Chapter 134: Punny Fallen

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As the seventeen hundreds were wrapping up, the Industrial Revolution was getting strong in Europe. New and improved ways of manufacturing goodies were appearing all time, easing the access of people to items that before would be considered a luxury to many and at the same time making the prices drop.

While that was happening in the normal world, the supernatural world, more precisely the Underworld, was passing by a different type of revolution. With the death of some of the pantheons that ruled the Americas, the other pantheons were waging a silent war to see who would be the one to 'conquer' the new lands. In the end, the Christian pantheon had a better advantage in the 'war' since the people going to live there were already 'followers of God' and easily dominated the area. And while they focused on the Americas, the old pantheons got some breathing apace and managed to take some terrain back in their home-lands.

It was at the very beginning of the eighteen hundreds that Erik got an unexpected 'visitor'. Erik was doing one of his routines visits to one of the offices of Ravens' Mercantile Group when he got an emergency call from his home in the north of Scotland. It was the ward system that he had in place that identified someone trying to brute force their way through them and warned Erik about it. He would not have cared much about it if not for the fact that his house in the north of Scotland was where Calypso based her operations for her business, and at that exact moment, she should be there, working in one of her greenhouses. Erik quickly cast a transportation magic circle and teleported to the house's entrance. When he arrived in the place, Erik was immediately connected to the ward's system and had a better understanding of what was happening and who was the attacker. At the same time, Erik confirmed that Calypso was still very secure inside one of her greenhouses and had not even felt the place being attacked. Just that lifted an enormous weight from his shoulder and have him let out a sigh of relief.

*sigh*

Now that he had confirmed his third wife's safety, Erik calmly walked to the place where he felt someone banging on the wards. As soon as he arrived, he was met with a spectacular light show that was generated by the magical attacks impacting the wards. Erik looked at it in admiration. He had never been on this side of the barrier while it was attacked since when he created it, he was the one testing its durability, meaning that he was the one outside doing the magic bombardment. After checking again if the ward was doing its job in sucking the energy of the attacks to reinforce it, Erik decided to check the identity of the person who had the balls to attack his home.

And seeing was believing. Erik recognized instantly the person who was attacking the wards without stopping, after all, his looks were very unique even between the Fallen-Angels. While the great majority of the Fallens had a more human-like appearance, the person attacking the wards was looking more like a vampire of some cheap movie production from Erik's past life. The Fallen-Angel had long black hair, red eyes, paper-white skin, two pointy long ears, and sharp canines that were easily seen when he sported his deranged smile that was easy to appear on his face. The Fallen-Angel's name was Kokabiel, one of the high-ranking cadres of the Grigori. Erik looked around in search of other Fallen-Angels and saw that the 'man' was alone in his tries. With that, Erik deducted that Kokabiel was doing this attack on his own. And that was the perfect opportunity for him to trash the arrogant warmonger Fallen-Angel.

But before that, Erik decided to give one of his contacts a courtesy call. Erik raised his hand in front of him and, above it, a blue magic circle appeared and started to blink in timed intervals. Some seconds later, a face of a tired-looking man appeared above the magic circle.

"What is it?"

Azazel's voice came through the magical hologram without looking at who was calling him. The Grigori's General Governor was probably in the middle of some paperwork marathon initiated by his faithful secretary.

"Hey, Azazel, you should take some rest, you look very tired."

Erik said to the magical hologram, making Azazel look again at it. And as soon as he did look at it again, his complexion changed and the man managed to sport a small smile.

"Hey, Erik! How are you doing? How are your wives doing?"

Azazel asked again. Erik smiled back at the Fallen-Angel.

"I'm good, and the girls are good too. Thank you for asking. And I say again, you look like someone that needs a rest."

Erik said to Azazel, who sighed at that.

*sigh*

"Lately, because of all the expansion to the Americas, I am being drowned into paperwork. Normally I would have already taken a rest time, but Penemue is running me hagged here."

Azazel said, complaining to Erik about his paperwork problem, making him smile at that. Erik could not say that Azazel was exaggerating about it since his company too generated a lot of paperwork daily for him. The difference between Erik's and Azazel's paperwork was that Erik did not leave work for the next day and could delegate some of this job.

"But paperwork aside, to what do I owe the call? Don't tell me that you got another batch of those delicacies to negotiate with me?"

Azazel asked Erik with some hope in his eyes. In truth, Erik had a very good-sized batch of the thing with him, but he didn't want to give it to the man. Maybe in a more opportune moment that could rip him more benefits, but not now.

"No, it's not that. This is just a courtesy call. I don't suppose that you ordered Kokabiel to attack one of my houses, did you?"

Erik asked Azazel, who frowned at that and then shook his head negatively.

"No, I didn't. Is that what he is doing?"

