At first Leo was blinded by the bright sunlight, but then he felt someone grabbed him by the neck and threw outside. Under the smirking looks of the group he clumsily fell on the ground and rolled a couple of times.
“Ouch!” Leo slowly got up rubbing his head.
“What the hell, Caesar!” Leo heard melodic, but at the same time angry girl’s voice, “It’s just a child!”
“I’m sorry, lady Etessa! I though it was some kind of a beast.” The guy named Caesar was trying to find excuses.
“He does kind of resemble a little beast, doesn’t he?” Another girl giggled.
“Still, it’s no reason to abuse a child. He’s probably a slave here who had to carry water or something.” Another girl said and Leo saw that the words were spoken by an incredibly beauty.
After his eyesight adjusted, Leo realized that the search squad who found him consisted of six or seven girls and around dozen youths who tried to cater to their every whim. Not very far there were several other groups of young men trying to look busy as if searching for something, but taking peeks towards the girls all the time.
The girl who spoke last wore a long white robe and her golden hair fell over her shoulders like a waterfall. Her eyes were even bluer that the sky and her face … well the only thought Leo had at the moment was that he would gladly pass her a towel and preferably even help her to dry up after a bath.
“Look what you did! He is scared silly!” A girl beside the blond one exclaimed. Leo heard her voice previously from the hut, but then in had more commanding tone.
“Hahaha! He has probably fallen in love with lady Elsa from the first sight.” A tall and muscular young man commented with a laugh, but while the other guys found it funny, the faces of the girls turned more annoyed than amused.
“Shut up, Scott!” The girl hissed back at him, but Leo’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘It’s her!’ Leo recognized the girl who just spoke, ‘She has shorter hair now, but it’s definitely her! And she has the same sword as the other lady back then!’
There was a chance! They knew each other! They had met previously after all!
He didn’t think much and immediately took few steps towards Etessa, slightly bowed and politely said, “Thank you for saving me! I saw you in the big white house with the transportation thing and knew you’ll come and save me!”
While his main dialect was not perfect, it was good enough to formulate his thoughts.
While the rest of the crowd became stupefied by what they heard, the child’s words managed to register in Etessa’s mind and she quickly realized who the beggar-like boy was.
“You … you’re the one from the island?” She exclaimed in shock.
Seeing the boy nod like a chicken pecking grain, the girl with the long blond hair asked in shock, “You know him?”
“I think so! If I’m not mistaken, he’s the one who was used by the Voodoo sect in the attempt to implicate us.” Etessa said, “Elsa, he was seriously abused and his mind was manipulated by someone. And more importantly when I saw him a month ago he was round and chubby, but now … look how skinny he has become!”
“Lady Etessa, are you sure it’s the same boy?” One of the young men asked, “That’s too much of coincidence!”
“That’s true.” Elsa said and squatted in front of Leo who almost fainted after inhaling the sweet fragrance coming from her. She pointed at Etessa and said, “Tell me, where did you see the big sister?”
“Uhmm … it was a big house with white walls and floor …” Leo stuttered trying to find the words he knew, but then his eyes lit up and he continued, “And she was dressed in white, and there was one pretty lady dressed in red. And she had sword like yours. And there were two ugly men in skirts … and they made me wear skirt …”
The last part Leo remembered in disgust, but to the onlookers it felt as if the child had gotten one trauma after another.
The crowd looked angrily to the side where Bimpo and Onataka knelt trying to stay invisible, but Etessa didn’t need more evidence.
“What happened to you? Why do you look like this?!” She asked in shock squatting down next to her friend.
Of course, she meant Leo loosing weight, but the boy though she was speaking about his outfit.
He pointed at the hut and said in as sad and low voice as he could muster, “Punishment.”
“You bastards!” Caesar drew the sword intending to immediately punish the two evildoers, when Etessa stopped him.
“Caesar! We are a righteous sect! We don’t murder people only because we don’t like them! They’ll have their trial!”
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But in the meantime Leo thought of a way to look the most pitiful he could. He remembered how back home his sisters after their marriage came to visit and cried to their mothers. They spoke about the horrible things their husbands ‘made them do’ and the terrifying things they ‘did to them’ and not only mothers, all the other sisters came to console them as well.
Leo had seen that play too many times and he didn’t even have to practice for it.
The moment Etessa turned back her attention to him, Leo’s lower lip trembled and he whispered, “They made me do all those bad things … and … and then they did all those painful things to me …”
His vocabulary was a bit lacking, therefore he rubbed his backside indicating where he was ‘schooled’ and forced out a tear. Of course, it sounded cruel, but it all would've been fine-ish – after all he he was a captive and maybe a slave. But unfortunately Leo felt like it wasn’t enough and since he had no clue what ‘bad things’ besides light spanking and rubbing with the sand instead of a soap he could’ve experienced, he said the first thing that came to mind.
“… and then they did those things to their mother … one from the back and the other from the front … it was so so bad!”
Leo didn’t know what exactly happened, but after he uttered those words the hot afternoon temperature suddenly dropped to the freezing degrees.
