The day after Welnar's encounter with Derlock, he would return to the bounty office to find a high priority bounty posted on the board today. An S-grade bounty on a serial killer that has slipped through the guardsmen fingers for a week now, causing them to finally resort to outside help through bounty hunters. A Sorcerer wielding the power of blood manipulation, and being highly skilled in it too.

  Welnar's own blood practically boils at the thought of the monster. Without a second thought, he takes the bounty and heads outside, closing his eyes. Listening… Honing in on a Psychotic heartbeat. He sure feels lucky, being able to use this to find the guy quickly…

  {“Down south.”} Welnar concludes after a solid minute of listening.

  {“Let's not waste time then. We have a scarlet blade to claim.”} Monarch says.

  {“And people to save.”} With that thought, Welnar makes his way south in Ekstrall, in search of the murderer.

  …

  After a few hours of meticulous moving and listening, Welnar manages to narrow down the location of the psycho. A rundown, seemingly abandoned house with boarded up windows, barely hanging on pieces of wood on the outside… The place looks like it'd fall apart if Welnar breathed hard enough. Figures that the psycho would choose somewhere like this to hide…

  He closes his eyes again, focusing… And immediately, the heartbeat feels like it reverberates through his body, the sheer volume making his ears hurt and quickly causing Welnar to lose focus. But that's all the confirmation he needed.

  He steps up to the door, gently pushing on it. It's difficult to see anything of note past the doorway, with the sunlight beaming through the open doorway being the only light within. Slowly, Welnar steps into the house, being careful to not make too much noise. Maybe he can sneak up on the psycho. Yet again very gently, he closes the door behind him as he forms a ball of mana in his other hand, swirling energy within creating enough light for Welnar to at least see where his feet are stepping. Then, he turns and puts his hand on the wall adjacent to the doorway, following it. In his mind, it's the best way to not miss any other doors. He follows the wall, eventually turning at a corner and continuing… Then another corner. Every so often, the floorboards creak and bend beneath his feet.

  Finally, Welnar feels a doorway. His hand shuffles along it for a moment until he feels the doorknob, slowly turning it and opening it… He looks down at his orb of light, tossing it into the room. It rolls along the floor, illuminating the rather small room… Perhaps a storage closet of some kind? It looks like there's a dusty dresser in the room.

  But as the orb rolls past the dresser, he notices something. A shadow. Then Welnar hears something slide along the ground towards him. Instinctively he jumps back, just in time as the blood bag explodes with boiling blood! The orb Welnar had tossed reaches its max distance from him and begins to gravitate back, inadvertently smacking the back of the psycho who had gotten up from behind the dresser to charge Welnar, causing him to turn. Recognizing this, Welnar takes advantage as he rushes forward blind, throwing a swift punch… And it connects! Quickly, he coats his arms in mana, giving off a faint glow that lets him see a little bit in front of him, using it to grab hold of the staggering Psycho's wrist and yank him back, spinning to throw him out of the storage closet. Welnar can't fight blind like this, not effectively, so Welnar plans to take this to the outside as quickly as possible.

  Following up on his throw, Welnar closes the distance yet again with a shoulder bash, releasing the mana from his arms into a blast that sends the Psycho crashing straight through one of the boarded windows! All according to plan! He leaps out the window after the Psycho, who's stood back up and formed a dagger of blood in his hand.

  “You little rat… Don't get so cocky!” The Psycho spits out.

  “Shut up…”

  “You think this'll be any different from last time? The only difference will be your corpse on the ground-!”

  “SHUT UP!” Welnar yells.

  “I only have one thing to say to you, you psycho… As certain as the sun may shine, you will die here today. In body, mind… And soul.” As Welnar says this, he flows mana to his legs, blue veins forming along them. By directly increasing the strength of his legs, he gives himself a speed boost… Using said strength, Welnar launches towards the Psycho with a sudden and vicious left hook! The Psycho ducks under it, and tries to get a hit in with his dagger but eats a right uppercut before he can pull it off. This boy, this RAT! A thorn in his side and nothing more, the Psycho thinks! And yet… He seems… Stronger. Faster. How? And his unusual magic is a pain in the ass too. The Psycho is worried… He might actually lose. Lose?

  “No… No no no NO!” The Psycho yells maniacally as he staggers back. With a frenzied demeanor, he uses the dagger of blood to slice his other hand open at the palm, blood suddenly flying out of the wound like a spike! Welnar narrowly sidesteps it, but as he does three blood bags are thrown towards him. Reacting quickly, he raises his arms to his head and, bringing all his mana to the front of his body, forms a solid frontal barrier. Sure enough, the blood bags explode with more boiling blood, but Welnar remains unharmed!

