(Nayu's Point of View)
"This idiot is making a total mess," I said, not addressing anyone in particular.
The words simply escaped my lips as I observed the area where Kael had been sowing chaos. Craters. Cracks. Dust everywhere. It looked like a storm had passed through there, not a warrior.
"Hey, you know I can hear you, right?"
Kael's voice reached my ears like a whisper, as if I were wearing wireless earbuds. The internal communicator. Always on. Always reminding me that I wasn't alone, no matter how much I wanted to act like I was.
"Oops," I replied, my tone as sarcastic as I could make it. "I swear that wasn't intentional."
Lie. Of course it was intentional.
Kael laughed. I could perfectly imagine him, with that crooked smile he put on when he knew someone was messing with him.
"You're right," he said, his voice having that tone he used for joking, for savoring the words before letting them out. "It seems that message was meant for someone else, but..."
He paused. Dramatically. Unnecessarily.
"...it passed through my earbuds first before reaching the recipient, isn't that right?"
I didn't respond.
Not because I had nothing to say, but because I'd already said enough. He understood. I knew he understood. No more words were needed.
The silence on the communication was my answer.
"..."
"Well," I sighed, turning my attention back to the battlefield.
The monsters were still there. Hundreds of them. Thousands, perhaps. But something had changed.
My eyes settled on one gorilla in particular. It was about fifteen meters away, frozen in its position, its yellow eyes fixed on me.
From the monsters' point of view, my eyes must have had a specific gleam at that moment. A gleam that said: "Go clean your neck, so I can cut it."
"You've been staring at me for a while," I said to the gorilla, as if it could understand me, as if it could answer me. "Aren't you going to attack?"
The gorilla didn't respond.
But something in its posture changed.
---
(Gorilla's Point of View)
She speaks to me.
I don't understand her words, but I understand her tone. It's the same tone we use before killing. The same tone I used before killing hundreds of prey.
But now I am the prey.
Something in me knows it. Something in my blood, in my instinct, in that primitive part that has kept me alive until now, is screaming at me to flee.
But I can't.
She's looking at me. Her eyes... her eyes are like those of alpha predators. Like those at the top. Like those who have never been prey.
My survival instinct has already warned me. From the moment her eyes settled on me, I stopped being the hunter. Now I am prey.
But it's too late.
I've already lunged.
"Grrrrrr!"
I roar. But it's not a roar of intimidation. It's a roar of desperation. A roar to give it my all in one last effort. Because on the scale where my life is being weighed, the balance tips toward death.
I swing my blade in a vertical downward motion. I aim for her head. I aim to kill her.
She dodges it.
Not dodges. She simply... moves. As if my attack were in slow motion. As if time had stopped just for her.
Her body passes under my arm. From her head to her abdomen, a fluid, impossible movement.
And then I see her.
She has her staff behind her. As if she were about to sit on it. A strange, relaxed, almost mocking posture.
She changes the staff to her other hand. Grabs it with her left.
And makes a vertical upward motion.
My arm.
My arm is no longer there.
Black blood sprays. It hurts. It hurts like nothing has hurt before. But I have no time for pain.
Because her staff keeps rising.
And then it descends.
A direct blow to my head.
I feel nothing anymore.
I am no more.
---
(Nayu's Point of View)
Black blood splattered my suit.
I didn't bother wiping it off. There was no time. Besides, that nauseating smell had already soaked into my clothes a while ago. A little more wouldn't make a difference.
I threw my staff.
It spun through the air like a disc, a silver circle of death that cut heads as it passed. Three. Four. Five. Six. The beasts fell without understanding what had hit them. The staff continued its trajectory, a perfect arc that brought it back to my hand like a boomerang.
I caught it without looking.
And I started running.
Ahead of me, about ten beasts formed a line. Not an organized line, not a military formation. They were simply there, in my way, and they needed to be removed.
I struck the ground with the staff.
