Rain wanted to throw up at the bloody sight in front of her, but the unnatural sounds made by the creature as well as its threatening charge were enough to steel her stomach. Without missing a beat, Sunny charged out to meet the creature, throwing a jumping punch. Right before her fist could make contact, the creature suddenly disappeared, only to reappear behind Sunny and continue its charge, straight at Rain.
"Shit," Benji yelled out the moment he saw the creature disappear from the group's sight. "It's at least upper D-ranked!"
"It's a 'Hungering Devil," Alfred shouted out in response as well. Rain could only helplessly curse to herself. The creature had targeted her, and it was making its way straight at her. The fresh blood still dripped from the creature's maw, and the tiny pitch-black eyes stared at her with an intense bloodthirsty look. Rain steeled her nerves, and prepared herself by getting into a defensive stance. Right before the 'Hungering Devil' made it to Rain, it pounced at her. Yet, as it was mid air, Rain, Benji and Alfred all acted at the same time.
Benji threw a small purple ball at the creature which was promptly absorbed into the creature before the outline of the creature was marked in a faint purple light. It also seemed to slow down. Alfred threw two daggers straight at the creature's eyes, though it moved its head ever so slightly, and made one dagger bounce off its spikes, while the other only hit the creature right below the eye. Rain called out her 'White Mist' and rolled under the creature and tried to slash the creature from underneath. Be it Benji's magic, or the sudden pain from Alfred's dagger, the 'Hungering Devil' was late to react. Its claws which had swiped at her, were just inches away from her body. As such, Rain was able to create a minor cut along the belly of the creature. The -White Mist- smelling an open wound rushed towards it. For just a moment, Rain could see the skin around the wound begin to fester and deteriorate.
After she made it underneath the creature, she quickly stood back up and turned towards the creature. To her surprise the creature didn't turn back toward her, instead, it used its forward momentum to keep going and attacked Alfred this time. Alfred had a much easier time evading the creature, however he was completely suppressed and had no room to fight back.
Sunny, whose attack had so effortlessly been dodged, had turned around and charged back towards the creature steam gushing out of her ears. Every step she took launched herself forward, and created a thundering sound that echoed in the cavern. Within a few moments Sunny had made her way back to the creature, but this time she immediately kicked one of its back legs. An audible snap reverberated around the cavern room, as the back legs of the creature snapped out of, and then back into place. A noticeable amount of the creature's skin curled even closer to its bones. As if the thing had somehow become even more starved.
Its tail, which had so far only flapped around uselessly, suddenly came alive, and darted at Sunny's heart. She quickly tried to move to the side to dodge it, but she was too slow. The tail stabbed into her shoulder, before suddenly bulging. Sunny quickly ripped the thing out of her shoulder and backed up, her face white as a ghost.
"That thing just sucked my blood," she yelled out in shock. The tail which had bulged suddenly shrank as the bulge moved along the tail and back into the creature's chest. The shrinkage of the creature's skin just a few moments ago was now gone, as it looked to gain some fat back on its bones.
"It's vampiric," Benji yelled out, before throwing a red spear-like object at the creature. It melded into its skin, and the creature visibly paused and shivered, allowing Alfred to make some distance before throwing more knives at the monster. Some were blocked by the spikes along the creature, while others made their way against its skin.
The "Hungering Devil' let out another shrill howl-screech and charged at Benji. Rain cursed to herself as she ran to intercept the beast. While Alfred, Sunny and her could probably survive in close combat, Benji did not look the type to be able to. The shock in his eyes and the sudden fear in them were also factors that told Rain he was not in a good spot. He started to backpedal, quickly forming another spell on his wand. Rain quickly realized she was not going to make it in time, and the 'Hungering Devil' was going to get the chance to kill Benji.
Not knowing what to do, she quickly made up her mind, she changed her grip on her sword, and did an extremely awkward spin throw, launching her blade at the creature. Rain believed it was due to the blood rage the creature probably had that allowed the sword to dig its way into the creature's neck. It didn't get very far in, however, it did make the creature stumble over its own feet and slow down. Benji took the opportunity to throw a blast of force at the creature, which in turn forced the creature to be pushed back.
