Hel looked upon the living mortals and could only feel sadness for them. Her role as Goddess of Life and Death is to make sure mortals live life with true purpose before they pass into her realm of the Underworld. But, the Chief God insisted on having complete and total control of all that exists. To that end, Hel was never allowed to voice her objection to the treatment of the many mortals the Chief God 'led'.
Such leading had only brought about an endless, and painful cycle. Every time humanity prospered, the Chief God gave power to monsters to slaughter them. After the slaughter, the Chief God would then empower select humans to lead crusades against the chief among monsters, the Demon Lord, bringing more death.
The cycle was broken when one Demon Lord, a succubus known by the name of Lilith, decided to try to bring peace between monsters and humans. By changing their physical, mental, and sexual nature, changing them into monster girls, or mamono. Lilith had defied the Chief God and sought peace.
However, with such changes came problems. Any union between mamono and a man could only produce more mamono. So, Lilith sought out the solution to this problem, while the Chief God mindlessly sought her death to bring the cycle back.
This never ending conflict brought sorrow upon Hel, as she knew that neither side could truly win. While Lilith sought a solution to the gender birthing problem, her warmongering daughter, Druella, sought to hasten the peace her mother sought by attacking and forcing said peace upon them. Corrupting all women into mamono, and taking the men as sex toys for her 'troops'. Druella would achieve peace, but at the cost of potential extinction of humanity. Meanwhile, the Chief God, blind to the changed nature of the monsters, sent crusade after crusade into the Demon Realm, which only fed more men and women into this flawed system of peace.
Driven by the sorrow of such an outcome, she began to search for the solution to Lilith's problem. Thankfully, her divine power allowed her to search for answers and solutions beyond the boundaries of the world they governed. One of these worlds intrigued her. It was lush and filled with monsters similar to the kinds before Lilith came to power.
However, unlike those monsters, instead of flesh eating beasts that sought human blood, they were animals that had animal desires of life, and most didn't seek the destruction of humanity and those like unto them. Looking deeper into the life force of both their monsters and humanity, she found that the energy they contained within held more potential in them than what she used to bring life. If such power was infused with the life force magic she used…
Without a hint of hesitation, she reached her power through the void to this world to try to find one who could help bring change to the world and allow Lilith's dream of peace to become reality.
Crystal walls and spires were all that remain of the newly discovered Elder Dragon's was a stillness to the air even when a hunter duo entered the Xeno'jiva's hatching grounds. Bioenergy surged beneath their feet, as if it were trying to penetrate their very being.
"This place is amazing," said the younger hunter, who looked like a blue samurai. His armor consisted of plates of blue steel cut into aesthetically pleasing shapes and were decorated with monster teeth and horns, topped off with a blue 'robe' and a sapphire gem attached to the chestplate. "So, you fought that new Elder Dragon here?"
"Yep," responded the hunter dressed in Lunastra armor, the blue steel forming her armor taking the appearance of a short, armored dress. "A hard fight, but not impossible."
"And I wonder why the researchers at base think that Xeno'jiva is a step above Kushala Daora," the young hunter complained. "I mean, I can get that bigger means better, but with how many times I've tried helping other hunters take on a Kushala Daora…"
"Quality over quantity for that metal beast," the royal hunter finished for her newest friend.
The young hunter nodded before looking around at all the crystal formations. He had an easily distracted mind, as he looked at the formations and imagined shapes from the varying crystals like how a child would imagine shapes from clouds. He practically disregarded almost everything else when he was absorbed into 'his little world'. "So many shapes," he said in an almost hypnotized way. "A spear, a trident, a bident, an arch...wait, arch?"
The young hunter paused in his awe filled wandering to attempt to focus on the odd crystal formation. The bioenergy that surged around them seemed to be partially focused on vibrating the crystal arch. The more he looked, the more he felt he could see some sort of shimmering in the arch. So engrossed he was in examining the arch that he almost didn't hear a panicked voice.
"Look out!" Yelled the royal hunter, causing the young hunter to turn around and see the pink and white of an angry Paolumu. He only had enough time to grab the handle of his blacksteel longsword before it rammed into him, causing him and it to tumble through the crystal arch. A bright flash was seen as they made contact with the shimmering in the arch and everything went dark.
Some time later, regardless if it was a few minutes to a few hours, the samurai hunter woke up in a forested area. Almost on instinct, he drew his longsword for self-defence, but that was when he noticed the weapon felt slightly lighter.
"Gosh Dang it!" He shouted as he set the blade down to examine his damaged blade. The tip area had been snapped off. The broken tip gave it a jagged look, the kind that threatened to cut into the flesh poorly and even get stuck, causing more damage and pain than needed. "And I have no clue where I am, so I can't really do anything with this until I find a blacksmith."
He took a look around, attempting to find some form of landmark or other kind of hint as to where he was, but found none. With no real option, he simply picked a direction and began walking. As he walked, he started feeling nervous, as if he was being watched.
As the nervousness built up, he started hearing rustling of leaves almost everywhere, and began to grip his sword's handle harder than needed. His dislike of giving unnecessary wounds didn't keep him from the fear and anxiety that requires a ready weapon.
Suddenly, a red-orange shape leaped from the bushes at him. Out of reflex, he dodged out of the way and took a swipe at the offending creature. Long strands of orange hair fell around him and a female voice spoke.
"Huh, so you like girls with short hair? Good to know." Confused, the hunter turned around and stopped in shock when he saw what he swung at. It, or more appropriately she, was unlike anything or anyone he'd ever seen.
The creature was a half woman, half serpent. Her woman half was rather beautiful, sporting orange hair that was shortened by the impromptu haircut. She wore only two articles of clothing, a silk upper shirt, which was more comparable to a bra top, and a fine sash that covered the connection between woman and snake. Her snake half seemed to oddly make her woman half all the more beautiful. The red-orange scales matched well with her hair and contrasted her outfit rather nicely.
As the hunter was distracted by his 'analysis' of the snake woman, she slithered up to and around him, eyeing him like a piece of meat fresh from the spit. "I must say, I never expected meeting someone from Zipangu, heavily armored no less," the snake woman said. She moved her head closer to his ears and continued speaking. "So, tell me, am I your target?"
The woman's breath from her speaking snapped the hunter out of his shock, and he immediately took a swipe at her. Surprised by his sudden attack, she was barely able to miss being sliced in half, the blade only barely marking a small gash on the underbelly portion of her snake half.
"Playing hard to get, huh?" She asked, her face screwing up in arousal. "It's such a turn on, I can't wait to claim you as my husband." She then lunged at him and he dodged around it, retaliating with another slash. The slash missed her completely, but gave him room to jump back.
The hunter wanted to say something, but with the adrenaline in his system, he couldn't form words. He could only stutter out barely coherent sounds. He quickly stopped when it became apparent that his speech was currently messed up, and focused on the snake woman, who had a knowing smirk.
Suddenly, he felt something sharp, yet heavy impact his back. He began to turn around to see what hit him, when the impact point suddenly turned numb and began spreading quickly. In less than a second, he went from a barely coherent, but strong warrior into a pile of flesh and bone that was high on what felt like a pleasurable mixture of sleep gas and paralysis venom.
As his vision began to fade, he heard a new female voice speaking to the snake woman. "Unexpected and unplanned teamwork. We should share, since we both managed to bring him down."
"Sounds like an idea I can agree with," the woman responded just as the hunter fully fell unconscious.