“I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood.” - Seth Dickinson (The Monster Baru Cormorant)

* * * *

Sera must have spent hours in the shower, scrubbing herself clean. Even as she almost rubbed her skin raw, she felt as if she could still smell and see the blood.

Ebis Ivanor isn’t her first kill. She had lived on the streets all her life, and she knew what must be done to survive. But that huntress… It was the first time she had done something like that—striking fear in the hearts of everyone who had witnessed that duel.

Even as Sera turned off the water of the shower, letting the water droplets drip off the ends of her hair, she didn’t move for several moments.

She doesn’t regret anything. She did what needed to be done, as Zest had said.

And yet… And yet…

Why does she feel like shit?

The cool air of the room hit her skin after Sera got dressed and stepped out of the bathroom on the second level of Pandemonium, only to see Zest seated on the couch, waiting for her.

“You waited.” It was a statement, not a question.

Zest nodded silently. “Alisa said that she’ll take Aegis back to the boathouse,” he told Sera. “She’ll stay with them for tonight. They said you can take as long as you want before you decide when you want to return.”

“Tomorrow,” Sera murmured, throwing the towel over the back of the nearby chair, and dropping herself down next to Zest. “…I promised when I started Aegis that I wouldn’t make the same mistake with them that I did with Blade. I won’t just do whatever I want without thinking about them. I brought them into this life. I have a responsibility to them.”

Zest nodded without saying anything for several moments; only watching as Sera picked up the pack of cigarettes lying on the coffee table in front of them, lighting one up with expert ease with the lighter on the table.

“I thought you quit?”

Sera didn’t answer, as she took a light puff. “After the week I had, I need something strong,” she admitted.

“What’s on your mind?” Zest wanted to know. He knows that expression on Sera’s face.

Sera stared at her fingers for several minutes, not moving even as the cigarette in between her fingers burned down slowly, scattering the ash on the ground.

“That huntress…” Sera said at last. “She couldn’t fight back. I outclassed her as I knew I would. I didn’t show any mercy. I can quite easily end her life countless times within the first five minutes in the arena. But I didn’t. I went with the most terrifying way.” She looked at Zest. “There’s a reason why I hardly use those steel wires, you know?”

Zest nodded in agreement. He remembered his own experience with them.

“They call you the Death Reaper for a reason.” He reminded Sera. “Just like they call me the Black Demon for a reason.” Zest’s lips twitched. “I stand by what I said. You did what you had to do. If it had been me down there in the arena, I wouldn’t have done any less. You did it to send a message. A warning. And all of us understood that. According to underground laws, you did nothing wrong. There is one absolute rule amongst the underground. ‘Survival of the fittest’.” He reminded.

“I knew what I was signing myself up for the day I embarked on this path.” Sera jabbed the cigarette into the ashtray. “I don’t regret anything. The hunters… I’m going to destroy them.” Her eyes flashed.

Zest leaned back into the couch. “Think your guys will be up for it?” He wanted to know. “It’s not for the faint of heart.” He warned. “What you’re—we’re planning to do, is going to start a revolution.” Zest scowled faintly. “I still suspect that it might be part of the reason why we’re targeted. Somehow, the hunters knew what we were planning. And it scares them.”

“I don’t know how well they’ll take it. I’m going to tell them everything. And then… I’ll let them decide.” Sera admitted, also leaning back into the couch. “No more secrets. No more lies.”

* * * *

It is almost eerily silent, considering the time of night it is.

Mathis was careful even as he walked carefully, beady eyes squinting at the ground even under the cover of darkness to ensure that he wouldn’t set off any traps. This is underground territory, after all. To be exact, Abyss territory.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

His orders from the head of the hunters were clear: retrieve Ebis, dead or alive. Though to be honest, he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to enter Abyss and out again.

There were stories about the Abyss since their inception. Only fools or morons cross the people of the underground.

Even Mathis only somehow managed to find one of the entrances of the Abyss through sheer dumb luck.

So far, the area is quiet. And no guards that he can spot yet. Mathis swallowed nervously, pulling out a lock pick, and surveying the thick steel door in front of him, trying to find a lock of some sort that he could pick.

As he ran his hands over the steel door, muttering death threats to the underground and the abominations beneath his breath; out of nowhere, a silver dagger came hurtling through the air and pinned his hand to the door.

Mathis let out a pained howl, removing the dagger without concern if it had nicked an artery or not, and spun around.

“Who’s there?” he demanded, his uninjured hand pulling out his gun by the side. His eyes surveyed the area wildly. “Show yourself!”

For several moments, all is silent.

Too silent.

Even the usual sounds of owls or even crickets couldn’t be heard, rousing Mathis’ suspicions. He recalled something his old mentor had told him when he was a boy: whenever a forest goes eerily silent, it means a predator is close.

Mathis’ muscles were taut, even as he inched forward slowly, careful to not make any sounds at all; peering into the darkness of the forest surrounding him. Then, as he took his first steps on the forest bed, it happened.

Mathis froze as he felt his limbs not responding at all, as his arms were pulled away from his body, and his gun fell from his hand and to the forest bed.

