Today was the fated day; I was waiting inside my car, nervously tapping on the steering wheel. I couldn't quite shake away the fear he imprinted on me.
I had many thoughts; I was feeling restless; I couldn't wait for all of this to be finally over…
"So… how's the situation on your end?" I asked on the radio.
Nobody answered.
"Lucas, do you hear me? Is everything okay on your end?" I asked again but once again received no immediate answer.
Don't tell me…
For a moment, I believed that they had been caught; thankfully, Lucas finally answered my call.
"Those crazy bastards." Lucas sounded startled, scared even.
"What happened? What did you see?" I asked.
"Give me a second; I have to double-check," he replied.
And so I waited.
At first I wanted to wait for him to speak first, but eventually I grew impatient, and so I rang the radio.
"Can anyone else tell me what you saw?" I asked the rest of the crew.
It was a fairly small group; there were me, Lucas, Julio, José, Gustavo, and Oliver. Veteran warriors with decades of experience behind our backs with a single common goal, revenge.
"You wouldn't believe it even if you saw it yourself." Gustavo replied.
Huh?
"What happened?" I was starting to get worried our plans might get interrupted.
"We should probably reconsider our plans." Gustavo proposed.
Is it that bad? What is going on?
"Why? Just how bad things are?" I asked.
Are you sure you want to let them go? We might not have a second chance to get them; you do know that, right?
"The fuckers just kidnapped the Scarlet Devil's son." Lucas finally answered.
Suddenly my heart skipped a beat.
Scarlet Devil? Kidnapped?
For a minute my brain seemed to refuse to compute what I just heard.
Kidnapped…
I was trying to figure out if there was a demon or another figure with that title, so I tried to forcefully look into my past memories using my demonic powers, but nothing came up.
"Y-you mean…"
These crazy bastards. Have they gone mad?
The Scarlet Devil, from the family that founded the empire and the one who put an end to the war between noble families, is the strongest being alive.
"Yes," Gustavo confirmed.
I didn't know how to feel or what to feel; if things went smoothly for us, that bastard would end up slaughtered, but if he had other plans, then maybe this was our last chance to do something.
Why would they? Who is backing them? How did they even—The expedition to the tenth layer? They waited for her to not be at home.
No other family could've done it; infiltrating the dome is an impossible task even for the most powerful noble families.
This is going to be a bloodbath. We've got to get out of here before—
"I'm out; this is not something we can get mixed in. We should probably warn the authorities before anything escalates further." Josè was the one to first break the silence.
How did they even manage to kidnap that kid? What the hell is that bastard planning to do?
"No, this is the best chance to strike; even if we're going to attract the executioners, that will mean they'll no longer be able to act as freely as they did so far." Carlos shouted on the radio, furious.
"You're fucking—"
Then we felt something strange; an alien sensation washed over us, sending ripples flying throughout the whole place. Everyone instinctively felt it: the start of our own hell.
An incredibly creepy energy was just unleashed.
"Something strange is happening! The whole building morphed into something different all of a sudden." Lucas reported.
What the hell is happening? Is this some sort of ritual? Are they trying to offer that kid as a sacrifice?
I looked out of the window of the car and saw the clear building slowly turning red; everybody stopped to look at it. Some had already taken their phones to take a picture.
Within it I could feel a bunch of demons going on a rampage, powerful ones at that.
"Did they figure out we're onto them?" I asked the others.
"Hopefully not," Lucas answered; he was out of breath already running away from the scene.
"Fall back! Do not get mixed in with whatever that thing is!" I shouted as I saw the car carrying the child frantically speeding away in the middle of the busy street.
I too quickly put the car in reverse and began fleeing from the scene. In the side mirror I saw the demon lunge at a person, absorbing its flesh and incorporating it along with the bones into its body, growing in size.
Chaos was quick to spread; novice warriors were the first to react. They unsheathed their weapons and jumped in between the crowd and the demon, trying to stall for as much time as possible while the citizens evacuated the zone.
Panic was spreading like wildfire; the people driving on the road no longer cared for the pedestrian safety, running them over if they happened to stand in their path, causing the panic to grow bigger.
What a fucking mess.
There was no way to beat a demon when there were so many panicked emotions swirling around; I'm sure the hunters who stepped up to stall knew this more than anyone else.
I quickly then set my eyes back on the vehicle ahead of us speeding away. Like many others, I followed their trail to avoid having to trample on more pedestrians.
"Any updates?" I shouted at the radio.
"None so far; the response from the execution seems delayed. Something big must've happened for them to not react as usual." Josè shouted.
"These bastards…"
There is no way they unleashed a demon like that on purpose… Did they have a backup plan to escape already? What are they even planning?
That's when I heard a familiar voice screaming behind me, and the world around me seemed to freeze in that moment of realization. My daughter had hidden herself in the back of the car, hidden in a small compartment underneath one of the backrow seats.
Fuck! Why are you here?
"Iori and Mathias are waiting for instructions at the intersection." Carlos suddenly shouted on the radio over the many screaming voices all around him.
Why are those two here? Wait, no, why is Elena here? I was sure I had left her with my parents; there was no way she could've…
"Mathias here. What car am I supposed to look out for? Does it have colors?" A new voice spoke from the radio; the quality of the microphone was worse than the others, but I still recognized the voice immediately.
Suddenly a car rammed into us from the left side; we barely avoided crashing into a nearby building. Had I not reacted in time?
Look where you're fucking driving you piece of—
I turned my head only to see the driver pointing a handgun at me.
Shit, is that one of their—
I tried to summon my deck of cards to react but wasn't as fast and ended up getting shot in the head.
When I returned to my senses, the driver that drove his vehicle straight into mine was standing next to me; he was unaware of my resurrection ability and was looking through my objects. He had already turned off the communication between me and my friends.
I grabbed the top card of the deck I summoned and used it to slice his throat cleanly before kicking him off my vehicle.
I managed to snatch his weapon away from him and shoot a couple of shots before the stranger could attempt to use his powers, and then I returned to my car.
The ground beneath us was shaking violently as the demons kept rampaging through the city; the executioners, in the meantime, were breaking through the thick layers of cement as they emerged from underground.
"Here, Carlos, I need an update on the current location of our target!" I shouted through the chaos around me as I boarded my vehicle once more.
I couldn't care less about the well-being of my daughter, not when my target was so close, so I simply kept driving, following the instructions provided by the other members.
On that chaotic road, nobody would notice a speeding car; everyone was driving at insanely fast speeds in order to flee the city. Catching up to that bastard looked to be impossible when all of a sudden I received harrowing news.
Iori had struck the vehicle the target was in, and the small van had crashed through the guardrail and landed in demonic lands.
It must be a trap; there is no way that someone like him would die to something so trivial. If he is hiding in demonic lands, he must be planning to attract demons to his position, making it impossible to capture him.
There's no other explanation.
I was silently praying for that man to not be dead just yet, not like this at the very least, not until I could've pulled his guts out with my bare hands; I needed to see his eyes filled with fear.
But when I reached the location, my worst fear started to look more and more haunting; everyone was gathered around the crashed car, the stench of blood was extremely pungent, and everyone was working hard on tearing that car apart.
But no bodies were found on the scene, while a sweet scent lingered in the air.