Stal was lying on his back and finally heard footsteps approaching from his right. Moments later, he detected more footsteps behind him.
'Two is a small number.'
He stood up quietly and threw a punch at the person behind him. The punch appeared to come from the person's left side. Stal then shifted to the right after punching that person, only to be immediately punched back on his left; the same side the other one was in --on Stal's right .
The person on the right threw a punch straight toward the sound he had heard, accidentally hitting his teammate, and they began fighting each other. After their first clash, Stal approached to join the fight, knowing that they would likely recognize each other within a few seconds.
Sensing him approaching, one of the men stumbled into Stal's arms, having been shoved by his teammate. In that moment, Stal freaked out and automatically grabbed the man's head, and started biting his neck until he tore off the skin and flesh. Stal was sitting as the man was in his lap.
In the meantime, Stal used his left hand to hold the person by his hair to stabilize the person's head as he bit him on the left side of his neck. With his other hand, he grasped the key firmly and stabbed the man repeatedly and rapidly in the right side of his neck.
All of this happened within just 10 seconds. Blood started gushing from the man's neck like a fountain, spurting intermittently as if it were being pumped out in bursts. The man couldn't even scream.
His teammate believed that he was fighting Stal, so when he heard the man fall, the fight behind him, and the sound of the blood, he thought that one of his teammates had managed to kill Stal. He was worried and asked, fearing that the outcome might be the opposite of what he had expected.
"Who's that in front of me? Did you manage to get Stal killed?"
Stal replied in a calm yet terrifying voice, "He's too weak to kill me."
When that person heard Stal's voice, his heart sank, and he retreated in an instant. His first footsteps were clearly heard, and then he tried to slow down to make a safe escape, but then, he heard a voice approaching him quickly. So instead of fighting the owner of the voice, he fled away running; however, Stal was ran quickly at that very moment and attacked the man in no time before the man could even run for 5 meters.
When Stal attacked the man from behind, he wrapped his entire arm around the man's neck and began strangling him forcefully. The man struggled desperately, trying to break free from Stal's grip by elbowing him, but Stal was clutching onto his neck tightly with his arm. Then, after that, Stal lifted his right hand and started carving into the man's face; the man was in great pain, but he couldn't scream.
After a few moments, the man's temperature began to rise, and he started feeling intense pressure as he resisted Stal. This continued for some time before his pain subsided, even though Stal was still carving into his face. He lost consciousness around the same time Stal finished carving the name "Caster" into his face. The carving was not clear and was very distorted, appearing as a rough, random that no one would recognize; it was because the tool being used, was a key.
Everyone was horrified when they heard Stal yell,
"I'm coming after you all!"
David, reaching the limit of his endurance, suddenly saw someone clearly in the darkness. It was his wife, Catherine, speaking to him,
"You are close to achieving perfection, David. You can finally be yourself; you don't need to fake it anymore."
David responded in a calm voice, though his words were audible to everyone because of the prevailing silence,
"I know you're not real, so get out of my face. This is not the right time or place."
She shouted at him,
"I'm as real as I've ever been! And because of what Stal has done, we can be alone. I can bring you to your senses; I have this chance now, and I won't miss it, David."
David screamed, alerting the others, who rushed to protect him from Stal, who was approaching, trying to catch them one by one.
"Even if we were alone, I would never do what you want. I will only do what I want. You can't do anything about it, so just leave me alone."
Stal heard him and shouted,
"Have you gone insane from fear, David? That's great! This is what's going to make me enjoy what I'm doing."
After Stal finished, Carla asked David in a calm voice,
"Are you human, David?"
David looked down at the ground with sadness. His voice seemed to suggest he was crying, though he wasn't, as he replied, "I want to be human, but every time I get a little closer, you stop me and hold me back. Why do you always do this to me?"
She placed her hand on his face to talk to him gently but stopped when she heard a loud scream from about 50 meters away. Stal had just slashed someone's abdomen, to make him unable to move .
The person was lying on his back while Stal stood, sitting on the person's feet and then moved to his thighs. Stal was trying to extract the ribs to use them as a weapon as he realized that, the key wouldn't be effective for a long time.
The man in front of him was still alive and continued to scream until Stal became annoyed and pulled out the intestines and stuffed them into the man's mouth to silence him. The man choked on his own insides as screamed, and then died. Everyone who heard the screams stood still, paralyzed. They wanted to help yet they did not know what was holding them back; they did not know the reason for their fear.
As soon as the screams faded, Catherine began responding to David,
"Stop fooling yourself! You haven't come any closer to achieving it, not even a single step. You just keep pretending that you're almost there. You can never be a human being, David, and you know it. So quit leading a fake life. Be yourself from now on; die as you are, and be proud of who you really are. This is your route to perfection—don't waste it. You must die with perfection so you can live your next life with perfection, and be perfect again."