Blood Nemesis-Chapter 83: Demon 3

Cold, stinky, damp air pressed against Oliver’s face as he walked forward. The closer they were to the pit, the worse it felt.

If he wanted, he could have blocked off his nose with blood so as not to smell the horrendous air, but he had to keep it open to find the location of the demon.

Only the faint smell of human blood was what guided him through the dark tunnel. Once he blocked his nose, he wouldn’t be able to find the way. So, Oliver could only accept the revulsion and walk forward.

While Oliver silently walked, Achara occasionally glanced at him. Finally, she asked the question that was in her mind.

"Oliver, why are you doing this?" Her voice was unnaturally gentle.

"Me?" Oliver looked at her in wonder.

Why was she asking him that question? His mind, which was stunted socially, could not find an answer.

"Yes. You are not being forced to do this. You could have stayed above. No one asked you to come into the sewers, right?" Her voice rang out again.

In the long enclosed tunnel, her voice reverberated, moving across its length.

"That, right. No one asked me to do it." Oliver muttered and thought back.

Then with a calm voice, he spoke:

"You don’t always have a choice. If the demons attack the city, there will come a time when it affects my family. I don’t want that. I can’t allow that." Oliver paused and pondered.

Then he added, "Demons need to understand that this city is out of their reach."

"You have grand goals." Achara nodded.

She didn’t take him lightly.

What he said was something everyone wanted to do. But demons were a menace that infiltrated society in the deepest sense. Eliminating them from a city, entirely, was in a sense impossible.

Even with a new test they devised, they won’t be able to find all the demons hidden in the city.

"So, you are doing all this for your family?"

"Yes." Oliver confidently answered.

There was no doubt or delay in his speech.

"As long as I am alive, this city will not fall." He added with utmost confidence.

Achara didn’t know how to respond. The way he was answering was completely different from his usual self.

Oliver used to have a slightly gloomy aura around him. His antisocial characteristics were also observed and noted. She was beginning to think he was a narcissist who only cared about himself.

And yet, contrary to all her expectations, he was talking about guarding the entire city.

’The selfless image didn’t suit him at all.’ She commented in her mind.

"That’s a nice goal to have."

Achara simply said when they reached the junction of the tunnels.

Her foot stopped right in front of the large pit as she pointed her flashlight around.

"There is nothing out of the ordinary here." She said glancing back at Oliver.

"Hm." Oliver agreed.

The pit was ten meters wide and looked like a bottomless abyss from the top, but there was nothing that piqued his interest.

"Where is the blood smell coming from?"

"Down there."

"Can you guess how far it is?"

The pit was deep.

All the sewer water from the four tunnels around them was flowing in at a steady rate. Still, it was not filling up at all.

The pit must be connected to an even bigger sewage channel down below.

They concluded.

"From the smell, it could be a hundred meters away. Or it could also be a thousand meters away if the corpse is floating away in the water. But, considering the signal interference we sensed in this exact point, I predict it would be close by." Oliver murmured.

His words were not clear, but Achara got the gist of it.

The situation was not as unfavorable as she expected.

While they were talking, an intense electromagnetic wave passed over them.

Suddenly, both of them felt a little chilly.

Both of their phones blinked and went out.

The screens turned dark, and the flashlight went off.

Everything turned dark.

Oliver quickly took his phone and pressed the power button. But nothing happened.

The internals of the phone seemed to have fried.

Other than a faintly lit black screen, nothing showed up when he tried to switch it on.

"This is bad," Oliver said.

"..."

He expected Achara to say something, but she was too quiet.

In the darkness, it was hard to see anything, Achara included.

"Hello? Achara?" He asked.

But no voice spoke.

Oliver felt like he was in the middle of a horror film.

The lights turned off, and his nearby companion was not speaking. Other than the chilly air and sound of flowing water, he couldn’t sense anything.

"Ah! Achara, are you there?"

Oliver was not scared of ghosts.

