CHAPTER 12: May the red god have mercy on your soul.

The hunter readied his axe, as he watched Sirin move closer. "What the fuck are you?" He spoke trough his teeth.

Sirin just smiled. "Just a demon I suppose."

The man hesitated for a moment. "Did the red god send you?" His voice was a bit gentler now. Tough it still had a rough undertone.

"No, I don't think so." Sirin shrugged.

The man smiled as he strengthened his grip on his weapon. "Good. Verry good. Now I get to see which colour you bleed!"

Suddenly he dashed forward and swung his axe at Sirin who barely managed to doge.

Sirin's eyes lit up with joy. "You fight good for a human. I'm afraid that I'm not allowed to make this a fight to the death, but I'd still like to see what you are capable of!"

The man attacked again. Despite the size of the weapon his movements were fast and fluent. Every second multiple metallic flashes would fly at Sirin who never failed to move out of the way.

In some weird way the fight could almost be described as a dance.

Eventually Sirin decided to spice things up a little. He transformed into a shade demon to dash between shadows.

Over time the man grew tired, his movements became slow and heavy.

Sirin couldn't help but notice that. In this small moment of distraction, the hunter found the time to hit Sirin on his side. The wound wasn't deep since he had tried to move away, but it sure was long. To be fair, the cut hurt his ego more than that it actually hurt him.

Not that he actually was hurt Sirin could no longer see the fun in the fight, especially since the man was now a lot slower.

Sirin dashed into the shadows and appeared on the roof of one of the buildings. "I have to hand it to you. If you were a bit more ruthless then you would fight just as good as the other demons. Such a shame I that I have other stuff to do. Maye the next time we meet?"

The man only threw a knife in response. Tough it was probably pure luck, Sirin managed to catch it.

"Afraid of seeing you own blood, fiend? Come down and finish what you started!"

Sirin just smiled and stared at the knife before he put it in one of his pockets. He kind of liked the way it looked. Maybe he should start to collect them?

"No thanks. I can't risk accidentally killing you. It was fun tough." He turned back to his base form and walked over the roof. Right before he would jump to the next one, he turned around one last time and happily waved. "I hope to see you again some time. Maybe you could tell me where you got that axe, I like it."

Then he moved out of the hunter's sight.

Now that no one could see him like this he started to inspect his wound. It indeed wasn't that bad and already healing. But he still couldn't help but to feel bad about letting himself get hurt by a human.

He sighed and checked again if he didn't see the adult, Naga. Of course, that wasn't the case.

He decided that he would just go with his original plan to stay on the outside of the town so he wouldn't run into it.

After he had killed a couple of Tokoloshe that were lurking around he suddenly saw something shine close to the water.

He moved a little closer he saw that it was an extremely shiny, slightly transparent, red rock. It was pretty beautiful, and he was certain that Amanda would like it. Could he keep it safe somewhere until he was done protecting the town?

When he was just about to touch it, he noticed an eggshell close to the shore. It was too large for any of the birds he had seen. Most demons ate their eggs as well, so it couldn't be a demon egg either. Furthermore, the shell wasn't as brittle as his own but more leather-like.

Slightly suspicious he slowly moved back. The only creature that he could think of that might have eggs like this were the Nagas. He might be close to the nest, and he didn't think that they would be thankful for killing then of them.

Something snapped behind him. He turned around to kill whatever dared to come this close to him. Only to see that it was Jordan.

"Damn it. What is it you want now?" He sneered at the man. "Can't you see that right now it's not the time?"

Before the man could say anything, something rose out of the water. Something with scales shining like the red rocks that Sirin had found close to the river.

Tough it was hard to tell, the large snake like creature appeared female.

"To think I would awaken to such a vile creature standing before me." The large Naga spoke with a voice that echoed like thunder; tough it was one of the most magnificent sounds that Sirin had ever heard. "As I have promised to rule over the waters that cross these lands, so shall I wash away your presence from this world!"

Immediately Sirin turned around to run away. He turned into his shade form to submerge himself into the shadows. But before he could reach them, she grabbed him.

Tough he wasn't the smallest anymore she could hold him in her hand. He tried to dive into the shadows caused by her hand but for some reason he couldn't. To make it worse she was tightening her grip as she brought him closer.

Trying his best to breath he transformed into his Naga form in which his torso was slightly slimmer.

The gaze of the large Naga hardened. "What magic is this? How can a demonic being take a step in the divine? This insult to the creator shouldn't exist! May the red god have mercy on your soul."

Both the monologue of the Naga and the struggles of Sirin were temporarily stopped by the sound of something falling over.

From the corner of his eyes Sirin could just barely make out Jordan. He had used the red rocks to chop off his hand and was now losing blood at an alarming rate.

"What the fuck are you doing!" Sirin jelled.

The man managed to crack a smile. "You were right, I didn't deserve more time. There is no doing what has been done. I lured the monsters here for my own gain and thus doomed everyone in town. I even killed people to fulfil the deal that I chose to make. So now that I still have the change, I would like to save a life. Even if it's the one of jet another monster."

With his remaining hand he slammed the red rock against his neck. and for Sirin everything faded to black.

The moment Sirin could see again he noticed that he was back at the altar that he had used to go to the human world.