Chapter 4: Dark Shadow

At the fall of night, Alex found himself standing in front of the entrance to an abandoned mine while his tattered cloak flowed in the wind, where his job takes place. Along with a guide in overalls and a hat that took him there.

"This is the place?" Alex asked the guide.

"Yes sir but....I'm afraid this is as far as I can go. I heard stories of the monster in this mine. They called it...Chupa." the guide responded, clearly spooked.

"Turn back then, I'll take it from here."

"Thank you sir and please...be careful."

The guide leaves and Alex faces the mine, wearing the beaked mask on his face. He closes his eyes and focuses, then he opens them with his red eyes glowing.

He has the ability to change his vision and sense life energy in the vicinity, and those life energies always leave a trail for him to follow. Life energies are marked with colors depending if they're friends or enemies, friends or innocents have white aura while enemies are red. It also gives him night vision and can reveal hidden things. The book calls it "Aura Sense."

Right now he can see two trails, one white and one red, implying one is still alive but not for long. Not wanting to waste time he walks directly to the mine to find the missing hunter.

He navigates through the mine for a few minutes, following the white trail and lamps hanging on the walls, while keeping his grip on his scythe for caution. He eventually stumbles upon a body, he changed his vision back to normal and approached it. Mauled upon inspection, the clothing and weapon suggests he was one of the hunters that went missing.

"This isn't good, better hurry and find the survivor." He thinks to himself before focusing his vision back on to pursue the trail. The more he traversed, the more blood and bodies of more hunters he saw. Moments later, he reached the center of mine, it is a very big room with train tracks, minecarts, mining tools in barrels, and crystalized ores that have yet to be mined.

He focuses for that life essence he followed and it led him behind the barrel in the corner, he could hear crying behind it so assumed that's where they hid. While the white misty trail led there, the red trail was faint, meaning the monster has yet to be seen.

He turned off his vision and walked towards the barrel. Upon arrival, someone jumped out and tried to attack him, Alex dodged out of the way and made out of the person's appearance.

He is a young man with blonde shaggy hair, wearing a white shirt and brown pants with belts. He holds a sword and there's a wound on his chest that luckily isn't severe.

"Stay back!!! I said stay back!!!" the young man screeched in fear while flailing around the sword as a warning attack.

Alex took the opening to grab his wrist and locked him there.

"Stop!!! I'm not here to hurt you, lest you give me a reason to." Alex warned before pushing off the young man which he fell to the ground.

The young man took a minute to calm down, once he laid eyes with the black-cloaked teen, he sighed in relief.

"Sorry. I thought you were that monster...Are you a hunter?" the young man asked.

"Were there others here?" Alex questioned.

"I'm the only one left, I was sent to rescue the missing hunters but we were too late, then the monster came and took two hunters, one of them managed to kill it but something strange happened."

"Strange?"

"The monster came but it was covered in black and purple, whatever it was it came back. It killed my companions, so I ran, hid and waited."

Alex took a moment of thought, so according to him, the monster was brought back after it was killed. Whatever it was, it had to be some sort of magic.

"We'll worry about that later, we need to-"

Alex's sentence was cut off by an ominous presence that suddenly filled the room. The young man's expression then became horror. Alex took out his scythe-rifle and aimed while looking around with his vision turned on. Concentrating once more, the red life energy belonging to the monster now grew big and it all pointed to this very room, then he stopped when his senses spiked off from behind him.

"BEHIND YOU!!!" The young man bellowed.

Turning around, the creature pounced at Alex to the ground, it tried to claw at him but blocked it with his rifle before kicking off the creature.

Alex recovers and takes a good look at the monster. It looked reptile-like with a bat's head, it has leathery skin and sharp quills running down its back. Its claws are longer and sharper as its fangs and its eyes are red. The hunters called it the Chupa.

Alex readies himself while the young man hides behind the barrel. The Chupa screeched and charged at Alex, he swings his blade when it gets close enough but it jumped over him and landed behind him. The creature tries to claw him at his back but luckily he blocks it with his rifle, he roundhouse kicks the Chupa, causing it to jump away. Then it continues jumping from wall to wall so fast that the eye could hardly keep up.

"I can see why they had difficulty in killing this thing. Fortunately I'm not a simple hunter." he thinks to himself.

He focuses his senses to predict where it will attack. He turns his weapon into scythe form and swings before the Chupa jumps in for the pounce, but it doesn't foresee the already-executed attack as it hits the creature to a wall.

Alex wasted no time to fold the scythe blade into a spear and skewered the creature, killing it effectively. He turns his scythe back to its rifle form then stashes it into his cloak. He walks towards the barrel where the young man hid.

"You alright?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, I'm good. The Chupa?"

"Dead, killed it."

"I've done that before, but that dark stuff always makes it come back."

'Dark stuff' Alex thought, he did find the young man's strange. Did it mean whatever he was talking about somehow resurrected it? Right now is not the time.

"We'll speak about that later. Right now we must-"

Alex was interrupted by his senses spiking up, but it didn't come from the creature.

As his instincts kicked in, he tilted his head to dodge a projectile and saw a couple of shurikens. He turned his head sharply to see more shurikens coming at him, so he pushed the young man out of the way and rolled to the side while unsheathing his rifle.

Thanks to enhanced senses, he managed to block the katana attack from the assailant wearing a black and green ninja garb, a uniform he knows all too well. He pushed the ninja away and aimed his rifle, then another jumped out of the shadows

And another.

And another two.

And another.

