A man stepped out.
My camera lens focused on the singular man who walked out that building. He took one step forward and…
Why did I step back?
Something felt off. Was it the way he moved? He swayed, almost unsteady, but—no, he wasn't unsteady. There was none more balanced than him.
My audio receptors were advanced enough to hear a coat button fall from a mile away, even in an active war zone. Yet each footfall of the... the man... it was silent. Perfectly so.
His muscles relaxed at just the right time. They tensed with equal precision… sublime, perfect—unspeakable even.
My scans pierced his skin and witnessed musculature so densely woven that part of me began to believe I was facing some form of malfunction.
The leader's ears shot up and turned toward him. The cruel curve of his lips became nearly agitated as he bore witness to the obscene precision. "You aren't like the others, are you?" He couldn't hide the slight trepidation that snuck its way into his voice.
He was not dressed like the other soldiers. No, he wasn't at all dressed like a soldier. He wore a black compression shirt, held in tolerable condition. It was layered underneath a worn-out, brown leather jacket. He wore loose and mud-coated gi pants that were held up by a cheap plastic imitation of a black belt.
He looked maybe forty. He could boast of a broad yet fairly lean build that did not seem particularly excessive in size. Instead, it was coiled like the serpentine body of a cobra.
However, something about every small movement he performed bore an impossible laxity. The control of each motion was unreasonable. It was as if his feet harpooned themselves to the floor with each step. Or rather, it looked less like his leg came down and more like the whole Earth came upwards to meet him.
His nose was crudely bent to one side, and his hands were calloused around the knuckles, suggesting a violent history.
He tied back his long and unkempt hair with a piece of fabric he tore off his shirt. The long, flowing tail he formed reached the level of his middle back. His eyes were relaxed but not unfocused. He tilted backwards so far his back became parallel to the ground. He tipped backwards a metal flask and sipped down its alcoholic content. The flask had a mirror-like sheen. His fingers gripped it like a lifeline.
He slowly screwed the lid back on and gave the leader a smug grin. The leader growled slowly; his irritation began to push past the unease.
The man's earpiece hurled a stream of complaints. The person on the other side—some sort of general—only received silence in reply.
After another stream of barely audible insults, the man relented. "Sorry, boss, I got a little too drunk and was busy throwing up in the restroom." The general's voice buzzed through the device before he was interrupted. "Yeah, sure thing… this one is pretty tough so I'll be taking care of things now."
Something about his nonchalance irked me, but the one who was truly enraged seemed to be the leader. His face twisted into a scowl and he arched his back in a show of animalistic aggression, like a cat ready to rip into an unruly rat.
"Human, you dare drink whilst your comrades are being torn to shreds? How very noble of you." The leader's tone became more accusatory. He stepped toward the man, his heavy body coiling. "Do you not care about those around you? Is that it? How could someone like you call themselves a proper man?"
The man lazily glanced at the leader before slowly sipping down some more booze. Something about him did seem obviously inebriated, but at the same time, the precision and control he displayed with each subtle movement indicated that this hardly mattered. He was still sharp as a razor.
"I don't know, buddy. You said you were sorry for being late, but when you showed up, that big ol' chin of yours was dripping with fresh blood." The man sloshed his flask around, as if to gauge how much he had left.
The leader's face tightened further. However, this seemed to be the result not of rage, but of shame. His coiled stance loosened. "And, what are you trying to imply here, human?"
A shit-eating grin slowly crept across the man's face. "Don't know if it's true, but it seems to me you were busy eating, and that's why you were late." The man's grin widened as the creature's face twisted in a combination of shame and fury. "I mean, you do still eat people, so it's not like acting polite is going to charm the maidens or whatever the hell reason you have for doing it. Stop cosplaying as Macbeth." The leader's fur bristled like a cat's and his body deepened its arch. He let off a low, inhuman growl that was far removed from his far more normal voice. "I mean, maybe some girls out there like whatever you've got going on, man. Don't lose hope."
What was this man doing? He seemed to be instigating the leader into attacking, but to me, this strategy seemed counterintuitive to his survival.
The monstrous form of the leader should have been able to easily tear apart a human being, yet this man was completely, unshakably calm. It irked me.
The leader's temper hit its limit. His knees bent further until he was near horizontal to the floor. The tendons pulled back like winding springs. I could hear them pulling back like the tuned cords of a piano.
