RSE CH 33: Black Dragon Emperor (Patreon)

Barlowe cackled maniacally, twisted glee coursing through his veins as he reveled in Leo’s shocked expression. Even though he had been actin

Barlowe cackled maniacally, twisted glee coursing through his veins as he reveled in Leo’s shocked expression. Even though he had been acting crazy—he was self-aware enough to acknowledge he was crazy—he was no fool. He wouldn’t still be alive if he was. Fools didn’t rack up the kill count he had of five devils and dozens of their contracted servants.

Furthermore, he knew all about the prodigy named Leo Karteros. He knew he had zero chance of winning. It wouldn’t even be a fight. The difference between them was immense, their levels of power were practically dimensions apart.

But what did that matter? This was the chance of a lifetime!

“I know about you, Leo. I know you must be curious… Why am I here? Who sent me? What is the Church up to? Hehehe~! So many questions that will be left unanswered if you kill good old Barlowe, don’t you think?”

Leo curled his lip in disgust at the man’s crazed expression. Barlowe’s blood-shot eyes darted around manically and his tongue flicked out to lick his lips just to keep from drooling. He noted how the man shifted from foot to foot, ready to dart away the moment he thought he could escape.

‘Fat chance,’ Leo thought grimly. ‘His murdering ways end here… tonight.’

But, as fate would have it, Barlowe’s chance came to him walking in on them wearing torn black jeans and a rumpled t-shirt.

“Leo? What is going on—” The feminine voice that came from behind Barlowe cut off abruptly. She screamed in horror upon seeing the hacked up bodies in the room.

For just an instant, Leo was distracted. He shifted his eyes from Barlowe upon hearing a familiar voice. But that instant was all Barlowe needed to spin around and seize the blonde woman who’d come up behind him. 

Asa had stopped at the edge of the room, shocked by the carnage in the kitchen. She was unable to resist when Barlowe grabbed her wrist and yanked her around in front of him. Sneering at Leo, he pointed his gun at her head.

“Oh! Asa, My lovely assistant! You couldn’t have interrupted my work at a better time!.” 

“What…? Th-this…”

Despite being jerked around or the cold metal of the gun barrel pressed into her temple, Asa’s eyes never left the mutilated corpses. That half of the kitchen was bathed in gore, with streaks of blood sprayed across the walls.

“Ah, that? Oh, right…I forgot you thought I was just questioning these traitors.” He kicked the decapitated body at his feet. “See this masterpiece?! It’s our job. We kill the worthless sinners who succumb to devils’ promises. Don’t you see? It is our calling, to cull those like the traitors you see before you.”

“N-no! No way! I would never…!” 

Asa jerked in the man’s grasp, but he hardly budged. 

“Ah ah ah…! I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” The crazed exorcist tapped the barrel of his gun on the side of her head.

The situation she was in finally dawned upon her when she caught a glimpse of who was facing Barlowe, and she was able to instantly remember the kind boy who had helped her when she first came into this town.

“Leo… I…”

“…Asa!”

A bitter smile froze on Leo’s face when the deranged lunatic grabbed Asa and held her at gunpoint. What was she doing here? And how did she know the crazy bastard?

“What is this?! Do you know each other?” Barlowe’s manic gaze darted from Leo to Asa and back again. “Pfft! Hahaha! God is truly blessing me this night! I was going to use you to stall this former exorcist, my friend Leo, here. But who would have thought you two knew each other? What a stroke of luck!”

“Leo… you’re an exorcist?”

Asa was startled, momentarily forgetting the horrific scene she had walked in on. Her attention was fully focused on Leo. Because of how fast he had moved to save the boy the other day, Asa knew that Leo was somehow more than human.

But he had once been an exorcist just like her crazed boss, Barlowe.

“Now, Leo, what will you do? Will you fight me and watch her die? Or will you let us go? Then again, I’m sure it isn’t a problem for one like you, right? You watched so many of your teammates die in front of you. Pfft! I must admit, I respect how you erased their bodies from existence. Didn’t think you had it in you!”

Barlowe mockingly tore open the wound Leo had buried deep in his heart — the event that gave birth to the nightmares that haunted him nearly every night. Fist clenched so tight at his side that his nails bit into his palms, he clenched his teeth in absolute rage. 

Fear and sympathy raged in Asa’s expression as she simultaneously shrank from and ached to soothe the agony that was clear on Leo’s face.

Eyes going cold, Leo took a step forward. He had every intention of destroying the dastardly psycho in front of him, but…

“Oh hoho! I wouldn’t do that if I was you.” The crazy exorcist pressed the gun’s barrel into Asa’s temple. His manic eyes widened as he pointed at the gun at Asa’s head with his chin. 

