"Hoefen, you have to go now! We're all going to die if you don't get reinforcements."
She looked out at all the running mercenaries, as they tried to escape from the battle.
"Wait... Just watch..."
"What are you..." She looked down at the fight, "Hoefen, we have to-"
I extended out my right hand stopping her lips from making any more noise. I don't know why, but I felt like this man could do it. That he could kill this massive monster all on his own. It was something unbelievable yet something that I felt was totally within this world's realm of possibilities. This man just gave me that type of feeling. It wasn't the warmth of my past, nor the warmth of the present.
It was the same with the golden-haired man from my past, it was the warmth of his words that affected me. It was the way he spoke to me on that hill, the way he was so confident, so strong... Unlike the mercenaries who ran from battle, unlike all the people in this world, who put other people under them, who made them feel inferior. It felt like this man was the strong, and not just pretending. He was true! A true man! A man unlike any I had ever seen before. A man in his own league.
---
The Devil Dog swiped across the gravel ground as Tusk held out his sword.
Slice!
He sliced at the dog's open paw creating a massive wound along its black padded points. But in return, at the same exact moment he cut the Devil Dog's foot, he was in return cut by the talon of one of its massive clawed nails, right through the shoulder.
Slice!
The massive dog fell back in pain screeching and roaring as its open paw bled massive amounts of red blood.
Tusk in identically felt his shoulder's massive gouge, the wound bleeding more and more across his ripped cloak. He looked up at the surrounding mercenaries that sat and stood across the open valley waiting for him to die. He then turned back to the monster with fierce eyes of determination and pain.
"I have to finish this now... Or else..."
The Devil Dog raged across the stone-filled valley, its tail whipping in every direction, its hind legs swinging up and down as it rolled across its back in pain and fury.
---
Meanwhile up above Lin started analyzing the fight, "that's a Devil Dog, their weak to pain, but their fur is rough and hard so it's almost impossible to get a good cut on their upper bodies. But this man knows what he's doing. He knows... He's..."
Lin turned angry as he watched this mortal man fight on par with this goliath of a monster.
"Don't worry Lin, he doesn't have long before that dog goes psycho, aren't they known for going crazy when hit?" questioned Marda as she reached into her bag of monster goodies and pulled out a beautiful blue gem covered in monster guts.
"He... There is no possible way for him to win. He doesn't have long... So why doesn't he just give up..." Lin turned back to his sister who was now just sitting with Hoefen, enjoying the fight below, he turned pissed by how close they were, "I don't understand her... She just decides to cozy up with a guy she just met."
Marda smiled and slapped Lin across back, "Little Lin, when'd you get so overprotective of your sister? She can get guys. Is it because you can't?"
She smirked jokingly.
"I'm not gay. I just... I just..." He turned to his sister with a face of sadness, "I have to be strong for Ceauli..."
"Of course you do, you're her older brother." She slapped him once more on the back, "but sometimes brothers have to do things for sister that they don't want to do. You can't be her protector forever."
Chinin spoke up ignoring their conversation, "that man down there is doing quite well on his own, isn't he?"
Lin switched to Chinin's talk, "he's probably a Monster Hunter trying to prove himself."
---
Tusk stepped back ten feet before slowly sliding his sword back into its sheath. He looked at the flailing Devil Dog, its tail whipping around like lighting.
"Come on... Come on... Run at me... Attack me you rabid dog..."
He prepared himself sturdy. His right foot out front, his left foot placed back, his right hand on the hilt, his left on the sheath. He waited... And waited...
---
"What is he doing?" asked Lin watching the fight.
All the other mercenaries started to speak up and yell at Tusk along with Lin. They screamed at his stupidity and craziness. Most of the mercenaries had already escaped the valley and had decided to retreat into nearby towns. But some other mercenaries decided to stay behind just to watch Tusk fail, to watch the shadowed man die a horrible horrible death at the hands of overwhelming power. Those who watched were the type to abuse their insignificant life onto others' more successful lives. And especially in mercenaries, that type of mindset was prevalent. One so mindset was Lin's. He liked watching this man suffer. The way he struggled to beat it, to die from it.
He was bewildered in his own significance. His reluctance to successfully do anything for his sister, because deep down, deep deep down he felt his sister was always better than him. So he always felt that he himself had to be better for his sister, to do everything better for his sister, to be better than his sister, to be better than everyone else, to be better than even himself. But still, deep down, deep deep deep down, below the hate, below the loathing, below the superiority over his own sister, he had a sadness so deep, so maddening that even himself kept it hidden and only pushed it out onto others.
That was the sadness within Lin, the sadness that Ceauli saw as nervousness, awkwardness, and cowardness.
---
The Devil Dog flung itself back up on its hind legs and jumped toward Tusk. Its claws in full view as the blood from its paws spewed out like rain.
But Tusk waited and waited and waited. He waited until the monster opened up its mouth, until its teeth, and gums, and throat were in full view. And just within a few feet of it reaching him, he said in a soft tone.
"Thunderbolt!"
A small line of yellow light shot out from the tip of his curved black, yellow, and silver blade. The line only appeared for half a millisecond, but that millisecond became a thousand explosions of thunder. He swung across that line like a lightning strike. The crackling pop erupting across the stone valley as the monster's throat exploded out into an eruption of blood and cuts.
"What was that!" yelled out Lin.