A wave of sweat exploded from the leader's frame as he finished tensing up. The man hummed briefly before returning his flask to a small holster wrapped against his waist.
The man's expression did not shift, but his eyes gained a narrow focus. He became appraising in his disposition.
The moment of silence ended.
The leader exploded forward. His hulking frame became a fleeting smear in the wind as his mass surged with the momentum of a falling star.
He closed the distance within a breath, and the blur of speed he had become regained its solidity. His sharp talons dug into the ground, stopping his momentum. He entered striking distance.
No—his momentum had not stopped. Instead, it deviated from the floor into his hips. He snapped them forward, carrying the wave of force into his shoulder and finally into his clenched fist.
It shot forth like a missile, splitting through the air, ready to annihilate anything before it. The man, with the limitations of his human reflexes, was sure to be reduced to a fine red mist by the oncoming impact. I awaited the gruesome sound of the strike, but instead, I received only silence.
The fist sailed through the man, and the air pressure it generated sent the dust from the destroyed buildings past him in a turbulent, mud-brown gale.
The man stood there, uninjured.
Did it go through him?
No. He bent his knees ever so slightly, shifting his head just out of range before returning it to where he had stood.
How did he do that?
Perhaps he flinched back just enough and avoided it by chance? No, I can see it in his eyes. His expression had not shifted.
The leader wasted no time in looking for an explanation. He drew his other arm back and again began whipping the power of his legs and hips into another megaton swing.
As soon as his muscles tensed and his fist leveled with his shoulders—his head snapped back, and his knees shook like he had suddenly developed Parkinson's.
The man had struck him with an open palm, and I somehow failed to track it. I could see the slap after the fact, but it had no startup and no sign it was ever going to be thrown. To top it all off, the man timed it to just the moment before the beast would strike and aimed it precisely at the farthest point of the leader's chin, rattling his brain like the inside of a maraca.
The man's arm moved again, and the leader leaped back tens of meters. The man spoke in that same playful tone. "You're packing some serious power. You've got the instincts of a pugilist too. Good thing you jumped back—wouldn't want it to end before I finish my drink."
The leader swung his head left and right, as if to force himself back to wakefulness. His eyes became a bloodshot pink sheen. Each one of his brutal teeth bared themselves, saliva slicking across them.
"HOW COULD A PATHETIC CREATURE LIKE YOU STRIKE ME? I AM THE PROPHET OF THE HUNGERING ONE, AND I WILL NOT TAKE SUCH HUMILIATION!"
The eyes of his nightmarish warband flashed with a fury almost as scalding as his own.
"GO NOW AND TEAR THIS HEATHEN APART. I WANT HIS GUTS FOR GARTERS."
They ran in a mad dash toward the lone warrior. I jumped closer to the scene. If this man is in trouble, then I will assist him. I will not hesitate this time…
As soon as I did, I felt something—an emotion so overpowering and alien to me that, for a moment, I stopped focusing on the sinners. My senses fully locked onto the man. Something visceral grabbed a cruel hold over them.
The horde approached in a rough circle. Their claws and fangs grew ever closer. The man put one foot forward. Then he raised both his hands into a stance.
And then, as soon as that stance was complete…
Why did I suddenly jump back?
The sound of a hundred rifles slammed against me. A sheet of blood now coated my iron skin.
I looked back at the scene. My computational predictions absolutely failed to prepare me.
The sinners were dead.
His eyes crossed my own. I knew the name of that alien brand that ran like cold water underneath my joints: fear.
The corpses were in various states of disarray, but the one thing consistent was that they seemed to have been torn to shreds by cannonballs.
There was no cannon.
Instead, the man stood there, covered in blood and meat chunks.
I inched a toe toward him, but the second I entered my previous range, I found I couldn't take another step. Nothing was stopping me physically. My prediction algorithms aligned with the sordid sensation of fear.
The second I step into his range—I will be killed.
The leader's eyes filled with something I am only now truly familiar with.
Dread.
"How?" the leader muttered.
Before the leader could respond, the ear-piercing sound was silenced, then replaced with the cracking of bones. The man's shin slashed across the leader's jaw in a devastating roundhouse kick.
The beast's head flew backwards so hard I thought his neck would snap. Then he collapsed like a sack of potatoes.
He tilted his head up to attempt speaking. He could only whimper. His jaw hung half open and shattered, hanging off on one side like a door missing one of its hinges.
"Shut the hell up."
