Hunted

"... this seems to be the best I can do with my current strength," Sora said softly while looking at the young woman before her. the woman in the painting had regained her human-like appearance. She was a stunning blonde hair woman, with bright blue eyes.

"Thank you." She said as tears ran down her eyes. in her eyes, this was enough, she had regained her humanity and was no longer the monster within the painting. this alone made her unimaginably grateful to Sora.

Sora nodded slightly before having her save the giants which were drawing, she, of course, did this, but while doing so, she couldn't help but explode into tears at the thought of thousands of lifeforms she had drawled. children and old, some were even pregnant,

"... that was not you, that was the god's curse. you shouldn't blame yourself for something the gods pushed you to do. those sins are the sins the gods should hold alone." Sora said while patting her back, but he was caught off guard as the woman suddenly hugged her and just began crying, making his clothing wet. stunned for a moment, Sora patted the back, trying to calm her down.

meanwhile, Irene and the other giants were watching this. horrified their eyes while looking at the painting. meanwhile, Irene had a complicated look while listening to Sora's words, she completely agreed with Sora. the gods were more curl than the demons.

after some time, the blonde-haired woman regained her eyes and went on to apologize to the giants, the giants all looked at each other, they were scared that this was another trick from this monster but seeing her eyes which had turned red from her crying, they nodded in the end as they forgive her. giants were a peaceful race, and since none of them died, although they were displeased, they understood this woman was cursed, and the curse had been weakened.

"I want to take you away, are you able to control the size of the painting?" Sora asked to which the blonde-haired woman nodded. to get into the giants, she had turned into such a huge painting. So, when Sora left the painting, she turned small and flew into Sora's hands.

"thank you for saving us." the giant tribe leader said with a sigh, they were drawing just a moment ago, and time seemed to flow much slower within the painting, for them it was a few minutes of them kicking around in the sea, but it seemed as if the time needed for them to drawn was the time needed for her to devour their souls. so time flowed differently for them.

To celebrate that they were not dead, and to think their saver, a party was held, and at the same time, a rundown of what happened was given to Sora and the others. it turned out that a few days ago, a strange human had sold the painting to the giants.

the giant tribe leader seeing such a beautiful painting that would even change its size was amazed and bought it and hung it on his bedroom walls. but the following few days, strange things have been happening to the tribe.

the cries of a woman could be heard coming from all over the place, it started weak, but soon they began seeing the blonde-haired woman in the night. it got worse when a few giants almost drowned, it was then that the villagers trade to flee from the tribe.

they realized that it was the painting, but they couldn't destroy the painting. Every time they destroyed it, they would find that it was an illusion. in the end, they wanted to run away, only to end up running off a cliff, where they went on to start drawing while the woman watched on, crying for them

as for the person who sold them this painting, it was unknown. the Blonde haired woman had forgotten her name, so Sora named her Julia. when they asked her about the strange man, she shook her head as her memory of being a monster was unclear. it was like a dream, slowly being forgotten,

"Why did you have such a huge reaction towards Irene?" Sora asked calmly, when Julia first saw Sora, the way she reacted as if Irene was her worst enemy, which was a weird reaction,

"... I don't know," Julia said after looking at Irene with a weird look, Irene's eyes narrowed slightly while looking at that weird look. Sora on the other hand fell into deep thoughts about all of this,

"so team leader, what do you think about getting a new team member?" Sora asked with a smile as he turned to look toward Irene. Irene's brows tightened slightly, but upon seeing Anna and Iris didn't have a problem with this, she slowly nodded.

So, with that their team turned from a group of 4 to 5. so the group went on to party with the giants. the group let loose, taking this time to enjoy this race curtals. Sora only partied for a few hours before he made his way to the top of the mountain when no one was looking.

Casting a spell, he summoned the Spirit Guardian he had already summoned, he summoned them all to his locations, which cast little MP for all of them. they were all at level 40 with the main spirit at level 55

"the person who sold the paint to the giants can't be far if he wants to return and get the painting. if that's the case, find his traces," Sora said calmly, the group of spires all nodded before they flew off,

"you're not the party type as always," Irene said softly as he walked up and sat next to Sora and overlooked the tribe below.

