Chapter 68: Annabelle’s Big Brother

-----

It would have been just another good day for these young hunters. Today they were going to hunt a bunch of low-ranked, weak monsters and earn enough points to get a lot of rewards and advance in their careers. It was going to be good.

Yet, due to unseen circumstances that completely changed their plans, they were now struggling to live. Slaughtered and chased down by powerful, mutated monsters, those who managed to escape gathered into a big group, running away together.

However, on the way, even larger threats appeared, stopping their path and forcing them to separate. Now, while the biggest part of their group was now safe in the hands of Fenrir, the other part had been chased down by a tribe of furious Orcs, all equipped with Demonite-enhanced equipment, and Giant Demonite Golems.

Only an hour ago, this area was known for how quiet it often felt, yet at this moment, chaos and destruction were spreading everywhere. Every monster was going insane, and constantly, more and more of these purple crystals started growing everywhere.

One of their members was suddenly stomped to death by the golems, while the orcs drew closer. Cornered within an abandoned mall, they had no choice but to fight and throw everything they had. Yet, deep down, most of the survivors of this small group knew that the fate of that one that was stomped to death might have been better—a swift death compared to the slow and painful one they would go through against these malicious Orcs, who were smiling and licking their lips as they glared at them.

It was well known among Hunters how intelligent, humanoid monsters were often extremely cruel in their ways of hunting humans; torturing them was common, and even eating them alive has been reported. Dying against orcs was not comparable to dying against golems.

“The Era of Humans will soon come to an end!" One of the larger Orcs in the back, the Orc Chief, laughed.

“The Apostles of Death shall reign in this world!” His eyes glowed redder with demonic power, as his entire body was wearing several accessories and armor encrusted with Demonite, boosting his strength tremendously. “Give up and become the Apostles’ slaves, weak humans!”

The hunters glanced in horror as the Orcs didn’t kill them but offered them sharp, purple-colored crystal pieces.

“Grab those and stab your bodies with them!” The Orc Chief said, “Like that, you will ascend... into much more powerful and useful forms! Like your friends over there.”

The Orc Chief smiled maliciously, pointing at a few gigantic, amorphous fleshy aberrations that dragged their bodies there, groaning and looking weirdly and disturbingly human.

“W-What? What have you done to them?!”

“Oh my god..."

"They became monsters."

“You humans are no different than us!” The Orc Chief said, “Now join us! This is the only chance you’ll have!”

The hunters hesitated, but if there was no other chance except death, not many would reject the offer, even if they would simply turn into horrendous beasts.

FLASH!

However, as their hands trembled, slowly reaching closer to them, a sudden flash of light emerged from the skies! Anna and her friends emerged from the ceiling, shattering it apart and descending onto the floor with a bang!

“{Shining Sunlight Blades}!” Anna roared, her entire aura exuding a powerful, bright golden light as the light shaped into giant blades of pure sunlight, piercing through the bodies of a dozen orcs at once!

The Orcs were all sliced apart into pieces; their strength could simply not stop Anna’s furious onslaught, as her powerful Sunlight Blade Skill combined with the Twin Cutter and then the Sunshine Skill, generating deadly power.

“Don’t touch those things!” Anna said, stopping the hunters as her light purified the crystals, turning them into ashes and making them dissipate.

“W-Wha…?! You’ve come to rescue us?!”

“I can’t believe it!”

“I thought we were left behind."

“Don’t worry!” Kevin said. “Stay behind us, and it’ll be alright. Make sure not to be touched by the crystals, you hear me?"

“Let us take care of the rest.” Baihe smiled, and an aura of freezing winds emerged from her body. “{Divine Frozen Garden}!”

Her aura expanded around her and all the Orcs in the vicinity, as the floor was swiftly frozen and hundreds of flowers made of ice emerged around them, growing even over their bodies. And then the flowers flowed bright blue before exploding into shockwaves of freezing winds, both freezing them and making them explode into pieces!

BOOOM!

“Impossible… My warriors were defeated so easily! Even after we’ve taken the blessing of the Apostles of Death?!” In shock, the Orc Chief seemed to be the only one who could speak human language in some way. “Tch! It can only be that you are the Constellation’s Incarnations…! Golems, Mutants, fight them!”

The Orc Chief used a glowing, black ring to order the golems and the mutated humans to fight as their gigantic, amorphous bodies charged toward Anna and company.

RUMBLE!

A sudden avalanche of black spiders emerged from behind them, surging furiously and trapping half of their numbers into the ground by covering them with spiderwebs. An adorable, silver-eyed girl emerged from behind them, walking with long spider legs protruding from her back.

