Sadi jolted awake, frantically looking around her and trying to get a sense of her surroundings. After a moment, the haze faded from her mind and she remembered that she was in a forest just outside of some town that she had stumbled on in the West Forest.

Even though many years had passed since she left home, those words her mother said to her that day rang in her head like a bell. She sat up and leaned her head back against the tree she had been resting on, looking up and clutching her cursed eye, thinking to Malfuim where she grew up and scowling.

“Glad that bitch is dead…” Sadi growled, clenching her fist tightly.

As she made her way to her feet, she retracted the ring of shadows surrounding her. There were a few hints of blood that she could make out in them, but it quickly disappeared. She smirked at the sight of the blood and leaned down to gently pet her shadow. As she did, it peeled off the ground and moved up to meet her, nuzzling in to her hand. Sadi smiled, noting how happy her shadow seemed to be. Once she retracted her hand and her shadow returned to the ground, forming a ring around her, she picked up her back and tossed it over her shoulder.

Leaping through the forest, she scouted several patches of creatures she deemed as a suitable breakfast. Blades of darkness shot through the air, striking the animals and quickly draining the life from their eyes, causing them to collapse to the ground. When she landed on the ground and was about to cut up their dead bodies, she realized she missed another much larger beast. The creatures she had killed were like small and deer-like, but the one standing over their dead bodies was absolutely massive and had gigantic antlers that already seemed to be covered in blood.

Sadi smirked. She knew that it would be easily to simply kill this beast the same way as the others who she could only assume were its children, but it would be far more fun if she actually fought it. So far, all the creatures in the forest had been disappointing and provided no challenge to her, but it seemed like that was changing.

Sadi backed up, holding her hand out, a seal forming on her palm. From the seal came a construct arm. The construct was mostly stable, but for a bit of extra flair, Sadi had left the edges incomplete, so that they would trail essence like fire. The arm fully encompassed her own and was easily three times the size, giving it the appearance that it belonged to some kind of demon and not a scrawny fourteen-year-old girl.

Once her first arm had fully formed, she rushed forward, slashing her clawed construct fingers at the beast. The beast swiped its antlers at her though, tossing her aside and slamming her face first in to a tree. Standing back up, she wiped the blood from her nose and smiled widely at the beast that was now charging her. Before it could clash with her, Sadi formed her other construct arm and held both out to catch the charging beast’s antlers. Digging her fit in to the ground, she was able to keep it at bay, but it soon started gaining ground. Thinking fast, she released her hold and ducked down underneath the beast as it charged forward. As it did, she slashed her claws along its underside, digging them in as deep as she could before rolling away and waiting for the reaction of the creature.

It took the creature a moment before it stopped, but when it did, it wailed in pain, seemingly only realizing the injury that it had incurred at that moment. After a moment of both combatants standing there, the large beasts collapsed to the ground, wind billowing out from underneath of it. At the same time, Sadi fell to her knees, gasping as her claws disappeared. Her eyes widened and she cough, bits of blood spraying out of her mouth. Collapsing to the ground, Sadi’s vision began to fade in to blackness, a devilish smirk crawling across her face at her victory.

When she woke up, she could still feel the toll that the fight had taken on her, despite the return of her essence. She picked herself up and dusted herself off. Her vest was torn, but the bra underneath was fine. Shrugging and frowning, Sadi quickly tossed the vest to the side, moving back to her bag, picking it up and slinging both it and her vest over her shoulder.

At the moment, the only thing that Sadi could think about was how desperately hungry she was. She made her way over to the downed animals and began to feasts on them. Once she was done, she wiped herself off and tidied up a bit, dropping the bodies and the blood in to shadows, presumably never to be seen again.

Out of nowhere, a thunderous boom shook through the forest. Several forest creatures went running past Sadi, but she ignored them, her eyes now fixed on the direction of the sound. After only a moment of thinking, she began sprinting towards the sound, quickly realizing that the direction she was heading was the town that she had passed on her way in. This became more apparent as she saw that those fleeing from the town was not restricted to animals. Sadi slowed her pace, eventually grabbing hold of one of the people frantically running away from the town.

“What happened?” Sadi asked, sternly.

The panicked individual stared at her. “A huge goliath! I-It’s attacking the town. We have no way of defending against it! We sent out an emergency order, but right now, all we can do is run…”

Sadi smirked and released the individual, allowing them to continue to escape. Sadi on the other hand began to stretch out as she continued to walk closer to the town. The whole way in, every person that saw her looked on her with either hope, concern, or confusion yet none tried to stop her, so she continued on. She had no interest or intent to fight the goliath, not after the fight she had just endured.

As she stepped in to the town, just as had been told to her by the person, there was a massive stone goliath in the center of the town. Sadi sighed and looked around, locating several small stones which she proceeded to drop in to shadows at her feet. The stones were then ejected at various places around the town, drawing the goliath’s attention. Each time a stone struck, the goliath would smash the location and Sadi would then maneuver to it, searching through the rubble for whatever money she could find. Eventually, once the entire town had been leveled, Sadi tossed several more stones to attract the goliath away from the town, leaving a path of destruction in its wake.

Tossing the money in to the air as she walked away from the crumbling town, Sadi smirked.  “It really is so easy to make money these days… Now, why don’t I find something fun to spend this on…”