“We’ll call this game ‘Bawling’!” Nick suddenly burst into loud laughter for some reason and it took him a minute to calm down, “Sorry. So, the rules are following – all of us will try to guess how many people can King Kong hit with one rock from a distance.”

The eyes of the others widened in myriad of emotions, of course, the most elated was the big ape.

“King Kong, you will pick the highest possible position and throw large rocks or stones at them, while we will encircle the camp in case they try to run. All of you have to remain careful and not go too close to them – those people will panic at first, but then will try to lure you to attack and fall into their traps.”

The more Nick explained, the more others grew excited. Bambi simply wanted revenge, Snow was a natural hunter and this atypical hunt was a new experience, King Kong, of course, found the idea extremely fun and YunYun was actually the same.

One could say this was a cruel act, but their target were people who were part of an evil cult and were murdering others all around the world in masses and even killed Nick’s family, thus no one present cared about theoretical cruelty of this ‘game’.

“In addition,” Nick continued to explain, “While you’ll be throwing rocks, from time to time they will roll in the deep trap holes and reveal a path we can use later during the night when we’ll clean up those who remain. I will try to assist you from side with a bow, but I’m not confident in my skills – I haven’t practiced bow in a long time. So, ladies and gentlemen if the rules are clear, make your bets – how many people can King Kong hit with one throw? There are total of fourteen unaware targets!”

The excited team made their bets. Bambi was cautious in her prediction and bet on three, Snow made an elegant clawing motion on the ground and it left four marks, so he had to go with it because of his pride. YunYun was hoping for seven targets to go down at the same time and Nick’s guess was six. The one who was the most confident in his own skills was King Kong as he bet on ten. Of course, it was possible he thought his way of making the bid was visually most effective by showing ten fingers, just like Snow clawed four lines. Obviously ten was much more than four, therefore, of course, much better.

Before the grand start, team spread around the perimeter with Nick leaving behind his last advise, “Remember, the first throw has the highest chance of hitting the most targets!”

King Kong prepared accordingly. He sized up the nearby rocks, but didn’t like any and retreated further away to look for better one. After considering it carefully, he decided on the ‘bowling ball’ in a size of a truck wheel and stealthily returned to his earlier spot. From their current positions his companions couldn’t see him, but everyone focused their attention on the small camp.

Nick prepared his bow and arrows as well. It took him a while to find it in his wristband underneath the many boxes full of documents he recently confiscated, but he managed to do it on time right before the huge boulder flew and hit exactly the middle of the campfire.

King Kong’s idea was not bad and the throw was performed elegantly without him making the tiniest sound, but just because his ‘ball’ fell in the middle of the ‘bowling pins’, it struck only those in the straight like from the campfire and further out. Still, the view was impressive – the burning pieces of wood, coal and dirt splashed around in the shocked faces while the cries of pain filled the valley. Few puddles of blood were left behind the ‘bowling ball’ that in the end of its route fell in to one of the trap pits.

Nick used the moment to launch couple of arrows and finish off one of the Qi masters who was further from the fire, but froze in shock for a split second. Thus King Kong obviously counted it as his own kill to a total of five. No one won yet, but King Kong didn’t stop. He positioned himself near a pile of rocks from the very beginning and now he picked random stones and rocks and kept tossing those in the direction of the panicked crowd, or at least what was left from it. Of course, he didn’t forget to loudly roar after each toss as well to make him look more ferocious and impressive.

If after the first throw people around the campfire were shocked, then when the first loud roar resounded, they woke up to find themselves in hell. Five were instantly dead and two wounded, other three forgot all their bearing of Qi masters and darted in the opposite direction from the huge roaring ape over the pools of blood that were once their comrades. Of course, they were ‘picked up’ a minute later by Snow.

YunYun cursed about her poor choice of position since no one ran towards her and decided to practice bow as well when she saw Nick finishing off another Qi master. Even if she was a sword user, additional set of skills could always come handy and she remembered herself to snort at alchemists during the previous years before Nick opened a whole new world for her in that field.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The remaining five people tried to hide themselves from the King Kong behind the nearby trees, but the two wounded didn’t make it on time and died under the relentless rain of rocks. The previously peaceful camp now was a filled with broken trees, stones and rocks and there were multiple deep pits around it.

King Kong noticed his pray was now hidden and he was out of ‘ammunition’ as well, thus he cheekily fell back and disappeared from the sight. Nick already guessed this will be the case and slowly repositioned himself towards the place where the ape just hid since he suspected his big buddy will try and attack from the side he was just at, so basically they switched their positions.

