The three gunshots echoed through the veil of silence. The flashing blaze chased away the darkness.

  In a straight line, they glided towards the Sage and the Wolf, just to ricochet off the unknown coffin with a wind-cutting whistle.

  The coffin, bound by a black ribbon to the Wolf’s arm, hovered above the ground. The bullets didn’t leave a dent on the mysterious object.

  “I’ll leave this to you, okay? Imma go do my things.”

  The Sage giggled behind the Wolf’s back, bowing her head with wide arms.

  “Do whatever, brat. I’ll play with this one.”

  “Bye bye!”

  The Sage then tiptoed on her wheels and started rolling off backwards, yet unexpectedly, her head snapped back up with a hint of surprise.

  “Here they come! Wolf!”

  Two more gunshots from the end of the tunnel. Another wave of attack, similar to the one previous, the Wolf thought, despite the Sage’s warning.

  However, these were different.

  On their trajectory, the blowing flame blurred out the presence of the universe. Until they became transparent. The lingering whistle hollowed into the air.

  Invisibility.

  A complete silent attack.

  Both the Wolf and the Sage completely lost track of the attack.

  “Hahahahahaha!”

  Followed after was the Sage’s laughter. She roared through the attack, shaking the tunnel with her excitement.

  She then saw it. The moment the bullet struck her. Top left, two seconds.

  “Going for me?”

  She cocked her head to the side, immediately, the invisible attack grazed her ear.

  Then she saw the next one. Three seconds to her eyes. Right at where her head had landed to dodge from the previous one.

  One second, until a wave of darkness arrived. The bullet stopped in its track and was pushed off by a parade of black tentacles. The Wolf.

  The bullet hit the ground with a spark. The tendrils reshaped into blades, using the momentum, and slashed down everything in front of them. The sharpness repeatedly sliced through the surface, trailing far toward where the gunshots had emerged from, until everything collapsed.

  --

  Despite being shot from the same angle, the bullets had traveled past the coffin and towards the girl behind them all.

  Moments before the bullets arrived at the stopping point, the bullets had bounced off each other purposely to swerve out of the straight line. Thus, they had bent their own path and circled around the Wolf.

  Towards the brain of the Sage.

  With just a temporary glimpse, the Nobody had captured the hierarchy of the enemy. It had known that the Sage was a higher threat and the standing body wasn’t the Chemist but another being. A perfect understanding of the situation.

  The Chemist had been taken out by these two.

  The girl was the first one to step back before its arrival. A variation of detection ability coming from a tool or herself.

  The walking body, on the other hand, detected its presence seconds later and stepped up to cover the girl from view.

  The girl possessed a higher priority.

  Thus, naturally, it pointed its gun towards the intended target.

  --

  Debris and rocks rolled on the ground, along with smoke that filled the deep depth of the abyss.

  The wall between them was clear and unwavering.

  The Sage got up on her feet, with her legs shaking, though not from fear, but from thrill.

  “Ugh… that’s so creepy…”

  “Brat. What is that thing? You must have seen it before, no?”

  Faced with the ominous glare from the Wolf, the Sage shrugged it away with a playful sigh.

  “Eh, I don’t know.”

  A simple answer, without deception.

  The black cloud emitted from the gasmask became denser, a hint of dissatisfaction.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know, my foresight is a visual thing. Of course, I can’t see invisible things! I can see when a gun is fired, but that is like, a second long at most! I got a glimpse of that thing many times before, but it never would reveal itself! Of course, with that limited information, I wasn’t sure which branch it would take.”

  “Branch?”

  “Never mind about that! We met that thing before!”

  “The thing that shot the Shaman.”

  “You were there too, right!? Crazy!”

  “What a lousy-”

  Then, ceasing the conversation, both of them detected a subtle change from the other side. Time wasn’t much for them.

  The Wolf understood the nature of the battle. Both the Wolf and the one on the other side were from the inhuman side. Both of them wanted the same thing. The death of the prey.

  The Wolf stepped up, the coffin on its back couldn’t scream any louder.

  “Brat. Go do what you intend to do.”

  "Sure, go!”

  Into darkness, the Sage soon vanished into the depth.

  --

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  A moment of silence.

  The Wolf simply stared at the rubbles with an unreadable face under the gasmask. It hadn’t been sure what to imagine of a human war, deep within its eternal slumber.

