In another corner, there was a squad of five hunters pinned beneath the wreckage of a massive abomination, their backs broken and unable to move anything but their necks.

Blood was bleeding from their noses and eyes due to the psychological pressure crushing their minds.

They looked at their teammate "Marcus," the only hunter in their squad still capable of standing, though he was crying and vomiting from the horror of the aura.

"Marcus! Please!" one of them screamed, his throat tearing from terror.

"Kill us! Cut off our heads, Marcus! It’s tampering with my memory! I see hell... I see hell walking toward us! Please, for the brotherhood between us, kill me before it arrives!"

"Don’t leave us to him! Sever my head!" the second screamed, stretching his bare neck toward his teammate in sick desperation, exposing it as if offering the most precious sacrifice.

Marcus, the massive warrior who had slain dozens of abominations without mercy, cried like a lost child, his body trembling with indescribable terror.

He did not refuse. His subconscious told him their request was the highest form of mercy and love he could offer them.

He raised his heavy, broad sword with violently trembling hands.

"I’m sorry... I’m sorry, my brothers... I’ll go ahead of you into the darkness!"

Marcus roared through sobs as he brought down his heavy blade.

Slaaaaaash!

He severed the first neck. The sound of flesh splitting and steel striking the neck bone was sharp.

The head rolled into the mud.

Slaaaaaash!

He cut the second’s neck, who was smiling at him gratefully as he breathed his last.

Slaaash! Slaaash! Craaash!

Five heads of lifelong friends fell at his feet. Fountains of blood struck his face, mixing with his tears.

Marcus remained standing alone, panting, as the solidified red mist before him slowly began to part, revealing a shadowy silhouette approaching between the corpses.

Marcus did not wait to see the face.

He knew that merely looking at it would strip him of his right to die.

He threw away his sword. He shoved his trembling hand into his tactical belt and pulled out a high-explosive "Eitra hand grenade."

He did not throw it toward the approaching shadow. That would be pointless stupidity.

He pulled the safety ring with his teeth, then... shoved the grenade entirely into his mouth! He forced it down his throat until he nearly choked, ensuring the explosion would obliterate his mind and body together before the arrival reached him.

Marcus closed his eyes, tears flowing...

BBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The muffled etherial explosion inside his skull tore him apart from the inside out.

His upper half—his head, shoulders, and ribcage—completely vaporized, turning into a grotesque rain of burnt flesh chunks, crushed bones, and evaporated blood that slowly fell over the corpses of his friends.

What remained of his legs dropped into the black mud with a soft sound.

Across the field, the scenes repeated. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Hunters drowning themselves in pools of acidic abomination blood to melt willingly.

Others breaking each other’s necks in embraces of death.

The battlefield, which minutes ago teemed with one hundred victorious heroes, became completely silent.

One hundred elite hunters... ended their lives in the most horrific ways, driven mad by psychological violation, preferring self-destruction and absolute nothingness over facing the entity approaching.

And finally...

Amid this terrifying funeral silence... the sound was heard.

Chss... Chss... Chss...

The frozen red mist split apart, scattering like shattered glass.

The silhouette appeared.

The footsteps stopped.

A young man... or so was the outer physical appearance he had adopted to walk among humans.

A slender young man, seemingly in his mid-twenties, standing in a relaxed aristocratic posture amid a sea of mutilated corpses that had just committed suicide out of love for death to escape him.

His hair was pitch black, dark like a starless sky that had swallowed its galaxies, drifting slowly with terrifying elegance in the toxic wind and red mist, like strands of night itself playing with the scene.

He wore dark black combat clothing, but not heavy armor nor military rags.

It was a precisely tailored outfit beyond description, consisting of a silky black shirt clinging to his chest, an extremely thin leather tactical jacket, and tight black trousers ending in luxurious leather shoes that shone like black mirrors.

But the terrifying, physically and biologically impossible thing... was that his clothes were "perfectly clean."

On a field covered in tons of black mud, splattered blood, scattered entrails, and mist that dyed everything red... there was not a single drop of blood, nor a single speck of dust, on his shoes or clothing!

As if the blood itself, the filth, and even the particles of air "feared" touching the fabric of his clothes, deviating from their paths in terror to fall far away from him.

His skin was extremely pale, white like the marble of ancient graves, devoid of pores, wrinkles, or human flaws, giving him an appearance that combined cold, harsh angelic beauty with absolute death that knew no negotiation.

But... if you committed the ultimate sin and looked at his face, you would not notice his pale skin nor the elegance of his clothes.

Your soul, mind, and entire existence would fall directly into his eyes.

His eyes... were not human eyes.

Nor were they even the eyes of a beast.

There was no white, no pupil, no colored iris.

They were completely black. Liquid black, dense, reflecting no light, not shining, not ending. Just two terrifying cosmic voids in the middle of his pale face.

Whoever looked into them did not see their reflection, but saw a black hole devouring souls, thoughts, and hope, where nothing existed but eternal screaming in the void.

The black-eyed young man stood amid the suicidal massacre.

He did not grow angry because his prey escaped through death and deprived him of torturing them.

He did not snarl or complain like a beast that lost its meal.

Instead... he smiled.

A very faint, calm, gentle smile revealing immaculate white teeth.

But it was a smile completely devoid of warmth, human emotion, or even savage sadism.

It was the smile of a refined artist looking at a poor painting, feeling slight disappointment at the brush’s stupidity.

He tilted his head coldly to the right, until a faint, chilling crack came from the vertebrae of his neck.

He walked slowly with silent steps and stopped before the remaining corpse of the hunter "Marcus," who had blown away his upper half, charred fragments still falling like black snow around him.

The young man spoke.

And his voice... was a sensory catastrophe in itself. It was not rough, booming, or frightening in the traditional sense.

It was a very soft voice, velvety, musically toxic and numbing, calm to the point that it seeped into the pores of the skin and numbed the nerves before killing them.

"You ruined the painting..."

the black-eyed young man whispered, looking at Marcus’s remains in a tone of mild reproach, as if blaming a child who spilled milk on an expensive carpet.

"I truly, deeply wanted to see what pure fear looks like on your faces... how your pupils tremble and dilate while I slowly peel your skin, from the tips of your fingers to your necks, while you still breathe and perceive every microscopic detail of pain. Suicide..."

The young man sighed softly, running his pale finger across his lips, his hand untouched by the blood covering the field.

"...suicide is a luxury I did not grant you. It is rude insolence for you to steal my visual pleasure."