Angel Monarch

Sera approached the city perimeter without too much of a problem. She was trying to keep calm but it was hard. After spending so long in the wild, just seeing actual architecture was a small blessing.

Stopping near the first building, she was scanning the streets, it looked deserted but she knew better than to believe that. Sera looked around for a tall building which she could use as a base for exploration.

While scanning around, a sound of something breaking came from the building next to her. From another building came a growl and before either creature could come out to eat her, Sera was already flying back to the tree line.

'Let's establish a base at night, it will be much safer, ironically.'

Stopping on one of the inner tree's branches, she gazed at the city trying to make out the monsters dwelling within. There was no movement, but judging by her first experience that's just looking at it from the outside.

'They are actually living in the buildings. How unfortunate.'

Deciding to wait for the night she cooked all her leftover food, ate half of it and made herself comfortable watching the city. She was getting tired again.

'Three days and nights is my limit I guess. I should make the base safe fast to have time for sleeping. The tomorrow is going to be hectic as well.'

Sera patiently waited until night came. She ate the other half of her food and went into the city yet again.

In the city there were still monsters around every corner, but she managed to stealthily bypass most of them. Some she had to run away from. But through hardship, she arrived near a building that would be her base.

It was a 5 story apartment complex, nothing special, but it only had one entrance which made it easily defendable in case of attack. And who knows, maybe it was empty?

Sera didn't go in through the door, instead she flew up on its roof and went in there. The roof's door was open and a very old staircase led down into the building.

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She looked around the city from this high vantage point and spotted multiple marks of interest. Then she turned south and her heart stopped for a second.

'Is.. Is that fire?'

Indeed, a couple of kilometers away in a building's window, a fire was burning, or at least something that gave off light.

'Could it be other humans? Maybe even the survivors of Newber?'

Sera was beginning to feel hope, but the real world came crashing down in the form of a growl coming from right behind her.

Turning around she didn't understand what she saw, because there was nothing there, only darkness.

'Wait, darkness? Can't I see in the dark?'

As Sera thought about it suddenly there was a claw in front of her. She moved back as fast as she could but it still bit into her stomach.

Ignoring the pain she summoned light to try and repel the dark. The whole roof turned into a lighthouse but less than a second later all the light disappeared. The darkness swallowed it whole.

But it wasn't all useless, in that fraction of a second she saw her adversary. It was the same creature she hunted last time, but bigger and its tail had a knife-like end.

'It must be a higher Class of the same leopard, most likely a Rotten since I'm still breathing. So when it evolves it gains control over shadows, interesting.'

Sera was really interested in this, fighting the same monster but different evolution stages back-to-back. This encounter was as rare as it gets.

'Okay so at least I have some knowledge about its movement. That's something.'

But after attacking and dodging a couple of times. She found out the hard way that evolution changed everything about a creature. Clutching her bleeding right arm which held her glaive, she looked around her trying to find the beast.

Before the attack reached her from the left Sera was already out of its way and even managed to cut the beast's flesh.

The leopard didn't skip a beat and used its tail to cut Sera's leg right behind the knee. The knife-like protrusion went through the tendons and the next second Sera was already on the ground screaming.

"Aahh! You fucking bastard!"

As she gotten angry the bloodlust seeped in and ignoring the pain she rose on one leg.

The leopard attacked again but looking at the angelic wings of its prey, it froze. The female gave it a sense of pure dread and imminent death.

It tried to shook the feeling off but suddenly the female exploded with light dispersing its wall of shadow.

Scared and blinded it had no chance to dodge its adversary's blade.

"You have killed a Damned Shadow, a Rotten of the 1st Tier. Your Soul is Nourished."

The beast bled out with its throat cut. But Sera didn't notice it. Her own wounds were grievous as well so she tried her hardest to hold back the bleeding.

"Fuck, I just hope nothing saw that light show I put on."

But it was only wishful thinking. And a couple minutes later she was already hearing footsteps.

'Footsteps but something is different about them, they sound small almost human-like, but that can't be. No human lives out here. Unless that light I saw was from them?'

Sera was thinking about how should she protect herself from the human-like monster coming up the stairs. Then she heard a voice.

"Are you alive up there?"

It was a male human voice coming from down stairs.