  Human, it had always considered weak, hopeless, futile, greedy, and unaccountable. A war between the kinds of them would just be like ants. Feeding and cannibalizing each other for the “queens” on top. So futile. Such boredom. How meaningless.

  The beauty of a hunt. To kill for the sake of killing. To deploy a methodical and meticulous approach to devour a single target. The killing that upheld the process. To prove the conviction, the nature and the primordial side of the monster.

  Such was the beauty it had always sought.

  Then, it encountered another one of its kind, yet that one had succumbed to the chain of humans, the Wolf was sickened.

  To be conquered by the human was a sorry sight.

  However, it also meant there would still be humans capable enough to conquer such beings. The presence it felt was not of any mistake. The one worthy of being hunted.

  Under the gasmask, a grin appeared. A hint of satisfaction. Even though it hadn’t properly learned the way the human body worked yet.

  This was what it had been looking for.

  “Come at me. Filthy one.”

  A worthy one.

  On the other side, from the veil of the unseeable, a dynamite dropped lightly.

  Followed after was an explosion, decimating the obstacle with a blasting impact.

  Nonetheless, the force was blocked by the coffin placed between the Wolf and the explosion.

  The Wolf had sensed the hidden trick under the explosion. Blending in with the deafening blow were two gunshots. Another invisible attack.

  Yet, it made no attempt to dodge. In a single fraction of time, both bullets struck the Wolf’s chest, aiming at the heart from two directions.

  The leads drilled through the flesh until they were stopped by a black layer of bog under the Wolf’s current body and fell to the ground.

  “Going for the heart. A straightforward move.”

  A call of instinct. The Wolf had predicted where the shot would land and concentrated armor to protect itself. Its armor couldn’t be used on its entire body.

  Afterwards, the black matter wrapped itself around the coffin repeatedly like a typhoon until the silhouette of a massive drill became visible. It nailed into the surface and ruptured the entire area. The power shook the earth as veins of rift traveled through the maze.

  In a second, where they stood no longer existed.

  --

  A gentle thud, landing on the dark surface.

  Fragments of rock dropped with flowing dust.

  The aftermath of the crash. An open space was created from the collision and integration of narrow pathways. Like a hole dug into an ant nest, or a building with all hallways connected to one single room. Water streamed from the crack of the ceiling, letting a ray of light illuminate the space.

  The Wolf stepped to the center of the crater, brushing off the dirt on its shoulder. The coffin hovered behind, unscratched from the hit.

  "Much more breathable now, isn’t it?”

  It looked straightforward, unbothered to look around for the trace of the Nobody.

  “Ever silent, you are. Has the human taught you such a way?

  Well, so humorless. The humans I met used to joke their way out of my jaw.

  But you-”

  A silent bullet pierced through words and the left arm of the Wolf. Blood splattered with black liquid, painting the plane. However, the Wolf didn’t flinch.

  “Silencing the gunshot, hmm? Impressive. It’s as if…

  … I am fighting a spirit, perhaps?”

  Using the coffin would be useless if the enemy’s guise remained clouded still.

  Therefore, it must drag it out of the veil of secrecy.

  From beneath its feet, the shadow of the Wolf expanded like a blinking universe and drowned the entire chamber.

  Darkness was its light. This way, it could see everything, like planting eyes in every corner and feeling every breeze of movement within this space.

  Thus, the Wolf felt the presence of each bullet bouncing against each other within its shadow. Unbelievably, a total of forty-three bullets continuously ricocheted off themselves in complete quietness. It was shocked at such intensity, as the Wolf was standing inside the center of a tornado.

  Despite such efforts, it couldn’t find the location of the shooter.

  “I see. Some kinds of negation towards detection.”

  The first shot was to see if its attack could damage the Wolf.

  Then, the second wave was to end it all.

  Instantly, all of the fleeting shots altogether bent their path with the final spark towards the Wolf. In the next second, bound by the shadow, the wreckage below was thrown into the air and collided with the storm of leads.

  Everything exploded in the air and descended to the ground like rainfall of dust.

  Despite the attack having come to a halt, the Wolf didn’t stop just yet. The barrage of boulders left no chance to escape as they were launched indiscriminately into every corner. A machine gun of earth. Each contact pushed the terrain to tremble and scream, like a caged animal in fear.

  Yet, even in the midst of another storm, there was no sign of the unseen enemy.

  Until a single bullet, through the onslaught of projectiles and the Wolf’s eyes, penetrated its shoulder.

  Blood fell to the ground. The wound was quickly closed up by the black bog.

