“Are you going to be okay?” The Huntress asked, worried and concerned lingering throughout her voice as she looked back and forth from the Wushi to the bloody tools on the table, “Those injuries of yours seemed…”

“The doctor said that I'd have to restrain myself from moving or doing any kind of activity for some weeks.” She groaned as she laid back down on the bed, letting herself sink into the pillow and the mattress, “Which means I can’t train, I can’t teach, and I definitely can’t do anything I want to do right now.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Ugh.” The Wushi scowled as she glared up at the ceiling. “I swear, I wish I hadn’t had to deal with that army of giants earlier. Otherwise, I might have been able to take down that bastard with his little squad of beasts.”

“You really think so?” The Huntress didn’t seem too convinced by that statement as she sat down on a nearby chair, “I mean, that bastard was quite skilled. Do you really think you could have taken him?”

Her friend gawked at her with hurt. She covered up her heart with a hand as she gasped, before looking down in pure pain.

“I can’t believe this. Are you trying to say that you have no respect for your mentor in defeating someone as weak as that?”

“Weak?” She stared with absolute confusion, “That man was not weak. Did you not see how strong his sorcery was? He used it to survive my strongest magical attack! You cannot say that he was weak, not after that!”

At those words, the Wushi sat up once more. She looked at the Huntress with serious eyes, the words spoken previously lingering in the air. Her eyes were intense, with those irises looking past her physical self and directly into her soul. That very motion made the Huntress squirm in her seat and shrink back a bit.

“You said he survived your strongest attack?”

“Y-yeah, he did. He–”

“How?”

“H-huh?”

“I’m asking how he survived.” The Wushi explained, “When I got hit by his power, it came out of nowhere. No sounds of something coming at me, no changes in the air flow, nothing. His attack was instant and there was absolutely no way to defend against it. So, I want to know, how exactly did he defend himself against your attack?”

The Huntress didn’t know what to say. Rather, that was something she wanted to know as she honestly didn’t look back then. How on earth did that bastard survive her strike?

“I… I don’t know.”

“Think. This is important. Please, give me anything you recall. Any details you have.”

With such a heartfelt request, how could she refuse? As such, she began to rack her mind to figure out every single last bit of information she could gather from the fight. She launched her arrow, the man struck her projectile, then a giant smoke cloud came out. She got the chance to save her friend and then–

Wait. The man’s armor. He had no surface damage, but his armor was all broken. Could that be a hint?

“Possibly.” The Wushi nodded, before grimacing. “Whatever the case, he’ll be back. Someone with a giant ego like that wouldn't give up and walk away. He’ll be back with a bigger force, possibly with even stronger monsters than before. Hell, I wouldn’t be too surprised if that giant army that got sent out were under his command.”

That sounded horrifying to say the least. That giant army almost wiped out all the walls the Wushi made and nearly took down everyone in the village. If he were to come back with an even greater force, then that was it. There would be no way to defend against something like that.

“Then what are we going to do?” The Huntress asked, her spirits worn and torn by this revelation, “We have to defend the people here, we need to make sure they’ll be safe.”

Her mentor looked at her with sad eyes, before taking a deep breath and looking up at the ceiling.

“There’s not much we can do right now since we’re injured quite badly. However, once we’re all healed up, we can start trying to create more durable walls. We could combine your heavenly abilities with mine to help create better weapons for the villagers to defend themselves with and I could train them for a bit longer. However, after that, we’ll have to go and leave.”

Wait. What? Why? Why would they leave this village alone? That–that would mean the people here would be susceptible to another attack and possibly taken out completely by that bastard!

“As cruel as it is to say, we need to focus our efforts elsewhere.”

“Wha– what could you mean by that? What the heck could be more important for us to ignore the lives of the people here?”

“The tower. The Usurper. Remember why you were brought here.” At those words, the Huntress stopped talking. She swallowed as she clenched her fists and looked down at the ground from such a response. She could feel her nails piercing the skin of her palm and shedding blood from the sheer force.

She didn’t like that logic at all. Every bit of her wanted to yell right at her mentor and tell her that was wrong, that focusing on saving the world didn’t mean they could simply abandon this village and leave them to their fate.

But the problem was that the Wushi wasn’t wrong. No, she was being generous by not outright leaving these villagers out to die. After all, there was still the need to provide the safety of defenses and training so that they weren’t necessarily abandoning them.

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Even still! Even then! She didn’t want to leave these people behind! She wanted to keep protecting them and making sure they stayed safe despite everything going outside in the world.

“I understand your pain. But we have a job to do.” And with that, she didn’t have any arguments anymore. The Huntress couldn’t say anything at all, only choosing to continue looking down.

They stayed there in that silence for a while. At least, until the door opened and the demon walked right in. It walked right past her and stood in front of the bed, looking down at both of them.

“So, you two will take some time to recover your wounds, no?”

“What does that matter to you?” The Huntress spat as she shot a death glare, “Why do you care?”

