The Hunter and the Vile Seed

‘I need help… oh?’

Ilisia frowned.

“Are you an Evil Seed too?”

“Evil what?”

Madi had never heard the term before.

He felt a prickle of irritation, seeing that the young woman before him showed no signs of panic.

Ilisia opened her mouth, revealing her sharp fangs.

Madi froze, stunned.

This was the first time he had seen anyone with such sharp teeth, apart from his own kin.

“Are you and I of the same kind?”

Madi’s eyes narrowed.

“Yes,” Ilisia nodded.

“This is my territory,” Madi declared.

“My apologies,” Ilisia said with a smile. “I was truly ravenous and had hoped to encounter a merchant caravan along the road.”

“I recall we left some ‘leftovers’ in the village,” Madi’s expression darkened.

“I don’t care for anything that isn’t fresh,” Ilisia replied. “The blood of the dead tastes bitter and salty.”

Madi was about to speak again when several low growls erupted from behind him.

A few Corrupt Seeds, their patience worn thin, began to stir restlessly.

“It seems you’re in quite a hurry, so I won’t keep you any longer,” Ilisia said, tilting her head slightly.

With a graceful backward flip, she vanished into the night like a fleeting shadow.

Madi stood frozen for a moment, then a faint amusement flickered within him.

The girl had likely been intimidated by their numbers and, being sensible, chose to depart.

In truth, Madi had never intended to engage in conflict with one of his own kind.

He was merely curious about creatures like himself.

To be honest, Madi knew very little about the monster he had become.

‘Evil Seed?’

Madi repeated the word he had just heard.

It was the first time he had learned the name for a monster like himself.

Madi had been born in a small town nestled on the frontier.

It was a place perpetually shrouded in mist, where sunlight rarely pierced through.

His father was the town’s hunter, while his mother had passed away from illness early on, leaving him to rely solely on his elderly grandmother.

Frail since childhood, he was routinely bullied by his peers, and his father often grew exasperated by his sickly frame.

Madi’s life continued in this manner.

A few months prior, a sudden plague had swept through the town.

People fell ill one after another, and Madi, too, became gravely sick.

With the town’s doctors utterly helpless, his grandmother, while Madi lay in a hazy state of consciousness, led him to an ancient temple deep within the forest.

It was a place dedicated to a forgotten ‘god’…

Or perhaps a demon.

After that night, Madi awoke to find his grandmother’s cold, shriveled corpse beside him.

His illness had vanished, but his appetite had changed forever.

Madi felt no inclination towards normal food, but the scent of blood would send his heart racing.

He began to sprout fangs, his senses sharpened, his body grew robust, and his speed steadily increased.

In Madi’s own words, ‘Sometimes, my shadow moves half a beat slower than I do.’

He surmised that his grandmother had sacrificed herself to secure the god’s protection for him.

Yet, the precise chain of cause and effect remained largely a mystery to Madi.

Along his journey, he wreaked havoc in the borderlands, areas beyond the jurisdiction of both the kingdom’s court and the Church.

To be an outlaw, unbound by rules, was truly an exhilarating sensation.

Madi no longer needed to follow any rules; no one would discipline him, and certainly no one would dare bully him again.

He even forced the village girl he secretly admired to stay with him…

But after a while, he grew weary of her.

Madi drained her of blood…

On another fortuitous occasion, Madi discovered that feeding his blood to humans could transform them into monsters like himself.

Naturally, their strength and speed were still somewhat inferior to his own.

Madi had heard from a bard that in the southern and central regions of the kingdom, the Church’s influence was pervasive, with countless individuals actively hunting down his kind.

The silver-haired girl he had just encountered was likely forced to wander this way as well, he surmised.

He decided to let her roam his territory for a few days.

Madi took a deep breath, then turned to a Corrupt Seed beside him and commanded, “Clear out the carriage up ahead.”

He preferred not to do it himself.

Frequent use of his Evil Seed power within him would make him hungry.

He loathed hunger.

One of the Corrupt Seeds nodded with a grin, dismounted, approached the carriage, and placed its hands on the vehicle’s body.

Like a beast that had long gathered its strength, the Corrupt Seed exerted a sudden, powerful force—

Boom!

An explosion.

Someone had planted explosives beneath the road in advance.

The entire caravan, along with the road itself, was flung skyward, flames mingling with dirt and splintered wood.

Screams, roars, and the neighing of horses converged into a chaotic din.

Several Corrupt Seeds were hurled through the air, crashing violently against rocks, their bodies mangled and bloody.

