Uncharacteristically, wizards were proving to be apt combatants – stronger and far better trained than any average Cultist. Using their magic only as an assisting asset, they were relying on their fists to attack the Martial Artists. This was unsettling. The Eye compatriots were finding it hard to counter them.
Underneath the shade of trees, Ella and Marcus were struggling to fight eight of them at once. They were trying to get some distance between themselves and the wizards but to no avail. Ella attempted to use teleportation portals. But her enemies were too close. They were following her through the portals before she could close them.
Marcus tried pushing them away by force. But together, the wizards were able to counter his strength and stand their ground.
“We have to find a way to put a dent in em’ fast,” Marcus told Ella, via Faris’s mind link. “At this rate, we’ll exhaust ourselves, man!”
They were pushed back once more and came and stood shoulder to shoulder. The tall Martial Artists were sweating. Ella took her robe off.
Marcus smiled. “Now you get why I didn’t wear my robe…”
“Would you cut it out?!” she replied. “We have to undo their defensive charms first.”
These eight, just like the others, had enchanted their attire to absorb and nullify Ki attacks. And they were also equipped with charmed weaponry.
Marcus whipped out his staff and said, “I can counter their weapons. Do you think you can find an opening?”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Ella charged her Ki. “Let me try something I felt Master Naji use earlier…”
The wizards charged once more. Marcus moved ahead and engaged. But he only managed to occupy five of them. Three got through and attacked Ella.
With her Ki charged, the young Mystic widened her stance and closed her eyes. The approaching wizards felt confident. They were moving in for a kill shot. She stretched her right arm out. Merely inches from her, was the first wizard when she swiftly moved her stretched arm to the other side…
The other two stopped immediately and skipped back. Wide-eyed, they stared at Ella who opened her eyes and took a deep breath. She had sucked the attacker into the Continuum of Sempiternity. The young Mystic was not skilled enough to go in and come out of the Continuum. However, she was able to send someone in to wander endlessly or fall into a wrong timeline or universe to get erased from existence.
She smiled. “You guys are lucky you didn’t attack together.”
Marcus smashed his staff on the ground forcing his opponents to leap back to avoid the shockwave. The two standing in front of Ella with their backs to the Sokidu also leaped up after hearing the sound and feeling the incoming wave of Ki. Ella, however, leaped forward and joined her partner.
“Could you repeat that trick?” he asked. “I can keep engaging them like that.”
She shook her head. “It’s risky, Marc. I need a lot of focus, and I barely managed to get one… repeated use… I don’t know…”
Elsewhere, taking on half a dozen wizards alone, Faris punched the air. It felt as though the atmosphere got cracked. The three caught in the cracks were left unable to move. The others rushed at the Mystic. He engaged them together. A punch from a witch got through and struck him right in his jaw. It threw him off balance and every hit from then on was a clean one. But suddenly, the three suspended in mid-air received swift, strong kicks on their backs and were thrown to the ground. And the beaten up Faris slowly faded and disappeared.
“A clone,” said a wizard. “Shit…”
They turned around to find three Faris Najis standing there, smiling. With an arm extended in front, the one in the centre curled his fingers in a beckoning gesture, daring the wizards to strike.
The three fallen on the ground were helped back up. And the Devil’s Hearth sextet began moving closer. A witch said, “Cloning divides your strength, Mystic. You’ve just signed your own death sentence.”
‘So, this bitch is the leader of this pack,’ Faris thought. ‘Apart from their charms, it feels like they’re using black magic… let’s break them up.’
Black magic users drew their strength from the Demonium itself. By taking part in vile practices like sacrificing the blood of innocents and chanting unholy, dirty psalms, these people summoned demonic energies and used them to enhance their magic and overall strength.
But Mystics specialized in defence against such filthy sorcery. All three clones of Faris brought their hands up in a boxing guard style and began charging up their Ki.
The six wizards attacked together, glowing maroon.
