One slash. Two parts of a body fell to the ground, soaking the grass in blood.
Two shapes remained standing. A human silhouette with eyes of blue stood next to a monster with eyes of red. Another person had been crushed underneath the tail of the beast.
The lone survivor looked up at his enemy, unable to do anything. Blood dripped down his face from a fresh cut, clouding the vision in his right eye. The moon disappeared from his view.
Those eyes stared down at him, overpowering his senses. Before he knew it, he was running. The only thing that pushed him forward was desperation, knowing full well that only death was behind him.
Apollo continued his assault on the group, trying to target those same eyes from his memory.
Judah kept on blocking, trying to shield the others from any attacks. Apollo slipped past him.
"You're too slow, boy."
Judah's entire body froze in anticipation, but nothing followed. Spence and Storm charged into Apollo before he could do anything more, trying to take the offensive. Spence slammed his glaive into his chest, trying to impale him, but just barely fell short.
The two took turns battering him, but were stopped by the poison surrounding him. He stumbled slightly, feeling the pain of it weighing him down.
It wasn't what he was used to. From simply a touch, he could feel that it was more dangerous.
The group was still slightly in shock at the turn of events, but the only choices they had were to run or to fight. So, more of them chose to fight.
Isa went in swinging with her hammer.
"Shut up already! You're so damn freaky, going on about eyes and shit out of nowhere!"
"Is it a really good idea to antagonise him?" Mary asked.
"Isn't it a bit late to care about that?"
"It is." Apollo said, readying another attack.
"Wasn't asking." She swung at him again.
Apollo barely avoided the attack.
"The poison's gonna take me out eventually. But that looks like it's all he can do. So there's nothing more to fear!"
Apollo threw more poison. She didn't bother to dodge, just charging forwards. The attack connected with his side, causing a cracking noise. Apollo collapsed in pain.
Isa had no time to celebrate, the pain getting so strong she nearly collapsed.
"I-idiot. Did you really think it'd be that simple?" The man stammered as he rose to his feet. "My poison gets exponentially deadlier with increased exposure. Did you think that you were safe just cause you were already hit? It's not that easy. I wouldn't have made it this far if all I could do was dodge and wait."
He looked over to the corpse.
"That thing was pretty full of itself, so it took plenty of attacks. That's why it perished so quickly. Of course, I imagine that you'll require far less."
She grimaced. Irontusk tried to crush the man in her jaws, but failed to catch him by surprise.
Arachne jumped between them, Zara on her back. The puppet extended out, blades flying at his face. Zara looked down on him in disgust.
Apollo seemed to realise the problem he was facing in less than a moment. While he could easily hit anyone trying to charge at him, he couldn't do the same here due to the distance between the attacker and him.
He backed away from the blades, trying to stay completely out of their range.
Spence went to attack again, trying to do the same with his glaive but failing as Apollo threw the poison towards him. The relentless attacks from both him and Storm continued regardless of how much damage they took.
Judah finally managed to catch up with the fighting, trying to place himself between Apollo and everyone else. Titan kept his distance, not wanting to unnecessarily put himself at risk.
Apollo managed to twist around the heavily armoured man once more, this time hitting him with poison as well.
He ran forward. Luke tried firing at him from the sides. Apollo dodged the bullet and turned. He began to dash towards him.
"He's forming poison again. How does that work? It's weird. It's coming towards me. I need to move. To get out of the way. I can't be stuck doing this again. Even if I don't get it, that's no reason to stay here. Come on. I can't-"
Just before the poison connected with him, he was thrown out of the way.
"Don't just stand there!" Mary yelled, before getting hit by the poison in his place. She quickly retaliated, slashing at Apollo's arm. Kasa launched a fireball towards him, keeping away from his attacks.
The group surrounded Apollo, trying to corner him. The man didn't show any fear. His eyes just continued to dart around.
They continued to fight, trying to corner him as he dodged and hit them with poison. It dragged out. Each one of them lost their strength over time, until eventually half of them were left near the point of collapsing.
Apollo smirked.
"This was the obvious result, you know? You're all inexperienced. You should've just saved yourself the pain and gone quietly."
"Shut up." Isa spat at him from the ground "Your voice has something about it that makes me want to hit you. Don't blame us that this got so drawn out, you're the one that made this into a fight."
