Through the gloom of ancient, towering trees, a landscape unfolds where nature rules with silent authority. Moss-cloaked trunks, veined with ivy, stretch skyward as if clawing at the clouds, their canopy so thick it stifles even the timidest sunlight. The vines climb so high, so vast, they rival the skyscrapers of the 21st century. Pathways between sequoia-like giants resemble brown prairies, carpeted with centuries of fallen leaves that bury every inch of the ground. The air hums with the scent of damp foliage and fertile earth, while birdsong and whispering breezes blend into a serene symphony—a fleeting illusion of peace.
Yet for all its beauty, this forest is a lethal field of peril and abandonment. Its unsettling silence hides dread-worthy magical creatures, capable of felling even the most seasoned adventurer. Worse still, it has become the stage for a brutal, inhuman war, escalating its deadliness beyond reckoning. Despite its infamy, Neizan ventures here undeterred. His goal is clear: exterminate the demon at any cost. Though his intent is noble, most would call it madness—or suicide. Even the finest adventurer teams require seven A-rank members to sanction an expedition. But this forest, one of Meridia's most treacherous places, can be traversed alone… if one is powerful enough. Neizan is that rare exception.
For weeks, he has moved through the woods, his progress deliberately slow despite his preternatural speed. Drawing attention—whether from Das Bergreich's troops or the forest's horrors—would be fatal. Stealth is his armor. A master assassin, he leaves no trace: mana masks his bootprints; spells of invisibility and silence shroud his presence.
By these means, he reaches the ruins of Urodna unscathed.
The city is a carcass.
Homes and buildings lie shattered. Fallen trees, boulders, and skeletal structures of rock and mortar are all that remain after the flames devoured every scrap of wood. The ground is ash—a graveyard of memories. Here, laughter once rang through crowded streets. Here, families built tender lives within warm walls. Here, millions thrived, human and creature alike, in a mosaic of colors and sizes. Now, only ghosts linger.
The contrast was desolate. What was once a place teeming with life now lay reduced to an apocalyptic wasteland. Death, ashes, and rubble intertwined in a grim tableau. The cries of animals and the eerie silence of corpses imposed a weight that would stifle even the bravest. Neizan, no stranger to devastation, pressed forward, ignoring the danger seeping from every corner. His gaze settled on a mound rising from the ruins—a macabre tapestry of blood and viscera adorned its base, while its peak loomed threateningly. Staring at this grotesque sight, Neizan froze, realizing Blair hadn't exaggerated in the slightest.
He scouted the area, still unsettled by Blair's words, which he'd refused to believe. Yet what he found was a brutal wake-up call: a massive crater holding the remains of Karl, one of Das Bergreich's most formidable generals. Now, he was little more than rotting flesh, picked apart by scavengers. A putrid stench choked the air, testament to his bitter defeat. Though Karl's death was a crucial victory for the allied forces, Neizan couldn't shake his unease about what had achieved it. The scene, far from triumphant, radiated an ominous dread.
Neizan clicked his tongue, gripping his sword's hilt. He knew he couldn't let that beast roam free—soon, its luck might turn against them, just as it had with the Dasbergreians.
"I must hurry before more innocents get caught in this mess."
He resolved to inspect the site differently. Using his skills, he could trace demonic energy and other mana residues—clues invisible to ordinary eyes. To him, the area was stained with a blackened hue, thicker and more repulsive than blood. Clearly, this entity wasn't hiding its tracks. It wanted to flaunt its presence. Neizan smirked.
"Fool. You're just making yourself easier to find."
He collected samples and cast a simple tracking spell, imprinting the corrupted mana's signature for later.
The title of "Hunter" suited him. He was a master at identifying prey and eliminating them with lethal efficiency—like a Weiber "shadow panther": ruthless, silent, near-invisible in his environment. Neizan, now a bloodhound, followed the trail of tainted mana through the forest. It stood out like a red stain on white canvas, a blight amidst Verlassener's pure, natural magic.
With a lead in mind, Neizan began his hunt. For three days and three nights, he traversed the sprawling forest, struggling to follow a trail nearly erased by rain, undergrowth, and scavengers. Yet his determination paid off—he eventually uncovered clear signs of his quarry's path. As he advanced, Neizan stumbled upon a chilling sight: a mound of corpses, a tangle of bones and flayed skins mirroring the horrors of Urodna. Though equally putrid, the state of these remains suggested a fresher slaughter. At first, the discovery unsettled him, but upon confirming they belonged to enemy forces, he exhaled sharply. Still, the unease about their origin lingered.
