Bayfront Coast (11)

It then lunged at Juin with both its hands straightened in front of him; the talons glimmering in the sunlight that managed to enter the room before disappearing again.

BAM!

When it kicked the ground for a boost in speed, it left two deeply-embedded footprints in the cement floor, kicking up more dust into the air.

Juin was deeply angered when he heard the creature's answer, and instead of running away, he kept his mind as focused as possible, paying attention to the changes in the dust pattern in the air.

With his left hand opened, he suddenly glanced at 45 degrees at his right, preparing to attack.

"Naive…" the creature's voice seemed to come from everywhere. "Ooof!" the creature groaned before screaming in pain. An intense flame was burning through its soul, and it fell to the ground, writhing in pain as it rolled around.

Juin slowly turned his head to look at the creature, and a bloodthirsty smile appeared on his face. "Naive…" he repeated the creature's word slowly as he stared at its eyeless sockets.

Lucifer's eyes were on Juin the whole time, and he noticed that Juin's aura had changed slightly, taking a more demonic form. "Why…"

A notably powerful aura suddenly emanated from Juin's body, spreading miles and miles out into the city. The supernatural beings within the range either cowered or looked toward their direction with fear and suspicion.

"It's that feeling again…" one of them who was in the city center and was holding a bag of grocery with trembling hands muttered to no one in particular.

Back in Jim Mack's house,

A heavy gust of wind blew in through the broken windows as the weather outside changed rapidly, moving Juin's torn shirt up slightly, and that was when Lucifer saw it.

There was a small nick on Juin's chest, over his scar.

He could sense the powerful demonic aura that was leaking out of Juin's chest.

"He's not alert enough," Lucifer mumbled to himself when he saw the small nick. One of that creature's talons must have made it before it was hit and sent flying by Juin. He then looked out the window and saw that the sky had completely darkened, covered by heavy amount of clouds.

"This scene…" Lucifer thought as he looked out. The venue was different, but this was similar to what he saw in Juin's nightmare.

"That scar…" Lucifer looked back at Juin, and after a second of thought, he floated over toward his vessel. However, before he could get near him, a fireball was thrown at him.

"Juin!" Lucifer snapped upon dodging the fireball that was aimed at him. When the fireball hit the wall with the newspaper clippings, the clippings started to burn rapidly.

"This wasn't a Soul Fire, but Daemon Flame," Lucifer thought to himself as he narrowed his eyes on Juin.

He was sure now that Juin's body had been taken over. "When did you learn it?" he asked.

"I have always known it…" Juin said with a grin as he glared at Lucifer; his voice was deep and smooth and unlike what Lucifer had heard before. When he raised his left hand slightly to the front of his chest, his red eyes glinted in the darkened room as he raised five more blue fireballs that burned brightly in an arc above his head at the same time. "Let's see if you can dodge that!"

Juin snapped his fingers and set the fireballs at Lucifer, and unlike the Soul Fire that traveled in a straight line, the Daemon Flame fireballs could be controlled at will. Lucifer growled as he dodged the fireballs, expertly maneuvered himself so that the fireballs hit random targets.

He wanted to retaliate, to show that "Juin" that he wasn't someone who he could pick fights on, but the thoughts that he might accidentally kill his vessel stopped him from doing so.

By the time he got rid of the fifth and last fireball, the room was already burning. When Lucifer landed on the ground, a sea of flames had surrounded him.

The fire burned brightly as Lucifer and Juin faced each other; one with wariness and the other with a proud expression.

"You're not Juin…" Lucifer remarked. "You're that sleeping soul…"

"Juin?" Juin chuckled, and in the light created by the fire, his eyes appeared to be burning in crimson red. "I am Juin, the real Juin…"

He snapped his fingers, and hundreds of Daemon Flame fireballs appeared all around the room, causing Lucifer to be slightly shocked by it. However, his shocked expression quickly turned to a smug grin.

"I won't do that if I were you…" Lucifer said as he folded his arms together, taking on a more relaxed stance.

However, the Juin with red eyes merely smirked as he jumped onto the severely-injured creature.

"Urgh!" the creature groaned as black blood sprayed out of its mouth. It had only just stopped the fire from burning its demon soul and was curious as to who Juin was talking to, but it did not have the strength to speak. Before Juin turned its back onto it, it had to recover quickly.

"I will do whatever I want…" Demon Juin said with an eerie smile. He then snapped his fingers again, upon which, the hundreds of fireballs all moved toward Lucifer at once.

To his amusement, Lucifer did not move at all even though the fireballs were only inches away from him. He merely stood in place, with the smug grin on his face.

But Demon Juin soon realized what was happening. "Stupid human…" he mumbled before falling flat on his face, right at the moment the fireballs were half an inch away from Lucifer.

"Juin's body can't handle that amount of power yet…" Lucifer mumbled with a grin as the Daemon Flame fireballs disappeared in thin air, as if they had never even existed before. Even the raging flames in the room disappeared, leaving behind charcoaled walls and burning smell as proof that the flames existed earlier.

"Urgh…" A few seconds later, Juin flipped his body over and placed both hands on his face as he groaned, "Why is my face in so much pain?"

And he also realized that he had almost depleted all his energy.

When Lucifer noticed that Juin's eyes had turned back to black, he floated to above Juin, and with his left foot pressed firmly on Juin's chest, he asked threateningly, "Did you realize that you have committed a deadly crime?"

Juin gulped as he looked at Lucifer's annoyed expression. The last thing he could remember was him trying to focus his attack on the ugly creature, so he felt extremely wronged right now. "W-what have I done?"

"F*ck!"

A loud curse caused both of them to turn to the creature, who had gotten up and was staring at Juin with a murderous gaze. It took him a lot of energy to stop the effect of the Soul Fire, so its strength was pretty much halved at the moment.

And its physical body was badly affected as well. A demon's soul could affect its host's physical body.

Too strong, and it would eat away the host's lifespan quickly and rot away the host's physical body.

The same effects would apply if the demon's soul was too weak, with one extra effect—the host's physical body would rot even quicker upon death.

When the demon's soul was strong, it could control the speed of the rotting after killing off the host's soul, but when it was weak, it would lose this control, as what was happening to Jim Mack's body now.

The body, which was already in an extremely ugly state, was made uglier with the new rotting spots that appeared all over.

"I change my mind… I don't need you as a vessel, but I'm going to kill you instead!"

That aura it felt earlier had scared him, and it knew that if Juin were allowed to regain his energy, it would be unable to escape anymore!

With its right hand that was now glowing in dark, mossy green, the creature focused all its energy on the hand, even taking away the energy it needed to maintain its invisibility, and charged toward Juin, who had completely zero strength left to defend himself.

"ARGH! MERGE! MERGE! MERGE!" Juin cried out immediately upon realizing the danger he was in.

He could see the green glowing hand nearing him, and he turned his head to the side.

BAM!

…