Chapter 38: Let the game start!
*** Warning: mild gore ***
"Laurel!!!!" Tobias screamed as Laurel gets caught in one of the spider webs and yanked towards the air.
She flew up towards Saskia, holding the other end of the spider thread, and then dangled in the air. The thread around her body was caving into her flesh and crushing her lungs. Laurel gasps for air.
The witch Saskia looked in amazement at Laurel. She scanned Laurel's body and slid her hand to Laurel's abdomen. A cruel smile spread on Saskia's face as she dug her long nails into Laurel's flesh on the stomach. Laurel screams in pain as she felt Saskia absorbing something from her body. Tears gathered in Laurel's eyes as she felt part of her being forced out by the witch.
"Interesting... Laurel... Just who are you? Your delicious mana reminds me of our arrogant Cynthia. What is your attribute, little girl?" says the witch as she takes out her long nails and licks the blood on the nail from her index finger.
Laurel gasps for air and coughs. She draws her sword and swings it towards Saskia. Saskia becomes livid when the blade manages to touch her face, wounding her cheek.
"You mongrel! How dare you!" Saskia shouted in rage.
Saskia swings and throws Laurel's body as strong as she can towards the floor. Tobias starts to run after Laurel to catch her, but he is not fast enough to catch her.
*bam*
The collision created a cloud of dust, and Tobias slumps down on his knees. There is no way that Laurel could survive that.
The witch mercilessly shot spider threads with sharp ends towards the collision but gets intersected by Ian and Kyrie's swords in mid-air. The threads got cut into tiny pieces and fell from the sky like confetti. Saskia frowns and starts to redirect her threads against both Ian and Kyrie. Each collision of her threads and their swords created sparks.
The appearances of those threads were deceiving. These threads were strong like metal.
Both sides ceased fire after Ian and Kyrie were successful in repelling all the threads from ever reaching where Laurel fell. Kyrie starts enchanting. Soon, water poured from the sky, extinguishing the sea of fire from burning further into the town.
The dust cloud dispersed quicker when rain poured from the sky, showing Imogen standing tall with Laurel in her arms. Underneath her feet, the ground indented through the force that Imogen had to release to the floor to catch Laurel. Imogen lowers down Laurel, who is shocked to see Imogen again.
"You..." Laurel was thrilled but shy at the sight of Imogen.
"It's Imogen, Laurel." Imogen finally tells Laurel her name. She smiles at Laurel, who is still entranced.
Everyone looked up at the little girl floating in the air. The artificial rain stopped when the fire extinguished. Ian passed another bottle of mana potion to Kyrie when he finished the one in his hand.
Saskia giggles with joy when Imogen and Kyrie caught her eyes.
"This is sooner than I thought!!! So, were you the one who defeated Cynthia, woman? You are the saintess, right?" asks Saskia, thrilled.
Imogen narrows her eyes at the kid that seems to have a screw loose somewhere. Laurel looks at Imogen, astonished.
["A twisted little girl with red curly hair who loves thrills and games." "Always seeks pleasure through the cruelty imposed on others." "Flesh and blood are her favorite scenes." Don't tell me...]
"The supreme witch Saskia?" Kyrie blurs out.
"Oh? You know me?" exclaims Saskia.
"Why the hell is she here so early in the game?" Kyrie looks at Imogen.
"I destroyed her enchantment and killed her puppets," says Imogen nonchalantly.
Kyrie closed his eyes for moments of silence dedicated to himself.
[F***]
"So you are that bug that Sil is interested in," Saskia says but sighs in disappointment, "You could have been an excellent specimen. Oh! I just got an amazing idea!"
Kyrie's eyes twitched as soon as he heard Sil's name. Saskia extends her arms with a wide eerie smile. The townspeople started to scream in pain as all their mana is getting extracted from their bodies. The mana is ordinarily transparent, but the mana that Saskia absorbed was jet black. The more mana she took in, the more pleasure showed on her face. She looked so high in pleasure that she started to laugh frantically. The townspeople who had their mana absorbed fell onto the ground as dried up corpses with hollow eyes. Those that were not absorbed into dry corpses shivered in fear at their hiding place.
