April 25, 4024 AA

Europe, in the capital of Freyland, Divonia.

1:00 AM

"BEHIND YOU!!" 

Yosa screamed desperately with a look of horror portrayed in his blue eyes at his dear friend Kazuma. From the side of the rooftop they were on top of, a demon wolf had climbed ready to attack with its knife-sized fangs and its hard as metal claws.

As Kazuma who was standing near the edge of the roof top realized he unsheathed his katana. Kazuma's brown eyes glowed with a gentle white light as he grabbed the magnificent silver blade with bizarre engravings on it instantly unleashing bursts of razor-sharp wind directed to the blood thirsty predator behind him. The wind penetrated the wild beast first, pushing it back and making it growl with pain until Kazuma's katana landed the final strike straight to its heart. Before long the wolf was cut into several different parts as its limbs and gore fell down the floor.

"Ew, gross!" noted Kazuma as he stepped away from the scene, "Relax dude, you should be glad we finally get to have some action as well."

"It's still dangerous!" scolded him Yosa. "Remember this gate is B rank, we're only C. Who knows what kind of monsters we could face."

As Kazuma put his katana back to its sheath he looked at his friend annoyed, "We are at the 1km radius away from the portal. The B rank hunters are already there handling it, whatever monster gets here is bound to be just some weakling that was hiding amongst the B rank demons. Judging from how easy it was to cut through this wolf, I'd say it could even be a D rank…"

Since humanity's oldest records there is one common enemy, demons. Portals that open from time to time allow hordes of enemies to enter the world. Demons are separated into two main categories: the wild beasts and the humanoid intelligent demons. The former refers to mindless bloodthirsty beasts that resemble the wildlife of earth but a lot stronger and with far more extravagant features. The latter which are far rarer sights are intelligent creatures that can use magic.

While firearms or other similar forms of weaponry won't affect those monsters, humans still have one major weapon to use against them: hunters. Hunters is a term used to refer to special humans that have the ability to use magic using a special sword called "Rokkukaijo", the most common sword type hunters choose is the Japanese katana for its light weight, although there are still many hunters that prefer other sword types.

With the help of modern technology, humans are able to predict the location of portals several weeks ahead as well the approximate strength of the demons using it and utilize this advantage to evacuate the area around it and ambush them.

As the two friends kept arguing about the safety of their mission a familiar female voice shouted at them from another rooftop. They both turned around only to see the final member of the team, the beautiful Audrey. The short yet muscular girl was sprinting at them jumping from rooftop to rooftop at incredible speed occasionally pushing her medium length blonde hair away from her green eyes. She was 170cm tall and her face was round with very attractive features. She was wearing the typical black tracksuit all hunters wear with her identification badge on the left of her chest which displayed her name, rank and division in the Hunters Association as well as her Rokkukaijo which was tied to her belt at the left side of her body.

The two guys who wore the same uniform as her went to greet her and learn more about the ongoing situation she had gone to assess. 

The three hunters had been in the same team for over 4 years, since they were all 15 years old. They had gone through the same training under their strict teacher, Mrs. Coralia, a retired A rank hunter.

Upon her landing Kazuma was the first one to talk to her. Kazuma was 181cm tall with short brown hair and brown eyes, he had a sharp jawline and pointy nose. He was considered the laziest of the group and would often skip classes and training to sleep in, forcing the other two to cover for him. Yosa often joked that unless it's real action Kazuma would do anything to avoid it. Unbeknownst to Audrey, Kazuma had always had a crush on her which he would occasionally talk about with Yosa but never actually confessed to her due to the nature of their work.

"Glad to see you're unharmed, what's the situation at the portal?"

Yosa looked at them waiting for Audrey's response. Yosa was 180cm tall which Kazuma always joked about since he was taller even if it was by just 1cm. He had medium to short length messy black hair and blue eyes. He had an average jawline and a long forehead which he would hide with his hair.

Without wasting any time Audrey answered with a tone of anxiety visible in her voice, "Something unexpected happened, I don't know the details, but they need reinforcements asap. They told me to drop the perimeter and go there immediately."