“Teehee~ You’re not going anywhere!” Annabelle giggled.

“Well done!” Anna nodded. “Now, let’s quickly take them down!”

“Anna! Can’t we heal those humans?!” Asked Kevin. “T-They didn’t ask to become monsters... I am sure it is not like demonic humans, right?!”

“…” Anna looked at the amorphous creatures; their bodies were too transformed and mutated to even go back to normal. Their brains are already possessed by demonic energies. It was too late. “I can’t turn them back. Take them out of their misery. Think of them living in a nightmare, trapped in those bodies. Let’s end their nightmare.”

“But…” Kevin gritted his teeth, clenching his fists as he imbued Mana with his golden spear. “Fine… I’ll believe your words.” Perhaps just to take away a bit of the guilt of killing a person who didn’t ask to become a monster, Kevin charged forward.

His Odin’s False Eye glowed bright golden, and his movements became extremely fast. Like a flash of golden light, he emerged several times around the amorphous mutants, his spear divinely piercing their bodies hundreds of times over just a few seconds. The power of Odin’s False Eye gave him an incredible reaction speed and reflexes, far surpassing even those of Anna. Several of the mutants exploded into pieces once they were pierced a hundred times with Kevin’s spear, his face filled with guilt and frustration.

“Rest in peace for now." He sighed, waving his spear and cleaning it from the blood and guts covering it.

“I guess he has the spirit.” Anna thought, firing several Blades made of Sunlight against the Golems, and cutting them down into pieces one after another, cutting their joints and making them crumble.

With over six golems taken down, Anna continued her charge, immediately leaping above the Orc Chief, her two daggers in each of her hands, as their powers were channeled together, flames and freezing winds surging from the two weapons.

“I’m sure that if I take you down, we’ll be done with this,” Anna said, clashing against the Orc Chief, as the gigantic humanoid beast swung his gigantic weapon, a purple-colored Battle Axe, with tremendous fury.

“You’re small and soft-looking for a warrior of your strength!” The Orc Chief smiled. “You truly believe you can compare to my power?!” He laughed maliciously. “Foolish girl! I’ll make sure to convert you into my breeding slave!”

“And this is why I don’t like when monsters like you can talk.” Anna sighed, swinging her hand and throwing the Dragon Tooth dagger into the Orc Chief’s open mouth.

The Orc chief’s mouth was covered in flames, and even his throat and nose were burning ferociously. The giant lost his balance in a single second as the Dragon Flames spread across his body.

“UGH! YOU!”

While struggling to even speak, he attempted to grab the dagger, only for it to be connected with a fire-proof thread, which helped Anna quickly bring the dagger back to her hands.

“W-What?!” The Orc Chief was surprised once more by Anna’s trickery.

“What? Did you think I would throw my weapons around like an idiot without an actual way to bring them back to my hands?” Anna smiled; the thread she used was wrapped around her wrists and was made by nobody else but Violet. She discovered that by creating anti-flammable poison and covering the threads with it, they would become resistant to the heat of the dagger.

“KRIEEEH!” Violet roared, suddenly surging from behind the Orc Chief. Of course, Anna wasn’t alone either. The gigantic insect’s scythes swung vertically against the beast in front of him, slashing apart his two arms in seconds.

“No! Ugh…! ARGH!” The Orc Chief screamed, falling to his knees as he lost the ability to fight properly.

“Don’t worry, I won’t end this quick.” Anna laughed. A large blade made of sunshine pierced the Orc’s genitals, before exploding. The Orc Chief screamed in horror and agony, his eyes beginning to cry.

“Oh, you’re crying now?” Anna smiled, her eyes suddenly growing more malicious. “Without arms and your genitals, what are you now? Can you answer this riddle?”

“You witch!” The Orc Chief screamed, his accessories surging with demonic power and suddenly channeling magic, as countless spikes of darkness were fired against Anna all at once.

She swung her hands without even making any effort; a shockwave of light surged from within, evaporating the darkness spikes and then blasting the Orc Chief into pieces.

"Phew, and it’s done." Anna sighed, suddenly feeling exhausted. She had overused too much Mana and Ki again. Swiftly, she drank two Mana Potions to offset the Mana exhaustion and then ate a small, golden leaf named Light Leaves, a C-Rank material that can recover a bit of Yang Attribute Ki.

“How’s things going on over there?” Anna wondered, seeing all her friends had finished with their part of the job; the only thing remaining were the corpses of countless Orcs and the crumbling pieces of golems.