‘Yup,’ Faris thought as he braced for combat. ‘Maroon’s demonic…’
One Mystic, divided into three, against six masters of black magic – it was a balanced bout. Both sides were landing and taking hits of equal intensity. However, what the wizards were not counting for was how efficient and skilled their opponent was. In the blink of an eye, two of the clones merged back into the third one. He punched a wizard hard and then, just as quickly, got split into three. And in the next couple minutes, he repeated the process many times.
“He should be running out of Ki by now,” one wizard said.
“Why is he not tiring doing that?” another asked.
But Faris was barely using any Ki. His splits and mergers were very efficient without any Ki loss. Every merge was like inhaling, every split like an exhale.
The Cultists paused. Out of breath and frustrated by the Mystic’s antics, they stared in anger with a narrow gaze.
“Makes you furious, doesn’t it,” Faris taunted, smiling. “But you’re not fighting a kid here, are you, ladies and gents?”
The two women and four men had understood that much. They needed a new trick. But Faris had anticipated it. They all leaped back at the same time.
The Mystic whispered to himself, “Come to papa…”
The wizards chanted, “TAMARUM-PARA!”
Moisture in the air and plants around them began to get sucked out and turned into hundreds of tiny ice needles. They shot the needles at Faris. However, along with the incoming needles, the Mystic disappeared. It was as if all had been sucked into a vortex.
One wizard asked, “What was that?”
The senior witch replied saying, “I’m not sure but keep your guard up. He’s up to something… that was no teleportation I’ve ever seen.”
Suddenly, two hands emerged from a similar vortex inches away from the witch. They grabbed at her throat and broke her neck in one jerking motion.
“What!” another exclaimed watching the dead witch fall to the ground.
The hands went back into the vortex disappearing once again. But just as they disappeared, a flame rushed out of a new vortex which appeared in front of another wizard. The flame was strong. It burned the man to a crisp. He too died on the spot.
A wizard shouted, “Circle pit!”
All four gathered in an open flat area covered with grass and well away from any tree. They pressed back-to-back, eyes scanning every direction.
“Moment that vortex appears, we shoot!”
Vortex appeared.
An ice ball was fired at it.
It came rushing back at them from a different direction.
Vortex appeared again. One of the wizards rushed at it and attempted to jump inside. He was only halfway through when the vortex vanished. The top half of his body disappeared along with it. The lower half fell to the ground and twitched once before going limp. The others froze – horror dawning in their eyes.
Faris jumped out from a different vortex and took a deep breath. “Now, that was fun,” he said then chuckled leaning forward. “Effective use of the Continuum of Sempiternity. Handy, isn’t it?”
Down the stream, Neil, Gina, and Ben were being pushed back. They were outnumbered. The wizards were landing many clean hits and hurting the Martial Artists.
Eventually, Neil provided an opening. He gathered a needle-fine surge of Ki into his fingertips and drove it into their chest cluster – one of the three central Ki Clusters that governed the soul’s energy like a heart pumping blood, alongside those at the temple and the core. The strike disrupted the flow instantly. The wizards staggered as if their bodies had betrayed them, their Ki scattering, their limbs refusing to obey. A technique this sharp could cripple nerves, rob senses, even strip a person of movement altogether. Reckless though he was, the precision of the strike was proof enough: Neil Baylis was still a Zaatsu, and his mastery of Ki Manipulation was undeniable.
The strike had distracted the wizards, and their otherwise compact formation was broken. Neil smiled and clapped his Ki filled hands together producing a strong Ki wave which pushed all the wizards away.
Gina saw the opportunity, leaped ahead, and kicked two of them away. Ben whipped out two daggers from his umro bag and rushed at the immobilized ones.
He struck.
The blades pierced through the eyes of one of the wizards and dug into his brain.
The young Sokidu retracted the daggers and watched as the Cultist crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
An apt manipulator of both the earth and water elements, forging mud and manipulating it were a part of Gina’s arsenal. Before the Devil’s Hearth could respond to the sudden attack, she smashed her foot into the damp ground at the edge of the stream and kicked a large amount of mud at them.