The two beautiful girls slowly stood up and with synchronized step approached Bimpo and Onataka and before any of them had a chance to say anything in their defense, their heads separated from their shoulders and rolled down in the ground.
‘These ladies … are scary!’ Leo gulped in fear.
He didn’t even managed to see how their swords left the scabbards when the two girls bathed in the rain of blood. He even began to consider a new rule – number six: never piss off a girl, but then realized it was basically the same as number five that prevented him pissing off anyone stronger than him.
Be as it may no one in the crowd felt that the two girls had passed the wrong judgment on the two, but the people further away didn’t hear the conversation leading to the execution. All they knew was that the righteous sect like the Sacred Order would never kill innocents.
“Has lady Etessa found anything?”
“Did she really find something?”
“Did lady Etessa really find the evidence?”
Some of the wannabe suitors from not too far away curiously shouted one after another.
Unfortunately their voices were heard from further away as well.
“Lady Etessa has found something!” Suddenly one of the distant observers shouted in joy.
Even if he himself didn’t earn the merit of finding the evidence that the Voodoo sect belonged to the corrupt path, the man was happy to share the news with the others and there were many like him who also wanted to be a part of the success.
One after another people across the search area began to shout – ‘Lady Etessa has found the evidence!’. A heartbeat later the news of lady Etessa finding the evidence spread across the former Voodoo sect’s grounds and tens of red signal flares shot to the sky.
While the small group at the beach was confused, the expressions of those in the air were grave. Both Maramasa’s and his father’s suspicion of the worst possible outcome turned out to be true. Not only the so called ‘righteous’ Sacred Order didn’t shy off to stoop so low and incriminate them, they even faked finding of the evidence of them belonging to the corrupt path.
There was no need for any words or explanations. Maramasa looked at his father and slightly nodded – they both knew what had to be done and they had no more than two breaths of time.
The next moment former Voodoo sect’s head dived down towards the spot where the most disciples of the allied forces were gathered, but right after was intercepted by Laura Cloud. Her wind affinity allowed her to have incredible bursts of speed while lady Evelyn gained immense destructive potential from her fire affinity. And the latter’s flaming claymore slashed at Maramasa’s back the moment he was stopped.
Unfortunately for the two women, Maramasa’s goal was not below, but to gather at least two of them or preferably even more Nascent soul stage cultivators at the same spot as close to him as possible. Before anyone could blink, Maramasa’s body suddenly disintegrated in a thin air followed by irresistible suction force towards the spot he was just at and right after that – a deafening blast.
At the same time his father didn’t even bother to move anywhere. First his gnarled staff and then he himself as well disintegrated in a similar fashion, but while the explosion that was created by Maramasa was crimson, his father’s was green, even dark yellow.
Thousands of the Sacred Order’s disciples were caught in the aftershock and perished instantly while those in the close proximity were thrown away like leaves in the wind. The worst thing was that even though they were cultivators at the Nascent soul stage, the damage from someone at their level detonating own souls was heavily destructive not only physically. The resonance from the blast inevitably injured the souls of others by either crippling them on the spot or even forcing weaker souls to disintegrate along the one who performed the suicide.
What made things even worse was that Maramasa left behind him a large corrosive crimson cloud that somehow penetrated every pore of a person’s body, but his father – a cloud of an incredibly toxic poison that began to melt the closest person’s skin the moment it came in contact with it.
When the reinforcements who set up the formation flags arrived, the two sect masters – lady Evelyn and Laura Cloud were lifelessly lying each in their respective craters where they fell after the explosion. The two Nascent soul stage elders from the Sacred Order had melted in pools of goo, but the old sect master sat on the ground cross legged inflated like a balloon.
It was obvious that in order to reduce the destruction the old man sacrificed himself without a second thought and inhaled most of the poison. His earth affinity allowed him to hold on for two breaths of time until his dying remains were sealed, but unfortunately he was beyond saving.
In a heartbeat the mightiest sect of the Aurora mortal realm, the Sacred Order, was reduced to a mediocre power, but unfortunately the rest suffered enormous casualties as well. No one actually believed that there would be found an evidence proving that Voodoo sect belonged to the corrupt path and the whole charade was intended only as a display of strength.
When Maramasa and his father detonated their souls at the same time, Leo along with the lady Etessa’s group were only knocked off their feet by the aftershock. After coming to their senses they saw the incredible mass destruction, but holding back the impulse to rush towards the spot where their mothers should be, both Etessa and Elsa with teary eyes tended to the wounded, trying to save as many lives as they could.
Leo, on the other hand, was left at the beach with mixed feelings. Theoretically he was safe and he even found a new, pretty backer, but the view of the destruction caused to the landscape and the countless dead people left him speechless. He never knew anyone could have this much power and wondered how exactly he was supposed to cultivate to catch up to the people this strong.
Standing next to Leo, Caesar Reed had completely different things in mind. Even though lady Etessa ordered him to take care of the little beggar, he was not sure what he was supposed to do or how much the boy had to be pampered. Putting too much effort was bothersome, but neglecting this duty might provoke the wrath of the girl of his dreams.
In the end he decided to bring Leo along to the sect with the rest of the survivors and see how it went from there.