Between my brutal onslaught and my master's breathtaking display of sorcery, the goblins were disposed of quickly. It was scary how well we complimented each other despite the short nature of our acquaintance.

I battered the skull of the last goblin standing, breaking their face and ending their miserable life. I bathed in the silence for a few moments, taking in the cocktail of sounds around me and listening for anything out of place.

The drawing of bow strings, the rustling of leaves, the snapping of twigs, or breathing that wasn’t our own. Yet there was nothing save for the distant singing of crickets and the babbling of the river; the forest was eerie quiet, and not even the faintest breeze caressed the trees.

‘Loathsome wretches' Master screamed as some goblin guts had become strewn across her perfect uniform.

'Bel, hurry up and clean this.'

Master finally caught on to what was happening: the noisy racket of the goblin ambush had attracted an unwanted visitor. I could smell their putrid stench in the air, and I could taste their decay and rot on my tongue.

I rushed over to Master, forcefully took her hand, and threw her into the carriage.

‘How dare you manhandle your master like that'?

‘Please just shut up and listen, Master. You can punish me to your heart's content later, but right now I need you to listen and do as I say to the letter.'

‘ You know something I don't; tell me everything quickly'

‘You’re not going to reprimand me for my disrespect?"

‘I’ll spank you later; now hurry up and tell me.'

‘I won’t say its name, as that will only bolster its power, but something very old and very dangerous that stalks these woods is approaching us with great haste.'

‘Can’t we just outrun the blasted thing?'

‘Not without abandoning the carriage and our horses, so here’s what’s going to happen.’

‘This creature is formidable, but it’s bound by sacred rules that it must obey; for example, it cannot open a locked door unless it is invited to do so by the person on the other side. It cannot enter buildings, homes or even carriages without an express invitation.'

'Shit, I’m running out of time. Listen, toss me the key, and I’ll lock the door and hold onto it, and no matter what you hear, even if you hear my voice, do not unlock the carriage. Am I clear?"

‘I won’t let you face whatever this beast is alone. You’ve witnessed how formidable my magic is.’

'No, that’s precisely the issue; this creature wants your mana; it was drawn here when you started slinging spells against the goblins. I can handle myself; please just trust me and do as I say, Master.'

Master sank back into the seat of the carriage with an eye roll and a heavy sigh. She nodded and consented to my request, thankfully.

The luscious grass beneath my feet darkened and became brittle as the trees started to splinter and rot, and the beautiful flowers drained of color as they became little more than withered husks.

The stench grew more pungent and foul with each passing moment, and before long, the sound I had been anticipating filled the noiseless void of the forest.

An elongated and shrill cackle, the kind that curdles milk and makes your skin crawl with revulsion.

'Hurry up and show yourself already, you old bitch'

The same ghoulish later encircled me, coming from every direction, an assault on the senses meant to confuse and terrify, but such primitive tactics won’t work on someone like me.

'Dearie, what a foul mouth you have. Do you speak to your mother that way?'

A voice probed from the darkness of the forest; the voice was saccharine and soft, the voice of a kind and doting grandmother. This was yet another ruse, a deception to lure the dull and uninformed.

'I never knew my mother so who's to say'  

A chorus of cawing crows and the hollow snapping of bones filled my ears as the repugnant creature revealed its visage to me at last.

It towered over me with its greasy hair and putrid fangs stained yellow, while its slender body was bones covered in the thinnest layer of rotting flesh. Its gnarled fingers were still wet with blood; we weren’t it’s first hunt of the night, it seems.

This was an Akka-wretched beast that used trickery and deception to insert themselves into the lives of their targets. They're attracted to those with massive reserves of mana; they’ll get them alone, and they’ll torture them by crushing their throats so they can’t speak, and then they’ll slowly drain them of both their mana and their marrow.

The victim slowly diminishes in excruciating agony, but thanks to their nature as creatures of the dark, they cannot enter anyone’s space without express permission.

Which means that the master is in the safest space possible.

‘There’s no fooling you, is there, Missy' The Akka cackled at the laughter once again coming from all around me.

‘You reek of even more blood than me; can you even call yourself  human at this point?'

This wasn’t my first Akka encounter.

Once, when I was still a novice, a destitute woman came to our home. She was bruised, dirty, and distraught. The half-flayed skull of her husband clutched tightly in her shaking hands like some sort of twisted trophy.

She begged my father to send one of his finest men after the Akka slaughtered their village, throwing down a single measly bag of coins.

Ordinarily, Father would have mocked the woman or perhaps slit her throat for offering such a pitiful tribute. But perhaps seeing an opportunity for his precious daughter to prove herself, he agreed to the wailing woman's terms, and before I knew it, I was shipped away to some desolate woods on my first hunt.

Akka's are strong; their speed and their claws can tear you to pieces in a flash. Say less about their unique magical trickery and voracious hunger. Killing them is easy enough; however, you just have to stop their rancid hearts from beating.

‘No offense, but if I have to stare at a woman, I’d much rather it be Master, so can we just get this over with already?' I sighed, working the kink out of my neck.

'Oh, you’re an antsy one,  I’m going to enjoy bleeding you dry.'

'Keep running that ugly mouth of yours and I'll drop dead out of sheer boredom'