“Be careful everyone, you never know when she’ll appear.” Hyukjae, the leader of the four men squad warned as they set foot into the infamous azure forest. 

The forest, although named after a shade of the colour blue wasn’t exactly blue in colour. It was that there was a rumour that five years ago, a demon had decided to reside in the forest and whoever encountered the demon, would not live to tell the tale. 

As it turn out, it wasn’t just rumours as every time when someone entered the forest, bluish flames would light up the dark skies of the night. Especially when it came to demon slayers.

A few group of demon slayers were sent out to slay the demon since then but none have ever return. 

“Donghae, set up the spiritual container.” Hyukjae ordered Donghae, before he looked around them and gave another command, “Get into position, we’re getting to close to the target.” 

After Donghae has successfully set up the spiritual container, the four of them went into formation immediately with Hyukjae, the lancer of the group standing in the front along with Donghae by his left while Sungmin stood by his right. Ryewook, the archer of the four was positioned to the back. 

“Any idea what this demon can do aside from hellfire?” Sungmin asked when they neared the center of the forest. 

“I’m not quite sure, but I heard rumours say that the demon wields a scythe.” Ryeowook answered him. 

“Mayhaps.” They heard the voice all of a sudden, alarming then as they looked around the forest. The two swordsmen beside Hyukjae started saying their prayers but it was too late as a pair of hands covered each of their mouth. 

“You're talking bout me?” 

*****

"Y-you wouldn't live for long." Hyukjae said as he spewed blood, the four pf them didn't even last for long as they were immediately wiped out minutes after the demon appeared before them. 

Instead of talking back, the demon pulled out the scythe that was stabbed on his teammate, covered in blood. She brandished the scythe before it lit up in bluish flames, evaporating the blood stains. 

“It’s simple, really.” The demon spoke, her eyes still on the scythe not sparing even a glance at the demon slayer who was kneeling on the ground with one hand covering the wound on his torso, applying pressure to lessen the pain.

Around them were the body of his teammates and trees engulfed in bluish hellfire as it lit up the dark sky of the night. 

“You don’t come and disturb me then I don’t kill you.” The demon continued, “Is it so hard to understand?” 

Her eyes finally landed on him before he too, combusted in bluish flames following his three other friends. 

“Argh!” He knew only screaming in pain was useless but it hurt too much, there really was nothing he could do. 

Next thing he knew, his head was coming off disconnected from his own body as he died a quick death. 

*****

“Sigh.” 

Seulgi sighed, it had been five years since she became a demon, five years since Irene passed away and five years since she decided to just stay at the forest they escaped to that night. 

She sighed for another time as she looked around her, the bodies of the four demon slayers laid on the ground, void of life.

She was weighing her options to either liberate their souls or just leave them be but since they’re demon slayers, maybe she wouldn’t be so kind to their souls. 

She had came to realisation after years of defending herself, that once a person is dead their souls wouldn’t leave their bodies immediately. It would take quite a while before the souls eventually leave and how did she know?

Well, it was because she could see them. She could see the souls of the dead but how? She had questioned herself ever since she started seeing them and of course Irene's was the first. 

*****

After crying until there was no more tears the night Irene passed away, a small ball of fire came out of Irene’s body and floated above it. 

When she had calmed down enough to be aware of her surroundings, Seulgi had saw it and tried to interact with it but to no avail, there was no response. None at all. 

The next day, she decided to bury Irene’s body somewhere in the forest and the ball of fire had followed her the whole way. Even after all the walking and burying, it had still followed her. 

It was only when she had encountered a group of humans passing by the forest did she know the ball of fire was supposed to represent the soul of a person. 

After killing the group of humans -her hatred for humans was too strong for her to let even the innocent live- there would be different sizes of fireballs floating above their bodies, much more smaller than Irene’s. 

She wasn’t sure but she theorised that the size of fireball represented how pure the souls were. She didn’t show any interest in their souls however and after a day or two, all the souls completely left their body and disappeared. To where? She didn’t know but it wasn’t like she cared anyways because Irene’s soul didn’t leave her, it was still there after days, following her around. 

And it was only when she accidentally set a soul on fire, her purplish flames of Purgatorio to be exact did she realised what she could do. The purplish fire that burnt the fireball had helped the soul burned brighter and grew larger in size. 

She immediately came to the conclusion that what she had done was purifying the soul so needless to say she started to purify Irene’s soul. 

When Irene’s soul had grown into a fireball larger than her own head, it left her without warning and there was nothing Seulgi could do except for crying again. All she could do was hope that Irene’s soul was going somewhere nice. 

After the incident, Seulgi would usually choose to help purify the pure souls of the dead no matter ones she was responsible for or the ones that she had found by accident. She didn’t know where her powers of seeing the souls came from, mayhaps because she was a demon or was it because of the flames of Purgatorio? Well, it wasn’t like she cared.

So there she was, standing in the middle of four dead bodies wondering if she should help their poor souls. One of them -the archer she supposed since there was a bow laid beside his body- had quite a pure soul as the size of the fireball was rather large. 

She gave it a good look for a minute before deciding against it and left the bodies to burn off into ashes by her bluish flames. If Seulgi had learned to help the souls of the dead then she had also learnt how to immediately make the souls leave their bodies and it was to burn their dead bodies thoroughly with the bluish hellfire. 

‘They’re demon slayers, they don’t deserve mercy.’ 

And it was not long later when the seven Knights of the Church of Seven Virtues -including Taeyeon- came knocking. 

“Kang Seulgi, you have taken the lives too many.” She heard Yunho said as they all surrounded her. 

“You’ve taken Irene’s life.” Was Seulgi’s response as her scythe came knocking them from the back. 

Her four wings sprouted out and spread wide to give herself cover as she conjured a large fireball before releasing it to hit them, setting the forest on fire once again. 

When Jinki and Boa had jumped out from the fire to attack her, the scythe had already reached her hand as she parried their attacks. She eventually managed to knock the both of them away before dodging Jeongsu's arrows. 

“I’m going to kill every single one of you.” She said as the scythe on her