Sarah was silently running through the forest. By now, she was so used to this that not even sensitive animals noticed her until she was right next to them.
She was running along the river, straight in the direction where the camp of the scum supposedly was. By now, she had been traveling for almost a whole day, but she couldn’t see any activities.
"Did this dirtbag lie to us?" she murmured with an angry face while looking for any tracks humans might make.
Frustrated, she decided to climb a tall tree to take a look at her surroundings. With quite some shock, she noticed that not only her fingers but also her toes had gained claws. She felt more and more like a feral animal.
But the claws were extremely useful for climbing trees. It didn’t even matter anymore when there were no low-hanging branches. She could run up a tree trunk like a feline predator.
Sarah gracefully climbed the tree in no time and sat down on the highest branch, that was able to carry her weight.
"Wow." Sarah spoke in a flat voice. "I see a forest. And a river. That was really helpful."
She sighed and already wanted to climb down again when she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head around but couldn’t see anything in the direction she was going.
"Strange." she muttered, furrowing her brows. After thinking about it for some time, she focused on her magic power sense. And was rewarded with the location of the dirtbags.
Some distance away, there was a cluster of dense magic power, which reminded her of the camp by the caves. "I guess I have to get to work."
She was actually quite nervous. Sure, she had killed people before, even one of them in cold blood. But it was something different to attack a whole group of violent scum. She didn’t really want to think about what they would do to her, if they managed to capture her.
This thought made her shudder in disgust but also steel her resolve.
Like a ghost, she rushed through the forest towards her destination. It didn’t take long until she started to hear the sounds of busy people at work. But unlike in the caves, no one seemed to talk here.
Before she went closer, she smeared her unusually pale skin with dirt.
"Ugh, that’s so gross," she murmured in disgust as she covered herself in the slimy mud. But she really had no other choice, as it was still daytime. She pulled a wriggling caterpillar out of her hair and ate it before she started getting closer to the camp.
She somehow imagined horrible scenes of mutilated people lying on the ground. All of this, with the dirtbags doing horrible things to women out in public. But the bustling crowd of people didn’t look all that different from the one at the caves.
The most glaring difference was that they were even thinner. They looked so starved that Sarah expected them to fall over at any moment. And they were also barely dressed.
The other stark difference was that the mood was dark and ominous. Everyone was silent, and looked apathetic. They were doing various odd jobs, from cooking to building tents and equipment.
In the middle of them all sat the only well-nourished and armored man. He watched over them like a hawk and was chewing on some dried meat.
Sarah watched them until the night came, but nothing special happened. Apart from the armored man slapping a few of the women on their butts.
When the sun went down, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went to get a pathetically small portion of food from the cooking team.
They wolfed it down in an instant and went into different tents to sleep immediately afterwards.
The armored man held one of the women back, who wanted to go to sleep. She struggled a little but got hit by the man and went with him, shivering all over her body. They left for the woods, where they disappeared.
Sarah struggled with herself, not really knowing if she should do something right now. She knew that she had around 12 opponents. And her initial plan was to whittle down their numbers before she confronted their leader.
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But she hesitated for too long as the armored man came back alone, stretching with a content smile on his face.
He walked into the middle of the camp, hesitated for a moment, and started to walk in her direction.
Sarah panicked for a moment, but the man didn’t seem alert. So she climbed a tree in silence and watched.
The man went some distance into the woods and started peeing with a happy sigh. This was her opportunity. But first... she would wait until he finished.
She sneaked behind the man, who froze in the middle of pulling his pants up again. He turned around with an angry face, only to look Sarah straight in the eyes.
A look of utter horror appeared on his face, and he had already opened his mouth to scream. But Sarah shut his jaw with so much force that she heard a few of his teeth shatter.
The man was knocked out cold and fell to the ground. Sarah didn’t wait, snatched the unconscious man and ran away.
After she was a good distance away, she found a tall rock formation with some shrubbery on top of it. With some effort, she managed to climb it with the man over her shoulders. This was the perfect hiding place. Close enough to the camp but out of hearing distance. And on top of that, the dense shrubbery hid her.