  {“He's moving around you, aiming a sneak attack.”} Monarch calls out. Makes sense, with the blood coating every inch of Welnar's barrier, he can't see anything in front. It's only natural that the Psycho would aim to take advantage and get behind him. Welnar waits just a moment longer, before quickly moving the mana from the front of his body to the back, the blood on the barrier pooling at Welnar's feet. Once at his back, he expels the mana in a powerful blast! It's only then that Welnar turns around, and sure enough… He sees the Psycho staggering back to his feet after getting knocked to the ground, his arms seemingly having taken the worst of the explosion. But Welnar refuses to give him an inch.

  He leaps forward, throwing a downward punch as he descends that bounces the Psycho's head off the dirt! He desperately stabs upwards with his blood knife, but Welnar shifts his head to the side, grabbing the wrist. Then he summons a dagger of mana to his other hand…

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  “Stay down!”

  And stabs the dagger through the psycho's hand, into the dirt! Welnar gets ready to summon another dagger, but then he hears something… Bubbling.

  He swiftly turns, using the mana partially coalesced into a blade to instead form a bubble around the two boiling orbs of blood behind him. The Psycho must've formed them from the puddle Welnar left after blocking the blasts from the blood bags. The bubble forms just in time as the blood orbs explode, barely making a sound and even less of an impact. He scoffs. “Pathetic… Nothing but cheap tricks.”

  “Cheap tricks is what you need to survive in this world!” The Psycho yells in response, tearing his pinned hand straight out of the dagger, leaving quite the gory mess. Yet through that gore, a blood spike fires as Welnar is turning back, piercing his shoulder. He grunts in pain, clutching the spike but it pulls back as the Psycho gets up and charges, the spike returning to his torn apart hand and the blood solidifying, being used to put the hand back together. Immediately with the repaired hand, the Psycho lands a strong punch with the just repaired hand that sends Welnar staggering back! The Psycho laughs as he aims another punch with the other hand, but before he can land it a vicious knee to the gut has him coughing up blood. The reality was, while the first punch had indeed caught Welnar off guard and landed… He had turned with it to lessen the damage, and from there simply acted staggered. A simple ploy that, if the Psycho had not been in such a frenzy, could have been easily avoided. As the Psycho doubles over, Welnar grabs his head with both hands and yanks him into yet another knee, this time unleashing a burst of mana as he does that sends the Psycho back to the ground. “You’re wrong. Cheap tricks won’t let you survive in this world.” Welnar says coldly. “Its real tricks. Tricks that work, that you need to survive.” These are words that Welnar can say with absolute certainty. Because he’s lived on nothing but tricks for most of his life, as a Normal.

  The Psycho fumbles at his belt… But there’s nothing there. He’s out of blood bags. “What’s wrong? Get the fuck back up!” Welnar yells, cracking his knuckles. “We’re not done yet. I’m not satisfied…”

  {“Welnar what are you doing? We need to claim his heart!”} Monarch says.

  {“I’m making sure he dies in a completely and utterly humiliating defeat, that’s what! It’s the least I can do for all his victims!”}

  Monarch does not say more at his words, remaining silent. She can understand somewhat, although perhaps so much time laying dormant has made her a little apathetic. The only thing she truly wants is to help Welnar attain the Scarlet Hearts, and this does seem like a waste of time to her. But she also recognizes Welnar is a bit of an emotional man.

  The Psycho meanwhile, grits his teeth in frustration as he stands once more, looking down at the hand he had repaired with solidified blood. “Look me in the eyes as I beat you to a pulp.” Welnar says, The Psycho looking up to his foe… Yet what he sees in that moment, is not what he was seeing mere moments earlier. This time, he sees a monster. A ruthless predator, forged from many years of having to live as prey, living purely to Survive to the next day.

  Welnar’s eyes glint with an unnatural blue as he stares daggers into the Psycho, and without even realizing it, projects the power of his magic concept onto him. Incredible fear washes over him, and base fight or flight instincts are activated. Unfortunately for him, the Psycho chooses to fight as he screams with a reckless flurry of punches. None of them hit, as Welnar ducks and weaves between them. This must be how Derlock felt when he did the same… Each strike looks so slow to Welnar, so predictable.

  As the aura emanates from Welnar and focuses on the Psycho, Monarch notices. It’s that unmistakable fear aura! Is he intentionally using it, Monarch wonders… But after a few seconds, she concludes no. The act was entirely instinctual, to the point Welnar had not even realized. Yet this time was different! Before it had begun to emanate from him whenever he got severely injured, yet this time the only major injury Welnar has is the stab to the shoulder. And on top of that, it wasn’t unleashed all around him, but the release had been a focused attack on the Psycho. If she could, Monarch would definitely be scratching her chin right now… Welnar truly is a mystery. This fear aura is no doubt a key part of Welnar’s magic concept, but what could it mean…

  Back in the real world, Welnar finally decides to take one of the many openings left in the Psycho’s reckless flurry, dashing inwards as he slips a punch and hitting a powerful cross counter to the face! Welnar immediately follows it up with a liver punch, and when the Psycho inevitably doubles over from the liver shot, he slams him to the ground with an overhead punch.

