Hunting and The End of the Hunt

Feeling my blood rushing through my veins, the air currents whipping around my form, the blood splattering across my skin...it was a divine experience.

Usually you had to worry about not offending people in the real world. You have to be careful to not step on someone's feelings, or to disregard their ideals. You had to put thought into everyone of your actions so you didn't become the 'villain' of the 'story'. But right now, during the Hunt...I didn't have to worry about any of those things.

I could just let my body do what it did best, and that was fighting and killing Beasts.

I'd killed another 3 Beasts after the first one and it was clear to me that my technique was growing explosively with the real fighting I was doing. If anything, I thought my talent was too good at times, taking away from some of the thrill of fighting. But I realized that was a naive thought. I'd rather be strong and destroy all my opponents, than to stay weak and struggle against all of them.

That's not to say I'm truly strong. If my scouting was right, I'd probably be classed as the upper limit to a Low-Class Supernatural Being like a Devil or a Fallen Angel. This wasn't too shabby either, seeing that the average person couldn't even be considered the lowest of the low among Low-Class Beings. I feel that if I have plenty of chances to hunt, I'd easily breach into the Middle-Class level. I'm fairly sure my first physique upgrade will put me into the lowest part of the Middle-Class level.

Which may I clarify is quite brilliant for a 10-year-old child.

But right now I was running into my first little problem. A sentient enemy. It wasn't a problem because of morals or whatnot - I didn't care for those. Or at least I don't care about them anymore. Both my human talent and my beast instincts make it so I don't care for it.

No, it was a problem because sentient creatures are harder to kill than mindless Beasts who just run at you like feral animals. Sentience comes with a bigger drive to survive--more reasons to survive.

In my opinion, a Human will try harder to survive than a mouse because a mouse's life is simply to eat, shit, breed, and sleep until it dies. While a human has all sorts of volatile emotions and understands that living is better than dying. Some would say this makes human's unsightly, but I say it makes them admirable. A species that understands survival over all costs in worthy prey, after all.

The same sentiment also applies to Devils, Angels, Dragons, Yokai--and most of all, the Fallen Angel in front of me right now.

He looked at me warily with his dark green eyes, his red hair cut shorter than other Fallen I'd seen, only being at his chin in length. His black wings were fully extended and seeing that he only had a single pair, I knew he was a Low-Class being like me but even then, I didn't underestimate him or let my guard down for even a second.

Instead, I gripped my scythe harder, lowering my stance and getting ready to charge at him. I had my Mana readied to throttle through my body and activate Quickening.

Seeing me, someone who was obviously a child, covered in blood and giving off a bloodthirsty aura, the Fallen pulled out a spear of light but kept it near his side and pointed at the floor - a sign of non-aggression. Yet also a subtle warning that he was armed and ready to kill.

"You..." he started scanning me over with his eyes. His gaze lingered on my own eyes, their dark red matching the dark red tint on my slick clothes. "I see that you've been killing those animals as well, human...?" he said, but also asked as he couldn't quite tell if I was human or not. Hard to tell, honestly. It wasn't part of the norm for a human child to walk around a forest at night, covered in blood.

Taking my silence as my not refuting his claims, his smile widened as his guard obviously relaxed, "I had thought that you were a vampire from those eyes of yours...but they're much too dark and full of violence to be one of those elegant bastards..." he laughed and I just watched him, waiting for him to make a move.

After all, I didn't know his capabilities. If I charged in and attacked he could insta-kill me with some magic.

I'd wait patiently right now. My instincts told me that was the right call.

But before I could do that, every fiber of my being screamed for me to move, so I did just that. The Fallen sneered and lifted his light spear to throw and impale me but he realized something a little too late:

I wasn't charging at him, I was dodging. He only had to look past my original position to see what I was getting out of the way for.

I continued flying up among the trees before I lodged my scythe into one of them and then using it as leverage to hold myself up there. Looking down, I saw the black blur that had been behind me, colliding into the red-haired Fallen Angel...and then tearing him apart. This might have been because it was a surprise attack and the Fallen's guard was down...but even then, it's not so easy to kill a supernatural being. Especially an intelligent one.

