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The man felt like mocking his prey, but now that it was clear that the job had only just begun, he had to return to professional mode. He put a hand to his earpiece.

"Agent Sylvester? Is it done yet?"

"I have a Lunar Remnant. Get the satellite ready."

"How? What happened?"

"The target was a monster in more ways than one. Hurry up."

"Yeah, yeah, of course."

The target, now that his outward appearance partly reflected his rotten soul, ran away. But he wasn't heading for the road to flee.

With the transformation, he had forgotten his eagerness to crush the enemy.

He had forgotten many things, to the point where he now only wanted to eat. Fortunately, he wouldn't get that far. Instead of feasting on whoever was enjoying the city's nightlife along the way, he simply ran into a barrier that sparked like an electrified fence. Like, almost, the fence they had thrown down on the way in.

But it wasn't simple electricity nor had it been there all along.

The beast, whether out of instinct or what was left of human in him, turned, pinning its eyes on him. Because it felt it. It knew it.

The barrier energy had flowed from his sword. Sylvester had managed to trace the barrier in time with that energy. And it came from beyond the heavens. From space, where the satellite floated.

It wasn't an unbreakable barrier, but it didn't need to be either.

Sylvester took a step forward.

He just needed to make sure it didn't get away, that it couldn't hurt innocent people. It wouldn't even give him time to try to break it. And he would do this. Even if he had to do it alone, he would win.

Because it was his job, after all.

"Talk to me if you can. I'd like to confirm that there's enough of you left in there to feel this. It's fine if you pieces of shit kill each other. But involving children... Even this is less than you deserve."

Sylvester didn't get a response from the beast.

He hadn't expected it either. Not really. It seemed that this Remnant was fresh. His professional mask was slipping off his face.

He gripped the katana with both hands. Rage, desire for revenge, sadness. If he had time for such useless things, he should fill the blade of his katana with those feelings and wield it until the thing was dead.

The beast, half spider, half crab and half scorpion, roared, lowering its body to approach him. As if trying to intimidate him.

Useless.

Useless.

One of the claws flew towards his neck.

It went nowhere. It flew off in dozens of pieces. The beast roared again, but in its voice now there was pain above all else.

In a little while there would be fear.

The Remnant opened its mouth, its only mouth, that is, the human one. From it shot out a web. This caught him by surprise, even though it was obvious it had certain spider parts, he hadn't been able to take that for granted.

Still, the web didn't hit him, trapping him or his katana.

He didn’t roll away or cut it down either. All he had to do was to lean to the side slightly, without moving from the spot. He dodged the attack with as little movement as possible.

He did cut the second web shot in half, however.

Meanwhile, the beast used its scorpion tail to skewer a car. The citizen would regret the loss of the vehicle, but at least he would be compensated for the collateral damage. And he had been lucky not to be inside.

The barrier prevented the beast from leaving this area, but still had a few empty cars on hand and other things it could throw at him.

It threw the car.

Sylvester jumped over it, dodging it with no trouble, but before he knew it he had the beast on top of him. That was because the car, spinning in the air, had covered its movements. It might not have retained much human consciousness, but it had enough to use the vehicle as a distraction.

Sylvester raised the katana to defend his head. The impact of the tail against the blade sounded like a small earthquake.

Sylvester was thrown back to the ground, but landed on his knees. A little shaken, but okay. He stood up on shaky legs. That weakness would pass in a matter of seconds. He too had only just begun.

The monster crashed into him. The force of the impact, combined with the enormity of his body, knocked his feet off the ground. He was dragged more than ten meters backwards, against and through the wall of a warehouse.

Dust and debris fell all around him, passing close by.

His enemy retreated as soon as he managed to get him inside the warehouse, moving on to run along the walls like a giant spider. He still had some remnants of his human consciousness, all things considered. Enough intelligence to want to take the fight to an enclosed space where he could take full advantage of his mobility, for example.

As it moved around the warehouse, it was occasionally knocking shelves and all the boxes and other crap to the floor. If it hoped to make him lose sight of it, between the darkness and the loud noise masking its footsteps, then it was very delusional prey.

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It fired more webbing and immediately darted off in another direction.

It would have been as easy to dodge as at first, but Sylvester decided he should cut it to pieces. He was determined to kill the creature as quickly as possible, but if he didn't succeed, he might find it difficult to move with the web glued everywhere.

He could run out of the warehouse and force it to come out after him. He should.

But it didn't matter when or where. He would stop it here, which it had chosen as its lair of sorts, and then send it to eternal oblivion.

The monster took a leap. Its landing shook the floor and the walls. In one fluid motion, it grabbed one of the fallen bookshelves and lifted it as it spun.

The bookshelf, but also its whole body.

Sylvester struck the bookshelf with his katana. The blade went through, though not all the way, it got stuck in the middle.

He decided to take advantage of that. As the beast finished spinning, Sylvester took a leap, leaping up onto the shelf. With the katana still stuck in it, but well, step by step, all in good time.

He pushed with both hands, slicing the shelf in two and freeing his weapon. He stood up, a position that couldn't have been more precarious with the creature swinging the shelf like it was a toy, and used it as a fulcrum to launch himself towards the face of the human who had given birth to this abomination

Sylvester landed right on his head. It ate his boots, his dust.

"Deep down, you must have known this day would come."

Sylvester lowered his center of gravity, like a panther about to pounce on its prey. Then everything changed. His five senses accelerated to the maximum and beyond. To the point that color disappeared from the world. His body glowed like the edge of his katana, his enemy too.

He lunged at it.

How many slashes had he made in a single second? Even he wasn't sure of that. Color returned to the world slash by slash. Blood flowed like water spit out of a sprinkler.

He lost track of everything, whether it was day or night. The only thing he knew was the movement of his katana, which flowed as if it were part of his body.

There was no resistance. The weapon seemed to have lost its weight completely. The enemy's skin and flesh gave way instantly. Sylvester never felt more at one with the world than at times like this. Separated from the limitations of his body, he could simply do whatever he wanted.

But all good things had to come to an end. No, he ended it. He had to. Even someone like him would collapse if he spent too long in that state.

It didn't matter. The Lunar Remnant fell at his feet.

In pieces. Nothing but blood and gore everywhere. Color slowly returned to the world, apart from the hints of red when he had begun to tear it apart. His heart beat faster again. For yes, in that state it didn't race, but rather his heartbeat slowed to almost nothing. It was a state as if his whole being was concentrated on a single point.

The prey was still alive. He could see its eyes moving. The mouth closing and opening weakly.

But it was already defeated.

Sylvester raised the katana.

"Taste a little of the fear and despair you put those children through and go to hell, you monster.

The katana descended like a guillotine.

And that was it.

He would say silence returned, but no city of that size was truly silent. The night was young.

"Agent Sylvester?"

"The Lunar Remnant is dead. There were no civilian casualties."

Only that wasn't true, as he had just said. But what good did it do those kids that he'd doled out justice now? Nothing could erase what had happened to them. Even if there really was another world in which to pay the debt of what you had done here, or to receive a reward for your effort and suffering.

"Excellent work."

Sylvester said nothing. He simply adjusted his tie again. He tightened it to such an extent that it hurt. He had to loosen it a little.

If there was one advantage about these things, it was that you didn't have to get rid of them. Sylvester hadn't come out through the hole in the wall before the monster disappeared as it had appeared, that is, enveloped in purple energy.

Energy that transformed into butterflies that flew towards the moon, seeking its light.

He lifted his head to watch them go, but he didn't allow himself to waste much time on that. It was a sight he had already witnessed countless times and would have to witness as many more in the future, after all. The work just kept coming.

As he had said, the city was still awake even at this hour. And, of course, they hadn't missed anything that had happened. But they were starting to treat it like a common crime.

Like they'd just heard gunshots or something.

Some, of course, were closing doors and windows tightly, turning off lights, pretending they weren't there.

Others watched as if it was more entertaining than anything on TV. The subtlety of the onlookers varied. There was one thing that never varied. When their eyes met Sylvester's as he scanned the buildings, they averted their gaze. Always.

The world had changed too much in too short a time. At first they had tried to keep it a secret, but then these incidents had become more and more common.

But some things never changed. He supposed it was human nature.

He spotted his partner. She was relaxed, leaning against Sylvester's bike precisely, even though her own was next to it. She had picked up the cube along the way and turned it back on, so he couldn't complain, he hadn't expected her to do that.

From the way she was dressed she looked more like an office worker than someone who was sticking her neck out fighting monsters from outer space, but the same went for him, of course. That was the thing about having a uniform.

"Were you worried about me?"

"You are close to three months. I've had partners who have lasted less." She was tough and he trusted her. Would she break the one-year record? That remained to be seen, but he preferred not to think about it. He'd rather not think about anything so far ahead. With this job, it was better to take things one day at a time.

"I know. It was in the files. What wasn't is that you don't have a sense of humor.

Cynthia hit him on the shoulder with her fist. Gently, of course. Her version of a pat on the back.

"I do, but we're working." It was true because he hadn't said it was a good one.

"Precisely!" She stretched her arms out to the sides to put extra emphasis on that word, exaggerating as usual. "With all this, you're going to drive yourself crazy if you don't let yourself have some fun once in a while."

Maybe she was right. Maybe she wasn't.

But Sylvester had his own way of living. It hadn't failed him so far.

"What happened with that eccentric guy?"

"You don't want to talk about it anymore? Very subtle. All right, then. He's all tied up nice and tight for you, boss, unconscious in the back of a truck." One of their trucks, right? She wouldn't have dumped him in just any truck. Probably. "And I got your bike back."

That was all her job, as a member of the syndicate and as his partner, in theory. But that didn't mean he couldn't be polite.

"I can see that. Thank you."

Cynthia nodded, satisfied with that. She wasn't asking for much, either. Sylvester had things to improve on, too.

They got on their respective bikes, preparing to leave after a night's work well done. But the conversation wasn't over yet. The rookie was inquisitive.

"I guess it's time to interrogate him."

"Have you ever seen one of our interrogations?"

Sylvester was pretty sure she hadn't. Even if she had, she would have had to report it to him. But there was always a possibility. It wasn't a pleasant thing to talk about to begin with. So he felt the need to ask that question.

"No, but I've read enough."

Sylvester smiled slightly.

Tough, a great partner, but a rookie nonetheless. She had no idea what she was talking about.

"It's never enough until you see it with your own eyes."

There were many things she didn't yet know about the syndicate and about him. Like the notifications that floated in front of his eyes, visible only to him. In this day and age, where eye implants and brain chips could be installed in an afternoon at most, that kind of interface was commonplace in those who could afford it.

But what Sylvester was seeing had nothing to do with his cybernetic enhancements.

And they were showing strange things. Levels and abilities, as if his life was a video game. That he had gained fifty experience points for killing the Lunar Remnant. A poor reward, but it made sense. It had been in its infancy.

Even that bastard didn't know what he was hatching until he split his skull open with his katana.

Name: Sylvester Sunderland

Level: 51

Strength: 32

Endurance: 29

Dexterity: 25

Agility: 24

Speed: 27

Spirit: 34

Luck: 9