his hands faded away.

The golden lances and crown disappeared. However, the huge rip on Richard's shirt did not. His whole body was covered in ash. Richard wiped the ash from his shoulders. "The bodies have no blood, what the heck is going on here?" He examined the bodies closer.

"Poorly reanimated bodies, this has to be the work of Murmur's host." Richard heard a voice in his head.

"Is that so? What crazy talent." He looked around.

"But I cannot recall if he ever used smoke in any capacity. Aside from every demon's ability to reveal the truth to some extent, Murmur's abilities are only limited to stitching and controlling soulless bodies. Barely functional and having no will of their own, they are no different than flesh puppets." The voice explained.

"You demons sure are handful." Richard took a comb out of his pocket and fixed his hair after blowing the ashes off his head.

"Why thank you." The voice replied.

"But you're stronger than this Murmur guy, aren't you?" He asked the voice, but it did not answer. "Beleth!"

"We are merely fragments of our past selves, we might be strong beyond your comprehension in the past, however, today we could not even last for half a day. It is hard to tell which one of us is stronger than the other in this state, so it all depends on how our hosts utilize our powers." The voice owner known as demon Beleth gave no clear answer.

"The heck was that? You're telling that if we were to be defeated it'd be my fault?" Beleth did not answer. "I was told you were strong so I took the offer and became your host. If you're weak then we won't be able to defeat the other demons. In other words, we can't possibly be the-" Richard was about to finish his sentence when the lifeless bodies suddenly disappeared from their sight.

"What!? What was that? Where'd the bodies gone?" He looked around, but nothing suspicious was there.

"As I thought, the demons are banding up. The bodies were taken to a different place." Beleth said.

"That was barely a second! You're saying there's a demon who can teleport things?" Richard asked, seemingly both confused and angry.

"The demon named Seir can move things around as long as there is a magic triangle he could summon the items to." The demon explained. "As for the smoke, I could think of three demons who could use that ability. Aim, Phenex, and Flauros, I assume it would be one of the three."

Richard took his shirt off, it was full of holes and burns. "And I've got to work with you of all demons." The burn marks on his body slowly faded. "And this was a new shirt, too."

"I can make you a coat of light to cover your upper body." Beleth said.

"No thanks, I'm good." He looked at the cracked ground around him. "Even the demons are working together to take the other demons down. You're not too different from us."

"It was an unusual practice, that is for sure. However, with our weakened state, it could be the best option for us to last longer." Beleth said.

"A battle for the title of king, true king who leads all other 71 demons, never thought something like this was actually real, not to mention it's not even the first time this happened." He sat down. "A king is a perfected figure, even more beautiful figure than a prince is. If I can't claim the title, no one else can."

"Honored host, it did not sound very convincing with your upper body being exposed." Beleth made a remark.

"Aahh, shut up! Shut up you demon." Richard said. "Still, that title could be ours, but we can't afford to make a misstep in our method to obtain it. Just as you said, the best way is for us to work together." He sighed. "It'd be better if you're actually wise, cunning, or at least the brainy type, we'd gain an upperhand in information." He stood up.

"There is a demon I was quite close to, if we can somehow locate him, we could probably negotiate it with his current host, assuming he has not been taken out yet."

Richard smiled. "Oh? And which demon would it be?"

"Lord of the water, the liquid demon, Gaap."