Sen’s eyes glowed a brilliant blue in the darkness of the looming forest. However, that was not how he viewed it—or at least not fully. When his head darted from side to side, the world flickered with color, then returned to darkness once more—as if his very own eyes were confused about how to perceive the light around him.

  His body wasn’t really any different, either. With every stride he took, he outpaced an ordinary person fivefold, but that didn’t come without cost. Striking pain shot through his muscles in retaliation. They begged him to stop—to rest for a moment and take it slow.

  And yet, Sen did not listen to their silent screams of agony.

  For he couldn’t even listen to his own mind at the moment. It was overwhelmed with bloodlust, with an unquenchable drive to harvest the fear that could be squeezed out of a creature—any creature. It didn’t matter how he was able to get it; all that mattered was that he succeeded.

  It was more addictive than any drug that had plagued the world in its history. As strong as Sen thought he had been, it was impossible to simply resist the sweet scent of fear and the addictive feeling it awarded him. And so, he didn’t stop.

  He shot through the trees, ducking under branches and leaping over shrubberies with his strong but aching legs. Even the moon itself, as it gazed down upon the earth with its watchful regard, couldn’t keep up with Sen’s devilish speed. It was, for lack of better words, otherworldly.

  More... Sen thought with a sense of detachment as he lunged over a fallen tree trunk. More fear.

  Then he halted suddenly, his aching muscles finally getting a brief rest. Sen smelled it in the air. His next victim was near.

  Springing into action, his muscles began their fruitless cries once more—which he bluntly ignored. His eyes picked up a faint blue trail of fear amid the flickering surroundings that changed color. There were many blue lines, in fact, leading in different directions; however, he picked the strongest and nearest one.

  Sen’s mere presence had caused a dark pressure to envelop a portion of the forest—a pressure that made any creature run in terror, although they had no understanding of exactly what it was they were fleeing from. And Sen was following the faint blue trail of fear they left behind.

  Sen skirted across the forest so swiftly it almost looked as if he were flying, breaking large branches that dared to block his path. He twisted to the left, fighting his way through a large bramble bush that caught him by surprise. Unfortunately, it didn’t slow him down at all. With a quick wave of his hand, the bramble bush imploded from the sheer force of his attack—like a tiny shock wave being released, causing the massive bush to splinter and scatter in all directions. The scratches he had received from the bush’s thorns were gone before he even dashed in the fear trail’s direction once more. His body—once frail compared to others—was not the same anymore. Any external wounds he had sustained were healed automatically, as if from a fairy tale. Even those with Touch didn’t have the ability to fully regenerate existing wounds like he had, regardless of their strong bodies.

  Sen was no longer human, or perhaps he had never been one to begin with.

  He halted as the fear trail he followed ended before the looming figure of a white-furred monster. It stood on two large, bunny-like legs, with a muscular torso and upper body. Its arms hung limply like a gorilla’s between its spread legs, and the long claws on its paws grazed closely against the ground.

  Its face bore a long, pointed snout, with its jaw open, letting its tongue loll loosely over its line of sharp teeth. Most distinctively, it had comically large, bunny-like ears that ended with a sharp point.

  It was a silver-ranked monster.

  Although it towered over him menacingly, easily able to eat a creature of his size, it made no effort to attack him. Or, more accurately, it simply couldn’t. It was frozen with fear as Sen stalked toward it.

  The monster trembled, the fear it exuded growing with every stride Sen took, and it was hopeless to run away. It couldn’t move. It couldn’t think. It couldn’t even grasp how a human could make it feel such a way. All it could do was give in to the bitter fear that was quelling inside of it.

  “Yes...” Sen sighed, relishing the feeling. “Give it all to me.”

  Within a blurry second, the head of the monster thudded onto the ground, blood spurting from its neck, as Sen drew his sword back into its case. The decapitated body of the monster stood still for a moment, the muscles working on their own. However, it was futile. The reality of death reminded the muscles, and they eventually admitted defeat. The body tumbled to the ground pathetically.

  Sen sighed, sucking in the last ounce of fear that oozed out of the monster. He needed more. There wasn’t an end to his thirst for it, nor did he want there to be. The thrill, the excitement of harvesting fear, was irresistible to any entity.

  “Monster confirmed, Buntai. Eight points added to Team Baru. Total points: Five hundred and thirty-four points,” his techno-watch confirmed.

