Three demons looked at the foolish human with quite curiosity. meanwhile Filch was cursing himself for not looking closely and thinking there was only one of them.

"A random awakened?," the green-eyed demon said. "I have never seen you."

"Wonderful," Filch replied around his cigarette, exhaling a stream of smoke. "I haven't seen or heard of you either and I'd like to keep it that way. So how about you and your friends fuck off, and we call this a mutual parting of ways?"

The violet-eyed demon laughed. "You think you can talk to us like that, human? There are three of us. Each one worth ten of you."

"Probably," Filch agreed easily. "Which is why I'm not planning to fight."

'Yeah... I have no doubt about that.' He sighed inwardly and tried to appear as composed and confident as he could.

For a long moment none of them spoke or moved... the demon's thought that he was some very strong awakened and was very much confident in his powers.

But they were also sure that even if he was... he wouldn't be strong enough to take on three of them at the same time.

So, the demon with deep brown eyes and five slits moved first.

At the same time, Filch crouched low and his hand—The one in his pocket touched the ground.

The stone beneath the three demons' feet suddenly glowed with bright blue light and broke into motes of light, flowing like water, pulling them together into a tight cluster before they could react.

The five-marked demon managed to leap clear, but the other two were caught.

Then suddenly walls erupted around the demons.

These were fortress like walls, three meters thick and reinforced with layer upon layer of compressed stone. They rose with the sound of continents grinding together, encasing the three demons in a stone prison that sealed them from view.

For one heartbeat, there was silence.

Then—BOOM.

The walls exploded outward.

The thick layered walls were reduced to gravel by a single synchronized punch from inside. Chunks of stone the size of houses flew in all directions, carving new craters where they landed.

The three demons stood in the ruins, completely unharmed.

The green-eyed one was still smiling.

"That's it?" he asked, tilting his head. "That's your big—"

He stopped mid-sentence.

Filch was gone.

More specifically, Filch and Ishiki were both gone. The protective cage of stone spikes was gone as well. Somehow, in the seconds it had taken the demons to break free, the mysterious awakened had retrieved his cargo and vanished.

The violet-eyed demon snarled, scanning the crater. "Where did they—"

"There!"

The five-marked one pointed toward the crater's edge, where a figure was running in a desperate sprint of someone who knew better than to stick around.

Filch had Ishiki's unconscious form slung over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. As he reached the edge of the crater and put the other hand on the ground.

The edges of all around the crater glowed with bright blue light... no the whole crater glowed and flooded the vision of the three demons. All of the withering beasts nearby too stopped for a long moment and looked at the source of such bright light... but none of them dared approach.

The green-eyed demon ignored it all, as he prepared to run after the mysterious boy... suddenly pillar like projections shot from all around them and he found himself suddenly encased in stone.

It happened too fast to counter. The ground beneath all around them shot forward and pinned the three down to the sole pillar which was standing at the center of the crater.

The other two suffered the same fate within seconds.

Filch didn't stop running, but his hand remained on the ground as he moved, trailing along the crater's surface, maintaining the connection needed to work his art.

"Nothing personal," he called back over his shoulder, cigarette somehow still lit despite everything. "But I've got places to be and people to keep alive. You understand."

He reached the crater's edge and dove into the shadows cast by a collapsed building.

For a moment, the demons could track him, they could see his silhouette moving through the darkness under the pale moon— but then he was simply gone.

The stone prisons began to crack as the demons applied their full strength.

Crack. Crack. CRACK.

The green-eyed one broke free first, shattering his bonds with a flex of muscles that should have been impossible. He stood there in the ruins of his prison, covered in stone dust, and for the first time his smile had faded into something colder.

"Interesting," he said again, but this time the word carried no amusement. "Very, very interesting."

He looked down at the dead corpse of his subordinate, then back at the shadows where Filch had disappeared.

"Let them go," he commanded, stopping his companions from giving chase. "For now."

The violet-eyed demon protested. "But they—"

"Let them go," the leader repeated, voice carrying absolute authority. "That child killed one of the Tainted Demons. That alone is... unprecedented." His green eyes glowed brighter. "How many centuries has it been since something like this happened. Lord is still sealed... we must find a way to unseal him first."

He turned away from the crater, green wings made up of vines and leaves grew from its back... manifesting as he prepared to depart.

"Besides," he added almost as an afterthought, "I think she has infiltrated the walls... It won't be long before she finds the orb. By then prepare the necessary sacrifices."

The two demon's listened calmly and then bowed down as the green eyed demon took flight, leaving behind only the devastated crater and the two demons alone with the corpse of their fallen comrade.

His form soon blended with the dark as it flew past the golden wall in the distance.

The Silver Moon watched his departure with the same cold indifference it had shown everything else that night, and will continue to show for the ages to come.

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