"What? How could you possibly know that! Who are you?!"
"I was a client going by the name of Ard Ritter, but I suppose that doesn't matter anymore since this isn't even an actual mercenary company."
The devil dropped to the floor, grasping his friend's body, tears flowing from his eyes. The scene invoked a sense of nausea in me.
How could a devil act so emotionally in the face of death? Weren't devils supposed to be creatures of death and darkness? We were in the building where many innocent angels were killed or kidnapped. How could this putrid creature cry for another after what he had done?
"Do you have no shame? You sit there in tears, spitting in the face of all the innocent devils you had led to death, who do you think you are? Your little performance only invokes pity and disgust from me; I don't feel any sorrow for you. Your weakness is apparent; that is unforgivable in this world."
"Bastard! You're nothing but a wingless freak, who are you to question me!? I'll kill you for what you've done!"
"You'll do no such thing. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang!"
Aiming both my hands at the devil, I blasted off his legs and arms, crippling him completely, leaving him a bloody mess of a person.
His declaration was met with nothing; he didn't even get to move a muscle before I halted his attack.
"Famine Devils are the weakest of the four races, right? Ickni and Artoria told me that they prioritise deceit over actual strength. He, I bet you, wishes that you had trained and not followed the ways of Famine. I bet that after a little detail of your life is running in your mind. Am I right?"
"Ickni, Artoria? Who exactly are you?"
I was glad he asked me this; the mask was becoming more of an inconvenience anyway. I couldn't see anything past the eye slots, so it wasn't the best for annihilating a band of devils. I took off the mask, shaking my hair while I did so, freeing my mind and vision.
"Third String, Evernight of the Servants of Order. It's nice to make your acquaintance, little Devil."
"Evernight? The wingless freak that holds power, uncanny for a mutt, the anomaly of Order. Why are you here? Bastard!"
"You are all famine devils, yes? Why else but to exterminate the infection?"
"We're not doing anything! Is our only crime being devils!?"
The young devil squirmed on the floor, his face twisting into a putrid display of sorrow and desperation, trying his best to claw his way out of the room, but to no avail, staying rooted to the floor.
"Hm? How do you explain the little poison plot you've got going on here? If I couldn't nullify the poison, then I'd be some tasty looking meat right now, wouldn't I?"
"We kill to survive; we can't survive on anything else. We have to eat each other or angels, or else we'll just die! It's the same as—"
"A stray dog?"
"No…"
"Do you wish to live, devil?"
"Of course!"
"How many?"
"Huh?"
"How many lives have you taken with your own hands?"
My voice was low but carried the weight of a thousand suns, focusing my killing intent on the devil.
"I… 126"
"126… 126! Why are you lying to me!? Do you think I am so stupid as to believe such a pitiful lie? Do you!?" I shouted.
The devil's actions were becoming more and more frantic; his eyes told me all the stories I needed to hear. They were the deceitful eyes of a liar, never once locking onto mine, doing everything to avoid my piercing gaze.
"It's true!" pleaded the devil.
Grasping the devil by his collar, I held up his mangled body. My fury boiling over each second that passed by only added to the sea of anger. He tried to grasp my hand but forgot that he no longer had any limbs, sinking him further into despair.
"Show me your true form; you are not an angel, so drop the act."
"If I'm going to die, then I'm not going to follow your commands, bastard! Just kill me, I don't answer to some wingless even if they are strong."
Artoria had told me just before I left for this place, a crucial piece of information for battling against devils. Light is a devil's weakness, and darkness is an angel's weakness. One drop of an Edict of Light's power will reveal the true form of a devil, and one drop of darkness will cripple an angel.
Slashing the tip of my finger with a small light blade, I placed my finger before the devil's mouth, prying his mouth open with my free hand. The drop slowly trailed down into the devil's throat before disappearing.
"No!"
He violently contorted as I dropped him to the floor, his body twisting unnaturally, trying to dispel the pure light from his body. I had Seraphina's divinity inside of me, the God of this world. A powerful foreign force must be inducing the height of agony throughout the devil's body.
The devil eventually fell silent, his hideous movements falling still. All traces of his life had been violently removed by my blood, his eyes taking in one last glimpse of me before glossing over.
I was about to walk away, thinking the blood to be ineffective at revealing a devil's true form after a few seconds of nothing. But before I could, I heard a mangled shriek escape the devil's mouth, rippling through the silence of the whole warehouse.
Two skeletal wings sprouted from the devil's back, and a pair of midnight horns appeared on his forehead. Despite this transformation, he still showed no signs of life. His final breaths were ones of warning.
"Hm, interesting. You actually look quite cool like that. I've seen something similar in a show I once watched on Earth. You shouldn't have hidden yourself. That was impressive."