He took a deep breath, this was supposed to be a moment he had gotten used to, he had been in these exact situations countless times before, and yet he could feel his hands shacking, see his stance waning from one foot to the other. Was his wife’s spell wearing off? He does not think so, after all he was still holding his sword and none of his usual apportions could he spot at the corner of his vision, rather he could only see one thing, the enemy in front of him, just like the times he had fought in the war.

Only two thing matter in this moment, him, and his opponent, everything else simply blurred into the background. He shutters as he remembers how this very thing had been exploited before and he had cut down many friends and foes a like in this state. He shudders again as he remembers the screams of anguish as he sliced through his own allies in pursuit of the enemy. It was a truly good thing the rest of the army never questioned his story about an ambush…

And just like every battle he fought, his drill masters voice bellowed like a bull through his mind, reminding him of the most important things to do and to avoid in a fight: 'Number One: Never ever take your eyes and mind of your opponent ü, if you do, you are as good as dead!'

His eyes shot upwards just in time to see the storm of black magical arrows coming his way, he didn’t think and jumped to the side, avoiding the deadly barrage just in time. Looking up, he barley had a moment to breathe before Hanna was already upon him, in her eyes anger and hatred burning like hellfire and a black mist following her every step.

This was the moment, the Hero of the Kingdom, who brought victory against the deranged and tyrannical Demon Lord, who now sought nothing but peace and quite for himself, his wife and his children, against a twisted mind of evil and hatred that had once been human, twisted beyond recognition, she became a literal walking embodiment of corruption and evil in this world. 

He avoided her first slash, her claws going just over his face, so close he could feel the wind the slash had created against his face. The second slash he parried with his sword, and before a third slash he jumped backwards, creating enough distance for him to compose and take a deep breath, before once again parrying and dodging out of the way, as Hanna immediately went for him once again.

This repeated several more times.

He had fought many opponents before, he even battled with the Demon Lord himself and yet, somehow, this felt more then those fights had. From the way this thing fought he could clearly tell that it had not any kind of technique or skill, it was entirely and nothing but brute strength and animal like hatred, by all accounts he had fought and defeated far stronger opponents then this one and yet, he felt nervous and uneven, like the odds were increasingly stacking up against him.

He had fought for this country in a war, where he had been a fearless warrior and leader, never fleeing from a fight and always ready to take anyone in a fight and in that time he had bested the General of the Demon Lords army, someone who had been considered by many to be one of the strongest fighters in the world, especially after he killed Sir Feralt von Brestfell in a duel.

He, by all accounts should be winning, easily even, and yet it felt like hundred of stones were weighing him down, making him slow and every time he wants to raise his sword to strike at one of the many opportunities and weak points his opponent reveals to him, he cannot, fearing that if he took the strike something terrible will happen.

And so, they were stuck at a stalemate of him constantly dodging and blocking Hanna‘s strikes, while Hanna chased after him with wild swipes and strikes, never once being able to land so much as a scratch, of course, and this only served to enrage her more and more.

Suddenly, she took a step back and took one single, deep breath, her intention was to burn this annoying pest to a crisp, but even that was rendered ineffective as the hero finally stepped forward to slash at her, forcing her to step back and interrupt her breath of fire in the progress.

And with her new idea foiled she went back to her unrelenting assault, but this time with an actual strategy in mind, because she had noticed a distinct taste in the air earlier, the taste of fear and self doubt, a taste she knew all to well and it was something she could exploit.

Because beating the hero in combat was very clearly not working, she needed to gain an advantage somehow and this was the kind of thing she needed exactly. She had already noticed how the hero seemingly struggled heavily internally, his hands shacking and his strikes and movements being over all slower then the two guards she had killed just before attacking him.

She brought her claws down once again, with the hero blocking easily, but this time she didn’t immediately retracting the hands to start another attack, but this time keeping them locked with his sword, giving her the perfect moment to truly look at her opponent, his shacking body, the sweat that was pouring across his face and the nervous ticks of his eyes, constantly looking to the side, and then she began to speak.

