"Come to think of it... I really don't have anything, do I?" Seth muttered, walking aimlessly through the city streets, fresh out of the hospital.
"No apartment, no car, no sexy secretary to organize my zero-commitment schedule... Nothing." He sighed, looking at the buildings around him with a lost look. "Not even a damn S-Rank on the association's badge..."
KABOOOM!
The sound of the explosion tore through the air and made the ground shake. Seth instinctively took a step back, his eyes widening as he saw the side of an entire building being swallowed up by fire and debris.
"What the—"
Before he could finish his sentence, a female silhouette appeared in the air, falling through the rubble.
And what a silhouette.
Generous curves, hair blowing in the wind, a body that looked like it had come straight out of a malicious fantasy. The woman was falling like a vision from the heavens... or from a very well-produced adult film.
Seth didn't think — he just opened his arms.
With a soft thud, she fell into his lap. He caught her easily, like someone catching a feather... extremely voluptuous and sinful.
He looked up in disbelief. "It's raining MILFs now?"
"SETH! GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!"
The familiar voice cut through the air like a gust of wind — it was Connie. She was coming from above, desperate.
And then he saw it.
A colossal, grotesque monster was falling in free fall right behind the woman. The sky seemed to bend with the weight of the creature.
Seth's eyes widened. "Shit."
Seth reacted at the last second, turning his body with the woman still in his arms. With a quick push, he rolled to the side — and in the next instant...
BOOOOOOM!
The impact was so violent that nearby parked cars jumped off the ground like plastic toys. The windows of buildings blew out in the blast, and a wave of dust and shrapnel spread like an urban storm.
Seth fell to his knees on the asphalt, shielding the woman with his body as the explosion filled the street.
"That was close," he muttered, his ears still ringing. "If I had stopped to philosophize for another second, I would have been pancake filling."
When the dust settled, he glanced over his shoulder.
In the middle of the newly opened crater in the asphalt, the creature was moving.
It was huge—easily the size of a bus—and its skin was made of segmented rings, glistening with a dark, oily hue. Every movement made a disgusting sound like wet flesh dragging against concrete. It slowly rose, revealing a circular mouth filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth, pulsing as if hungry for everything around it.
"...Are you serious?" Seth stared at the monster, exhausted. "I just wanted to complain about my life in peace..."
The woman in his arms stirred slightly, opening her eyes—red, intense, and not at all human.
She looked at him for a second... and smiled.
"You're stronger than you look," she murmured, before standing up on her own with an almost supernatural lightness, her skintight clothing torn in just the right places—enough to distract any man, even in the middle of the apocalypse.
Seth blinked, confused.
"Okay... who are you?"
She cracked her neck, her gaze now fixed on the colossal worm in front of her.
"We'll talk later. Right now... let's kill this thing."
Seth gave a crooked smile, standing next to her.
"Finally, someone who speaks my language."
Seth turned his face toward the roar, ready to face the grotesque creature still writhing in the middle of the crater. The colossal worm raised half of its body, the segmented rings opening and closing with sickening sounds, like living flesh chewing under its own weight.
But before he could take a step…
WHOOOOOSH!
A pink flash streaked across the sky, followed by a wave of energy that made the air vibrate.
"DAMN WORM!!"
The voice was a feminine thunder, wild and furious. From above, a figure plummeted like a meteor: long hair dancing in the wind, combat boots thumping against the air, and in her hands—a colossal axe, enveloped in a vibrant pink aura, like pure condensed fury.
It was Vixen.
She came down hard on the monster, swinging the axe in a brilliant, brutal arc. When the blade touched the creature's body…
SLAASH!
The sound was dry and deep, like steel cutting through a mountain of flesh. The worm screamed—a guttural, horrific sound that reverberated for blocks. The creature was cut from the middle to the end, dark blood gushing like a geyser.
Seth instinctively raised his arm to shield his face from the spray, still gaping.
"Okay… That was insane."
The dust cleared. Vixen landed on the asphalt with a dull thud, the axe resting on her shoulder as if it weighed nothing. The pink aura still pulsed around her, dancing like a storm about to explode again.
She glanced at Seth out of the corner of her eye.
"Are you just going to watch or are you going to help this time, handsome?"
Seth gave a short laugh, wiping the blood from his face with his sleeve.
"It depends. Are there more of these or just this worm in existential crisis?"
Vixen swung the axe with one hand and pointed down the street—where tremors were beginning to draw closer.
"From the sound of it… there's a whole family coming."
Seth sighed, already flexing his fingers, readying his aura.
"Great. I really love family reunions."
As Seth prepared for his next attack, a figure quickly appeared at his side, almost like a nimble shadow: Connie.
"When were you discharged?" she asked, arching an eyebrow, with a mix of concern and disapproval.
Seth smiled tiredly, wiping the sweat from his forehead. "A few minutes ago."
Seth frowned. "Okay, what's going on here?"
Before Connie could answer, Vixen, still with the pink aura of the axe pulsing around her, appeared gliding in front of her, like a storm in motion.
"There was a portal break," Connie began, speaking quickly, without taking her eyes off the growing threat around her. "We killed the boss, but these guys started appearing out of nowhere. There are at least 30 of them scattered around the city."
Seth narrowed his eyes, already feeling his adrenaline rising.
Suddenly, Vixen approached him at a fast pace, stared into his eyes for a moment and, without warning, placed an intense and firm kiss on his mouth.
"I missed you, love," she murmured, smiling with that mixture of provocation and sincerity.
Before Seth could recover from the shock, Connie approached, closing the distance, and kissed him too, faster and with a touch of defiance.
"Don't let her do this," she whispered against his lips, her tone somewhere between jealousy and amusement.
Seth blinked, stunned between the two, feeling the tension growing, not only from the battle, but from that explosive triangle.
He sighed deeply, with a crooked smile.
"Okay, okay, girls… while you fight for my kiss, let's finish off these worms first?"
They turned around, ready to react — but they didn't need to. The woman Seth had held in his arms seconds before was already standing in front of the monster, with a cold smile and agile movements. In one accurate blow, she delivered a precise attack, and the monstrous worm collapsed, defeated.
She turned to them, crossing her arms, and said in a firm voice:
"You should go to a room."
Seth looked at her better, and only then did he notice the details that had gone unnoticed before: black wings that opened from her back, a little tail with a heart-shaped tip wagging slightly.
"Who is that?" he asked, still surprised, turning to Connie and Vixen.
Connie exchanged a quick glance with Vixen and replied seriously:
"S-Rank Hunter. Succubus."