CHAPTER 8

Issei couldn't see anything as everything till where the sight went was pitch black.

There was no sound whatsoever in the surrounding, he couldn't even hear his own breathing.

There was just this feelings that he was falling down from somewhere high.

He couldn't move his own body or even feel his surrounding, while he could strangely know what was going on.

There was a sudden feeling as if the ground was approaching below him ever so slowly.

No matter how many times he tried, he couldn't even control his own body.

He grew nervous as he could feel his heartbeat increasing.

He felt his feet touch the ground as he jerked up from the ground he was lying on.

He looked around frantically for a few moments and when took a breath of relief as he felt that he could control his body again.

He put a hand on his head as he grimaced in his thoughts.

'lucid dreaming?'

This was the conclusion he came up to after thinking for a while.

He took deep breaths to calm down his erratic heartbeat while he looked over his surroundings.

He found out that he was in some sort of small 5×5 room with no windows or anything, but strangely their was still enough light for him to see everything clearly.

He stood up and stretched his stiff shoulders a little as he started thinking about his next set of actions.

He remembered entering the Door Of Destiny, and then he doesn't remember anything about how he got here.

[Ddraig, Do you know how I got here?]

[[Surprisingly, No. Some unknown force resulted in making me go into a slumber for a short period of time.]]

{Truly fascinating! To be able to even force me into unconscious, that door is more mysterious than I initially thought.}

Issei had a surprised expression on his face as he heard their reply.

If that unknown force could even make a heavenly dragon and ancient Devil helpless against it, then no doubt that it would be something much more deeper.

[[ It doesn't seem like it was trying to harm you for now, or we would have been completely helpless.]]

{We should be thinking about what we should do next.}

Issei looked around to find anything useful but…

Nothing!!

The room was literally empty without even a single bit of furniture or even a door to exit.

Just as Issei was about to use a fireball in attempt to damage the wall, something happened…

*RUMBLE!!*

A strange rumbling sound came out of nowhere as Issei had a confused expression on his face.

*RUSTLE!!* *RUSTLE!!*

*POP!!*

Out of nowhere a circular Roulette wheel appeared in the centre of the room.

There was strange words written on the wheel which weren't exactly comprehendable to Issei.

A twinkling sign appeared on top of the roulette with an arrow pointed downwards at the roulette.

*ONE TIME CHOICE ROULETTE. SPIN IT!*

Issei read the sign and did a double take, he thought for a second and eventually spun the wheel with a fast spin.

It wasn't like he could do anything else trapped in this room.

*CREAK!!* *CREAK!!*

The wheel spun around violently without stopping for a few minutes.

Eventually, the wheel finally slowed down a little and came to a stop on a certain gibberish writing.

Issei waited for something to happen, but the silence returned in the room.

Confused by this turn of events, He moved near and touched the roulette.

*Humm!!!* *Humm!!!*

A humming voice came from the wheel as it started shaking ever so slightly.

The words on which the wheel was stopped on, glowed up with a golden hue and started materializing in the air.

<DEMON SLAYER VERSE>

*SWOOSH!!*

As soon as Issei had read the words, an unknown push caused him to fly backwards before he could even comprehend what was happening.

....

*THUD!*

"Grrh" Issei let out a painful grunt as he landed on the ground hard.

He slowly got up from ground and cursed the series of events happening with him right now.

Getting up on his feet again, he rubbed the back of his head as he looked at his surrounding.

Unsurprisingly, it had already changed. Rather than a small cramped up room, he was standing in a forest while being surrounded by house trees.

[Ddraig, Do you know what happened this time?]

He asked in his telepathic link while looking around to analyze his surrounding for any type of danger.

[[ I sensed high level space laws being used, but that's it.]]

{Same, I couldn't even feel the space coordinates!}

"Whatever is happening right now, and whoever is behind this, he is someone we can't mess with." Issei said matter-of-factly.

{Isn't that already obvious?}

[[ Hmph, not yet I guess.]]

*SHUFFLE!!* *SHUUFLE*

Suddenly, Issei heard some noise coming from the bushes. He immediately went alert and took a defensive stance.

"…"

"…"

The stillness returned to the surroundings as if the noise coming a few moments ago was just a fluke.

Issei wasn't a amateur either to drop his guard at such an obvious plan. He focused at the area where the voice came from and let his senses go on full alert.

Another few moments went by but there was still nothing coming out.

'Was it just the wind?'

*Grraahhh!!*

Issei pupils dilated as a humanoid figure was at his side in just a moment.

He couldn't even react before he went flying through the air and crashing into the trees.

Issei felt his throat getting constricted as all the air felt his lungs due to the heavy blow.

