Date: March 12, 2020 - 4:26 pm

Location: Colombo

The police eventually sent a couple squad cars in order to check on the situation in Madrazo territory. Almost all the monsters had been dealt with by now, with the last few straggling monsters being dealt with by the police. Unsure of just how many there truly were left, though, they communicated the need for reinforcements and even the SWAT team was dispatched and currently on the way. Alejandro met with the police to discuss the situation.

"Were you idiots trying to start some kind of zoo?" one of the officers asked.

"You really think these things are ours?! Did you see how much damage they caused?!"

"Wouldn't be the first time people like you tried to get into some new sort of dangerous business," another officer commented.

"We had absolutely nothing to do with these monsters!" Alejandro insisted. One of the officers was still skeptical, but continued on with his questions.

"So, where did you first encounter these...monsters?"

"In an alley, about two blocks from the Madrazo residence."

"That so? What a coincidence."

"We had nothing to do with the monster attack!"

"Right, so you're saying someone else living in that area brought all these things here?"

"No, they probably all came out of the red portal."

"...Red portal?" The officer paused to wave his hands in front of Alejandro's eyes.

"I'm not drunk!"

"High?"

"No!"

"Diego and the rest of my men saw it, too." They nodded in agreement. That hardly made it more convincing for the officer.

"Right. Did anyone else see this portal?"

"Yes, but they all died to the monsters."

"How convenient. Anyways, who are these other people?"

"There were a lot; there were bodies all through that alley and the neighbouring roads." The officer let out a heavy sigh about all the paperwork he'd have to do.

"If it's just some random people or other low-level thugs, just give me the list of names later. I'll call over a forensics team to investigate later tonight." The officer just could not be bothered to care about any of those people.

"Actually, we suffered quite the terrible loss."

"Oh, really, I'm so sorry to hear that," the officer said without an ounce of sympathy.

"The daughter of our former head and her guards were all tragically killed by the monsters." The officer paused in writing down his notes.

"Sierra Madrazo is dead?" he asked, while looking over the rest of Alejandro's men. They were all expressionless with the exception of Diego who clearly looked distressed.

"Yes, the daughter of my dear cousin was killed by those monsters!" Alejandro lied.

"...Well, shit happens," the officer finally said, as he continued writing his notes. The rest of the officers however were starting to talk amongst themselves. At that moment though, they could faintly hear the sounds of something large coming towards them. One by one, they also stopped to listen. Then, smashing right through a police barricade by one of the roads, the giant bear-like monster came charging through.

"What the fuck is that?!" one of the other officers exclaimed.

"Bring it down!" The officer commanded as he dropped his notepad and pulled out his pistol. All the officers fired at it, but it was as if the thing was made of Kevlar. The bullets impacted its body, but then fell to the ground, flattened. It swiped at the nearest officers in quick succession, flinging their corpses several yards away. Alejandro started to back away as he commanded his men to also shoot at it. They complied, but their bullets were no more effective. The remaining men tried to make their retreat while shooting, but the monster wasn't slowed in the slightest, and continued to mow down more of them, officer and gangster alike.

Then, two SWAT team vans arrived on the scene. They were probably just as surprised by this monster as anyone, but they smoothly exited the vans and prepared to engage. Alejandro and Diego continued to retreat back to their cars while more of the men attempted to hold the monster back. The SWAT team threw tear gas canisters at the monster, which did seem to irritate it. It let out a loud howl, many times more terrifying than its smaller counterparts, and charged at the first SWAT team member. It crushed that person into the ground, and then swiped at a second one. Its red claws easily cut through their body armour, and the corpse fell to the ground in pieces.