“Hrm.” The demon seemed to look between the two, before shaking its head. “No. I suppose it is reasonable to expect you to take quite a while to be back to full health, but this amount of time is too much. There is nothing to gain from me staying here then.”

“Yeah. Do that. Leave and don’t come back.” She spat at the demon, who turned towards her slowly and meticulously. She shrunk back a bit and got ready to run away, at least until the Wushi cleared her throat.

“Enough. Let’s not get into a fight, alright?” Her mentor said as she looked between the two, “Everyone calm down.”

“Hrm. Tell the brat to keep her temper down and maybe then we could have a civil conversation.”

“Why you–”

“Huntress.” Whatever words were going to come out of her mouth were shut down the moment the Wushi spoke. “Please.”

She opened her mouth to respond, only to close it. She glared at the demon for a brief moment, before taking a deep breath and holding her head in her hands. As much as she wanted to spout all the hate she had in her heart, she couldn’t anymore, not with the way she was asked.

She sighed and lifted her head.

“Alright. I’ll try.”

“That’s the least I could ask for.” The Wushi breathed out in relief, before looking at the demon. Said monster looked at her for a while, before shrugging.

“Fine. I can indulge the barbarian.”

She sucked her breath in between her teeth, before letting her anger go. No, she wasn’t going to indulge in this childish act going on, absolutely not! She was better than this, she was the daughter of the chief after all! She had more class and maturity than this darn bastard.

“Well, to start off with, thank you for saving me and my friend.” The Wushi started off as she bowed down to the demon, “Had you not come in when you did, we might not still be alive. We owe you our lives for helping us out.”

“You are welcome.”

“That being said…” She closed her eyes for a brief moment, before opening them up and sizing the demon up and down. “You only did so because you were looking for a worthy fight, weren’t you?”

“That is correct, yes.” The demon didn’t even have the courtesy to deny such an accusation, rather it chose to embrace this fact and seemed almost insulted otherwise. “What other point would there be to intervene between three dead men?”

“That’s what I’m confused about.” With that, the Wushi put her head on her hands and seemed to think over this possible situation. “Why did you save us? You had to have known there was nothing to gain from such an interaction.”

“Hrm. I did so out of boredom.”

“Boredom compelled you to bring yourself into a fight to the death? Really?” The Huntress cut in at this point, clearly not convinced by that statement. “As if! What kind of person decides, oh I’m bored out of my mind, let me go ahead and save some people? If you want excitement, you should just go ahead and fight monsters for all eternity! You… you…”

Any words she was going to say died once more as the demon looked her right in the eyes. Her spine tingled with fear and she shrunk back as those horrifying eyes kept on drilling into her.

“I have already tried that.” The demon explained, its eyes never once blinking, never turning away, “But the beasts that roam these lands are far too weak, too boring. They are predictable in their movement and nothing they could do can excite me. Every single last one of them are too dumb to commit to strategy or any kind of fighting technique, only throwing themselves at me in a single head-on charge without fail. Even those with special abilities are predictable, with their actions being the same as the dumb ones before. None of these monstrosities prove to be a worthy challenge, none of them can get my heart to beat that primordial beat. No, the only prey that I can hunt here are humans with special powers, and I refuse to lower myself to fighting the wounded and weak anymore. I want a battle that will get my blood pumping, to reaffirm myself as a weapon far beyond others.”

That was when she realized why she couldn’t get along with this thing, why she constantly assigned such a thing to the category as demon.

Its eyes. They were not one that belonged to a living being. No, those dead empty eyes seemed like they wouldn’t be out of place on a corpse. No human could ever have such lifeless eyes, something so distraught and empty that they might as well not have a soul at all.

Which begged the question. What on earth could have caused this demon to be so broken? What kind of cruel tragedy had been levied upon this beast to cause it to seek life in these lethal situations?

She swallowed. She didn’t know what to do, but she knew one thing. She couldn’t let this beast live anymore. She’d have to kill this monster one way or another.

But how? What could she do to make sure this demon was put down? She wasn’t strong enough, the Wushi was still recovering, and none of the villagers could do anything. Therefore, what remained were the monsters. That would be the case had the demon not mentioned how weak they all were.

There didn’t seem to be any solution left. At least, until she remembered her dream.

That monster that haunted her from day one. That same beast she ran away from. That tense feeling of oppression, that horrible supernatural chill that overcame her entire body.

This. This was the only way.

“You need worthy opponents, right?”

The demon looked at her with curiosity. The Wushi looked worried. The Huntress could feel that same fear build up in her heart again.

But this was fine. This was the only way to continue.

“I know a monster that I think would entertain you somewhat…”

She started to talk about the terror that has been haunting her dreams. She could see the demon’s dead eyes begin to spark with life as she continued her story. That excitement that seemed to brighten up and give color to their hopeless eyes.

It made her shudder and wonder how one could live like that. Either way, she wouldn’t have to worry too much anymore. Either this demon killed the monster that’s been terrorizing her dreams or the monster won. That, or they killed each other.

No matter the outcome, she was sure things would turn out better for everyone.