No matter how fast Leo moved, he couldn’t prevent Barlowe from shooting Asa. At point-blank range, he wouldn’t miss. The real danger of the crazed exorcist killing the one friend he’d made since coming to Spartanburg stopped him in his tracks.

Leo grit his teeth in frustration.

Feeling the cold gun pressed to the side of her head, Asa pulled back in Barlowe’s grip. She plead with the man.

“Please, Father Barlowe! Stop this at once. God won’t forgive you for such a deed.”

“Heh…”

In response to her outcry, Barlowe smirked and stabbed his sword into the floor. Quicker than a snake, his hand darted to the collar of Asa’s shirt and tore downwards.

Riiiiiiiiiiiip

“Ayyyiiii!”

The sound of her shirt being ripped from collar to hem filled the room as her perky but beautiful breasts were revealed. Barlowe’s eyes never left Leo’s as he leaned in and licked Asa’s ear and the side of her face. 

She shuddered. 

With a lecherous grin plastered on his face, the exorcist muttered, “Such a pure, chaste little morsel. But are you as untainted as I was led to believe? You know Leo Karteros here and go to that school riddled with devils.” 

He pressed his nose into her blonde hair. “You only wanted to come back to the Church… but why not do so by allowing yourself to be violated by a priest to his heart’s content. Doesn’t that sound like great fun?”

“Stop it!” The cold voice cracked like a whip and stopped Barlowe just as he was about to use his right hand, now devoid of a sword, to reach around and cup her small breasts.

“Huh? If it isn’t Mister Karteros.” The crazed man blinked owlishly. “ I completely forgot about you. Wait! You gotta pay before you can watch, mister!”

{Are you going to stand there and watch this shit like a cowardly onlooker?}

‘Shut up.’

“Arere? Nothing more to say? Despite your power, all you can do is helplessly watch as you are once again unable to protect anyone.”

{Will you not use my power?}

‘I said, shut up!’

“Hahaha! I wonder if I should go back to the Vatican. Perhaps I should lay my hands on some of your old classmates. I would love to sample Yuki Anori or Emilia Rheinhardt. Kuh!! Just imagining their tears-soaked faces as they moan helplessly under me makes me so fucking hard!”

SNAP!

{…}

At that moment, the voice inside Leo—his partner attached to his very soul—stopped pestering him. It had no need to. After all, it knew very well that the poor sick bastard facing his partner had said thing that never should have been uttered.

Every dragon has a reverse scale and Barlowe just touched Leo’s.

[Boost!]

Whoosh!

“What-!?”

“Argh!!!”

Everything happened too fast for the exorcist to even register. By the time Barlowe understood what was even happening, he was watching the arm that had held the gun against Asa’s head flying through the air. He stood there for a moment, dumbly staring at the spurts of blood jetting from the stump of his arm.

His blood added to the gore on the kitchen floor as he fell to his knees. Once Barlowe’s brain finally understood what had happened, he shrieked in pain.

Asa stumbled back, happy to be freed from the crazed exorcist’s grasp, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the spurting blood. She only got three steps away before tripping over her own feet and falling backwards onto her back. 

“W-Wait!”

Even though he was in shock, Barlowe still had a silver of awareness left in him. Fumbling with the tail of his coat, he tried to stop the loss of blood.

Leo loomed over Barlowe with a silvery blade in his hand. His eyes were as cold as the most frigid ice as he glared at the kneeling Barlowe. Under that chilly gaze, Barlowe felt like his very soul was freezing.

But what caught his attention was something else.

The blade in Leo’s hand was a beautiful, curved silver greatsword. A green flame circled just above its stylized hilt like a glowing orb. Covering his hand was a black segmented gauntlet that had a green jewel embedded in the wrist. It was an orb similar to the burning green flames on the pommel of the majestic greatsword.

Barlowe recognized the sword. 

It should have been impossible for Leo to still have it, but there was no way he’d ever forget it. Tyrfing was, without a doubt, the greatest demonic sword in existence. But what was that black, serrated gauntlet? 

“A Divine Gear too…?”

He even recognized the Divine Gear. In the basic curriculum of the church, aside from some mainstream Divine Gears, all exorcists learned about the thirteen most powerful Divine Gears. They memorized what they looked like, along with their initial characteristics.

For they were the Thirteen Longinus—parts of the spear made divine when it pierced Christ’s side on the cross. 

Each part was reforged into weapons and bestowed by the Bible God to enable their wielders to face even gods, if used to their full potential. They were the last gifts of God to mortals, bequeathed to the race deemed to be the weakest of all mortal races—humans. 

The gear currently protecting the arm of Leo Karteros was, without a doubt, one of the Longinus.

“The Black Dragon Emperor’s Gauntlet,” Barlowe breathed reverently.