“One down, don’t lose concentration! King Cobra is still resisting! We need to get him before his transformation is complete!” Koi yelled at his team. “We need more energy!!” The captain’s words urged with an uncharacteristic panic, signalling an incoming disaster.

  Like a tidal wave rushing in and out, the spell frequency was starting to go out of balance. Blood trickled down the corner of his lip, as echoes of pitching voices blasted like eruption in his head.

  The spell is already getting hungry! Why is that Cobra still standing?! We won’t be able to continue at this rate. I need to do something quick!

  His eyes immediately fell on Zun, who was lying unconscious beside the spell dome.

  “You!” He shouted at a senior Angel standing right beside Chan. “Go get her to me, I need more energy!”

  “Yes, Captain!” The Angel immediately rushed toward the vicinity of the heavenly spell, but the glittering globe almost blindsided her. She halted her steps and shot out a chain to bind Zun’s right ankle and hauled the unconscious girl towards her.

  Urgent as the situation was, the Angel still stole a quick glance at Zun’s bloodied face, astonished by how badly the girl was wounded, before carrying her to Koi, who was perched in the tree at the adjacent corner.

  Just when the Angel was about to reach the tree, two hands suddenly gripped her throat and tried to strangle her.

  Zun had woken up. Despite looking dazed, her grip closed around the Angel’s throat hard like a tightening iron collar. The senior Angel lost her balance as she tried to shake Zun off, striking Zun’s face with her elbow multiple times – but the girl didn’t even flinch.

  “Die…die…die,” Zun grumbled under her breath. The disgusted undertone pinned those words on the image of the struggling exorcist like a direct threat.

  Koi watched the two struggle, rage spiking through the roof of his patience, until he let out a raw scream. But the tide of the heavenly chant drowned out his voice, stoking his frustration higher.

  Concentrating every ounce of pent-up energy, he forged a searing fireball with his sword and hurled it at Zun, scorching the Angel’s face and charring Zun’s arm.

  The fire left behind a trail of dark smoke, distracting many Angels. The chorus of the heavenly spell was instantly broken. A part of him quivered with the realisation. Squinting his eyes to see through the smoke, he met Zun’s spaced-out glare, seizing him like a culprit under a spotlight.

  A soft conversation suddenly struck his mind.

  “Every cause has a score to settle.”

  “No, Teacher! I am not a bad person! I am really not!!”

  “Captain, every action is a seed you sow. One day, you will have to do the harvest. Only you can uproot the pain.” The Oracle from the House of Glory consoled him.

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  Koi still remembered how those eyes penetrated the tough pretence he put up on his face like a clown.

  Yes, those eyes, they were filled with a humiliating sympathy, with hateful spite.

  A wave of shiver rushed down his spine. “Useless thing! Useless thing!” Koi jumped down from the tree and charged toward her in a fury.

  He snapped his whip and lashed out at Zun, every movement harbouring a deeply twisted dissatisfaction. With a sharp flick, the whip coiled around her neck and tightened as he yanked her toward him. Like a lifeless sandbag, Zun got dragged across the ground, battered and bruised.

  Within minutes, Koi’s hand reached for her head and knocked it several times against his knee. Blood splattered and drenched his white shirt.

  My suffering, my pain, my karma! I will cleanse them all. The Lord will forgive me. The Lord will understand me.

  However, while he was preoccupied, cracks were beginning to appear all over the heavenly globe.

  “NO!!” Chan tried to raise his energy to feed the spell, but he was quickly drained without any support from Koi.

  Unable to resist the demand of the spell, many exorcists blacked out and fell to the ground.

  “Captain!! We need you back right now! We can’t handle the spell at all! CAPTAIN!!”

  But it was too late. The heavenly spell glowed red like blood and shattered into pieces.

  “Have your Captain not taught you before to never turn your back on your enemy?”

  Chan jolted at the sound and turned back to find King Cobra inches away from his face. All the Angels behind him lay motionless on the ground, drenched in blood that glowed a deep, saturated red in the reflection of the shattered heavenly spell. The grotesque sight paralysed Chan, turning his muscles solid cold.

  The upper half of the elite demon’s head was swathed in heavy bandages, concealing a face full of overlapping stitches, crudely piecing his features together. Three jagged horns jutted from his forehead down to the middle of his face, where stitches lines peaked out. Thick metal nails were driven into the back of his scalp, like loose screws holding together a broken skull.

  Completing his macabre look was an old-fashioned, high-collar gothic trench coat that dropped past his knees, belted around the waist, and paired with tall leather boots draped with dangling chains.

  Chan was frozen at his spot. The real King Cobra was here.

  King Cobra had successfully exerted his demonic aura on this mortal plane and planted a seed of darkness within the very core of this environment, unbalancing the yin and yang energy. The whole sky turned red, casting every colour a different shade of blood.

  Under this dramatic lighting, the Cobra’s whole figure looked as if he had emerged from a bloodbath. His skin, coated with thick layers of reptilian scales, was deep, soaking red in contrast to his filthy teeth that gleamed in perfect gold.

  With an irritated hiss, he whispered, “Let me give you a piece of hell.”

  A wave of spasm hit Chan from head to toe, creating an epileptic reaction that violently twitched every fibre of his muscles.

  Tears clouded his eyes. A vision of Roger flickered in his mind.

  It is finally my turn. I know it is coming. I know I will never be able to run away from…death.

  A fat cobra calmly climbed into his mouth and took his final breath away.

  When Koi turned around, it was too late. He found the demon sitting on Chan’s corpse, waiting for him.

  “King Cobra!” Koi was too startled to make sense of what he just witnessed. He assured himself he had only missed a few minutes of action trying to replenish his energy with Zun’s.

  How can this be? Chan... you must be kidding me.

  “You are the captain of this pathetic group, aren’t you? Why don’t you pay for ruining my day?”

  The demon’s mouth twisted into an expressive, lopsided grimace that almost split to the edge of his earlobe. Even beneath the heavy stitches, his deep scowl pulled his sharp nose and chin into a harsher point like a deliberate distortion.

  The tension in the air was boiling high; the King’s fury was unmistakable.