One Month Later — Somewhere in the Forest
"ARRRGGHH—!"
A pained scream tore through the trees as a warrior clad in armor surged forward, his sword carving wild, unnatural arcs through the swarm of beasts. Just as the first wave crashed toward him, he dipped low and swept his blade across their legs. Flesh parted. Bone snapped. Monsters collapsed, shrieking in pain, their limbs left twitching in the dirt.
He didn't pause.
Valon lunged into the next group. This time, he went for their skulls. The instant steel met bone—boom. Heads burst like overripe fruit, spraying blood and brain matter in every direction. The world turned red.
He didn't flinch. Just grinned.
Elsewhere, two girls were dancing their own kind of death. One drowned monsters in tidal force, water weaving through their lungs and crushing them from the inside out. The other? She didn't leave bones behind. Just puddles of corrosive sludge and the faintest wisp of smoke. Mages, both of them—gods of the battlefield. Not a single beast made it ten steps past them
A few paces away, a figure darted through shadows, slicing necks like they were ribbons. No wasted motion, no grandstanding—just vanish, strike, repeat. A ghost in the blood-soaked woods.
And then... there was another one. Yeah, let's not talk about that one. And finally—our protagonist.
Nyx. The bastard wasn't even fighting.
He lounged back against a mossy rock, arms folded, looking like he'd wandered into a forest picnic. Barely dodged a stray limb as it flopped near his boot.
Then he shouted, all faux irritation and theatrical disgust.
"MOVE YOUR ASS, THEO!"
Somewhere in the chaos, Theo Lancaster—a noble heir turned glorified meat shield—winced mid-swing. He stumbled, barely keeping his momentum as his sword hacked through a lumbering wolf-beast.
Theo, poor bastard, had made a deal with the devil. And by 'devil', we mean Nyx.
He'd begged for guidance. What he got was... this.
Sure, Nyx had tossed him a few sword techniques. Some half-decent basics. The problem? Theo's foundation was all Lancaster-style—fancy forms, rigid stances, the kind of crap that looked great in duels but got you killed in real fights. Now he was relearning everything from scratch. In a forest. During a monster stampede.
Lucky guy.
He grunted and cursed under his breath, but he couldn't talk back. Not when he was busy staying alive.
"ABOVE YOU! No—upper left! Gods, why are you moving like a scared virgin on his first night?!"
Nyx barked instructions like a drill sergeant who'd lost all patience with humanity. His version of 'mentorship' involved yelling, insults, and borderline emotional abuse. But hey, Theo was still breathing.
So maybe it worked.
The group had been marching through the forest for nearly a month now. A month of blood, sweat, and monster guts. And the results?
Night and day.
The same bunch of amateurs who once fumbled through basic strikes were now hardened killers—each one capable of tearing through a platoon on their own. Their stances were sharper, their instincts honed to a razor's edge. The way they moved, the way they breathed... everything screamed veteran. They weren't just survivors anymore.
They were warriors.
---
After the latest bloodbath, the group finally rested.
Valon was busy scrubbing himself down like a man possessed—clearly done with smelling like dead beast for the fifth week in a row. "So," he grunted, pulling his armor back on, "how long till we get to this damned core of yours? I haven't seen a single living soul in a month. Forget human civilization—I'd kill to see a fruit vendor at this point."
Theo snorted. "What do you mean you haven't seen people? Aren't we human?"
After spending every waking minute fighting back-to-back, bleeding together, surviving together—a bond had formed. Unspoken. Unbreakable. One forged not by sentiment, but by shared hell.
Valon glanced around dramatically. "Where? I don't see any humans. Just monsters in boots."
The group chuckled, a low, worn-out laugh, but genuine. This kind of banter had become the norm. Sarcasm was their love language.
Nyx stood a short distance away, arms crossed, watching them. He hadn't done much fighting himself these past few weeks—at least, not seriously. His role had been different: mentor, trainer, taskmaster from hell. And they'd risen to the challenge. They could keep up with him now—well, sort of. At least when he wasn't nuking a forest just to make a shortcut.
He opened his mouth to tell them to move again—but then something shifted.
His eyes narrowed.
He stretched his senses out, feeling... movement. No. Presence. Too many. Too close. His smirk vanished.
He hopped off the rock he'd been leaning against and gave Samantha a quick hand signal. She nodded.
