How To Survive A Calamity

"Guess." The masked stranger coldly, uttered and lunged forward, brandishing the silver bastard sword.

As he quickly rushed forward, the darkness seemed to undulate, and an intense wave of pressure rose through the air.

"[Tsk. Quite in a hurry, this one?]"

A dark voice responded calmly.

"You talk too much, for a Demon."

"[And you don't talk enough.]" Zet's chortled with a chuck and took a step back with Nicodemus's body and summoned darkness that spiralled around his wing.

Swiftly, the Stranger covered the distance in but a single lunge and silver flashed across the dominating darkness drawing an arc.

At that moment, Nicodemus's — not Zet's — irritation reached a whole new high, and his patience an entirely new low.

His wing unruffled and flashed forward like a maelstrom of darkness as soon as the target was close enough, before it was already too late.

It tore through the air in a flurry of darkness, the edge of the giant wing was sharp and swung like a diabolical blade.

The Stranger pressed forward, but stopped to receive the incoming blow. He halted sharply with one leg stumped forward against the ground, and redirected the silver sword to block.

But it was too late.

Nicodemus's wing was too wide, heavy, and fast.

It easily tore through all of the Stranger's defences and cut through his figure.

—But as it did so, the Mysterious Stranger's figure rippled like thick fog.

'What——?'

Then the next moment, his form dissolved like an illusion of refracted light, vanishing into thin air.

—It was a fake!

Then the whole world 'rippled' just as the same.

"None of it is real."

The next moment, with a dark, sinister and insidious voice, the figure of the stranger appeared in the air right behind the Demons, brandishing his sword as it was raised.

Nicodemus immediately realised — perhaps a little late— that his senses had been deceived by an ill-intented illusion and the real bastard was now cleaving for his head from behind!

'How——?!'

Before he could think about it, he quickly swerved around to block or evade, when he heard a whisper from his thoughts.

It said...Up.

So Nicodemus swiped his elongated clawed hand upwards, tearing apart the air like fabric, and cleaved through the Masked Figure, again!

—Or so he would have wished.

But as the clawed fingers met with the silver blade of the slick bastard sword, a bright, sharp 'Clang' tore through the air like a shriek.

The Stranger had blocked the swift, powerful attack with his blade, while stuck in the air.

But that was it.

Stuck in the air without a proper foothold limited the Strangers movement and strength greatly.

So Nicodemus only had to merely 'push through' with his own superior strength.

He smiled.

"[Got you now.]"

And forced his hand up, pushing back the Stranger and breaking through his defence.

His long black claws billowed with living darkness as they tore through the Stranger's body in the air viciously!

But the form rippled once more, the the Stranger dissolved like an illusion of light, vanishing into thin air.

—It was another fake!

'How?!'

Nicodemus's eyes widened greatly at this point, and he heard that same, cold, and chilling voice flatly mock him from behind again.

"I told you none of it is real."

The next second, silver steel flashed before Nicodemus could turn around or react, and he heard the sound of a whooshing blade tearing through the air next to him.

It was a familiar sound.

—Something was cut in the process.

The dark book that mysterious hovered itself next to Nicodemus was cleanly severed in two by his side.

The Stranger's right foot pressed forward against the ground.

"This one was in the way."

The book was severed in two and its pages scattered into the air. Then a vast surge of darkness like never before exploded out from uts torn leaves.

"[NOOOOO!!!]"

Nicodemus turned and felt something deep inside of him tremble and shatter and a searing type of pain tore through his body, mimd and existence.

Nicodemus and Zets roared and screamed in a cacaphony of pained voices, one and the same.

A large amount of thick black blood burst out of their mouth and poured down their eyes as they stumbled backwards, falling against one knee.

"[Wh...what have you done?!]" Nicodemus cried out in rage, pain like never he had imagined ravaged his soul.

—No. It wasn't his soul to be exact.

It was the being sharing the form with it.

Specifically, to be more precise — Zet's the demon was undergoing something akin to a seizure inside of him right now.

But his words held far more implications than the Stranger possibly could realise.

Black blood in large amounts poured out of Nicodemus's mouth.

Then the black darkness that surged out of the pages of the destroyed book gathered like a billowing storm cloud over his head and he felt a tingle run through his entire body.

It was then Nicodemus realised.

'Fuck——'

He was doomed.

As the stranger watched, the unnatural darkness swooped down from above like a living mist of shadows and forced it's way through into the body like an apparition.

It sank in through Nicodemus's eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

The destroyed book was a Cursed Grimoire which held the soul tether of Zets contained inside of it. And now with the book destroyed, the tether was broken into oblivion, leaving the vast remnants soul to seek and fill out a new vessel as it didn't have a body.

—You will give me your body.... Zet's voice had once rang to Nicodemus before, and countless times over.

Now the hour of those words recognition was terrifyingly close.

Nicodemus felt the sudden rush of 'something' invade his body, suffocating his soul.

Due to the special nature of the contract he had with Zets, and the Red crystal, the Demonic transformation allowed the two to blend souls in a precarious balance in one body.

This meant, a fragment of Zet's soul already resided within Nicodemus's body

And like an attraction, the rest of the soul was also pulled into the prepared Vessel —Nicodemus.