I couldn’t understand anything.

 

One thing after another, new things kept popping up like bugs. From kidnappers to Vera, then a literal monster, and now, at the end of the passageway, with the smoke of his cigarette announcing his presence, a third person had shown up.

 

I couldn’t see well, but my eyes were glued to them. My slow gait came to a stall as I tripped over my own tired feet and fell on the ground.

 

“Haah, to think I’d see a monster from Gaia here...” The man scratched his hair and clicked his tongue. His feet clacked on the ground as he stepped ahead. 

 

A scar passed through his left eye down to his jaw while long black hair messily fell over his back. He looked slim, an average human like any other, but his every step brought about the presence of a warrior.

 

A presence that even that monster couldn’t ignore.

 

Slowly, the slit on the creature sealed shut and its eyes came back, and in the next moment, its body on the other side tore open.

 

“It’s... Dangerous...” I squeezed a word out. My inability to speak normally even surprised me.

 

The man noticed me and widened his eyes, completely ignoring the monster in front.

 

He took in a deep puff of his cigarette and stepped ahead again. The more smoke he let out of his mouth, the blurrier my vision became.

 

“Don’t worry, girl, just watch well.”

 

Strange.

 

That man exuded a mystic feeling, unlike anything I had sensed before. 

 

Even moving made all my muscles scream, but the monster was not looking at me anymore. As if a curse had been lifted off of me, the thought of running away disappeared and I desperately crawled my way back to Vera.

 

As the last of the smoke left his mouth, the battle began.

 

Faster and sharper than ever before, the monster’s tongue came gushing out of its new mouth like water out a dam.

 

The man laughed.

 

In the next moment, the same tongue that had pierced through three humans at once was held tight in the man’s hold.

 

“Wh...at?”

 

“Tsk. It’s only a weak one,” the man said. He flexed his hand and yanked it back. The monster’s many eyes widened as its giant form was dragged through the ground. No, it was lifted into the air as the man twisted his body.

 

The monster growled and squealed.

 

A loud thump rang out.

 

I couldn’t see it well, but there was no mistaking things.

 

A punch. That man had punched the monster.

 

A shockwave spread through the passageway as the monster’s body contracted into itself—

 

— And then it burst. Like a cannonball, the giant monster coursed through the winds and came right for me. 

 

There wasn’t even any time for me to register my fear nor any time for my heart to beat faster before the monster’s body flew to my face, but faster than all of it, that man appeared in front of him.

 

His long black hair fluttered as he casually lifted his hand high.

 

“Watch well, young girl,” he said.

 

A streak of light flashed. Like a blade of pure silver, his hand swerved down, cutting the very air.

 

Another weak thump sounded out.

 

Lying on both the passage walls, the body of the many-eyed monster had been cut perfectly in two halves as it lay limp on the ground.

 

Just that easily, the thing that killed four and almost had us too, died.

 

My muscles loosened, and strength left my body. 

 

My jaw slacked, and in the next moment, my blurry vision turned black.

 

I fell on the ground, right above Vera.

 

.

.

.

 

“Well, well, it seems as if Gaia personally came to give someone a visit...”

 

 

“Hah, rest for now, girl. I’ll be seeing you again pretty soon.”