Chapter 38 - Hunters... Assemble!

Chapter 38 – Hunters... Assemble!

"[Announcement: If anyone meets a red-eyed and blue-haired figure, please report to the authorities immediately, and do not engage]"

...

"So whacha think about this case." A very intimidating person said. His voice literally echoed across the meeting room. It was quite clear that was someone in a high position of power.

Around a table sat people who looked down in contemplation. And at the end of the table was a screen depicting Ciel, or the few pictures they have of her.

As soon as she appeared, lots of S-rank hunters were called into Korea as an emergency, especially after her actions and crimes, and the unusual appearance of her from a red gate.

In just a couple hours, tens of hunters assembled into a meeting room to discuss her, and what is to be done.

"It is certainly interesting and a first on this world. If not for her actions I would've tried to befriend her." A person wearing glasses said.

"Yes... Mass genocide, killed thousands of hunters from across the world, stolen all classified information from countries, destroyed entire cities, all in the span of an hour. Quite impressive."

"Thomas, are you praising her?"

"I will praise where it is due. You can't help but admit that she is very strong."

"So will you make a move then?"

"I will. Judging from her goals and directions, it is quite probable that she is going to Tokyo next. We will meet her there. It is decided."

...

"This cup is quite interesting. Its major feature is containing some essence of law from this world inside it. The being who made this would be quite strong compared to everyone else in this world, don't you agree?" She looked down.

Beneath her were millions of what looked like angels. She was sitting on a pile of corpses. There were so many that her altitude was hundreds of meters in the air, compared to the ground.

The only one alive was the very top one, the one she sat on.

"H-how dare you." The creature barely made an audible whisper, "we rulers..."

"Yeah yeah yeah rulers huh. Quite an arrogant name compared to anything else. Let me tell you the only person who deserves the title 'ruler' is my husband. You can't even compare."

She proceeded to rip off both its wings.

After seeing it suffer for a while longer she finally ended its life.

(*sigh. I thought this would bring some clues as to why I'm here, but it was just a bunch of arrogant pricks deciding to be annoying. Trying to kill me? Dream on. Interesting objects aside, I must admit that turning off that intelligence perk is really a good decision. Makes it more interesting.

However, it seems that I only have a couple hours left before I wake up. *sigh I would love to stay a bit longer but it is time to end this excursion. It seems the hunters are going to Tokyo. Do they really think I'm that predictable? I guess I'll just have to play along then.)

She then disappeared from her spot, leaving silence and a mountain of corpses. Then, a small light sparked at the top, and a raging torrent of fire mercilessly burned all the bodies to a crisp, not even leaving ash behind.

...

Currently, she was dressed like a foreign tourist. As it was quite warm, she wore a simple dress with a straw hat and sunglasses, although her hair was quite suspicious.

She looked up at the Tokyo Sky Tree.

"Impressive, even in this world everything is almost exactly the same."

She sat down on a bench and relaxed whilst the traffic lights turned green and all the cars started going.

When it turned red again and all cars stopped, a massive figure who was not there before could be seen across the road, and he started to walk in an ordinary fashion towards her.

He wore bright clothes and also sunglasses, but it was on his head instead of over his eyes. He had long blonde hair, green eyes and a toothy smile was plastered across his face.

This was Thomas Andre, the strongest national hunter in the world.

He was the son of a poor European immigrant family and spent his childhood surrounded by enemies. In order to survive, he became a brawler and proved his natural talent for domination repeatedly through an endless series of fighting with those who opposed him.

When the gates appeared and hunter became a thing, he also grasped this opportunity to become one of the strongest.

This was also the source of his confidence whilst approaching the enemy. With him and everyone else around it would go quite well... that's what he thought anyway.

"Excuse me, could I sit here?"

He spoke American, and as he expected the person replied back in the same language.

"Be my guest."

He sat on the opposite side of the bench, and his arms propped themselves on the top. He spread his shoulders across the bench to carry the confident and mature look he wanted.

It was silent between them for a while as both just stared into space, and it was Thomas that broke it first, "who are you?"

"Ciel."

"One word answers huh? I see how it is. Then, why did you kill all those people?"

"For information."

A tick mark appeared on his forehead and sparks of anger lit inside his heart, since he didn't support her methods of information gathering at all, but he supressed his urge to smack her for now and carried on the conversation.

"But why? Why did you kill all those people just for information? There were better ways."

"Yes, and I tried every single way, didn't I? Not only can I get all the memories of those I kill, but I also went into all the secret databases of the most powerful countries."

"And what information are you searching for?"

"I don't really know, but probably why I am here. You see, I wanted to use my own efforts to find that out instead of spoilers."

"You don't even know?" At this point he was on the verge of breaking. Kill all those people just for a useless goal? He was absolutely furious.

"We will kill you today."

"Oh really? Then stop with the meaningless illusions already and let's get started."

Suddenly, the entire city became a ripple and started to fade out. Instead, it was replaced with a vast field of grass. Vast but deserted. The only signs of life were the hundreds of hunters ranging from A to S class dotted about and hundreds of mythical beasts in front.

To the side, Ciel could see a few familiar faces, including the shadow guy from the dungeon.

