"It's too late...the paradoxes have arrived..." The woman spoke with a trembling voice , and Damien could see it clearly. She fell to her knees, covering her mouth with her hands, and her eyes flickered nervously as she stared at the approaching creatures.
'These are the demons she was referring to huh, they might not look it that much. But they are more powerful than they appear to be." Damien thought to himself, feeling the great power coming from the paradoxes.
[Hostile enemies detected]
[New Quest: Eliminate all enemies]
[Failure to complete the quest results to a penalty quest]
[Enemies slain: 0/8]
———————————————————
"What!?" His eyes went wide in disbelief, it was the same translucent panel he saw back in purgatory, and now, it popped out of nowhere.
"What is it?" The woman asked, not daring to take her sights off the movements of the paradoxes.
"You can't see it?" Damien asked.
"See what?" She raised an eyebrow. "Pay attention to what's in front of you, do you want to end up dying twice?" She added.
"I see..." Damien muttered under his breath, it seemed that he was the only one who could see the HUD, after all it was his system.
'This system... It wants me to kill these creatures? Or it'll penalize me? In what way?' It appeared like a means of survival but the threats that if he doesn't kill the creature, he'd be dead made him wonder if the system has some kind of fail safe.
"Well, no point contemplating on it." He stepped forward and picked up a sword that were scattered on the ground besides one of the deceased soldiers on the battlefield.
"What are you doing!? Don't tell me you plan on fighting these things!?" The woman shouted, obviously stunned by his decisions to face the demons.
"Huh? Of course I do, you look hopeless right now so if I don't fight we both are going to die." He replied rudely.
"What did you just say!? Do you even know who I am!?" She retaliated with a shout.
Damien glanced over his shoulder with a smug look all over his face "Of course not, that's why I asked you earlier, you damn fool." As Damien was distracted, one of the paradoxes suddenly dashed at him with incredible speed and swung its right claw in a sharp slash aimed straight at his chest.
"Watch out!" The woman warned him as she saw the paradox moving at him at a high speed.
"Huh?" He turned to face the paradox, but to untrained eyes it already seemed too late, just a split second before its claws would pierce into his chest. Acting on instinct, Damien leapt high into the air, soaring over the creature's head. In one swift motion, he twisted into a Russian front flip and drove his right foot down with force, slamming the paradox's skull into the ground.
Swiftly, he drove the sword straight through the paradox's back, the blade piercing deep until it struck its heart. He didn't know much about demons, but one thing was certain—take out their hearts and the fight was over.
"One down.." He spoke in a low voice as he rose steadily to his feet, the sword twirling in his right hand while dark demon blood dripped slowly from its edge.
[You have slain a paradox]
[Enemies Slain: 1/8]
"I-impossible..." The woman stood frozen, her eyes wavering as she watched him take out of paradox with just a sword.
"He took out a paradox without even using essence!? Who the hell is he?" She muttered under her breath.
"Now then.." As Damien finished speaking, he stopped the spin of his sword and clenched it firmly in his hand, then burst forward in a sudden dash, straight at the Paradoxes standing in front of him.
SWOOSH!
He moved so fast that he only appeared as a blur to both the paradoxes and the woman. Then, with one clean slice to it's neck as he dashed forward, he beheaded three more paradoxes.
In the blink of an eye, they caught sight of him standing behind the three paradoxes. Moments later, their heads toppled from their necks and hit the ground, followed soon after by their collapsing bodies. Blood poured from their chests, showing that Damien had struck for both their hearts and their heads.
'3 more down...' He spoke in his thoughts, the rest of the paradoxes seemed a bit concerned given their accomplices were taken out in a flash.
Three of the remaining paradoxes dashed forward towards him and attacked him from all angles, but he effortlessly evaded all their attacks with his flexibility and acrobatics.
"Hm." He jumped slightly above their head and performed a round house kick, and using his awakened strength he beheaded them with just his bare leg.
As he landed softly on his two feet, Damien stared at all the corpses of the paradoxes he defeated in less than 3 minutes. "Hm, for some reason I thought they'd be more challenging." He said as he observed their physiology.
"Impossible... He really defeated a whole squadron of paradoxes all by himself in such little time without even using his essence!?" It was like a miracle she knew was too good to be true.
"Huh?" His brief amusement ended the moment he sensed a crushing presence behind him—the last remaining paradox had concealed itself and crept up silently at his back.
As the woman looked over her shoulder, her eyes widened in shock at the sight of the paradox's sharp, deadly claws rushing down toward her head.
SWOOSH!
A sword, moving faster than the wind, swept past the woman's head and drove straight into the paradox's forehead. The sheer force behind the strike knocked the creature off its feet and sent it crashing hard to the ground.
"What do you know, guess you can kill these things even without crushing their hearts." He laughed as he approached the woman.
They were very much different from what he was used to on earth, but the paradoxes were much weaker than some of the top bounties he hunted. And they were also less intelligent.
[Enemies Slain: 8/8]
[You have levelled up!]
The woman's body shook from the brush with death as she slowly turned to face him. "Who...are you?" She questioned, this time she wasn't just asking, she needed to know.
"Nah, I believe you owe me some answers first." He replied as he crossed his arms.
"If you insist." The woman man said, straightening her dress and clearing her throat. "My name is Abigail, pleased to meet your acquaintance."
"Abigail huh?" He put his hand to his chin.
'All the Abigail's I've ever met are incredibly skilled in arching their backs, I wondered if it's the same for her?' He thought.
"Now, it's your turn Who are you?" Her question snapped him out of his thoughts.
"My name is Damien, Damien Cross." He replied.
"Tell me Damien, how did you manage to defeat those paradoxes without even making use of essence?"
"Essence?" He raised his brows in confusion.
"Yes, essence, you know? The power utilized in our world. How did you defeat them without using it?" She inquired once more.
"I didn't, it was merely just skills I've developed after many years of hunting." He said.
"Skills?" She couldn't believe her ears, there was no possible way that he could have killed the paradoxes with just skills.
'Impossible... If he was using just skills and not his essence, that means...' She spoke thought, then walked over to her horse.
"Come with me." She commanded.
"To where?" At the moment, he was getting sick of her questions, and now she was ordering him around?
"How would you like to enroll in the Essen-Hunter's examination?" She glanced over her shoulders at him, with a bright smile curled up the side of her lips.
"The what now?"