As the sun's glare locked with the world below, a man looked down at a trail of aura connected to his leg and sighed. 'Fisher… what the hell kind of mess did you get yourself into?' he thought, pushing off the tree he had been leaning against.
He recognized the aura as Fisher's. They had gone over the regulations for using this technique in emergencies. When activated, the aura would form a visible trail linking to the user, and any member of Red Dawn who encountered it would instantly know the exact location of the person in distress.
The man's light pink aura flared around him in a violent burst, annihilating the tree he had just leaned against, as if his aura consumed it entirely, leaving no trace of bark behind.
He surged forward like lightning without hesitation. This signal was only to be used when the member of Red Dawn believed they would die within minutes.
After just one minute of sprinting, he arrived atop a cliff behind the mansion and looked down. There, he saw Zay's unconscious body lying against the base of a shattered wall. Without pause, he leapt down.
Deactivating his aura to conceal himself, he crouched beside Zay and checked for a pulse. At least he's alive." the man muttered to himself as he had found Zay's pulse instantly.
He stood slowly, stretching his arms before sprinting into the yard, heading toward Fisher's location. But as he neared, his eyes narrowed, then widened in horror.
The man stood up slowly, stretching his arms before rushing into the yard toward Fisher's location. As he ran, his eyes narrowed—then widened in shock.
Fisher's body was riddled with arrows. Dozens of them. From what he could count, there were well over thirty embedded throughout his corpse.
"What the hell happened?" he muttered, glancing around. There was no one in sight—and not a sound to be heard.
He drew the rapier from the sheath at his waist and stepped through the crumbled wall of the mansion. With a sharp breath, he activated [Electric Enchant], causing sparks to surge across the entire blade as it crackled with electric energy.
Raising his guard even further, he spotted bubbles of water floating in the air. Cautiously, he ascended the stairs. At the top, he turned left and came to a door. Not wanting to alert whatever might still be inside, he opened it slowly and stepped in.
The room was untouched. The bed was neatly made, the bookshelves undisturbed, the floor looked fine as well.
'What the hell happened here? One member of the Demons of Red is unconscious; fisher is dead, and there's nothing in this place but damn bubbles basically.'
He sighed, keeping his guard up, and began checking down the corridor—room after room—only to find nothing out of the ordinary. Each room he entered appeared to be in perfect condition.
After exiting the final door of the left corridor, he made his way down the right corridor and repeated the process, only to find the same results. He shook his head slowly, carefully glanced over his shoulder, and pressed forward, ascending to the third floor.
'I'll start with the right side of the corridor this time, I guess... but what actually happened? Fisher isn't someone who would die easily; he's strong, smart, and I always saw him training longer than anyone else of his group.' As he pondered, he reached the first door and sighed.
He slowly extended his left hand, gripped the doorknob, and twisted it. The door creaked open, and he stepped inside. His eyes scanned the ceiling; then the floor; then the corners of the room, even behind the door. Nothing seemed out of place.
He exhaled quietly and stepped back into the hallway, continuing to check rooms at a slower, more cautious pace.
His eyes dropped to the carpet lining the third-floor hallway as he approached another door. He raised his hand to the doorknob, inhaled a deep breath, and began to open the door; he heard a children's shriek echoed from the directly above.
He turned instantly, sprinted down the hallway, ran up the stairs, and turned right on the fourth floor of the mansion. Guided by the direction of the sound, he stopped at the fifth door since that's the door he was at on the third floor.
He slammed his boot into the door, blowing it off its hinges with a deafening crack. The wood splintered as it crashed inward—and his eyes immediately locked onto the lifeless form of a child sprawled across the floor, an arrow embedded deep in her neck.
His jaw clenched. He stepped inside with his guard high, senses sharp. In a flash, he spun and raised his arm just in time—his rapier intercepting a punch. The impact triggered a surge of electricity from his blade, pulsing into the attacker's body and forcing him to stumble back.
Trace gritted his teeth and growled, "Who the hell are you?"
He ducked low as a bolt of lightning tore through the air above him. The electric arc danced across the rain-soaked room, traveling through the droplets and up into the sky—then curled downward, reshaping itself into the glowing, snarling form of a wolf made entirely of crackling lightning.
Trace's eyes widened. He leapt back as a bow materialized in his hand, drawing five arrows in a smooth motion. He loosed them in a single breath.
The man stepped forward and thrust his rapier once. From the blade's tip, a surge of lightning expanded outward, obliterating the arrows in a flash and charging forward, chasing Trace down as it raced into the open rain.
The wolf of lightning howled and struck from above; both streams of electricity converged on Trace, ripping through his body in a violent burst. His limbs spasmed uncontrollably, his breath caught in his throat—and he collapsed, twitching, into the mud-slicked courtyard.
[Tide Guard] activated—Trace's dark-green aura flared and shifted into a brilliant, oceanic blue. His eyes burned with focus as he shot upward, propelled fifty feet into the air by [Ascending Mark]. The shimmering aura coiled around him like a storm, and in his hands appeared a bow lined with iridescent scales. A glowing sigil, shaped like a dragon's tooth layered with the mark of a skull—etched itself onto the weapon's surface.
Hovering high above, Trace narrowed his eyes. His descent began slowly, controlled, guided by [Descending Mark]. The rain thickened around him as he drew from it—pulling the droplets inward until they coalesced into a sleek, glistening arrow.
With a sharp breath, he loosed the arrow. The arrow tore downward, screaming through the air toward the man below. In a blink, the man sidestepped to his left, but not fast enough—the arrow grazed his shoulder, slicing through flesh. Trace's gaze sharpened as a spectral skull flickered into view above the man's head.
'He were interesting.'
Trace drew again, his aura pulsing as [Mother's Venom] activated. This time, the arrow formed in his grip radiated with a sinister, dark-green aura—thicker, denser, and laced with a venom potent enough to disrupt aura and crush shadowborn creatures into nothing.
He released the arrow and the moment it was released from the bowstring, it created a shockwave so violent that it shattered the sound around it—forcing the rain in its path to vanish, evaporated by sheer pressure and force.
The man glanced at the arrow, shifted left, and dodged it completely. The arrow slammed into the floor, decaying it instantly—and the rot leapt from the impact point, infecting the child's body with a spreading corruption.
Dark tendrils of rot crept across the room, but the man didn't flinch. In a burst of speed, he surged forward like a lightning strike, thrusting his rapier as he appeared directly in front of Trace.
Trace's eyes widened. He formed a dagger from aura and countered the strike, the clash sending both of them crashing into the muddy courtyard below just as the rain returned.
"You... you're a Sequence 5 as well. Why the hell are you here?" Trace asked, staring at him, tense and ready—because he knew; a single mistake against an equal in sequences could be the reason you die.