“Maria, look out!” Blademaster fell down right behind the little girl and used his left arm to protect her from a tiger’s paw-swipe. Blood gushed out of his lacerated forearm, as he screamed in pain. At the same time, a loud roar came from ‘Hammer-Guy’ as his furry right leg was chomped down upon by a six-hundred pound, orange and white tabby-cat.

“Jason?! Grah~!” Knife-Girl swiftly jumped out and stabbed her katana into a black leopard’s left eye-socket, before pulling out a kunai and telekinetically throwing it into a cheetah’s chest. Visibility was fairly low within the dark forest and if there weren’t cars everywhere, it would have been difficult to tell that they were actually standing on what had previously been a rather large road.

The giant Minotaur yelled “The two of you need to get outta here!” as he kicked the giant green tiger off of his left leg and charged towards them. His sledgehammers had rubber handles and stainless-steel heads, so even as he swung them around and bludgeoned the enormous cats, he didn’t have to worry about them breaking.

Blademaster reached out with his left hand and telekinetically pulled his over-sized machete from the dead monster’s body and shouted “No, Ray, we ain’t gonna leave ya here ta die! Stop tryin ta play the tragic hero every chance you get!”

The three of them grouped up together and began defending each other in a desperate struggle against a seemingly endless horde of ‘cats’. However, they were gradually receiving injuries every few seconds and by the time five minutes passed, the two huge men were on the brink of bleeding to death from their scratches and bite-wounds.

Since they were so embroiled in their little battle, they didn’t even notice as a huge tan tank rolled up a few dozen meters to the north. Then a fifty-caliber machine-gun started tearing apart the tigers, lions, panthers and leopards with ease.

There were even a few grenades that exploded, and Beatrix had been sniping the gargantuan ‘kittens’ since they first caught sight of the struggling trio. That huge cannon turned and aimed off in the distance, firing once and hitting the remnants of a church; it was then that a deafening and furious roar erupted and even shook the ground.

From the wreckage of that building, a five-meter tall tiger crawled outside. Its crimson eyes quickly locked onto the tank and the wounded beast stomped against the ground, roaring in fury as it sprinted forward at an alarming speed.

However, with a bit of adjustments to the cannon’s pitch, Kelsey fired off another shell and managed to strike the colossal cat’s right foreleg. Even though its limb was obliterated and it had received severe internal damage from the blast, it still continued running in their direction. Once it was within range, Lee started launching grenades, killing it rather swiftly.

Once their ‘leader’ was dead, the remaining frenzied felines frantically scattered in every direction. The giant Minotaur started laughing hysterically as he gazed down at the tank. Hobbling over, he casually sat down onto the front end. He placed the two sledgehammers to his right and then picked up one of the bullet-ridden tiger-corpses off of the ground with his left.

“I haven’t seen one of these since my last tour in Afghanistan… Never thought there would come a day, when my scrawny ass could tower over one, hahahaha~!” Raymond used nothing but his talon-like fingernails, to ‘cut’ and rip the pelt from that huge cat’s shank. Even though there had been grotesque wounds all over his body, as soon as he began eating that incredibly mana-rich meat, he also started healing at an absurd pace.

On the other hand, Knife-Girl, who wasn’t injured too badly, sprinted over to the giant clumps of meat near the church’s wreckage. She was digging through the carnage in search of something and didn’t even bother to speak to the ‘strangers’ who had just saved them.

Jason sheathed his over-sized glowing machete onto his back and slowly walked over to the tank, sitting down next to ‘Hammer-Guy’. Then he touched the gaudy golden ring on his right hand, middle finger, and a mysterious vial of crimson liquid appeared.

The moment he drank that strange ‘potion’, all of the wounds on his body started healing at an absurd pace. Within five seconds, he was totally fine, as if he had never been injured in the first place.

Only after he was completely recovered, did the extremely tall man with dreadlocks finally turn around and ask “Are you kids bounty-hunters or simply good Samaritans? If you want to ‘capture’ us, it’s going to be pretty much impossible…”

Luke snickered, leaning over the fifty-caliber machine-gun and saying “Hi, I’m Luke Lucas and these are my ‘friends’… Are you guys wanted for something? We were just passing by and saw this mess… It’s not like we could just ‘go around’, when there were dozens of magical-beasts rampaging on the road.”

Kelsey was still sitting in the cannon’s seat, but she could easily see everything from various monitors. She yelled “Oi, ask em why the fuck they don’t have any guns!”

Raymond started laughing hysterically, grabbing that enormous barrel with his right hand and answering “Does it look like I can hold a ‘normal’ firearm?!”

Jason frowned, wondering “Are ya’ll really that clueless? Jesus, I figured everybody knew this shit by now but… Well, first of all, guns are typically pretty damn noisy; it ain’t too bad out here, but the closer you get to the city, the more dangerous it is. You’d never be able to survive dragging this giant thing along, so you might as well turn around now, while you still can. Aside from that, without some sort of magical device to hold all your ‘loot’, there’s no point in even treasure hunting; you’ll either get weighed down, or the items might attract unwanted attention. Now, there are people who still use guns and bows or whatever, that’s fine, but you’ll run outta ammo real~ fast… Last but definitely not least, is that my machete and Maria’s Japanese sword are both ‘Legacies’; they’re practically indestructible, can even cut through steel if you’re strong enough to do that. Supposedly, the more you use Legacies to kill magical-beasts or other powerful ‘enemies’, they get special effects… Even if you don’t believe all that afterlife bullshit, you should still try to get your hands on some of them.”

The giant Minotaur chuckled, turning towards the little girl with a sniper-rifle and told her “It’s impossible to steal Legacies… Once a person dies, it just disappears.”

Beatrix whispered “I know that already, but I also know that those rings on Blademaster’s hands are ‘Artifacts’, not Legacies.”

Luke sighed dramatically, “Okay, we aren’t interested in ‘stealing’ anything… Listen, we’re going to heed your advice and head back home for the day. There’s no point in bringing along a tank, if we can’t even use it. Besides, it’s been a few hours and I don’t feel comfortable leaving base for too long. Why don’t the three of you come with us? I promise we aren’t bounty hunters…”

A blood and gore-covered child in ninja-gear came running over, and hurriedly handed a tiny green bead over to Jason. She giggled as he patted her tiny head with his giant right hand, then he tossed the strange object over to Beatrix, explaining “Consider that as thanks for saving our asses… and you probably have no idea what that thing is or how to use it, right? Umm, so like, the stronger psychics and monsters will have one of these pearls in their brains or some other part of their bodies; sometimes they even have more than one, though it’s rare. Anyway, you can do all kinds of stuff with them: make drugs, create magical items, use em like batteries to heal or recover your psychic abilities faster, but most people just collect em to trade or sell.”

Lee suddenly asked “Wait, did you ‘make’ the weird potion you drank earlier and those weird rings?”

Maria glanced up at the boy and replied “Jay is awesome at making drugs, but we found those rings and some other magical stuff while searching through ‘dungeons’! They’re really dangerous though, so you ‘kids’ shouldn’t try to go there!”

The back door of the tank slowly came down into a ramp and Iris walked out, holding a silenced assault-rifle with both hands. When she reached the front of the vehicle, she looked up at Luke and announced “Well, it’s been ‘fun’, but this is where we part ways… I’ll see you guys later, unless you all die, then goodbye forever motherfuckers!”