"...So you've elected yourself to be the first to die."
He extended his arm. The others tried to move to stop him, but they had no hope of intervening in time. Isa watched it coming, bracing herself.
The poison disappeared in mid-air. Every person that saw it vanish was struck by confusion, most of all Apollo. Luke was the first to notice the cause, gasping in shock.
The rest turned to where he was looking, finally noticing the masked figure that stood to the right of those two.
Not a single soul had heard it approach. Not one knew how long it had been there for. It was simply there, in that place.
"Who the hell are you?" Apollo asked.
No answer. He seemed uneasy. He tried throwing some poison towards it, but it disappeared once more.
The figure remained silent. He tried throwing more, but it all vanished.
"What the hell is that? A manifestation? Don't leave me guessing like this, just give me some damn answers!"
He tried to grab it, but his right hand failed to reach anything. The grass was soaked in blood.
Apollo's arm had disappeared. It hadn't been stopped, it hadn't been sliced up with some invisible blade. It was just made to disappear. The pain hit him a moment after his eyes managed to process this situation.
He screamed. The mysterious shape showed no change. The rest of the group picked themselves up and started to run away.
Isa had no idea what was happening. She didn't understand what Apollo had been doing or the grudge that he held, but she understood this new combatant even less. Something about it just felt off. Its movement, or more accurately the lack thereof, were unsettling. As though it was missing something fundamental to living beings. So, she decided that it would be smartest to escape.
"Run!"
The rest shook off their paralysis to follow her.
Six hunters and six monsters ran through the forests, leaving all the sounds behind them. Things around them went quiet once more. After a few minutes, the hammer user was the first to collapse. The rest of the group stopped to check on her. Losing his momentum caused Spence to collapse a few moments later.
"This isn't good. I'm gonna die. For real."
"I got hit with more poison than you did, stupid." Isa didn't have the strength to look up at him "Stop overreacting. I'm the one who's gonna die here."
"You're both gonna die if we don't do anything, idiots." Zara told them. "Though maybe I'm the real idiot for not stopping and dealing with this earlier. Oh well. I'm guessing none of us have any antidotes on us, so Luke, you go find some herbs."
"Why-"
"Because you're the one that didn't do anything."
He couldn't think of a way to deny that, so he just started searching in silence.
"I should go too." Judah went to follow.
"No, you won't. You got hit badly too. I know you're superhuman and all that, but you're better off sitting down and resting. Though it's not like I can stop you if you decide to go anyway."
"It's not like I was able to do anything either.."
A short while later, Luke returned with some antidote herbs. Zara got to work on treating the four affected by the poison.
Spence stood up, flexing.
"I'm finally back in top form!" He started dancing around, glad to be able to move again.
"Don't move too much or you'll be on the ground again."
"Got it, got it." Despite his assurance, he didn't really get it.
"So, we might as well get around to asking what the hell that was, right?" Isa suggested.
"We might… have some idea." Mary told her.
"Huh?"
Spence stopped dancing around, now wanting to hear this.
"Well, I didn't really know if it was real for sure, but I had heard something about it like… a while ago. I only saw it for the first time just now."
"Oh good, you three heard the same thing." Zara sighed "That makes it a lot easier to explain."
"My mother was the one who warned me." Judah said "The same goes for those two and their parents."
"Oh, weird." Zara replied "Same for my dad."
"We didn't have anything like that." Spence interrupted, "Can you fill us in?"
"Right, so where do we start?" Judah thought for a moment "They called that blue energy aura."
"Boring name."
"I know. But still, the people with it are to be feared. I'm not sure how or why, but them having it means that they have something they're looking to avenge. You already saw it, but it gives them some strange powers. I'm not exactly sure how someone becomes like that, but I think it's something to do with desire for revenge. The powers they have are related to that."
"Huh."
"Yeah. Though I don't know how much is true, that's just what we've been told. Do you know anything else, Zara?"
"The exact same. That is weird."
Isa made a troubled face.
"What kind of revenge do you have to want to get poison powers?"
"That's your question?"
"Well, yeah. It's weird."
"He probably wants revenge on that old bastard, right?"
Everyone turned to Spence.
"What? It makes sense with how much he was yelling about us being related to him and shit."
"Yeah, that's why we're so surprised." Zara told him.
"Huh?"
"Don't worry about it."