Two SWAT team members closed the distance and blasted at the monster with shotguns. One of them managed to land a blast onto its face and this made the monster throw its head back. But, only for a second, as it quickly swiped at them both, killing them instantly. Most of the SWAT team members continued to fire with assault rifles while a couple finally left the vans, each with a grenade launcher. They fired at the giant monster and both of them connected. The explosions took out small chunks of flesh from the giant monster and singed its black fur, but did not deal any critical damage. The remaining SWAT team members continued to provide covering fire to allow time for the grenade launcher members to reload. The monster completely ignored the ones with guns. It dove right at the first person with a grenade launcher and slammed its front paw through his chest. Then, he quickly whipped to the side to take out the other one. The second one barely managed to reload in time and fired at point blank, fully prepared to sacrifice himself in the process. The monster brought one metallic paw right in front of the launcher to take the blast. Unlike the monster's sides, this explosion didn't even dent the metal paw as it then proceeded to slam down on top of the man. The rest of the SWAT team fought to the end, which was only for about ten more seconds.

Alejandro and Diego got into a car with their two remaining guards. They had just finally gotten the engine started when they heard the sound of an explosion over by the SWAT team's location. Alejandro peered over there and saw the giant monster finally take a bit of damage.

"Explosions actually hurt the damn thing. Diego, do we have the stuff in here or was it in another car?"

"Um...." Without waiting for a response, Alejandro turned to the non-driver guard.

"Is there a briefcase under the back seats?!" The guard checked and did find a briefcase. "Good pass it over here." He handed over the briefcase. "And you, what are you waiting for? Get us the fuck out of here?!" The driver silently complied and they started to drive away.

"M- maybe we should do something?" Diego asked.

"Like what? Either the SWAT team has it covered or they don't. And if they don't have it covered, we're gonna need more men!" Alejandro opened up the briefcase, revealing six grenades. "And more of these, too."

"They could help out."

"Yeah, but I'm not going to use them in front of the fucking police, Diego?! This is still one of those things those guys still don't want us to deal in!"

"Where to?" the driver asked as the car was about to reach an intersection at the end of the block.

"Go back to the main residence."

"Not your place, Alejandro?" Diego asked.

"That is my place now!" Alejandro shouted. "It was always my place!" Nobody else in the car said anything as the driver completed the turn. "Also, we have more grenades there,"

"I don't remember Sierra doing that," said Deigo.

"We had an armoury there, me and Pedro. The first grenades we traded in are stored there, right before he died. Just never had the chance to get them back yet because Sierra wouldn't let me in." Repetitive shaking could suddenly be felt. They all looked back and saw nothing. "Speed the fuck up!" Alejandro shouted, already anticipating what was to come. The driver floored it just as the giant monster came onto the road. It whipped its head around to look directly at them and started to chase them down. "Faster!"

"I'm already going as fast as we can," the driver responded. A block later, and the monster was clearly starting to close the distance.

"How is it so fast?!" Alejandro screamed out his rhetorical question. Alejandro took out one of the grenades and pulled out the pin. He threw it at the beast, but the throw was done too quickly as it exploded behind the monster. "Fuck!" He pulled the pin off another grenade and waited a bit longer this time. He threw the grenade behind them and this time it exploded right near one of its hind legs. The beast momentarily lost its balance and smashed into a car parked on the side. "Yes! Take that you fucking monster!" The driver slowed to complete a turn right as the monster led out a tremendous howl. The driver's movements were paralyzed for less than a second, but it was enough to prevent him from completing a clean turn,causing him to drive over the curb and almost hit a store front.

"S- sorry, sir! My hands froze up!" Alejandro slammed his hand on the dashboard.

"Just fucking keep going!" The monster had recovered and renewed its chase. Alejandro pulled the pin off a third and fourth grenade. He threw them out after waiting a tinier bit longer than last time, and this time instead of rolling it onto the ground, he brought his upper body out the window to throw it at the monster, aiming for its front. He chucked them at the monster, and smiled, expecting to see at least one of them blow up square in its face. Suddenly, the monster paused its run and swiped at the grenades with its front paws. One of the grenades blew up against one paw while the other one blew up a bit later as it was smacked into the ground to the side. Alejandor stared at the monster, mouth agape. The monster seemed to smile.

