Chapter 412: Monster Or Hunter?

Astrid was desperate, at the time.

Before, Mika would go for a couple of hours—maybe even around a day, in the worst cases.

But that was the absolute maximum.

He always came back. Always.

And when he did, she would feel that overwhelming rush of relief, that warmth of knowing he was still alive, still fighting, still there.

But now?

Two days had passed.

Two full days.

And Mika had not come back.

Not with food.

Not with medicine.

Not with anything.

Just...nothing.

Astrid paced the cave endlessly, her broken legs now healed enough to allow her to limp around.

She circled the small space like a caged animal, her mind spinning with worst-case scenarios.

Every tiny sound—a pebble shifting, water dripping, wind rustling made her heart leap with hope.

’He’s back. He’s finally back.’

But every time, it was nothing.

Just the cave.

Just the darkness.

Just her.

"Mika..." She whispered into the void. "Please. Please come back. I can’t do this alone. I can’t."

No answer.

Just silence.

And as the second day stretched into endless, terrible hours, something shifted inside her.

Fear transformed into determination.

Desperation transformed into resolve.

Mika had told her many times not to leave the cave. Not to stray. Not to look for him.

He would always come back, he said. She just had to wait.

But what if he couldn’t come back?

What if he was hurt?

What if he was dying?

What if he needed her?

She looked down at herself.

Her legs, while not perfect, could support her weight now.

The medicine Mika had brought had worked wonders—the infection was gone, the fever had broken, the pain had faded to a dull ache.

She grabbed the knife he had given her. The small, blade that glowed faintly in the darkness.

She put on the armor—chest piece, arm guards, everything he had brought her.

She looked like a tiny warrior.

A ridiculous sight, probably—a six-year-old girl in mismatched armor, clutching a knife that was almost as big as her arm, with seven fluffy tails sticking out behind her.

But she didn’t feel ridiculous.

She felt determined.

"Mika."

She whispered, pressing the knife to her chest.

"I’m coming for you. Just hold on. Big sister is coming."

And with that, she pushed aside the rocks at the cave entrance and stepped into the outside world for the first time in...she didn’t know how long.

—

The light was blinding.

After so long in that dark cave, the sun felt like a physical assault. Astrid stumbled, shielding her eyes, waiting for them to adjust.

When they did—

She gasped.

It was beautiful.

A forest unlike anything she had ever seen.

Towering trees with leaves of every color—greens and golds and deep purples.

A crystal-clear stream rushing over smooth stones.

Flowers blooming in impossible shades.

The air was fresh and clean and alive.

For a moment, she forgot where she was. Forgot the danger. Forgot the nightmare.

But only for a moment.

Because she wasn’t here to enjoy the scenery.

She was here to find Mika.

She tightened her grip on the knife and ran into the forest.

—

She moved carefully, quietly, just as Mika had taught her. Step by step, avoiding twigs and dry leaves, staying low, staying alert.

Her eyes scanned everywhere—behind trees, under bushes, in the shadows.

"Mika." She whispered. "Where are you? Please be okay. Please be—"

She searched.

And searched.

And searched.

But there was nothing.

No sign of Mika. No footprints. No traces of where he might have gone.

It was as if the forest had swallowed him whole.

Astrid’s eyes burned with unshed tears. Her heart pounded against her ribs. She was about to break down, about to scream his name into the uncaring wilderness—

And then she saw it.

In the distance.

A body on the ground.

Wearing armor similar to Mika’s.

Astrid’s blood turned to ice.

’No.’

’No, no, no, no, no—’

Her legs gave out. She stumbled, caught herself on a tree, forced herself to keep standing.

Every instinct screamed at her to run away, to go back to the cave, to pretend she hadn’t seen anything, to delude herself into believing Mika was still alive and well.

But she couldn’t.

She had to know.

Even if it destroyed her.

She had to know.

Step by agonizing step, she approached the body.

Her legs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.

Her heart hammered so hard she thought it might burst.

The world narrowed to a single point—that figure, that familiar armor, that terrible possibility.

She reached it.

Closed her eyes.

Pushed it over.

And—

It wasn’t Mika.

It was a demi-human.

One of the warriors from the army that had chased them.

Astrid collapsed to her knees, gasping, sobbing with relief so intense it was almost painful.

She pressed her hands to her face and cried—great, heaving, body-shaking sobs that released all the terror and despair of the past two days.

He was alive.

Mika was alive.

This wasn’t him.

This wasn’t—

She stopped.

Looked at the body.

And really saw it for the first time and she was horrified.

The demi-human had died brutally.

Multiple stab wounds covered his chest.

His legs had been punctured repeatedly.

And his body was completely drained of blood—pale, waxy, like he had been dead for a while.

Astrid flinched back.

’What...What had done this?’

’An animal?’

’A monster?’

’Something else?’

She didn’t know. But as she looked at the wounds, something strange stirred in her mind.

They looked...deliberate. Intentional.

Not the random violence of a beast, but the calculated brutality of someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

She shook her head.

It didn’t matter right now.

She had to find Mika.

—

She continued deeper into the forest.

And almost immediately, she found another body.

This one was worse.

Its hand had been completely chopped off.

The stump was ragged, torn like someone had hacked at it repeatedly until it came free. The face was frozen in a scream of agony.

Astrid covered her mouth, fighting the urge to vomit.

