Jaquer held onto his wound as warm blood oozed out of it and fell on the ground, unstopably.
He lowered his eyes and realised himself lying on Venor's chest.
The hunter turned his head to the place where the impact of the magical beam remained. The ground was pulled out with a huge pothole, and trees turned into charcoal.
He looked back at Venor and saw his rage-filled face, fuming with anger. Jaquer knew what was coming next. With his injured hand, he immediately stood from Venor's lap and walked away from the demon.
But Venor remained in his position, eyes unmoving and locked on Mage.
The blood beneath his skin boiled while the jaw clenched tightly. His hand gripped the ground beneath him, and his lungs ran out of breath.
Venor was transforming to his real state.
The skin slowly yet gradually turned ashen grey, while his limbs grew longer and his eyes turned red without a hint of white in the sclera, and crimson pattern runes appeared on the back of his skin.
Jaquer cursed inwardly as Venor entered the Insanity Stage, the stage where demons lose their consciousness and become undefeatable.
And with a final beat, Venor rose.
Jaquer's body quivered as he glanced at Venor, who steadily stood on the ground. A fraction of unforgettable memories backed his mind and shook his nerves.
Venor, on the other hand, lifted his large hand with animalistic claws to the sky before he chanted a spell and turned the day sky into crimson.
The sun hid behind the cursed course of red clouds, and a chaos erupted above. In a snap of his finger, the cloud struck lightning and killed off those who remained alive on the elf team, except Olgah, who was surprisingly smiling from ear to ear as if he expected it.
But he was not a fool; as soon as his comrades lay dead beside him, he gave a final glance at the demon before sprinting away from him.
Leaving everyone behind, Venor's large body stormed itself towards the Mage.
Olgah was a fast sprinter and, along with magic, he was untouchable, while Venor destroyed the trees, leaving behind cracks on the earth with his heavy foot and collapsing the trees on his way.
Like a savage beast, he roared. With bloody sky and demonic screech, even the king of the forest didn't dare to disturb the commander.
Alys and Eres, who had very little to no injuries, rushed towards Jaquer and checked on his wound.
Alys ripped off a piece of his shirt and tied it over Jaquer's wound.
"We have to stop Venor," Jaquer sighed, as soon as Alys was done.
He didn't know why Venor had lost control. There were many possibilities; either Venor lost it because he attacked Hader, or because of him, or the elf had annoyed a bit more than necessary.
Jaquer quickly brushed off the thought and picked his sword from the ground. He bit his lips with pain but stepped forward nevertheless.
"We will take care of it—" Before Alys could complete his statement, Jaquer interrupted.
"Yes, we will take care of it." With stubbornness, he turned back and replied.
Surrounded by the red sky, his demeanor was hauntingly handsome with blood seeping out from the corner of his lips, and hair barely stuck to the hair tie.
Alys sighed, but Eres, as positive as he was, said, "He is a hunter; a mere wound doesn't depreciate him. Let's go."
They sprinted towards the destroyed path, and after a long run, they finally reached Venor.
Olgah was no longer on the sight and Venor was on a rampage.
Insanity, precisely.
The trio had left their hunting sword back in the Kingdom, and there was no way to defeat the demon who had reached Insanity with mere swords.
These normal weapons without holy light couldn't help much, but they believed in themselves to tame him at least.
It was true that hunters' power lay in their weapons, but it was also their heart that made it possible for them to slay demons.
Jaquer's eyes sharpened like the serpent, positioned his sword, and he charged forward.
"Third Seal of the Miracle Eye, I summon you, protect me." A surge of golden energy travelled from the core of his heart and traveled till the tip of his sword.
Like a snake moving through the ground, instead of heading straight, he bolted in an S-shape towards Venor and successfully grabbed his attention.
The demon's motionless eyes glared at the light coming towards him, and with no control over his mind, he growled, which summoned the formless beasts from the ground.
But Jaquer didn't care about those filial creatures; Eres and Alys were the master killers of those little groups of trouble.
Without distracting his mind from the external factor and focusing on the internal turmoil of his energy, he finally reached Venor's demonic self and launched an attack with his sword.
"Venor, come to your senses!" He screamed at the top of his lungs as the undefeatable demon received the hunter's attack and met his every hit with a powerful strike.
But the plea was useless, Venor's red eyes, consumed with rage, held an inability to understand human words at that moment.
The tender eyes that always shaped into crescents while meeting Jaquer's gaze now looked upon the same with rage and an emotionless stare.
Jaquer's heart panged a little upon the realisation of the detail, but a hunter's heart never falls for such matter.
The hunter attacked the demon with no hesitation, despite being blocked at every angle.
His sword was wielded forward like a meteor, clashing from heaven to those sins, while Venor blocked them like the water consuming all the heaven's light.
It was better to be an attacker than being a blocker. He was in power, or he believed to be.
But the Third Seal of Miracle Eye was a powerful hunter's attacking technique; it needed the user to be mentally and physically strong with a healthy beating heart and, most importantly, the hunter sword. With a normal sword, it consumed more power but gave little damage.
With the power of his sword on the verge of snapping, Jaquer countlessly tried attacking Venor between his eyes.
The area between the eyes of a demon held the demonic power; it was a core that provided endless power to the demons. If it can be destroyed, the demon can be slain, and the powerful demons like Venor could be tamed.
But it was the damn height and unreachability that prevented Jaquer from reaching that area.
At the end, his energy drained and his heart stopped supplying the power, and the sword turned back to its normal self with light.
With nowhere to go and no power to attack, Jaquer took a final blow from Venor at his chest and collapsed far away, smashing his head hard against the earthy soil and weakly glancing at the crimson sky before losing his senses to blackness.