"Everybody in place?" The captain asked to the person beside him.
The sky was black, pitch black with only the moon and stars being the visible in the darkness of the swamp forest.
The hunters moved in silence, their feet quick and calculated as they leap from branch to branch, even using ropes and vines to swing from one place to another.
Silent and deadly they made their way through the tree tops, their objective clear- To hunt the Beast of Calamity.
"How much does the guild even have for that beast's bounty? It can't be more than a million right?" One of hunters whispered his senior and recieves a silent slap as a reward.
"It's a billion you moron! A whole damn 'billion" the senior whispers, his voice barely audible to the others.
Meanwhile the captain looks back at the newbies from the front, sighing as he scoffs at their Idiotic questions and sped up.
He soon reached their destination, the cave where Grevois was sleeping and they could see his massive slithouette in the distance.
The captain looks at Grevois, his experienced eyes hinting at anticipation and excitement and above them all, greed.
He gestures for his crew to move, telling them to go to their positions and everyone followed without question.
'Some more snacks for me to feast on, nice!... when will these humans understand that their greed will be their doom?' Grevois thought, completely awake as he looked at the hunters running around.
They were not the first ones to do this, neither will they be the last ones but that didn't matter to him because they can at best be some afternoon snacks for him.
He lowers his head, acting as if completely asleep and the dumb Idiotic Captain didn't question it once.
Grevois sensed the hunters come closer by the second, each holding onto their weapons as they created a formation and get ready to bombard him with attacks.
One minute, two minutes, the time kept moving as the hunters just stood there in silence, ready to lunge onto him but nobody dared move before the captain's order.
The captains looked at Grevois, raised his hand and with a single chopping motion, begins the ambush. Or so he had thought.
*Blood curdling screaming*
A black whip like tether ruptured through the ground, digging through the chest of one of the vanguard.
Everyone looked at the impaled vanguard, horror filled their eyes as they gradually moved back until another tether pierced one of the Rangers.
"Let the feast begin!" Grevois said to himself and roared, sending a shockwave around him as he stood up, his front claws transfigured into black tethers and passing through the ground.
Utter chaos, hunters panicking as they ran for there lives, no longer carried by their greed and desires however-
"ATTACK HIM YOU MAGGOTS", The captain swings his flail, killing many of the deserters as the chain grew long and shattered every one of them to bits.
The hunters were overtaken by fear, desertion meant death and so did Fighting back, so they decided to just fight even it meant no survival.
None of them even thought about attacking the captain and escaping because they knew he would just slaughter them like sheep.
The hunters turned, their weapons pointed at Grevois who looked at them with amusement as he slowly walked towards them.
He gazed upon them from above, his towering frame terrifying them even more as he only said one word and all hell went lose.
"Run"
************
Fwoosh, a black tether pierced through another hunter, another one killed and pulled straight to the Grevois's mouth.
Grevois laughed, his gluttony overwhelming him as he laughed like crazy while devouring more and more of the hunters.
His body was transforming with each passing second, sometimes a dragon's head, sometimes a crocodile's scales, his body was living nightmare that would sent shivers down anybody's body with a mere gaze.
The swamp was being destroyed, crushed under the abomination's body as Grevois ran through it like running on a jogging track, flattening everything and everyone in his path.
The hunters screamed in terror as they watched eachother get devoured one by one, some by a dragon head and some sucked dry by a stinger.
Boom
The captain's flail cuts through the air and bashed into Grevois, destroying one of his legs which regrew in a instant and Grevois turned to the captain.
The captain watched Grevois dash towards him, Panic taking over his heart as he watched the monster in front grow bigger by the second.
"YOU WISH!"
The captain rolled, dodging the tackle and stood up behind Grevois where he saw the Abnormal beast in it's full glory.
A dragon's head, scales of a reptile, tentacle like claws, Lion like body, The captain could beat describe Grevois as a living disaster.