He stumbled up on his feet as fast as he could and looked up to see that the humanoid figure was gone again.

He looked around frantically while keeping his attention on all of the sides.

"Boosted gear!!" He exclaimed loudly with his right arm outstretched in front of him.

A red gauntlet materialized on his arm as a deep sound resounded

*BOOST!*

Issei felt his senses suddenly increase tremendously. He held his stance without even moving a single muscle.

Closing his eyes in deep concentration, he used the AOE use of fire element.

Heat Wave detector!!

He quickly analyzed all of his surroundings and saw a heat signature approaching from behind.

Opening his eyes he quickly turned around and used his gauntlet to punch the attacker.

His fist connected squarely on the humanoid figure's skull. It was a direct hit.

He saw the figure flying back due to the impact of the hit. Landing at some distance away, Issei could now finally see it clearly.

He was a man of average stature wearing a kimono type thing, his eyes looked bloodshot while his teeth were sharp like fangs.

Issei recalled the words on the roulette and frowned

'Is he a demon?'

He vaguely remembered the name,

'DEMON SLAYER' from Liam's memories, he guessed that it was also a name of a anime.

But there was one problem here, Liam never watched demon slayer. In fact, the amount of anime Liam could watch in his free time were were less.

By the way, The 'Demon' stood up without any problem even after being hit with such a large force. This led to Issei deducing that the physical capabilities of a demon are not even close to a Human's.

'The endurance would be a problem.' Issei thought with a visible frown.

Even if he did heavy amount of workout everyday, he wasn't that optimistic to think that he could match up with a demon. At the end, he was still a human.

The demon suddenly disappeared again without leaving a trace.

'Teleportation!!!'

Issei exclaimed in his mind as he saw the now empty area. Issei couldn't even follow its movement with his eyes. It was as if it just vanished into thin air.

Issei again closed his eyes quickly and concentrated on any heat signature in the surrounding.

His frown deepened as he couldn't sense any type of heat waves coming from anywhere. He tried harder and covered the whole surrounding forest with his senses while straining himself.

[[ Don't just sense the surroundings, you idiot!!]]

Issei's eyes snapped open with a look of realization on his face, but it was already too late.

Popping out from the ground just in front of Issei, the demon came out with a savage look on its face and punched Issei in the mid section.

Issei just had enough time to move his arms in front of his rib cage for some degree of defense.

*BAM!!*

Issei's body flew back and crashed into a tree.

He wobbled back to his feet while shaking his head to stop himself from getting dizzy.

*BOOST!*

Issei moved his head to the side reflexively while dodging another punch, he didn't even knew how the demon got near him so early.

He grabbed it's body and delivered a knee into it's abdomen. The demon's body reclined a little but Issei held onto it's clothes and again kneed it, this time on the face.

The demon fell down to the ground while holding its face and squirming around.

Issei used his knee to push it down and started delivering hard jabs to it's face.

*BOOST!*

Issei felt another wave of newfound strength pass onto him, he gave a one final punch to the demon causing its head to explode into smitherins.

Issei moved back and plopped down on his butt while breathing heavily. His gauntlet disappeared into nothing.

He looked down at his own bloodied hands and then the headless corpse while an indescribable emotion in his chest and a complicated expression on his face.

This was the first time he killed someone, even if it wasn't a human being or even a properly sentient being, he was still a living being.

Even though he was disgusted by all the blood on himself, he didn't felt the so called guilt which everyone talk about.

Maybe because it was in his own self defense that he didn't deemed this as a murder.

But he could atest one thing, Killing this thing wasn't easy, maybe if he had more experience, he would've dealt with the situation in a more calm manner.

Issei stood up with a sigh and looked down to see that his clothes were now stained with blood. He was still wearing the school uniform. Thank god he wouldn't need it anymore.

Just as Issei was about to leave the area in search of something else, he found himself dying through the air as he crashed to a nearby tree.

Everything happened so fast that he couldn't even make heads or tails of the situation.

Mustering every bit of his remaining Strength, he turned his body around while grunting from the pain.

There… stood the still headless body of the demon he 'Killed'. Suddenly the flesh on the neck of the demon started wriggling around.

Issei's eyes widened in shock as the demon recovered his own squashed head and stood there like nothing even happened in the first place.

"Shit…. I let my guard down…." He mumbled to himself with a pained expression on his face.

Using sheer will power, Issei tried standing up back to his feet but his feet refused to take any weight at all.

His body was aching all over by being thrown around into trees many times. At the end, he could only lean on the tree and watch the demon slowly coming closer.

Just as he was losing all hope, a soft voice resounded in the area.

"Breath of Flower!"

"Fourth Form: Crimson Hanagoromo"