It wasn't a strike to destroy. It was a strike to propel myself. The force of the impact launched me upward, my body rising above the beasts like a projectile.
And then I descended.
The staff, in my hands, came down like lightning. The blow struck the first beast in the head, and the force didn't just crush it, but transmitted to the ground, to the terrain, to everything around.
"Boommm!"
The strike resonated in the air, a shockwave that shook the nearby trees and raised a cloud of dust.
A crack spread several meters from the point of impact. And several gorillas, those that were too close, also died, their bodies torn apart by the brute force of the blow.
"Well," I said to myself, observing the disaster. "Sometimes you have to use brute force."
I paused.
"Not everything has to be done elegantly."
I turned my head.
The monsters that were still alive were looking at me. And in their yellow eyes, in their tense postures, in the way they slowly retreated, I could see it.
My eyes had a killer gleam.
It wasn't something I could control. It was simply... what happened when my body entered hunting mode. Helion, perhaps. Or simply me.
The monsters retreated, but they were still monsters. They couldn't retreat for long. Their hunger, their instinct, their nature, pushed them forward even when every fiber of their being screamed at them to flee.
"Come on, come," I said, and smiled. "So I don't have to go looking for you."
I pressed my right leg against the ground. My muscles tensed, all my weight concentrated on that point, like a mountain planted in the earth.
I pulled back the hand holding the staff. My whole arm back, elbow bent, the weapon pointing forward.
And then, forward.
A thrust.
I didn't need to hit anyone directly. The sheer pressure of the strike, the force concentrated at the tip of the staff, created a projectile of compressed air that pierced three gorillas in a straight line.
A cloud of dust followed the trajectory, marking the path of death.
I ran again.
My feet barely touched the ground. Each step was a push, each stride brought me closer to them.
I bent my legs.
I jumped.
"Aaaahh!"
I shouted. Not from fear. Not from pain. From excitement. From that indescribable feeling of flying over the battlefield, of being master of sky and earth at the same time.
I descended screaming.
The staff spun in my hands, a silver pinwheel cutting through the air.
And then...
"Boommm!"
Another impact. Another crater. Another dozen beasts dead.
The dust slowly settled around me.
Two gorillas emerged from the curtain of earth. They came at full speed, roaring with a fury that was no longer a threat, but desperation.
"Grrrrrrr!"
One jumped. Its hands joined above its head, forming a giant fist. It descended roaring, ready to crush me.
I looked up.
I grabbed the staff by the middle. My legs pressed against the ground like mountains again. My left hand extended forward, fingers forming an imaginary sight, pointing exactly where I wanted the weapon to strike.
And I threw the staff.
A dull thud.
The beast didn't know it was dead. It just kept falling, with its hands joined, with its fist formed, with the intention to kill.
It fell without a head.
I jumped.
In the air, while the beast's body was still descending, my feet found the spot where its head had been a moment ago. An impossible foothold, but enough.
The staff returned to my hand. Of course it returned. It always returned.
I did a triple somersault in the air, my body spinning over and over as I fell. Years of training. Years of controlled falls. Years of learning to turn the impossible into routine.
My feet touched the ground.
The other gorilla was already there, charging at me.
I swung the staff vertically downward.
Its head crushed like ripe fruit.
I slowly straightened up. I looked at my suit. It was covered in black blood. The sticky substance had seeped into every fold, every seam, every corner of my clothes.
And now that the combat had stopped for a moment, now that I could think, I realized.
It had a nauseating smell.
Like rotten meat mixed with rusty metal and something else, something indefinable but equally unpleasant.
"Disgusting," I murmured.
Around me, about thirty gorillas lay shattered. Perhaps more. I'd lost count.
"Well," I said, more to myself than to anyone.
I adjusted my grip on the staff. I felt the black blood slide down my fingers, sticky, gross.
"Let's keep hunting."
And I threw myself back into the chaos.