Thirty Minutes Earlier,

Deserun, Maggots Guild HQ,

Merriheim.

2 nd Ryzul, 1092.

Four horses pulling a large caravan carrying three Desert Snakes and five Minbisons trotted to a halt behind the mansion, where several monsters lay sleeping inside newly crafted cages.

Miote and two Mer tians hopped off the caravan and opened the latches. W ith a speed that revealed their familiarity with the task , the trio transferred the beasts to new cages .

"Don't matter how many times I see it. Will never get used to a sleeping minbison," one of the Mer tians observed as she shut the doors to the cage. "That daeben's got some serious voodoo."

"Ain't black magic Heru . B oss says he's some sort of Alchemist," the other m ertian corrected.

"Hmm... That true Mi-mi?"

Miote nearly fell over, trying to lock the cage. He cursed the halben that gave him that nickname under his breath. "Yes, he uses them for his experiments." He made sure all the cages were securely fastened, then administered to each beast their daily dose of Nyte-Nyte, the daeben's original cocktail.

Miote made a mental note as he gave the final dose never to tell a soul its name. Now he understood how such a badass guild ended up being called Hopeful Maggots. Well, at least he prevented the daeben from naming them Nytol (not after the real drug. No... Nyte All) .

"Well," Heru said as she closed the latches and hopped onto the caravan. "Tell the boss we said hi, will ya?"

"I promise." The Chesch watched them make their exit, then similarly made his way into the building.

Miote was about to retire to his favorite spot by the fireplace, but the mansion shook from a mini-explosion. Syel was with the hunting party, so the commotion could only have been caused by one person. Dreading his own curiosity, Miote made his way towards the basement door, which for a good reason had been modified, so it was airtight.

As Miote placed his hand on the door's handle, Syel's mocking words about what curiosity does to cats repeated in his head. "Well, we supposedly have nine lives too." Steeling his resolve, he pulled the door open.

‘What the fuck!’

It took all of Miote’s mental capacity not to throw up or pass out on the spot. In fact, his body wanted to do both, as his poor sensitive nose was assaulted by the worst assortment of smells possible. It was like decay, mold, and sewage all mixed into one. The chesch retrieved a scented napkin from his inventory and wrapped it around his face, so it covered his nose, then began the descent to the basement.

Miote was lucky he was a beast-man as the entire basement was choked with smoke from the forge. This was confusing as they had doubly made sure the vent worked before Kashi even got started. He activated [ Thermal Vision] , an eye skill given to all feline races, and scanned the basement for signs of life.

"Hey Mi-mi," Kashi called, not too far from where he was. "Over here!"

Miote located the source of the voice and trudged over, cursing when he bumped into enchanting tables. "What's with the smoke?"

"Sorry," Kashi apologized. "I'm training my senses."

"Thought you were practicing your crafts."

"I am," the daeben replied. "Multi-tasking."

"Naturally," Miote said with an exasperated sigh. "Mind getting rid of the smoke, least until I leave?"

"No problem." The daeben walked over to a wall and did something. Immediately, the soft hum of rushing air could be heard, and soon enough, the vent had expelled enough smoke for one to see clearly.

Miote examined the room, and immediately regretted venting the smoke. "What are you even doing here?" He demanded, stricken by the state of the room.

Some of the beasts they brought in were lying on examining tables, their bodies torn apart, but somehow still breathing. Just as Miote was about to wonder how such a thing could be, he notice d makeshift I V bags linked to each of them. These certainly were not of this world, so only Kashi could have crafted them.

Miote identified the contents of the drip and was quite surprised to see Tier 3 health potions inside. It was these potions that were keeping the beasts from joining the circle.

"Hmm?" Kashi's eyes traveled the room, seemingly only then realizing just how terrible it looked. "Oh, apologies. Should have warned you about those."

"Forget the warning," Miote chided. "Explain what this is all about."

Kashi nodded distractedly as he carved runes onto some gemstones. "Well, you see, the thing is I met this Grandmaster Alchemist in Rosendun, and she had all these jars filled with raw materials for recipes. I always wondered how she managed to get so many. It's not like she was a warrior, and she definitely wasn't receiving monsters daily."

Miote watched as he placed the gemstones on an enchanting table then walked over to the forge. "How'd she get them?"

Kashi paused for the briefest of seconds. "Well, I still do not know. But that is not the point." He picked up a flaming mass from the flames, placed it on an anvil, and begun hammering it into shape.