"Do you know what I will do once I finally get my hands on those disgusting pieces of filth again? I will peel of their skin with my own to hands before feeding it to their own mother and and forcing them to watch as I pull every single teeth out of her mouth after she is done feasting on her own children’s flesh."

The hero, seemingly not expecting her to talk to him, stumbled backwards in surprise and lost his footing for a moment, but a moment was all she needed for her to quickly raise her tail and stab forward hitting him right in his left eye.

He screamed in pain and fell completely to the floor, holding his hands over his now unusable and bleeding eye as he rolled around withering in agony, a truly pitiful and pathetic sight, and Hanna relished in this moment, soaking up all of his torment and suffering with a satisfied smirk on her face and a madness in her eye.

This was the man from whom she had to flee and hide in fear the first time she had laid eyes upon him that night in the village. A truly regal and powerful looking man, but now he was reduced to a pile of pain and agony rolling around in the mud and dirt of the earth, the humiliation felt absolutely intoxicating to her in this very moment, the last time she had felt this incredible was when she had taken her very first life, in that old abandoned library.

That day was the day she had fully given up her old identity and today was the day she completely and utterly broke the shackles of those who tried to control her and she completely embraced her new identity as the monster she now was, there was nothing there to compel her or control her, all there was now, were her very own desires, and right now she truly desired to humiliate this oh so great hero even further.

She grabbed the screaming man by his hair and forcefully pulled him up to her eye level, staring at him with a mad grin and hunger in her eyes, hunger for more pain and suffering, a hunger that would never be satiated, until the entire world went up in flames and every living being was wallowing in agony and terror.

She dragged him close to her mouth and once finally close enough, dragged her tongue across his face, the taste of terror might not have been an physical one, but in that moment the difference wasn’t noticed by Hanna in the slightest. Hanna leaned in, right next to his ear and gave that some licks as well, making sure to cause as much discomfort as possible by entering his ear as deep as possible, though she sadly had to realise her tongue wasn’t long enough to cause significant damage, the fact still was she could feel him shudder in discomfort that much more intensely as she entered his ear.

But it wasn’t enough, she needed more, so much more, physically hurting him simply wasn’t enough.

She retracted her tongue, got even closer to his ear, and began to whisper.

"Tell me mister great hero… how does it feel to die in agonising pain, as my poison starts to flow through your veins? Does it hurt? Please do tell me that it hurts, I need to know, I simply cannot tell just by looking at you~."

There was no response, or at least none made with words, as he opened his mouth, possibly to retort, only bloody coughs were coming out his mouth, the drop of blood landing on the body of the monster in front of him, who could only laugh in response to his plight.

"Now that’s not very nice, you shouldn’t cough this close to a lady’s body without covering your mouth first, do you have no manners? You could accidentally make me sick you know~."

Suddenly, Hanna was hit with a great force in the stomach, knocking the air out of her and sending her tumbling backwards, holding her stomach in pain and she fell onto one knee in the process, meanwhile the hero was also kneeling, but with an satisfied smirk on his lips.

Hanna released a sneer in anger.

"How the fuck do you have that much strength left, most people have been barely conscious at this point…"

But just as quickly as the smirk had appeared on the hero’s face did it disappear, as his hand and legs both began to shack uncontrollably and he had to fall down onto all fours, one of his hands holding onto his sword stuck in the mud, his only support preventing him from fully collapsing into the dirt. Hanna meanwhile was standing on her legs once again.

"Doesn’t really matter though, soon enough my poison will have spread enough through your body and then there’s nothing you can do but struggle and wither in pain, begging for death to finally release you… and more importantly…"

The hero grasped at his sword to his side hard enough for his knuckles to turn white, even through all the pain he was in, he refused to let go of his weapon, until Hanna forced him to, by stomping on his hand, he shrieked in pain and finally released the weapon, and it fell to the floor with a single, almost unable to be heard thud into the mud, followed by his own upper body meeting the same fate.