"Holy shit!" the guard in the back exclaimed, finally expressing some emotion. The car gained some distance, but the monster quickly resumed the chase, and a block later, it was less than thirty feet away. Alejandro fumbled around with the last two grenades but didn't pull the pin, sweat rolling down his forehead.

"Sh- shoot at it! Do something!" Alejandro commanded. The guard in the back picked up his assault rifle and fired at it but to no avail.

"We are coming up on the Madrazo residence soon. What should I do?" the driver asked.

"What kind of question is that?! Just keep driving and try to lose this thing!" They were coming up near the gates when the monster's claw slashed through the trunk of the car. It sliced right through the metal and into one of the back tires as well. The car violently lurched from the impact and the car smashed right into the front gates. The airbags deployed, but the driver was still knocked out from the impact. The back guard was still shooting at the monster at the time of the crash and his body was badly battered as he was flung up and down with his torso through the open window. He weakly tried to recover, his face and hands on the road, and legs still lying against the open window and on the back seat. The last thing he saw was the monster smashing its paw onto his head. Diego and Alejandro escaped out of the car, both disoriented. Alejandro had also brought out the two grenades with him. The monster, exuding all the aura of an apex predator, casually smashed its paw through the driver's seat while staring at the two men fleeing from the vehicle. The giant monster moved towards them and Diego stumbled, falling to the ground. Blood trickled down the side of his head as he desperately tried to get back up, but his muscles just couldn't muster the strength and coordination.

"A - ah...please, stay back!" he pleaded towards the monster. The monster gave Diego a quick, bored look before focusing its gaze at Alejandro, who had continued to run away, still clutching at his grenades. "A -Alejandro, help!" Diego called out to him. Alejandro pulled off the pin from one of the grenades as he continued to run away. The monster cautiously moved towards Alejandro. Alejandro grinded his teeth as he silently counted in his head. He threw the grenade and the monster batted it away. Honestly speaking, the timing and aim was pretty good. If the monster had just stood there, it would have exploded right near its head.

"F- fu- You goddamn- h- how dare you?!" Alejandro sputtered out his incoherent insults. The monster moved in closer but did not attack, as if inviting Alejandro to try his little game for the last time. Then, it suddenly stopped, and tilted his head ever so slightly, as if looking past Alejandro. Alejandro didn't notice as he continued to try to retreat while keeping his eyes on the monster. When he finally looked around, he found himself almost running into a half-naked woman standing on the road.

"Ah, lucky me. To think I'd find all my targets first thing after waking up," Sierra said with a wicked smile.

"Huh? W- what?!" Alejandro looked as if he had just seen a ghost. She was covered in blood and burns, but strangely enough, the wounds looked to be mostly healed aside from scarring, and she certainly was not bleeding at the moment. Sierra suddenly grabbed Alejandro by the throat. She was using much less than her full strength, but Alejandro dropped his last grenade as he grabbed at her hand, trying to free himself so he could breathe.

"No...that would be too easy," Sierra said as she let him go.

"S- Sierra! Y- you!"

"Yeah?" The monster growled. Alejandro whipped back around, and the gravity of the situation seemed to completely incapacitate his ability to speak.

"U - uh..." he barely let out.

"S- Sierra, help!" Diego shamelessly begged, still on the ground. Sierra smiled as she looked around before picking up the grenade.

"Oh...I'll help," she said. Alejandro looked at her with confusion. Suddenly, Sierra kicked him in the kneecap, crushing it. He let out a miserable howl of pain. She then repeated her act on the other kneecap. The howling continued. The monster narrowed its eyes and glared at her, as if angered by her interfering with its prey.

"H- how is this helping?!" Diego cried out.