  “Get it now? You’re nothing but a pathetic, outclassed bitch.” Welnar spits on the prone Psycho… Finally deciding it’s time to end this. “I’ve lived through hell. I’ve survived worse. You? You’re nothing but a bump in the road. At least I’ll turn you into something useful.”

  The Psycho very slowly tries to stand, his entire body buckling the whole way. Right as he gets to one knee, Welnar kicks him back down. Then, he raises his hand. Instinctively, he knows what to do as he grasps at nothing. Yet… In his clenched hand, a mirage forms. A long, single edged blade of a strange purple looking metal, the cross guard resembling a heart. The sword is translucent, looking as if it could fade from reality as quickly as it appeared at any moment as Welnar slowly walks towards the grounded Psycho, lowering the sword and dragging it along the ground, leaving a line in the dirt. Despite its translucency, the blade seems to act very real.

  The Psycho claws at the dirt as he tries to get away. All the damage he’s taken has left him barely able to move though, and soon enough Welnar catches up. The Psycho looks up at him with fear once more. “Please, please just… Just turn me in! I-If you turn me in alive, you get paid better right?!” Out of options, the Psycho tries to plead for his life. Welnar’s stone cold expression doesn’t change though.

  “Don’t bother begging… It doesn’t suit scum like you.” Welnar says, and with one swift motion he plunges the sword into the Psycho’s chest, right where his heart is. In another swift motion, he rips the blade out of him, impaled upon the tip of the blade a glowing white orb, with what appears to be blood staining the bottom of it. Welnar steps back from the now limp body, raising his empty hand and looking at it as it trembles. He clenches it for a moment… But his attention swiftly goes back to the Psycho, as his legs seem to crumble away to dust… Then his stomach, his arms. Steadily going upwards, the body crumbles away to dust until nothing human remains.

  {“W-what… What the hell happened to him?”} Welnar asks mentally.

  {“With the soul no longer inside the mortal body, it cannot be sustained for very long. Thus, it fades away as the last bits of life run dry.”} Monarch calmly responds.

  {“So then…”} Welnar lowers the blade to eye level, staring at the stark white orb.

  {“Yes. That is his soul. The Psychotic Heart in material form.”}

  Welnar just stands there, staring for a few seconds before the sword loses its form, fading away. Yet the orb remains hovering in place until finally, Welnar gently grasps it with both hands. It’s about the size of his palm… Oddly enough, despite the bottom looking blood stained, none of it gets on his hands nor does it even feel any different. Even stranger, is when Welnar turns the orb in his hands, the bloodstain does not move no matter what. “That’s so weird…”

  {“So what now Monarch?”}

  {“Crush the orb with your hands to absorb the soul. The rest, I’ll handle.”}

  {“You got it.”} Welnar squeezes the orb between his hands, cracks slowly forming as he squeezes harder until eventually, it shatters! White energy pours from the orb into Welnar’s hands, a white glow traveling up his arms and into his chest before disappearing. Then, tiny balls of scarlet energy form to Welnar’s left at head level. More and more form, slowly combining into the shape of a knife, forged entirely of scarlet. With a final small burst of energy, the forging is complete and the first Scarlet Weapon is acquired. Welnar lets out a sigh of relief, until a few moments later a thought crosses his mind.

  {“How… Am I going to turn in this bounty?”} A reasonable question, considering there's no longer even a body to turn in.

  {“I, uh… That's a great question.”} Monarch responds, having no ideas.

  “Damn it!” Welnar yells, looking around. There aren't even any witnesses out here… What a pain.

  …

  Welnar would return to the bounty office empty handed, hoping he could somehow convince the employees he actually completed the bounty, but to no avail. With a heavy heart and lighter than they should be pockets, Welnar leaves the bounty office. Despite his failure on the bounty hunting goal though, he has still completed his main one. So it’s not all bad.

  Welnar would close his eyes, focusing as the sound of heartbeats fill his ears. After around a minute, he manages to hone in on the closest one, which appears to be coming from far east. As far as he knows, past Ekstrall there isn’t much to the east besides some small, sporadic villages. {“Looks like our bounty hunting career is on hold now.”} Monarch says.

  {“For now at least. But it’s definitely a good way to make money, so maybe I’ll return to Ekstrall after to do some more. First though… I think I’m due for some rest.”} Welnar responds.

  {“Fair enough. Just don’t wait too long.”}

  And so, Welnar would spend 3 days in Ekstrall relaxing and recovering, before he buys himself some camping supplies in preparation for the long trip. On the fourth day, Welnar leaves Ekstrall, heading east in search of his next Scarlet Heart… A Burning Heart.