Demon Particles

Alex knew he was getting closer, the scent of blood was getting stronger and from his hunting of beasts before, he knew it was fresh.

'The demon must need to replenish it's energy. I haven't found a place it has stopped yet to rest since we began our little chase' he thought as he kept his pace.

Had Alex also not stopped to rest, he was sure he could have caught it by now.

It was not a chance he was going to take though 'recklessness gets you killed' he told himself.

When Alex came upon the scene of the animals demise he was a little disgusted, blood and chunks of body parts were everywhere, it was like a feeding frenzy gone terribly wrong.

"Nasty bastard didn't even bother to kill the thing before it started eating" he said as he observed the clear signs of struggle and blood splatter.

Finding the trail again quickly because of the now blood trail he could follow, he continued his hunt.

He eventually crossed a stream and found where the demon had removed the remaining blood before entering its stealth form again, he was back down to one tracking method.

'Guess this thing didn't lose all reason, it still has enough sense to get rid of the scent and hide its trail' Alex thought, a little respect could be seen in his eyes.

He did not want to fight a stupid opponent as he felt he would have nothing to gain from it. He had managed to improve his tracking and {Stealth} during this Job after all.

A couple more hours past with Alex following the trail like he has, before he started noticing signs of humans in the area, chopped down trees, well used trails, etc.

When he got close enough to smell the humans, he started having a bad feeling 'Damnit! If there is a village up ahead they will be right in its path' he thought before leaping into the air above the trees.

He had to find the village first, even if he lost the trail, it was better to make sure the people didn't needlessly die.

Moving swiftly now that he was flying, he headed in the direction of the most human smells.

It was slightly out of the way the demon was traveling but if the smoke he could see in the distance was any indication, he was heading it the proper direction. 'Fuck! I wasn't quick enough!' He cursed, slightly berating himself.

He could hear the sounds of fighting and knew he had caught up to his prey.

Quickly scanning the area he wanted to make sure people didn't get brought into the fight that was about to happen, anymore than they had too.

Using magic to amplify his voice, he shouted to the towns folk to get out of the buildings and get to the edge of town.

His voice was loud enough that the whole town heard him, it also grabbed the attention of the demon destroying the buildings.

The demon grabbed a chunk of building debris and threw it at the still flying Alex.

Alex dodged easily but still headed for the ground, he could see the demon had wings but they looked strange, almost malformed. 'Guess that was why it didn't bother to fly this whole time... It can't' Alex thought as he landed on the ground and dodged another projectile.

Studying the demon he wanted to get a better idea of what he was up against, but found out quickly that it didn't want to give him the time to do that.

Charging at him with a roar, it wildly swung at Alex, it was obvious as hell it had no martial training and didn't seem to have any attack magic either.

The demon was black skinned with red eyes and 6 horns on its head, two on the forehead, one out each side and two out the back, all with a slight bend upward. It looked like an oversized crown.

Now that he was up close, he noticed why the demon couldn't fly, it had wings but with all the membranes cut off them, they were basically boney spikes.

The demon wasn't getting anywhere with brute force. Alex was too fast for it and kept dodging its attacks.

Trying something new, it used its stealth and vanished from view. Alex could still tell its location through {Mana Manipulation} and could even hear where its feet hit he ground. Through this he could tell it was trying to sneak up on him from the side.

Withdrawing his Glaives he prepared to receive its strike while not letting on that he knew where it was going to come from.

After its sixth attempt at ambush was stopped, the demon dropped its stealth and roared to the sky.

Red light started pouring out of its body before it slightly bulked up, it did not transform completely but it did seem to massively boost its strength.

'A buffing or enrage skill?' Alex thought as he too slightly enhanced his body with {Metamorphosis} while not activating it fully.

He could enter full transformation quicker this way and it would boost his strength and speed without too heavily taxing his energy.

They clashed hundreds of times a minute. The fire on Alex's glaives had a burning effect when the demon hit them but was not strong enough to actually ignite the being.

Alex was using this encounter as a way to fine tune his ability with his weapons. He hadn't really used them much because he had nothing to use them on.

After fighting for a bit longer Alex was certain the Demon could not use other magics and relied on just its physical strength for destruction and its stealth to hide and ambush people.

This combination would make it a very troubling, if not fatal, opponent for mages that could not sense it in stealth.

