Coming down from the mountains and moving through the field of flowers, a man wrapped in a brown cloak strides forward, gaze locked upon the city, save for the occasional flicker of his steeled, shadowed eyes towards a particularly beautiful bloom. Such beauty was not seen every day even at the best of times, and an abundance of it now, at the end, is all but unheard of. It reminds him of his lost love, and of his quest to find her again, whatever the cost to himself may be.

He is shadowed by a single priest - not for protection, but merely to verify that he is not a monster in disguise. Even so, the priest insists upon raising a barrier around them both; and perhaps this is for the best, in his mind. He has been informed that those who pass through the city by their own merits are asked to help in its defense. That is not something he can afford to spend time upon. He does not waste time on demons, if he can help it, for resolution of mortal matters is his true calling - if he does not ensure civilisation remains stable, who will?

Apparently, he notes as he and the accompanying priest enter the outskirts of the city, the townsfolk of Urenda. Even in its dilapidated state, even when only its highest plateau remains intact, it represents practically everything he could wish to restore to Reath: civilisation, peace, joy, and freedom... to a certain extent, anyway.

And yet.

And yet... even the most civil of villages is rarely free of mortal vice. Many he has no quarrel with - sexual intercourse, consumption of alcohol, even gambling to some extent - yet all too often, he encounters those of a twisted mindset. Those willing to maim, to kill, and of course, to kidnap. Such is his [i]raison d'être[/i] of the moment: the leads he has followed, starting from the footprints and fragments of cloth left behind after the raid, right the way up to his latest interrogated suspect, have all conspired to lead him here, to Urenda, where, he has been told, his lover and soulmate has been taken at some point in the past, for some reason or another. He would much prefer a greater amount of specific information, of course, but alas and alack. He is forced to make do with what he knows, for the time being.

As he and the priest continue their walk through the labyrinth of destroyed buildings, demons flock to them. Not in immense numbers, perhaps, not for just a party of two, but enough to be worrying to the priest, especially since, every so often, one makes a jab at the wall of power surrounding the two with significant force. The monk, in response, simply begins to breath in the pattern of the Sun Dragon's Breath, letting his trance build steadily, though the significance of this event is lost on the priest.

And not a moment too soon. Not ten minutes later, as the sun begins to set, one of the monstrosities surrounding them makes a concerted effort, and finally tears a hole in the priest's barrier, leaping through with a great snarl. It is humanoid in nature, and entirely nude, but scaled in a disgusting reddish-grey colour all over, and skinny as though heavily malnourished, with a multitude of short horns erupting from its head, only a single hole where its nose should be, and claws many inches long bursting from the tips of its fingers and toes, if the many-knuckled phalanges attached to its extremities could be called fingers or toes. Hate-filled, solid black eyes switch from priest to traveller, as though it can't quite decide which of them to destroy first. An outburst of sound from the traveller decides for it; it turns to face the monk, who now seems to show more emotion- in the form of what seems to be controlled anger- than he has for the past several hours, and begins to run at him, claws ready to tear his body apart.

The priest has trouble figuring out what happens next. One moment, the demon is charging, all roars and weaponry; the next, the traveller is pummelling the creature in a blur of fists, feet, finger and palm strikes, all too fast to follow, all the while uttering a steady outcry of repeated sound, perhaps the onomatopoeia of that now-rare weapon the rifle, if it could be shot over and over and over and over again in rapid succession... he ends his stream of attacks, no more than perhaps a few seconds in length, with a final yell, and a knife strike across the dazed monstrosity's throat, somehow slashing a hole in its windpipe; with a gurgling scream, it falls to its knees, clutching at the new hole in its neck as blood gushes from the wound. A side kick, accompanied by another onomatopoeic rifle noise, snaps the monster's neck, finishing it off and sending it flying out of the hole in the barrier, which is hastily sealed off by the priest.

And just like that, the monk returns to his normal, stoic state, the only sign that he had exerted himself at all in the nigh-imperceptibly deeper breaths he now took. Without a word, the traveller turns back toward the city, and continues to move on, the priest remembering a second later that he was asked to accompany this man, and swiftly chasing after him. And he swears, as they continue their trek, that the number of entities now shadowing them behind toppled building and crushed wall is ever so slightly fewer than it was before.