"Let's go then." Said Yosa.

The other two nodded and rushed to the scene jumping from rooftop to rooftop.

Arriving at the central crossroad of the city, where all the skyscrapers and tourist attractions were located at, Yosa and company could already feel a menacing aura from far away. Since the buildings were too tall for them to keep moving on rooftops, they were walking on the street passing the occasional destruction and demon corpses when they noticed an injured hunter on the floor. He was sitting next to a collapsed streetlight with gigantic marks of destruction on the convenience store behind him. It was as if a pear of huge claws had attacked the building. Yosa, being the kindhearted person he was, rushed to the fallen hunter.

"What happened here, what is your condition?"

"Run away!" the middle-aged hunter whispered while trying to maintain his consciousness. He was missing one arm and had a piece of cloth he had ripped from his pants tied tightly around his upper arm to prevent the gruesome wound from bleeding. He also had huge sharp wound across his chest almost like he was scraped by a sword. With his other arm he was holding a picture of himself with a woman in her forties and a kid no older than ten years old. He looked one last time at the blood-stained picture before turning his gaze back to the horrified Yosa. "I loved them." Said the man as he took his final breath, dying right there at the pavement in front of them.

At that moment it became clear to the three young hunters what dangers the world was filled with. Being so young and only at rank C this was the first time they got to witness the death of a fellow hunter. Kazuma couldn't help but look away from the scene, he would always act obnoxious and superior with his friends but at this time he couldn't maintain his persona after facing the cruel reality. Similarly, Audrey couldn't look either, despite her strong appearance she was actually a very emotional and fragile person, her mom often told her she was unfit for the job and urged her to retire.

Yosa looked back at his friends and realized the impact this scene had for them. Looking back at the lifeless body he inspected the fallen hunter's badge. Although the upper half of the badge was completely gone, possibly cut off the moment the hunter received the mysterious wound on his chest, the bottom half which depicted the hunter's official rank was still intact. As Yosa glanced at it he was overwhelmed with a plethora of emotions, what he saw was an A. "A hunter two ranks higher than us was wounded so badly at a B rank portal, what the hell is going on? He must've been ambushed, right? No way a portal that was detected four weeks ago could be a false ranking." Yosa thought to himself, not wanting to scare his teammates, a decision he would very soon regret.

After years of experimentation and demon attacks humans had come up with a ranking system for portals, demons and hunters. Demons and hunters had similar ranks ranging from D all the way up to A and then S. The rank of a demon depicted how many civilians would die if the demon was let loose in a populated area, until the Hunter Association could respond.

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D: 10 civilians.

C: 100 civilians.

B: 1.000 – 10.000 civilians.

A: 50.000 – 100.000 civilians.

S: 500.000 – 1.000.000 civilians.

The rank of a hunter, which was based on a combination of combat ability and magical powers depicted how strong of a demon they could beat in a duel. For example, a B rank hunter could defeat a B rank demon or lower on their own without any help.

Lastly, the rank of a portal depicted the approximate rank of the hunters needed to defeat the demon or demons that would come out of it and was based on the magical measuring the P.P.D. (Portal Prediction Device) showed. The P.P.D. is a tool the Hunter Association has that can measure the magic and predict the location of portals ahead of time anywhere on earth. On rare occasions when either the P.P.D. malfunctioned or the demon inside the portal was strong enough to manipulate the magic and alter the measuring, there would be what hunters call a false ranking which could potentially lead to major casualties. False ranking was most prominent to predictions that occurred less than a week before a portal's appearance as there wasn't enough time to run more predictions and validate the resaults.

Yosa took one last glance and turned around. Trying to sound strong for his friends he said, "Let's go, we couldn't save him but if we hurry now, we might be able to save the next injured hunter we find." Keeping hidden the rank of the dead hunter.

The others nodded and kept walking ahead.

Yosa and the others finally arrived at the location of the portal without meeting any other injured hunters, however what they witnessed would scar them for the rest of their lives.

In the middle of the skyscrapers, the mega screens and all the small coffee shops. Standing there at the central square stood a humanoid demon, around him tens of lifeless bodies of B and A rank hunters, the sight of the blood and gore as well as the horrid stench was overwhelming for the three hunters.