Then he drew his sword in one clean motion.
"Didn't your mommies teach you manners?" Nyx growled, voice low but biting. "Guests are equal to gods, assholes. Come out."
His words echoed through the trees—and they worked.
Figures emerged from the shadows.
They stood over two meters tall. Humanoid in shape, but with two thick horns curling from their foreheads. Their eyes were animalistic—untamed, wild. Their bodies rippled with raw strength, each one a walking tank of muscle and malice.
They stepped out slowly, circling the group. Surrounding them.
One of them strutted forward with smug arrogance, his voice laced with disdain. "Looks like this batch of guests is a little full of themselves. Maybe we should remind them how to treat their hosts."
Nyx stared at him. Then at the others.
Then back again.
"These bitches…" he muttered, utterly dumbfounded. It wasn't the species—he'd never seen one like them, sure—but that wasn't the shocking part.
No, what stunned him... was the audacity.
They'd ignored him. Him.
---
Thirty Minutes Later
Nyx lounged in a crude throne carved out of someone's spine and pride. Literally. The creature beneath him whimpered as Nyx sat with one leg crossed over the other, a whip lazily coiled in his hand.
"Repeat after me," he said, cracking the whip across the guy's back. "Guests are equal to gods."
"G-Guests are equal to gods," they all said in unison. Broken voices. Shaky knees. Red handprints still blooming across their faces.
Nyx whipped the man again.
"We should treat them with respect."
"We should treat them with respect," they echoed, barely holding back their sobs.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group watched in frozen silence. Eyes wide. Jaws half-dropped.
It wasn't the violence.
It was the fact that, somehow, they still weren't sure if Nyx was kidding.
Finally, one of them couldn't hold it in anymore and burst out crying.
"Uwaaah… uwaaah… Mommy! These humans are bullying us!"
The voice cracked, full of snot and tears—definitely a girl, and probably a child at that.
Even Valon, stone-cold and steel-hearted, winced. He gave Nyx a long, deadpan stare.
"Dude. You traumatized a child."
Nyx looked half-proud, half-confused. "They came at us first."
Valon didn't even reply—just kept staring like he was trying to telepathically slap him.
"Stop it, Nyx," Samantha said sharply. She marched over, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him off the poor bastard he was using as a chair.
"Let's hear them out before you break another one."
She dragged him to her side like she was restraining a particularly violent housecat, and for once, Nyx didn't argue.
---
"So, who are you guys?"
Samantha squatted down beside the still-sniffling girl, her voice suddenly soft—almost motherly.
The girl hiccupped, eyes watery. "W-We've… we've come to take you humans to our lord. H-He told us to bring you all."
"Your lord?" Samantha asked, tilting her head, her tone gentle but edged with curiosity. "And where exactly did he want us taken?
"To… to a gate. A massive gate near the temple," the girl replied, her crying finally dying down. "He said you'd understand."
At that, the entire group turned to stare at Nyx.
Nyx didn't speak—just nodded. He knew exactly what she was talking about.
The core. The real one. Finally.
He gave Samantha the go-ahead, and she turned back to the girl—Tara, apparently—and gave a calm nod. "Alright. Lead the way. We'll follow.
The group set off behind the demons, who—despite towering over them just a while ago—now walked with the skittish energy of prey animals. One wrong move from Nyx and they looked ready to bolt into the trees.
Honestly, they weren't even walking. They were hustling. Because deep down, they knew—if they slowed down even a little, Nyx might actually force them to carry him like a royal palanquin.
Theo, walking near the back, glanced at them and muttered, "I didn't know demons were supposed to be this… timid. I always heard they were brutal—followers of destruction, primal instinct, chaos and blood."
Valon gave him a look, deadpan as always. "After what this bastard did to them? Even a dragon would turn into a house lizard."
Meanwhile, Nyx wasn't even allowed to act smug about it.
Samantha had him on a tight leash—almost literally—walking beside him with the kind of expression that could paralyze a wild boar. Every time he so much as looked at the demons, she gave him the look.
'Don't even think about it. They'll run.'
So, for now, the chaos incarnate walked quietly. On a leash.
Soon, they arrived at the so-called temple. But what they saw made them question reality itself.
Even Valon, sharp-tongued and battle-hardened, couldn't stop the words from slipping out under his breath—
"Motherfu—"