7 Out and About
"WHOOOOOOOOOO!!" Juniper cheers while soaring up into the air.
"I CAN FLY!!" Greatly enjoying her first experience of free flight, unbothered by aerodynamics or whatever other stuff most flying creatures have to take into consideration, Juniper utilizes the system granted [Free Flight] added to her wings to flip and circle around freely.
Her less than silent actions of course attract some attention, but when those flying pests consisting out of insectile like demons or monsters dared to approach the excited moth, they soon found out the errors of their ways.
Bisecting a horned cockroach with dog legs, Juniper collects both soul and body parts before retracting her blade.
"Damn flying is fun. But it's time to get going." Landing by the destroyed cave entrance once again, she quickly grabs the tarp and stores it in her inventory before flying away.
To say that the upper layer of the abyss has plenty of prey would be an understatement.
They might not move in hordes, but most territories span not more than a hundred meters, meaning that Juniper won't take more than a minute or two before arriving in a new hunting ground thanks to her ability to fly.
She spent the next few weeks flying around and killing anything that looked like it possessed a soul to harvest.
Traveling deeper into the upper layer, the strength of demons she encountered slowly started to increase, but between Juniper's mantis blades, top low rank strength and subdermal armour, none stood a chance.
Also, gates of the abyss, the large altars with magic circle engraved into them, that allowed people from across the infinite worlds to summon demons from the abyss, were all around.
In these weeks she's been hunting, she came across five already, but left soon after killing anything lingering around them, as she wasn't yet ready to jump across worlds.
With her storage of souls restored somewhat, Juniper made the strategic decision to spend some of them to increase her hunting efficiency even more.
[Lantern of Craving: A Black lantern with a blue light in its centre attracting beings of your choice by stimulating the targeted species senses and luring them closer.]
It costed her quite the chunk of souls, but it was totally worth it as she recovered her investment in mere days.
Another week passes and Juniper is in the midst of slaughtering a group of demons and monsters lured in by her new item.
She has gotten well acclimated to her body's strength and speed after the T-Virus injection and used it to eagerly jump into combat with her fellow demons.
The sensation of her blades cutting through flesh and bones excited Juniper a lot. She's not sure if this was just another part of her that until now had remained dormant, or if it has something to do with her demon blood talent that made her more prone to go berserk when in combat, but in either case, it was a hell'a lot of fun cleaving and rending her prey apart.
She spins around and turns into a blender for a moment as all four of her blades cut down the last ones of the group gathered this time around.
"Phew, another harvest complete, heh, can't even call this a hunt anymore with how easy it is." Moving to collect her spoils, Juniper whistles a random tune when she suddenly heard the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps.
With her combat instincts honed over the past weeks, the moth didn't hesitate to jump forward and spread her wings to take off into the air.
Hearing the snarling roar behind her, Juniper spins around and surveys her attacker.
He is tall and thin, two black horns curl around the sides of his head and ashen grey skin with black spots covers his form.
'What an ugly bastard. He even bald, hah, and look at that mug.' Sneering at her enemy who clearly lacked any means of range attack, Juniper took her time to observe the demon closely.
'Despite how ugly he is, it's clear from how silent and fast he moved that he is close to me in rank, probably a high low rank demon.' Preparing herself mentally for a more challenging fight, the moth distances herself a bit before landing.
Seeing this, the grey demon stops its snarling and growls instead while flexing its long fingers with scythe like claws.
Eyeing each other, the two demons begin to circle each other in predatory fashion.
It is Juniper who broke the stalemate first, having gained a better understanding of her own durability granted by the chitin and subdermal armour after the many skirmishes over the past weeks, she is confident enough to commence a frontal assault.
Dashing forward with a flap of her wings that pulse green and accelerate the moth even more, Juniper keeps a keen eye on her opponent's limbs in order to track its movements.
Reacting fast, the grey demon swings down one of its clawed hands with the intent to cut apart Juniper's face.
Raising her right arm while planting her foot on the ground, Juniper blocks the attack with the chitin covering her forearm before using her left one to claw at the grey demon's midsection all in a single breath.
Taking a step back to dodge Juniper's attack, the grey demon lashes out with his free hand while making sure that the smaller moth remained pinned to the ground with his other.
What he did not expect was the bladed limb that snapped out of Juniper's left arm with which she had fainted a claw attack at his midsection.
With her reach drastically increased, her blade tears into the demon's flesh, ripping open a large wound across his stomach out of which some organs start to spill.
*SCREEEEEEEEEEE!!* Came the pained response as the grey demon abandons his attack and pulls back his claw that kept juniper pressured to the ground before lashing out with a kick.
Crossing her additional two arms in front of herself, Juniper gets thrown into the air, which she uses to spread her wings that, with a green pulse, activate their flight ability.
Using one of his hands to keep the organs in place, the demon roars before rushing at Juniper who hangs in the air.
Flapping her wings once, she ascends just out of reach, letting the claws pass bye, before dropping down with a demonic grin that splits her face while thrusting forward with her mantis blade at the same time.
Having just missed his attack and being already wounded, the grey demon couldn't react in time to dodge the black chitin blade aiming for his head.
Piercing through her foe's brain with her blade, Juniper lands on his collapsing body before ripping out the mantis blades which snap back into her forearms.
"Well, that was fun."