Once certain the same entity behind Urodna was responsible, Neizan resumed his pursuit. Days passed as he tracked a trail of victims—all, curiously, from Das Bergreich's ranks. The prey seemed to favor humans, attacking them with brutal frequency, while demi-humans met quicker, almost merciful ends. Perhaps it was chance—human inexperience in these woods, paired with the terrain's hostility, made them easy targets, unlike Zelenyda's troops, who knew how to evade even the deadliest threats, including the forest demon.
Neizan couldn't ignore the danger. Though the demon showed no interest in fahums or harpies, what if it crossed paths with allied humans? A risk he refused to test. With each fresh trail, his prey drew nearer; the latest massacre was less than two days old. The chase led him into an unusually dark night, where stars burned with unnatural clarity. Deep in the forest, shrouded by thick foliage, Neizan pressed forward under the faint glow of the lesser moon, Trety. His body thrummed with traces of demonic mana—echoes that slithered through his very veins.
Then, in the distance: a flicker of flames. A campfire? Before he could discern its source, a choked scream shattered the silence, followed by the cacophony of Dasbergreian gunfire. Something—or someone—was under attack. Crimson muzzle flashes lit the sky for an instant before a razor-edged silence swallowed the woods, eager to bury the battle's dead.
Thought abandoned. Neizan lunged toward the fray with the fury of a raptor denying its prey respite. His sword, its dawnlike gleam stealing Trety's radiance, carved through the air as his strides defied the wilderness's whims. Every leap and pivot was a battle against treacherous roots and branches determined to halt him. At last, he vaulted onto the gnarled limb of a colossal tree, its form towering like an impassive sentinel in the forest's gloom.
Then, the scene unveiled itself before him—a tableau painted by the very hand of barbarity. Mutilated bodies lay in grotesque disarray, their blood a scarlet river carving paths of horror into the cursed earth. Viscera, strewn like confetti at some macabre celebration, emitted a stench that knew no mercy. At the heart of this nightmare, the root of all this desolation, moved shadowy tendrils—dark extensions that writhed with deliberate malice, like the arms of some abyssal monstrosity.
These black threads of darkness converged upon a tiny figure, barely clothed in tattered rags that hung from its body like a mockery of garments. Yet from its face—which bore no semblance of humanity—burned a single fluorescent magenta point, a cyclopean eye defying the logic of creation.
The horror lay not just in its appearance, but in the revolting cruelty that radiated from its being. This was a demon that toyed with its victims like a disturbed child with broken dolls. It prolonged their agony, avoiding vital points with surgical precision, even using healing magic to stretch their suffering. Their souls didn't fall quickly; they shattered slowly, painfully, like glass clinging to its last reflection before crumbling into nothingness.
Neizan swallowed. For an instant, he felt the icy lick of a specter's breath against his ear, freezing him in place—but with a surge of relentless resolve, he gripped his sword and lunged.
The blade flashed like lightning as it split the air, striking the ground with fury, shaking the earth. The small figure barely dodged, leaping back with a faint sound of irritation escaping what might have been its mouth.
From his perch on the branch, Neizan aimed straight for the creature's skull, his gaze sharp with contempt and purpose. In the reflection of his pupils burned his weapon's inevitable fate.
"Enough, demon!", His voice was iron. The sword, gleaming and merciless, had but one target: the beast's fragile neck.
The hooded being coiled its shadowy limbs around itself, their undulating motion like water. Recognizing its defensive stance, Neizan struck from the rear, his blade singing as it severed the dark tendrils with a sound like whistling wind. The creature reeled, stunned at being so thoroughly outmatched. Forced to resort to its second weapon, it unleashed a shockwave—a blast that sent everything nearby, including Neizan, flying.
"That won't save you!"
With impossible speed, Neizan pounced like a cheetah upon its prey, swinging his sword for a clean, finishing strike—only to halt abruptly as the creature, in desperation, yanked one of its tortured victims between them.
A fraction slower, and the blade would have taken the man's head.
Seizing the moment, the demon vaulted skyward, landing on a high branch before vanishing into the thicket.
"Wait—!", Neizan tried to pursue, but the dying man clutched at him, collapsing to his knees. The hunter barely caught him.
"I-It's the Demon of Verlassener… Her… in the flesh…", The man's breath guttered. "She's here to sate her bloodlust… Some say it's Das Bergreich's punishment… for this war's atrocities…", His grip tightened on Neizan's cloak. "You… Exorcist… must end her… for all our fallen brothers…", His words dissolved into delirium before he went limp in Neizan's arms.