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The wizards leapt out of the way bringing one of their immobilized comrades along. But the other one was brought down to the ground by the force of the mud strike.
Neil came summersaulting with dual blades in his hand and landed on his legs. While the weakened wizard grunted in pain, the Zaatsu’s sharp blades pierced through his heart.
Leaping further away, one of the wizards chanted, “TOROSIS-MAFAR!”
Two large sticky webs came at the trio from both sides. But they were ready. Pulling out daggers from her umro bag, Gina joined her partners in attacking the webs. Their sharp blades should have cut right through. However, instead of going through, their weapons simply got stuck. They tried hard but could not get them loose. Quickly then, the trio rushed away. Otherwise, the web would have caught them as well.
The wizard laughed and jerked his arm. The web came rushing towards him.
“Not like that, you Eye filth!” he said with a grin. All the weapons came and dropped at his feet and the web disappeared.
At the centre of the commotion, the Alchemist picked up a broken tree branch. It slowly morphed into a sabre. He then picked up two more and threw them to Jiro. These turned into sabres as well.
Hugo smiled and stood tall. “Alchemical morphing,” he said. “I must say, I’m impressed. You truly are an amazing Alchemist.”
He extended an arm out in front whispering, “KINOSHAN-WALA-POL…”
A sword appeared in his open palm. He swung once and got ready.
“Yataghan?” Derek said, looking at the sword. “I thought Zaatsus only used katanas or those twin blades.”
“I’m not just any Zaatsu…”
The Alchemist and his general attacked. Their weapons had the better reach. They attacked from either side. Jiro led the offensive with his dual sabres keeping the Zaatsu under relentless pressure while Derek remained at a distance, probing with precise thrust and slashes.
Hugo’s strength was in his superior speed and sharper reflexes. He was dancing between the triple blade threat of the leaders of the Devil’s Hearth. However, because of the distance and his shorter blade, he was unable to get close enough for a meaningful hit.
It was Jiro who landed the first strike. A thrust of his blade put a gaping cut in Hugo’s thigh. He grunted in pain and spun around to avoid his other sword.
“Round 2,” he said. A subtle Ki charge surged through his arms and vanished. The wizards sensed it but could not understand what the Zaatsu was about to do. Ki Manipulation was not their forte.
With each parry, each sidestep, he bled tiny amounts of Ki into the air forming connections with the natural elements – fire to stir heat, air to carry it, water to bind, and earth to ground. Ion by ion, he built the foundations of a storm. And it was so subtle that his opponents could not notice it.
When the surge came, it wasn’t just speed that drove him past their sabres. A crackle leapt through the air, snapping against Derek’s arm and jolting Jiro’s grip for half a heartbeat. The shock wasn’t enough to wound, but enough to rattle their composure – and to remind them Hugo Baylis was fighting on more fronts than they realized.
And the second concurrent surge pushed Hugo past their defences and left the Cultists stunned.
An elbow dug deep into Jiro’s midriff. He doubled over, eyes and mouth frozen wide, the breath knocked from him. Hugo took a swing of his Ki-strengthened yataghan at one of his sabres shattering it from near the guard.
Derek moved closer to strike. But the Zaatsu dropped low, braced with one hand, and swept Derek’s legs out from under him.
Jiro leaped back. Hugo swung at Derek, but the trickster melted into the ground and resurfaced next to his general.
In an instant, Hugo was back on his feet. “No sleeping on the job,” he said running at the duo.
“Come on!” the Alchemist yelled.
But Derek and Jiro’s formation had a hole in it now. The general only had one sword left. Using his signature Instantaneous Charge technique, Hugo kept slipping bursts of Ki into his sword. Every swing felt like a hammer striking at the sabres of the Cultists.
Derek and Hugo’s blades met. “You wanted a close fight?” the Zaatsu said, pushing in. His voice was steady, almost amused. “You’ve got it.”