"What is?" Miote called over his shoulder as he studied some finished(?) works left on a workbench.

"Syel told me about something he was told in the caves. The Order could use dark magic or something to force a target to not return to the circle after death."

Miote whistled as he picked up and then examined a pistol. As expected of the daeben: Magnificent craftsmanship. "Remind me to apologize to Heru. She called you out on using black magic."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"Oh, Heru. Yeah, I remember her. That was the day I succeeded in synthesizing Nyte-Nyte." The thing he hammered took the shape of a saber, which he placed into a trough containing Slief blood (Slief's were the ninjas of the wasteland. The little monsters , which looked like hairless monkey s, hunted in the dead of night with brilliant camouflage and speed. They were semi-intelligent and housed their treasures in underground caves. Kashi had found that soaking weapons and armor in their blood during the manufacturing stage gave an increase to speed and stealth.

"Yes, she was especially thrilled to meet you," Miote confirmed as he stopped at what seemed to be a bow made solely of crystals (it had no clean shape, the crystals jagged and rough.) Conversely, it had no bowstring, and had a placard tagged 'Ginyx.' Something about it drew his hand...

"Don't touch that!" Kashi warned, his voice unusually sharp. "Unless you plan to kill us both."

"Yeah, sure," Miote muttered as he shook his head and continued his self-tour. "You were saying something about stopping targets from returning to the circle?"

"Oh yes," Kashi said, placing the length of the cooled saber into the craft sphere that appeared above the anvil. He picked up a guard and handle he had made separately and also added those to the sphere. "Well," he continued as he struck the sphere, "While practicing with the materials in this lab, I found that most of the items which rarely or don't at all fall as drops were really effective, and had interesting side-effects."

"So, what? You decided to turn into Dr. Frankenstein."

"Frankenstein gave life to an inanimate object. I'm simply prolonging the death of living things."

Miote sighed. "It was a joke."

"Oh, I know," Kashi said with a smile as he raised the newly formed saber. Beautiful, but he was far from done with it. Using the colored blood of different beasts, and pigments from some plants as paint, he designed the hilt and blade, increasing its deadliness and beauty even further.

Miote walked over to one of the examining tables, where a minbison was sprawled, both horns, eyes, and tongue gone. It was declawed, and its skinny frame suggested it s blood had been drained. Game or not, this was one of the most inhuman things he had ever seen. And he couldn't reconcile the reality in front of him with the good-natured daeben.

Kashi must have sensed Miote’s discomfort because he said, "Don't worry. From the moment they were caught in the field, none of them have woken up or felt any pain."

And there it was. A reality Miote could reconcile with. Kashi was one of those who, as long as he could rationalize an act to himself, would go along with it, world view be damned. Suddenly, the c hesch felt a lot more at ease. "How'd you manage that? I don't think sleeping pills can stop me from feeling my leg being sawn off."

"You clearly haven't used the strong stuff yet then," Kashi commented. He was done with the designs and began inserting tiny button-sized gemstones into sockets embedded in the s aber’s hilt . These were merely for aesthetics and had no additional effect. "I used poppy to knock out their nervous systems."

Miote whirled around eyes wide. "Poppy? As in the drug?"

"Well, no. Not exactly," Kashi corrected. "There's a plant that grows here that emits a knockout gas, then eats any living thing near it. When you mix that with the toxins from a desert snake, and a few things here and there to regulate the effect, you get a drug that wipes out all feeling of pain temporarily."

"Hmm.. that might be usef-"

"It's not," Kashi said with a grimace, remembering his experience. "For lack of test subjects, I tried it on myself. The damned thing not only knocks out pain but every single stimulus your body would normally receive. That is, you go blind, deaf, lose taste, can't touch, can't smell, and none of your muscles work. But your mind is still active." He shuddered. "Never felt anything worse."

Miote could not help but laugh at the daeben's misery. "Serves you right, I say. Divine punishment and all that."

Kashi clucked his tongue as he picked up the gemstone he had been working on when the Chesch walked in. He inserted that into the blade just below the guard and waited...

Nothing happened, and he could not be happier for it, which he highlighted with an elated "Yes!"

"What happened?" Miote called distractedly, eyes fixed on rows of new styles of armor neatly arranged on wooden posts, while several cloth armors of different designs lay on the workbench. He really envied the daeben's creativity sometimes.

