"I was hoping I was wrong." Metsuri's hand blurred as cold steel whispered from its sheath. A blade slightly shorter than a katana slid free in one smooth, uninterrupted motion—a weapon forged strictly to kill without excess.
The black-wrapped hilt settled naturally into her palm while the matte sheath hung empty at her hip.
"And you already know where we are…" she said quietly, her pitch-black eyes locking onto the monster, cold and unwavering. "Vulcan. You die today."
The Vulcan's grotesque grin stretched even wider. Using its thick tail, it lowered Albion onto the floor behind it, handling the infant with a careful, almost mocking deliberation.
"Let's see how long you last, pretty human," it growled, its glowing, pupil-less eyes fixing on Metsuri.
They stood several feet apart, but the distance meant nothing. The beast crouched low, its massive thighs tensing, and launched. The ground cracked violently beneath its weight as it shot into the air. Mid-flight, its massive arms came together, interlocking its thick fingers into a single, crushing hammer before descending like a missile.
The impact hit with the force of an earthquake.
But Metsuri was already gone. She had stepped back at the last fraction of a second, the crushing force tearing past her as the ground where she had stood collapsed inward. The stone shattered instantly, spider-webbing into a jagged crater and sending a violent shockwave ripping through the cavern.
'Vulcans are a high-tier species of magical beasts,' Metsuri thought, completely calm even as jagged debris rained down around her. 'Not only do they possess superhuman physical strength...'
The Vulcan didn't stop to admire its destruction. Using the raw momentum of its missed strike, it twisted its torso, swinging its locked arms upward in a brutal, sweeping follow-up. Metsuri shifted her weight, taking a single, calculated step. The massive fists missed her chest by mere inches.
'...But, unlike most mindless beasts, they possess an intellect advanced enough to speak the human tongue.'
The Vulcan separated its arms and swung wildly, a massive, fur-covered limb cutting a deadly arc through the air toward her. This time, Metsuri ducked low, letting the heavy strike howl harmlessly past her head. In that exact moment, she found her opening. Moving with terrifying agility, Metsuri's blade shot forward. The ninjatō drove clean into the Vulcan's exposed flank.
"GRRRAAAOOOHH!!" the beast roared, the sound deafening within the enclosed cave.
Metsuri didn't hesitate. Her wrist turned, shifting the angle of her weapon. The razor-sharp steel carved upward in a clean, vertical slash, splitting through thick muscle and flesh as she fluidly stepped through the motion.
Another agonized roar tore from the monster's throat.
Taking immediate advantage of its staggered stance, Metsuri pushed off the ground, vaulting high into the air. Twisting her body mid-flight, she delivered a vicious, snapping kick. Her heel slammed directly into the Vulcan's face with a sickening impact. The sheer force sent the massive creature skidding backward across the rubble. But before it could even recover its balance, Metsuri was already waiting for it—hovering in the air directly in front of its face, ninjatō held high.
"Die, Vulcan." Her voice slipped through the cloth mask—cold, flat, and absolute. She brought the blade down in a lethal executioner's strike. Instead, steel screamed against something incredibly solid.
The strike had been stopped. blocked flush against the creature's dense, reinforced tail.
Disengaging instantly, Metsuri flipped backward through the air, sliding gracefully across the fractured ground before coming to a firm halt.
"…So that's it," Metsuri muttered, her expression settling right back into an unbothered calm. "You use that tail like a shield."
Magical beasts were unique lifeforms that existed in direct alignment with magic. Their physical bodies were naturally saturated with it, making their raw strength, durability, and biological traits far superior to ordinary animals.
Compared to common wildlife, they could manifest abilities that closely resembled structured caster magic without formal study; they were born with it. It was their ultimate, natural weapon.
The Vulcan moved. It brought both hands to its massive mouth and spat violently. A dense mass of white magical energy shot outward, roughly the size of a basketball. It hovered in the air for a split second before shifting, morphing, and flowing along the creature's arm like liquid armor before hardening into a heavy, jagged gauntlet over its hand.
The Vulcan bared its fangs in a wide, toothy grin. Snapping its arm forward, it hurled the hardened mass at full speed. The projectile tore through the air like a cannonball, colliding directly with Metsuri's raised blade with a violent explosion of force.
Though her guard held and she successfully blocked the mass, the sheer force lifted her clean off her feet, driving her backward through the air.
'That wasn't a structured spell,' she realized, her teeth gritting as she stabilized her footing mid-air. 'That was raw magic, highly compressed and fired as a solid kinetic slug!'
Her heels touched the earth, but the moment she landed, the Vulcan materialized directly in front of her. Its massive fist launched forward, slamming violently into the side of her head.
"GRAAAHHH!! BREAK YOU!!"
The devastating force sent her flying. Her body crashed hard into the stone cave ceiling, shattering the rock, before dropping like a stone and slamming brutally against the ground below.
"HUMAN DOWN!! VULCAN KING!!" The beast pounded its massive chest, roaring in triumph.
When its fist had connected with her skull, it had heard that satisfying, cracking sound that turned bone to powder. But this wasn't ordinary prey. Standing up from the settling dust was a kunoichi.
"…Ughhhh…" The groan echoed through the cave—loud, drawn-out, and thoroughly annoyed. From the clearing debris, Metsuri stood up, dusting off her white cloak as if nothing had happened.
