When Grant finally woke up two hours later it was with a pounding headache. It took him four minutes to gather his thought and remember what happened, in the next minute he opened his eyes to a confusing sight.

Third, a guy he knew could shoot three arrows in three seconds, was held up by a girl smaller than him but that was not the confusing part nor was it the fact that the back of Third's hood was covered in a dark red color. It was the fact that what the girl and Third were doing could only be described as dancing.

The girl was holding Third by the elbows making his arm go past her neck and hang over her shoulder while also holding him up enough that only the tips of his feet touched the ground. She was leading taking slow steps that were always heading backward like she was trying to get anyway. What denied that possibility was that Third wasn't moving.

When Grant realized that he knew something was wrong. When the girl finally made a spin that left her back towards Grant did he finally notice what was wrong. Though Third's hood was still up hiding his face in shadows Grant could still see the paleness and limpness of the neck. At first, Grant didn't think the worst only that Third just didn't have enough blood and was unconscious but then he noticed the tears on Third's shirt and flesh.

Grant then thought that someone could survive that but then he saw what the dance was actually doing. Every step, spin, and leap was letting the blood inside Third's body out. Sometimes it would only be a gush others just a drop but no matter what more blood just kept coming. Most of it got on the girl covering her already blood-soaked skin the rest was pooling in the ground and though the ground had every right to soak it up it never did.

It was then that Grant's suddenly realized disorientation ended and he finally saw what made the entire dance feel wrong. It was the looseness of Third his body movement didn't feel natural it felt more like a leaf following the winds of a storm. After that thought Grant tried to get up only to now notice of what he hopes is the deer sinew tied around his waist to a tree.

One might think this would be hard to get out of but Grant has a knife perfect for cutting ropes. Though the rope being made out of sinew might make it more difficult as long as he can reach his knife it will just make cutting a little longer. After a bit of tough squeezing Grant finally got the knife and began cutting the sinew rope.

What he didn't account for was the effect of the deer still lingering on it. Every time he made a tiny cut in it the sinew would get stronger and the longer he took also slowly increased the sinew strength. It took him ten minutes of cutting to finally cut enough to escape. Before he had a chance to get up the girl stopped dancing.

It wouldn't have been that bad if she wasn't facing him but she was. Luckily Third's listless corpse was in the way. Then it wasn't, the girl started to shake it, shake it again, and shake it some more before tossing it and looking straight at Grant. Grant went still as a statue hoping she wouldn't notice but when she narrowed her eyes he stopped pretending he was still trapped.

Once he got up he grabbed his battle axe from his back and got into a battle stance. In his mind, this was the best idea because he had already seen her speed and there was no way he would escape that but in a fight speed wasn't everything. After he grabbed his axe the girl slowly grabbed the sword that was somehow on her back.

Before Grant could say anything taunting to help the fight start the girl had already moved. In return, Grant also moved closing the distance between them. Soon the distance was closed and Grant took a wide swing to cut the girl at the waist. She blocked with her sword. Grant took a step back and pulled back his axe.

With it close to his body he blocked the incoming stab with the metal head. He took a side step to the left while keeping the axe head in place then pulled it. It went above the girl before being pulled in a diagonal cut to the right towards the girl's neck. She dodged with her body. Grant reversed his grip before stopping the axe in mid-air and swinging it back toward the girl's back.

She dodged with a jump that was way too high to be normal. On her way down she stabbed her sword down toward the still-moving axe blade before twisting and stabbing a Grant. It was unexpected but Grant could feel danger from his years of hunting so when the hand came he moved out of the way but it wasn't enough.

Claws pierced the skin of his belly and Grant screamed.

Over the years Grant had fought tons of normal beasts and in his early years he got injured a lot hell he still gets injured over dumb mistakes now but never not once has a beast stabbed him. Deer might have tried with their antler but he was too strong for them and wolves and bears might have tried to bite him but those attacks were too narrow so he always dodged.

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So when a completely new pain shot across his body he screamed. When that white-hot fire invaded his nerves he screamed. When the girl widened the hole and dug deeper with her fingers he screamed louder. When he pulled away and got those fingers out of him he lost all will to fight, turned around, and ran without looking back. Not even when he heard the distinct thud of a body hitting the ground.

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When the girl broke the natural disconnect between her mind and soul they have slowly been combining into one thing called Ral. Today in the middle of the fight the Ral was complete. Normally it would do nothing but make the person a tiny bit stronger but her mind had a problem. It was subtle so it went unnoticed till the Ral was complete.

