Somewhere in a forest around Los Angeles...

"We shouldn't be here! This place is haunted!" A man cried in his squeaky voice.

​​

"Shut up Trevor, there's nothing here!" Rob, the group's leader yelled back at him.

"And just in case, there's something here, I brought this to take care of it." Lenny, the group's rich brat showed off his weapon in front of his friends, it was a weapon which was more expensive than what most of the people made in a year.

It was a silvery sword, known to be made with the remains of the first-ever S ranked boss monster that appeared in California. It was a beast that shared a resemblance with the sabertooth tiger, with the difference being in its size and the colour of its hide.

The blue-skinned cat was nicknamed as, 'King of all Beasts', due to its majestic mane, and had an astonishing weight of 600 kg and height of 211 cm. Not to mention, it's razor-sharp canine had killed countless warriors who had tried to challenge it. But no one was able to kill it, but eventually, the king of all beasts succumbed to the countless wounds that covered its majestic body.

The beast's body was retrieved by the warriors who then sold it to the highest bidder, in an online auction. Unlike the warriors who didn't know the true worth of their possession, the buyer, however, knew exactly what he was buying.

He bought the dead monster for 1.5 million modern dollars and dismantled it to make various types of equipment from its bones, canines, skin etc. The reason why the price of the monster went so high was because it was an S ranked monster and also because the body of the monster was still intact. Had the warriors waited to gather up a crowd for the auction, they could've easily got more money for it. But since they were doing this behind their guild's back, they needed to be quick, because as far as the guild was concerned they weren't even able to retrieve the body of their allies, forget about retrieving the body of a monster.

The bidder then sold each of the gear separately and the total worth of the gears and weapons was estimated to be over 5 million dollars, and the sword in Lenny's hand was the most expensive one among the set. It had the power which, Lenny - an inexperienced B ranked warrior, couldn't even use. He was just a bratty son of another rich brat who had more money than what he could think to do with.

"For the last time, It's not a haunted forest dude! It's all a rumour." Lenny poked Trevor's butt with the tip-off his sword, which made Trevor jump in fear. He consciously looked around his surroundings.

Avid hikers would've recognized this spot as the Sam Merrill trailhead, 'a peaceful refuge from people and wildlife forever'— that's what the dedication on the cobblestone gate of the Cobb Estate, read. But to the ghost hunters, it was called 'the Haunted Forest'.

The sparse forest didn't seem so haunted until the 1950s when the Marx Brothers purchased the land and temporarily saved the dilapidated mansion from destruction and in the process turning it into a favourite haunt for squatters and ne'er-do-wells. (Author's note: ne'er-do-wells is used to refer to a person who is lazy and irresponsible.)

The place, however, was soon forgotten, but once the dungeons started popping up out of nowhere, a few conspiracy theorists linked the dungeons with the supernatural and claimed dungeon was created only at the places where someone was killed or a place which led to someone's death.

Years later, the forest became a great spot for the believers of the supernatural. Still, one was more likely to find curious teens at night wandering around what's left of the house's foundation than actual 'ghostbusters', this group of teenagers was one among the various groups who wandered around the forest in hopes of encountering something supernatural like ghost sightings which were non-specific, many reports suggest of ghostly encounters with weird noises on few of the surviving staircases of the building, while a few said they felt as if they were being watched by someone in the dimly lit forest.

"We've been roaming around for hours now but nothing happened... let's go and come back tomorrow," Rob ordered his party of three members.

"Yes, let's leave!" Trevor jumped with joy, finally, he would be able to go home and sleep peacefully, until his two 'friends' dragged him back into the forest along with them.

"Yeah, let's go, even I'm a bit tired after carrying around this sword." Lenny replied, but knowing about what was going to happen next.

While Trevor was happy about leaving, a giant hand grabbed him by his head, lifted him off the ground and crushed it into pulp, right in front of his friends.

In the face of the thrill they had been seeking for so long, the teenagers were scared beyond their limits, the almighty sword had already slipped away from Lenny's hands.

Although he had been trained to fight monsters, this was Lenny's first-ever encounter with a monster without his trainers, who had always helped him, when things went wrong. It was the same for Rob as well, none of them knew what they were going so to next.

****

Back in the newly relocated Black estate, Nathan, Arnold, Nina and Nicole were discussing the various things Arnold had just informed them about.

"So you think the black troll's planned on attacking the base?" Nathan asked him.

"Looking at how the monsters attacked the base simultaneously, I'm fairly certain it was no mere coincidence, they had to have planned it all beforehand." Arnold explained, "I don't have many leads regarding that so let's talk about the other issue-"

"Monster evolution." Nicole interjected.

"Correct. If monsters started to evolve by eating beast crystals then two things might happen," Arnold continued, "One, the monsters will start killing each other to evolve faster and get stronger, which would lead to a decline of their overall population, which might be a good thing but this leads me to think, whether the monsters know about this or not, and if they do, then why don't they do so more actively? Is there some kind of rule or law among the monsters that prohibited them from killing your own kind or is it that only a few suitable monsters are able to do so? and two, would we be able to handle the monstrosity that would emerge from the slaughter? I highly doubt that. But-"

The gates leading to the meeting room were flung open and a man dressed in all black, came rushing in.

"Deacan, I told no one should interrupt us while-" Nathan started barking at the man.

"I-I am so... sorry sir, b-but this is important..." The guy was panting as if he just finished a triathlon, "There's been a breakout!"