-Vol 4: To The North Pole!-

-That purple light!-

‘This woman is dangerous!’ it was the first thing came to her mind when Vera saw the cloaked woman for the first time. Even while she had her guard up, that woman was able to sneak up on her and attacked her with a flashy skill. And she was none the wiser until the very last moment.

But it was only after she listened to her blabberings that she realized precisely in how dangerous situation she was actually in. Unexpectedly this woman was a high levelled ascended monster that had achieved its humanoid form. As her luck would have it, she belonged to a troublesome race of monsters.

Currently, she would have no issue to admit that she was weak compared to this woman standing before her. But unfortunately, just by acknowledging the fact would not affect the current situation. The fact that she would die didn’t change; in fact, the probability increased from 100 to 200%. It’s just that how fast she dies matters here.

“Hmm! What are you waiting for? Why are you not attacking me? Common attack me with everything you have got and then watch the futility of your effort!! Wallow in despair! That would be the ultimate pleasure for me!” like a depraved woman, she panted disgustingly while muttering these disturbing lines.

Although Vera couldn’t see her face, she was sure that the woman now had a heavy blush on her face. That in itself was quite disturbing. Vera was now officially scared of this lunatic woman.

But after listening to the woman’s encouragement, she needn’t told twice. With a step, she vanished and appeared above woman’s head with her sword, ready strike her neck. But contrary to what one would expect, instead of dodging, the woman leaned towards the incoming blade. But at that time, a red flash occurred on the right side of her face, as the sword flashed past. A flickering form of Vera appeared in front of the cloaked woman with her eyes wide as saucers, at the same time the figure above the cloaked woman’s head dissolved to the background.

“How did you know I was going to strike from here?” Vera asked her with astonishment.

“Girl! Your sword art is astonishing, so is your speed. But I can see your pathway and movements. In short, your speed is useless against me.” the cloaked woman chuckled as she explained Vera like a parent does to their child when they don’t understand something.

“What?” Vera screamed while her body trembled for a second as she stared at the cloaked woman. It was for the first time in her life that Vera lost her composure. After all, she had never encountered such a situation.

But as a veteran hunter, she immediately regained her composure. Her eyes narrowed, and her vision was focussed. In this do or die situation, she needs to calm down. She no longer thought about escaping alive, neither was she thinking about how to kill the woman. She was only thinking about how to not die pathetically like a fly.

She wished to have a valiant death. With her emotions in order, Vera was able to regain her cool-headedness.

“I don’t like your current attitude!” the cloaked woman complained in a very low voice. But Vera could detect a shred of anger in her voice. It made her smile. She finally had a win over her enemy, even if it was just a trivial matter.

“As I thought. You belonged to that wretched race, aren’t you! The Soul-eating Snakes!” Vera declared proudly. She managed to guess the woman’s identity accurately. She was indeed an ascended monster that belonged Soul-eating snakes.

Although they are snakes, they had a few dragon genes in their body, making them one of the most formidable monsters around. The most troublesome thing about this particular group of the monster was that they could play with their opponent's emotions and memories, making them the worst enemy to fight in the battlefield.

Although they were formidable, their number was pitifully low. Moreover, they couldn’t survive in just any climate like humans. They could only strive in places with dense life, like a dense forest or near human settlement.

This species of the monster was innately intelligent so quite a few managed to escape the lure of a dungeon when they appeared. Those escaped monsters later hid in a secluded place with abundant wildlife and continued to thrive.

It was not until fifty years later that humans first discovered these monsters outside of a dungeon.

Several years ago many high levelled hunters were banded together to send this group of monsters into oblivion. It took a month to hunt them and another month to kill them. In the process, out of all the humans gathered, 20% died during the expedition while 30% of the rest had gone insane, then later died due to brain failure.

It was later declared to the world that the Soul-eating Snakes were exterminated, but from the looks of it, one of them had escaped.

“Good job on guessing my identity. But I would prefer if you call me Lyda. And please refrain from touching that topic.” Her words were laced with killing intent. She was clearly affected by Vera’s words. Vera was shocked at how bipolar was this woman.

One moment she would act like a crazed maniac while in the next moment she was all composed like an elegant lady. This confirmed the fact that she was mentally unhinged. Maybe this was the reason why humans decided to massacre that entire race.

Lyda finally moved. She instantly appears near Vera and gave a vicious kick to her abdomen.

“Guhu!!” all the air left her lungs as she was sent flying by the force of that kick. After sliding a few meters that she came to a halt. But she wasn’t given rest as Lyda appeared in front of her again and kicked her face this time.

Vera coughed blood after taking just two strikes from Lyda. But it had also made her surprise. She realized that she had vastly overestimated her opponent. Unexpectedly, her physical attacks were not that strong as she had expected. But it has to be expected as she wasn’t a physical type of fighter like Vera.

She was a summoner. Her skills lied in the art of summoning. Besides that, their race never engaged an enemy head-on. They would usually play around with them until they are emotionally broken.

But from the looks of it, the way Lyda fought was a clear indication that she wasn’t taking Vera seriously and was playing around with her. That in turn, although made Vera very angry, she was also quite thankful for it. Now she was pining everything on the fact that Kenshin was able to escape safely.

She already knew that the facility had an escape route. Someone of Kenshin’s capabilities, finding it wouldn’t be difficult.

While she was thinking all this, Lyda again appeared in front of her with her fist blazing in a yellow colour. It landed heavily on her abdomen, making Vera slide back a few meters before kneeling and cough out another mouthful of blood.

Three strikes, it was her limit. She couldn’t even counterattack and was instead defeated in just three hits. She was ashamed of her weakness. Moreover, her attacker was a summoner, who tends to have a weaker body than average.

Vera’s eyes lost focus for a second as her vision swam. Slowly she fell to the ground face first.

“Weak! So weak! Eating you won't even give me any benefit. Moreover, it might give me a stomach ache! You stupid monkey, come here and trample her to paste.” She backed away and commanded the massive ape that was flailing around in pain due to its eye loss.

Hearing her command, the ape stopped its wailing and came back to where Vera was lying motionlessly. Its remaining eye held incomparable hatred as it glared at her. This was the woman who had taken away its eye.

Raising its right foot, it was ready to stomp her to death. And since its lady had already commanded such, how could it delay it any longer?

‘Am I going to die like this? like an ant squashed under the foot of this ape?’ Vera was regretful, so very regretful at the current situation; she was regretful of her insufficient strength that didn’t even allow her to have the death she desired.

In the end, she was regretful of the fact that she was unable to complete her last mission.

‘If only I can get another chance…’ as she thought of this, she slowly closed her eyes and accepted her fate.

ROAR!!!

But the pain of death never came, on the contrary, the monster roared in pain again. Bewildered, she slowly opened her eyes only to see a purple light streaking around the beast while wounding it at various places. That light was swift and very strong. It was able to make this giant monster retreat in fear.

‘what is that?’ she asked in her heart while silently laying there. she didn’t even have the energy to say something, all she could do was to watch the purple streak fight with the massive ape.