"…Damn. That actually hurt like a bitch…" she muttered, rolling her neck slowly and casually working out a minor inconvenience.
The Vulcan stared, its jaw dropping in complete bewilderment.
"…Oh," Metsuri sighed, catching the stunned look on its grotesque face. "You're wondering how I'm still standing, right? There's something you should understand."
She straightened her posture, exhaling lightly. "I am a kunoichi—a female shinobi. I've been trained to survive since I was a toddler. Dislocating and snapping something as simple as my neck is nothing to me."
What the Vulcan's primitive mind couldn't comprehend was that there wasn't a single visible mark, laceration, or bruise anywhere on her body. That was simply the baseline durability of Metsuri's physical frame, conditioned to withstand superhuman levels of trauma.
"But don't get it twisted." She slid her ninjatō back into its matte sheath with a soft, definitive click. "I don't even need a weapon to slaughter you."
A faint, mocking curve touched her lips beneath her mask. "You're kinda weak."
"GRAAAAHH!! YOU CHEAT!!" the Vulcan shouted, stomping its feet in place like a toddler throwing a tantrum. "CHEAT HUMAN!! I ALREADY WON!! YOU JUST DON'T STAY DOWN!!"
"Mm… mmm… slrp… slrp…" A soft, rhythmic sound suddenly cut through the heavy tension.
The Vulcan froze, slowly turning its massive head toward the corner of the cave.
Albion was leaning casually against the discarded basket of fruit, his tiny hands holding the bottle of goat milk as he happily drank from it, letting out a soft, polite burp.
The Vulcan blinked, completely unable to process the sight.
While the beast was distracted, Metsuri pulled down her matte-black cloth mask, her oversized hood slipping back to reveal her features entirely.
"…I'm actually shocked," she said flatly, her voice dripping with cold arrogance, "that you ever possessed the delusion that you could beat me… with this weak, loser shit."
"NO ONE STRONG!! ONLY VULCAN!!"
The beast roared, raw rage overtaking its senses. Its massive hands slammed together as a volatile surge of white magic gathered between its palms, swelling rapidly into a compressed kinetic sphere.
But the attack never finished. A white streak cut through the dim cavern air—far too fast for the beast's primitive body to register.
"I told you, I don't need a weapon to kill you."
Metsuri's voice drifted calmly from directly behind the beast. Her hands were raised in a precise, dual-chopping form, surrounded by a radiant, high-frequency white energy—highly condensed, perfectly stable, and razor-thin.
"For I am the weapon."
A single second later, a thin, flawless crimson line appeared across the Vulcan's shoulder, and its entire arm separated from its torso in a clean, effortless bisection.
"URRRAAAAGH!!"
As the Vulcan staggered in agony, Metsuri performed a brutal, downward slicing motion with her bare hands. A crescent blade of white magic peeled off her fingertips and carved straight across its broad chest, splitting open a deep, horizontal slash that sprayed blood across the stone walls.
This was Ethernal Infusion—the highly advanced process of concentrating raw magic directly into biological targets to enhance physical capabilities, reinforcing muscle fibers and bones to produce catastrophic physical output far beyond natural limits. Unlike dragon slayers or caster mages, Metsuri Ebonveil's flawless mastery over Ethernal Infusion transformed her physical frame itself into the ultimate weapon.
"I would've loved to actually fight you," Metsuri said, a faint, predatory grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. "If you were fully grown, that is. A real fight... where we both go completely all out, and the loser ends up as nothing but scattered ashes."
She stepped forward, standing over the Vulcan as it fell to its knees.
"I'll tell you a little secret before you die," she continued, gesturing lightly with her thumb toward Albion. "He's a bit special, you see. He is the part of an ancient, forgotten bloodline—one that traces all the way back to the dawn of the age of dragons and humans over 400 years ago."
"Grr… not right…" the Vulcan muttered, its body trembling as life slipped away.
"Do you understand what that means, beast?" Metsuri's eyes flashed with dark intensity. "His kind shouldn't even exist in this current era. Across ancient texts, his race is known by another name entirely."
"ROOOAAARR—!! VULCAN WIN!!"
The monster snapped, its remaining arm flaring with a desperate aura of white magic as it threw a final, suicidal punch aimed directly at her chest. Metsuri caught the punch with a single palm, unflinching.
"They're called…" she whispered, her extended right hand glowing with blinding, hyper-compressed density. "…the natural enemies of God."
She brought her arm down in one final, definitive hand-chop. A vertical blade of white energy cleaved straight through the Vulcan's skull and torso, splitting the massive creature cleanly in two. Immediately following the strike, a torrent of flames erupted, reducing the monster's remains to a pile of drifting ash.
Metsuri watched the combustion with cold, unblinking black eyes before turning her back on the ashes.
When she reached the child, she crouched down and picked up the basket of fruit, inspecting the rations before looking down at the baby. Albion was still sitting there, completely unfazed, sucking the last few drops of milk from the glass bottle.
"…So even a monster bursting into flames didn't scare you, hm?" she murmured, a genuine, albeit faint smile touching her lips.
Reaching out, she effortlessly scooped him up, cradling him securely against her white cloak.
She adjusted her grip on the basket and walked out of the mouth of the cave, leaving behind nothing but blood, fading embers, and absolute silence.
What rested safely in Metsuri's arms was the genesis of a quiet, inevitable reckoning—one that would, one day, bring the entire world to its knees.