{BS: It'll cost host 500,000 words.}
{BS: Current woods: 10,500,000.}
"Yes... None!" the chief insisted, his eyes pleading.
Kyle nodded slowly, as if considering his words. Then, he stood upright, his imposing figure casting a long shadow over the huddled villagers.
"Ok," he said, his tone deceptively calm. "When did they attack?"
"Two days ago!" a younger man blurted out, his voice cracking with fear.
"Ok," Kyle continued, his gaze unwavering. "But it seems they didn't use much force. No signs of a struggle, no significant damage to the village."
"Yes... We... We just surrendered," the chief answered quickly, avoiding Kyle's gaze. "We were outnumbered and outmatched. We didn't want unnecessary bloodshed."
"Did you help them in any way?" Kyle asked, his voice suddenly hardening.
"Help them? Why would we do that?" an old woman, whom Kyle instinctively identified as the chief's wife, chimed in, her voice high-pitched with indignation. "We didn't help them at all!"
"They attacked your village, didn't harm any of you beyond your leader, let you stay in your houses, didn't burn a single structure," Kyle stated, his voice laced with disbelief. "And you expect me to believe you didn't assist them in any way? Who is foolish enough to swallow such a blatant lie?" A palpable wave of killing intent emanated from him, causing the villagers to flinch.
"This?"
The villagers' eyes widened in confusion.
"You!"
Kyle pointed a gloved finger at one of his black-clad troops.
"Bring what you found in one of the demon's dwellings."
The foot soldier moved forward silently and opened his palm, revealing a small, tarnished object. It was a hunter's badge, crafted from polished bronze, with a stylized golden sun intricately engraved upon its surface.
Kyle took the badge, his fingers brushing against the cold metal. As the light from the torches caught the golden emblem, a wave of horror washed over the faces of the kneeling villagers. Their carefully constructed facade of fear crumbled, replaced by stark, naked panic.
"This is a Hunter badge," Kyle stated, his voice dangerously low. "Belonging to the Neville Empire. If my guess is correct, you weren't victims of these demons. You were collaborators. You are working for them. Am I wrong?"
"That... The demons must have brought it with them!" the old chief yelled, his voice strained and desperate. "We know nothing of it! We swear!"
'Impressive,' Kyle thought, his gaze hardening. 'If it hadn't been for the System's warnings and my own instincts, I might have been momentarily swayed by their performance.'
A chilling killing intent flashed in his eyes, a silent promise of swift retribution.
"I give you ten seconds," he said, his voice like ice. "Tell me the demons' main plan."
"What? You have to believe me! I'm telling you the truth!" the chief pleaded, his voice rising in hysteria.
"Five more seconds."
Kyle slowly raised the fingers of his left hand, deliberately bringing them closer together.
Gabriela, standing silently behind Kyle, watched the unfolding scene with a growing unease. Her gaze flickered between Kyle's implacable figure, the terrified villagers, and the bloodied corpse of the demon leader. She had heard everything, seen their fear, but a knot of disquiet tightened in her chest.
'Something isn't right,' she thought, her brow furrowing slightly. The villagers' terror seemed genuine, yet their story was riddled with inconsistencies.
She closed her eyes briefly, focusing her inner energy, and subtly activated her unique bloodline ability. Her pupils constricted and elongated, splitting into the vertical slits of a serpent's eyes. The world around her sharpened, details leaping into stark relief.
...Gabriela moved her gaze slowly across the dusty ground of the village square. Her serpentine eyes, now acutely attuned to subtle shifts in the earth and hidden energies, widened in mild shock.
"Move back!"
Instinct taking over, she lunged forward, grabbing Kyle's arm with surprising strength and yanking him backward.
BAM!!
The ground directly beneath where Kyle had been standing split open with a violent crack. A huge, slimy tentacle, thick as a man's torso and covered in rows of razor-sharp suckers, shot out from the earth, missing Kyle by a hair's breadth. The force of its emergence sent chunks of mud and stone flying.
"This?!"
Kyle regained his footing, his masked head snapping down to where the tentacle had erupted. The monstrous appendage writhed in the air for a moment before retracting back into the gaping fissure in the ground.
"A demon saving a human," a new voice boomed from the midst of the kneeling villagers, laced with scorn and amusement. "You are a shame to us, demons."
Before Kyle and his stunned soldiers could react, the kneeling villagers began to shift and contort. Their human forms twisted and elongated, bones cracking and reforming with sickening sounds. In mere seconds, the group of terrified humans had transformed into a grotesque menagerie of different animals: snarling foxes with glowing red eyes, hulking wolves with razor-sharp claws, slithering snakes with venomous fangs. And in the center of the transformation, the old chief's body ballooned and morphed, his limbs elongating into eight thick, powerful tentacles, his head taking on the unmistakable shape of a monstrous octopus.
'Oh...' Kyle thought, his mind racing as the pieces clicked into place. 'So this entire village is already converted... infiltrated. Not just a few invaders. The guards at the gate mentioned something about unusual human activity... are they hiding uncorrupted humans here somewhere? I need to find out where!'
Kyle moved his gaze over the transformed demons, a grim smile playing on his lips.
"The strongest among you fools are only Rank 10," he scoffed, his voice filled with disdain. He glanced briefly at Gabriela. "Thank you." He muttered, acknowledging her quick thinking, before turning his full attention back to the monstrous assembly before him. "And this overgrown squid thinks he can stand against me?"
Whoosh!!!
Kyle shot forward with explosive speed, his blade a silver blur in the torchlight. The twenty-five black-clad troops didn't hesitate, their movements synchronized and deadly as they followed their leader into the fray.
Gabriela watched the brutal battle unfold before her, a conflict that tore at the very fabric of her being. The creatures before her, though twisted and monstrous in their current forms, were still demons, her people. Her ultimate target was the Demon King, the architect of her suffering, not these pawns. She looked at Kyle, a whirlwind of lethal motion, cutting down the transformed demons with ruthless efficiency, showing no distinction between adult and child, between warrior and innocent.
"This!"
Her fists clenched at her sides, her internal conflict reaching a boiling point.
She had to make a choice, a decision that would irrevocably alter the course of her existence. To fully join Kyle meant turning her back on her demonic heritage, making every demon her enemy, a war against her own blood. But to side with her people, even these corrupted ones, meant betraying Kyle, abandoning her quest for revenge, and likely facing his wrath, assuming she even survived this immediate conflict.
What should she do? Where did her true allegiance lie?
Her hand tightened around the hilt of the sword at her hip, the cold steel a stark reminder of the path she had chosen. She took a step forward, moving towards Kyle, her polished blade reflecting the flickering moonlight.
'I made my choice,' she said inwardly, her resolve hardening like tempered steel. 'And nothing will change that.' She closed the distance between them, her footsteps silent on the blood-soaked ground.
'Nothing!' she affirmed, her eyes fixed on Kyle's relentless assault.