"You will now die and suffer knowing you were unable to stop me–" she placed her foot atop his head and forced him to look up at her, right into her uncaring crimson yes as they glowed with a sinister dark flame. "–and once I get my hands on them, I will rip them to pieces one after the other, force them to eat each other's flesh until the know nothing but the taste of their own skin and blood and each and every time I will be be right there to tell them that YOU are the reason they have to suffer, because YOU failed to protect them. Doesn’t that just sound absolutely delightful?"

The hero was heaving heavily, and every word he spoke was followed by a cough of blood, yet he spoke through the pain, a promise and a declaration.

"You… will… not… hur-hurt… my fam-family… you accursed… monster…"

For a moment, they both stared into each other’s eyes, locked in an unseen battle of wills, but not for long as Hanna soon broke the silence with a low, almost manic chuckle.

"You know, I should really be used to it by now, but whenever someone calls me that, a monster, I can’t help but remember my life before I had awoken in this world, and every time I do, it seems more and more distant, more and more like this past is becoming more and more disconnected for me. But if that is the price to pay to experience the pleasure of agony and torment, the beautiful scent of hopelessness and the deliciousness of fear, I am willing to pay my humanity a thousand times over to experience it again!"

She picks up the helpless hero by his hair, so he was eye to eye with him, and as he looked into those crimson eyes, all he saw was hunger, cruelty and what he could only describe as insanity, and sadism very clearly wasn’t enough to explain whatever this is, this was something more, and he was afraid.

"Thank you for that little bit of information there little hero, I didn’t know these were your family, it’s going to make what I‘m about to do, that much more delicious, as I tell them of their own father’s demise and failure."

And with that, she tossed the hero to the side, and as he landed in the dirt and mud of the earth once again, he could do nothing, as the monster was now on its way, to kill his family. He turned his head and saw his blade, now uselessly lying in the dirt, just in arms reach. He reached out and barley managed to grasp the tip of its blade, its sharp edges cut straight through his skin, but he grids his teeth and nudged it further and further towards himself, cutting up his hand more and more, his blood soon covering it completely, but he fought through the pain and eventually managed to grasp it fully.

Using it as leverage, he managed to heave himself into a kneeling position, he took multiple deep breaths to prepare himself for what he was about to do. This wasn’t his first time dealing with being poisoned, it was a common tactic, especially used by the many archers in the battlefield, it had been inevitable that he would take a few poisoned arrows, and he eventually built up some sort of resistance to the deadly toxins used by the demon armies, but this was something far more deadly, of that he was certain.

He knew this would probably be the only way to stop the poison from spreading any further, so he wasted no more time and raised his sword once again, blade perfectly aimed to make it as quickly as possible.

—————————————————————————————

In the distance, a worried wife held closely onto her children, while a man was continuously casting spell after spell, enveloping the children in lights of gold and green over and over again, they were supposed to help the deathly wounded children, but with every spell they tried nothing seemed to change. Their wounds stopped bleeding long ago, after the very first spell even, and yet they remained unresponsive, the mother could still hear their hearts beating, they knew they were alive, but that was all.

The mother was on the verge of tears, even the strongest healing in the land was unable to truly heal her children, while the man grew increasingly frustrated and exasperated.

"Can we finally leave this place, they have stabilized and we need to get out of here now!"

The woman answered, her voice hoarse from crying, yet it still held a form of authority only matched by the royal family themselves.

"I will not abandon another member of my family! Never again! Never again…"

"It doesn’t matter, if we don’t get away the only thing that will happen is your husband’s sacrifice would have been in vain! Are you seriously suggesting that is what the Hero, your husband would have wanted?!"

"And what exactly makes you so sure he would die?! You are the one who was constantly spouting how he is the only hope for this kingdom during the war, it was you who convinced the kind to send him to fight in said war against my father, who controlled the most powerful army on the continent, and NOW you are doubting his ability to fight a single monster?! Just because it killed your own bodyguards?"

