"Heads up," Benedict's voice again. "Something's coming."
"Yeah, no shit," Sebastian exclaims sarcastically.
He walks forward to greet the incoming creature, walking calmly, both hands on his pockets. As the rustling of leaves start getting louder, an indicator of the new creature's arrival, so did its loud, higher-pitched shrieking. The noise sounded more like screeching, but unlike the monsters, it only did this occasionally.
Rushing him is a monster resembling a large rat. Its fur looked as if they were falling out and only dark gray patches of it remain, revealing its black skin. It had almost all the same features of a regular rat - small hands and feet, both with sharp, claw-like fingers; long, gray tail; its mouth is aligned vertically and filled with razor-sharp teeth; it didn't have anything resembling a nose but its face is filled with several holes, each of different sizes; and its back is ripped open with long, moving tentacles springing out and from inside it.
"Ooohh, that's a big boy," Sebastian sees the large rat which was about the size of half a school bus.
Mouth wide open, the overgrown rat attempts to make him its lunch.
SHHOOM
He teleports away in time, warping to its side as it kept going a few distance away from where it was. It stopped as soon as it thought it got him but its momentum took it farther and couldn't stop immediately as a result.
Sebastian could have sliced the thing in half as it rushed him. He simply decided not to because he thought it was interesting.
The rat turns around, looking for its prey who has escaped its crutches. It sees the man which it had attempted to devour standing a short distance away from where it was just a second ago.
It employs the same tactic, rushing at him again. This time, Sebastian warps over it, hovering over as it ran past, taking a closer look at its back tentacles, all of which immediately attempted to impale him.
SHHOOM
He warps back on the ground, thinking the back tentacles had an actual purpose and weren't just there for design. He was also slightly surprised at how fast its reaction speed was. Either the rat has really good instincts, or the tentacles moved instinctively upon sensing a nearby "threat". In either case, the rat wouldn't be as dense as the previous humanoid monsters. THIS, was an actual A-rank monster.
SHHOOM
He warps right beside it. As soon as he appeared, the rat was seemingly able to detect him instantly, although only its tentacles made a move, striking at him. They were fast. Faster than the average monster's attack, but less than average for what his standards.
Three of the tentacles attempted to pin him on the ground, all three were sliced off as soon as it entered his blades' reach. The rat turns to him and attempts to claw him. SHHOOM. He appears on the other side, the same tentacle attack, the same result. The rat shrieks and runs away, heading back to where it came from.
"Oh, come on."
As it was fleeing, he notices that it was leaving a trail of smoke, the same smoke that the monsters were spewing earlier. The familiar smoke is coming from its head, probably from the pores on its face.
It was fuming and running at the same time, leaving behind a trail of smoke that is withering the trees, leaves, and land of grass that it passes through.
Watching it flee away, he sniffs his suit first for a few seconds.
"I hope these fuckers don't rub off on me."
SHHOOM
He warps in the sky, standing in the air again. Carefully observing the eldritch vermin, he charges up the sword in his right hand.
"1…"
"2…"
"3…"
Sebastian throws his void-cloaked blade towards the rat, pinning its tail to the ground followed by continuous shrieking by the still fuming vermin.
Despite the helpless rat's state, Sebastian still wouldn't be able to go down and finish the job up close and personal as the area around it is still filled with a thick mist of withering smoke.
SHHOOM
He warps on the ground, just at the edge of the smoke and performs his improvised fan technique again, blowing away the cloud partly.
He successfully disperses part of the veil of smoke but notices that the screeching rat spews out the mist at a faster rate than the monsters.
SHHOOM
He attempts to fan away the smoke from a different angle. Same result. The rat makes up for the smoke he blows away by spewing out more of it.
Sebastian didn't even attempt or think of doing it a third time. It was futile and he knew it. He had to figure out a way of either closing off the pores or killing the rat from a distance.
He focuses void energy on his empty hand. At this point, he still had no long-range combat options. Being able to utilize the void energy as such is on his to-do list but he hasn't even tried doing it once. He had absolutely no clue where to start. He probably could have tried improvising an attack if he at least knew how to even start it, but he was completely clueless. He closes his void-filled hand. It was not an option.
His only option was to bet and capitalize on his speed. An in-and-out attack. Both his movement and teleportation are incredibly fast. And even though the rat spews out smoke at a fast rate, it doesn't spread immediately. He makes up his mind.
Sebastian smiles. He thought of what he was about to do as a competition with himself. A race against himself.
SHHOOM
He warps right on top of its neck, still in the air and while falling, he fans part of the smoke away.
SHHOOM
He does it again, just for good measure.
SHHOOM
Considering that it never stops spewing the smoke, there was already some of it starting to build up. But it didn't matter. All he wanted was for the neck to be completely clear, as long as the smoke doesn't reach it, it's all good.
SHHOOM
Blue blood gushes out from the back of the vermin's neck, coupled with black flames courtesy of Sebastian's void-covered blades. He went all out with this one dual-bladed attack. He had to make sure it was a guaranteed kill. And it was.
His blades slash through the rat's entire neck. The force of his slash was so great that it went all the way to the ground, damaging it as well, decimating and turning to ashes the already withered grass.
SHHOOM
He warps to a fanning space again to disperse the rest of the veil of smoke. Fan here, fan there. There was no longer any smoke spreading in the air, cutting off its head did the trick. But even so, he had to make perfectly sure that the rat doesn't have something up its sleeve.
SHHOOM
Sebastian warps on top of the presumably, rat monster corpse and unleashes a massive, void-enhanced, X-shaped slash right at its body, slicing it into four different parts.
SHHOOM
He teleports right by its tail to retrieve the sword that he used as anchor to keep the eldritch rat in place.
"Ah, man," he blurts out.
"Everything I have is gonna smell like rat and death," he says, looking at his bloody, black blade.
Normally, he would rub the blood of on the monster's body but even though it wasn't an actual rat, he was still under the impression that it was incredibly dirty and grabs the handkerchief inside his jacket pocket instead to clean off the blood.
"Ah, shit," he had already used it when he realized that now his handkerchief is filled with dirty, monster bacteria, too.
"Goddamn it."
He sheathes his blades while approaching the dead rat's head. He opens his right hand and focuses void energy on it. He places his open, void-filled palm right over its porous, decapitated head.
BOOM
A point-black, void explosion decimates the rat head. He fans away the dust and smoke caused by the explosion with his hands before grabbing a pack of cigarettes on his pocket and a lighter on the other. He lights it up before calling HQ.
"Yo," like the monsters he has just decimated, he exhales a cloud of smoke.
"Send the clean-up."