  Impressive. To find an opening gap in such a predicament.

  After a chuckle, it reached under the jacket. The shadow retreated back to its feet, ending the concurrent offense. Once again, the area was flooded with light as heaven placed its glance.

  “Fufu. Interesting. What about this?”

  A chemical agent was poured into the air from the blue vial of the Chemist’s collection. The moment it made contact with oxygen, the liquid immediately evaporated into a white fog that spread widely over the room.

  Then, it reached for the second one. Before the finger could touch the cold surface of glass, another invisible bullet had arrived. The bullet drilled through the Wolf’s hand, staggering it a few steps backward. The hand was gone, with its fingers lying on the bloodied pool.

  However.

  “Too bad.”

  Grinning, the Wolf manifested another arm from the void, holding the second vial, as the injured one slowly vanished into darkness. The arm that the bullet had aimed for was just a fake created from the dark matter.

  Before the second and third bullets could decapitate the flesh, the fingers gripping the chemical opened.

  To the ground, it fell.

  Crack.

  The agent within was exposed to the white fog, creating a wave of snowy sparkles. Abruptly, all that could be seen was the color white.

  Ice.

  The land had completely turned into a frozen winter, where every surface was covered with arctic mask. The wind was powerful and violent, whispering into each separate branch of the tunnel.

  The frozen bullets were blown away by the breeze, plopping to the surface.

  In a temporary fraction of time.

  The Wolf saw the frosted outline of the floating shooter before such quickly melted away.

  “I see. Not a teleportation trick, nor a spectral one. You really are just invisible.”

  In a surprising manner, the Wolf didn’t press on the offense. Looking at where the silhouette once was, it asked.

  “What is your purpose in this war, unseen one? We both possess tickets, as you see.”

  Faced with a question, it remained silent as ever. Without showing any emotion, the Wolf continued.

  “You are powerful. Yet you serve humans. A beast like you could easily dominate over the feeble ones. Why, a worthy one like you, have lowered yourself to the kind of humans?"

  A long silence hung in the air between the two of them.

  The Wolf bore no expectation of getting a proper answer, yet the curiosity couldn’t be restrained.

  Until, beneath the wind, a silent voice muttered.

  A single word that would shape their destiny.

  “Na?ve.”

  --

  Na?ve.

  A word that the Wolf had never thought would be directed onto itself.

  The darkness around it rose to the ceiling, the ominous aura occluded the atmosphere. Like a black hole, it sucked up the life of all life.

  Rage.

  Such was an emotion it had never felt before.

  A creature, under the leash of humans, dared to address the predator as a na?ve one.

  Not even the most arrogant one had spoken of that audacity. The hunters and the conquerors who had sought after its temple.

  Such was an insult to its pride and belief.

  Boiling with rage, the goggle of the gasmask cracked. The skin, repeatedly, was torn apart and rebuilt by the black mud. The uncontrollable temper warped the scene with evil.

  The coffin shook with malice as the binding chain trembled intensely.

  “Brat.”

  A voice of nothing but the killing intent.

  “You don’t deserve a spot in the coffin.”

  The tail and the ear of a wolf were sculpted with darkness. The one before the Nobody was no longer the body of the Chemist.

  A devil.

  Then came to earth, weapons of hell. The mud transformed into swords, lances, hammers, scythes, and chains.

  “I’ll kill you.”

  In contrast to the whirlwind of death, the unseen one made no movement.

  A loaded shell dropped to the icy field.

  Such a thing was enough to make a declaration of war.

  --

  Meanwhile, the Sage flip-flopped into the lab of the Chemist.

  “It’s almost time, huh… well, time to get to work!”

  She slid across the room until her eyes landed on a locked cabinet.

  “Kaboom!”

  Using the rollerblade, she kicked the door, along with the lock, off. Within lay a lever connected to a cobweb of wires.

  She giggled playfully while her hand grabbed the handle with just three gentle fingers.

  “Heehee, the battle is getting tough, eh?

  But that won’t be fun at all.

  The main dish has yet to come! I can't allow these two to start killing each other so soon!

  So… let’s put an end to it, shall we? Kadoosh!”

  With outright enthusiasm, she pulled the lever. The wires were connected to countless explosives hidden in every corner of the underground maze.

  Detonation. The final plan that the Chemist had prepared.

  The blinding light flooded the land of darkness and the unobservable.

  A punishment from heaven, judgment on evil species.

  In that moment, the entire mountain had erupted.