The Hunted Regressor: My Heretic Saint System

Chapter 163: Spade Eyes

***

A clearing in the same forest groaned.

Not literally, of course, it was more like the air itself shivered as Divinity warped around the thing standing across from Ulv and Nora.

The Nulity Daemon.

It was tall and vaguely humanoid.

Clear in their eyes, its body kept peeling and re-forming like smoke, refusing to decide on a shape. They saw its face as a smear except for two bright pinpricks of white.

Two holes in reality.

And when it spoke...

"Ah, two at once. How efficient."

It didn’t sound like a Demon, far from it.

"Annoyingly casual..."

Nora flicked her wrist, and three knives appeared between her fingers.

"Just like someone we know, hm?"

Ulv planted his greatsword into the ground with a thud.

"Sure, now stay behind me."

"Don’t order me around."

"Then stay beside me."

"...Fine."

Their banter ended the instant the Demon stepped forward, and their surroundings... dipped into quiet.

A ripple tore across Nora’s lightning, snuffing it out.

Her knives fizzled, Ulv’s ice armor cracked at the edges, and his floating lances dropped several inches before recovering.

The Demon tilted its head.

"Oh? You rely on tricks, too?"

Ulv gritted his teeth.

"We’re not relying on anything but our Wills."

He slammed his foot down once more, conjuring a wave of white-blue ice that violently pulsed outward, only to dissolve into harmless snowflakes after traveling a single meter.

"...Seriously?"

Nora muttered as the Demon tapped its chin.

"Let’s make this fair."

In one twist, it was in Ulv’s face.

His instincts screamed—

’NO!’

He barely raised his blade...

CLANG!

And managed to block its attack in time, the force behind the hit sending him sliding backward, even with Glacial Glide kicking in beneath his feet.

Because yes, ice had formed under him so fast, but the Demon kept up without ANY ability to help it, only its body’s movement speed.

It was smooth, dance-like, exactly like—

"Lord Ignotus."

Nora breathed heavily.

"It even moves like him."

Ulv didn’t comment; he didn’t have time.

The Demon came at him again with a low sweep. Its attack landed, ice cracked, and Ulv’s armor shattered along the chest.

"Imitating..."

The Demon kicked once more.

"Is easy. That boy’s style is fun."

"You call him a boy..."

Nora finally composed herself, lightning sparking around her legs.

"But you’re copying him."

The Demon shrugged.

"And?"

Nora vanished.

Her form split into streaks of electric blue as she circled the Demon, knives sparking in her hands. But the moment she launched them—

Pop—fssst—!

The knives lost their lightning mid-flight.

Two clattered to the ground while the third pinged uselessly off the Demon’s shoulder.

It didn’t even turn.

"You’re too predictable."

That word ticked her off.

Nora fully became lightning, using pure speed to rush in with a spinning kick.

The Demon caught her ankle mid-spin.

"And too readable."

He twisted.

She gasped as the counter threw her across the ground.

"I’ve got you!"

Ulv appeared behind her, catching her mid-slide with a wall of ice.

"Are you okay?"

Nora spat a curse, her hair sparking.

"It nullified everything, even my movement boosts."

"Then stop relying on them."

She blinked as Ulv glared forward.

"We fight it physically... we’re the most suited for that, it’s why Lord Ignotus let us go after it."

Nora stared at him like he’d just told her to wrestle the Saint of Light with chopsticks.

"The thing nullifies physical attacks, too."

"Yeah.."

Ulv grumbled.

"But not perfectly, and it can’t nullify momentum."

Finally, a smirk tugged at Nora’s lips.

"Alright then, let’s do it."

Ulv charged first, his ice beneath him once to slide himself forward. Instead of relying on the ability to dodge, he used the ice purely as a frictionless runway.

To take things further, his armor regenerated around him, not for defense, but for weight.

He became a charging battering ram.

One that was strong enough to tear through the Demon, especially with that greatsword of his, something that the Demon acknowledged.

It quickly blurred out of the way with its insane speed, but Ulv twisted, sliding sideways across his ice path, his greatsword whipping out with near impossible torque.

The blade scraped the Demon’s chest.

"I’ve got you!"

A small tear appeared in its smoky body, flickering hard, before it blurred and shot far back, away from the battering ram.

"Ah..."

It looked down at the mark with mild surprise.

"You humans truly are a bane."

Nora chose that exact moment to appear behind it. She didn’t use her Flash Step to attack, only to reposition; doing that would’ve given it the opportunity to disturb her momentum.

Her actual strike came from raw physical power, her legs snapping out with the kind of precision only martial artists like her lived for.

"Fall, you bastard Demon!"

Nora’s heel slammed into its back, staggering it just barely.

But that was enough, Ulv came from the front with a crushing overhead, giving it no time to reposition or blur away.

The Demon caught the blade with both hands, smoke hissing where its fingers touched the freezing ice.

"Interesting teamwork~..."

The Demon mused.

"I’ll borrow that too."

Its body shifted and mimicked Ulv’s stance—perfectly, making his eyes go wide.

"Fall, human."

It swung nothing, and Ulv’s knee hit the ground.

The Demon didn’t suddenly materialize a sword, no, it was much simpler and more clever than that. The gravity beneath Ulv had nullified, sucking his body down into the little pocket.

"Damn it—!"

Nora hissed, going for another kick.

"Nope."