"So what did he do to him, then?" Luke asked.
"Wanna go back and ask?" Isa asked back.
"No. Not in the slightest.
"Then we dunno. Though it's annoying. Oh well." She got up "That'll just be something to beat out of him when we find him."
"You're going already?" Mary asked. She looked over to Zara.
"It'll be fine if we're just walking."
"Yeah. I'm not that weak." Isa answered Mary's question. "Besides... even after facing a weird guy like that all we can do is keep moving, right? Though if we ever do fight one of those again, we're not gonna lose."
"I guess that's a good way of looking at it."
"Yeah. Also, most importantly. I need to work out where we are. We just kinda kept running until we got away, so I've got no real clue how to get to the second zone from here."
"Oh."
As she walked away, she seemed to remember something.
"Wait, so we've worked out what was up with Apollo, but what about the other guy that showed up?"
"Oh yeah, him."
Judah sighed.
"No clue."
"Seriously?"
"Well can you make sense of it?"
"No. If he's one of those aura types, I guess erasing things would be his gimmick, right? Isn't that a little too powerful?"
"Yeah, it just destroyed him." Zara said. "Though it's not like weird fantasy powers really need any limits on what they can do. Just existing is weird enough, right?"
"If we had some idea of what he was even trying to do this conversation would be a lot more productive." Luke thought back "He just kinda stood there."
"Maybe he was trying to help us?" Spence thought aloud "He only showed up once we were in danger."
"That'd be nice. But a little bit worrying."
"Not like we can just ask him. Because he's silent. Or get it out of him by force. Cause… y'know."
The group collectively sighed, frustrated at how little they knew. They continued down the road regardless, looking for somewhere to rest.
"At least there can't be too many guys like that out there, right?" Spence asked.
A short while later, in an unknown building, seven people sat around a table. Behind their chairs were stained glass portraits, portraying figures from the past. Four to the left, four to the right and one at the head of the table.
"Hey, we've waited long enough, right?" A brash sounding man asked "The hell's taking him so long?"
"Treat our leader with respect." A serious woman told him.
"I'll treat him with respect when he shows up on time. Besides, you never know. I could've been talking about Apollo. What's his problem?"
"He's usually on time." An older looking man noted "Maybe he died. He didn't seem like the type who'd make it that far in life."
"That's cruel…" A scared sounding woman replied.
"But that's just life, right?" A playful voice responded. "I kinda hope he made it though. He's fun."
"You're still too soft." The brash man said.
"Isn't it a fine thing to wish for the wellbeing of your comrades?" A relaxed man with long hair smiled "Well, he should be fine. I doubt a monster could kill him. Though any particularly dangerous humans… might have a chance."
"You mean the code?" The woman asked "I doubt it. He was in zone one. That man never hangs around there."
"I think you're the only one here who keeps track of that stuff." The old man replied.
"That sounds like your problem."
The man at the front of the table finally spoke.
"They're here."
"Huh? You fortunetelling again? Or did you just hear them comin-"
The door opened.
"I apologise for my lateness. I had to retrieve him. Now be silent. The meeting is in progress."
"Wait, so if you got him, then-" The man looked behind the one who had just entered, seeing Apollo with bandages covering most of the right side of his body.
The scared one covered her eyes at the sight of it.
The rude man just laughed. "Holy shit, they got you good!"
"Shut up."
"So?" The serious woman asked, "What exactly did that?"
"No idea."
"...How?"
"I'll explain what he told me." The leader cut in. "While he was travelling between areas, he encountered a group of hunters. Two of them are supposedly the children of the code."
All seven that were sitting down reacted with surprise.
"Shouldn't we have known about them already?" The serious woman asked.
"He must've hid his tracks well." Apollo replied.
"Got it, so what are we gonna do?" The old man asked "I don't really like it, but using them as hostages to get him to tell us what we want would be an easy way to resolve this without needing to fight him, right?"
"W-would it really be that simple?" The girl who had been covering her eyes until now asked with uncertainty.
"Well, yeah. They're related, after all. I doubt that even a guy like that's so coldhearted he'd just let us kill them." He mulled over things while stroking his chin. "Sometimes I do have to wonder if you kids are okay in the head."
Before the brash man could start a fight over his random comment, the relaxed man interrupted.
"We don't have any way of knowing whether he values them over his opposition to our goals. After all, we didn't even know they existed until recently."