The Devil’s Hearth had miscalculated like many before them. Information from the Eye’s offices was leaking. Stalkers of the underground had an eye on it. But what no one anticipated was how even the Eye’s own systems of rating failed to provide an accurate assessment of this highly versatile Zaatsu. The battle rating assigned to Hugo after every test was a mere 2200 – even Neil had a rating of 2300.
As the sabre and yataghan pressed against each other, Derek’s eyes narrowed. “You mask weakness with theatre, Baylis. I can read men better than numbers.”
But, just as Derek and Jiro were realizing, a confrontation with Hugo Baylis was never about strength. He was in the habit of taking down opponents far stronger than him. So much so that even someone like Obadiah, who had a rating of 3000, always seemed reluctant to spar with this man.
Because it was not about his strength. It was about the vast array of skills he possessed, the way he manoeuvred the battlefield, and the way he used his opponents’ strengths against them.
“You dragged me into your game, Derek,” he said with his next strike. “But I’ll beat you at it with my own steel.”
The Zaatsu was now getting in close, adapting to the situation. The Cultists were finding it hard to strike at him. Short, snapping chops of the yataghan were now getting through. They were getting cuts on their bodies everywhere.
Plus, Hugo had snuck in the middle. The duo had to be careful with their thrusts and avoid hitting each other.
Eventually, realising they needed a new strategy, they tried to break formation and move away. But that was exactly what Hugo was looking for. He followed Jiro, rushing at him with brutal speed. Slipping past the thrust of his sabre, all it took was one clean strike to sever the wizard’s sword wielding arm right off.
“Jiro!” Derek shouted.
But it was too late. The next chop cut through the retreating wizards guts. Blood gushing out, he fumbled back and fell. Hugo raised an arm up in the sky and brought it down like a judge’s gavel.
“No!” The Alchemist’s screams proved as in vain as his attempts to intervene. His alchemical control of the elements was unable to undo Hugo’s Ki connection.
A gust of wind smashed at the hapless man, crushing him to death.
The Zaatsu turned around and pointed his yataghan at the Alchemist. “Just you and me now, Derek.”
Amidst the tree cover, a wizard jumped atop a branch and began commanding vines to attack Ella and Marcus. With sabres in hand, three more rushed at them from the right and three from the left. And they were all glowing maroon now.
Ella and Marcus charged their Ki to a max. “Brace yourself, Marc,” the Mystic said. “That maroon demonic aura is what’s giving them strength. I will lead on this one…”
Mystics were experts in defence against black magic. So, Ella had to lead. This broke their usual formation, the one they were most used to, but it proved fruitful.
Ella used her Mysticism to break the black magic of the wizards. Whispering, “GALA-ZATA-SHIRO-LIN…” she filled up as much Ki in her hands as possible. It was an anti-demonic spell. Every time the wizards came in contact with her fists, their demonic shields kept breaking down.
This gave Marcus plenty of opportunities to land strong, clean hits. The Mystic’s spell kept breaking the wizards’ formation, while the Sokidu’s staff kept doing most of the damage.
However, the continuous intrusion from the vines rushing at the duo and grabbing at their limbs was a cause for worry.
Marcus pushed Ella in the air and smashed his staff on the ground. It forced the wizards back momentarily but gave enough time for the duo to change places.
“What’re you doing?” Ella asked.
“You’re a Mystic,” Marcus replied. “You should be able to undo that bastard’s control over the trees and shit. Do it. I’ll hold them off till then.”
The plan was a solid one. As a Mystic, she should have been able to undo the wizard’s magic easily. But to leave Marcus alone to fend off six of them alone was risky. She hesitated.
Then Marcus’s eyes began burning red and subtle flames rose from his skin. “Move!” he screamed out loud.
The Bernthal was now showing the full extent of his power. His tremendously strong Ki became clearly visible burning like flames around his body, and he countered the wizards with great ferocity.
His strength was overwhelming. Every strike felt like an elephant ramming against the wizards. Even with their defensive charms and spells protecting them from direct damage, each blow was hurling them back many paces. The brutal counterattack was working.
