The moment Felix stepped out of the building, the air felt like a physical weight, finally crushing the last of his composure. His legs buckled, sending him hard onto his knees. He gasped for air, his chest heaving as he clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the nauseating panic rising in his throat.
Was that an Overlord?
The raw, predatory aura of the demon inside still clung to his skin like oil. In a fit of helpless anger, Felix punched the ground. He brought his shaking hands to his face, rubbing harshly at his eyes to fight back the stinging heat of tears he refused to let fall.
"Get it together, you coward," he hissed. He forced his hands down, but his hands couldn't stop shaking. How was he supposed to achieve anything like this? Even with the system, was he truly strong enough to breathe the same air as monsters like that?
Hey, fuck-face!" Felix snapped his head up, his eyes widening. Standing at the mouth of the alley was the demon he'd shot, disfigured, and robbed. While still bloodied, the face was recognizable, and his stance was unmistakable. Behind him, the same cowed thugs hovered, trembling.
Despite his shock at the demon's rapid recovery, instinct took over. Felix stood, cocking his arm back. As the demon closed the distance in a silent, murderous charge, Felix's fist tightened. "How aren't you dead," he muttered.
Without waiting, Felix threw the coin. It left his hand with the zip of a fly passing an ear. Just before impact, the coin erupted in a blinding flash of white light. The detonation exploded inches from the demon's face, forcing a screech from him as he recoiled, shielding his eyes. The thugs behind him scrambled backward in a blind panic.
Seizing the gap, Felix lunged. He landed a direct, heavy punch into the center of the demon's disfigured face, followed immediately by a brutal shot to the gut. He finished the sequence with a fast kick to the back of the knee, the strike forcing the brute down.
Blinded and reeling from the blast, the demon whimpered, his claws tearing at his own face in a vain attempt to clear his vision. He stumbled, trying to get up before slipping on his own fresh blood, making him crash into a sitting position, paralyzed by the sheer adrenaline shock.
The impact of the explosion and punch had already begun to re-open the half-knitted wounds on his head. Felix stood over him, his breathing coming in hard, shallow bursts. "I asked you a question," he hissed, his voice trembling with a volatile mixture of terror and rage.
When the demon only groaned, Felix turned his glare toward the frozen thugs.
One of them, a spindly demon with broken horns, stammered as he flinched away from Felix's glassy gaze. "I-it's the rules, boss! We can't die!" "Yeah!" another chimed in, desperate to appease him.
Felix stared at them, breathless. He had shot them, robbed them, and detonated a bomb in their faces, but he hadn't actually killed them. And he couldn't. He remembered how his own hands had healed — how his porcelain skin secretion had mended itself together.
"You're telling me," Felix said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous whisper, "no matter what I do, you'll all just come back?" The thugs nodded frantically.
Seeing the demon on the ground continue to whine, his fingers clumsily attempting to pull his face back into a recognizable shape, Felix rubbed his temple. The migraine was returning.
"Get out of my sight," he snarled, his voice breaking with exhaustion. "Before I figure out how to torture you forever."
The thugs scrambled into the shadow, once more, this time dragging their leader with them. Felix stood alone for a long moment before turning back toward the direction of Barnaby's shop.
𓋹
A few feet ahead, a pair of demons shoved past each other. One barked something too loud, too aggressive — and got hit for it. Hard. The other didn't even hesitate before walking away.
Felix slowed slightly, watching longer than he meant to. The one who got hit didn't swing back. He just staggered, muttering under his breath as if the blow didn't matter. As if it wasn't worth the effort to care.
Felix's fingers twitched at his side.
So that's how it works.
A copper-soul coin materialized in his hand with a soft shimmer. He turned it once between his fingers, then flicked it forward. A second later, it vanished and reappeared in his palm. He tried again, sending it higher.
There was a noticeable delay this time before it returned. The more distance he put between himself and the coin, the longer the recall took. His eyes sharpened. He tested it one last time, throwing it like a baseball toward a distant wall. Just before it struck, a burst of light flared in the distance, dust skittering across the pavement.
The display drew the attention of a few demons nearby, but most didn't care. One even paused, looked at the scorched wall, and then kept walking. Unless it was right on top of them, they didn't bother to react. Or they simply didn't care enough to be curious. He wasn't sure which was worse.
There was a moment before it went off. He could feel it — that moment before detonation, like a held breath. It wasn't fixed. It could be delayed, controlled to a degree by his own mental focus.
Felix lowered his head slightly as he walked, not enough to look weak, just enough to blend into the gray, grinding noise of the district. Better not to be the one noticed first. At least for now.
He flicked a new silver-soul coin, catching it without thinking as he resumed his pace. He'd need a quieter, more isolated place to really push the limits of what the possibilities extended to.
A figure brushed past him, a shoulder clipping his own with deliberate force. Felix's body tensed. The other demon lingered for half a step, waiting for a reaction — a challenge.
When Felix gave him nothing, the demon clicked his tongue in disappointment and moved on.
The way people moved felt different now that he was actually looking for the seams. Some moved straight through others without resistance, space opening for them as if by divine right.
Others curved around, giving way before a conflict could even materialize. A few kept their heads down, slipping through gaps like they were trying to cease existing entirely.
Without making it obvious, Felix adjusted his own posture. His shoulders eased, his steps evened out, and his gaze lowered just short of the ground. No one stopped him. No one even looked twice.
He passed through the crowd the same way they passed through each other. It sat strangely in his chest. A few minutes ago, everything had felt like it was pressing in, suffocating him.
Now, it felt like he had slipped just slightly out of focus. Felix rolled the coin once more between his fingers, then let it vanish into the system. For now, that was enough.