Yosa and Audrey battled the nauseating feeling and the urge to puke while Kazuma blankly stared at the scene and mumbled, "Im-Impossible, humanoid demons are at least B rank on their own, a portal with beast and humanoid demons this should've been at least an A maybe even S rank."

The demon noticed the three hunters and smiled; he was a 196cm tall humanoid creature. Apart from his red eyes his face looked exactly like a human's and he had medium-length black hair. He had claw-like metal shards extending from the top of his fingers that were drenched in blood. He was wearing a simple black shirt and a pair of black pants, both seemingly made of wool. His shoes were several pieces of leather that were held together with rope, he also wore a black rugged and now blood stained mantle.

"You know… I was just getting bored, I was hoping for some stronger opponents but sure I can deal with a few more small fries" said the demon chuckling.

"Humanoid demons infuse their throats with magic and are able to speak in a language that all intelligent creatures can understand" Yosa remembered reading on his textbook, having regained his composure he grabbed the handle of his Rokkukaijo.

Audrey, who now was also focused unsheathed her own Rokkukaijo with her right hand and rushed to attack first. Being the most agile and powerful of the three, she was trained to engage first in such situations as she had the best chances to keep up with their opponent. She started running towards the monster in front of them with her blade on the side, her eyes started glowing with a blueish calm light as sharp waves of water started flowing out of her katana surrounding her and empowering her attack.

"Hmm water magic, let's see what you got." Said the demon with a wide smile.

Audrey put all her strength on her feet and kicked the ground beneath her. In the blink of an eye, she had closed the distance between her and the demon and landed the first strike.

Uninterested to block the demon took the first strike of the blade straight to the neck as countless waves of water followed the attack.

Before Audrey could assess how much damage she had dealt the demon disappeared.

"LEFT!!" shouted Yosa.

Audrey shocked looked to her left only to see the demon's sharp metal shards almost piercing straight through her.

Right then a gust of wind so powerful it could destroy a building hit the demon sending him flying straight into a nearby coffee shop.

Audrey retreated quickly and looked behind her to see Kazuma with his sword drawn gasping for air.

"Kazuma!! Be careful with how much magic you use, you might pass out!", "still thanks for saving me" she added inwardly.

Cough

Cough

"H-Hm that's nothing for the great Kazuma, hahaha."

 Yosa who had already drawn his own Rokkukaijo stepped forward and gestured to the others to get into triangular formation. "Guys we don't know where he went, this is no time to joke around."

The two hunters already knew that, Audrey's attack had no effect at all and Kazuma almost passed out just to push the demon away. It was that desperation that made joking around so easy, as if this would be their last interaction with one another.

They stood there with their backs turned on each other looking in every direction.

The sound of walls being destroyed and buildings going down made them certain that the demon was going through buildings to circle around them and they wouldn't let him do that so easily.

Yosa spotted a flash of light from inside a 2nd floor window in a nearby house, milliseconds later the demon had broken out of there and was moving towards Yosa with tremendous speed ready to cut his head off but Yosa already knew this would happen.

He took a deep breath and as an orange glow appeared in his eyes, his silver Rokkukaijo started burning hot unleashing a gigantic slash of flames, lighting up the darkness of the night, aimed at the incoming attacker.

Yosa's blade struck the demon's metal shards.

At that moment the demon smiled, "You think that's enough?". Waves of magic so strong that made the three hunters tremble, infused the metal shards of the demon. A loud sound of metal colliding vibrated in the air as Yosa's  Rokkukaijo shattered and his flames distinguished.

The metal shards having lost of their momentum due to the collision hit Yosa straight to the chest throwing him 20 meters away and destroying the triangular battle formation.

In that instant Audrey and Kazuma had already turned around and aimed their blades both infused with their respective elements at the demon's body.

"Excellent!" Shouted the demon with his smile growing even wider.

While the two blades were closing in on him he used both his arms and threw them in the air like he was a tiger trying to scratch its pray with its claws.