Some Corrupt Seeds caught fire, thrashing wildly before collapsing and rolling on the ground a few steps later.

None of them had anticipated that the silver-haired girl’s earlier interception was precisely to keep them lingering directly above the blast zone…

And her swift escape hadn’t been out of fear of the caravan’s numbers, but because she knew—

The fuse was burning!

Under normal circumstances, with prior warning, Corrupt Seeds could easily evade explosions, but this time, no one had expected it.

Having their bodies shattered would quickly lead to severe blood loss for the Corrupt Seeds, yet this was not the most lethal aspect of the blast.

Alongside chunks of earth and wood splinters, propelled by the shockwave, unusual foreign objects also pierced the Corrupt Seeds’ bodies.

Pellets.

The wounds caused by these pellets were not particularly deep, yet they inflicted immense pain upon the Corrupt Seeds and caused rapid blood loss.

Madi, too, was thrown to the ground by the explosion, clutching his wounds, unable to muster any strength.

From within the thick smoke, two dark figures rapidly approached.

“Let’s see, number forty-three.”

Adrian’s face, bearing his usual wicked smile, appeared before Madi for the first time.

He plunged a needle-tipped instrument into Madi’s arm.

Madi tried to leverage his superhuman speed and strength, but each time he attempted to exert force, he felt blood vaporizing from his wounds, the agony forcing him to abandon the effort…

‘What a treacherous trap.’

“This one is a Blood Demon, just like you, Ilisia—quite rare,” Adrian remarked.

He was referring to the silver-haired girl who had earlier blocked their path.

“May I proceed?” Ilisia asked, rubbing her nose. “These creatures’ blood smells absolutely foul.”

“You… what exactly… are you?” Madi questioned, utterly bewildered.

He couldn’t comprehend why these two individuals intended to kill him.

The black-haired youth was an unknown, but the silver-haired girl was one of his own kind.

“Hunters,” Adrian stated, putting away his instrument. He then gestured to Ilisia, “Deal with him.”

Ilisia drew her sword and thrust it down.

Madi swiftly withered into a desiccated corpse.

Adrian rose, looking up at the scattered Corrupt Seeds in the distance, still struggling to their feet after being thrown by the explosion.

“Should I eliminate them?” Ilisia inquired.

“Yes,” Adrian nodded. “Leave none alive.”

Ilisia turned and advanced towards the remaining Corrupt Seeds.

Several silver lines sliced through the air…

In less than half a minute, the surroundings fell silent.

Adrian surveyed the charred, collapsed road, then pulled out a whistle and blew a soft note.

The sound of the whistle was inaudible to humans, but the birds heard it.

With a ‘whoosh,’ a raven landed on Adrian’s shoulder.

“I’ll notify the nearest rendezvous point,” Adrian said, glancing through the carriage wreckage. “Those who planted the explosives for us are still awaiting news.”

“Is this the dangerous individual the Church reported to us?” Ilisia asked.

“No, just a stray on the roadside,” Adrian replied casually. “But since we encountered him, of course, we must eliminate him, and incidentally, use up some of the Church’s nearly expired explosives.”

The flames had not yet died down.

By their flickering light, Adrian noticed two small bulges beneath Madi’s clothes.

He reached out, felt them, and pulled out two notebooks.

“This fellow was literate, surprisingly,” Adrian remarked, flipping through them by the firelight.

“Do you have a peculiar habit of collecting other people’s personal belongings?” Ilisia inquired.

“One is a diary, from which we can glean some information and study the psychology of your kind,” Adrian said, tucking the notebooks away. “The other, you’d never guess, is actually a list of debtors for a loan shark.”

“These creatures frequently massacre villages; they also engage in usury?” Ilisia questioned.

“Not entirely sure. It could be from before his mutation, or perhaps it’s a form of amusement,” Adrian shook his head. “When I was still in your father’s territory, I once captured a Blood Demon who enjoyed lending money to the poor.”

“When the poor couldn’t repay, he would demand they hand over their children to him,” Adrian added.

“To be his ‘food’?” Ilisia asked.

“Precisely. After a physical mutation, psychological eccentricities tend to develop as well,” Adrian shrugged. “However, from a nutritional standpoint, it’s actually not good for a Blood Demon to consume children’s blood.”

Ilisia offered no reply.

“Regardless, this ledger seems to indicate our next destination,” Adrian said. “We might as well bring some good news to the debtors in that area.”

Adrian and Ilisia mounted their horses.

The lingering flames of the burnt-out caravan cast long, stark silhouettes behind them.