So I instantly knew what this thing was:

A Scourge Beast.

But I didn't feel fear as I watched it tear apart the Fallen Angel. Neither did I feel surprise. I just felt annoyed, "That was my prey, you goddamn rabid mutt," my voice was cold. Colder than I'd ever heard it before, and it dripped with bloodlust and a cold anger that even I felt like shivering at and it was my anger.

Or more specifically, my instinct's anger.

The Scourge Beast looked up at me, it's jagged maw filled with blood and gore, before it roared and jumped up toward me, it's foot long claws reaching outward me. I simply pulled my scythe from the tree before jumping to another. By the time the scourge beast got to the tree, I was already on another. But I wasn't just gonna wait for it.

Blasting back to my original tree and the Beast on it, and shattering the tree with both a full-powered Quickening and my full-powered strength.

Before it's guard could even come up, I was in front of it, my scythe slashing downward, leaving a diagonal bloody trail behind it on the Beast's chest. But it was as if the slash didn't do anything and the Beast just swung it's arm, which must have been bigger than I was tall, right at me. But I'd suspected this and using my left over momentum from my earlier slash, I spun my body and scythe around and placed the handle inbetween me and the feral hit coming at me.

The claws collided with the staff of the scythe, sending sparks flying around me before I was blasted away under the power of the Beast. But this was all according to my plan. I was simply testing the waters with the Scourge Beast.

And I'd got all the results and information I needed.

Now, I could fight back.

First thing I did? I put away my scythe. Then I dropped to the ground and looked at the beast up in the trees, my eyes full of challenge.

It roared and jumped down to the ground as well before stalking around me, it's murky dark red eyes scanning me and my movements.

The eyes were so much like my own that it was unnerving to look at, honestly. No one wants to see similarities between themselves and mindless Beasts. But alas, half of my physiology is made up of those same mindless Beasts, and that's how I'm going to win.

Breathing in and out, so slowly it was more like one continuous breath, I finally let go of my restraints and let my dormant beast blood wake up.

This was stunningly dangerous. How many people had succumbed to the beast blood and gone insane? Literally everyone who'd ever done what I'm doing right now. If I were like them I'd be doing nothing but signing my death certificate and then becoming a shell of my former self. I'd become a beast with the only goal of killing people.

But, I wasn't like any of them. I was the perfect combination of Beast and Human, neither side having full control and having to coincide in a body together - they had to work together. Which is why I can do what I'm about to do and not go insane.

I felt my blood beginning to boil as my heartbeat sped up tremendously, going from a calm beat to fast tempo that was going fast enough to kill a normal person if it were their heart.

But me? It was just my heart beating at it's rightful speed.

I felt fur spurt out of my arms, back, legs and neck. The only places left and not covered in the fine black fur were my stomach, chest, and face. Then, I felt my body bulk up a little, my veins coming to the surface of my skin and even unsettling the fur on top of the skin, allowing me to see their wiggling movements slightly.

But more than all of that, I felt the unabashed bloodlust flow through me, just as thick and real as my actual blood. It seemingly empowered my body, reinforcing it and making it stronger.

I felt my senses sharpen, just as my nails lengthened a few inches and sharpened into claws. The usual color of the nails darkened until they were pure black and look no different than the claws of an animal. All the while I also felt my already longer than usual canines lengthening even further, thickening and sharpening until they became four tusk-like fangs.

Turning my enhanced gaze to the Scourge Beast, it looked at me with a semblance of confusion in it's eyes. Obviously, it could tell that I was of a similar species to it, but in a rare display of intelligence for a Beast, it remembered that I had just been a human aka prey moments before I started sprouting fur.

But I was done waiting and I especially wouldn't wait for my new prey to get prepared.

A hunter knew when to strike after all.

Using my new enhanced physicality in tandem with Quickening I appeared in front of the beast, sending a slash across it's face before following it up with a knee straight across it's snout.