But it was taking its toll on the Sokidu’s Ki reserve. Ella had to move quickly. She skipped back and then used a teleportation portal to move past the ruckus and closer to the wizard controlling the vines.
With vines rushing at her, she crossed her arms before her chest, charged with Ki, and then snapped them open. Twin wind blades slashed outward in an X, hissing like steel drawn across stone. They cut right through all the vines like a knife through butter. The wizard quickly moved out of the way. The branch he was sitting atop got shattered and fell down. He safely landed on the ground.
Before the miscreant could attack her again, Ella stretched her left arm ahead and chanted, “UNZAMA-DOHAFEN-ZEEFA-JANSIN!”
Her spell was stronger, much stronger than the wizard’s. It broke his control immediately. It appeared as though the trees and vines were shaking themselves free from the effects of the wizard. However, Ella felt a sting in her arm. And the stinging feeling grew to an unbearable level. She screamed in pain, clutching her arm.
“Ella!” Marcus called.
In the corner of his vision, he saw her on the ground. The cunning wizard had left a fail safe in his spell. As soon as Ella cut his control off and established a link with the part of the forest he was in command of, a poisonous surge of demonic energy snapped back into her body. She was a Mystic. She could defend against black magic. But by the time she realized what was going on, the demonic Ki had already latched onto the arm forging her connection with the forest.
The young Mystic grunted and grabbed her left arm with her right. She had mitigated the damage. The poison was not spreading any further. But she was unable to establish control over the Ki in her left arm anymore.
The wizard slowly began moving towards her – an ear to ear grin smeared on his face. He grabbed Ella by her hair and picked her up. A few strong jabs at her belly and he let her go. She fell on the ground. Eyes closed tightly, she curled onto her side and let out a strangled cry.
Marcus had had enough. With his arms stretched wide, the fire breather screamed at the top of his lungs as he let his gigantic Ki reserves loose. It looked as if he had exploded into flames. And the shockwave hurled the wizards away.
“Keep your filthy hands off her!” He charged. A witch uprooted a rock to block his path, but he tore through it like it was made of feathers. Two more tried stepping in his way, but he threw them away with his staff.
The wizard standing next to Ella and one other chanted in unison, “PRISARO-MANATE!”
Two large blocks of iron, at least 10 feet in height, length, and breadth, appeared on either side of Marcus and pushed in. Two of the other wizards used their demonic Ki to enhance the strength of the blocks even more.
It was a powerful spell. But to challenge Marcus Bernthal on brute strength was a fools errand. It did force him to halt the charge, but only for a mere second. With arms stretched wide, he released one Ki shockwave and the blocks shattered like glass. The shards went flying away. And he charged on.
Wide eyed, leaning back, and shivering in fear, the wizard tried to block the Sokidu’s attack by putting up every magical barrier he could. But, with his entire Ki focused on the staff, Marcus’s strike was so brutally strong that it shattered all of the wizard’s defences and struck him in his right bicep.
Marcus’s staff landed and the world shook. The wizard’s chest had already caved before he was flung across the clearing, body spinning, bones shattered, blood trailing in the air. He tore through the first tree, then hit another with a sickening crack. By the time he slid to the ground, he was nothing more than a corpse Marcus had already forgotten.
Rest of the wizards were left stunned. Their strength in numbers had given the Devil’s Hearth an edge in the battle early on. And they were beginning to forget why the Zeta Squad was so feared in the rogue circuits. This was a group of Martial Artists that operated well together but each and every one of them was more than capable of handling themselves all on their own.
And to top it all off – they were led by Hugo. And just like their captain, the squad members had begun to take down opponents stronger than themselves.
Marcus moved and stood between the wizards and Ella. He turned with burning eyes, hunting for the next target.
As his stance widened, a shockwave of Ki left his body and pushed the wizards back. The entire forest felt his strength.
Flared nostrils, narrowed gaze, lines on his forehead, raging like a bull – the Sokidu gripped the staff tightly with both hands. “Alright,” he said. “Who’s next?”
