Shing. Thud. Thud.
His boots clicked as he stalked away from the corpse. His high collared black back flew out behind him as he walked. The body’s head lay there in the street, with its inverted triangle on the forehead, and an expression of absolute terror on its face.
No one would come to retrieve the body until long after he was gone. Even his own family would dread come out onto that street at that moment, for fear they, too, would die at the edge of his terrible blade.
His black hair was bristled by his fast pace, and he looked nowhere but ahead as he walked.
Villagers shuttered their doors as he approached their homes. Frightened, curious faces disappeared form windows as he walked by. The sound of locks clicking shut followed him wherever he went. Fear and hatred were his only partners.
It didn’t matter to those who feared him that he never killed innocents. They still cringed at the sight of him even though his victims were sorcerers whose crimes against humanities could not be counted, they were so many.
He never spoke to the villagers he came across. In all the years the mysterious hunter had been around, no one could recall hearing his voice. It was said he called his blade Beast, but no one had ever heard him call anything anything. He arrived in inns and the keepers would recognize him - either by familiarity, or by hearsay - and they would bring food and drink before him without his saying a word. He would eat and drink in silence, casting a cold stare at an fool who would be so stupid as to try and strike up a conversation with him. After finishing his meal, he would leave payment on the table, and stalk out. His only sound, they said, was the noise of his sword as it moved with his walking.
It was not known for sure whether this elusive murderer was man or monster. Certainly he executed his victims with the dread viciousness of a demon of hell. Ye those who gossiped of him on dull evenings could not deny that all of his victims were those guilty of unspeakable wrongdoing. Might he be some avenging spirit, some fukushu rei called by the gods to right the terrible situation the country’s people were in? Might he be one of that lost race, the Sorcerer Hunters, disciples of the dead goddess Saint Mamma?
But, no. People could not believe either of these theories. For one thing, spirits and gods did not exist. Their faith in deities had been utterly crushed. And that group of Sorcerer Hunters, those sent by Saint Mamma to combat evil in Spooner, they no longer existed. Those who had survived had quit, or had gone bad. Their names were no more than whispers in stories told by parents to their children at bedtime. Sometimes the stories were fairy tales, sometimes, nightmares walking.
It was horrid how quickly the world had been shattered. Horrid how something so strong, so pure, so real, had been crushed to dust and scattered with the wind with such a simple blow. It was horrid how all previous efforts made no difference now, and it was horrid how deeply the universe had sunk.
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