"I'm helping myself to my revenge!" Sierra replied joyfully as she started approaching the giant monster. It growled at her. "You think I'm not good enough for you?" she asked it. Diego was stunned by this development. Sierra had always loved getting into fights, but how could she be acting like this in front of that beast? It was a hypocritical thought as he had asked for her help in the first place. The monster looked at the grenade in Sierra's hand as it too began to close the distance between them. Sierra put the grenade in the one remaining pocket of her tattered vest as they continued to approach each other, both of them full of confidence in their inevitable victory.

Finally, the instant Sierra came in striking distance, it swiped at her. It was a fast blow that had already instantly killed so many others before they could react, but Sierra simply evaded it with the help of her Evasion skill. The monster was a little surprised, but quickly swiped again with the other paw. She easily dodged this as well and countered with a punch to the side of its front leg. The blow seemed to deal no damage and the monster proceeded to try to slam its body into her. She narrowly avoided it and then closed in to punch it square in the face. Its head trembled ever so slightly before it proceeded to then try and bite her. She avoided the bite but remained in range of its paw swipes. She evaded the paw swipes and then suddenly dashed forward, striking it in the face again. Its head got knocked back slightly, but then it quickly snapped its jaws at her again. She rolled under the monster and came out from its side. The monster turned around while trying to bat her away with its front leg and she dodged under it again, striking it under the chin. His head flew back a bit from the impact, but yet again, it quickly recovered. Sierra evaded all the way back to a safe distance.

Sierra wore a slightly irked expression. She dealt some heavy hits to its head, but it barely looked hurt at all. Using her Evasion skill, she could continue to dodge it, but there was a limit to how long she could maintain it. She could clearly outmanoeuvre it, but the difference in strength was massive. She had two different ideas on how to get around this. And no, neither of them involved simply running away and letting more police or even soldiers to come in to deal with the situation. If there was a chance to win by risking her life, she'd rather do that.

Her first idea was using the Power Strike skill. She could use up mana in order to deal a much more powerful blow. However, her Evasion skill also used mana so if she used up all her mana for one blow and still failed to kill it or if she missed, she would no longer be fast enough to dodge its attacks. The second idea was a variation of the first idea, and had a lot more risks, but if it were carried out successfully, would be more likely to finish it off.

The more time she wasted on thinking, the lower the chance of success so she made her choice and pulled out the grenade. She pulled the pin and dashed towards the giant monster. The giant monster seemed to be surprised by this action, but it held its ground and attacked normally when Sierra entered its range again. Sierra dodged forward and punched it in the face with her free hand. After slightly recoiling, it repeated its bite attack. Sierra just barely avoided its jaws and punched it in the side of the face. Its jaws opened up a bit more from the impact and Sierra quickly tossed the grenade into its mouth. The monster instantly realized what was happening as the grenade entered its mouth and it did two things. First, it prepared to open its mouth again to let the grenade drop back out, and second, it swung one of its paws in front of it, in order to prevent the explosion from hitting its face.

Sierra expected this so she used a small amount of her mana in order to deal a quick Power Strike under its chin. The added strength ensured that the impact would keep its mouth shut long enough. However, because she did not dodge, the paw that the monster brought forward would finally be able to slash at her. The swing was also already coming in before the blow, so even if the impact could daze the creature for an instant, the momentum would continue to carry forward to where she was. Sierra attempted to dash out from under the side of the monster after dealing the Power Strike in order to avoid as much of the red claws as possible. She barely had time to do much and the claws had just begun to dig into her back as the grenade exploded in the monster's mouth, blowing off its lower jaw. The explosion also caused a slight shift in the monster's body and the claws did not cleanly come down from the top of her back and through her chest. With the aid of her Layered Defense skill, the claws tore right along her back, but did not slice through her vertebrae or organs as she successfully jumped out from underneath the creature.