"This enchantment, rune-making thing still is hit- or -miss for me," Kashi explained.

This was because Kashi’s enchantment skill was comparatively lower to his other crafting skills, which were on the brink of entering the Master level. He had no time to start training the enchantment skills from scratch, so he'd been performing only high-level enchantments. His high handicraft skill helped, but every 1 in 3 gems broke, and every 2 in 5 enchanted stones placed in a finished work exploded. Tiring, to say the least, but the boon was that each successful work gave a significant boost to the field. He placed the saber into a scabbard made from the tufts of a m arch bird indigenous to Rosendun (It increased draw speed.)

Kashi put the saber which he was yet to name on a rack by the wall, then picked up a magnificent rapier, hilt as bright as the morning sun, sheathed in a golden scabbard. He walked over to the chesch and handed it to him. "Here, this is for you."

Miote accepted the blade and examined it.

[Unnamed] Expert Work

Weight: 14

Durability: (80/80)

Armor Type: Leather

ATK: 65 ~ 70

A magnificent blade for Royalties of the land.

Sturdy yet elegant, this weapon invokes a sense of awe in all who witness it.

Restrictions: Lv. 90

Equip : Penetration increased by 5 0%

Charm +25

Improves prices at shops by 23%

Chance of Inflicting Swoon +13%

"Gorgeous," Miote murmured in English. "It doesn't have a name?"

Kashi shrugged. "Figured it would be better if you named it."

"Thank God for small miracles," the chesch muttered under his breath as he strapped the weapon to his side.

"I heard that," Kashi called as he went to another workbench littered with gemstones. "Want to see something cool?"

"Surprise me."

"Kashi picked up a small gemstone no larger than a button, released some of his ki into it, then tossed it to the chesch. "Say something."

Miote caught it. "Why?"

Sighing, Kashi retrieved the gemstone from his confused hands. He took out something from his inventory that made Miote's eyes almost bulge out of their sockets: headphones. The daeben held a pair of headphones in his hands.

Intrigued beyond belief, Miote watched as Kashi inserted the gem into an open socket on its left ear. The daeben beckoned him closer, then placed the headphones on his head. What happened next filled the chesch with so much awed amazement, he couldn't cease his foolish grin.

"Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy~" His voice repeated without end, yet he could not bring himself to take the headphones off. This was a man who listened to music every day in the real world, but whether from disbelief or amazement, he found himself transfixed.

Kashi removed the headphones and took out the gemstone. "Yeah, I had a similar look on my face when it worked for the first time."

Miote blinked, recovering from his initial shock. "How did you do that?"

"The headphones are were easy to make using materials from beasts," Kashi explained. "There're no enchantments on them yet. The runes, however, were a lot more work." He went on to explain how it worked..

On the first day, the daeben had deciphered the rune markings to be words, but he had later discovered that they weren't many words per se but single words stacked on top of each other like building blocks. For example, the gemstone Miote had found was tagged with 'absorb' on one end, and 'eject' on the other. Then another rune translating roughly as 'amplify' was tagged above the 'absorb' rune, thereby changing its function a little bit.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

To test his theory, Kashi tagged both ends of a gemstone with the absorb and eject runes, then tagged 'flame' on the absorbing end. He found that no other stimuli were absorbed by the stones except for fire. He also found that the order in which you tagged the stones was important. If you inscribed the flame rune first, then it turned into a flame gemstone and would instantly reject the 'absorb' and 'eject' runes. Using this as a base, he discovered several tricks and ways to manipulate the runes.

Kashi inscribe d 'absorb' and 'eject , ' then 'sound' onto the stone, but discovered that after it repeated once, the sound stopped, having been ejected from the stone. This was where he found a bit of trouble. After several trials and errors, he finally had a semi-working model.

Kashi scrapped the eject rune, then inscribed 'absorb' 'sound' onto one side, then on the other, 'speak' 'within' 'repeat' in that order, as the language apparently did not have a natural replacement for 'replay sound.' The length of the recording also depended on how much mana or ki was put into it.

While Miote was busy marveling at the intricacies of how it worked, the daeben picked up another gemstone. This one was shaped like a ball and was slightly larger than a tennis ball. Its entire frame was marked with runes.

"What's that one do?" Miote asked.

A broad grin spread across the daeben's face as he tapped it twice.

Immediately, a picture of the daeben, eyes furrowed in a worried expression, was projected onto the wall. Kashi slid his fingers across the ball, and the images changed, showing the daeben in different positions, working on various experiments.

