It watched as Vincent faded into the forest.

Darkness darker than the night then wrapped around its figure as it came off to fade away from existence.

Its words floating in the air.

"Hehe, You shall not survive this. Successor" It said as its creepy laugh reverberated around.

/////

///In Heaven///

The Arch-Angels of heaven stood before an orb.

On the orb was the image of Vincent dashing through the trees.

Normally each Angel would have been doing their own thing.

But they figured that this would be a good time for the Demon to act and carry out whatever evil plan it had.

So they decided to stay on guard and watch the event, In case the Demon did take action.

/// Vincent 3rd Person Pov ///

Vincent headed into the forest, searching for dark beasts along the way with the help of his Ether Sonar technique.

The once impromptu sonar had now been trained to a master level.

It wasn't a hard skill to train and with the help of the detailed written knowledge of the Aemplefort Library, it was quite simple for Vincent to master.

Now his sonar could even pick up the Danger Threat of the Dark Beasts.

He had spread the sonar to cover a distance of 500 meters and was promptly shocked at what It picked up

His sonar had registered 50 Dark Beasts in a 500 meters radius.

'Shit, Why are there so many Dark Beasts'

[This must be the reason why they shifted the Dark Beast Hunt event]

[They want the students to gain experience and at the same time shorten the increasing number of Dark Beasts roaming the area]

[A Win-Win event]

[If there were this many Dark Beasts when you first traveled to Aemplefort. You might not have arrived unscathed]

The System reasoned, Vincent just replied with a grunt of displeasure.

He picked the nearest Dark Beast and approached it.

As he neared it he knew he had to be careful because Ether Sonar had picked up two C-Ranks and a B-Rank nearby.

Hence Vincent made a plan to end it in a strike, As the Dark Beast entered into his range he took action.

Using the tree branch beneath him as a footing, He launched himself into the air towards the Dark Beast at high speeds.

The Dark beasts had felt something coming but before it could even register the thing as dangerous, everything went dark for it.

A clean slice to the neck led its head to fall off onto the ground.

A ding came from the device on Vincent's wrist, The screen had just registered his kill as the number of Dark Beasts killed went up from 0 to 1.

After checking the device, Vincent dashed to the second Dark Beast claiming another kill.

3 Hours Later

3 hours had passed and the registered number of Dark Beasts killed went up from 1 to 19, 11 C-Rank and 8 B-Rank Dark Beasts had been killed.

Vincent decided to take a break.

After he found a safe place to rest, he took out the food he bought from the school's cafeteria and kept it in his storage ring.

[AN: He has a storage ring, In the early chapters his mother gave him one when they met in the dream]

After eating a hearty meal and resting for a few minutes, Vincent woke up and continued the hunt.

This time deciding to head deeper into the forest in hopes of finding a stronger Dark Beast.

As he packed up he sensed two people walking towards his position.

He went on alert as he cleared up and then began to dive deeper through his tree form of moving.

From behind he could hear someone calling him, "Hey Wait!!!"

But he just ignored it and proceeded with on his path

/// Mercenaries 3rd Person Pov ///

"Hey Wait!"

"….."

"Tch How Rude," Mindy said unhappily as Vincent didn't answer the call.

Mindy is a regular C-Rank mercenary.

A mercenary rank is distributed according to the capability of the person.

The ranks go as follows.

E-Rank

D-Rank

C-Rank

B-Rank

A-Rank

And S-Rank

Mindy has been in the mercenary business for 3 years now, Alongside her partner chad.

"In what way is he rude Mindy? He has no obligation to stay." Chad, her partner, said.

Mindy scoffed side to side, "But to ignore a beauty like me, Now we can't steal his kills." She sighed at the end

Mindy and Chad joined in the Dark Beast event with the plan to lure the inexperienced students of Aemplefort with Mindy's charm and steal their kills.

While Mindy was average in power she wasn't so in beauty, Not among the likes of Amelia but not too bad either.

Chad chuckled a bit and replied, "Forget it, It wasn't worth it in the first place."

"Huh Why?" She perked.

"Retrace our path, What did you notice, Mindy."

"Uhm" She recalled for a while before answering back, "Nothing much, except for the dead bodies of those strong Dark Bea-" She didn't finish her words as she realized.

"You don't mean."

"It is possible that he killed them all," Chad replied with all seriousness.

"......"

*Sigh*

"Kids these days, They grow too fast.

"Indeed they do," Chad replied.

//// Vincent 3rd Person Pov ////

Vincent went deeper into the forest, Along the way, something caught his eye on the sonar.

'An A-Rank Dark Beast!.'

Grabbing his attention, He changed courses to that point.

When he got there, surprisingly there was nothing there but his sonar still said something

"My sonar still says it here"

"But it's not around."

[If it's not around then it could only be.]

"Underneath!" Vincent shouted as he realized the location of the Dark Beast

Suddenly the ground caved in, A huge mouth riddled with spiked sharp teeth plunged out of the ground attempting to eat Vincent.

But with Vincent's reflexes, He quickly reacted, he burst out fire from his legs using the force made to propel himself upwards.

This made him evade the deadly attack, But the Dark Beast wasn't letting up.

As Vincent rose higher into the air, so did it.

Until it reached a point that it had to retreat.

Vincent took this opportunity to counterattack.

'[Fireball]'

In the air, He revised his posture to face the Dark Beast and began his attack by launching a mid-sized fireball at it.

Although because of his Fire-Core, it was more of a mini-bomb.

When the fireball hit the Dark Beast, An explosion rumbled through the forest.

Drawing not only the attention of fellow competitors but also that of nearby Dark Beasts.

They were all attracted by the fiery explosion and smoke residue in the sky.

For a cloaked figure watching, It knew that it was almost time to start its plan.

A brutal and devious one that brought a smile to its face.

///// Amelia 3rd Person Pov /////

A Dark Beast let out a fierce cry as it succumbed to the wounds it had sustained.

As the light in its eyes died out, A ding came from the device on the wearer's wrist.

The numbers went up from 9 to 10 as Amelia had just killed her 10th beast.

Before she could continue her hunt, A huge boom resounded, startling her.

She looked up to see the fiery explosion in the sky.

Knowing only one person that could be responsible, Amelia let out a smile as she journeyed deep into the forest, gathering more points along the way

///// Taudar 3rd Person Pov /////

Taudar looked at the fiery explosion in the sky and instinctively knew who was responsible for it.

He grunted in displeasure and walked away, then he had an idea.

One that brought a smile to his face

One that made him change his course

One that will soon turn his smile to grief.

/////