1: Deal

Several miles away from the borders of the glitch public shelter, a man and a woman wearing Kevlar-suits dragged their feet on the dreary valleys of Ahanya. The sky has already lost its color, bearing a pitch-black darkness blending against the dying aurora hovering between the two beautiful scarlet moons beyond the horizon.

Amidst the limited visibility, there was an abundance of the inhuman and beastly wails resonating from the darkest corners of the valley. A cries of death and torture, coming from several miles from the current location.

The man had his face partially covered with a black cloth. With his face-covered, he held a primal bow in his hands with an arrow nocked on the bowstring. His boots flattened the grass below with each step while his fingers on the tail of the arrow jittered uncontollably. Surprisingly his breath was steady, yet, his pupils were stretched out to their limits.

He walked behind at a consitent pace, while the woman was dripping with a charm of untamed tigress. With every step she took forward, her accentuated chest was trying to rip the skin-tight breastplate of her temperature resistant synthetic fiber of her suit.

With her skin-hugging kevlar, ‌every curve of her body was out for display. Her tanned skin and trimmed build were almost similar to that of a beefy amazonian.

The woman in front was holding a black broad-sword that contained a muffled urge to kill. A huge empty scabbard stuck to her back.

They both walked a path of solidarity and abeyance as the trail kept getting ominously thinner with each successive step. Surrounded by the gigantic boulders and an ominous silence on both sides of the shady valley, both hunters felt as if they were being choked by an invisible ghost sitting on their shoulders.

While their alertness was at the peak, the bushes seem to have come to life. The cowering reptiles in the path gawked at their body heat from the cold and dark corners of the ground.

"Let's catch a breath here…" the Archer walking behind whispered, "I need a second  to calibrate our current location… "

"Here?"

"Yes.. The rhythm is trailing only till this point… I feel like I'm tracking the rhythm of some ghost…"

"No! No! I told you already…" The woman clicked her tongue, "Don't get distracted by its rhythm… "

"What do you mean? If not rhythm then how else am I supposed to follow a beast in a place like this? "

"Unlike normal ones, this one's rhythmic trail is almost non-existent… there is no point in following it… The degree of stealth it possesses is absolutely insane. We just have to follow our instincts…Just do what i say… this beast is batshit abnormal…"

"Are you fucking kidding me?"

"..." 

The woman nodded.

"Fuck!!!" Realizing that she was not joking, the archer cursed, "So you're telling me that we can't track the beast but the beast can track us…. that means we are just sitting ducks!!  Son of a bitch...I didn't sign up for this."

"FOCUS! you chicken turd… Why do you think I brought you here? You are a scout, aren't you? Get a fucking grip, Jesus!"

"Hey! don't try to pin this on me, you lying hoe… "

"Just shut up…" The woman hissed as she felt the archer's voice going up. "Stay silent you idiot…"

The archer realized his mistake and immediately turned his neck in all directions to check if he alerted any nearby beast. They fortunately didn't. Soon the archer lowered his voice again and whispered, 

"Why the hell do you care so much about this beast, anyway?'

"I have been tracking this one for over 10 days now… " the woman replied without any hesitation, "even a shitless jackass like you could understand how serious I am this time!"

"Wait! Hold on! What did you just say?" Hearing her words, the archer's feet immediately stuck to the muddy ground.

His grip over his bow tightened and his glare jumped on the woman's neck who walked ahead of him, he mumbled,  "10… days… fuck….. so all this time, you were lying to us?"

~Tch

Realizing that she said more than what was needed. The woman clicked her tongue,

"Come on, man! What difference does it make, whether I was lying or not? "

"That's it… I'm done… you can go ahead yourself! You didn't come on any mission with us, and made that silly excuse about being sick. I knew that something was going on with you...turns out you were on a solo hunting trip! After hunting with you for all these years… I can bet my ass that this beast is definitely some kind of million dollar deal, isn't it?"

~tch

Hearing the archer's words, the woman bit his lips in annoyance. An instance later, a grim defeat crawled under her eyeballs.

"Alright! Fine… you got me. What do you want?"

"Half"

"Fuck no! That's too much… No fucking way!"

"Alright, then…" The Archer's feet turned in the opposite direction, "Good luck finding someone else to track it for you coz I'm out..."

He was about to leave, but before the archer could take another step, a hand imbued with murderous intent came at his shoulder. The hair on the archer's nape tingled violently.

~tch

"Fine!" A look of defeat cropped up below the woman's eyes, as she tried to stop him, "I'll give you half"

"Hahaha! Now that's more like it! And here I almost thought you were about to stab me from behind…"

"Do not tempt me, fucker! I just might do it…"

~CLANK

In the very next instant, a metallic grinding sound resonated through air, pulsating a butt-clenching jitter through both of their bodies. Their grip on their weapon tightened and their eyes once again turned toward the trail.

"What the fuck… was that?" he whispered with a slight pause.