Alfred, pulled out two more daggers and charged at the monster. Rain could only guess that he ran out of knives to throw. Rain was going to attack the creature as well, but she didn't have a weapon. She found a dagger that Alfred had thrown a few feet away from her. However, beyond it, Sunny was still gripping onto her shoulder, her arm was weak and looked wilted. Rain cursed to herself as she realized that Sunny was likely unable to contribute to the fight now.
Rain ran and picked up the dagger before she made her way over to the creature, her -White Mist- still following her. The creature stood back up and shook its head before turning towards Alfred, who was already close to the creature. They proceeded to stab, swipe, and slash at each other. Alfred would dodge out of the way of strike, but would occasionally get scratched, while the beast's surprisingly thick skin could deal with the strikes that made it past its guard and struck against its skin.
Soon Rain made it to the beast, and not sure how exactly she should use the dagger, decided to stab into the creature's back leg, before rolling forward to dodge the tail attack which may follow. Rain did make the correct choice, as soon as the back leg was stabbed, the tail came alive and struck at the spot where Rain was at just moments before. However, what she didn't expect the creature to do was suddenly dodge itself toward Rain, slamming into her and pushing her onto the ground. The beast then followed her to the ground pinning her. Rain couldn't help but let out a grunt of pain as some of the spikes on its body stabbed lightly into her.
The tail, which was still alive, seemed to be able to sense that she was stuck, as the sharp part of it swiftly turned towards Rain. Right as it was about to drive itself towards her, Benji threw a transparent lasso around the tail and pulled it back. He got himself stuck into a game of tug of war with the tail. Rain felt that the beast seemed like it was about to get up, but she suddenly felt the whole body of the creature go limp. The sound of Benji suddenly falling over could be heard from the side.
Above Rain was Sunny, her white face slowly regaining some color, as well as a look of pure anger. Her one arm was still limp at her side, though it looked better than it did a few moments ago. Rain could see her foot was pushed against her shortsword, which had stabbed all the way through the creature, and must've severed its spine. Sunny pulled the shortsword out of the creature's neck, before thrusting it down into the creature's head, where the brain must've been. Not a moment later the beast's heartbeat that Rain could feel against her chest suddenly stopped.
Right as the creature truly died, she heard some notifications, but she also began to see some sort of mist leave the creature's wounds. At first, it was slow, but Rain could see that the stuff began to pour out of it as if it was a waterfall and all of the mist flowed right towards her. It seeped into her through her skin, and Rain could feel a weird transformation going on inside of her. There were no words that could explain the kind of things she felt at that moment, and she couldn't help but start convulsing. There wasn't any pain, for say, but the feeling was just wrong.
The moment, the other members of 'The Wanderers' saw this their faces contorted into shock and then into panic, as they hurridly moved the 'Hungering Devils' corpse off of her. It didn't take very long for Rain to stop, and she could finally actively move herself now.
"What just happened to you," Sunny asked after kneeling down and checking on Rain.
"I...I don't know. I just absorbed something from the corpse and then I started to convulse. But I think... I think I'm fine now," Rain responded with a lost tone. She had no idea what happened, or why the things that happened, happened in that manner. However, now that Rain had said she was okay, the others looked much less worried. The group helped her up, and once they noticed she had no serious wounds, they breathed out a sigh of relief. Rain stood back up with the help of Sunny.
Rain went over to her shortsword to pull it out of the beast, but once she did pull it out, she heard a very loud audible cracking sound, as only half of her shortsword came out of the monster's head. She could only look at Sunny through narrowed eyes, before giving up. She got the sword for free, and she doubted the Guards were going to let her continue her duties without a sword.
"Let's go and find out who that poor soul was," Benji offered. Everyone agreed, and started to make their way over. On the way, Rain went to go and read through the notification she got earlier and was surprised to see something.