Two green feet slammed into the ground, and simultaneously, twin axes severed the vines that were about to skewer Alyon. Death was but a breath away; the branches spilling from the Apostle's garden retreated.
"Father! Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, my daughter. You arrived just in time!"
Alyon smiled; his daughter, the Wind of Death, had snatched him right out of the Grim Reaper's grasp.
"Wielding twin axes! What a brilliant notion, especially considering you execute the technique with raw brute strength!"
The Third Elder spoke, slurring the words through his foul-smelling mouth, his eyes fixed on the orc who had just descended onto the battlefield.
"Great master! I offer my respects!"
"Oho, her manners are top-tier too. An orc cultured enough to know whose technique she's wielding and pay her respects! But for you to call me master, I need to see this technique of mine you somehow managed to learn with my own eyes!"
"As you wish!"
The Wind of Death wore a sleeveless leather tunic, her well-developed muscles bulging. In one hand she held the axe given to her by Nafız, and in the other, a single-bladed axe half its size.
The hulking orc warrior began to roll her wrists, setting the twin axes spinning on their own axes. Accompanied by her two propeller-like spinning weapons with every step, the Wind of Death accelerated, truly living up to her name. The Apostle countered with a wide-area assault.
Vines cracking like whips, branches elongating for a sweeping strike, and thorns detaching from their stems to fly through the air—all were aimed at a single target. The Wind of Death drew a deep breath and vaulted forward, her twin axes trailing right behind her.
"A solid start!"
Viento watched her intently, busy analyzing the orc warrior's movements. In those moments, the twin axes cleaved through the severed branches and embedded themselves in the ground, while the Wind of Death vaulted over them.
"Now grab the axes and swing forward! Don't leave an opening!"
The old man suddenly fell silent mid-mutter; the power animal beside him picked up where he left off.
"What happened? Caught off guard?"
Viento didn't reply. He merely shook his shriveled head, resting on his scrawny neck, slightly from side to side. He looked as if he couldn't believe his eyes; right where he warned her not to leave an opening, the Wind of Death was executing an axe-cleave with her legs.
Before even touching the ground, she shredded the vines, grabbed the axes by their hilts, and hurled them forward. The incoming thorns lost their trajectory thanks to the gale she generated. This wasn't a draft created by magic; it was an air current born of sheer friction.
"When all this is over, let's invite this girl to the cave!"
"Well, well, well! Since when do you know polite words like 'invite'?"
"Shut your trap and do as I say!"
Spitting saliva as he spoke, Viento was absolutely mesmerized; he couldn't take his eyes off the Wind of Death. A span of two hundred breaths passed like this, and the orc warrior returned to the group, leaving a completely devastated zone in her wake.
"Perfection!"
The Third Sheikh couldn't stop showering her with praise, but her attention was elsewhere.
"Brother, your turn!"
The moment the Wind of Death finished her words, the moonlight bathing the group was blotted out. An ear-piercing hiss emanated from right behind them.
"I'm taking over from here! Fall back!"
A figure in purple robes shouted from atop the head of a python that blotted out the sky. The people of the Hell Realm might not have recognized him, but the orcs knew exactly who he was.
"Bookworm!"
"I've found the enemy's weakness, Father. I believe I'm her worst matchup!"
The sky began to shimmer after those words. Purple streaks hidden within golden mist clouds drifted over the Apostle's Plant Garden.
"Golden Cage!"
The dust particles coalesced, forming a cage that engulfed the garden. It was tightly sealed, save for a tiny hole at the very top.
"Domain of Death!"
Bookworm bellowed once more. The purple smoke left over from the golden mist, along with a liquid of the same hue spewing from the python's maw, flooded in through the hole. In an incredibly short time, the Plant Garden was coated in the purple-robed orc's poison; the green leaves began to wither one by one.
"Sister Apostle!"
Witnessing this, the male Apostle hurled energy blades with his left hand, but the Golden Cage didn't even budge. From this distance, there was nothing he could do.
"You're staying exactly where you are!"
He tried to move to her aid, but the others had no intention of letting him go. A combined assault from the three sheikhs crashed right behind him. Blood Lightning, Blood Rain, and massive Blood Thorns erupting from the void blocked his path.
"Hold on, Sister Apostle!"
Realizing he couldn't help his sister without first destroying the enemies in front of him, the male Apostle sucked in a deep breath—so violently that it drained the breathable air within a ten-pace radius. Then came the roar—and what a roar it was!
A deafeningly loud soundwave swept through the area, blowing away anything and everything in its path. The folks of the Holy Blood were forced to deploy their defensive skills, yet even then, they lost their ability to move.
The Apostle didn't look too good either; it was obvious he had paid a hefty price for that attack, but that didn't stop him from turning his back and bolting toward the Female Apostle he called his sister. Though his speed had dropped, he was still several times faster than a normal warrior. It wouldn't even take him five breaths to reach the Golden Cage, and he had already closed a distance of two breaths.
"I told you, you're staying exactly where you are!"
Just as the Male Apostle planted his right foot on the ground, these words echoed in his ear. A blood-red scythe was already pressing against his neck.
He tried to turn his head, but failed. The world suddenly flipped upside down before his eyes. Then everything stopped. He saw a body hit the ground—it looked very familiar, except it lacked a head upon its shoulders.
"No matter how flashy or how massive it is, at the end of the day, it's still just an energy attack!"
Jashua, the Young Count, clad in body armor woven from vibrations, stood right next to the dead Male Apostle. While the others had anchored themselves using their defensive skills, he had tanked the incoming assault and kept moving.
He bypassed the massive sound waves using the First Sheikh's technique and caught up to the enemy with his own sonic booms, separating the Apostle's head from his body. This was the only way to kill the Male Apostle. No matter how severely wounded, his body would return even stronger; victory was impossible without severing him from the brain that controlled it.
"Brother Apostle…"
The female silhouette appearing within the plant garden surrounded by purple mist tried to speak, but failed. Her eyes were wide open, gasping for air in ragged breaths. She took a step and clutched the stem of the very last plant that still held its green. Her tears fell silently onto the rotting soil.
"My Master, I could not be an Apostle worthy of you. Forgive me!"
Her body followed the tears streaming from her eyes, crumbling to pieces and turning to dust on the ground. The inside of the Golden Cage was a domain of absolute death; even the crimson blood splattered on it rotted away in the blink of an eye.
Whose blood was it? One of the combatants still clashing in the sky, of course. Eyshan and Mora's brawl wasn't over yet.
"You did whatever it took to get the power you wanted, Eyshan!"
"You will call me the Queen of Hell. Soon, we'll conquer the Mercenaries' lands as well, and I, Eyshan, will be the sole ruler of two continents!"
The blade in her right hand was drenched in blood, and she maintained her imposing posture without giving a single damn about her missing left side.
"I guess you've got a way to heal that arm I ripped off you. Otherwise, you wouldn't be talking so big!"
"These are trivial matters for the Master. If I can fulfill his desire, killing all of you will be as easy as breathing!"
Mora burst into fits of laughter, ignoring the blood oozing from the gashes across her body.
"Then I must be the biggest obstacle in your way. Both battles raging below have ended in our victory. There is nothing left to distract me now!"
Eyshan shifted her gaze to the ground, and her face instantly soured. Her opponent wasn't bluffing; somehow, both Apostles had met their end at their hands.
"I'll show you that time hasn't actually changed a damn thing. Prepare to die by my hands!"