It wasn't much; I knew it was safe to use it once every two weeks, so that's what I've been doing to keep up with the school program and take the rest of the days for myself to enjoy with Leo.
"You're too obvious; I bet your mother has already figured it out." He added.
"Sorry." I responded.
He let out a kind smile before he started playing with my hair.
"Don't worry, we just care for your health; even though it's relatively safe, it's best to avoid it in order to not get in trouble later." He assured me.
"What are you talking about?" Leo then suddenly chimed in.
"I was just warning him not to use the power on himself until we figured out what it truly does." He immediately confessed without a hint of hesitation as he distanced himself from me.
It was time for the final test. I nervously aimed the handgun at the demonic artifact in the shape of a sickle and fired the first shot.
Once the bullet made contact with the colorless weapon, it suddenly turned purple, but the shape started getting unstable. The weapon was vibrating pretty hard; it seemed as if it was experiencing some sort of glitch that simply couldn't allow it to stay in its usual shape.
Shortly after, while it was still trembling, Ilay approached with a weird scanner in his hand to measure the demonic energy output of the weapon.
The energy it was emitting was just a little higher than usual, at least when measured by the instrument Ilay had brought with him. Before it recorded a value between 100 and 120, now it reached a max of 125.
"Mhh, this is pretty much an insignificant change. I doubt it's enough to overpower anyone. Lucy, keep firing until something big happens. We have lots of these spare garbage weapons; we can afford to lose one or two." Ilay was still analyzing the relic along with Leonhart.
They didn't touch it; they just poked it with a metal stick.
When the second bullet hit, the vibration got more intense, the instability of the weapon intensified, and by the third bullet it had grown into a spiky lump of pure energy; the amount of energy had increased tenfold.
Whatever that thing touched, it was cut, be it the metal stick, a piece of paper, a pencil, or a pen.
"Woah, no wonder the kidnapper lost control; who in their right mind could possibly—" Leo was in the middle of making an observation when I fired the fourth bullet.
The clump of energy grew larger and larger; many strings then suddenly emerged from the wall, surrounding the ball of energy, trying to compress it, but they failed to suppress the surging energy.
Not good!
Out of the many gaps, large claws emerged, and long, thumb-like limbs covered in blue scales emerged. Before anything more of that creature could emerge, I heard the loud sound of metal clashing against each other.
Ilay charged forward; the color of his skin had changed from its usual black to a deep blue, long horns had grown on the side of his head, and strange green flames hovered around him.
He looked like a mix between a human and a dragon; in his hands he wielded a weird polearm that seemed to be made out of a strange liquid.
"Take care of them! I'll deal with the demon!" He shouted as he tackled the massive clump of energy, dragging it to the wall and breaking through it.
The bodyguards around us grabbed us and immediately began to drag us away; they were faster than I expected. However, they weren't fast enough to get us out of range of the demon's ability.
A black wave of water-like energy quickly flooded the room and overwhelmed all of us; it had separate currents within that forced us to separate and dragged me to a completely isolated place.
Fuck! We should've brought the uncle with us; he would've been able to better deal with this kind of issue.
I thought as I grabbed on to the edge of a window and held on for dear life, not letting the violent stream drag me away any further.
Damn it, I should've waited before firing the fourth bullet; we weren't even done—
I felt my hand slowly lose its grip. I was slowly slipping away, and I didn't have the strength to fight back.
"Young master!" A familiar voice rescued me when I lost my grip on the window; the familiar maid dived into the violent stream water.
She dragged me out to the roof, which was still safe.
"Are you okay? What happened?" She was asking as she was giving pats on my back to help me expel any liquid I involuntarily swallowed.
"I'm okay, I think… Thanks for—" I saw Ilay's body being flung against the maid; he appeared out of nowhere and immediately crashed against her. Thankfully, he was still uninjured, but—
"Lucy! Get out of there!" He shouted with a scary look on his face.
Huh? How am I supposed to do that, you bastard? I'm not fast enough to—
As I turned around, I saw the hand of the demon reaching out to me; it was open in front of my face, waiting to smash it to bits.
Fuck, it's too—
I instinctively fired yet another bullet at the demonic hand, causing the demon to once again turn unstable as its hand phased through me without leaving a single scar. I then immediately lowered myself and rolled down the roof back to the ground. Where the stream of demonic water was still dragging the other bodyguards away.
I was dragged away from the battle as I saw Ilay using his spear to stab the demon, weaving back and forth from his attack without getting hit once, and countering every attack with a slash of his weird weapon.
Please, kill it as fast as you can; I don't know how long I can hold out my breath for down here!
I ultimately ended up washing out in a remote part of the garden along with many of the bodyguards, away from the battle. I could barely stand; my legs were about to collapse, and I felt as if all energy had just been drained from my body.
"Is everyone okay?" One of the guards asked out loud.
"I think so." I shouted back along with everyone else.
As soon as they heard my voice, everyone turned around. They rushed towards me to check my condition, but they all disappeared as soon as I blinked my eyes.
"Why does everyone run away?" The voice of a crying child suddenly reverberated inside my head.
The space all around turned pale, the liquid disappeared along with everything else as I found myself floating in that empty space, completely deprived of gravity. Behind me was a kid chained down to a bunch of cracks in that space.
The kid had a feminine face with green hair, a bloody angelic wing on his back, and a crown of flowers on top of his head. He was completely naked; the only thing that covered him were the many chains covered in thorns.
The chains had broken his wings and had caused various injuries all over his body, and they were still causing damage as they were slowly but surely tightening the grip they had on his body, tearing his flesh apart.
I was lost in thought, admiring the spectacle, until he called out to me, crying silent tears as his body was slowly being torn apart.
"Make it stop, please." He begged me as the dark blood dripped down from his broken wings to his head, the chains around his neck slowly suffocating his voice.
A d-demon is pleading? What is this? Since when did they have the ability to speak? No, this is just a trick, one of their notorious tricks; it's bait to kill me. If I help unleash whatever that thing is, I will die.
"Please, I'm willing to do anything… Make the pain stop," he begged me.
It was pitiful to see someone in that state. I empathize with the situation, but I didn't know any way I could help him. Shooting him with the gun would've only worsened my situation, but not doing so would have probably killed him.
"I don't know what you expect from me, but I don't know how to help you." I replied.
"Can't you break—ARGHH!!" Suddenly the chain began tightening even more, ripping huge chunks of flesh from his arms, legs, and torso.