"I'm against using them." The brash man said "I couldn't give less of a shit about that guy's brats."
"You're not the one making the decisions here." Pointed out the serious woman.
"Don't be so boring." The playful voice told him, "They could be interesting."
"We'll work out what to do with them at a later time. But for now I'll leave the investigation to you, since you're the best suited."
The leader looked to the one that had just spoken before him.
"Can't wait."
"We still have something else to discuss. After getting into a fight with them and almost finishing them off, a masked man showed up with a manifestation that let him erase anything."
More surprise.
"What, so that's what happened to your arm?" The old man asked. "Sounds hard to believe. Even by our standards."
"I thought the same, but there's no other explanation for what could've caused that. That bastard even erased my poison before it touched him."
"I see." The one who had barely said anything up until now spoke once more "The chance of two warriors having the same manifestation is near impossibly low. So I suppose I don't have to spell this out for the rest of you."
"You're saying it's that one?" The brash man asked. "Didn't we kill him already?"
"The only previous instance of duplicate manifestations were a thousand years apart." The serious woman reminded him "I think that him having somehow survived is the more likely of the two impossibilities."
"I don't want to deal with him again…" The quiet girl complained.
"Hey, would you mind not talking about things I don't get?" The playful voice sounded bored now.
"Yeah, me too. This is something I've got no idea about." The old man added.
"Myself as well." Apollo said.
"It was before you four joined." The leader explained "During our search for the seeds, we made an enemy out of a young man, who awakened the same manifestation as the one which took Apollo's arm. We suffered a few losses, but managed to kill him in the end. At least, that's how it seemed until now."
"He certainly sounds terrifying." The smiling man noted "So he's spent, what, twenty years plotting his revenge?"
"I'm leaning more towards the new guy theory." The playful voice said "I mean, why would he have been doing nothing for the last twenty years if he wants to fight us?"
"It doesn't matter what he's been planning, or who he really is." The leader stared down at them. "He intends to interfere with us. That's the only part that's of importance."
"R-right."
"Just lemme deal with him." The brash man asked.
"He's not the type you can fight back against." Apollo told him.
"Huh? I already know what his deal is. Long as you don't run into his aura like an idiot, there's nothing to worry about. Don't bring me down to your level, dumbass."
"Would my ability not be better suited to dealing with him?" The spaced out man asked.
"Stay out of this. Weren't you the one who was supposed to finish him off last time? Look how that turned out."
"I'm sure that allowing me to battle an opponent from so long ago once more is another whim of fate."
"That shit again? You-"
"Be silent. This place is not meant for your petty squabbles."
Both of them went quiet at their leader's command.
"He'll likely go into hiding anyway. If he's been hidden from us for this long, I doubt searching for him will prove effective. Instead, let's wait for him to reveal himself."
He pointed to the brash one, the spaced out one and the serious one.
"Any of the three of you should be able to defeat him if he appears." He then pointed to the relaxed man "While you've never seen him, your manifestation should prove enough to deal with him."
He then got the attention of the scared girl. "You should already know that your manifestation won't be any good against him. The same goes for you two." He looked toward the playful one and the old man.
Finally, he turned to Apollo.
"You should already be aware of what would happen if you fought him again."
"Y-yes."
The leader inspected him some more.
"There's nothing to worry about, leader. Even without my arm, I can still fight. My manifestation doesn't require the use of my arms anyway, it'll make me stand out a little more than before when doing jobs that involve crowded places but assassinations and the like are still no problem-" He realised he was talking too much and stopped himself "Just please- don't throw me away yet."
"You're hardly in a position to be making requests."
"I-I'm sorry!"
"Raise your head. I won't get rid of you. You're one of the chosen after all. However, if you inflict any more shame upon your seat, then I'll have no choice. Do you understand? I won't accept any more failures such as this."
"Got it."
"Now sit down. We still have much to discuss."
The man occupying the first seat looked down at his deck of cards.
"Now then… we have those new kids heading out into the frontier, and a phantom coming back just to cause us problems. With all these new actors on the stage, we must be headed for some dramatic twists and turns."
"The story's path will be determined by us here." The leader moved to the head of the table. Seat number zero.
"For that is our role as the knights of requiem. Now, let us discuss the world that will be of our creation."
TO BE CONTINUED