Two people can't have the same Ral. If two people were to have the same Ral both would shatter in mind, body, and soul. So when the Ral was complete and noticed Feral it was a cause for concern. At first, the Ral wanted to break apart and start over again but it was too late. So it did the only thing it could do. It pulled both Rational and Feral into itself and let them fight to the death. Once one of them won it would erase the loser and the Ral wouldn't break.

The problem was neither of them would fight the other so the Ral went over the facts again to figure out a solution to not breaking. Rational and Feral were different mindsets made from shutting off parts of the brain so that the girl wouldn't break and completely retreat into her own head. If you don't think about how useless life is, is it really useless?

Slowly became something more instead of just making sure the girl didn't break they were used to help with different things. With Feral her single-mindedness, battle instincts, hyper-focus, and normal instincts she became the mindset for tough fights and exploration. With Rational her experimenting, planning, and fast learning she became the mindset to solve problems and learn.

Both had the obsession with blood so the Ral thought at first that it would be fine but it could feel itself breaking. The Ral looked back inside itself to look at them. Rational was sitting on the floor of the black void with her calculating eyes closed while Feral was running around her on all fours letting her red hair take flight behind her and her wild eyes piercing Rational. If only the Ral could get them to fight. Then after another minute of thought, it came up with a solution.

If two people can't have the same Ral why not make Rational and Feral the same person? It didn't have the power itself to tell them what to do directly but it could guide them subtly. It just hoped they would do it before it shattered.

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Feral was bored. She tried to get Rational to do something but she would do nothing but sit with her eyes closed. So Feral started to run around her but no matter what she didn't get tired nor did she feel herself getting stronger. She went back to bugging Rational after finding that out. When she tried to touch her this time something different happened.

Thoughts began to flow into her. She let go and jumped back while Rational opened her eyes, got up, and stared at Feral. Rational walked closer to Feral while holding out her hand. Feral took a step forward while doing the same. Soon right meet left but nothing happened. Then Rational closed her eyes and thoughts began to flow.

Feral tried to do the same but nothing happened except the thoughts flowed faster. Before Feral could back away and give up Rational grabbed her other hand after motioning for Feral to close her eyes again. When she did the thoughts flowed even faster and something clicked. With the click, they could no longer feel the other's hands, and when they opened their eyes they saw the black void and not each other.

They were the same body now with the thoughts of the other permanently flowing into each other.

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Grant had been running for ten minutes before he realized he wasn't being chased in that time he had lost his pride and axe. Grant wasn't prideful to begin with, but losing to a girl smaller than him made him rethink things. He has an unfair advantage over everyone else in the village except his brothers and even with that he did what a normal person could do in the same amount of time and he just got lucky with the Dire Wolf. So should he really have this pride?

That thought got him wanting to try harder and do more work but as so as he thought back to the girl his motivation dimmed. He couldn't beat her not now not ever just the fact she could dodge him without looking was enough for him to not even think about fighting her. So he turned his thoughts to an easier goal training against normal animals till he could fight them while sleeping.

Grant continued on his way back to camp while shadow-fighting creatures with his imaginary axe to train. On his way, he meets his older brother Rye where he weakly told his story of the girl and Deer. After telling the story Rye nods and escorts Grant back to camp where Grant once again has to weakly tell his story back to the rest of the hunters.

Half of them dismiss it while the rest laugh at him. Grant then goes back to his tent while thinking of ways to get his reputation back.

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"So Rye do you believe him?"

"I don't know maybe but this forest is also full of monsters could have been a shapeshifter."

"A shapeshifter out here no you know they like civilization more plus where he was is a dead zone and no shapeshifter wants to be caught in a dead zone."

"Are you sure that part is still a dead zone it could have gotten better?"

"If it did then it would be filled with monsters and magic beasts and the deer that was Awakening was leaving the area."

"So what our brother lost to a frail-looking short girl in the middle of the forest?"

"Yes, but she is not normal."

"You mean she is a-"

"SHHH! Don't say it you know what they do to people that say it out loud but yes she probably is one."

"This is bad we have to tell them we can't have someone going out into the forest."

"We can't unless we definitely know can you imagine the panic it would cause if we came back to town with that news."

"So what are we going to do?"

"You are going to go after her."