[Blood Archive Entry]
The young boy approached the group of monsters with steady steps. There was no hesitation in his eyes. No mercy.
Even though he was enraged, he was still normal. There was no monstrous expression on his face. No claws coming out of his fingertips.
Darian just closed his fists, again, and again. His muscles tensed and relaxed several times. The explosive strength hidden in his small frame caused the ground beneath his feet to crack in spiderweb-like patterns.
Yet despite the murderous and oppressive aura that emanated from him, the monsters were still thinking of themselves as the hunters. They thought of the boy as weak—a nice appetizer, if anything.
The cyclops licked his dry and disgusting lips. Its one eye narrowing at the promise of the ecstasy of young flesh. During the many centuries it had been alive, many families had been brought to despair and eventually crushed by its own filthy hands. Many brave demigods have faced it, thinking themselves the ones to finally defeat it. Safe to say, none of them did. Instead, all of them turned into meals for the disgusting creature.
The one-eyed giant clenched his hand around the tree trunk, which it used as a club. It still remembered when one creature shrouded with the stench of death came to him, saying there was a group of demigods that were coming this way. The cyclops was beyond scared of that entity; no matter how much it tried, every time the memory surfaced, shivers would run along its entire body.
It would eat those divine children, along with the soft females inside the metal box, and then it would leave, as far as possible. So that the death-scented one wouldn't find it.
By the side of the cyclops, the minotaur's powerful chest heaved with each powerful breath. Its nostrils flared open, as clouds of hot air came out of them. It twirled the crude weapon it called an axe around. The wind hissed as the blade cut it cruelly.
Much like the cyclops, the minotaur was a cruel and sadistic creature. One that enjoyed the thrill of the combat beyond anything else—well, almost beyond anything else… As there was one thing that it enjoyed even more. The expression that its opponents would make when they were about to die. The crippling fear. It was glorious in the foul beast's mind. Among the many prey the minotaur had, demigods were always the best, as they were all skilled and brave warriors, making them fight the best and die the best.
So, when a woman who radiated power and beauty, beyond anything the creature had ever thought possible, one that felt somewhat familiar to him, like half of him was part of her. A strange feeling the minotaur couldn't quite comprehend with its crude mind. But the important part was that the woman wanted it to go to a certain place and kill a group of demigods. That was all that mattered. And that was all the minotaur heard anyway.
The next thing the minotaur remembers was waking up in this strange place, along with a group of other monsters. Waiting for its prey to come.
One of the empousai stepped forward first.
She moved with practiced grace, hips swaying unnaturally as she crossed the cracked asphalt. Her smile was slow and deliberate, her lips painted crimson with someone else's blood. Her eyes glimmered with hunger.
"Oh my," she purred, voice dripping with mockery and false warmth. "Did you get lost, little boy? This road isn't safe for-"
She never finished the sentence.
Darian vanished.
Not blurred. Not dashed.
Vanished. He disappeared in a blur of speed.
The air detonated where he had stood, the shockwave ripping outward and cracking the asphalt into jagged shards. In less than a heartbeat, he was in front of her, his small fist already in motion.
There was no wind-up.
No warning.
No mercy.
His punch landed squarely in her sternum.
The empousa's upper body ceased to exist.
Flesh, bone, and viscera exploded outward in a violent crimson bloom, misting the air with blood and shredded organs. Her torso disintegrated completely, erased by the sheer force of impact. The sound was less a strike and more a wet thunderclap.
What remained of her fell to the ground with a dull clatter.
One pale leg.
One bronze leg.
They twitched once.
Then went still.
The silence that followed was profound.
For the first time since the ambush began, the monsters hesitated.
Darian straightened slowly, flexing his fingers once as if shaking off mild irritation. A few flecks of blood stained his clothes. He looked down at them with visible disgust and wiped his knuckles against his pants.
"Annoying creature."
The remaining empousai shrieked in fury and fear, their seductive facades shattering instantly. They lunged at him together, claws outstretched, mouths opening to reveal rows of sharp, blood-stained teeth.
They didn't even touch him.
Darian stepped forward into their charge.
His elbow came up first, slamming into the jaw of the nearest empousa with enough force to snap her head clean off. It spun through the air before bouncing uselessly along the road.
The second one tried to rake his face.
He caught her wrist.
There was a sharp crack as every bone in her arm collapsed inward under his grip. He yanked her forward and drove his knee into her abdomen.
She folded.
He followed through with a kick that caved her chest inward, launching her broken body across the road and into the guardrail. Metal shrieked as she impacted, her corpse sliding down in a smear of gore.
Darian didn't look back.
Heavy footsteps thundered behind him.
The minotaur roared, charging with its axe raised high. Its hooves shattered the asphalt as it brought the weapon down in a brutal overhead swing.
Darian stepped aside.
The axe smashed into the ground where his head had been, embedding itself deep into the road.
Before the beast could recover, Darian kicked its knee sideways.
The sound was obscene and grotesque.
The minotaur bellowed as its leg bent in a direction it was never meant to bend. It collapsed forward, and Darian met it halfway.
He drove his fist straight into the creature's snout.
Bone imploded.
The force lifted the massive body off the ground before slamming it back down in a heap. Darian followed, mounting the beast and raining blows down upon its head.
Each punch was measured.
Controlled.
Deliberate.
With every impact, the minotaur's skull cracked further, until its once-feared face was nothing more than a pulped ruin.
Darian stood and wiped his hands again.
"Pathetic."
A shadow loomed over him.
The cyclops.
It swung its tree-trunk club with all its might.
Darian stepped inside the arc, the club whistling uselessly past his back. The cyclops tried again—swing after swing—each one missing by inches.
Darian moved with absolute precision.
Every dodge was intentional.
Every miss was deeply humiliating.
The cyclops roared in frustration and lunged, abandoning its weapon to grab him with its massive, filthy hands.
Darian recoiled instantly, disgust etched into his face.
"Don't touch me."
He slipped beneath the grasp, vaulted upward, and drove both feet into the cyclops' chest.
The giant staggered back. Its balance was lost due to the strength of the blow.
Darian fell graciously to the ground, and then he rushed forward.
He grabbed the cyclops by its wrist and twisted.
The arm tore free.
The cyclops screamed.
Darian stepped forward and kicked its remaining knee out from under it. As the giant fell, Darian seized its head and slammed it into the asphalt.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
On the fourth, the road cratered.
The cyclops went still.
Darian stood there for a moment, chest rising slowly, the oppressive aura around him receding like a storm finally passing.
Blood pooled around his feet.
Behind him, from the safety of the car, three demigods watched in absolute silence.
What they had just witnessed wasn't a battle.
It was an execution.
Darian exhaled softly, cracking his neck once before turning back toward the SUV.