“We’ve done everything we could.” Baihe sighed. "It looks like we all have grown much stronger; I never thought we could have taken down such a huge group of powerful monsters like this before."

“Honestly, same.” Kevin nodded. “My eye doesn’t even hurt yet! I guess I am finally getting a hang of this.”

“We did it! Yay!” Annabelle celebrated. "Anna, you said you were going to give me a sweet later, right?”

“Yep! I’ve got some pudding I’ve made, as well as cheesecake. I bet you’ll love it, Annabelle.” Anna smiled happily. In these last hours, Annabelle had opened her heart a lot to Anna and had already completely forgotten about her brother’s orders.

The hunters celebrated; they were all finally and truly safe.

“Hahhh… Thank God it’s over."

“Can we go home now? I don’t think I’m doing any hunting for a while."

“We owe you a lot."

“Don’t worry about it.” Anna smiled gently. "Anyway, it looks like we’re officially done. Alright, let’s quickly move back to-”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Suddenly, a mysterious voice echoed from above the mall’s second floor.

“Huh?” Baihe looked upwards, and so did everyone else.

“Wait, why is he here?!” Anna felt shocked as she saw the man in question.

A man covered in black robes emerged from there, shadow and darkness encompassing his body, as another, taller and pale-looking black-haired man seemed to be conjuring these shadows around his body.

“Annabelle… What are you doing?” He spoke with a pissed-off tone of voice.

“B-Big brother…?” Annabelle suddenly stepped back, in surprise. “I-I… I can explain!”

“Not only do you seem to be having fun with these fools," He sighed. “But you’ve also seemingly forgotten about your duty. I didn’t bring you here to have fun with them.”

“Such a disappointment, young lady.” Sighed the man conjuring the shadows. “I thought higher of you.”

“Eh? But I…” Annabelle began doubting herself, realizing she had been having fun this entire time. The sole concept of trying to kill everyone here, with whom she had already established a friendship, was crazy. Yet, this was the reason she had come here in the first place. “I can't... I can explain! They’re my friends now, so it’s fine to-”

“Ah, I know what’s happening. You’re still doubting your own strength, isn’t it?” Her big brother spoke, glaring at her with the eyes of an insane man. “I know what I can do to help you, Annabelle. Let me show you what you truly are capable of! With this, you will gain all the confidence you need to kill them.”

His hand pointed at Annabelle as a ray of demonic energy surged from within.

“Annabelle!” Anna cried, running towards her and quickly pushing her away from the range of the demonic blast.

BOOOM!

“Uwaaah! B-Big brother….?!” Annabelle cried; her big brother was looking at her with different eyes than before.

“Hm. So you would go as far as stopping me from awakening her powers?” Annabelle’s brother sighed. “Such a useless struggle. You will all die in her hands. Fine… I was trying to help you transform by undergoing severe pain, but I suppose I can always use Beelzebub’s help. Annabelle, I order you, by the power of this Demonic Stigma, to transform.”

A black tattoo on his hand suddenly glowed with demonic energy as darkness surged from within Annabelle’s body! The girl was unable to fight back this power, which was coursing through her entire body.

“Unnggh…! N-No…! Wait, big brother!” Annabelle screamed, countless tattoos glowing brightly across her body. Her small and young body suddenly started to shapeshift; her flesh was being torn apart as huge, black-colored spider legs tore through her back. “Aaaarrggh!I don’t want to become a monster! No…! Don’t look…! Don’t look, Anna!” Annabelle cried.

“A-Annabelle?!” Kevin cried.

“Wait, Anna, stay away from her!” Baihe cried, grabbing Anna, before a huge explosion of shadows spread everywhere, surging from Annabelle’s transforming body.

As the darkness slowly dissipated, the laughter of the silver-eyed man echoed across the entire abandoned mall. From within the shadows, the figure of a gigantic, amorphous spider-like monstrosity emerged; it was nobody else but the girl.

“W-Wha…?” Baihe cried. “Is that... Annabelle?!”

“No way…” Kevin muttered. His eyes were devoid of light.

“See? I told you that you had great power within you, my dear Annabelle." The man smiled. “And you guys seem so surprised. Did you truly believe she was a human like you? Annabelle is a superior being, a Chimera, just like me and all our family.”

“GRUUAARRGH!” Annabelle roared, growing madder. “R-RUN… RUN AWAY… RUUUNNNN…!”

Her giant spider legs charged towards Anna and her friends, making the entire building tremble.

“So it has come to this." Anna sighed. “You’re really the same piece of shit I remember.”

----