  Sen’s mind didn’t care about that; he barely even noticed. All that truly mattered to him was the pursuit of that feeling—a feeling so profound that it easily overshadowed any other pleasure in the world.

  Better than sex, better than self-pleasure, even better than uncovering information about his so-called deceased father.

  Sen’s obsession with finding his father came from his feeling of longing—the hole inside his chest. He believed that if he ever found his father, the gaping space within him would close up. However, faced now with the exhilarating sensation of fear, perhaps Sen would not agree anymore.

  At least... once he returned to reality.

  Currently, Sen didn’t have the capacity to even think about anything, much less a compelling thought of his emotions. As he whirled like a shadow through the forest, a small rabbit beneath the shrubs perked its ears in confusion, wondering what had passed it with such inconceivable speed. Leaves from trees and bushes rustled from the wind he created when running. He was following another trail of fear.

  And it was close.

  Perhaps saying he was close was an understatement due to his swiftness, as the immobile figure of his next victim stood before him. It was much smaller than the last monster; however, the threat surely did not diminish. It had the long, slender, elegant body of a mountain cat, featuring black fur with white spots. Long, mighty horns of a deer grew from its round face alongside its straight cat ears, and spikes resembling the tips of arrows lined sharply along its back. As Sen veered closer, the black mane along its neck bristled, standing on its end. Once again, the magnificent sensation of fear coursed inside of Sen, leaving him groaning with pleasure.

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  “Yes…” he whispered, slowly marching toward the frozen monster. With every stride, the fear grew, and so did the sensation along with it. He closed his eyes to relish it, even as he was too overwhelmed.

  The next moment he opened his eyes, the monster was gone. His muddled mind couldn’t wrap around why it had escaped when all the other monsters had stayed frozen in fear. Perhaps he had been so absorbed in pleasure to notice, or he simply didn’t know how exactly he could control them. It was controlling his powers with instinct rather than understanding.

  He growled in frustration, but before he could begin trailing the monster again, a loud ringing sound filled his ears, bringing him to his knees. The noise was so excruciating that he could feel the tiny sensory hairs in his eardrums bursting from the agony. He struck his own ears in hopes of stopping the ringing; however, that only seemed to make things worse. Blood dripped from his ears between the fingers that futilely tried to block out the invisible sound. No matter how hard he struggled, the sound only intensified, indicating it couldn’t be coming from outside, but rather... from his own ears.

  Then everything went silent. Not a single cricket nor rustle of leaves created by the wind was audible. It was as if the world’s volume had been manually turned off by a mighty deity. After the excruciating pain he had just endured, it was a welcome break. Unfortunately, this moment of peace didn’t last.

  A flurry of tens, if not hundreds, of sounds immediately assaulted his ears. It wasn’t just a simple ringing anymore. No, it was a combination of individual noises. The sounds of the nearby river, an owl hooting, crickets chirping, a monster slowly growling, the wind rustling leaves, and even the leaves themselves. It was all so loud, and he heard it all happening at the exact same time—like every sound within a few miles radius was assaulting him.

  But one sound was the most prevalent. It was the voice of a screaming girl… and it sounded familiar.

  “Someone... please help.”

  Why did the voice make him pause? What was it about that suddenly made his heart lurch?

  Sen’s muddled mind, blinded by the addiction to fear, couldn’t quite grasp it. Yet his body yearned to hear her voice once more. His ears instinctively fixated only upon her, drowning out the countless other sounds. How he managed to do that remained a mystery, but perhaps a small part of him fought against the blinding addiction and remembered the voice of his dear friend.

  “Anyone,” the voice whispered in his ears as if she was right next to him. “Sen... help me.”

  Something painfully snapped within him, bringing him to his knees. This time, the pain didn’t come from his ears, eyes, or even muscles, for that matter. It emanated from deep within—like someone had flicked off a light switch that connected to his soul.

  “K…” Sen gasped out, almost fighting back control over himself. “Kai…. Kaiyo...”

  The dark, cold voice that plagued him melted away as he whispered the name of his friend.

  He barely had a chance to think before he leaned over and started profusely vomiting. Fortunately, he hadn’t eaten much, so the sight wasn’t more than translucent slime with chunks of indistinguishable food. His eyes turned bloodshot as he forced out the last bit of vomit, then flopped against the ground, panting from exhaustion. There were a few moments where not a single thought came to his mind, or perhaps he simply didn’t want to process what had truly occurred in the last few minutes. However, he was forced to face it sooner or later.