"don't like being around so many people I don't know," Sora said with a shrug, Irene smiled slightly, and her eyes landed on Julia who was partying with the giants, the fact that she almost killed them was thrown out of their head so quickly by these giants.

"what do you think of the gods?" Irene asked in a low voice, Sora's eyebrow raised at those words, and after thing for a moment, he spoke

"They disgust me, they cause more trouble than they fix. are they not better off dead?" Sora asked calmly, Irene's eyes shrank slightly at Sora's words,

"you shouldn't go around talking like that, you might be right, but you have nothing to gain from saying that," Irene said with a shake of her head if the gods heard Sora, she took might just get cursed or killed on the spot. his whole kingdom would follow,

"I only speak facts... why did you ask?" Sora asked calmly, Irene went quiet for a moment, before sighing.

"well... I wanted to know what you were planning on doing with Julia... you also want to see the others cursed by the gods, or punished by them. so I want to know... what are you planning?" She asked as she looked deeply at Sora.

"to help them. Medusa was raped by a god even though she was married, but the gods punished her for cheating as if she willingly gave her body. Zeus turns into someone's husband, have sex with a woman, and his wife punishes the females as if they did something wrong. the more I know about these gods, the more my disgust towards them grows..." Sora said as he looked at Irene, the main reason he was doing this was because of the Asura blood running through him. he felt that rage Asura felt, that pain, those huge amounts of feelings he went through, they were too much to ignore.

"What?" Irene asked as she felt as if Sora was hiding something, Sora looked away from her while looking at the sky.

"To avoid future trouble, I need to pull out the roots. I don't want no gods setting their eyes on someone close to me." Sora said softly, Irene froze slightly, she didn't know what to say for a moment, but she smiled.

"you don't need to worry about me," Irene said with a smile, although she was not Sora's match, that would not hold forever, one day she will surpass Sora. at least that's what she believed,

"Snort, who said I was worried about you?" Sora snorted slightly, Irene rolled her eyes slightly, before she rested her head on Sora's shoulder.

"what are you doing?" Sora asked softly, Irene didn't say anything and held the necklace around Sora's neck, which was glowing, showing this moment was being imprinted.

"I'm not too sure what the future might hold, so let's have this moment to ourselves," Irene said softly, Sora's actions will bring him a bunch of trouble, she could already see that. she don't know what could happen, maybe things could turn for the worst, or things would turn out to be alright. but she couldn't see the future, so she wanted to have a moment to just themselves

Sora didn't say anything, he could be lying if he said he didn't like Irene, but he never showed it. he wasn't the romantic type, be it in his past life or this life, he never had time for women. this held for this world as well, the only 2 women he ever loved were those he couldn't touch. Irene and he seemly couldn't be together.

Sora also didn't want Irene to be dragged into his battle with the gods, she was talented, but even he was not sure if he could survive such a battle. although he liked her, for now, it was best he stayed away.

meanwhile, within a demon lord tower, a group of high-ranking demons was having a meeting, in the end, the highest-ranking demon of them all, the 7 lords of sins stepped forward.

"We have all come to the agreement, it's too risky to allow a person who is part human to take the throne as Demon Lord." Lord Of Wrath said in a deep voice, the other demons all nodded in agreement. Humans were just too curl, scheming, and so on. they didn't want such things to be bought to their dream race. Sora's growth was also too fast, within a few years he might just have the strength to take the throne as a demon lord,

"seed a group out to find and kill him... we would have to start over with the plan, but this time let's have the dragons lower the number of humans first." Lord Of Pride said calmly before he and the 5 other Lords Of Sins disappeared. they were injured and only showed themselves to deal with this matter, thousands of years ago, they joined the demon lord in that battle, and they managed to fall back with heavy injuries. they should recover by the time the demon lord reincarnates