Assassins and Angels

53: Night Market Arc; The Clash of the Wits and Blades

Alxton, hidden behind the trees, watches Henwy confront Dagon. The demon moves himself high up a tree and demands that the assassin will not underestimate him.

"Hey, it's not like I'm underestimating you. I'm just stating a fact," Henwy confidently replies that he will behead and kill him, now that he is extremely focused, but Dagon claimed, "The way you're speaking to me is disrespectful, you brat! After only having lived for twenty years or so!" The demon changes position again and appears from the ground behind Henwy, who mentioned, "Even if that is true, there isn't one thing about you that I can respect, so... the way you look and talk... are both totally creepy."

The demon claims, "You just can't appreciate my beauty, my grace... not my elegance... because you're uneducated and poor! Just like a dung beetle can't read even if you show it a book!"

"Oh, so we're comparing bugs with me? Oh please we all know the bugs are gonna be you when we battle." Henwy, unfazed, replied. He threw back insults of his own: "You also do seem more likely to be living in a dung."

Dagon mocks, "Shut up, dung beetle! Look at you with your short limbs and undersized blade! You can't even teach my neck!" only for Henwy to mention, "No? Didn't I just reach it with a vengeance? And in the first place, your limbs are shorter. Just that you have more limbs than me, it definitely can't do much."

Henwy suddenly then realised something, then mocks, "Oh! Were you just thinking out loud about yourself? Sorry to interrupt."

The demon laughs, "My, what a cheap insult! Did you think that was enough to fluster me? I can see that you'll do anything to win! Not a pretty sight!" only for Henwy to pretend thinking to then look at his vase and ask, "It's really bugging me. Isn't that vase of yours kinda misshapen? It doesn't look symmetrical."

...

...

....

"What a piece of crap."

With his art insulted, Dagon finally snaps and accused, "That's because your eyes are rotten, dammit!"

Forming ten vases in his hands, he uses ten thousand slime fishes, aiming them at Henwy and sending countless ravenous fish in his direction. The assassin backs away and avoids getting hit, before using a tree to launch himself and cutting through all of them in an extremely fast flurry of slashes. Dagon watches as all of his fish are sliced and becomes stunned by the assassin's speed.

All?! Dagon thought. He slashed them all?! That speed and attack range! What happened to my poison? But even so, no harm, no foul!

Nonetheless, he remembers that slashing his fish will only release a poison that is fine enough to be absorbed through the skin and will kill him quickly.

Henwy then redirects the poisonous cloud away from him. He then suddenly lunges at Dagon and makes an attempt to behead him, only for the demon to shed his skin and disappear.

You can shed your skin, too?

Now annoyed, Henwy groaned and demanded, "Oh, what a pain in the butt. Would you mind not dodging and racing up trees?" Only for Dagon to laugh and state he has now revealed his true form, mentioning he is only the third person to ever witness it. He claims that once he is serious, no one will be able to survive him, leading Henwy to show sarcastic amazement, annoying Dagon further.

Stating that his new transparent scales are harder than diamonds and that he has been refining his form inside his vase, Dagon demands that the Hashira bows before his new body, now appearing as a humanoid, serpent-like merman.

Henwy silently stares with an unimpressed expression, causing the now frustrated demon to angrily yell, "Why don't you say something, you useless puppet?!"

"..." Henwy's face was unimpressed, and also expecting his form to be more scary.

"You really know how to rub someone the wrong way!" Dagon added.

The assassin responded, "But you just told me to shut my mouth. Not to mention..."

"...it didn't really surprise me."

Dagon suddenly attacks and attempts to punch him repeatedly, forcing him to evade and leap up into a tree; he then watches as the portion of his uniform touched by Dagon transforms into fish, as does the impact points by the demon's fists.

The demon laughs at his opponent's turns to hide in the tress but Henwy claimed, while brushing the fish off him, "I just thought my nose was going to fall off. The fish stink."

Dagon then reveals that not only can anything he touches become fish, but his new body's flexibility also allows him to move in any direction. Watching as Henwy quietly stares at him, the demon questions if he is now afraid, but Henwy, with a condescending smile on his face, smugly replies,

"Even the most jaw dropping attack is pointless if you can't land it, right?"