"I don't do this for you", Neizan let the body drop. "But you're right about one thing—it's my duty to stop that thing"
He leapt into pursuit. The demon was close now; he wouldn't let it escape. "You've done enough damage!", he roared, cornering the shadowy entity against a tree trunk—its last frail bastion.
The hooded figure's eyes flared with eerie light. No escape. It could try leaping to another branch, but Neizan, swift as light through gloom, would intercept it. With no choice, the creature attacked, lashing out with whip-like appendices of pure shadow.
Neizan advanced without hesitation, leaving a wake of dust and precision strikes. Every dark tendril disintegrated under his blade. In a final motion, he thrust toward the creature's heart—but it ducked, the sword grazing millimeters from its core. A counterblow sent Neizan skidding back, his boots carving grooves into the splintering wood.
The demon, knowing it was outmatched, fled. It raised an arm, unleashing a spark that erupted into a blinding sphere, searing the forest with unnatural radiance. Neizan dodged the blast, but the explosion incinerated everything nearby. Their branch shattered, plunging them toward the earth in a storm of embers and choking dust.
The small figure melted into the shadows, certain it had escaped—until the whissssh of parting foliage betrayed Neizan's descent. Like an arrow loosed from the heavens, he crashed through the canopy, eyes alight with fury. His sword, blazing cyan, traced a luminous arc as he struck.
"Wind Slash!", Neizan bellowed, unleashing a devastating strike. The blade released a shockwave of energy that rippled outward like a stone cast into a lake, splitting the air and cleaving everything in its path. In desperation, the creature conjured a psychic shield—a repellant barrier that strained against the impact. But Neizan's power overwhelmed its magic. The defense shattered, hurling the hooded figure violently to the ground. Dust and debris erupted in a chaotic veil, obscuring the scene. When it settled, only one thing proved the attack's ferocity: a splatter of blood, sprawling across the ravaged earth like a map of suffering.
Neizan didn't hesitate. He surged toward the fallen figure—yet deep inside, a whisper of doubt coiled:
"Demons don't bleed"
The thought unnerved him, but his conviction held. This thing had to be one of them. No question. He stepped forward, through the settling dust, until he loomed over the creature's crumpled form. With a single motion, he raised his arm, dispelling the lingering haze with a gust of force. Moonlight bathed the figure in cold clarity.
The rags covering the creature slipped away like a curtain, revealing the secret they'd guarded so fiercely.
Neizan's strike froze mid-air. The wind from his blade softened into a breeze that stirred the fine strands of hair before him—strands of intense copper, glowing like a shy sunset under the moon's gaze.
The fragile silhouette was that of a child.
No older than nine.
Her skin, streaked with grime, bore a pallor abandoned by light's purity. But what stood out most was the unnatural violet streak in her hair, shimmering with an almost supernatural glow, and that single magenta eye burning from beneath her hood—a fragment of the night itself trapped in her gaze.
Terror contorted her face. Tears pooled in her eyes as she stared up at the hunter, her nose sniffling, mucus threatening to drip. Neizan, who had steeled himself for this moment, found his will crumbling. His arm—once unshakable—now hung limp, his elbow locked as if decayed. The action he'd dedicated his life to now felt inconceivable.
In that instant, understanding struck him like an icy gust, stripping away every last shred of battlelust.
"I can't do it", he whispered, his voice a thread dissolving into the gloom. He fell to his knees, defeated not by his opponent's strength but by the overwhelming storm of emotions raging within him. The sword—once an extension of his conviction—slipped from his fingers with a faint metallic whisper.
The girl, still bleeding from the attack that had nearly taken her life, struggled to rise. Her small frame, marked by vulnerability, trembled before the latent threat, yet fear didn't stop her from gathering what strength remained to flee. She ran with desperate energy, her heart-wrenching sobs filling the air like a lament that pierced the forest's silence. Her cry spoke not just of physical pain, but of a soul that had stared death in the face.
Neizan remained motionless, unable to tear his gaze from the blood staining his hands and the earth beneath him. It was a cold as palpable as the night breeze, an accusing echo of his own actions. For the first time, he confronted with horror the consequences of his choices, and felt something deep and unfamiliar stirring within him - a seed of doubt, a feeling he couldn't yet name.
"What just happened...?", he murmured, as if seeking answers from the void surrounding him. "Why did I hesitate?"
The words hung unanswered, dissipating into the forest's darkness. Neizan remained there, a man facing not just the weight of his mission, but a question that threatened to redefine the very foundations of his purpose. The shadow of that moment marked the beginning of a journey that would lead him to question truths he'd once considered unshakable.