Lord Joyde: Hello, everyone! How are you all doing on this fine day?

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I must say, starting to write on SH was most definitely the right choice.

This site is far more writer friendly than any I've been to before.

Anyways, here comes the next chapter of The Lord Of Horrors! You'll love it, I know you will.

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A few minutes later... - Hunting Zone #42 - Lucius' Point Of View....

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"All that rage... all that hate, all of that inexorable fury... and somehow, you still let her go." Lu's menacing laughter ran throughout my skull, reverberating like the beating of a particularly insane drummer."And if I didn't, that would mean the end of this particular chapter of my life and possibly the rest of it as well."

His laughter did not stop as I prepared to venture deeper into the forest contained within my hunting zone."Aaah, but if you followed my will and made her kill herself here... I would have been more than happy to get rid of the evidence for you."

"And? Even if you ate her body or hell, even the entire fucking car, people would still come to suspect me for her disappearance as I was the last person she went to pick up. The taxi company has a rule that makes their employees tag their last customer before leaving HQ." A tiny little tidbit of information I learned during my long experience of using their services. They're the only taxi company willing to work with hunters.

Apparently, not everyone is fine with the idea of driving around animal corpses. Who could've guessed! Then again, most hunters have their own vehicles.

... I hate driving."Oh? And what good would that do for their case? They have no evidence-"

Letting out a deep sigh, I interrupted the god of death."Look Lu, one thing you're going to learn about us humans is that we generally don't need evidence to believe that something is real. We have the rather dangerous power of self-delusion, meaning we can lie to ourselves so hard that we forget that it was a lie in the first place. Meaning, if too much *lack of evidence* is somehow attributed to me, someone out there is going to put on their best vigilante skin suit and murder me in my sleep."

"So.. humans do not require actual proof to.. Hmm. Interesting. Very well, I concede to your wisdom, this time." This made me feel ridiculously prideful for some reason."Lu, please stop influencing my emotions, thank you."

The god of death seemed to blink several times as the image of a gigantic black eye manifested in my mind."I.. will do my best but only if you tell me how you managed to find out that I'm doing it so soon."

"Look, in case you haven't noticed, I'm a criminal sociopath. I don't do feelings, especially not pride of all things." Lu appeared to want to ask me something after hearing that, yet no question was heard.

Silence followed and I found myself already somewhat deep within the forest. A veritable tempest was brewing above the many kelp-like trees around us. Most flora and fauna here bore a striking resemblance to their counterparts back on earth, yet the trees here sparked very heated discussion between the SOM's leading biologists.

Why? Because the trees here had almost the same structure as that of the Earth, with the only visible difference being that their bark was colored green, much like everything else on this planet. Hell, there are reports that some newborns have green skin too, so whatever is causing it is affecting humans as well.

The earth on Eredea was rich. Implausibly rich, that is. To quote a particularly famous geologist from the time that the world was originally discovered, its like an army died on every inch of ground. To say that the earth was abundant in nutrients and bacteria which made farming particularly fruitful was an understatement. However, the lack of what the government calls *worthy ground*, has somewhat kept the farming industry in check.

You see, while Eredea is at least one point five times the size of the Earth, it has basically only fifty percent of actually available landmass when compared to the aforementioned birthplace of Humanity. Most of this oceanic world is covered in thick, poisonous marshes and swampland. Draining said swampland takes time, effort and money. Money which our government would prefer to spend elsewhere as its not like the people of the SOM go hungry at night, despite the general moral of collectivism which seems to permeate its ruling class.

A sudden beep from my phone woke me from my musings. Taking the device into my hand showed a message had arrived, warning me of my hunting license's impending expiration date. Ah, I don't mean as in a license which proves that I'm a hunter, though we have those too, I mean my license for hunting in this particular span of fifty by fifty kilometer land designated as the Hunting Zone #42. You see, in order to actually spend your time murdering the Lord's little creatures, you have to buy a permit from the lands owner aka, the government.

And only a select amount of hunters, that is to say anywhere from twelve to twenty can use a single HZ at any given time. Last time I checked, 42 has only three or four hunters prowling around, that's counting yours truly. This is not because its new, rather because its a fairly dangerous area.

The deeper into the forests, the wild lands of the world that you go, the better your chances of stumbling onto something undiscovered previously, something that can potentially brutally murder you. And 42 was veeeeeery far away from civilization. Thankfully, the taxi service has fast, flying cars.

Anyways, I quickly sent another payment to the government which served to immediately grant me another months worth of hunting time here. The app made sure to ask me for confirmation seven times and I even had to provide a fingerprint to steal the deal. Sure, I still had a couple days to do this, but if this stupid app decides to go BUZZING right as I was landing a good shot on a ripstag, then the animal would get spooked and BUZZ away.