The dark clouds concealing the moon chose that chance to move, and then, Mathis finally saw why he was unable to move, even as the rays of the full moon above reflected off what was currently crisscrossed over the area of the forest that he was in.

Wires. Steel wires.

Steel wires crisscross across the forest and around the boughs and trunks of the nearby trees, and even around his arms and even his torso. There is even one wrapped loosely around his neck.

There is only one person he knows who uses this particular weapon. And only one who could weave it in such a way that one wouldn’t realise they’re walking into a trap until they’re already in it.

“Sera Kroix, you’re out there, aren’t you?! Show yourself!” Mathis snarled, his features morphing into an ugly sneer, even as he struggled, trying to find a way to free himself. If he can just reach for the holster on his arm…

“Unfortunately, for you, that is, Sera isn’t here.” A soft voice echoed from within the darkness of the forest, causing Mathis to freeze. “And she isn’t the only one that uses steel wires. She’s the one who taught me how to use it. It’s just that unlike her, I can’t put it up in the heat of a battle. It was all set up before your arrival, Mathis.”

“What?”

Then, Mathis saw him.

He almost melted out of the shadows—his appearance is so sudden.

Clad almost entirely in black—with a black tee and jeans, and with a black jacket. His dark hair reached a little below his earlobes, with a strip of white through the fringe, and a silver hoop earring in his left ear. And it was only as he stepped out of the forest when the rays of the moon above hit him in just the right areas when Mathis spotted the distinct tattoo of a blade on the side of his neck.

“…A Blade survivor?”

The look in the eyes of the new arrival was cold, with an even colder smile tugging at the ends of his lips. “Do you seriously think that the Abyss would leave one of their entrances unguarded and unmanned? Or even that information about where to find one of those entrances can be so easily found? When both the Premier and her second are on the warpath after what one of yours did?”

It is the way that those words were phrased that caused alarm bells to go through Mathis’ head.

“I-It can’t be…”

“Yes. I made sure it would reach your ears. I pulled a few strings with some of my contacts in the Abyss, ensuring that this particular entrance would be unmanned for just a few hours.” His lips twitched. “She probably already suspected. But I’d rather that Sera not get any confirmation of my survival as it is. I have a duty to her and Blade. And I’ll see it through to the end.”

“Your little pathetic group is gone!” Mathis spat. “Like it should have been!”

Instead of angering the person in front of him, like Mathis thought it would, it only seems to amuse him.

“And it took, what? Forty hunters to take down our entire gang?” he mused in a tone that seemed to suggest he was talking about the weather. “How many of you did Sera leave alive? And how many of those alive are even functional as a hunter now?”

Mathis hesitated. He was part of the group with Ebis sent to Zephys two years ago. It was a literal bloodbath. Only five out of the original group of forty survived, Ebis and Mathis amongst them. And of those five, three of them were crippled by the Death Reaper and the Black Demon. One of those only survived thanks to machines keeping him tied to the world of the living.

From what Mathis heard, however, the doctors were trying to convince his family to pull the plug on the life support system. As for the other two, they were killed in some hunt that went wrong within the last two years…

Mathis suddenly realised what caused their deaths.

“Y-You monster!”

The eyes of the survivor hardened. “We’re just returning the fight that you started!” he snarled. “You won’t be leaving here alive, Mathis. Sera took care of Ebis Ivanor on her end. I took care of the rest of your little pathetic group that thinks it your Goddess-given duty to fuck around in our territory and with our people. And if Lleucu is still alive, like I believe he is; no way he would let it go either. You fuckers signed your fucking death warrants the day you decided to fuck around with us.”

Mathis is starting to get the feeling that his clock is starting to run down. He knew that he was going to die here tonight.

“W-We were just following orders.” Mathis croaked, tears already starting to stream down his cheeks. Even as a rookie hunter, he had heard about the horror stories of the underground. Amongst the hunters, it is said that it’s a far better fate to end your life by your own hands than fall to one of the underground. “I-It’s not like I wanted to—”

The steel wires wrapped around his limbs tightened, and Mathis bit back a hiss of pain. It felt almost as if the wires were about to slice through his limbs—something that terrified him.

“Spare me the pity party. You hunters are all the same. You’re all poison.” The Blade survivor snarled. “You had the choice to not follow those fucking orders! You lot delight in doing so that night! Half of our people were Normals! And you didn’t fucking care!” He took in several deep breaths to calm down. “It’s your bad luck you ran into me tonight. As much as it is terrifying to witness the end of Ebis Ivanor, at least Sera made it quick. With me? Or even Zest? It depends on our mood, though Zest can be forgiving if he is in a good mood. I’m the Left Hand for a reason. I make sure that our enemies are dead, and that they can’t threaten Sera and Blade anymore.”

Mathis choked as the steel wire around his throat tightened, nearly cutting off his air supply entirely.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to enjoy this. You see, unlike Sera, I make sure my enemies always suffer before they die.”

It’ll be hours before the screams stop, and nearly dawn before the people of the Abyss discover the mutilated body of the hunter pinned against the wall near one of the Abyss’ entrances, with a bloody message carved into the torso.

Peaceful days are over. Let’s survive.