Out of all the martial arts I'd practiced, there was one that I put a lot of focus on; Muay Thai. It just seemed to fit with what I was trying to become. Muay Thai had the goal of making the body into a weapon of war and slaughter, and what could be a better body than this, to me, a person with unmatched talent for such things?

The Beast, recoiling in pain from my knee didn't have time before I swung my leg around and collided my shin against the side of it's head. If the Scourge Beast were standing on it's hind legs, it would have been impossible for me to hit it's head, but luckily it's beast blood was so feral that it had regressed to walking on all-fours. Practically cutting it's height to less than half of what it would be if it were standing.

In my normal state, my kick would have stunned the beast but it wouldn't have been too effective. But now? Under the enhancement of my active beast blood, the kick that collided with the beast's head sent it flying to the side where it went through a few trees with terrible cracks echoing throughout the forest.

The fact is, that my scythe skill was only really good enough to go against mob-type enemies. My real strength was definitely my unarmed-combat. Especially when I let my beast blood run loose.

Not waiting for the beast to recovering, I rushed it and appeared in a mist of red, giving my appearance a very demonic tint. Especially with the bestial look I currently had going on. But none of that matter right now, and I slammed my elbow right into the beast's head, exactly where my kick had hit. As the beast recoiled away from the hit, a sickening crack ringing out as a spurt of black-ish red blood splattered across my face, I sent my clawed hand through the right shoulder of the beast, separating the shoulder and the arm by cutting the connective tissue holding it together.

Before the beast could push me away or retreat, I planted my foot on it's neck before pressing and pulling hard at the same time, and with one big gory display, the arm came off.

The beast roared, madly swinging it's remaining arm at me and even trying to bite chunks out of me. But under the effects of Quickening and my enhanced reflexes, it couldn't even touch the clothes on my body.

Even worse is that it allowed me to build up some momentum before whipping around and slamming the weighty arm I was still carrying, right into it's upper body region.

With a resounding boom, the arm I was holding cracked and burst in places, yet did it's job and sent the Scourge Beast into the ground, flattened out. In fact the power of the hit was a bit beyond my expectations as I saw the ground lower a few feet like a crater.

But I soon got past that and went straight for the kill. By now the beast was worn out and had been beaten ragged. Even with the hardiness and healing ability of beasts, it had been burst to the limit and now it had nothing else to give. So with my two clawed hands, I dug into it's neck and grabbed it's neck vertebrae and with a whimper from the beast and a huff of exertion from me, I ripped it's head clean off.

Giving out a breath of relief and a smile of happiness, I watched as the blood from the Scourge Beast pooled into a marble of blood. Though it was definitely bigger than the other beasts Blood Echoes, it wasn't by too much.

Once that was done, I stored the head and the corpse before exiting my beast form. I put the restraints back on my beast blood and let out a few misty breaths as my body went back to normal before pulling my scythe back out of my inventory.

Why didn't I leave my beast blood active? Well, one, I don't want to be covered in fur all the time. But the more serious reason would be that if I kept that form active for longer than 5 minutes, I'd go completely insane from the bloodlust it instilled in me. It was like a berserker form - it gave great power, yet at a risk of losing yourself.

So I only ever used it as a trump card/last resort.

Sensing someone to the left of me, I rolled my eyes and looked to that direction. Even as my instincts screamed at me to run, I smelt what she was; a Devil. And there was only one other time when my instincts screamed so intensely for me to run; when I saw an Ultimate-Class being.

And how many Ultimate-Class Devils were there who were also women and had the necessary Demonic Power and Magical ability to hide so seamlessly? If it weren't for my senses being so keen, I wouldn't have known someone was watching me. It would also seem that she was holding back with her stealth because she underestimated me.

"Are you going to come out and stop peeping on a younger boy? Or do I need to call the police?" I asked, a blank look on my face as I looked coldly at the place I was being spied on from.

And that's when a silver-haired Devil came out of nowhere.

Ah, of course, it was Grayfia snooping around for her husband.