Immediately after opening his eyes and returning to the outside world, Raven felt an urgent need to dodge. He could sense an imminent threat to his life. So he did exactly what his instincts told him—he sprang up from his meditative position and leapt onto a tree branch.
Literally not a moment too soon.
A dark hand slashed through the spot where he had just been. Looking up at the hand's owner, Raven was momentarily surprised. The hand belonged to a tall, slender creature. Its skin was ashy grey, with lines of crimson-hot magma running throughout its body.
The creature turned its head to look directly at Raven. Where its eyes should have been were two glowing red pools, leaking lava.
"Gurr!" the creature growled in anger at the sight of its prey escaping unharmed.
"Damn, sometimes I feel like I'm ugly… but when I look at people like you, I feel a lot better about myself, man. Wait, no. That's not right. You're not exactly a human, so I guess I shouldn't call you a person. What do you identify as? Thing? Creature?" Raven quipped, though his inner thoughts told a different story.
'So this is the first fantasy monster I'll be going up against, huh? It's quite different from your regular goblin or orc. But then again, this isn't fantasy, is it? It's the real world.'
The creature seemed to sense Raven's mockery and roared back in response. The moment its mouth opened, a torrent of steaming hot lava fired in his direction.
Thinking fast, Raven leapt from the tree and landed on the ground. The moment his feet touched down, he raised his palm toward the creature and fired a blast of crimson energy.
The energy struck true, taking the thing's head clean off and sending its body crumpling to the ground.
Raven blinked in bewilderment. "That's it? Fight's over?" he asked, confused. "Damn, that's a bit disappointing."
He walked over to the creature's body. Black blood, intertwined with lava, seeped into the forest floor, scorching the ground where it had fallen. Looking around, Raven spotted exactly what he was searching for—something in the creature's chest. A crystal-like object, pulsing faintly with energy.
Coating his hand in energy to protect himself from the heat, he plunged it into the creature's chest and ripped out what he assumed to be the core.
"There we go. Anime knowledge for the win," he said. "I'll keep this around, just in case it comes in useful later. After all, in anime, monster cores are valuable."
Raven was just about to drop the core into his pocket when a realization struck him.
"Wait a second. I'm butt-ass naked. What pockets do I have?"
Thinking fast, Raven called upon the energy that had been with him ever since his arrival. He repeated the same process he used to create his body. He imagined that he was wearing a super comfortable red and black tracksuit. Unlike before, when he was forming his body, his eyes were open this time—so he could actually see the process.
And it was kinda cool, to say the least.
He could literally watch the individual strands of fabric weave together, forming the tracksuit in real time. When it was done—just as he'd imagined—it was super comfortable.
"Damn, that was awesome."
'Okay, you said you had a plan, bitch. What was it?'
Raven mentally addressed the passenger in his soul.
'You will refrain from addressing me with such discriminatory terms.'
Aria's smooth voice rang out with a barely noticeable hint of irritation coloring her usually emotionless tone.
'Oh yeah? What are you gonna do about it? You gonna cry? Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch—'
Suddenly, an intense pain spread throughout Raven's entire body. It felt like his whole essence was being ripped apart.
"Argh! What the fuck?!"
'May I remind you that I do reside in your soul. That means I can do an unspeakable amount of damage to you.'
Aria's tone held a bit of malicious glee as she spoke.
"Fine. I won't call you a bitch anymore… no matter how much of one you actually are," Raven muttered, his body still shuddering from the pain.
'Now what's your plan, Aria?' Raven said her name like it was the most bitter of poisons.
'I'm glad we have an understanding,' Aria's voice now held a trace of satisfaction.
'The first step of my plan is to...'
Raven could no longer hear Aria's voice, for one simple reason.
He was afraid.
Afraid of what was coming.
Four presences—heading this way. And one of them...
They were strong. Too strong. Raven could feel it. If he went up against that person now, he would die.
A couple of seconds later, the four presences appeared in front of him. Three of them were decked out in dark blue armor that glowed in the sunlight. In their hands were weapons of the same color, pulsing with concealed energy. On their chests was a symbol: water being poured onto a fire. Even after most of the flames were extinguished, the smallest spark still remained.
But that wasn't what had Raven frozen in fear.
It was the man in front of them.
Unlike the others, he wasn't wearing any attention-grabbing armor. Actually, his clothes were quite normal—maybe even unremarkable. A simple white T-shirt and green cargo pants.
He had a stocky build that filled out his clothes well, emphasizing thick muscle. His face was framed by slicked-back silver hair, with a single strand hanging loose over his forehead. Violet eyes that seemed to have seen far too much. And on his chest, his shirt was embroidered with the same symbol found on the soldiers' armor.
In his hand was a lit cigar. He took a slow puff, exhaling smoke into the air before asking a single question:
"So, kid… are you a threat to humanity too?"