The three remaining people refused to move and remained hidden no matter how hard King Kong bombarded the area. After two more hours he was tired and annoyed, but it was expected and Nick already warned them that the real finish will be after the nightfall.

With the dusk YunYun got ‘lucky’ and one of the Qi masters slowly crawled up to her carefully looking behind his shoulder for the last time. After finishing him off she slowly moved towards the camp site herself. As per previous arrangement, only she and Nick would approach and her role was the most important.

YunYun didn’t know where exactly Nick was, but her task was to wait and as soon as Nick shot out a couple of his old creations to illuminate the surroundings, she had to pinpoint the two still hidden Qi masters and, if possible, neutralize them. To her annoyance, she saw only one who slightly moved in surprise while remaining hidden below the fallen trees.

Several minutes later Nick loudly asked, “One remaining?”

“Yea.” YunYun answered, evidently upset – this was definitely not ‘her’ day.

“Don’t worry. My guess is that he’s hidden somewhere around here, probably covered with the dead bodies of his comrades.” Nick plainly said, “Snow! Can you come over for a moment please? We can’t find the last one. Just follow my exact route – if there were any traps left, I somehow managed to avoid them.”

Then Nick started to light up pieces of wood and stick them in the ground around the place that was the camp few hours ago. Snow was still on his way, when a person jumped at Nick from under couple of corpses, but the latter was already prepared, easily evaded the attacker and then kicked the last Qi master in chest sending him right into one of the trap pits. After falling in, the man moaned in pain for a bit and them fell silent forever.

“Alright, we’re done here. All fall back!” Nick shouted and started to put out the fires.

Even if the ending was not as exciting as the beginning of the game, they completed their task without any casualties or enemies secretly escaping. The five decided to rest for the night and then fill the trap pits the next morning. Unfortunately, after that Nick and YunYun would have to leave, but they continuously promised to visit the three beasts sometime during the next few years and at the end got their ‘permission’ to go.

The two youths decided to go first to the old camp near the lake Tai in case the queen left there someone to wait for them. Then they would rush to the capital, report to the queen and proceed back to the Sun kingdom after that. They felt a bit sad their ‘vacation’ will have to end this soon, but the information from the Holy Order’s hideout had to be delivered to king Alexander Maxwell as soon as possible.

Fifteen days ago Tao arrived at lake Tai. He had to admit – the healing medicine Nick provided was top notch. Of course, he practiced his Qi technique exactly as his new brother in law instructed and felt fully recovered in just ten days. To make sure there were no remaining hidden dangers, he rested for few more days and then rushed to meet his wife, but found her in a really bad mood.

Princess Min was left in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, so she practiced her sword all day long and the more time flew by, the less people dared to approach her. She cursed YunYun and Nick for fooling around and tried to guess if the two have already went back to the capital or even crossed the woods and mountains to arrive in the Styx kingdom.

Tao’s arrival brought her a bit of joy, but the poor guy mostly got to be her sparring partner and soon regretted his ‘rash’ decision to prove himself as loving husband and run to his wife as fast as he could.

One day, when Tao bravely received ‘pointers’ from his significant other, he suddenly froze and tried to say something while pointing in the distance only to receive a kick to his chest. But if he usually would stay down for a minute or two to gather his strength, this time he instantly sat up and pointed in the distance again, but no sounds came out from his moving mouth.

Min looked at him in annoyance and wanted to say something, but the surrounding shouts of surprise and shock interrupted her. There were quite a few people left in her entourage and, since they had nothing better to do, they usually peaked at the beauty wielding her sword. With everyone around her shouting, princess finally looked in the direction her husband was pointing at and instantly became as speechless as he was.

Few hundred meters from them, just at the edge of the forest, her dear sister and her fiance were standing … in front of three huge monsters. The biggest of them was black ape with silvery back, probably taller than her mother’s house, the other was enormous white tiger with black stripes, maybe even four meters tall, and the last one was golden doe over two meters tall and … her sister was hugging it? Meanwhile Nick was seriously explaining something to the big ape and for some reason touched his fist with his own.

Suddenly the ape grabbed Nick who swiftly evaded, but then ape continued to chase after the youth. The people in the camp drew their weapons, while looking at the princess Min in confusion. Should they attack? Or defend the camp because there was no more hope for Nick?