The village was already dead before the snow finished falling.
Twelve bodies lay scattered across the square. Broken armor. Torn throats. Blood steaming in the freezing air, melting the snow beneath them in dark pools.
At the center of it all stood a little girl.
She couldn't have been older than ten. Her black dress was torn and soaked with blood. She licked it from her lips, savoring the taste. Her dark hair hung loose around her pale face, and her eyes—her eyes glowed red like burning coals in the night.
The last soldier stumbled backward, boots slipping in the crimson snow. His sword shook in his trembling hands. He'd seen his entire squad torn apart in seconds. Good men. Friends.
His wife was in one of those houses. His son too, hiding in the cellar like he'd told them.
Please, God, let them still be alive.
"D-Demon," he stammered, raising his blade one last time.
The girl giggled. A child's laugh, innocent and sweet—completely wrong coming from that blood-soaked face.
Then she moved.
The soldier barely saw her. Just a blur of black and red, a gust of freezing wind—then sudden, blinding pain.
His arms twisted at wrong angles. The sword fell from his broken fingers. He looked down and saw her small hand buried deep in his chest, warm and wet.
She tilted her head, curious, like she was examining an interesting toy.
Then she smiled.
No... I have to... my family...
Rip.
She pulled out his heart. Still beating in her small palm.
The soldier's vision blurred. His last thought was of his son's face before he collapsed into the snow.
The demon girl bit into the heart, blood dripping down her chin, steam rising from the warm flesh in the cold air.
Then—
CRACK.
A gunshot shattered the silence.
The bullet punched through her shoulder, spinning her around. The heart tumbled from her hand, landing in the snow with a wet thud.
For the first time that night, she felt pain.
Her glowing red eyes snapped toward the shooter, fury replacing curiosity.
A man stood at the edge of the massacre, snow falling around him like ash. He wore a long black coat over a white shirt and black tie. His dark hair was pushed back. In his hand, a smoking revolver releasing a height contrast of smoke.
Around his neck hung a violet amulet, pulsing faintly with its own inner light.
He stepped forward, boots crunching through the bloody snow, completely ignoring the carnage around him. His amber eyes stayed locked on the demon girl.
"That's enough, kid," he said quietly, his voice carrying across the silent square.
The girl snarled, showing her blood-stained teeth. Then she lunged at him—moving faster than any human could possibly react.
But Chain wasn't just any human.
He sidestepped smoothly, like he'd done this a thousand times before. His sword flashed in one clean arc.
Slice.
Her head flew off her shoulders in a spray of black blood.
Her body twitched once, twice, then collapsed into the snow. Her head landed a few feet away, those red eyes still wide with shock.
Chain exhaled slowly, sliding his sword back into its sheath. He looked around at the bodies scattered across the square—soldiers who'd fought and died trying to protect their village. Then he looked down at the demon child's severed head.
"What a waste," he muttered, his expression cold and disgusted.
He turned and started walking away, his coat billowing behind him as the snow began to cover the blood.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
He stopped.
The silence didn't return.
Instead, a wet, grinding sound echoed behind him. Flesh knitting back together. Bone scraping against bone.
Chain's hand moved back to his sword, amber eyes narrowing. He turned his head slightly.
The girl's headless body was standing up.
Slowly. Jerkily. Like a puppet on strings.
From the severed neck, dozens of thin black tendrils erupted, writhing through the snow like living worms, reaching desperately for the severed head lying nearby.
"You've got to be kidding me," Chain whispered.
Then, from the darkness of the forest surrounding the village, a voice responded.
Deep. Ancient.
"You shouldn't have done that, Hunter."
Chain's entire body tensed. His grip tightened on his sword as he scanned the treeline.
The voice came again, closer this time, echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.
"She was the youngest of us."