It was still a serious blow to her, though, and it also broke through the damage threshold of her Layered Defense skill, causing a temporary drop to her Defense stat. She stumbled onto the ground next to the fallen monster. However, the monster started to twitch. Sierra quickly picked herself back up, blood flowing down her back and thighs. She went back to the front of the creature. It was still only twitching, and yet to get back up. In addition to its missing lower jaw, Sierra could see the left side of its upper jaw was also missing, and black blood oozed out from the roof of its mouth and around its left eye. She grabbed its face with one hand to keep it still and spent an extra couple seconds to use up the rest of her mana and smashed her fist right through its injured left eye. Her entire fist and half her forearm went through the eye socket. The giant monster's body shuddered one last time as the front paw that was lifted up to swing down on her one last time fell to the ground, narrowly missing her. Then, the entire body turned into black mist-like vapour just like the others.

Because of her lowered Defense, smashing through the monster's skull actually broke her hand, but that was a minor issue, all things considered. She looked around and saw that Alejandro was no longer screaming, probably having passed out from the pain. Or dead. On the other side was Diego, who was also unconscious now, probably from the head injury he took when he fell onto the road earlier. Finally, there was one more thing she saw. A delivery van had just driven onto the road. It stopped a bit away from the wreckage of Alejandro's car, but the driver called out to her.

"Hello! I- is everything okay here?!" Instead of remarking on his stupid question, Sierra slowly made her way to the van, holding her broken hand with her other hand while also grimacing slightly from the burning pain of the long cuts across her back. Perhaps it was because the adrenaline rush was ending, but it was getting quite difficult for her to stay standing. The delivery van driver decided to drive up next to Sierra.

"Hey," Sierra said, placing her unbroken hand on his door, "you got any...bandages?" Now that the driver could see her up close, his expression became very concerned.

"Oh my god! What happened to you?" The delivery man took out his cell phone to call for an ambulance.

"Ah, not much...just a bunch of bastards trying to kill me..." Sierra struggled to stay lucid. The delivery man paused.

"Sh- should I call the police, too?" he asked. Sierra said nothing, but only because the question hadn't registered with her yet. Then, perhaps after getting a better look at the surroundings and remembering where they were, he put his phone down. "Um, I- I didn't see anything you didn't want me to see." He nervously looked away from her. Sierra suddenly leaned in over the window. She put one hand on him.

"Ah, hey, don't worry about all that...hey, look at me," she said. The delivery man nervously looked at her. Sierra noticed she seemed to be staring at her upper left arm so she looked over there too. In what looked to be solid black ink, there was something resembling a tattoo of a large insect. Perhaps a beetle of some sort? Sierra's vision was slightly clouded.

"Wh- what can I do for you?" Right as he asked that, Sierra suddenly received a mental notification.

D-rank Dungeon Boss defeated.

Strength increased by 50

Defense increased by 50

Stamina increased by 50

Magic increased by 50

Skill upgraded: Power Strike D to Power Strike C

Skill upgraded: Layered Defense D to Layered Defense C

Skill upgraded: Evasion C to Evasion B

Skill upgraded: Regeneration D to Regeneration C

All of a sudden, Sierra felt the most energized throughout the entire day and her bleeding stopped. She started to laugh uncontrollably with the sudden surge of power.

"M- miss?!" the delivery man called out in fear. Sierra let go of the man as she continued to laugh.

"J- just go!" she said, still laughing. "Go and deliver your packages!"

"R- right!" he drove off as Sierra continued to laugh. She flung her arms around madly as she laughed and now had a clearer look at the mark on her arm. It wasn't a beetle, she thought. But, it was probably one better suited to her. So many near-death experiences in one day and she triumphed over all of them, even livelier now than she was at the start of the day. Today was the birth of the seemingly unkillable "cockroach"

*****

Skill of the Day: Evasion

Rarity: One Star (Common)

Description: A Skill that temporarily raises Dexterity by consuming mana. The bonus to Dexterity increases with an increase in Rank, starting at a 50% increase at Evasion D. As a low-rarity Skill, though, the bonus to Dexterity is also capped at certain amounts, starting at a 50 Stat point increase maximum at Evasion D.