... yes, I hate my government.

Not enough to rebel against them, all in all I think they're doing a good job after all, but just enough to not really want to be on their side of the eventual conflict. I prefer my abhorrent, monstrous, despicable neutrality~.

"Despicable neutrality?" Lu's voice echoed with even greater amusement than ever before."Ye-hup. Neutrality is despicable and I love it!"

Since my answer seemed to leave no room for vocal argument, Lu just let out another merry laugh."Y'know Lu, for a god of death, you sure seem to laugh a lot."

"I'll be taking that as a compliment, for your sake." Ah.

Sorry.

Gotta stay super edgy and all that.

Keep up the appearances of being a genocidal mass murderer. Gotcha bro, don't worry.

Your secrets safe with me!

"Fuck you." He replied quite rudely, yet I could tell that his amusement was back on track. That did not stop me from just barely dodging this random tree which suddenly decided to crash in front of me. As I dusted myself and rose of off the blackened soil which permeated the general area, I chuckled to myself as I noticed the word *TIMBEEEEER* etched into the green trunk by a black, smoky tendril of pure darkness.

Then I realized that I didn't hear the tree cracking. I somehow dodged that.. On instinct alone."You can manipulate sound." I astutely observed.

Lu seemed to do much the same."And you are adapting to your new powers far quicker than I thought you'd be."

"What? Does it usually take longer for people to adapt to eldritch power or something?" Lu let out a snort."Usually, *people*, do not have eldritch powers. It is forbidden to give them any."

Ah.

So its like that.

The good ole trope of ancient monster gives power to a human even if its forbidden by monster law."So why'd you do it?"

"I told you. I'm bored and you are, for the moment, very interesting." I waved my hand in negative towards apparently nobody."Let me rephrase that, aren't you afraid of potential repercussions from your.. friends? Colleagues? Ah, the other dark gods of absolute evil?"

"... I find it amazing how you can make a group of individuals with the potential to end reality itself sound so childish. To answer your question though, no I am not. Why? Because I am strong. What are they going to do to stop me from doing what I want?" Now it was my turn to laugh."Gang up on you like a bunch of screeching, flesh-hungry fish and kill you before you break their oh-so-important traditions and values of immense evil?"

Lu stayed silent.

"Wait. You mean to tell me that you didn't thin-" A low grumble echoed throughout my head and a voice replied that was not my own."WE SHALL NOT SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN."

Once the headache finally passed, I barely managed to mutter out."As you wish. Just please, don't scream like that again. It hurts like hell." Ah, my ears and eyes are bleeding."A normal humans head would have exploded. Be grateful that I ensured yours would not, mortal." Lu switched back to my voice, eliciting a nod from me as an answer as I fell to my knees.

Fuck, its hard to see."A-are you all right?" A new voice entered my ears as I turned my head around."I-I can't see." I replied to the unknown voice and suddenly felt a cool hand on my left cheek."H-hang on, I'll wipe the b-b-blood off!"

A silvery piece of cloth moved across my face with exquisite grace, almost as if the person doing this was taking in all of my features in detail. To be honest, it made me somewhat uncomfortable."T-thanks?" My sight finally cleared, I took a good look at my supposed benefactor.

What I found was a rather adorable little redhead, around one sixty meters tall, with short spiky hair. She wore a jacket, a t-shirt, pants and shoes, all made out of omnithread. Like someone that just got out of school."Uhm, sorry for asking this now but how old are you exactly and what the flying hell are you doing so far away from the city?"

She appeared taken aback for the briefest moment, her yellow eyes turning away and cheeks flushing with crimson. How damnably cute can you be, woman?! She reminds me of one of those overly-curious Pomeranian puppies.

*sniff* Shit. Ugh, oh good god...

She smells like one too."Err, I was just.. taking a casual stroll through the wild lands! And uh- I'm sixteen." Oh.

So she actually is a kid right out of school.

Interesting.

I let out a massive sigh."Okay fine, since you helped me just now I won't ask but kid, this forest is danger-" Almost as if I just invited the devil into my home, I could hear the resounding cracking of leaves somewhere in front of us. And there, in the thick underbrush, was a medium-sized Raker, just waiting to pounce.

Might've been a success for the damn dog-like abomination. If it remembered to stick its giant, bladed scorpion-tail behind the bush instead of wagging it in mid-air. The situation would've been kinda cute if it wasn't incredibly deadly.

The girl seemed to shiver and tense up just as the Raker made its leap. Acting on adrenaline alone, I pushed her to the side and sent my right hand flying forwards, straight into the things venom-ridden mouth."Watch out!" I exclaimed, like some kind of fucking would-be-hero, as my hand tore through the beasts insides and stopped right on top of its heart.