Its un-buffed speed was nothing an S-class Wizard couldn't deal with but combined with its stealth and strength, it was a force to be reckoned with.

When he came to this conclusion, he knew this demon was no threat to him and started releasing some of his power to end it.

The demon sensing the increase in power instantly knew it couldn't win this fight and tried to escape. Entering stealth it bolted to the forest.

"Oh no you don't!" Alex yelled before activating full transformation and taking off after it.

He stored his glaives and reached out to grab the demons shoulder, stopping it in its tracks he pulled it off balance and slammed his fist into its middle.

The demon let out a wheezing groan as it tried to claw at Alex, he avoided the grabbing hands while still punching it in the face. When the demon stopped trying to claw him, he withdrew one of his glaives and stabbed the demon through the head.

As the demon laid there dead, a black mist started to form around it before being absorbed into Alex, he would have panicked and burned the mist but his instincts were telling him it would be good for him.

He felt slight pain as the mist entered his body but it did not last long 'I wonder if those were the Demon particles?' Alex mused to himself.

He knew all demons possessed them and even Mira had them in order to use her magic.

Checking over his body and not finding anything different he released his transformation. He could sense some of the villagers coming his way now that the fighting had stopped.

Before any of them could get here he contacted the Bosco magic council to report the death of the demon and also give them video proof. They asked if he could bring the body back to their headquarters as additional proof. Shrugging he tossed the corpse into his {Inventory}.

Alex met up with the villagers to tell them what happened, they thanked him for his timely arrival and offered a place for him to sleep, he politely declined.

Before he left he asked them if they wanted his help to make some temporary earth houses for those that lost their homes and also asked if they wanted help digging graves for those that didn't make it.

They thanked him profusely and even tried paying him but he declined. He ended up building ten earth houses that would offer temporary shelter and then act as sheds at a later date.

Going over to the cemetery he quickly and cleanly dug 15 graves, leaving piles of dirt to fill them back in after.

When he was finished he bid them fair-well while offering his condolences. There was nothing else he could do for them.

Leaving town under the thankful yet sorrowful gazes of the remaining villagers, Alex made quick time heading back south.

While he was flying he decided to check the status he never looked at anymore. He couldn't tell what the demon particles did to him and was getting curious.

Name: Alexander Black

Age: 18

Class: Fire Demon Slayer

Mage Rank: SS

Warrior Rank: SS

Skills: {Metamorphosis} (take-over magic)(lvl:40)

{Inventory} (re-quip magic) (lvl:60)

{Fel-Fire} (lvl:45)

{Mana Manipulation} (lvl:41)

{Stealth} (lvl:75)

{Rapid Regeneration} (lvl:20)

"Holy Shit!!" Alex yelled. "My warrior rank went up two full ranks!"

Last time he checked his status, he was at the S-class for 'Warrior Rank' and he hadn't done much actual physical exercise since then.

His 'Mage Rank' going up wasn't that surprising as he meditated all the time during rest.

'That must be what the Demon Particles do!' he thought in realization. If all that was needed to use {Metamorphosis} freely, was to have a strong body, then it made sense that demon particles would strengthen the body.

'Now that I actually think about it, I didn't have much exhaustion or backlash after I used {Metamorphosis} in the village' he realized.

He had been so caught up in trying to figure out what the demon particles did that he didn't even notice his new physical strength.

After calming down from his shock at seeing such a huge increase, he finally went through the rest of his status. He didn't really care about the numbers as much anymore as they didn't seem to have any affect on his abilities.

He had increases across the board and was happy to see {Mana Manipulation} finally moving up. Even though it didn't seem to restrict him, it was still kind of annoying to see if move so slowly when he used it the most of all.

During his 'hunt' he had managed to break the bottleneck on stealth and get it all the way up to another one. 'The only thing I can think of to improve it now is to maybe create a stealth domain?' he thought curiously.

His {Stealth} already affected the world around him to make him virtually undetectable by any means, so that was all he could think of to increase it further.

{Inventory} and {Fel-Fire} as usual just needed to be used to increase, there was nothing special he had to do.

{Metamorphosis} hadn't reached any bottlenecks yet, but he was always experimenting with it so it made sense.

{Rapid Regeneration} was still lagging behind but he had to get hurt for it to go up and not much could hurt him too badly these days.

He even guessed it got its levels from curing the hang-overs he got from drinking with Cana. Done with his status he continued flying.