*ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRR! *

Green hat and I stop our fight.

My ears are ringing, my arm hurts like hell, and I feel like vomiting…

The other guy is very clearly shaken too.

I don’t know where the roar came from, but I immediately see that some people started fleeing, one person, a man with an orange suit, tried to fly away, but he was shot down by a laser, leaving a massive hole in his body!

How scary!

You need at least 4 patterns in order to fly like that!

And he was killed like it was nothing!

What do I do?!

What can I do?!

…

“It got past the barrier!” I hear someone yelling.

After a moment I see the thing that made the roar, it’s an amalgamation of dozens of eyes, countless sharp bones, and many human arms, all held together by a metallic looking liquid that has taken a massive pig-like shape that is as tall as the auction building, though the bones also make it look like a porcupine.

The pressure this… Monster?

The pressure it releases is so strong, that I can see that the building has started to show some cracks, and my whole body feels a pain similar to that when I broke my arm, and that arm is also feeling an unbearable pain.

It takes my all to keep standing.

*ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRR! *

It roars again, as if announcing itself.

My whole being is shaken by this roar, until I don’t hear anything.

Pure silence.

Such strength…

I see a few people passing out, including Green hat.

However, he makes no sound when he hits the ground.

I…

I touch my ear… and I feel something wet…

I look at my fingers…

Red.

They’re stained in something red…

At that moment, Makoto appears, his mouth moves, but doesn’t make any sounds.

He shoots various lighting bolts, heavily injuring the monster!

Many chunks of the metallic slime-like substance are thrown around to every direction every time one of them hits, but more of it grows, and after a long barrage the creature looks like it took no damage.

Even though there’s charred puddles everywhere.

Makoto just shrugs after seeing his attack was ineffective, and moves his mouth again.

A magic circle appears at his feet, and below many other people too, I can see that the half-naked woman is one of them.

However, I don’t have one.

The creature after seeing this, takes a bizarre stance, and in less than a second, lasers come from its many eyes, shooting into the sky, going after most of the people here.

But before they can hit anyone, the people with magic circles bellow them disappear into the air.

They should be everyone that was related to the <Sycamore gang>, right?

The lasers hit a large number of the people here, including Green hat, who’s guts are now everywhere on the floor.

Most of the people who remained here are dead now.

They have to be.

All of them have a hole the size of my forearm somewhere in their body.

At least as far as I can see.

The only ones that are left standing are a redhaired-man man wearing a blindfold, the purple haired woman who bought my knives, and me.

A horrible smell penetrates the area, but this is not the first time I have smelled something like this.

It’s a very similar to when I butchered all those monsters with Luca and Felix.

The creature charges at the man faster than anything I’ve ever seen, only leaving a bloody mist once it moves past the place where the man used to be.

Neither the woman or I can react or even move, it’s already taking my all just to stay on my two feet, but the woman, even if she should be much stronger than me, is also paralyzed, and she probably has a better reason than me.

After all, the eyes of the creature are firmly locked onto her.

She is making a face I have never seen before too, one of absolute despair filled with tears.

The monster doesn’t even move from its place, and instead some of the sharp bones extend themselves to skewer the woman, just to return to their original place with her still stuck in them.

And then the monster turns towards me.

Master, it seems I won’t be able to tell you any interesting stories.

I muster everything I can to look the monster in the eyes closest to its face.

I’ll die standing, anything less would be unbecoming as a young master.

As Octavius Paprika.

…

However, the monster doesn’t kill me.

It laughs at me.

I can’t hear it with my ears, not anymore, but I hear it inside my mind, clearer than anything I’ve heard before.

After a moment, it leaves.

Still laughing.