Hand

"Miss Aura… Miss Everest…. This way, please," A Third Step soldier politely, yet extremely nervously, greeted the two Monster Lords outside the Euklid Manor in Whitecliff City.

Everest's aura laced with her irritation and unhappiness washed over these soldiers, causing them to all freeze and begin stuttering.

"Mistresses!" Rebecca stepped out the front of the mansion and curtsied to the two Monster Lords.

Although she was a dungeon wife just the same as them, she was still respectful considering the power difference between them. Not to mention they were currently in a highly volatile mood that could have serious consequences not so much to her, but to the city.

She had already expected this outcome and rushed out to prevent any of the soldiers from dying to the temperamental Monster Lords.

Neither of them were currently in a good mood. It wasn't the first time Aura had appeared before the guards of this city, so they were somewhat familiar with her, but the giantess Everest completely terrified them.

"Where is the Monster Lord?" Aura asked impatiently.

"Please hold on, we also need your help in the city as well."

"Explain."

"Due to the recent damage and lack of city guards, there has been a growing amount of chaos within the city. One of the main offenders is a shadow organisation called Hand that have extended their roots here."

"Where are they?" Everest's icy voice slipped out from between the giantess' lips.

Everest didn't want to be waiting around on what she was not motivated to do. Human schemes were something convoluted and didn't make any sense in her mind. They scurried about and didn't have the faintest idea on how to lay a proper trap.

"That… I don't know. They don't appear any different from any other person, but they hold secret meetings every two weeks to share information and plans. We have interrupted a few of them, but countless more have slipped by. People have gone missing and crime rates are skyrocketing. There is little more we can do at the moment than rely on Styx."

Space folded around Everest as soon as Rebecca explained the situation, the spider Monster Lord vanishing before everybody's eyes.

Rebecca had the strongest mana vision, but even to her, Everest's skills were obscure and shrouded in mystery. He control over her mana was incredibly precise as she wove it in webs around her. She used monstrous amounts of it, but Rebecca had trouble seeing even the smallest amount.

Little was she aware that invisible webs made from space itself slowly creeping across the city. They filed up dark cracks under the eaves of buildings, even inside of old and worn closets inside. Being made of space, they didn't have the same limitations of traditional spider webs.

These were like Everest's tendrils, extending from her body that was hidden within subspace. She no longer wore the irritated expression from before, but had become a cold blooded killer.

She crouched amongst her webs, silently waiting for her prey to appear. She would only strike once, for that was all an apex hunter needed.

Aura was different. She was much closer to the other dungeon wives than Everest, so she worked alongside Rebecca and the city guard.

She used her hyper sensitive senses and inspected several of the previous sights under guidance of the guards. She didn't need to rely on Styx's advice either. She had previously spent a long time watching humans in order to stave off her boredom, so she was able to form some level of insight on her own.

To her, this was like a hunt, and was far more enjoyable that she had anticipated. Her motivation to track down these people was currently overwhelming. If the members of Hand knew that a Fifth Step Monster Lord was so intent on tracking them down, they would have immediately fled the city.

Alas, sometimes it isn't until it is too late that such dangers present itself.

"Fear no demons!" A hawker had set up a stall on the side of the street in the slums and was bartering small blood colored stones. "Our kingdom is at war, but with just this bloodstone, you will be safe from the demons!"

The hawker was a poorly dressed man that wouldn't stand out in a crowd.

The moment he saw the guards nearby, he immediately fled from the stall and into a nearby alley, leaving all his goods behind as if they were of no value.

Aura didn't immediately chase him but stood in front of the stall and looked at the ruby like stones. They smelt of blood, yet also only seemed like stones.

Her keen sensed detected there was something off about the stones, like a bad smell, but she was by no means well informed of any matters relating to demons from the neighbouring kingdom. She knew that they had a demon god backing them, and that was more than enough to reason to stay away from them.

'Go catch him before he completely escapes,' Styx's voice reminded Aura in her head, as the man was still escaping.

He didn't get far, eventually turning around a tight corner before the entire world changed. He should have ran down an all too familiar back alley that even the guards would have trouble tracking him through, but he had inexplicably ended up on a beach.

The sound of waves crashed behinds him whilst the smell of salt water filled his nostrils.

"W-what the…" His words died off as he stared at Aura.

The wolf girl looked back, her ears twitching happily, like a hunter glaring down her target that could no longer escape.

The man knew he had to escape by any means, so he turned and ran straight into the ocean whilst trying to convince himself it was all just an illusion meant to trick him. Unfortunately, the waves only increased in might and reminded him that this was all very much real.

He was taken off his feet and swept back onto the shore without being able to resist the force of the ocean in the slightest. Above him stood Aura, a wide grin spread across her face.

~~~~~

⠀

A week passed and Aura intruded into a room where several high rank members of Hand were having an emergency meeting. Their people kept getting picked off, and they needed to either retaliate or go into hiding.

Despite working very hard over the past week, she had not grown tired of this cat and mouse game with the members of Hand in the slightest.

Little did they expect that Aura was an excellent interrogator, alas the methods she used were frowned upon by other humans. Nobody liked seeing their brethren eaten even when they were the most heinous criminals, let alone when they were cannon fodder members of some shady underground organisation.

All the men and women in the room, all high level members of the local Hand branch, jumped to their feet and drew their weapons.

"So you are the one who has been picking off our members? Coming here alone was a foolish mistake."

Aura was currently completely suppressing her aura, so the men and women had no idea of her true might.

"Come." She eagerly said whilst brandishing her hands.

Aura currently wore a pair of wolf gloves that were horribly disproportionate in appearance to how fearful they were. Styx had sent these items over on a mount for her to use during the last week. She wanted to fight with weapons out of her own amusement, so he had sent over several different types.

The ones she was most fond of was a pair of gloves that looked like wolf paws but with soulium claws.

They were weaker than her bare hands and own claws by a huge margin, but this was just for her amusement in playing with the humans.

Before Aura could attack though, the head of the deputy leader in the meeting abruptly rolled off his head without warning. The sudden thump of the head, followed by the body, falling to the floor, took everyone by surprise. The only one who knew what had actually happened was Aura who immediately flared up.

"They were mine!"

"...I found them first." Everest, who hadn't been seen all last week, spookily crawled out from a fold in space and sqeezed her body in the room.

Aura could momentarily see into subspace as Everest left it. Inside were about a hundred fresh bodies tied up, mostly human but with a couple beastmen and other exotic species. Some had already died and were turned into what could only be described as an ancient mummy though.

The higher ups of the local Hand branch could only shed tears as they were forced in between the conflict of two Monster Lords who were at odds.

Everest didn't try attacking Aura, but she did deploy a web of space webs to delay her a bit.

Whilst Aura cut through the blockade, Everest pulled her finger and revealed the true trap in the room.

Invisible threads whiplashed around the room and abruptly wrapped up all the people bar Aura. She immediately retreated and pulled them into subspace, not a single one of them, nor Aura, were capable of preventing her. It was as if it was all planned out beforehand with how smoothly everything went for the giantess spider Monster Lord.

"That is how a trap is laid…" Everest mumbled to herself as the space fold collapse in on itself and she vanished once again.