Chapter 84: Noctis
After a while, Jet’s mind settled and he reflected on what had just happened. Surprisingly, he was feeling dandy. His head was way clearer, like he’d just released a lot of built up discomfort he’d kept bottled up for a long while. He stood up and checked around the surroundings for anything of note. But there wasn’t any. Everything had been burnt to ashes, leaving only some scrap ornaments made of stone that the grotesque demons wore.
He cleared his traces of being there and left the area as quickly as he could, wary about anyone finding the two demons missing and coming out here to search for them, though he doubted they would. Based on a few sightings, the way the demons lived was so vicious that he felt the others would simply think these two had died in a fight—which wasn’t wrong.
But reality had a way of defying expectations. He hadn’t even gone too far, only covering about ten miles, when, due to his preference of always finding higher ground, he took the risk and carefully climbed a small hill that had fumaroles spewing hot gases out of the ground in intervals, careful not to get scalded.
As he reached the top of the hill, staring at the dark red horizon, he spotted some movement in the distance and focused quickly on it. It was another pair of grotesque demons, walking and pointing at the ground as they moved. Jet ducked quickly, lying flat on the ground. But he was not quick enough. One of the demons looked up and spotted him in the distance, alerting his partner. Jet stood up immediately, giving up on his exposed position and running out of view just as they also charged towards the hill.
"Fuck! How did they find me so fast?!" He yelled as he ran, scanning around the whole surroundings for any place to hide himself. He was not ready to take on another set of demons. Ones who knew he had taken down two of their kind, and would be very cautious in dealing with him. Not to mention the fact that he was still recovering his strength from the last fight too.
That was what led to the present situation.
Jet punched the ground in frustration as he spat out the remains of the black tar-like substance. He had covered himself with it to mask his scent before he hid. The fact that they’d been able to track him all the way here meant they had superior senses, so he needed to take extra measures.
Jet had hid for nearly twelve hours. In the same spot. Barely moving at all. His body was sore from staying within that cramped space, and his pores were practically begging to breathe as he scraped off the tar from his body.
The worst thing was, now that the demons were gone, there wasn’t any close source of water nearby for him to use to wash off the oily tar that covered his whole body.
But at least, he’d survived that encounter, and had learned a lesson. He would live to see another day in this godforsaken abyss.