In the heart of the jungle, the air was thick with the stench of smoke and death. Chris was completely surrounded, but his eyes were locked on the two cultists who stood ready to pounce on him, completely devoid of any sense of pain.
In that exact moment, one of the cultists seized the opportunity and lunged at Chris with a lethal strike from his flame sword. Ducking swiftly, Chris dodged the attack. Dark smoke completely enveloped the blade of his own sword. With a surge of raw power, Chris swung his blade—Slash!—and it tore straight into the cultist's chest.
A stream of blood gushed from the cultist's chest. He leaped backward to retreat, yet not a single trace of pain appeared on his face. He remained hauntingly calm, as though his body lacked any human sensation.
An irritated look crossed Chris's face as he snapped, "You two are just wasting my time! I've hit your bodies so many times, yet you refuse to go down. What kind of spell is this? Or are you just acting like you don't feel pain?"
The surrounding colossal trees lay uprooted and shattered from the collateral damage of the battle. The two cultists remained standing in absolute silence. Pointing his sword at them with an annoyed expression, Chris added, "Come on, say something! Did you two take a vow of silence or what? Fine, don't talk. But later, if you scream in agony, I'll give you a death far worse than this. Understand?"
Right after saying this, Chris raised his right hand. Thick, pitch-black smoke began to pour from all five of his fingers, rapidly spreading until it blanketed the entire area into a dense fog. The cultists' vision was completely blocked. In a blind panic, they began hacking wildly with their flame swords, slicing down a few more trees in the process.
Chris's voice echoed through the heavy shroud of smoke: "Are you guys seriously ruining the environment? At least leave the trees alone!"
Suddenly, through the haze, one of the cultists caught sight of a silhouette. Before he could react, Chris materialised directly behind him, delivering a deep, vicious gash to his back. The cultist collapsed heavily onto his knees.
"Run away quietly while you still have time. Otherwise, I won't leave you alive anyway," Chris threatened in a cold, detached voice.
Just then, Chris sensed the second cultist initiating an ambush from behind. However, the moment the cultist swung his weapon, Chris vanished, reappearing right behind his attacker. Chris placed his hand on the cultist's back, and the dense smoke instantly shackled him, leaving him completely paralyzed. Seizing the window, Chris unleashed a rapid barrage of multiple strikes. The cultist crumpled to the ground, drenched in blood.
Chris muttered to himself, 'Now I need to go help Leo and Ray.' He snapped his fingers, causing the thick smoke to gradually dissipate.
Chris walked over to the writhing cultist on the ground and yanked the cloth mask off his face. What he saw made his blood run cold. The cultist's face was horribly burned, rendered entirely unrecognizable. But as Chris looked closer at the mouth, his heart sank.
Chris stood up straight, thoroughly shaken. He finally understood why these cultists hadn't spoken a word. It wasn't because they didn't want to... it was because their tongues had been brutally severed.
"What kind of monsters are you? And what kind of a place is Morveth?!" Chris uttered in sheer horror.
Suddenly, the first cultist ambushed Chris from behind, locking him in a tight, vice-like grip. Simultaneously, the burned cultist whose mask had been removed dragged himself up and plunged his glowing flame sword straight into Chris's shoulder! The blade, radiating a sinister light in the dark night, tore clean through Chris's shoulder and drove directly into the shoulder of the cultist pinning him from behind!
The cultist gripping the hilt of the sword flashed a deeply unsettling, creepy smile. A small magic circle on his right palm began to glow with a malevolent red light. Blood began to seep from beneath the fingernails of both his hands. The moment the blood dripped onto the ground, a cataclysmic explosion erupted, consuming them all.
At that very moment, in another part of the forest, Leo and Ray stood before a massive wall at the edge of a cliff. Arrayed before them were six cultists, bows drawn and loaded with blazing flame arrows.
The moment the sound of the explosion from Chris's direction reached their ears, Leo and Ray glanced toward the horizon, where a massive plume of dust was rising into the sky. In that split second of distraction, the six cultists loosed their arrows.
Six flaming arrows streaked toward them with deadly velocity. But mid-flight, all six arrows suddenly ricocheted backward in mid-air! Two of the reflected arrows pierced straight through the heads of two cultists, causing their skulls to burst into a cloud of scalding steam.
