He shook his head and prepared to continue his patrol. Just then, his ears suddenly caught a strange sound.
It was neither the clash of blades nor a human scream, but a kind of... chewing.
The sound came from a hollow less than two hundred meters away.
Rokuya frowned slightly, pushed off with his toes, and became a blur as he sped in that direction.
When he stood atop a thick dead tree and parted the branches and leaves before him to see the scene below, even someone as well-traveled and knowledgeable as him could not help drawing a sharp breath.
A massive, one-horned demon lay in the clearing in the hollow. Yet now, this demon that should have been hunting humans seemed to have become a lamb awaiting slaughter. The left half of its body had been torn into a bloody mess, and it let out utterly agonized screams that even carried fear.
"Don't... don't eat me! You monster! What the hell are you?!" The one-horned demon struggled frantically, but a thick arm pinned it firmly to the ground.
And the one pinning it down was actually a human boy-Genya Shinazugawa!
Genya's condition was extremely bizarre. Though his body was covered in wounds, none of them bled. Instead, the flesh at those wounds writhed much like a demon's regenerating tissue. What shocked Rokuya even more was that half of Genya's face had become completely distorted. Thick veins bulged on his forehead, his once-human teeth had become as sharp as a beast's, and even the whites of his eyes had taken on a demon's blood-red color.
He used neither a blade nor the short gun at his waist. Instead, he lay directly on top of the one-horned demon, opened his fang-filled mouth, and sank his teeth savagely into the demon's