Despite being the king's eighth queen, Oito had been abandoned.
The riots had erupted all around her.
Horrifying monsters had stormed into the hallways and rooms of the BW1 ship.
Everything spiraled out of control. Screams filled the air, overlapping one after another.
But none of the soldiers from the Kakin Royal Guard came to her aid.
They were either too busy firing their guns uselessly at the monsters, or had already turned and fled in panic.
Oito's few remaining bodyguards had sacrificed their lives just to buy her a few precious seconds to escape.
Deep down, she knew exactly why.
Because she wasn't pregnant. She hadn't given King Nasubi a child yet.
The other queens, princes, and even the king himself might have already escaped to safety — leaving her behind, all alone.
There was no way she was supposed to survive this.
Even with her status as the Eighth Queen, she hadn't been able to secure a seat on the overcrowded lifeboats.
In the face of death, all are equal.
Yet, in the next moment, she was thankful she hadn't gotten on that lifeboat.
Because a monster had appeared in the "lake within the ship" too.
The lifeboat was overturned almost instantly.
Everyone on board screamed as they plunged into the dark waters, their cries cut short. Blood quickly spread across the surface.
If she hadn't run into the two professional Hunters in front of her now, she would be dead already.
These two Hunters had done everything they could to save people.
But even they couldn't hold back the tide of monsters forever.
Oito was the last one they managed to save.
It wasn't until they'd escaped the wreckage of the BW1 that, under the flickering emergency lights, they finally realized who she was — the Eighth Queen of the Kakin Empire.
She could see the confusion in their eyes.
They were probably wondering: how could a queen, of all people, end up abandoned like this?
Oito had no answer.
She simply bowed in silent gratitude, following the proper royal etiquette, and then ran with them without another word.
Unfortunately, after running until her legs nearly gave out and her breathing turned ragged — she heard something devastating from the mouths of those two Hunters.
Two terrifying monsters were hot on their trail, and no matter how fast they ran, they couldn't shake them off.
The two professional Hunters made a decision — they would turn back and fight.
Oito, already too exhausted to run any further, obeyed their instructions and hid in the bushes nearby.
At first, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Together, the two Hunters managed to take down one of the monsters.
But then, the other monster crawled over to the corpse of its fallen companion. After lingering there for a moment, something strange happened — it suddenly became even more ferocious.
Just the killing intent radiating from its body made Oito tremble uncontrollably. Her hands and feet went ice cold.
She wanted to run, but she didn't even have the strength to stand up.
The savage monster launched a vicious assault on the two Hunters. They were quickly pushed back, blood streaming from their wounds. It was clear they wouldn't be able to hold out much longer.
Oito couldn't do anything. All she could do was kneel in the mud, clenching her fists and silently praying.
Things were looking grim for the two professional Hunters.
Izunavi — wearing a simple martial arts uniform, a black belt tied at his waist, and wooden clogs on his feet — wiped the blood from his arm and panted heavily.
He stared at the towering monster before him, three to four meters tall. Despite its grotesque, swollen face, he could still vaguely recognize who it used to be.
Before turning into a monster, this creature had been Zakuro — a member of the Xi-Yu Mafia family, one of the three major Mafia families under Kakin's control. Zakuro had been a Manipulation-type Nen user, capable of controlling blood.
Izunavi remembered him clearly. Zakuro had been suspected in several assassination and riot incidents on the BW1, but the evidence had always been too weak to make a case.
After the chaos broke out, Zakuro and his partner, Lynch, both reappeared before Izunavi — but they were no longer human. They had both transformed into monsters.
Since then, these two monsters had relentlessly pursued Izunavi and his group, never letting up.
Back in the day, Zakuro and Lynch were troublesome enemies, but they had never been enough to make Izunavi consider retreat.
But now that they had turned into monsters, their power had grown far beyond what they once were.
After several clashes, Izunavi was caught off guard more than once and even suffered some injuries.
He couldn't help but feel a silent shock—this was like a repeat of last year's Chimera Ant invasion, only these creatures were even more brutal than those Chimera Ants.
Realizing that escaping these two monsters completely was impossible, Izunavi and another professional Hunter decided to fight back on the spot.
Contrary to what Queen Oito saw—that they had "fairly smoothly" defeated the female monster—the whole process was actually quite dangerous.
After all, Queen Oito wasn't a Nen user.
From her point of view, the battle lasted only two or three minutes, so naturally, she thought Izunavi and the others had it easy.
But the truth was the exact opposite. Each of them had paid a significant price to kill just one monster.
And now, the situation took a sudden turn for the worse.
The monster before them absorbed the grudges and hatred from the corpse of the other fallen monster, making it even stronger.
After that, the fleshy tubes sprouting from its back pierced several humans and unknown beasts on the road, including the female monster.
With a wet, gulping sound, Izunavi saw a dark red fluid flowing from those corpses, through the tubes, and into the monster before him.
Every time it moved, it dragged the corpses along, refusing to let go until it had fully drained them.
This monster, like its original form, was obsessed with blood—manipulating it, needing more "blood bags" to sustain itself.
*******
Support me on my patreon and read upto 20 early chapters.
https://www.patreon.com/c/Unique_Writer