Leo yelled out, "Thanks, Felix!"
Leo raised his katana into the air as a dark red aura surged over the blade. Moving with the speed of a howling wind, he dashed forward, cleanly decapitating two more cultists in a single, fluid motion.
On the other flank, the crackling lightning sparks around Ray's hands died down, replaced by a searing, intense heat. Flames rapidly engulfed his entire arms, shredding his sleeves to ribbons.
"Flare Attack!" Ray roared.
At his command, the remaining two cultists were instantly set ablaze, their scorched bodies collapsing into ash onto the forest floor moments later.
Leo and Ray's gazes shifted upward to a cultist perched casually on a tree branch. He was smiling broadly, clapping his hands in amusement.
"Hehe~ I loved this game. I loved it so much," the cultist chirped in a bizarrely childlike voice. "You guys ran, you fought, you got angry... everything was just so funny! I'm very happy right now. Maybe I should play with you guys a little longer..."
He leaped down from the branch, landing gracefully on the ground. "Ehehe~ don't get mad, okay? It's nothing personal. I just need your heads to show Master. Otherwise, they'll punish me, and I really hate being punished. Plus, I lost so many of my men... so I have to bring something back, right? Hehe."
Furious, Leo and Ray moved with blinding speed, flanking the childish cultist from the left and right. The wind, the trees, and the night itself seemed to freeze.
The cultist glanced at Leo, then at Ray. Resting his finger against his chin, he made a cartoonish, innocent face and whined, "So mean, so mean! Aren't we supposed to be friends? And now you're attacking me? A cute kid like me? So mean. You won't help me? Fine, friendship over! I'm leaving."
Hearing this, Leo pushed his inner aura to its absolute limit, making his katana glow with the deep, vibrant hue of blood beneath the moonlight. On the other side, torrents of wild fire erupted from both of Ray's hands.
"Why are you guys getting so serious? Come on, let's just talk..." the cultist sighed.
Leo charged from the right while Ray closed in from the left. Leo swung his katana aiming for the cultist's midsection, but the boy avoided it with a high, acrobatic leap. Mid-air, he turned his head only to find Ray's fist inches from his face. The cultist swiftly blocked Ray's punch with his right hand and raised his other arm, preparing to smash his elbow down onto Ray's head.
Intervening just in time, Leo delivered a devastating mid-air punch squarely to the cultist's face! The force of the blow launched the cultist backward into a tree trunk, blood trickling down from his forehead.
Leo and Ray held their guard, watching with high alertness. The cultist slowly stood up, his playful demeanor completely gone. He took a single step forward and vanished into thin air.
In a flash, he materialized directly behind Leo. Though Leo and Ray sensed him immediately, and Leo spun his torso around to swing his blade, the cultist was faster. Before the katana could graze his hand, the cultist landed a brutal, heavy punch right across Leo's face. Leo was sent crashing to the ground, blood spurting from his nose.
"Leo!" Ray screamed, but before he could react, a ferocious kick caught him across the face, sending him flying even further back.
Breathing heavily, Leo forced himself back onto his feet, his eyes bloodshot with rage. "You're dead! Don't expect to leave here alive!"
Leo lunged forward, unleashing a flurry of 10 consecutive slashes. The cultist danced around every single one, but the onslaught was merely a distraction. Closing the distance instantly, Leo managed to land a deep, horizontal slash right across the cultist's chest!
To Leo's horror, the cultist grabbed the bare blade of the katana with his bare hands! Leo pulled with all his might to free his weapon, but the cultist tightened his grip further, ignoring the blood slicing through his palms. Glaring with raw fury, Leo let go of the hilt and drove a hard punch into the cultist's face. Discarding the katana, the cultist retaliated with a heavy punch of his own.
The battle devolved into a savage, raw fistfight. The two traded brutal blows to the face, blood spattering across the clearing. Leo unleashed his inner mana, channeling it through his veins to drastically amplify the destructive power of his strikes.
Stepping back slightly to gather momentum, Leo launched a powerful, snapping kick straight to the cultist's face—Crack!
The sheer force of the kick tore the cloth mask away, sending it fluttering into the wind. Leo stared at the cultist's true face... and from behind, propping himself up against a tree, Ray stared in stunned, wide-eyed horror at the visage revealed before them.