"You made a bloody camera!?" Miote demanded the know-how.

"Wait for it," Kashi teased and triple-tapped the body of the ball. The projection switched to a five-second clip of Kashi clapping, a relieved smile on his face. "That's the longest it can record for now." He paused, remembering something important. "Oh, yeah. You can upload... or is it download?" He shook his head. "Either way, you can put anything recorded by this into your Virtual Drive and use it in the real world. The sound gems don't yet have this function, though." He frowned. "It's not perfected yet. Still need to extend the time, and make them store energy, so you don't need to constantly waste mana replenishing it. Hmm, maybe if I? No, that won't work. It would interfere with the-"

"Holy Mother of..." Miote exclaimed. "You're still not satisfied? Do you have any idea what you just made?"

Now, Miote wasn't this excited because Kashi invented a glorified video camera - impressive as that was. His excitement was caused by the value of the invention. Till then, the Virtual Drive could only record what you saw with your own eyes, and the m odified r inks from the old game were nowhere to be found.

So, no selfies... The tragedy!!!

With these, not only would people be able to take their own photos, but they would also be able to record any fights they got into or any places they explored. And the fact you could download the images to your Virtual Drive? That was just priceless!

"How long you had this idea?" Miote asked as he fought to regain his composure.

"For a while now," Kashi replied. "Have two major projects I'm working on, which would benefit greatly from having these up and functioning." He walked over to a cupboard and opened it. "The first is in the islands south of Rosendun. The second," he said as he took out an instrument and brandished it, "I call Project Fame."

Miote, who didn't think he could be surprised any further, felt his resolve shaken. "Is that what I think it is?"

Kashi strummed the electric guitar and grinned as it produced a sweet 'jiaangg' sound. "Yup. It even works without amplifiers. You can thank the Rachus we fought in the mines for that. Their whiskers make good strings."

Miote accepted the guitar and strummed a quick melody himself. "It's the real deal," he said, surprise evident in his voice. "What's Project Fa-"

"Get down!"

Miote ducked as Kashi took out a drumstick and flung it behind him. A disgruntled cry rang out, and he turned around to see a ghoulish beast that looked like a cross between an orc and an even uglier Nekker clutching its eye in pain. Its palish skin bulged in rage as it raised its club to clobber the merchant.

"Kashi, behind you!" Miote warned as he whirled around and blocked the blow with the guitar. The magnificent instrument shattered under the strike. "That was a nice guitar, you asshole." He shot up with blinding speed and tackled the beast, but it slammed its elbow onto his exposed back, knocking the air out of his lungs.

However, Miote refused to let go. Instead, he tightened his grip around its w ais t, and with surprising strength, lifted it off the ground. Enraged and surprised, the beast relentlessly clawed at the chesch's shoulders and back, but Kashi's garments were as durable as they were fashionable. Gritting his teeth, Miote bent backward and punished it with a german suplex, crushing it headfirst into the floor.

Miote stood up and then brushed his jacket. "Barbaric, but effective as always."

The beast made to rise again, but he stomped its head to the floor, took out a sword from his inventory, and then slid it into its heart. He waited till it went still then retrieved his blade. He cleaned black blood off it with a cloth, then tossed the fabric into the forge where it burned to ash.

Miote turned to check up on the daeben and was met with an incredible sight.

Three of the beasts were kneeling in front of him, black eyes wide with fright.

The daeben had no expression as he administered large doses of Nyte-Nyte to each of them until they dozed off.

"H-how did you do that?"

"Bloodlust," Kashi answered matter-of-factly. "Useful when I don't particularly feel like fighting." He looked around. "Seems that was the last of them."

"A portal appeared behind you. I think that's where they came from," Miote said, picking up the damaged guitar.

Kashi examined it. "Don't worry. It can be fixed. More importantly, who would attack us here? And with that kind of magic?"

"No idea," Miote confessed. "You think we should check on the others?"

"Syel's with them," Kashi said. "They should be fine."

"Just in case, though."

"Yeah, okay," Kashi agreed. He took out a r ink and tried contacting Lunette.

That failed.

He tried Shadow.

That failed too.

Panicking just a little, he contacted everyone he knew, but there seemed to be a universal block on the r inks.

He placed the r ink back in his inventory, then attempted contacting them using the Friend List.

Still no contact, but at least their names were still on the list, so they were definitely alive.

"I seem to be blocked out," Kashi said. Miote's confused expression revealed he had the same problem.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The ceiling trembled under the force of something, while the sound of something punching the entrance door reached their eyes.

Irritated, and a little worried, Kashi took out a newly crafted bow and his signature quartet quivers. "Come on," he beckoned to the chesch as he walked up the stairs. "You would say it's rude not to greet our guests, wouldn't you?"

Sighing, Miote placed the as-yet-unnamed saber in his inventory and drew out another sword, identical to the first. "Suppose I have no choice," resigned the chesch as he sheathed the thin blades in the scabbards that had appeared by his side, then followed the daeben up the stairs.

Kashi pushed down the door handle, then slammed against the frame with as much force as he could muster. He registered a cry as the door flung open, but barely had time to process its source as the claw of one of the earlier monsters reached for his face.

Kashi closed his eyes and suppressed a scream as the putrid lengths ripped his skin off. However, the pain was just a message to the brain, and currently, he chose to ignore that message. He grabbed the beast's arm with his right and yanked it towards him. He heard a satisfying scream as its face slammed against the door.

Kashi reached through the gap and grabbed the beast's head before it could fall . He then slammed it against the door one more time, but this time, it exploded from the force, sending brain matter everywhere.

Kashi wiped the gooey substance off his face as he tentatively opened his eyes, which stung from poison embedded in the beast's claws.

"There's another one!" Miote warned, but the daeben was way ahead of him.

Kashi stomped the floor, and a slab of stone shot up, protecting him from the Ornek (beast's name) he had flung when he pushed the door open. The beast's blow struck against the wall but couldn't pierce through. He punched through the wall with his left hand, grabbed its throat, and slammed it against the wall a few times to vent his anger. When its sound of resistance died down, he ripped out its jugular and let the limp mass fall.

Satisfied, Kashi finally got a chance to clear the gooey substance and open his stinging eyes. He surmised the poison was supposed to render him blind, but because of his high poison resistance, it only stung very painfully. Quite honestly, at this point, he preferred blindness, especially since it seemed eye drops did nothing to avail the pain.

"You okay?" Miote asked.

"No, not really," Kashi replied. "But it won't be a detriment in battle."

"Battle? There's more of those?"

Kashi removed a pair of earplugs from his ears. "Yes," he said, closing his eyes. "Thirty on this floor, about seventy or so upstairs and two huge ones outside."

"What? First Frankenstein, now you wanna be Daredevil?"

Kashi turned to him with a mischievous smirk. "I could never be Daredevil."

"Why not? You've got the blind - hear - all thing going for you."

"Well, for one," Kashi said as he nocked an arrow. "He doesn't kill."

The arrow flew into the brain of an o rnek rounding the corner. It perished instantly.

"Can't argue with that," Miote agreed.

Kashi led the charge across the hallways, and Miote never ceas ed to be amazed by the daeben’s accuracy with the bbow . And this was while he was blinded. Then there was the fact Kashi wasn't using any skills, which meant that the game was not assisting his aim in any way at all.

Scary. Very Scary.

They eventually fought their way to the entrance, where they decided to make a stand.

Kashi slung the bow diagonally over his shoulder and drew four arrows per hand from his quivers. With his back to the entrance doors, he listened and waited. His muscles stiffened as he picked up the enemies charging from the dining room to his left. He activated [ Drill ] and then flung the arrows.

With their pen etrating power magnified by [Drill] , the bolts burst through the wall and tore into a good number of the Orneks before they could register what was happened.

Enraged, the survivors broke through the weakened wall and prepared to pounce on the daeben.

Miote, however, appeared before them in a flash, swords pointing to the earth.

The closest lunged at him, arm drawn for a strike. Swip! The outstretched arm fell to the earth, and Miote looked to the startled Orneks with a strangely friendly smile. "Now, now. Come, friends, let's play." The monsters stood transfixed, unable to move because of the [Trance] Skill. Miote disposed of them before they could break free of his hold. He turned to Kashi, something witty on the tip of his tongue, but a torrent of Orneks chose that moment to rush down the stairs.

Unbelievably, Kashi was grinning! He was excited!

Miote shook his head as he awaited the o rneks at the foot of the stairs.

