Tale of the Devil Raiser

Chapter 4

After successfully clawing at me, my haunted fiancée started attacking as she prepared to kill me. She used her claws fluently, continuously glided over my body and I couldn't help but always step backward, due to my painful and bleeding left eye.

When she easily cut through a concrete column that I had just stood one second ago with her extremely dangerous claws, I realized that I kinda hate fighting there, with her.

She had destroyed or harmed about ten things in just five minutes and all of them were this school's possessions! Then who would pay after this battle? I was absolutely poor!

“Scratch!”

Phuong Chi's claws moved smoothly over my face, I rapidly nabbed and pushed her wrist aside, so that her sharp and long claws pierced through the ginkgo tree's trunk, then scratched again and left four deep tracks in the blink of an eye.

She growled with anger, and shortly before the next scratch, I jumped and gripped the nearest branch with both hands, pushed one foot upward against the tree while jumping with the other foot to throw myself to the higher branch. Meanwhile, I threw some blue flames and they started clinging to the devil before bursting into fire.

“Grrr… argh…” It screamed.

I thought that I would be safe for a while to summon Anne, but I underestimated the strength of the devil possessing Phuong Chi. It was too fast to fight without any help, it didn't care about her body and fought suicidally, it forced me to kill her but I couldn't. And as a result, my instincts had to save me from time to time. Yeah, the devil, my poor and sweet Phuong Chi would never leave my left eye smeared with blood. She didn't even have long nails or canine teeth like that!

I wanted to know what it had done with her soul but I had no time to think because the devil had already climbed to my place without any injuries.

“Devil raiser… devil raiser…” It whispered and then clawed at me again crazily with the mouth opening wide and so many bloody sharp teeth that nobody would want to own.

“Holy shit!” Then, in panic, I instinctively grabbed Phuong Chi's arm and strongly threw her body away from the tree.

Then I heard a “thump” sound resounded around the schoolyard. Taking advantage of that time, I fondled the engraved silver ring on my middle finger and commanded.

“Dance, Anne!”

The ring suddenly shone brightly, then black smoke appeared to cover my both hands before transforming into a pair of fingerless black leather gloves.

That was Anne's transformed appearance.

“Master…” Anne weakly said something but I had no time to listen.

“Just claws, you have them, and so do I!” I felt a fire bursting in my heart as I touched the painful wound on the left eye again. It was bleeding continuously and dropping to my clothes and I couldn't be gentle anymore. “First dance, Shadow's Claws!”

Anne wasn't signed for a weapon. When I was about ten, I unconsciously signed a contract with her and did not know my world, so that I hadn't blamed her for my injuries caused while fighting with bad devils. But nobody could be injured all the time, correct? And after being beaten so many times, Anne's Three Dancing Forms were explored.

The black fire burned around my both hands. I jumped down from the tree and landed steadily with ten sharp black claws replacing the black fire to appear on my fingers. I wiped the blood with my wrist and told Anne, “Your claws are still great, Anne!”

“Master…” Anne tiredly said and her voice was full of despair, “Did I tell you that I don't wanna be summoned this week? I'm on vacation!”

“You did, of course.” I set a red fire on my left hand and started rushing at the devil, “But I didn't promise, correct?”

“Master, you…”

“Clink!” Four long claws were suddenly stopped by my solid claws, just one inch from my neck. I was lucky enough to raise one hand correctly to prevent my neck from breaking, but the distance was so tiny that I could even see my reflection on those claws' silver surface.

“See? We will talk about this later.” I replied Anne. My right leg bent down and the left leg immediately turned and kicked “thump” to the devil's arm, as I saw it scratching me fast with its other hand. “Now, you have two goals to achieve, Anne.”

The devil slid backward due to my strong kick. Its arm, as expected, was broken. I heard Phuong Chi's right radius resounded “crack” loudly and was loose right after that. Maybe the devil possessed even more entirely than I thought and Phuong Chi's pain affected it badly. It rapidly realized that its arm was broken, then screamed in pain and became more and more fierce.

“Ahhhh!” It shrieked. “Devil raiser… Grrr…”

But the devil was not Phuong Chi so that it didn't have to suffer prolonged pain. A black wind suddenly appeared around it and then blew in gusts. And it was the starting point that everything became worse.

Oh, didn't I tell you that we were standing in the backyard of this school? As mentioned, Le Hong Phong was a famous high school in Ho Chi Minh City and even in Vietnam, and to be worthy of being famous, their infrastructure was awesome. Even the backyard. It was covered in grass and about ten tall ginkgos trees, with innumerable beauteous yellow fan-shaped leaves falling in the autumn.

Did you hear the problem? We were surrounded by gingko trees, and it was in the autumn then. Thus, when the devil made the black wind and it blew hard, those ginkgo trees' branches swooshed the air, and all those cutie yellow leaves became a mortal obstacle. They spun quickly around me, prevented me from seeing anything and I had no choice but to be bound to the rustling sound.

“That's why I hate using a blindfold.” Red flames ignited fiercely on my both hands as being alive, immediately spread all across the leaf-made wall surrounding me, and converted it into a burning wall in the flash.

Did you know why all my incantations were shown in the appearance of fire?

I was naturally gifted at controlling the fire.

And in case you didn't know what “controlling the fire” was…

My index finger pointed at the devil's blurred figure through the fire. “Burn it.”

And in the blink of an eye, the burning wall surrounding me became a shower of sparks rushing to the devil. They set fire to all the backyard, made the grass become a burning land, and transformed into a huge fiery cage with the devil captured inside.

“Ahhhh!” This kind of fire is harmless to Phuong Chi's physical body, but that was fatal for the devil. It screamed, tried to attack me but they were all unsuccessful.

Anne lazily asked me. “It seems that you are doing well, master. So why am I here? Just to be an audience?”

“No, Anne, as mentioned, you have two goals to reach,” I replied as I was looking for a Thorny Box, the equipment that I used to capture devils, in my pocket.

“First, make sure that I wouldn't make any fatal injuries on her body.”

“And second, help me with exorcising Phuong Chi of the devil and capturing it. We need to exterminate it somewhere else, not this school.”