With both Bonifacius and Crown dead and their souls kept hostage, JohnWillStab was on his way to the L.F.T.O base when he saw it.

A massive wall or tendrils, it was like a massive wall that only Tenecirus users could see.

Dark purple in colour, they twisted and jerked all around.

JohnWillStab tried to use shadow-step but he wasn’t able, usually, this either meant there is a source of light where he’s going or there is a solid object in the way of where he would appear.

JohnWillStab looked around.

In the distance the tentacles made an opening for a bird to fly through, JohnWillStab also saw a cart unknowingly pass through the tentacles, the one driving the cart looking completely unharmed.

JohnWillStab took a deep breath, with all the collective strength of both JohnWillSmart and JohnWillEdge, JohnWillStab stepped towards the barrier.

In an instant, a hundred tendrils shot towards him, JohnWillStab summoned his tenecirus tentacles, hoping for a counter-attack.

As soon as the two muscles touched, the world went black for John.

He looked around but was met with nothingness.

“Hello!” the white-feathered harpy announced, judging from the several tentacles sprouting from his back, he was the one who set the wall up.

“What do you want?” John asked plainly, he knew he was a tenecirus user, he knew he wasn’t on their side, and there was no point wasting time asking those questions when there are bigger questions waiting…

“Cutting straight to the point? I have to admit, I’m a little hurt that you want to end our chat!” the man sat down in his chair, John could swear it wasn’t there before.

“But alright, I suppose you have some allies to rescue…” he replied with a shrug, he glanced over to John for some sort of reaction only to be met with none.

“I have high hopes for you, JohnWillStab! Well, I had high hopes for your whole group, but after being wiped out by a few stray souls…”

The man put on a wry expression, “I’m a little disappointed…”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Bromy and Alex, those two have some real potential, but the main L.F.T.O guys…”

“But then you keep useless characters like Revenberry, Foxly, the Thief, that one guy in living in your guys’ shed…”

“That one dead fire dude…”

JohnWillStab clenched his fists.

“Don’t talk shit about Malagmus!” he thought.

The harpy stepped closer to John.

“I will give you guys another chance; I need to see some proper hero material!” he placed a cold, heavy hand on JohnWillStab’s shoulder.

JohnWillStab was patiently listening to the man talking out of his ass, awaiting his chance to speak.

He could finally ask the only question on his mind at the time…

“…”

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“…”

“Why are you naked, though?” John finally asked.

The man spun around.

“Ah, you ask why I come before you with my bare soul? Well, it’s a sign of goodwill!” he exclaimed.

“No… I wanted to know why he’s naked…” John thought.

“Besides, clothes cannot exist in one’s soul!” he added.

JohnWillStab looked down and saw that he was, in fact, wearing clothes, he looked over to the harpy and saw that he was in fact, wearing a black jacket.

“Right…” JohnWillStab squinted.

“He’s just a pervert…”

The harpy snapped his fingers as the black walls of the room they were in morphed, tentacles peeling off from them.

“Now then, the souls shall be waiting in the forest, you have… let’s say two hours! Good luck!” the harpy announced.

JohnWillStab found himself standing in the middle of the road again.

“…”

“…”

He still saw the wall before him and as such decided to turn around and return to the forest.

“Well, I don’t have another choice, I have to go there and make things work out!”

“Sitting around will achieve nothing…”

JohnWillStab was doing a great job keeping his mind off the mostly hopeless task before him.

He tried using the friend-communication to talk to Bromy but it wouldn’t let him, it was another effect of the wall, it could block and communication, teleportation and light magic.

He ran back towards the town and turned down the road into the forest, he continued his way deeper and deeper, passing through their camp, the now-abandoned TradeRash camp, John’s training spot.

Eventually, he made it to the clearing surrounding the old, abandoned fort from which all the tentacles came from, meaning atop it stood the harpy.

However, getting there wouldn’t be that easy, three dozen white soul monsters blocked his way.

JohnWillStab reached for both of his daggers.

He extended his hand, tendrils flew out only to be smacked away mid-air by the enemy tentacles.

“It was worth a shot…” he sighed as the army of thirty-six monsters morphed their hands into blades and maces.