  “Well...” he murmured to himself. Then, for some odd reason… he began laughing. Maybe it was from irony. Maybe it was from desperation. Or maybe he found his position humorous; he wasn’t so sure, yet the laughing didn’t stop. “This sure is becoming a handful, isn’t it?”

  His laughter died down as he lay on the ground, staring at the sky through the opening in the forest’s canopy. I heard Kaiyo... he mustered a thought. She must be near then. Or maybe not; I don’t know how far my ears picked up, but I still heard her. And not only her, either, but every single sound that comes out of this stupid forest. He reached for his ear and felt the sticky substance of blood on his fingers. Sen flinched, flopping his arm back down. What... what am I even supposed to think right now? Should I even try to make sense of what happened?

  Sen wasn’t sure if he wanted to face reality just yet, but the facts slapped him in the face like a rude awakening. I… I don’t really know what happened. One moment, the voice within me was controlling my body to fight the monster, and the next, I went on a killing spree. But worst of all… I was the one who was doing it. Every movement I enacted was done by me—by my brain. So why didn’t I stop? Why did I continue instead of searching for Kaiyo? he wondered in horror. Then he remembered the sensation.

  “Fear,” he said out loud. “When I first killed that monster, I felt fear oozing out of it, and I... lost control? No, that’s not right. I wanted more of it, and my mind went blank. I didn’t care about anything else in the world except feeling it again. I... I was... addicted to it?”

  That realization scared Sen into silence. However, it didn’t last long before he coughed, spitting out the last remnants of his acidic vomit.

  He groaned in pain as he leaned against the nearest tree, feeling every muscle in his body scream in resistance. Sen pulled one leg to his chest, resting his arm on it as he tried to catch his breath. His heart continued to thud in his chest, no matter how much he attempted to relax. The strain of running with such incredible speed and agility in his unusual form had finally caught up to his body.

  While most people, upon awakening their Senses, had time for their muscles and bones to adapt to the new power and grow alongside it, he had no time to adjust or prepare. The immense strength was carelessly thrust into his control, leaving his body torn and broken. Yet, no matter how much it hurt, Sen couldn’t help but remember the feeling of being invincible. Every monster he faced had pathetically frozen before he took their heads. Sen wasn’t sure if any knight could have managed that with such proficiency and speed.

  And… that was why it scared him.

  He eyed the palm of his left hand as if trying to decipher whether it was truly his or someone else’s—something else’s. It was terrifying. How could he even attempt to stand up, knowing that something inside him could control his movements? That there was a chance he might lose his mind again and go on another rampant killing spree, chasing the addictive sensation of fear?

  He clenched his hand, feeling his nails dig into his skin. It trembled before a drop of water splashed on top of it, making him relax his grip. Sen was confused about where the water had come from. He reached for his eyes, wondering if his emotions were out of control again, yet he found no tears.

  No… it was simply the rain.

  Another drop fell before a flurry of others accompanied it, turning into a downpour. Sen didn’t move—not because he couldn’t, but because he didn’t want to. The tree was good enough to shield him from most of the rain, but a few drops still managed to slip between the canopy, one landing on Sen’s cheek. The raindrop trailed down to his chin and splashed on his hand, which was gripping his tracksuit out of desperation.

  “I don’t know what to do…” he said, the rain pattering down on the forest floor. “What am I?”

  He was Sen, but who was truly under that alias? Was he simply another layer in front of someone else deeper inside of him? His heart thudded, and his grip tightened. Then he screamed.

  But it wasn’t a scream of pain. No… it was a scream of despair.

  Both of his hands grasped his head as if trying to prevent it from exploding, while his ears felt muffled from the strain of his violent screams. Each one was worse than the last– each one confessing more than words could ever convey.

  Unlike words, a scream could reveal someone for who they truly were. No matter how reserved, happy, or carefree someone may seem, it all collapsed when a genuine scream emerged. It cannot lie.

  Only in the moment of a pure scream was a person's true self revealed. And Sen had exposed himself–

  Deep down, he was nothing more than a frightened, lost, and desperate boy who yearned for someone’s comfort—someone who could reassure him that he would be alright, someone that would stroke his hair and embrace him.

  Did he have a person like that?

  He had his family, but what if they were just as frightened with him as he was with himself? He could never forget the look on his mother’s face. The look of fear.

  Perhaps she had known all along that he was… a monster.