Grevois's tail moved, turning into a drill as it spun and launched itself at the captain who barely ducked under it, dodging the blow at the last second.
Nevertheless, his struggle was pointless as Grevois had already killed all the other hunters, turning the captain into a cornered rat whose faith is to be toy and devoured.
"Who placed the bounty this time? Your guildmaster? Some rich brat? or maybe–", Grevois came closer, careless and prideful as he glared at the captain, "Yourgreed"
What happened next was nothing surprising as Grevois lifted his hand, bent it and struck the captain with a full swing that sent him flying far away and back into the cave.
The captain hits a wall, his body brutally messed up and his bones cracked as he slide down it like a squashed insect and fell straight in front of a bonfire.
There he saw him, Argus who was asleep on the floor, completely ignorant of everything going around and a plan formed in Captain's head.
"Must. take. Him... Hostage" he mutters, putting all his force in as he crawled towards Argus, putting all his link into a final chance at survival.
Stab stab stab... Rip
Dozens of tentacles and tethers pierced into the captain's body, pinning him down on the ground and twisting his limbs at all sort of angles, until there was not a single bone left in his limbs.
Grevois walked in, his feets silent as his body shrunk to the size of a cub while the tethers were recalled back into his body.
"You should have ran when you had the chance."
Then with a quick jab, the captain was cleanly beheaded, his corpse being used as food by Grevois who tried all sort of plants as taste enhancers alongside it.
The beast smiled, chuckling with glee as he devoured his meal bite by bite until there was nothing left.
**********
"Urgh"
Argus groans as he woke up, finding himself still in the damp cave, surrounded by nothing but rocks, water and a giant lion and tiger mixture that was dozens of times his size.
Lazily Argus pulled himself up, feeling hungry and thirsty he freshens up and soon walked outside.
There he was greeted with a sight of hundreds of craters scattered around the valley, broken trees and crumbled rocks, everything hinting at one thing- A Fight.
Argus turns around, sprinting towards Grevois as he forgot about everything else.
"What happened last night!? Answer me!" He asked Grevois, worry and panic evident on his face.
Grevois lifted his head and sighs before turning towards Argus and calmly said "Some monkey tried to eat you and I ate him, nothing more.", tossing a small box to Argus as he talked.
Argus looked at him, not convinced by th excuse but there was nothing he could do to argue so he relented, shifting his focus to box instead.
He placed it on the ground, flipped the lock and spread open the cover to reveal a brilliant looking outfit consisting of a shirt, a vest, a pair of boots, a pant with pouches and finally a flail.
"These.." , Argus turns to Grevois, doubt lingering in his thoughts, "Where did you get this?"
"Took them from some fool who tries to fight me, he has long desolved in my stomach." Grevois told Argus nonchalantly.
Argus found the explanation somewhat half-assed but it was also the most plausible one because there is no way a beast like Grevois wasn't a public enemy.
However that was none of his problem, so Argus shifted his focus to the gear instead and quickly begins changing into them.
"So... What is the plan now?" Grevois asked.
"Plan?", Argus looks up and thinks, "Maybe go to some city or something, I can't stay in a jungle forever."
Grevois sighs, feeling the similarity in Argus and Ethan, their similar hunger for freedom and joy.
He looks down at Argus, his Skinny frame sticking out like a sore thumb compared to the muscles on his arms and couldn't help but raise his claw.
"Take this" he said while tapping Argus's shoulder with his claw and sent a sizzling pain down the spine.
Argus screamed and collapsed on the floor, his nerves screeching in pain as he tilted his head and looked at the shoulder, and saw a tattoo of blue colour that looked like four beasts (Dragon, Tiger, Crocodile, Leviathan) chasing each other's tails.
"Make sure to comeback every once in a while and-"
Grevois's eyes expanded as they stared into Argus's eyes.
"Never take the quest to hunt the beast of Calamity."
Argus nods, completely aware of the reason behind the warning and moved on to trying his clothes while Grevois returns to his sleep after spitting out a skull.