“I am sorry it had to be this way, but I cannot have you messing everything up everything for me tomorrow.” A man wearing a black mask said in a calm voice.

“Why?” the woman wearing black clothes tried to look at her attacker, her chest was pierced with a sword from behind, arrows were piercing her feet, her hands were shot with needles that were apparently coated in paralyzing poison. This man, he made a trap for her.

Somehow, he knew exactly where her hunting ground was and where she would be, so he timed everything exactly.

She was caught off guard when she triggered a trap, launching arrows and needles at her; there were so many arrows and needle projectiles that she couldn’t dodge all of them. All them were coated in some kind of poison that made her reactions slower, her limbs started to feel numb, she steadily began to lose her sense of touch.

This was a trap, it was obvious. She had to get out there as fast as she could and tend to her wounds.

But before she could even take a few steps, she was stabbed through her back.

“Got you now.” A man’s voice resounded.

As her body fell on the ground, she struggled to move. She was not a human, she was of inhuman blood that could disguise themselves as humans, in a senses she was a monster that feeds on humans. She picked her hunting grounds that would be least likely to be tracked down, a place where none pays attention, but somehow, he knew where she would be.

That was strange; she picked this place as today’s hunting ground only yesterday. How did he know she would be here? How did he plan everything out?

“It took me a while to find out what you are, blood sucker.” He proceeded to stab her body again. She screamed out in pain. “Does it burn? A silver knife really is effective on your kind, isn’t it?” monsters, demi-humans, and demons were all weak to silver. Silver had purifying properties, thus it was deadly to non-humans. But to him, who was only half demon, silver posed no threat. On the other hand, to a monster like her, silver was more than enough to cause her agony. Every spot he stabbed her with a silver knife, a smoke rose out of it, as if the silver was cooking through her flesh.

“Figuring what kind of monster you were was the easy part. But it took me a while to find out that only silver would be effective, I tried wood, metal, bronze, copper, steel, and none of it worked. But look at that, silver…works like a charm.”

“I will kill you!” she screamed.

“You already have, at least twenty times already. However, this time…” he stepped on her head, squashing her paralyzed body into the ground. Now he proceeded to stab into her shoulder. “I will take my time to enjoy this. This place…it’s a good location. No matter how much victim screams, none will come in time, such a great place you have picked for hunting ground. You never thought you would be the one hunted instead, did you?”

He stabbed her again, again, again.

He deliberately avoided her heart. He instead focused on her body. This blood sucker, if given enough time and food, she could regenerate all these injuries, this was why he needed to expose her to silver again and again.

He stabbed once, twice, thrice. Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab…her body looked like it was drilled through by wild rats.

As he kept stabbing her, he found himself laughing. Savage delight filled his entire being, his moment of triumph was near. One obstacle was down, but there were many more to go…but still. He wanted to enjoy the bliss of mutilating his foe.

Miraculously, she was still alive, but barely moving.

“I know that your kind can eat everything in human body, but you focus on heart. There is a reason for that isn’t it?”

She gasped. No way, he couldn’t possibly know!

“Heart contains the essence of a being, all of the individual’s mana and abilities are recorded on it. If one were to eat the heart of someone strong, the one would gain a portion of strong one’s power. By eating a heart you gain much more than eating the other body parts because the heart has the concentrated power of individual. That is why you were targeting knight, they have more powerful hearts. As you eat them, portion of their mana and powers becomes yours, strengthening your heart in turn. I hit the nail on the head, didn’t I?”

She was trembling. Everything he said was exactly right.

“Luckily, I happened to have read about monsters like yourself, but seeing one in person led me to confirm a couple of things. Of course, the rule of eating to gain the other’s power works not only for monsters…it also works for anyone else. Do you get where I am going with this?” he now stabbed the area around her heart.

“I don’t know if this will kill you, in fact I don’t care whether you die or not. But this will keep you incapacitated for long enough. You must have eaten a lot of knights; your heart must be exceptionally strong. Let’s see how strong. He he he he…” He carved her heart out of her chest.

She could see him opening the lower half of his mask, his smiling face as he proceeded to bite her heart, swallowing it piece by piece.

After he was done, he proceeded to douse her body in oil before setting her on fire.

She couldn’t even scream as her body was being cooked through.

“Well, up in flames you go. Thank you for the treat.” He smiled as he wiped off the blood of his mouth. First part of his plan was successful; he eliminated the monster that would jeopardize his actions tomorrow.

It is not very likely she would survive this, monsters sometimes have more than one hearts, but losing even one of them meant critical damage, enough to paralyze a monster for some time.

He didn’t care if she lived or died, as long as she does not get in his way, it was fine. Eating her heart to gain some of her powers was just a bonus.