“Shit! Back away! Back away!” Cinder cried as he pulled Bolt with him to escape the spreading blood fog. Many of their colleagues were simply one or two seconds too slow and suffered the same fate as the two men in robes.
They ran. They looked back once or twice, all they saw was the collapsed and drenched clothes of the others. Their vehicles seemed intact, but a few of those present did lose their lives while they were in them.
“How dare you! You foul spirit!” A powerful roar exploded. Cinder and Bolt looked, it was a muscular bald man jumping from the top of a speeding jeep.
Golden light exploded from the bald man’s palms, glowing arcane symbols manifested in the air behind him. With solemn and sonorous chanting of an unknown buddhist scripture, he unleashed two palm strikes using both his palms at the cloud, aiming at the woman’s face.
The eyes on that giant face glowed red as it screamed again. Shockwaves from her eardrum piercing screams crashed against the golden palm strikes. An explosion as deafening as a full force thunderstrike cleared the dark fog surrounding the mansion as well as the outward spreading blood fog.
Cinder and Bolt finally had a moment to breathe. With haste, they found a safe place to rest and watch how the battle was going. To Bolt, it was probably a good time to leave and find safety, but to do so would only bring them trouble. Maybe, he should just stay a bit longer and only escape when they absolutely have to.
“Don’t.” Cinder grabbed Bolt, seemingly having already figured out his thoughts: “The moment we’re here, we’re already marked. And even if we make it outta here, the curse would follow us and she, whatever ‘she’ is, will also follow us. It’s best to stay here and ask those who can to resolve it for us after.”
“But what if they can’t win?” Bolt asked, taking one deep breath after another.
“Then we’re better off dead, preferably right away.” Cinder shook his head with a wry smile: “Because there’s more to this - this end of our lives than death. And often they are way more horrifying.”
“Boom!” The bald man and the woman in a dark cloud clashed once more, the shockwave broke what looked like all the windows in the mansion. The bald man was thrown onto the ground, almost crashing the jeep he came here in, while the dark cloud was pushed back and shrunk visibly in size.
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“Fire!” A male voice came from the jeep, as one man jumped out from the driver’s seat and one man stood up through the jeep’s roof and fired two grenade launchers at the mansion at the same time.
The grenades arced in the air and exploded at about the second floor window’s height. Bright orange burning liquid splashed from the centers of explosion onto the mansion and lower portion of the dark cloud. Dozens, if not hundreds of voices screamed at the same time, a darkness was lifted off the mansion. But at the same time, the dark cloud hovering above had become more intense.
A male voice and a female voice screamed at the same time. Two individuals in ragged clothes and whose bodies were covered in blood and grevious wounds leapt from the roof of the mansion. The man with at least three open wounds on his chest was wielding two swords made of ribs, one short and one long; the woman had a very visible gash on her neck, as if her head was cut off then stitched together by some gray threads. She was wielding a sword as well - a crooked sword seemingly made of a full human spine.
Cinder almost jumped: “Those are the watchers - how could - ”
“You foul filth!” The bald man opened his eyes wide and growled through his teeth: “Who could have made you - this is - ”
The two watchers lunged at the jeep, their weapons in hand, ready to swing at the two men in the jeep. The bald man darted over with his hands glowing in golden light. Before he would collide with the two watchers, his index fingers pointed at the watchers and blasted two condensed beams of Qi at them.
The Qi beams penetrated the two watchers’ chest, exploding them from the inside and blasting them into chunks. At the very next moment, two puffs of dark smoke shot at the two men in the jeep, completely catching the bald man and their targets by surprise.
“Clunk! ” “Clunk!” Some metal objects on these two men’s chests burst into pieces. Dark handprints crawled all over their hands, chests and faces, before their eyes shrunk, melted and left only two dark holes in their sockets.
The man in the driver’s seat sat back into the car, spun the steering wheel while stepping on the gas pedal. The jeep swerved at the bald man, almost swiping him with its back.
The bald man grunted as he landed barely on his feet after dodging that vehicle attack. He could not even spare a moment to breathe before having to turn back and block a stream of dark smoke shooting his way with his palms. This threw him backwards a few steps and gave him some space.
Without a moment of hesitation, the bald man reached into pockets and brought two copper coins wrapped in red talismans. His Qi cut thin slashes on his own middle fingertips and let the blood soak the talismans. After a few quick annunciations of arcane, obscure words, he swung both his hands and shot the coins at the dark cloud. Thin golden threads wrapped in thinner blood red threads connected the coins and his palms.
Dozens of hands of various sizes poked out of the dark cloud, attempting to block or catch the coins. But the coins curved and turned in the air while wrapping around the cloud like two bolases.
In a moment’s time, the two coins and the golden and red threads had wrapped around the cloud by a few laps. The bald man pulled on both threads, sweating bullets and pale in the face. Frustrated and furious screams exploded from inside the cloud, but it could not do anything, not even conjure hands or spirits or spread the dark fog at the moment.
“Someone come here! Someone!” The bald man raised his voice and yelled: “I know some of you are still alive! Quick! This is our last chance!”
Cinder and Bolt exchanged looks, they could both see the panic in each other’s eyes.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you if you dare!” An echoey female voice exploded from the dark cloud.