Azazel asked Erik, already knowing the answer. Kokabiel was like a rabid dog that liked to bite everyone and Azazel would have got rid of the Fallen-Angel a long time ago if the guy was not so useful sometimes. He was the 'Fallen-Angel to send if you needed a dirt job to be done, mainly kill jobs. On the more 'officials' jobs, he preferred to send the stoic and rough-looking Barakiel. Erik nodded his head in an affirmative.

"Yes. I'm looking right now at his ugly mug while he bombards the wards around my house in Scotland with his magic."

Erik said to Azazel, who frowned again.

"I will call him back immediately."

Azazel said, ready to send an order to someone to fetch Kokabiel, but he then saw Erik shaking his head at that.

"Don't bother. This was like I said, just a courtesy call before I start trashing him thoroughly."

Erik said while giving a 'kind smile' to Azazel, which made the man dry swallow (gulp).

"You will not kill him, right?"

Azazel asked cautiously and Erik shook his head negatively.

"Nah… I'm just going to break most of his bones. Do you have a place that you want me to drop him after?"

Erik replied and asked Azazel.

"Hmm… Let me think about it…"

Azazel said while thinking about it.

"If it is not much trouble for you, send him directly to these coordinates on the Underworld. They are very near a patrol outpost in our territory. I will warn them to keep an eye out for a 'broken' Fallen-Angel arrival."

Azazel said to Erik while sending him a side message with the said coordinates. This was a good opportunity for him. Lately, Kokabiel had been getting uneasy and he was very trigger happy with his light spears, harming a lot of other Fallen-Angels who 'dared to look at him strangely'. Erik's trashing could work as a bucket of icy water for the warmonger Fallen-Angel. Erik nodded his head at that, acknowledging Azazel's request.

"Okay, I will send you the body."

Erik said while taking note mentally of the coordinates that Azazel had sent.

"Have to go now, see you later."

Erik said again.

"Yeah, have fun."

Azazel replied to Erik and finished the call. Erik chuckled at that. Kokabiel seemed to really be a not very well-liked member of the Grigori if his leader, Azazel, was wishing Erik to have fun with his trashing. He then smiled at that, hid himself with an invisibility spell, and cast a flight spell. Making a wide turn around the point in the ward where Kokabiel was bormading, Erik slowly approached the ripoff vampire Fallen-Angel.

"You know, there are better ways to knock on someone's doors than bombarding the defenses of his house with attack magic."

Erik said from behind Kokabiel, who was very concentrated on his task. Kokabiel got really startled with that voice suddenly appearing behind him. So startled that he lost control of the magic that he was preparing to launch next, making it explode on his face. Erik chuckled at that. It was not something that he had planned to happen, but it had been a nice happening in the same way.

When Kokabiel recovered from the rebounding of his spell, he looked around for the source of the voice and saw Erik standing behind where he just was.

"You!"

Kokabiel said with some 'hate' in his voice that Erik very much thought that would be the Fallen-Angel's normal voice tone. Although he was looking more or less ragged because of the spell rebounding, he behaved like nothing had happened, adding even more 'humor' to the scene.

"Yes, me. Who were you expecting to come when you attack my house? The pope?"

Erik sarcastically replied to Kokabiel, making the Fallen-Angel get even more furious for some random reason that no one aside from him knew.

"Good! So this is your house. It seems that my source was right about it them."

Kokabiel said, getting Erik's attention at the mention that he had been given the location by a third party.

"Now stay quiet while I kill you, you puny human."

Kokabiel said while charging a light spear and throwing it at Erik, making the man roll his eyes at that and almost let out a chuckle for his choice of words. At that moment Erik decide that he would be the Hulk for Kokabiel's Loki.

Erik didn't even bother to avoid the attack. He covered his main hand with his vital and magical energy and just slapped the incoming attack, shattering the light spear in thousands of small motes of light that slowly disappeared in the air. Kokabiel watched the scene of Erik easily getting rid of his attack with wide eyes. That was not something that he had been told about. But being the usual arrogant warmonger that he was, Kokabiel took that as just a fluke of some kind and, this time, charged a different attack. In his hand, a sword made purely of light energy took shape. As soon as it was ready, Kokabiel advanced to where Erik was standing in the air with a burst of speed, slashing Erik with his light-sword.

"You seem to be confused about something here, Kokabiel."

Erik said while at the same time grabbing the Fallen-Angel's light-sword with his 'bare' hand. He then squeezed the light-sword in his hands while reinforcing his body with his vital energy.

*CRACK*

The sound of something cracking was heard and the sword made out of light shattered in Erik's hands. Kokabiel's eyes went wide with that.

"I am the one who is going to do the trashing here, not you."

Erik said to the Fallen-Angel and quickly rotated his body while at the same time hitting Kokabiel with a round-house kick that sent the Fallen-Angel flying like a cannonball in the direction of the wards of the house.

*BAM*

"Gah!"

A huge noise was made when Kokabiel's body hit the solid-looking ward, making the Fallen-Angel let out a yell of pain together with a mouthful of blood.

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