"It's so quiet here."
Muttered Elijah under his breath.
The five had been walking around the nearby forest for an hour yet nothing was in sight.
The outer layer forest was desolate, devoid of life, there was an inner layer but it seemed more like a maze.
"Maybe the mecernaries already hunted them down? There's a lot of mecenaries here."
Shrugging, Kevin did some stretches
"That doesn't explain the lack of life in general. There's no wild life here. Even if demonic creatures normally killl wild life, it's hard to completely eliminate them from the forest. It's unlikely the mecernaries would be able to deal with the demonic creatures if that were the case."
Azreal ran a hand through his hair as he thought of the possible reasons for this desolate forest
"We should head back then, Mr farreal is coming soon anyway."
Serena took her phone out to check the time, it was the afternoon at this point, Mr farreal would arrive in an hour
"… I think we should keep scouting. Just, not for the demonic creatures this time."
"You mean for the mecernaries?"
"..yes."
Azreal looked at Elijah's resolute expression and sighed.
"I think we should seperate then. Assuming you mean we're scouting the inner parts of the forest, it'll be easy to get found together as a team."
Elijah snapped his fingers a few times to get the others attention
"Let's spilt 2 to 3, me and you, Kevin Saoirse and Serena? The 3 of you stay in the other part and me and Azreal will go inside."
"I thought you said you didn't like being a leader? You seem good at it."
"What's that suppose to mean?
Elijah stared at Kevin who hid behind Saoirse
Azreal sighed, looking at Saoirse and Kevin's smiling faces.
"We'll have trackers so just look at it through the phone. We'll go through this entrance now."
***.
"The smell here is… unpleasant. It has the smell of death to it."
"Maybe we should contact the others?"
Elijah turned to Azreal, who was using his hand to cover his nose
"Why'd you make the team with less people go inside anyway? It doesn't make a lot of sense. Especially with that injury of y-"
"…shush. The forest felt weird and I wanted to investigate it.and you didn't oppose it either.
"It's not wrong your the strongest in the group even with that injury. That's why I didn't oppose it. I also didn't expect the forest's mana to be so.. dense."
Azreal glared at Elijah, annoyed, before pulling out his phone.
"I'll contact the others to tell them to stay aware. Go rest for now."
"Yea yea."
Elijah walked over to a tree and rested beneath the leafs.
He stared up at the blue sky, the big bright sun extending warmth to earth
Though it was covered by the tree leaves, the warmth exuded by the sun was still reachable.
But… did the blue sky seem darker than normal?
Whatever..
'…I wonder how Zaire is doing.'
".. was that you?"
"?"
Elijah looked at Azreal, who was looking at him with a worried expression.
"..no? Why? Weren't you about to ca-"
"We need to run"
"Huh?"
***
"Where did they even come from!" Kevin jumped around, dodging the creatures attacks.
"Is now the time to be asking that?!" Saoirse pulled her blade out of one of the creatures that had been chasing them and continued running.
From the other entrance, a bunch of demonic creatures had came out of nowhere. Saoirse sliced through a feel before declaring that the amount was too much and shouted to run.
The 3 ran desperately into the entrance Elijah and Azreal had gone into.
"We can't run forever, screw it!"
Taking out her ear ring, a wave a mana surrounded Serena
"Hold them off! I'll do the ritual."
Saoirse jumped in front, gracefully beheading one of the demonic creatures aiming at Serena.
Her sword cut through the creatures like they were paper.
On the other end, Kevin's dagger was full of purple blood, protecting saoirse's back.
"In a world in need of balance, the law was created."
The blue sky turned darker. The ear ring floated in front of Serena, dense divinity covering it
"Energy cannot be destroyed, only converted. To create, one must destroy."
The divinity's around her grew denser, the wind blew, her clothes flowing to the wind.
Saoirse and Kevin jumped back to Serena as the creatures were blown back
"To inscribe law in the name of the universe, in the name of life!"
Serena opened her eyes, now glowing white.
"As an apostle of law, let this sacrifice pen our prelude to law!"
The necklace that had been floating disappeared into the air, Serena's knees buckled and she fell to the floor
"Serena!"
Saoirse quickly gripped Serena's hand, letting her stand.
"It seems using divinity is too much for me currently, hah.."
In the law of equivalent exchange, Serena exchanged one of her ear ring which she considered precious
Using her divinity, Serena weaved a barrier that could prevent anything that she deemed dangerous from getting in.
Gasping for breath, Serena leaned on Saoirse as She was slowly let to sit down.
"The gps tracker isn't working, I think the mana is too dense inside."
Kevin, looking at his phone, said worryingly.
"…send Mr farreal our location, then-"
BOOM
"What the-"
No way, did a monster manage to cause a crack in the barrier?
The three looked at the barrier. Which was now engulfed in flames.
"…fire?"
Saoirse muttered, confused.
The barrier's surroundings were set ablaze, a crack forming on the shield.
Narrowing his eyes, Azreal tried to observe what was happening outside.
The demonic creatures were all being burnt to a crisp and…
"There's a boy walking in the distance."
A boy, a little bit smaller than him, was walking forwards them, seemingly unphased by the burnt carcasses and burning forest.
The boy looked exactly like Zaire, pale blond hair clung onto his forehead. His navy blue eyes looking straight without emotion.
He wasn't handcuffed.
Card in hand, he threw another card.
Water came out of the card, calming the forest fire.
After extinguishing the fire, he walked right in front of the shield, stepping over demonic carcasses.
The three stared at Zaire, their guards up.
Putting a hand on the barrier, Zaire felt the barrier repelling him
"… is Elijah not here?"