Let's Dance

Taking a deep breath, Zen stood before the towering structure of the castle with his sharp eyes showing firmness as they landing on the dim interior of it.

"I don't know what is waiting for me in there, so I must be careful," Zen uttered as he adjusted the long, black cloak he was wearing before putting on a cyberpunk-ish techwear mask of the same color. "Kelton rushed to give me this mask as I was leaving but he didn't explain anything, so I don't know anything about it"

Zen then unsheathed his daggers, which began glowing brightly red once he took a step inside the castle. This took him by surprise as this was the first time that they acted like this, but soon after, he realised that not only his blades were acting weirdly, but his veins were growing in size then contracting constantly, as if reacting to his heartbeats.

"My mind tells me that something is wrong with this place," Zen added in a low voice as he placed his hand on his chest.

After a long pause, Zen decided to begin heading forward again, only for the seemingly endless row of lanterns hanging from the walls suddenly lit up, illuminating the once dark interior of the castle.

Zen's eyes widened in surprise while his mouth opened in awe as his eyes witnessed the beautiful carvings on the colossal walls confining him. The sharps, golden lines decorating the green-ish blue walls gave the place a truly magnificent, royal look.

The thick pillars extending upwards to hold the roof intact gave the hallway a sense of depth as they went to cast long shadows while they accompanied the red carpet laid on the floor like an array of swords emerging from the ground.

Zen gasped for after he almost forgot to breathe and quickly shook his head before murmuring in a low voice, "The place looked gloomy and dark from the outside, so I didn't expect it to be like this inside"

Nevertheless, Zen continued walking down the huge hallway, leading him to the entrance of a chamber far away. However, before he could reach the half-way mark, he suddenly assumed an attacking stance, with him putting his daggers in front of his face while widening in between his legs and slightly crouching.

His eyes started jumping from one corner to another, scanning his surroundings as his ears had caught a noise coming from somewhere within the place.

Not so long after, the sound of slow footsteps echoed within the empty, silent confines of this hallway as they accompanied the appearance of a Nethercat from behind one of the pillars before standing beside it like an empty shell.

Though a Nethercat didn't oppose any threat towards Zen, the man still remained cautious as he continued to slowly and steadily march forward. He felt as if this wasn't the only danger that he was facing, and it seems as if he had a sixth sense, since after that, a hoard of Nethercats began leaving their hiding spots, emerging from behind the pillars one after the other.

However, these mutants were different from usual. While their bodies looked the same for the most part, their skin was slightly off color, as it was shifting to the greenish side. Their heads looked longer than usual, with some of their skull bones being visible and without the skin covering them.

Zen was quick to notice that as he thought to himself, "I'm not sure if those were trapped here by accident or placed here intentionally. Either way, they look as if they haven't eaten anything in a very long time"

Their rigid movement gave the obvious observation of them being weak and slow, but Zen decided not to judge fast and kept his attention high.

Soon after that, one of the Nethercats' figure became blurry, seemingly disappearing from existence before appearing again in front of Zen, opening its bony mouth wide as it got ready to land a bite on the human's neck.

Zen's eyes widened in surprise before he swiftly moved his hand up, landing his blade beneath the monster's chin and stabbing through its tough flesh for it to end up visible to him when looking inside the Nethercat's mouth.

"Kreeeegh" the monster screeched in agony, its voice loud enough for Zen to feel like his eardrums were about to explode.

Because of that, he acted quickly and sheathed his other blade before straightening his hand, making the shape of an arrow tip. After that, he shoved forward with immense speed, penetrating through the monster's chest before grabbing its heart.

With Zen squeezing the heart tight, the monster's veins began growing in size at a terrifying rate before reaching their limit, exploding alongside the tearing of the monster's flesh before letting all the blood it was carrying to gush out, spraying Zen's body nonstop.

*That speed wasn't normal for a Nethercat to have* Zen recalled the moment when the monster launched at him as he threw its lifeless body to the ground. *There is something wrong with these monsters* Zen thought as he diverted his gaze to the other monsters who have been standing and watching this whole time.

They didn't move after that for a while, allowing Zen to finally notice the indent on their foreheads, were a small white crystal was placed.

However, before he could theorize about what effect that crystal had on the mutants, they suddenly all launched at Zen at the same time, trying to give him no space to dodge to. However, their movement this time was slower for them to not hurdle the movement of each other, allowing Zen to follow their figures easily this time with his eyes.

[Blood Art]: Anguish

Drops of blood began forming in front of Zen's body, covering the entirety of it before starting to elongate, taking after the shape of thick needles.

With a wide grin forming on the man's face, Zen waited for the monsters to get closer before those needles began shooting like bullets as Zen readied his blades.

As the needles of blood penetrated through the Nightcats' bodies, Zen uttered with a wide smile, "Since there is no one that I should protect with me today, I can go crazy All I want"

"Let's dance" Zen added.