"HAHAHA! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! KIDS!!"
Hysterical was the only emotion swirling around this terrifying man's soul. Akin to a muscular veteran, he muscles made the burning broadsword he held seem like a rapier.
At least, this was this man's stature in the face of 10-year-old children.
In combination with the tendrils of smoke rising into the air while the broadsword dragged comfortably through the ground, and the nature of the way these men were walking towards the lawbreaker's, he seemed like their very own angel of death.
Luckily, the broadsword warrior ordered his comrades go in first. Their feet quickly stomped through the moist ground cover from a previous storm.
Emery, Novius, Alexia, and Thaylen were now weaving between the towering trees of the dark jungle. Their heartbeats were thumping wildly, while their brains were filled with the regret of not stopping Theon's sudden outburst.
Sure, he did it out of love — to protect a friendship forged through blood.
However, they maybe could've played it off as children, and hitched a ride on top of a mysterious runic device that seemed to scatter the mind of Novius.
Suddenly, Emery saw Novius slip behind a thick tree while a dim light appeared within his black jacket.
After one of the men passed the tree Novius slipped behind, he let loose a devastating tendril of lightning.
ZZZZZ!
A shockwave of pure lightning coursed through the back of the man's body who had been oblivious in the darkness. The pupils in his eyes quickly turned white before slumping to the floor, but were quickly backed up by his comrade who was not very far behind him.
Slam!
The unarmed man dressed in brown and black kitted gear slammed Novius into the trunk of a tree. Immediately, Novius accepted his fate with a hot blade being pressed against the sweaty skin of his neck.
His grip was firm, yet the man quickly realized these were just children. "Who are you?! And who sent you?!"
Under loads of pressure, Novius tried his best to keep his cool as a second later could be the end of his life. "Please! Don't kill me! You are carrying an explosion contraption right?"
"H-how do you know that?" The man asked while the remaining two comrades joined him.
"Hey! If Gandi is dead, then kill him!"
"Shut it! This boy knows of the bomb! I think someone from our kingdom ratted on us…" The brown-haired man loosened his grip around Novius, easing his discomfort.
Within the near shadows were Emery, Alexia, and Thaylen waiting for the right moment. However, with their swords that effortlessly blocked Emery's fire beam, they were very wary of attacking.
"So kid, care to tell me who sent you? Or are you just a lawbreaker who ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time?"
"I… I wanted to explore by myself! That's all!" Novius explained while staying still against the tree.
"Hmmm… Where are your friends?"
"I told them to run away…"
"Okay. Well if you are lying to me, I will have your head. For now, you will join the boss in the carriage as he will be the one to decide what to do with you."
He soon signaled to his comrades without using words… 'Don't chase, if anything, the beasts will get them.'
While the two comrades behind the brown-haired individual were blood hungry, the one that had released his grip around Novius' neck and arms seemed to have an understanding heart. Likely, he has children himself, and has rules that he cannot bear to break.
Novius was carefully taken into the carriage by the man, and upon sitting down, he noticed a long black haired man with a braid that went down his right shoulder.
The man was nothing short of a beauty, unmistakable and unforgettable. The way his hair cascaded over his forehead, and the gentle gray and black garments painted him as an influential figure of Gion. Yet, why is this man carrying a bomb underneath the captain's chair of the carriage?
'The feeling is far different than the contraption at the front, likely the reason for its horseless movement.' Novius thought.
"So… They tell me you know about the bomb. If you explain to me how you know, I will let you go before we get to the wall. If not, you will never see your friends again."
"You call it a bomb?" Novius set the tone in an odd way.
"Yes. I think that would be the only thing to call a device that explodes violently…" The man was confused while thinking about Novius' response.
With an immense amount of danger surrounding him, he decided to tell the absolute truth in hope the man would understand his motives. "I snuck out of the walls to hunt beasts during the night, but then I saw your carriage and decided to stalk it. I knew there was a bomb because… I-I don't know. I just knew once I saw the green glow coming from the carriage. It's not just a bomb though… I can tell, there's something more to it…"
Novius' mind clearly returned to the scattered train of thought.
"Oh? So you just happened to get lucky and decide to kill three of my men?"
"Yes. They were trying to kill us first. We were only observing."
The man tickled his chin in amusement of the child's simplistic talking skills. What he was saying was the unbridled truth, which the black-haired man knew, but even then, the reason for his travel in this carriage with a bomb made his tactics go to waste.
"I have come to blow up the wall on direct orders from the Rentri Kingdom. I am sorry to have pulled you into this mess, but unfortunately, you were truly in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Once Novius had heard the man's sentence, his heart dropped as a premonition of death entered into his mind.
However, on a moment's notice — just as a curved and jagged knife that bore a poison rune in Novius's mind began to be unsheathed from the man's jacket pocket. Two beams of fire shot at the wheels of the carriage.
"NOVIUS!!"
Instantly, Novius released mana he had been building up in his body in the form of an electrical shockwave, temporarily paralyzing the man who sat next to a large runic engraved glowing box.
Fortunately, the bomb did not explode from this development as Novius had expected, and instead began to glow even brighter.
Thud!
With Novius' hands tied up behind his back, he pushed himself through the side of the cloth covering, and hit the rough dirt floor with a crack — sending pain through the left side of his body.
"Novius!" Theon had created a sharp blade of ice that cut through the leather bindings, allowing them to regroup.
Unfortunately, there was one man still standing, someone who had effortlessly blocked the blades of wind Alexia had released in order to silently slay every individual surrounding the carriage.
"Well well well… It's been a while since I have fought an elemental mage. This war has truly been boring recently and only now starting to pick up."
A fight quickly broke out with Thaylen taking the lead. Every time he went in for a strike after creating an opening between his sword, an invisible barrier seemed to appear out of thin air, stopping his every strike.
There was no option in blocking his sword attacks with his ice blades as even at the orange core stage, the heat radiating from the sword was far too much for him to handle, including the trees that were effortlessly cut through while being forced back into the forest.
The battle turned into a one versus four that began to drain the mana of both sides. And just when Thaylen was going to be pierced by an unavoidable strike, a massive explosion occurred — creating a shockwave that ripped the tree bark, branches, and grass straight from the natural earth.
BABOOM!
An explosion of great magnitude was heard and seen by any Protector who stood guard on the wall. Perhaps even an incoming escapee saw the explosion from afar, after just barely escaping with his life.
Shortly after the aftermath, a siren began to play with bright lights that lit up the surrounding area south of the wall. It was practically blinding — bright yellowish-beige lights rendering darkness helpless.
"GO, GO, GO!" A Protector was seen underneath an open gate motioning the plan for the unnatural occurrence.
A group of twenty men armed in light steel armor with an assortment of different melee weapons and runic rifles began funneling out of the gate. Some were adorned in light steel armor with bright blue undergarments, while some wore heavy steel armor and no armor at all.
The mushroom cloud slowly lost its fiery wrath and transformed into a warping ball of black smoke.