The cave entrance was soaked in blood.
Countless charges and breakout attempts had ended in sudden death, the path now clogged with mutilated corpses.
Admiral Mike swept his gaze around.
All that remained were himself, a single staff officer, and six soldiers.
The Nen-users who were assigned as guards — either dead in battle or missing — were nowhere to be found.
He was practically alone.
Beasts had blocked every entrance and exit to the cave, completely sealing off any chance of escape.
Boom—
Even the cave's ceiling began to collapse, shattered by the beasts' brute force.
Jagged, cubical chunks of stone rained down, raising a choking cloud of dust.
Mike quickly covered his mouth and nose, coughing as he and the others ducked into a relatively safer corner.
Then, he looked up.
The first thing he saw was a blinding shaft of sunlight that pierced his vision.
Once his eyes adjusted — the second thing he saw was what had broken through the ceiling.
It was a massive creature.
Its body was cloaked in thick, petal-like structures — but at the center of those blooming petals was a single, vertical eye.
Emotionless.
Cold.
Staring down at them.
The moment he met that eye, Mike's breath caught in his throat.
Fragments of confused memories suddenly clicked into place.
A flash of recognition —
I… I've seen it before!
It had attacked his camp once.
No — not attacked.
It had appeared during a night raid, alongside a swarm of other magical beasts.
Back then, Admiral Mike had briefly locked eyes with that single vertical pupil from afar — but at the time, he'd noticed nothing unusual.
In fact, he had found it odd.
Why was that one beast — the eye-flower — just watching, while the others charged the defenses?
It hadn't moved.
It had simply stared.
Later, most of the beasts involved in the raid were driven back into the jungle by relentless artillery fire.
Some were killed.
The dead were dragged away by soldiers — trophies of war.
Some of the creatures could be used as food. Others were rare enough to be considered collectibles.
A few had exceptional research value and could fetch a high price on the black market.
To Admiral Mike and his unit, this was a decisive victory. They had no idea that what they thought was success had already planted the seeds of disaster.
Of all the nightly raids they had endured recently, this one hadn't seemed any different. Admiral Mike hadn't even paid it much attention. Just another skirmish. Just another enemy driven off.
But now, with everything unraveling, the truth was clear. It had been that thing—the one-eyed monster. It had cursed him, and several of his key officers.
The curse didn't take hold immediately. Like a coiled serpent, it waited. It needed time to fully manifest, to strike.
That delay had given an Exorcist time to temporarily suppress its effects and spare Admiral Mike's life. But it hadn't erased it.
Now, once again, that single eye was staring into his soul. Cold. Malevolent. Unblinking.
He had been marked.
Even if he escaped this place alive, the curse would still kill him—unless he found a second Exorcist to remove it completely.
And honestly, given the state of things… how could he possibly escape?
It was over.
Everything was over.
He sank to his knees. Defeated. Hopeless. His lips trembled, whispering inaudible words to himself—prayers, regrets, or maybe just fragments of thought falling apart.
Gunfire exploded in front of him.
Da-da-da-da—!
The soldiers unloaded their rifles at the one-eyed beast and the wave of magical creatures flooding into the cave. But the bullets did nothing.
They tore through the air, sparked against thick hide, and then their magazines clicked empty.
Panicked, they reached for grenades—but it was already too late.
The monsters were faster.
They lunged and tore into them, ripping bodies to shreds. Blood sprayed across the walls. Screams were drowned in roars.
The adjutant screamed into Mike's ear. The soldiers cried out in pain and terror. But Mike heard none of it.
He moved like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Slow. Rigid. Hollow.
From inside his coat, he pulled his pistol.
There was no other way now. Death was coming either way. Better to meet it with some control. With some dignity.
Six soldiers and the adjutant were already dead, their bodies strewn across the ground in torn, twitching pieces. Only Mike remained.
He placed the barrel against his mouth.
Just as his finger began to squeeze the trigger, everything changed.
The noise vanished.
The howls. The gunfire. The screams. The wet crunching of bones. All of it disappeared in a heartbeat.
The silence was sudden. Absolute.
Then came a strange sound—wet and sharp, like something being cut clean through.
Schlunk.
Mike's eyes widened.
He looked up, the barrel still resting on his lips.
And there it was.
The one-eyed beast—the very monster that had cursed him—stood frozen in place.
Then, silently, it split in two. From head to belly, it was sliced clean down the center.
The single eye, sliced cleanly in two, exploded like a ripe tomato. Juice splattered in every direction, even landing on Admiral Mike's face.
Admiral Mike froze.
Then came the cacophony again—the mixed voices of the magical beasts. But this time, they were more chaotic. And within the chaos, there was something more… fear.
The beasts retreated all at once, like a tide pulling away from the shore. They pushed and trampled over each other in the narrow cavern paths and forked tunnels.
More and more creatures met the same fate as the one-eyed beast—either split in half or exploding in a mess far worse.
Amid the storm of crimson blood, a figure stepped forth.
A hunter in black robes.
Admiral Mike stared in shock as the man walked toward him. He reached for the pistol clutched in Mike's trembling hand, pried it away, crushed it effortlessly, and tossed it aside.
"Get up." The man's voice was low and calm. "If you still want to live."
That voice. That presence. Like winding a clockwork spring inside him, it snapped Mike back into motion.
His body moved without thinking. He stumbled to his feet, gasping for breath, swallowing hard, staggering after the hunter.
He was tasting what it felt like—to be alive.
The hunter, Germain, led his sole surviving companion toward the exit of the cave.
Outside the cavern, the cowardly beasts had already scattered, vanishing into the jungle without a trace. But not all of them were gone.
Some still lurked—on the cliffside, behind rocks, at the mouth of other tunnels.
They were restless.
One looked like a gargoyle, wings spread wide. Another resembled a disembodied hand with razor claws.
Still another was a round, rolling sphere with spines.
They growled low at Germain and Mike. The snarls came from every direction. Different languages, different throats, all tangled in a chorus that rattled the men's eardrums.
Admiral Mike turned pale.
He couldn't understand what the beasts were saying, but his instincts screamed loud enough. If they didn't act soon, the next attack was coming.
"Germa—" He barely got the syllable out before he was hit by the Malicious intent radiating from Germain's body.
A low hum vibrated through the air—
It was an aura of malice even more terrifying than the one unleashed that day in the canyon.
When released, it exploded outward like a shockwave, instantly swallowing everything nearby.
Every living being present felt as if trapped inside the bloodthirsty jaws of a monstrous beast, endlessly torn by its teeth and churned by its tongue.
They were gripped by sheer terror, chewed and mixed, flipped and tossed about, as if at any moment they would be swallowed whole and utterly digested.
Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the aura vanished—like a sudden sunshower, fierce and brief.
Germain's tightly controlled malice had completely suppressed what might have become an uprising.
Looking up, he saw no more beasts showing hostility. Instead, they all wore expressions of pain and began to retreat.
Not only that, but above their heads, striking dark crowns glowed dimly in a deep crimson hue.
Even Admiral Mike, kneeling and vomiting helplessly, had that same familiar dark crown floating above his head.
This meant Germain's malicious intent, which he had now released with serious purpose, shattered the mental defenses of every living creature present in an instant, plunging them all into torment.
*******
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