“Please stop! Why must you do this to us?!” A little girl cried with tears streaking down her face.

In her arms, there was a boy around the same age as her with a seared wound across the entirety of his chest.

“Our village has lived in harmony with all of you for so many years! Why must you target us now?!” The little girl continued, her wails becoming even louder.

However, the beast in front of her showed no pity. Instead, a twisted smile crept up its face.

“Why, you ask? Well isn’t that simple? It’s because it’s fun, of course! It’s oh so very fun!”

The girl’s face contorted in anger, but her expression quickly crumpled. The situation was hopeless. She could only wait for death.

The others around her were the same. In fact, they didn’t even have the nerve to say anything in the first place. They stood in shock as their legs threatened to give up.

One of them even had a faint trickle of yellow liquid running down their leg, but none of the others would make fun of him for it. They were in the same situation.

“Yes! Yes! That’s the look I want to see! Despair, humans! This is the natural order!” The beast laughed maniacally.

“So what if that damn ruler of the forest says we must not harm you humans? You are nothing but livestock to us!!”

The pack of beasts slowly closed their encirclement, taking their sweet time to kill the children. Even if only their leader was talking, they all shared the same enjoyment as him.

“Ling’er, there’s no use holding me. Please get up and run away. Maybe I can use the last of my life to distract them for a bit.” The boy in her arms said weakly.

“No! When we were kids, I promised I would stay by your side forever! I won’t lose you, brother Cheng!” She cried, hugging him closer.

But the beasts cared not for their drama. As the leader decided it was time to start killing them off, two streaks of light, one black and one blue, exited the forest to their left.

BOOM!

The streaks of light charged into the pack of beasts and created thunderous explosions on impact, shocking not only the group of teens, but also the beasts themselves.

“Oi oi oi, isn’t it a little pathetic to be picking on kids like this?” A voice rang out from within the billowing cloud of dust.

“That’s right. these little beasts ought to be taught a lesson, don’t they?” A woman’s voice added from the second dust cloud.

“Of course. Arrogant little **s like them need to be put in their place. Though, I don’t think they’d have a chance to repent after they become mincemeat.” The man responded.

As the dust cleared up, two figures were revealed. Although their appearances were plain enough to pass over at a glance, the terrifying auras they radiated couldn’t be ignored.

“Now then,” the man continued, black lightning crackling through his surroundings, “how about we clean things up here?”

“With pleasure.”

The teens could only stand frozen in shock and watch as the crowd of beasts that had been terrorizing them was turned into corpses littering the ground.

The man used horrendous lightning, pummeling the beasts into the ground and crushing their bodies with his physical strength. His fighting style was so raw that he could almost be mistaken for a beast himself.

Meanwhile, the woman fought with unparalleled elegance. The blue fire emitting from her caused the atmospheric temperature to drop many degrees as the beasts around her were reduced to cinders.

It didn’t take long at all for the 40 or so beasts around the group to reduce in number, with only the leader left standing.

Although he should have helped his pack in getting rid of the newcomers, he wasn’t in the correct mental state to do so.

“These two! Just where did they come from! That man said all the humans in this forest were weaklings!”

He was practically shivering in fear, his eyes trembling as he slowly backed away. He was trying his best to flee before the duo noticed he was gone.

His steps were as light as air, making no sound as he backtracked towards the bush behind him. But before he could enter it and run for his life…

“Where do you think you’re going?”

The voice colder than ice was like a devil whispering in his ear.

‘Just one more step!’

He was right there. If he was just able to move slightly further, he would be able to escape before they finished killing off his minions. He even ignored the man’s piercing voice that indicated he was already discovered.

At that moment, a primal and horrifying killing intent locked onto him. It was so fierce that it was almost palpable.

‘T-this!’

The leader couldn’t move. Even if he had lived many tens of years, even he hadn’t accumulated a killing intent as strong as this one.

No matter how he tried to run, no matter how he tried to even move a single muscle, it was impossible.

‘W-what is this?’

It was like the aura of a beast. An aura even fiercer than any beast he had ever met and more horrendous than even the man who made him submit.

The pack leader raised his head with difficulty, trying to see what was going on in front of him, but he was met with only a pair of deep red eyes that made even his soul quake in fear.

“Didn’t you hear me the first time?” The man said once again. “Where. Do. You. Think. You’re. Going.”

It was no longer a question. He no longer felt he had a path to survival. The beast felt the command in those words.

‘Stay right here until I tell you to move.’

Based on pure aura alone, the beast knew he was stronger than the man who was trying to command him. Yet… Yet!

‘My body won’t listen to me!’

He was forced to wait patiently and watch as his brethren were slaughtered. Even if he didn’t care about them that much, he knew that it was his fate next.

And after the last one had died, the two who had caused this calamity to befall him looked in his direction.

“M-my lord, this is just a misunderstanding. Please spare me.”

Damien and Ruyue looked at each other and smirked.

“Oh really? This is just a misunderstanding huh?”

“Y-yes! You see, we were just playing a joke on those kids! There is actually a rule in this forest that we must not attack the humans residing in the village! I would never try to truly harm them!”

“Is that so? I guess it really was a misunderstanding then.”

The beast smiled slightly. ‘This is it! I might be able to live!’

“But isn’t this fun?”

“I-I’m sorry?”

“I said, isn’t this fun? Seeing a beast like you despair. Seeing you cower in front of me. Isn’t it fun?”

The beast slowly became drenched in a cold sweat as the man approached it.

“Isn’t this the natural order? You see, I’m similar to you. I just love seeing filthy and arrogant beasts like you tremble in front of me.”

The beast knew what was going to happen the second the man arrived in front of him. He knew, but he could do nothing about it. His aura, his flames, all of it seemed to be sealed in front of that bestial command that was uttered previously.

“Well,” the man continued, “there’s no reason for me to explain myself to you since you’ll be dead soon anyway.”

The beast was trembling. It could do nothing in front of the massive illusive pair of glowing red eyes that bore down upon him.

And suddenly…

Its field of vision flipped 180 degrees. The last thing it would ever see being the upside-down face of that terrifying man with a vicious smile plastered across his face.