Waves of invisible magical scratches flew towards Audrey and Kazuma.

Kazuma took most of the damage straight to his core body having countless scratch marks on him and bleeding profusely and while he was still standing, he couldn't keep holding his katana and dropped it to the ground. Audrey on the other hand had tried blocking the attack with her left arm as her right arm was the one she was holding the sword with. The countless slashes penetrated Audrey's bone and ripped her hand apart, turning it into a thick mass of blood and gore.

She screamed with pain, a scream so terrifying it shook Kazuma. 

As the demon was about to finish the disoriented Audrey aimed his metal shards at her.

At that moment, Yosa finally stood up and looked at the horrifying scene, like it was in slow motion Yosa looked at Kazuma without his sword throwing his body at Audrey pushing her out of the way.

Kazuma saw his friend watching and couldn't help but say with a look of agony in his face but also peace, "Keep her safe, goodbye".

Instantly five great slashes, one from each finger, penetrated his body so much that they were even engraved on the ground beneath him.

Kazuma's body fell to the ground.

"HAHAHAHA, such a noble act, saving the princess at the cost of his life, a true knight, too bad she will die too. I am glad you three came, you might be weak but you're so much fun", the laughing demon said to himself.

He started walking towards the now passed out Audrey.

Yosa's sword was destroyed.

A hunter without a sword can't use magic, they are merely a little stronger than a normal human, that's all.

"I need to save her; I need to do something. Do something! YOU IDIOT! DO SOMETHING!!"

Yosa helplessly watched, he knew he couldn't do anything. The more he watched, the more useless he felt. The more useless he felt, the angrier he got. And the angrier he got his eyes started glowing. A red glow unlike the gentle orange of flames he would normally use. The red glow was that of wrath. Suddenly magic, so incredibly strong all the windows in the area shattered was unleashed from Yosa.

As Yosa's eyes glowed a new sword started forming from the magic seemingly out of thin air. It had no sheath, the blade had a deep red color, the same as Yosa's eyes with mysterious symbols engraved on it, it was sharper than any sword he's ever seen. The handle was weathered, seemed ancient, almost ready to crumble away, but it was tougher than a mountain. Yosa, half out of instinct, half out of desperation grabbed the ancient looking handle. Then a deep distorted voice echoed through the air. Only he could hear it, but it felt so loud to him that his ear drums would almost rupture.

"Do you want to save her?"

"Yes" replied Yosa.

"Okay" said the distorted voice, although he couldn't see the mouth that uttered it, he could swear, it was smiling.

The demon who was trying to protect himself against the immense amounts of magic released, saw the blood red sword and, realizing what was happening, jumped straight at Yosa, intending to finish him off before it was too late. Ignoring the magic concentrated around in the air he infused his metal shards with as much magic as he could.

"Claw Magic: Wave of Destruction" shouted the demon as he waved his hands at Yosa.

Billions of claw scratches infused with magic traveled through the air aimed at Yosa.

Destruction followed embracing the name of the ability. The seventeen-story skyscraper behind Yosa was reduced to dust. As the demon watched certain of his victory, he suddenly felt something.

"Behind you" said Yosa's mouth but a distorted voice came out not his, his eyes still glowing red.

Before the demon could react both his hands were cut off with a single slash of the sword.

He desperately tried to escape using all his strength and speed, while running he shouted,

"I won't go out that easily" taking a deep breath his eyes started turning bloodshot, all his veins and arteries started popping as his blood was moving at incredible speed.

"Blood-"

"I won't let you" The distorted words echoed, as Yosa raised his sword as stardust started flowing out of the blade, "Space-Time Split", said the distorted voice once again as Yosa slashed the air in front of him. The slash that made it seem like the world was split in two parts reached the fleeing demon that was already several hundred meters away, splitting his body in two.

"W-What?"

"Die, you weakling.", the last words that the demon heard before his body splattered as blood spilled over the street.

Yosa's eyes returned to normal as the Rokkukaijo that had appeared fell from his hand to the floor. Soon after Yosa collapsed himself, falling, under the night sky, in front of the massive crack his final attack had caused.