You think you know torment?
What it takes to crush a soul?
To nurture the seeds of agony,
Not in flesh but in the shattered minds of mortals?
~Nerva's Diary, the goddess of horrors and torment
***
It had been a long bloody walk from the house to hunt those rabbits, ducks, and deer, and Mino had finally begun to tire down. She'd been wandering the forest all day, punching holes through monsters and crushing them to mince. But as the moon came up, her limbs began to jitter.
'I doubt I'll make it back in time, doesn't help that my mana has run out.' Sitting by the root of a tall banyan, she glanced through the tree leaves at the beams of silver light shining down on her skin. It helped rejuvenate her strength, yet the shaking of her hand refused to be brushed off just yet.
