1 Chapter 1
The man sat on the edge of his makeshift seat, the corpse of an imp he'd killed, while he waited for more of their kind to attack. The man once had a name, but he abandoned it long ago when he committed the most atrocious of sins with the gravest of consequences. His rage burned ever stronger as the phenomenon of what had happened replayed over and over in his mind.
The man, at one point, had a name, but he abandoned it as part of his repentance. Though he'd forsaken his right to a name, his enemies of Hell gave him a title. Slayer.
He was a bulky man in a suit coated in the demon blood that would have melted any normal body armor. The armor, underneath, was a special metal that could only be made in the fires of hell. It held no room for elegance or grace with its pure utility-based design.
The AI within commented that the man had three cracked ribs and suggested that he rest before the next fight but he waved it off dismissively. A few cracked ribs was not enough to stop him, he would always fight endlessly. For that was his fate of damnation.
After he inspected himself, he turned his attention to his weapon. It was once a classic side by side double barrel shotgun, but it had been heavily modified, it was now made to kill demons. It now had a grappling hook that could be shot into demons to drag them or the man closer as well as a demonic energy sensor.
The Yharnham slugs within were designed to explode upon entry, send shrapnel into any vital organs, and stop regeneration if the demon survived the initial damage. The slugs were a truly despicable ammo but who was there to judge him after he'd betrayed Heaven but the demons he hunted.
The weapon, though inanimate, deserved a name in the man's mind and so he named it Vengeance. For none would escape his wrath.
As he inspected Vengeance, a group of small figures dawned the horizon. The group was a scouting party of six imps armed with seemingly nothing. The imps were humanoid, but far from human with thick skin plating covering their vital areas almost like natural body armor.
Slayer noticed and drew Vengeance into position and rose from his seat, ready to rush the demons head on. When the lesser demons came close enough, he ran towards them and let his limitless rage take control.
When the first imp noticed the Slayer rushing ever closer, it let out a warning call to the others just before a gunshot was heard and the demon's chest exploded. The remaining five imps gathered into a rough formation, with two imps in the back casting a long spell together while the other three readied fireballs at a rapid pace.
As the first fireball flew, the Slayer dodged and fired a slug into one of the middle frontline imp's leg. The shrapnel shot far into the imp's leg, causing it to fall over in pain as its leg tried and failed to heal.
The two remaining imps in the front resorted to desperate throws to save their life as the Slayer got ever closer. Vengeance was shot at each to cause them immense pain. When the last imp in the vanguard had died of slug shrapnel, the Slayer turned his attention to the two imps in the rear. The imps desperately attempted to activate a ritual but it was too late, for their fate was sealed once they crossed paths with the Slayer and Vengeance.
Without a shred of mercy, he shot one in the end to end the ritual before he turned to the last victim. The imp raised its arms in surrender but it was a meaningless gesture. The Slayer holstered Vengeance on his back and grabbed the imp by the neck. The demon struggled in vain, unable to escape. The slayer, slowly and methodically, pulled out a Yharnham slug and held it against the demon's forehead. The imp screamed gutturally, the material painful even at the slightest touch. Underneath his visor, the Slayer smiled sadistically as he pressed the slug into the imp's head harder and harder until its head caved under the pressure. As the imp's last death thralls escaped, the man sat down once more. He sat not to rest, but to wait for more of them to come as he assessed his equipment once more.
