My Eros System Grants Me Infinite Romance Routes
Chapter 17: Title Unlocked: Demon Hunter...
CHAPTER 17: TITLE UNLOCKED: DEMON HUNTER...
The tip of Akira’s dagger ma de contact with the cluster of multiface t ed eyes. It wasn’t the sound of meta l tearing, but a horrifying, wet crunch, like shattering glass and pulve r ising b one at once.
The Mantis froze mid-swing.
For a microsecond, the hundreds of eyes reflected a single, panicked image o f A kira’s fa ce, multiplied endlessly across its vision.
Then the y exploded .
Black ichor sprayed outward in a viscou s arc, splattering across Akira’s face and chest. The warm, foul-smelling liquid burned h is skin like acid, but he didn’t stop.
Following Ai’s guidance, he pushed the full length of the blade deeper into the c reature’s skull, leveraging his entire body weight.
The hard chitin plating offered no resistance to the direct strike on the ocular array. The dagger sank in up to the hilt.
"DIE!" Akira screamed, tw isting the blade.
The M antis emitted a fin a l, deafening shriek that was pure digital static mixed with agonizing pain.
The sound was so wrong, so fundamentally unnatural, that it made Akira’ s teeth v ibrate and his vision blur. The green light veins in the floor flickered violently, and the air around them pulsed with waves of unstable energy.
The creat ure’s huge, insect-like bod y started to convulse. Its sharp blade-arms, which were lifted to strike Ayaka, dropped heavily and uselessly to its sides as it collapsed on the floor.
Akira’s dagger h eld the mo nster’s ruined head , which was now just shattered shell and leaking black goo, firmly to the grou nd.
[GRADE DELTA GUARDIAN: THE SCRAP MANTIS... DEFEAT ED]
[CRITICAL STRIKE REW ARD GRANTED]
A massive surge of energy, hot and buzzing lik e a thousand electric eels, rushed out of the dying Mantis and slammed into Akira.
It felt like his very cells were drinking pur e power, eve ry nerve ending lighting up with overwhelming sensation.
"Gah!" He stumbled back, his body convulsing as t he essence flooded into him.
[REWARD: +100 PERV-POINTS]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: PRECISION STRIKE (LVL 1)]
[TITLE UNLOCKED: QU ICK KILLER]
[NEW ITEM ACQUIRED: SCRAP MANTIS ESSENCE CORE (1)]
[QUEST(S) COMPLETE: CONTAIN DELT A THREAT; ENTER GATE AND DEFEAT GUARD IAN]
[REW ARD: +10 PERV-POINTS]
[TITLE UNLOCKED: DEMON HUNTER]
Akira felt a wave of dizzying exhaustion cras h over him, but beneath it was something else... a profound sense of empowerment.
He stood over the massive carcass, breathing heavily, his enti re body shaking from adrenaline and essence overload.
"Holy shit," he whispered. "I actually killed it."
Ayaka rushed to his side, her own bod y clearly depleted from using the last of her power. She gently gripped the dagger’s hilt and pulled it free from the Mantis ’s ruined head.
The action re leased a final, dense plume of black smoke that smelled like burning rubber and ro tten meat.
"You madman," she whispered with genui ne awe. "You act ually chose the instant kill opt ion. Against a Grade Delta threat. In your first real combat." She looked at him with something that mi ght have been respect. "You... you actually did it, Akira-ku n."
"Yeah, well..." Akira wiped black ichor fro m his face with his forearm. "I’m still alive, so I guess th at counts for something."
"More than som ething. Most h umans would have died from fear al one facing that creature."
Akira was abou t to respo nd when the entire chamber suddenly shuddered. A deep, grinding gr oan echoed through th e walls, and chunks of cor roded metal began fa lling from the impossibly high ceiling.
"What’ s happening?" Akira grabbed Ayaka’s arm to steady himself as the floor beneat h them cracked.
"The Guardian’s death!" Ayaka’s eyes widened in alarm. "The guardia n of a gate stabilises it; now that it’s dead, the entire dimension is collapsing!"