He was not scared of dying or even pain.

But one of his companions going missing concerned him, that too in a second.

Oliver took a step back and released tendrils of blood around him.

Even though his vision was blocked, he could still use his ability to feel around.

Small tendrils of blood, as thin as fishing lines, flew near him as he stepped forward.

Finally, he touched something.

There was something in the position where Achara was standing.

No, it was not something else.

It was Achara.

As tendrils felt around her body, he concluded.

"What the fuck?"

"Why are you not saying anything?"

Oliver almost screamed.

"..."

Still, no reply came his way.

Then he felt her body slowly tilting to the side and falling into the pit.

Oliver panicked and quickly caught her.

Her body was limp and powerless.

"Not again," Oliver screamed in his mind.

The last time they were on a mission, although she was tasked with protecting him, she fell unconscious and almost died. He had to save her sorry ass and drag them to safety.

’Is the situation repeating?’

’Anyway, what caused her to fall unconscious?’

Achara was an A-ranker. It was not easy to defeat her normally.

’Something or someone that can defeat an A-ranker is nearby.’ Oliver quickly judged.

Then he extended his blood tentacles to cover a larger area. The tendrils were too small and weak to be controlled in a larger area, so he had to release his tentacles.

’Whatever it may be, it attacked Achara first, knowing that she was the most dangerous one among us. And it attacked during the exact second when the lights went off.

It has patience and intelligence.’ Oliver thought.

’I can’t just wait here.’

Oliver wrapped his hands around Achara’s body and made sure her breathing and heartbeat were okay.

Then he flipped her to his back and attached her to his body with the blood tentacles.

Now, his arms and legs were free to move.

Her body became a backpack that he now had to carry and protect.

’So, come on.’ Oliver raised his head and focused on his tentacles.

He would feel anything that stepped within six feet of him.

After mapping out his surroundings, Oliver made a sudden movement to his left and right. His tentacles focused into a thin, long line and swiped around in a circular motion.

Like the needle in a clock moving in a circular fashion, the tentacles swiped and touched everything around.

But it didn’t touch anything peculiar.

*Gulp*

Instead of relief, Oliver felt even more scared.

He slowly brought back the blood tentacles to his body.

’If it’s not on the ground.’

He felt a chill going down his spine.

The hair on the back of his neck suddenly felt a wave of air.

The cold, chilly air was coming from the pit behind him.

’Why does shit like this happen to me all the time?’ He complained when he felt something grab him by the leg.

It was hard and firm, like the claw of an eagle.

Nails dug into his flesh before he could process what was going on.

’A monster.’ Oliver didn’t panic or react.

He was used to the pain.

Oliver broke the nerves in that region with his blood and immediately isolated the leg.

The creature was surprised to see Oliver standing fine.

It had injected potent neurotoxins into his body.

The leg should have gone numb in a second, and he should have fallen.

’That won’t work on me, fucker.’ Oliver said in his mind.

He knew that only poison could debilitate Achara. So, he was prepared for it.

His superhuman healing, combined with the ability to isolate blood, allowed him to easily deal with it.

Still, he stood there without moving.

He was trying to buy time.

Even now, he couldn’t see the creature. So, he carefully surrounded it with blood tentacles as it injected poison into him.

The creature was expecting Oliver to fall down any second while he spun a net of blood tentacles around it.

"Got you sucker," Oliver said and yanked the tentacles up.

Immediately, he felt a large body tangle up in the tentacles.

The claw biting into his flesh released its grip, almost causing him to fall.

Meanwhile, the blood tentacles tightened around it and squeezed as the creature tried to break free.

Immediately, a mental image of the size and shape of the creature came into Oliver’s mind.

The creature was as heavy as a cow. It had four long legs with human-like palms attached to it.

’A monkey?’

The claw that grabbed onto his leg was its elongated tail with specialized appendages at the end.

’A damn demon monkey.’ Oliver screamed in his mind.

’How did this friggin thing get here.’