But she kept going.

And found another.

And another.

And another.

Each one worse than the last.

One with its neck twisted at an impossible angle—snapped like a twig.

One with its stomach slashed open, intestines spilling out onto the forest floor.

The smell was absolutely horrifying—sweet and rotten and wrong. Astrid had to press her sleeve against her nose to keep from gagging.

One with its limbs scattered around it—arms here, legs there, torso in the middle like someone had taken it apart piece by piece.

One with a massive hole where its heart should have been.

Not a wound—a hole. Like something had punched straight through its chest and ripped out the organ.

One with its head completely missing. Just...gone.

One with its face caved in, features unrecognizable, skull shattered.

Astrid stumbled through this nightmare landscape, her mind reeling.

She had been trained by her mother.

She had seen simulations, practice exercises, controlled environments.

But this? This was real. This was brutal. This was death in its most raw, horrifying form.

She wanted to stop.

She wanted to run.

She wanted to curl up in a ball and cry until someone came to save her.

But she couldn’t.

Because Mika was still out there.

And she had to find him.

—

As she went deeper, she also noticed that the bodies changed.

The first ones had been killed with weapons—swords, axes, arrows. Straightforward violence.

But these?

These had been trapped.

One demi-human lay at the base of a tree, his leg impaled by a contraption made of sharpened wooden spikes.

They had snapped shut on his calf like a bear trap, pinning him in place.

Then someone had slashed his throat. The wound was clean, precise—a mercy, compared to what came next.

Another was hanging from a tree, tangled in a net.

Dozens of puncture wounds covered his body—stab wounds, delivered while he was helpless and suspended.

Blood had rained down on the ground below, pooling in dark, congealed puddles.

Another had fallen into a pit.

Astrid almost fell in herself—she caught herself at the last second, peering down into the darkness.

At the bottom, she could see spikes. Sharp, wooden spikes.

And impaled on them, two demi-humans, their bodies twisted in impossible angles.

She backed away slowly, her heart pounding.

These weren’t random animal attacks.

These weren’t the work of some territorial monster.

These were traps.

Deliberate, clever, deadly traps.

Set by someone who knew what they were doing.

Set by someone who was hunting the hunters.

—

She kept going.

The bodies multiplied.

Thirty.

Forty.

Fifty.

She stopped counting. It was too many. Too horrifying. Too much.

Some were unrecognizable—torn apart into pieces, scattered across the forest floor like garbage.

Some even showed signs of torture.

Eyes gouged out.

Fingers missing—not cut, but removed, pulled off joint by joint.

Ribs pulled from chests, arranged in patterns on the ground.

Skin flayed from faces, revealing skulls beneath.

Some had been hung from trees—nooses around their necks, bodies swaying in the wind.

And around one such body, a necklace of heads.

Demi-human heads.

Someone had collected them. Arranged them. Left them as a message.

Astrid stared at that necklace for a long, terrible moment.

And in that moment, she understood.

This wasn’t just killing.

This was hunting.

Someone had been hunting the demi-humans.

Tracking them. Trapping them. Killing them.

Not quickly, not mercifully. But slowly, with rage and vengeance and something darker.

Someone had turned the hunters into the hunted.

And whoever that someone was, they were absolutely, terrifyingly good at it.

—

She counted.

She couldn’t help it. Her mind, trained by her mother to notice details, to process information, kept tallying as she walked.

One hundred.

One hundred twenty.

One hundred fifty.

One hundred eighty.

She stopped.

One hundred eighty.

That number...

The lines on the cave wall.

The last time she had counted, there had been around one hundred eighty lines.

’No.’

She shook her head violently.

’No, that doesn’t make sense. That would mean—that would mean Mika—’

She couldn’t finish the thought.

Because in her mind, Mika was her adorable little brother.

The one she protected. The one she coddled. The one she loved more than anything in the world.

He wasn’t a killer.

He wasn’t a hunter.

He wasn’t capable of...of this.

This brutality. This viciousness. This absolute, merciless destruction of an entire army.

The bodies she had seen hadn’t just been killed.

They had been annihilated. Torn apart. Destroyed. Like someone had poured all their rage and hatred into every single blow.

That wasn’t Mika.

It couldn’t be Mika.

It wouldn’t be Mika.

She forced the thought from her mind and kept walking.

—

Her legs were weakening.

She had walked so far, pushed herself so hard.

The healing from the medicine could only do so much—she was still a six-year-old girl with recently broken legs, pushing through pain and exhaustion and terror.

But she kept going.

Because Mika was still out there.

And she wouldn’t stop until she found him.

Not until she saw him with her own eyes.

Not until she held him in her arms.

The forest grew darker as she went deeper.

The trees towered overhead, blocking out the sun.

The air grew colder, damper. Strange sounds echoed in the distance—animal calls, wind through leaves, something that might have been a scream.

Astrid pressed on.

And then—

She heard it.

A noise.

Not just any noise.

The sound of a skirmish.

Metal clashing. Grunts of effort. Footsteps pounding against earth.

A fight.

Someone was fighting.

Astrid’s heart leaped into her throat.

She ran toward the sound, her exhaustion forgotten, her fear pushed aside.

Through the trees, over roots, around rocks—faster, faster, faster—

Until she burst into a clearing.

And what she saw made her world stop.