The warrior kicked the leader square in the nose, throwing him onto his back and bloodying the delicate organ.
"Oww, my ears are fucking ringing."
The man rubbed one of his ears. Then he stretched out his shoulders and back. In a singular fluid motion, he fell back into his stance.
The leader leapt towards a building. His face was a broken mess, yet he moved with no less speed than before. He jumped from wall to wall, moving like I had when I fought The Black Beast. Only, unlike me, he had little in mind other than violence. His eyes shone with anger, not calculation.
I caught the moment when the leader would strike. The man also took note of the shift in tempo and adjusted beautifully.
The leader's almost sword-like claws stopped just short. A loose, whip-like strike blew the leader away like a fly being swatted out of the air.
He crashed through a building, his weight snowballing debris through the wall and onto the other side.
A roar shook across the city. A wave of dust washed over me as the leader pounced. He had climbed up the back of the building and leapt downwards headfirst like a bullet. His claws and fangs reflected the sun with their brass sheen.
The man stuck out his palm. The leader's broken face made impact with the outstretched limb, his momentum halted like a bull shot by a tank cannon.
The leader spun in mid-air like the head of an electric whisk. Then he ground his movement to a halt with the sharp ends of his claws.
He straightened his back. All thought had left his mind, and only animal fury was left. He launched himself at the man with desperation.
The attack was unskilled, but it was ferocious. The man leaned away, but the leader's claws caught his cheek and drew an angry red line of blood.
I saw something click deep within the man's eyes. As if the single blow the leader landed was some sort of grave sin. No, there was no rage in the man's eyes.
It was respect that flowed from his next onslaught.
My own combat analytics spoke out. So did the voice of The Black Beast and its heart.
Sublime.
Six straight punches struck the leader with a rate so high that the sound of the impacts melded into a singular bang.
The drilling strikes reverberated through the leader's body. I could see his back ripple with each blast as the hands pierced his flesh like spears.
A brief implosion graced his flesh as the man's fists doused themselves in blood and atomized sweat.
Six fist-shaped craters had now marked the leader. Steam left each wound as the sheer friction threatened to set his fur ablaze.
Sinners, however, are resistant to pain, and a claw slowly sailed toward the man with no less force than before. Before it could connect, the man stepped in deep and propelled his own fist.
The leader's face was forced skywards. His broken jaw shattered into fragments and rattled like loose change in a burlap sack.
The man did not step away from the claw swipe. Instead, he positioned himself in such a way that the inside of the leader's elbow would harmlessly buckle onto his shoulder. The claws never scraped against his flesh.
The man decisively stomped the inside of the leader's knee, instantly snapping it like a fragile pane of glass. The creature did not roar in pain. Instead, it forced its broken jaw to open wide. The shattered bones creaked in protest, but the leader still launched them forward in a ferocious bite.
The man grabbed the leader's arm, and with a subtle twist of the wrist, the leader's fragile balance failed. His jaw snapped down onto nothing.
He did not let go. The man sharply pulled the arm into full extension before striking the elbow joint with the heel of his palm. The bone snapped and pierced the leader's skin as a hardened point.
The man stabbed a finger through one of the leader's eyes, and the globe burst as he withdrew it. But that was just an appetizer.
The next strike to the throat left a gentle crater that swallowed the leader's Adam's apple.
The leader coughed out a mixture of his pulped organs and shredded throat. His remaining bloodshot eye widened in terror.
The man pivoted out and dragged the arm that had already been broken out of its socket. Then, after grabbing the forearm like the handle of a lance, the man pushed the sharp bone of the leader's arm right through his jaw and out his cheek.
The leader stood as if frozen in time. His shallow, agonized breaths were the only signs he was alive.
The man proceeded to unceremoniously push the leader over.
"I'm getting old. I should have impaled your brain with the last one. Lucky you, I guess."
The man's earpiece picked up.
"You get to live to fight another day."
The voice on the earpiece began to pick up, the man, however, had plucked the small device out and crushed it.
"I heard sinners can heal anything if they aren't dead. I'll let you heal up and then hopefully I'll be able to have fun with you another day. Sorry for the trouble."
The man reached into his pocket and tossed the leader a small bag of ketchup. I was befuddled. However, I didn't dare speak. This was probably some nonsensical insult the man decided to add in.
Fear began to coat me like a lather.
Those piercing blue eyes focused on my form. He spoke with his usual, infuriating playfulness.
"You seem pretty strong. Wanna go?"