"It is nice how I have such a welcoming party. It must've been quite hard to assemble everyone in like an hour, props to yous." She first began her praise, and lowered the morales of everyone.

"EVERYONE! Don't listen to her. You know what your job is. Today, we will eliminate her from this world and stop the needless deaths."

Everyone then roared and cheered, before running towards her, with Thomas at the front.

Sung Jinwoo commanded his shadows to fight but not himself, as he knew that they wouldn't stand a chance.

When he gave his testimony on her, everyone suddenly went to the thought of killing her with sheer numbers, which was only logical, but they didn't see her before, only Sung Jinwoo did, so how could they accurately judge they were able to kill her?

As someone who saw her first hand, he tried to persuade everyone to make friends and peace with her, but they shut him down saying she could not be redeemed after all those people she killed, which also made sense but he would rather swallow that guilt then face her again.

But alas, here he was, on the battlefield of life and death against her.

He knew that against pure strength, numbers meant nothing, but then again, they also had tons of strong people. Hundreds of powerful hunters and even the national ones were here working together.

(Perhaps we could win?)

As if reading his thoughts, Ciel smiled.

She appreciated the sight of hundreds running towards her, before spreading her arms out.

"Foolish" She said in a normal voice, but the noise resounded in everyone's ears and thousands of black tentacles sprouted from behind her.

Each tip was as sharp as a sword and dripped with smoking black poison.

As time increased, so did the amount of them, until it completely overwhelmed even the light from the Sun.

The sky was blocked by the intensity of them and darkness soon descended.

"Quick. Those who can conjure light do it! We need our sight back!" Thomas being quite-witted stayed calm in this situation and gave orders.

Then, hundreds of spots around the battlefield lit up. The sources of light then flew into the air and illuminated the entire area.

They saw clearly what surrounded them, squirming disgusting black tentacles, which looked like it came straight from someone's nightmare.

Then, what happened next horrified them.

Thousands – no, millions of small and large eyes opened on the tentacles. Each one had a blank pupil which sparked terror wherever it looked. They then concentrated onto the people enclosed in this space.

One scream began, then followed by another, then another, until over one half of the troops fainted.

Only the strong-willed ones remained standing, including Thomas. Seeing this he immediately launched his strongest punches and attacks again the black wall, but it didn't even scratch it.

Despite nothing happening, he still continued to do everything he could, and so did the others.

But what he then found out shocked him.

The monster was slowly getting closer. In other words, it was encroaching upon them slowly.

"Damn it... this isn't working."

Cursing, he could only watch on helplessly as more and more people fell.

He himself also felt helpless in front of this monstrosity, and minutes later the first deaths due to suffocation began to appear.

Switching from passive to aggressive, when the wall got nearer to the people, no matter if they are fainted or still standing, hundreds of smaller tentacles stabbed into their bodies completely neutralising them.

Some may argue that being passed out here was actually better since they didn't know what was coming and didn't suffer much. Those who were awake tried to run out, but when they touched the wall they were instantly absorbed and the liquid invaded all their orifices, giving them an even worse death than being stabbed.

Thomas seeing this stopped attacking the wall and tried every other trick he had in the book but it was still useless.

At last, it was his turn.

Defenceless against the wall, he was the last one standing, but was eventually felled by the hundreds of tentacles stabbed into his body.

The poison then took an effect and he slowly lost consciousness.

As the last person died, the entire creature then melted into nothingness, only revealing Ciel on the other side watching everything happen.

On the other side was Sung Jinwoo, who made the correct decision to stay, otherwise he would've met his demise too.

Resigning to fate, he sighed and looked at Ciel straight into her eyes.

"I'm the last one?"

"Yes"

He didn't know why he asked that, since it was quite obvious.

He sent 90% of his shadows, including the strongest ones at her, but all of them died.

Not just damaged and returned, but died in the truest sense. He forever lost them and he only had a pitiful amount of soldiers left.

There was basically no hope left.

"Any last words?"

"What are your plans after this?"

"That's not last words but last questions."

"I know, but I'm going to die anyway so might as well."

"Fair. I'll answer you then. After I kill you I will leave this world."

"Will you kill everyone here then?"

"No... maybe I don't really know yet. But I have gotten all the information I need. There's not really anything else to say really."

"I know I'm being selfish... but if you do kill everyone, could you at least give Cha Hae-In and my family a painless death?"

"Cha Hae-In? Is she the one who accompanied you to the dungeon? I did notice she was not here."

"Yes, I knew this would happen so I told her, my friends and my family to run, but if you are killing everyone then there really is no point. Begging for their lives is pointless. And even if you save only them, in a world with nothing in it anyway is in some ways worse than death."

"You make a fair argument. Very well, I will give them a painless death."

Sung Jinwoo then smiled, before seven holes were punched from his body, then a bright flame engulfed and destroyed him.

...

Looking at where he stood, Ciel prepared to wake up, but felt a distortion in the air, pulling her into a foreign space.

Suddenly alarmed, she switched back on all her abilities, gave Rimuru a mental note about this trip, drank a cup of coffee, read the entire Harry Potter series, watched all the Marvel films, and solved an impossible maths conjecture, before she was forcefully pulled into another dimension...