JohnWillStab tried casting shadow-step again, this time it worked.

“Looks like I can shadow-step as long as I do it inside the walls…” he thought.

JohnWillStab shadow-stepped past them and began running towards the tower.

He heard splashing behind him, uncertainly he glanced behind him seeing the army of soul monster sprinting after him, they were a lot faster than John, even when he shadow-stepped.

Just as he was about to shadow-step again, one of the monsters got him, its hooked hands burying into John’s leg.

“AH! SHIT!” even with reduced pain, this still hurt.

He turned back, planting both daggers in the monster’s head only to have them get stuck in its rock-hard head.

John jerked the daggers free as his torso was stabbed by a dozen more sword-hands.

His tendrils climbed the blade that stabbed into his heart, momentarily damaging the soul monster, as soon as its skin made contact with John’s tenecirus tentacles it melted.

“Nice!” JohnWillStab used their confusion to shadow-step away.

Another few monsters ran at him.

He fired off another tentacle, again this one got intercepted mid-air.

No less than six, armed soul-monsters burred their weapons in John, at least tried.

JohnWillStab used his tendrils to wrap around him under his clothes, as soon as the soul-monster arm-weapons touched John’s torso, they partially melted.

“This feels weird… Wasn’t I meant to avoid using the tenecirus this much?” John thought.

Again, the monster charged at him, this time they didn’t get a chance to hit John’s tentacle armour because their legs melted.

Seconds ago, JohnWillStab made a tentacle discretely slip into the muddy soil from his pant leg and spread around.

It was like watching figurines made from butter walking on a hotplate.

Suddenly his vision blurred as he remembered the one place, he forgot to make tentacle armour; his neck.

His head was cleanly severed from behind.

“A fuck! I’ll get you, bastards!” JohnWillStab wasn’t sure if he was just pissed or if the tentacles were taking their toll on his mind.

Lastly, his head was crushed like a watermelon in a MeinTube video.

Meanwhile…

The group of seven stood in the town of Glumington, all the guards, several mages and willing travellers were brought to the front gates.

Dylan was successfully managing the hypothetical defence of the city.

The groups of trainees were called back into the centre of the city for their protection, while their trainers were asked to help defend the city, some agreed others didn’t.

ReAjuan, Silverlight and Ladderhome agreed, while TradeRash explained they weren’t “into that whole fighting thing anymore”.

4TardAlliance and Dumblr+ just kind of… disappeared…

They were bickering about something a for like two hours before both sides decided to just disband, that included the trainees, they got into the fighting too and just left…

Posters reading “Lost: 4TardAlliance… last seen: arguing” and “Lost: Dumblr+… last seen: arguing” were hung up.

All the Dumblr+ posters were mysteriously vandalised; someone drew afros an all of their portraits.

After that, all the 4TardAlliance posters were recoloured to show a rainbow of colours and hashtags along the lines of “#saveTheWolfpeople” and “#EndClassDiscrimination”

One of them got confused and write “#HomeRuleIsRomeRule”

Another one replied with “#NoTaxationWithoutRepresentation”

Dylan saw these and was concerned about the idea of an uprising.

“Are they turning against me?! WE DON’T EVEN HAVE TAXES YET!”

He had all posters removed.

Taking this as a sign of oppression, both sides came forward from the shadows.

Despite their fundamental differences, at heart they were one, whether they spray-painted rainbows or swastikas – they wanted one thing, freedom!

…for their side, not the other one.

And so, operation PaintTheTownFree was born, essentially both sides vandalised a few buildings and then saw what the other side was painting, got butt-hurt and started infighting again.

Meanwhile…

Patiently, the jGuardian trainee group waited for some sort of message from John, they stood around for about an hour already.

Alistard stood with his back pressed against the wall, tapping his foot impatiently with enough force to power a small town’s electrical needs.

Abutron, Heike, Sepukku4me_n_u and WeabooMike were playing cards.

Chaz and Dun were off getting something to eat.

Another half an hour later, they were all playing cards anxiously when they were approached by a mysterious man.

He wore black robes with a brown hood.

“Hey, are you guys the L.F.T.O group?” the man asked.

“Yeah…” Chaz replied uncertainly.

The man smiled.