There are twelve of them, brandishing their katanas point at the reaper. His eyes narrowed when he heard footsteps from behind the ninjas, then emerged what seems to be their leader. He removes his cowl, revealing a middle-aged man with short dark hair and a scar across his face.

"Alex Crowe, we meet at last." the man spoke.

"I know of the Serpent Clan. I do not know you."

"Yes of course, we never met." he said calmly, yet with disdain as he walked forward while unsheathing his own katana and continued to speak.

"I am Shin Sanada, father of the son you murdered, Koda..."

"Of course..." Alex groaned, not surprised that he blames him for his son's death.

"...and you, Alex Crowe, shall pay the blood price!" Shin said the last part with venom.

Having heard enough, Alex shoots at him but Shin effectively deflects his red bullets with precision while running towards him. When he gets close, Alex uses his sickle-like bayonet and swings horizontally, but Shin front flips over him to dodge and lands behind the reaper. Knowing what was coming, Alex puts his rifle on his back to block the katana attack then returns with a swing, with for the ninja dodged. Then they both engage with a deadly blade duel, then ends with Alex kicked him off to gain some distance.

"You two! Attack!" Shin growled.

Two ninjas then charged for Alex from both directions, he in turn parries their attacks back and forth. Not wanting to be in a tight spot, Alex had to pick them off one at the time. Breaking off the defensive position, Alex shoots at one of the attacking ninja's right leg then spins around and stabs his back before throwing him to the ground. The other ninja tries to overhead slash, which Alex blocked with his weapon in defensive form over his head and he kicks him in the balls. When the ninja crouches down, he stabs his scythe at the ninja's back, vaults over and throws him over to the ground.

He senses incoming danger from Shin but he is too late to counter as he slices Alex's abdomen at flash speed, then Shin strikes him at the back with the speed again. Alex focuses his precognitive sense and manages to block the third attack, he retaliates by pushing him off and tries to slice both his legs, only for Shin to backflip away.

"You will pay the blood price." Shin snarled.

"Your son died by his own hand trying to kill me." the pale-skinned reaper rebuked.

"Do you think lies will deter me?!!"

Alex could see the ninja leader would not let this go, so he prepares himself.

But something unexpected happened. The Chupa he killed was standing up and covered with black mist oozing out of it. Then the beast roared, gaining attention of all ninjas present.

Guess the guy wasn't kidding about it coming back.

Then it slashes and tears the ninjas. Some attempted to fight it at their demise, others fled. Shin wanted a proper fight without any interruptions, so he sheathes his katana and backflips to his men.

"We will meet again for your blood debt, Alex Crowe."

With that, he fled with the rest of his remaining men. The creature takes notice of the pale-skinned teen and charges at him. Prepping his scythe-rifle up like a baseball bat, Alex strikes the creature away, knocking it to the ground, but it gets back up and angrier.

'Dammit! If steel can't cut it, perhaps magic will.' he thinks to himself.

The Chupa growls and charges at him, then Alex turns to mist to dash through and repositions behind it. He focuses his magic into the chamber with black and red magic before pulling the trigger, the dark red magic speeding like a bullet hits directly at the monster, which it staggered and howled.

Alex engulfs his blade and strikes at it, but the monster stabs its claws at Alex's side, causing him to scream. Then picks him up and slams him to the ground, then the monster picks him up and holds him, it bares its teeth and leans in to eat him. Alex struggles but proves powerless against it, then by some miracle, the monster suddenly bursts in flames and lets go of Alex while staggering and agonizing in pain.

Alex however, was breathing heavily. The stab at his was almost threatening that it activated his Cursed Rage. Shadows covers his skin and face, claws protrude from each of his fingers, the scleras in his eyes turned black and his irises glowed red, and the slits from the mouth grew, baring his sharp teeth.

He screams with rage and charges at the immolated creature. With his claws he tears at it with unbridled fury before slamming its face to a wall then the ground. Alex grabbed its head with his right hand, lifted it up while surging his power in his left hand, turning his mist-like power into a black fiery flame and shoving it through the creature in the chest and burned it in the inside.

The Chupa fell limp, assuming it was at last dead, he tossed the creature to the side. Despite being under immense rage, he was still conscious, and he needed to get control now before it consumes him.

Alex closed his eyes and began to focus on the good things, or rather the good memories he had left. The Resistance back in Empire, his family, his old girlfriend...

and then....he saw the girl who came to him that night, her melon blonde hair flowing and nature green eyes looking back at him with a pretty smile.

He opened his eyes and assessed himself, the shadows in his skin and claws are gone, relieved that he's finally stable. There's also a wound inflicted by the creature and blade cuts by Shin, he focuses his power on his wounds and they begin to heal.

Just as he collected himself, he glanced back at the corpse of the Chupa. He saw that black mist oozing out, but instead of bringing it back again, it fled deeper to the mines.

"I saw the whole thing. Will it come back?" the young man asked after he stepped out of his hiding place.

Alex almost forgot the young man was even here, reminding him what he was here for. Seeing the threat neutralized, there's no longer a reason to linger any longer.

"Come, let us leave." he calls out while picking up his scythe-rifle and tucking it beneath his cloak.

As Alex and the young man exit the mines and traverse back to the city, his mind has been uneasy. On one hand, that black mist didn't belong to the creature and it survived after he killed it, which means there's something...or someone controlling it.

And on the other hand, the fire that was set upon the creature was fire magic, one that felt familiar to him....

....and he soured on the idea of who.