After she made sure that no one was around them, she started slapping the uncounsious man in the face. The shattered teeth crumbled completely, and the man woke up with a muffled groan. He coughed out blood and the broken pieces of his teeth.
"My teeth!" He shouted in horror, picking up the pieces from the ground.
"No biggie." Sarah told him in a soothing voice and laid her hands on his shoulders. "You won’t be needing them anymore."
The man turned around and looked at her in horror. He apparently wanted to scream but was only able to open and close his mouth like a fish on land.
After some time, the man realized that he was able to defend himself. He pulled out a crude stone knife and stabbed at her.
Sarah evaded his clumsy attack without much effort, grabbed his elbow, and shattered it in her grip.
The man screamed in pain and fear and tried to free himself from her. But Sarah didn’t budge at all.
"No can do. You first have to tell me a few things before you can go." Sarah told him with a smile, and the man opened his trembling mouth.
"You will let me go when I tell you what I know?" he asked with a shaky voice, fully ignoring her earlier comment about his teeth.
"Of course I will let you go." Sarah assured him, pulling him closer to her. "I am not a monster."
The man spilled the beans faster than she was able to process anything. She didn’t learn a lot of new information, but a few things were quite helpful.
Right now, only six of the twelve dirtbags are in the camp. The rest were out looking for new "material", as they called it. But still, five people were a lot to go against. Especially, when Kevin was really as strong as described. And the other six could return at any time.
As she watched the shivering man in front of her, she gained some inspiration.
"Fear," she mumbled with a hard face, knocking the man out cold before he could say anything else. "Those dirtbags will get to know fear."
She grabbed the unconscious man and climbed down the rock formation again. When she was right next to the camp again, she started to look for a fitting place.
After some time, she found what she was looking for. The remains of a tree stood there, with some sharp pieces of wood sticking out of the trunk.
Sarah gathered her resolve and lifted the unconscious man high in the air. With a grunt, she slammed him down, right on top of the trunk.
The sharp wooden remains penetrated his body with ease, and a fountain of blood sprayed out of him.
To her surprise, he didn’t die immediately. He even woke up and started screaming with a weak voice. Panicked, Sarah punched him in the face again. This time, though, she couldn’t reign in her strength, and his head popped open.
She immediately turned around and gagged a little, but she had no time to lose. She already heard some shouts coming from the camp, and she knew she didn’t have much time left. So she darted away as fast as she could.
Not long after, she heard angry and fearful shouts coming from behind her. Even though she did something really gruesome, it apparently had the intended effect. In the end, her class was called "Nightmare". So that’s what she would deliver.
After another few moments, she heard hurried footsteps and heavy breathing in front of her. With a sad smile, she readied herself to make another spectacle.
She sneaked into a bush and waited for the man to come closer. When he was right next to her, she wanted to punch him in the face to knock him out.
But the man reacted lightning fast. Before Sarah realized what had happened, the man took out a stone knife and tried to disembowel her.
Her dense skin luckily lessened the impact, but he still got through a little. With a shocked face, he tried to pull the knife out again, but it stuck inside her tensed-up muscles.
With a pained groan, Sarah grabbed the throat of the horrified man and started pressing. He struggled for some time but fell limp soon afterwards.
Afterwards, she pulled the knife out with a grunt and threw it away. After a quick check on her wound, she focused on her next movement.
After some thought, she crushed his neck with her hand, and her face distorted in disgust. At least he wouldn’t have to go through this alive. They were dirtbags, but she wouldn’t put them through unnecessary pain.
She dragged the lifeless body near the campfire and then used her new acid gland.
The turquoise fog quickly covered the man. The sizzling sound and acrid smell told her that it was working. She didn’t really want to see the aftermath, so she turned around and left the scene. Maybe she would be able to find the woman, that has been left here somewhere in the woods.
Not long afterwards, the body was found by the remaining three men. They shouted in anger and horror while looking fearfully into the dark and silent forest.
They felt like a demon had come to get them.