Laurel also started to scream in pain; her mana is beginning to slip out. However, hers was transparent. Not a lot of time has passed for Laurel's mana to turn corrupt. Imogen slides her hand into Laurel's abdomen and takes out the threads that Saskia implanted in Laurel when she dug her nails on her flesh. Each thread was long enough to measure half an arm.
[That is revolting. It's like looking at tapeworms.]
Kyrie flips a corpse to examine it and sees in the neck a spider bite that looks like two small dots. The bite got infected into a cluster of tinny sores. Ian is shocked at the grotesque infection.
"I see... She infused her mana into normal people's bodies through the use of spiders. She basically created her own mana farms from living beings," says Kyrie.
Kyrie was right. The night before, Saskia spread thousands of spiders into the town to infuse her mana into the townspeople. She looks very interested in Kyrie for knowing.
"It's like you are Sil's split! That boring man also knew well about my enchantments," murmurs Saskia, "I guess it is a disservice on my part if I don't invite him to the game."
A black mass came out of her back and transformed into a crow. Then, it flew away.
"I guess that would do," Saskia talks to herself, looking at the crow that helps her send the message, "Now he cannot say that I have not informed him if I were to play with his toy."
Saskia chuckles. Imogen propels towards the witch, swinging her sword against Saskia. Saskia summons black mana into her hand, and it materializes into a long wand. She uses her wand against Imogen and stops Imogen's attack. Then, she swings Imogen away. Imogen falls back to the ground, sliding away from the force.
"Aren't you impatient?" exclaims Saskia.
Saskia uses her wand and then murmurs a long enchantment. Black mana wraps around the wand, and purple magic inscriptions started to circle it.
Kyrie jumps towards Saskia to stop her from enchanting but gets stopped by demonic puppets that appeared out of nowhere.
Soon, Imogen, Kyrie, Ian, Laurel, and the group of guards busied themselves from the crazy attacks that the demon puppets swing at them. These puppets would not even care about their own wellbeing, using all kinds of means to harm them. They would even use their bodies if they could achieve their goal. Kyrie fought the demon puppets that threw themselves at him but gets painfully aware that there were too many for him to find himself an opening to stop Saskia. So, he started to fight against the puppets that were moving towards Imogen as well.
Understanding Kyrie's intentions, Ian joins in to fight alongside him towards the influx of demon puppets against Imogen. Thus, Imogen, finding a chance of an attack, jumped towards Saskia. Saskia smiled at Imogen's persistence and sped up her enchantment by multiple folds. Before Imogen got her opportunity to attack, Saskia's corrupted mana splashed out of her hands and soon wrapped around the town inside a dome created by the corrupted magic. Imogen looks at the widening smile from Saskia as the dome closed, trapping her and the rest inside.
The town was enveloped by darkness. The dome seems to have disappeared, and instead, one can see the sky and the usual daily scenery. However, the sky did not match the present time. Instead of the afternoon sky, the sun is high up in the middle of the sky like it is noon.
The crumbling buildings that got devoured by the flames are no longer damaged. They returned to their original state as if the witch has never visited the town to bring destruction and death. The townspeople that were dried up to corpses from getting their mana stolen are now alive and moving. Their faces did not show that anything has happened and went on to their daily routines and responsibilities.
"Now... We are going to play a game. I have chosen a classic one! The guessing game!" Saskia's voice echoed throughout the town, "The game goes like this... There is a daily mission. You have to guess which one is a ghoul and which one is alive. You have to kill at least three ghouls a day. However, if you fail to kill three, you will die and become a ghoul yourself. To keep things exciting, your main mission is to find where the enchantment circle is. Once you find it, you will be free. But! You will have a time limit of four days. If you fail, you die. Simple, right?"
Saskia chuckles. Someone ran into the dome, and the dome reacted to someone's sudden contact. The woman screamed as she quickly got consumed by fire, burning her to crips. Then three other townspeople got incinerated alive, and before anyone could help, they fell into the ground dead.
"Oh! Ouch! I should have been more patient when I explain the game! Anyone who dares to touch the dome will die themselves, and three other people will pay the price. Well, then! Let's begin our exciting game!"
Kyrie looks around at the frightened townspeople. He looks around to identify a ghoul with a human, but everyone looks like a living human and expresses themselves like a live human. He can avoid playing the game, but touching the dome will cost someone else's life. He looks at Imogen, who is scanning around the town. It seems like a purge is happening.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone