The forest had gone still again, unnaturally so. Even the wind refused to breathe.
Sebastian stood amidst the fading dust of his last kill, wiping a smear of blackened blood off his cheek. The air stank of death and decay. The kind of silence that followed him wherever he went.
Then the ground trembled.
Not a small shake a deep, bone-vibrating quake that made the red leaves above rustle like a warning.
'That,' he thought, tightening his grip on Sacha, 'wasn't an E-rank.'
The next moment, the trees ahead split apart.
A monstrous figure crashed through the clearing towering, broad, and breathing black smoke with every exhale. Its skin was plated with jagged bone, its eyes molten orange, its claws long enough to cleave through stone.
A D-rank.
{Well, look at that,} Bastard purred. {Finally, something that can hit back. Try not to die, yes? I just got used to the new you.}
Sebastian smirked. "Cute."
The beast roared a sound so loud it rattled the air and charged.