Kashi, however, was not as patient. He flung a gemstone above the stairs, drawing the beasts' attention. An arrow followed soon after and shattered it on impact. Untamed flames burst out and struck down against the monsters. Those directly beneath the blast were burnt to a crisp on contact, and those closeby cried out as they were set ablaze.

Kashi rushed ahead of Miote and kneed the closest beast as he jumped. The force flung it into the air in a similar flight pattern to his.

Elated, Kashi stabbed its chest, somersaulted in the air for added momentum, then slammed the beast onto its burning companions , crushing them beneath him. He then rose slowly amidst the flames, fingers clenching and releasing slowly.

Kashi snapped to his left as an o rnek recovered from its shock and attacked.

The o rnek lunged from beneath, but Kashi had the advantage of higher ground. He spun around and crushed the heel of his boot into the beast's face, shattering several bones in the process. It zipped back the way it came and crashed into the others with the force of a torpedo knocking them back.

Uncharacteristically, Kashi did not take advantage of this opening. Instead, he whirled around as five Nekkers simultaneously lunged from above. He retreated down two rungs, activated [ Angel Step ] , and then shot forward, also enabling [ Automatic ] and [ Extra Round ] simultaneously.

In the span of a breath, he had passed all five, several arrows in their confused frames. He reached the closest Ornek from the top party before the first five felt the force of his attack. His fists, augmented by [ Gaia ] , crushed the surprised o rnek as the first five were blown back into their companion from the initial attack.

Kashi did not let up for a second, overcharged by the numerous skills and Ferulic's Sprit. For you see, the poor daeben had not had a good close - combat fight in which to practice his skills in a long time. The number and fodder-level strength of these monsters were perfect for venting his frustrations.

Kashi emptied an entire quiver, shooting arrows with inhuman speed and then listened, disappointed. What his fists had not destroyed, the arrows had finished off. Cursing, he deactivated all his abilities. Maybe he would have more of a satisfying fight this way.

Kashi glared at the monsters gathered at the foot of the stairs. Amusingly, they completely ignored the chesch as they backed away towards the door. So they understood fear... Amusing.

Kashi activated [A ngel Step ] and dashed down the stairs. He zoomed past a bemused Miote, jumped, and then delivered a punishing kick to the first. Without stopping, he dropped to the floor, cut an arc with his leg, spun around again, and struck another arc, higher this time.

Taking a page from Shoko's skill set, his kicks had enough power and precision behind them to release shockwaves of air with each arc cut. The unsuspecting o rneks were swept off their feet by the first swing, then blasted against the wall by the second. Kashi flung eight arrows, pinning four by the shoulders to the wall.

Kashi let the remaining fourteen fall and listened as they circled around him. They seemed to have wizened, choosing to circle around him.

Kashi grinned as he said, "Come."

They shrieked in rage as they pr-

"Can you all stop ignoring me?"

One of the o rneks looked to its chest in confusion, where black blood leaked around a thin protruding blade. The blade twisted, so its sharp end faced the ceiling, then zipped up with impressive speed, slicing through like a knife through butter. The severed halves fell on either side, revealing a less than pleased golden chesch.

Kashi pouted as Miote sliced through four more. Then he remembered. Yeah, there were two giant monsters outside. Excited, he decided to leave the small fry to the chesch. He ignored the pained cries of the beasts pinned above as he made his way out of the mansion.

Luckily, the poison's effects had worn off sometime during the fight, so he opened his eyes, pleased by the lack of pain, but annoyed by the sight before him. Two giant beasts he did not recognize lay in front of a familiar figure , all seemingly knocked out.

The culprit was looking towards the night sky.

"Hey!" Kashi called as he approached Rider. "Those were mi-!" He promptly fell to the ground, clutching his head. "Damn it! Not again!" he cursed and cried out in pain as his blood and spirit reacted violently to something, instinct guiding him to look towards the moon.

Kashi instantly forgot all the pain as his face blanched. He recognized that mask. Nothing could replicate the dreadful feeling the simple design suffocated its observers with. "...Razz," he unwittingly muttered.

Rider spun around, eyes somehow both green and red. Unmistakable fangs grew from his canines as he lifted the daeben by his throat. "What did you just say?" His only reply was the expression on the daeben's face, which had gone from disbelief to real terror. And it was not directed at him. He looked to the sky, and what he saw caused him to release the daeben in shock.

Kashi fell to his knees, unable to tear his eyes from the moon.

The mask-

No...

Razznik, the Destroyer, was looking straight at them...