I felt one of its frontal fangs dig into my shoulder right as I squeezed, causing a resounding popping sound to be heard from inside of the thing."W-woah?!" The redhead's eyes were wide in surprise and shock, yet that didn't seem to stop her from quickly clicking something on her own phone.

... fucking teenagers these days...

Wait, phone?

Mine was on the forest floor and I quickly scooped it back up as I removed my coat and took one look at the oozing blood gathering on my shoulder before gritting my teeth."Welp, hope this works!" I bit into my own flesh and tore out a batch of skin before sucking out an entire stream of poisoned blood and spitting it on the ground, unintentionally in front of the girl."W-HA?!"

Before I could apologize, another Raker lunged in my general direction and I found my body moving before I could consciously command it to do so once again. I grabbed the thing in mid-air by its tail, somehow managing not to cut myself on the bladed end and promptly smashed its head twice onto a protrusion of stone.

Another Raker leaped from the shadows and, in my panic, I used the one I still had a hand on as a mace, sending the offending attacker flying some meters away. With a final swing, the second Raker's head imploded once it became unhealthily intimate with a nearby tree, cracking the bark in the process. Tearing my knife out of my grounded coat, I felt a massive weight suddenly push me down as I turned around, backhanding the third Raker straight through its right eye.

This only served to momentarily stun the beast as it began to gather venom into its mouth. The fucking thing wanted to melt my face off, it seems. Rolling to my side and somehow managing to get myself back on my feet, I roared like a wild animal and stabbed the thing in its back, severing its scaled spine.

It roared too, quite loudly, quite painfully, before it finally stopped moving.

It was then I remembered that packs like these usually have a-

... To be perfectly honest, I didn't even feel it at first.

I just took note of the massive paw swiping me to the side like a green tide of flesh and muscle and scale. It was only when my head slammed against another tree that my senses finally caught up to the pain."URGH!"

The poor girl from before was lying in a pool of her own piss, her bluish clothing doing very little to absolutely nothing to preserve her dignity as the Raker matriarch started to move towards her, the damned thing probably figuring I was dead.

And by all accounts, I should be.

However, I was not.

In fact, the pain which temporarily paralyzed me seemed to awaken something inside of me. A little something called the thrill of the hunt. Possibly, I was also really high on adrenaline, maybe my brain set off my limiters or something. What was that called again? Panic Strength? The stuff that lets people carry cars around like nothing when in a pinch.

Anyways, I rose up from the ground, head still bleeding and took the plasma rifle off of my back. Without wasting a second, I fired the first shot.

Miss. It barely singed the fur of the beast but it sure got the things attention.

Second shot. I blasted off an ear, causing it to twist itself in pain.

Third shot. Another miss as the matriarch finally turned around completely, seeming intent on charging and mowing me down.

I should be scared.

I should be terrified.

But eternity seemed to switch with seconds as the world around me slowly became colorless until the only things visible were me and the Raker matriarch. Her massive paws tore through the soil, not gaining much momentum due to the watery ground. It was raining heavily the last few days.

Kind of why I didn't go out to hunt, as hunting during times like these is an incredibly bad idea. It may have worked in my favor right now, but if I was actually running away from the thing, that'd be another story entirely.

The fourth shot was fired, this time finally landing and ripping apart the things left cheek. Not that this did much of anything to the creature other than make it howl in pain.

Fifth shot. A glancing hit on its right eye. No penetration but it was unlikely that she would ever see anything with that eye ever again.

The beast stumbled on its own front legs, falling to its side as the wet ground carried it forwards.

Finally breaking out of my sniper trance, I leaped to the side just in time to dodge the scaled, meaty projectile of several hundred kilograms which slammed into the tree and shattered its trunk. The wood fell onto the creature, trapping it beneath its weight. The Raker howled in pain, its backside crushed and spine likely broken from the impact.

I was not far from its head, though.

I willed my legs to move yet my flesh refused to respond, the muscles in them having seemingly imploded from the strain. The things rage roiled within its one remaining eye as its fangs tore into my left leg and I stabbed my rifle through its blinded eye.

Moments before death, the things jaw seemed to loosen and I took this as my only chance to pull the trigger. The plasma exploded outwards, an overcharged load of super-heated air that spilled out from the beasts insides and splashed onto my face. Bits of brain and meat and bone and skin and scale could be seen flying everywhere.

And then...

There was no more color left in the world.

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That's it for this chapter of the Lord Of Horrors! I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it!

Did you see this coming? I certainly hope not~.

As always, I will post this chapter first and then edit out the mistakes later!

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Anyways, read and review! And Good Morning/Day/Night to you all! ADIOS FOR NOW!!!!