The walls began to buckle inward with sou nds like twisting steel . Larger piec es of deb r is crashed down around them, one nearly crushing Akira’s foot. The green veins o f light in the floor were dimm ing, flickering like dying fluorescent bulbs.
"We need to leave! NOW!" Ayaka shouted over the growing cacophony.
She grabbed his arm, practically dragging him toward the shimmering portal they’d entered through. But as they ran, Akira noti ced something... the portal was shrinki ng.
"It’s closing too fast!" he yelled. "We won’t make it !"
"RUN!" Ayaka screame d. "Stop talking and keep running!"
They ran for their lives toward the collapsing portal, their feet hammering the stone that was disintegrating beneath them. The suction f rom the imploding dimension felt like fighting a hurricane.
"Jump!" A yaka yelled.
They dove together, he adfirst, through the rapidly shrinking barrier. Akira felt the dimensional membrane scrape across his skin like ice and fire simultaneously. For a horrif ying instant, he feared they were too slow, that they’d be trapped forever i n the collapsing pocket dimension.
They hit solid ground hard, rolling across concrete and gravel.
Behind them, the Gate imploded with a v iolent whoosh that sucked in everything within a ten-foot radius.
Then it vanished completely, leaving not hing behind but a smal l, smoking crater in the m iddle of the constructi on site and the acrid smell of ozone.
Every inch of his body ached; his ribs were probably b ruised, his back w as screaming in pain, and the Mantis’s ichor had left stinging acid burns on his s kin .
But he was alive.
"It’s over, " he whee zed, staring up at the dark sky. The stars had never looked so beautiful. "We actually did it."
Ayaka colla pse d beside him, equally exhausted. "You did it," she corrected, her breathing laboure d. "I merely provided... minimal assistance."
"Minimal? You dist rac ted that thing three times. I’d be dead without you."
"Perhaps. But you made the killing blo w against a Grade Delta threat. With a single strike." She turned her head to look at him, s ilver h a ir s pread across the concrete like a halo. "Do you understand how rare that is, Akira-kun? Most demon hunters train for years before attemptin g something like that."
"Yeah, well..." Akira coughed, tasting blood. "Most demon hunters prob ably have better equipment than a rusty dagger."
Despite everything, Ayak a la ug hed. It was a genuine sound, different from her usual calculated amusement. "True. Very tru e."
They lay th ere for several minutes, catching their breath, letting their bo dies recover from the ordeal.
The constr uction site was silent n ow except for distant city soun ds fi ltering back in. Whatever supernatural press ure ha d been e man ating from the Gate wa s gone.
Finally, Akira forced himself to sit up, winci ng at every movement. "We should get back before someone notices we’re gone."
"Agreed." Ayaka rose with more grace than should have been possible given her exhau stion. She offered him her hand. "Can you walk?"
"I think so ." He took her hand a nd let her pull him to his feet. His legs were shaky, but they held. "Though I’m going to feel this for days."
"The essence you absorbe d will help with heal ing. By morning, th e worst of it should be manageable."
They started walking back toward the apartment, moving slowly. Akira’s mind was already racing ahead t o what awaited... specifically, a very angry Mia.
"Ayaka," he said after they’d walked a block in silence.
"Yes?"
"What you said earlier... about the Mantis knowing I was an ’essence bearer.’ What did that mean?"
Her expression darken ed. "It means the supernatural world is aware o f you now. Grade Delta threats don’t app ear randomly, Akira-kun. That Gate opened bec ause of you... because of what you are, what you’re becoming. The ritual we performed earlier attracted attention. Dangerous attention."
"So this is g oing to k eep happenin g? More Gates? More demons?"
"Most likely. The essence is like a beacon of power. An d power attrac ts predators." She glanced at him. "But it also attrac ts al lie s. Like me. You’re going to need more of both if you want t o survive what’s coming."
Akira absorbed this information gr imly. One w eek ago, he’d been nobody... a creep, a joke, a viral humiliation fodder. No w he was apparen tly a target for interdime nsional threats.
"Fantastic," he muttered. "Just fant astic."