A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my face as I rushed across the room. My legs had done a good job of dealing with the dramatic toll of stress, probably due to my recent training. If it were me from a week ago, there’s no chance I would have survived as long as I had.

“Where’r ya going?” She asked.

Her claws ripped through the air and took a strand of my hair with it. I narrowly managed to dodge it and before I could get away, she charged in for another attack.

Her feet launched her into the air above me and with a powerful strike, her paws crashed into the ground. Shattered purple stones flew past my face as I vanished through a puff of smoke.

{Shadow Step activated}

My foot stepped out of the smoke and as I felt the solid support of the floor, every hair on my body stood on end. I raised my arms and used the Chakrams in my hands to block the incoming attack.

Sparks flew past as the edge of my blades clashed with her claws. We were a breath away from one another before I was launched away. I lost my balance and took a tumble across the ground, rolling uncontrollably.

I crashed against one of the broken lumps of stone scattered around the room and a soft whimper escaped my mouth.

“Gah–!”

She stood over me, I didn’t even see her approach and yet there she was in the blink of an eye. Her speed was unreal, she looked down on me with apathetic eyes and a drooping frown.

“Did you lose all your energy? This is getting boring…you’re definitely not that old fool, Ellios.”

My eyes widened as his name left her mouth. I had been keeping my emotions in check until then but my guard was dropped and it slipped out. The anger from all her taunts escaped my throat in one large yell.

“The hell do you know about Ellios, huh?!”

Her foot crashed down on my sides and I felt the weight of a building crush my ribs. All the wind had left my body and breathing became an impossible task for me.

“You really don’t know? Strange, I do smell his scent on you but you’re just a human in the end…I like that.” She smiled. “I much prefer the taste of humans over monsters~”

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As her mouth lowered to my face, the sound of metal grinding against the floor echoed through the room. Both of us turned to it and noticed the young adventurer, one of the survivors, standing with his sword raised.

He was covered in bruises and cuts, barely able to stand.

‘Why…why the hell are you moving right now!!’ I thought.

“I knew there wasn’t much you could do…but still, I thought somehow you were gonna beat her.” The young man uttered.

He couldn’t keep both his eyes open, one of them was drenched in blood and seemed too swollen to open. It wasn’t just his eye, his legs were in bad condition too. It was a miracle that he was standing at all.

“You’re just a Rust rank… aren't you? Well, we’re Silver ranks, we have to fight this battle ourselves. That’s what adventurers do, I wouldn’t be able to return to the city if I just keeled over and let you save us…even if it costs me my life, I’ll–”

The beast woman waved her arms and a stream of energy in the shape of her claws cut through the air. The young man's speech was cut short by the powerful slices that raced through his body.

Clank!

His sword dropped to the floor and a moment later, the blood followed. His lifeless body split into three as it collapsed to the ground in a bloodied mess.

I grit my teeth. No matter how much I squirmed or wriggled, I still couldn’t free myself from under her leg. I felt like screaming.

I had managed to level up a few times since beginning the rank-up ceremony but my strength stats hadn’t gone up much, I cursed my weakness more than ever at that moment. I felt so weak, just like back then against him.

Memories flashed through my mind of the black dragon. The same useless feelings I had when Mister Ed’s back turned to me and he disappeared behind the flames.

‘Damn it…Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!!! Why the hell am I so fucking pathetic…?’

The woman's sour expression carried over to her words as she clicked her tongue at the adventurer she had just killed.

“Tch! So annoying, trying to act like some kind of main course.” Her eyes fell back on me and her smile returned. “Now then, you were saying?”

Her grin faltered, she was surprised when she saw me.

I glared at her with a cold expression, it must have surprised her because her mouth hung open slightly. I was furious and sad; there were so many emotions that had reached the surface but none of them would have helped me. None of them would have gotten me out from under her foot or saved that guy from dying. I came to understand just how useless I was being.

‘That’s right…if I want to stop losing so much then I can’t keep complaining or feeling sad all the time. I can’t keep feeling sorry for myself because I didn’t try harder…maybe I’m the problem? Yeah, maybe I should have done it differently until now…’

With my one free arm, I wrapped my fingers around her ankle and her eyes twitched. My own eyes reflected from hers and I could see the bloodthirsty expression of a murderer looking back at me. Glowing red eyes hidden behind the red and black bangs on my forehead, I hardly recognised myself.

“I'm thinking maybe...I should just kill you.”