She stood up, anger in her eyes.

"No, this isn’t something new is it. You have always been that way haven’t you? Your just a coward, hiding behind others and running as far away as possible once faced with perceived danger! You-…"

She was interrupted by the man’s own outburst of frustration and anger.

"THAT THING IS NOT A NORMAL MONSTER!! It’s the thing responsible for the destruction of an entire noble house! Or have you forgotten already, how one of the most powerful nobles in this kingdom had been slaughtered?! How just a few days prior the entire garrison of one of the most secure prisons in the kingdom was slaughtered as well, including every single inmate?! This thing up there, now fighting your husband is the very reason for these tragedies! The princess gauged out her own two eyes in a ritual to become an oracle to prevent similar tragedies from occurring and to keep an eye on this thing. Until it suddenly disappeared. It escaped the vision of the divine."

This revelation gave her pause, but it did not quell her anger, if anything, it made it worse.

"Are you saying… this creature is powerful enough to escape your gods powers and you knew? And yet you still let my husband fight it without telling him!??"

Unfazed by the animosity displayed against him, he simply continued, frustration and anger still clearly evident in his voice.

"No!! I didn’t do anything, he practically threw himself at it before I even managed to get a word in, are you seriously this fucking dense?! Furthermore, I actually spoke to the princess and she told me what she saw, because only a few days ago, the princess called for me, because of what she had seen, guided by Goddess Fintuel.

A field near a desecrated village filled with corpses, the Hero limping through it, his sword broken into pieces by his side and behind him, a statue made of stone, depicting a creature in its final moments and around the statue a storm of pure blackness. And the description she gave me of the creature matches perfectly with how this creature we are currently facing.

She eyed him with suspicion, before stepping close and pointing an accusing finger at his chest, their eyes firmly locked in a battle of frustrations.

"Aren’t you an elf, the High Priest, since when do you accept divine intervention by a Goddess you claim to be nothing but a heretic symbol of ancient times?"

A frustrated sigh leaves his lips, his eyes narrowing even further, he clearly was about to reach his mental limit.

"And you are a demon, yet you still got blessed by Goddess Tarin all the same, you even used it as a reason to legitimize your marriage to your husband to the royal family. And it’s also the only reason I refrained from capturing you, but that’s beside the fucking point, the point is real divine intervention was at play, whose it was doesn’t matter, you now as well as I do the only reason these claims of heresy happen is because it lets the church push to gain control over politics, something I certainly do-…"

His sentence was cut short, as horror quickly overcame his face, as he suddenly felt something sharp and cold press against his neck.

"You know, at least he is honest about it, back where I am from it took thousands of years before people actually recognised that fact about the church. Even before I arrived here people still fought each other over whose religion is supposedly the correct one. Now if you would ask me.."

There was a sound of flesh tearing and bones breaking, followed by a scream of pain and anguish and blood splattering to the ground. The woman was quickly overcome with both surprise and shock, followed by absolute horror as the High Priest fell down to his knees and his head slumped forward, revealing Hanna standing behind him, one of her claws deep inside his neck, the other holding onto the man’s arm, preventing the man from completely falling over.

She slowly planted one of her feet onto the the kneeling man’s back, while simultaneously moving the arm she was holding towards her direction, and before anyone else could truly comprehend what was going to happen, Hanna pulled and with a last terrible scream of pain and torment from the High Priest Hanna ripped off the man’s arm and pushed her foot through the man’s back and into his rib cage.

With blood covering almost every part of her body, Hanna now focused her crimson eyes onto the woman before her, unconsciously licking her lips at the sheer horror and fear she could both taste and smell in the surrounding air, this was her moment, and she was going to enjoy every second of it.

"I certainly never really cared for religion, or any gods for that matter, I think none of them would truly appreciate me for what I am.“