The night was as dark as ink, with the dense clouds hinting at a coming rain.
A staggering figure raced through the dense forest.
It was a woman with a beautiful face and a graceful figure.
Her face adorned with makeup and she's clad in fashionable attire. It can be seen that she's not from the nearby villages, and is likely a tourist from a big city.
She fled through the forest, and the bushes and branches along the way left her scratched and bruised.
Despite this, she didn't slow down, as if there was something terrifying chasing her in the darkness behind.
And the increasingly closer flickering lights ahead were like a dawn piercing through her dark night.
'Almost there, almost there…'
'I don't want to die! I don't want to die!!!'
The woman screamed in her heart. As she watched the lights getting closer, the hope in her eyes is becoming stronger.
Finally, she crawled and scrambled over the last steep slope, arriving at a spacious area in front of the temple's gate, paved with cobblestones mixed with cement.
"Is anyone there? Help! HELP!"
The woman cried out with what little strength she had left. Then, she collapsed in front of the tightly closed temple's gate. Her right hand held on the old door, trying to push it open, only to find that the gate can't be pushed open.
"O—open the door, please…"
Her hoarse voice was laden with despair.
With her dwindling strength, she knocked the gate weakly, producing a sound barely louder than a mosquito's buzz.
Eventually, she didn't even have the strength to speak.
The woman slumped in front of the gate, her chest heaving as if a bellows.
"Please… please…"
She looked back into the darkness, biting her lip tightly, emitting a low sob from her throat.
Perhaps in the next second, that "monster" would rush out from the darkness and drag her into the abyss of despair.
"Open the door…"
The woman choked.
Creak—
At her most desperate moment, a sound like heavenly music suddenly echoed from behind her.
The dilapidated temple's gate, which seemingly ready to collapse with a gust of wind, opened as she had wished.
The woman quickly turned her head, and a straight and soft light from the temple illuminated her nose.
As the wooden gates opened, the light on her nose expanded, illuminated her eyes, and finally enveloped her body.
Her trembling body froze in this moment.
Then—
The woman saw a clean-faced young man, and her mist-filled eyes gradually widened, as if a drowning person had finally touched something that could provide a sense of security. In the midst of catching her breath, her mind experienced a brief blankness.
The one who opened the temple's gate for the woman was none other than the recently fed Moses.
At this moment, what lay before him was a darkness so dense that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face.
Moses only glanced at the disheveled woman for a moment before turning his gaze towards the deep and oppressive darkness ahead.
In that direction, there was a faint aura glow flowing in the indiscernible darkness.
'A person? Or something else?'
Moses stared at the aura "burning" in the darkness, remaining silent.
'Whatever it was…'
'If it could make this woman this desperate, it couldn't be anything good.'
The woman finally came to her senses. She crawled on the ground and grabbed Moses's legs. Her voice hoarse as she cried, "Help, please help me! Something is chasing me… my friends… they were all killed…"
"Explain clearly, is it a human or an animal?"
Moses didn't look at her but kept his focus on the aura ahead. Since the other party remained motionless, he could only continue to observe.
Upon hearing Moses's question, the woman hesitated for a moment before whispering, "I… was just trying to escape before. I didn't see clearly what it was, but I heard the screams of my friends. They… they…"
As she spoke intermittently, the woman suddenly looked at the somewhat reassuring lights inside the temple and pleaded in a soft voice, "Can… can I come in?"
"..."
Moses remained silent, just sidestepped a little to allow her come inside.
Seeing his gesture, the woman instantly understood. Despite having little strength left, her survival instinct made her crawl into the gate like a worm.
Then, she struggled to look up at Moses, wanting him to quickly close the door.
It was only at this moment that the woman realized that ever since he had opened the gate, Moses had been staring in the direction she came from.
'Could he… see it?'
The woman's gaze turned vacant, and she could only think of this possibility.
But in order to seek more security, she didn't have the time to delve into it. All she could think about was urging Moses to close the gate quickly and alert everyone inside the temple.
"Lock… lock the gate. That monster is catching up…"
The woman pleaded weakly.
If she hadn't been exhausted, she would have definitely not sought Moses's opinion and would have just run into the temple.
"If your friends were killed by the "monster" you mentioned, do you think this gate, which even a little kid could kick down, will be of any use?"
Moses remained calm, and he answered with steady and powerful tone.
The woman looked at the creaking wooden gate pushed by the gentle breeze, unable to utter a single word.
At the same time, she noticed that Moses was inexplicably calm, not at all like the behavior expected of a boy his age.
"Th-then… call the people in the temple out…"
"I'm the only one here."
Moses responded nonchalantly. His gaze shifted as the aura in the darkness began to move, slowly advancing towards them.
"Why… why are you the only one…"
Upon hearing that there was only Moses in such a vast temple, the woman was immediately stunned.
A broken door and a boy not older than sixteen… How could they possibly fend off the monster that had killed all her companions in the woods?
The woman sank into deep despair.
But Moses wasn't in the mood to console her.
Even though he wasn't sure what this so-called "monster" mentioned by the woman, what he could be sure of was that this so-called "monster" knew how to use Nen. In other words, it posed a threat to him.
If this woman hadn't come seeking help and had died in the woods, she wouldn't have brought trouble with her here.
But at the same time, he wouldn't have been aware of such a dangerous entity lurking in the woods either.
In short—
From the moment this woman collapsed at the temple's gate, Moses knew he couldn't remain indifferent.
Fortunately, he now had means to counter Nen.
"Come in."
While keeping an eye on the movement of the Nen aura, Moses slowly stepped backward.
"Can you give me a hand…?"
The woman looked at the retreating Moses and pleaded.
Moses remained silent, and only shook his head in response.
Considering the current situation, the seemingly non-threatening "seeker for help" in front of him was still within his vigilance range.
Seeing Moses's indifference, the woman could only wiggle her body and struggle to crawl into the temple.
However, she failed to notice—
Under the light, the young man in front of her had no shadow.