The Demon twisted Ulv’s greatsword away and punched Nora point-blank in the chest. Again, its blow wasn’t Runic; it held pure, brutal force, sending her flying back, smashing through a tree, and crashing into another.

Yet not even a second later, a bleeding Nora was upon him once more, her feet pointed.

They stabbed at his side like a spear, but he nullified the space before her for a moment, grabbed her feet, and smashed her into the ground hard.

Nora let out a wheeze, the wind knocked out of her.

But even then, she didn’t keep still, managing to throw herself sideways, dodging the Demon. It had moved at her with a spinning kick—Ignotus’s spinning kick, only to hit nothing but air.

"Figures!"

She shouted just as she caught her breath.

"Can’t you be the least bit original?!"

"I learn quickly."

"You steal quickly!"

The Demon raised its hand—

"That I do."

Nora’s lightning dissipated.

"I despise you."

The Demon lunged, Nora ducked, only for Ulv to reappear in front of her and slam his foot down, a move he seemed to love.

This one didn’t freeze, but created a terrain, perhaps the reason for his long time of return.

Many a spike of jagged ice that forced the Demon to adjust its movement.

"Too slow."

Nora used Ulv’s broad back as a launchpad, flipping over him and driving both feet into the Demon’s skull.

CRACK!

Its head snapped down.

Ulv followed with a rising slash that hammered it away, leaving a long gash across its torso.

It healed, but not nearly instantly like the Demon Ignotus had killed. They were finally wearing it down, but the Demon’s tone stayed eerily amused:

"You two remind me of him as well."

"Don’t compare us!"

Nora growled, and Ulv struck again.

"He’d hate being lumped with us!"

One didn’t like being compared, and the other saw themselves as unworthy.

"Hm?"

The Demon tilted its head again while blurring away from his attack.

"I am simply fulfilling my role."

That made both of them freeze.

"...what?"

Nora whispered, but the Demon blurred again, giving Ulv no time to think, Nora even less as it attacked once more, its lethality turned up many notches.

"Fun. Very fun."

But they adapted, even as the Demon adapted faster, stealing their very defence.

"Stop enjoying this!"

Nora snapped while flipping over a swipe.

"Hehehe~!"

Though she acted enraged, she was far from it, having been studying his fighting style for a while.

She recognized something.

’A rhythm.’

The Demon’s movements, though made to seem that way, weren’t random but patterned.

It was eager, overconfident, almost show-offy, just like Ignotus when he played around.

Which meant—like a weaker Ignotus—

It’d fall for the same kind of trap.

"Let’s see how you like this."

She continued to throw knives.

...it wasn’t anything new.

"Is that supposed to surprise me~?"

Which the Demon itself had noted.

Yet Nora didn’t care and kept sporadically throwing them, even as the Demon easily dodged them, leaving them to fall all around it, on the rubble, ground, trees, one after another.

"Don’t forget me!"

At the same time, Ulv kept up the pressure, attacking from the opposite direction, caring not for any crossfire, knowing that he could easily tank knife or two.

He would’ve yelled at her for this seemingly useless and wasteful tactic, but he saw her eyes.

They were cold and focused.

Those weren’t the eyes of someone panicking, but someone with a plan.

So he made sure to play his part well, taking most of its attention... an act that came with consequences.

His body was riddled with wounds, his ice armour barely intact, having been dismantled and reconjured too many times.

It had affected enough that he stuttered for a single second, giving it some space...

"Bye~."

And that was enough for it to step toward Nora to finally end her annoying throwing.

"Zap."

Only for its blur to suddenly pause.

Lightning erupted, not from Nora directly, but from every knife she had thrown, knives that she had left the smallest amounts of her lightning in so that the Demon wouldn’t nullify them.

And though small, once activated in tandem, they supercharged each other, creating a large circle of strong lightning, arcs quickly leaping from blade to blade to... Demon.

"Wait—"

It tried to nullify the lightning—

"AAAARRRGGGGHHHHHH!"

But the lightning wasn’t coming from her anymore; it was coming from the terrain.

The circle detonated before the Demon could realize that.

Essentially, it was utterly tricked.

Sparks and arcs exploded upward, trapping the Demon in a pillar of blazing electricity.

Ulv moved the instant he saw the opening.

Without hesitation, he slid across his ice, his body heavy, his greatsword raised high.

The Demon’s voice crackled through the lightning...

"DOOON’T—"

Only to be cut by Ulv’s blade.

SHHHHNK!

He cleaved the Demon from head to foot.

The two halves split apart, and the smoke unraveled.

"..."

"..."

"..."

Silence finally fell.

Ulv exhaled shakily, wiping sweat and frost from his brow.

"That was... way too tough."

Nora let out a long breath and walked toward the fading corpse.

"Lord Ignotus is going to laugh hard when he hears this thing copied him."

Ulv managed a small, tired smirk.

"He’ll probably call it natural."

She snorted.

"Yeah—"

Then stopped.

Ulv stopped as well.

A shape approached through the dissipating smoke with soft footsteps, entirely unhurried.

A man stepped into view, tall, slim, wearing simple clothes, with spade-shaped pupils staring right at them.

The wolf tensed immediately, his sword rising.

The tanned human moved faster, stepping in front of this stranger.

"You’re a Demon too, aren’t you?"

It smiled...

"Correct."

But its eyes didn’t.

"Now sleep."

Another two had fallen.