Noseless tutted as he looked at the blood on his dagger.

"Stay still." The terrified ruffian stopped shivering as Noseless wiped the blood on the ruffian's jacket.

"There's idiots everywhere you go. Eyeless, stop playing with the bodies." Eyeless stuck his tongue out at Noseless' command and threw the warm corpse away.

"Blame your bad luck, not us." Noseless said as he checked his reflection in the clean dagger. "You shouldn't have robbed us in the first place."

"You won't tell anyone about what happened here right?" Noseless patted the ruffian's cheek gently. The man nodded vigorously.

"Good lad, let's go." Noseless signalled for Eyeless to leave.

As soon as he saw them turn around, the man stealthily picked up a gun on the floor.

BANG! Shiiiing!

Noseless quickly turned with superhuman speed and held out his dagger. The bullet was sliced perfectly in half mid-flight.

"Aww, so predictable." Eyeless snickered. Horrified, the man turned around to run away. However, he suddenly felt something jerk his feet and dragged him back.

Looking down, the ruffian saw a black, oil-coated tentacle pulling him towards a faceless man at the end of the street. He tried to scream, but another tentacle immediately whipped forward and clogged his throat. A third tentacle wrapped itself around his head and twisted his neck.

More tentacles surged out from Faceless' shadow. Some dragged the bodies into his shadow, while others started wiping out signs of their earlier slaughter. Eyeless tried pickpocketing one of the corpses' watch, but a tentacle swiped his hand and quickly dragged the body away.

"Don't be so greedy." Faceless reprimanded Eyeless. "You can't see the time anyway."

Once all of their traces were gone, the three of them walked out from the dim alleyway.

* * *

Contrary to the grim darkness of its alleyways, the rest of the Cormed seemed rather peaceful and lively. Pedestrians were walking peacefully in the evening breeze, children were playing in the streets, and various food carts were also setting up their stalls for the dinner crowd.

Faceless, Noseless, and Eyeless strolled leisurely down the street, enjoying the sights of the village.

As they were walking past a park, a child accidentally threw a ball which hit Faceless' arm. Both Noseless and Eyeless flinched, but they heaved in relief when they Faceless just brushed his sleeves and picked up the ball.

A nervous young boy ran forward and apologised profusely. However, Faceless just patted the boy's head and tossed the ball back.

Noseless and Eyeless looked at each other in surprise. The three of them resumed their walk.

"That's uncharacteristically kind of you," Noseless said moments later. "I was half-expecting you to hex the boy."

"I might have, if I were the old me," Faceless shrugged. "However, I recently came to understand that unnecessary violence is but a waste of energy."

Eyeless chortled. "Are you sure it wasn't because you were beaten up by the Immortal?"

Faceless' body briefly hardened. Eyeless giggled and skipped away, but cussed when he fell over a stray dog. Noseless and Faceless shook their heads.

The dog's hackles rose and it growled at Eyeless. However, it quickly yelped and ran away when it felt the murderous intent from Eyeless.

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"So childish," Noseless snickered. Eyeless ruefully stood up and shook his fist at the dog.

"I'm sure you are trying to get a rise out of me, Eyeless, but it won't work anymore." Faceless sighed. "Rather than lashing out at everyone, it's better to conserve my energy for when I really need to use it."

"You've really changed," Noseless stroke his chin. "You used to be more obnoxious, but now you are just mildly infuriating."

Faceless chuckled.

"It's not like I became like this overnight. Part of the Lady's training involves literally picking my brain apart then putting it back together." Noseless and Eyeless hissed.

"That must have hurt like hell," Eyeless commented.

"Oh, more than hell. Hell is a walk in the park compared to what I've been through. However, it does come with its perks." Faceless opened his right palm and transformed his fingers into some serrated tentacles with blades on their ends. Eyeless whistled appreciatively.

"The other reason we need to be careful is because of that," Faceless raised his cane and pointed to a towering statue in the village square. Several pigeons were sitting on the statue's shoulder.

"I can sense an active spell in the statue," Faceless said. "If my guess is correct, the Immortal is still monitoring the village using that."

"To be honest, I'm not surprised he can do that," Noseless said in a deadpan voice. "Well, now we know why Boss refused to send more people here."

"Yeap, I'm sure the Immortal knows exactly which ones are on our side," Faceless grinned. "Excluding us of course."

The three of them found a quiet corner and sat down.

"Noseless, it's time for you to do your thing." Faceless whispered softly. "Try your best to sniff out the fortune teller. Meanwhile, I will cast a seclusion spell over you while Eyeless will draw the statue's attention in the square. Are we all clear?"

"So I can do anything I want?" Eyeless giddily rubbed his hands.

"At least, try not to kill too many people. No one noticed us earlier in the alley because I was covering us. However, you'll be on your own later." Faceless instructed. "However, please make it as flashy as possible so that we'll know from here."

"Sweet. Okay, see you." Eyeless whistled and walked away.

* * *

Eyeless arrived at the square. The evening crowd was in full swing with food stalls and hungry diners everywhere.

He stood at the foot of the statue and looked up. The statue's stern bronze face seemed to be sending him a stern warning to back-off, but he grinned and flipped it off.

Eyeless cracked his neck and hands. Ignoring an angry family's protest, he jumped on table and raised his arms.

Crimson mana surged out from his body, instantly blowing back everything near him. Eyeless laughed and jumped to the ground. His mana turned the hard ground into a bouncy trampoline-like surface which shot him back up into the air.

Noticing the commotion, Cormed's armed guards were already evacuating people from the square and setting up a barricade. A few of them fired their guns at Eyeless, but he easily deflected them back towards his attackers while hurling the nearby rubble at them using his mana.

Eyeless briefly gained the upper hand. However, his advantage disappeared when someone fired bolts using an actual ballista from a distance. Victory howls were heard when a bolt pierced his coat.

"Damn it!" Eyeless gnashed his teeth. "THIS COAT IS EXPENSIVE, YOU F*CKERS!"

Furious, Eyeless reinforced his body with mana and dropped to the ground again. Instead of bouncing him, this time Eyeless send waves of earth with him as a circle. The square instantly turned chaotic again as broken stones, buildings and people were flung up into the air. The guards instantly lost their advantage and were crushed by the debris.

Rather than tumbling over from the waves, a barrier automatically appeared around the statue which repelled everything.

SCREECH.

Eyeless turned his head at the loud creaking sounds from the statue.

"F*ck."

The bronze statue had literally come to life. It's red eyes started glowing ominously as it's head turned towards Eyeless.

With swift speeds unbefitting of its large size, the statue lifted its feet and started stomping on Eyeless. Eyeless cussed and frantically leapt around before launching himself into the air.

Eyeless hurled pieces of rubble towards the statue's head.

ROARRR!

The sound waves from the statue's roar blew back both the rubble and the airborne Eyeless. He crashed into a ground and coughed out blood for the first time.

Despite feeling dazed, Eyeless forced himself to focus and looked at his opponent. Instead of rushing over, the statue pointed its staff towards Eyeless. Complicated layers of magic circles formed on the staff's tip, the amount of mana rushing to form the spell was strong enough to form an audible hissing sound.

A threatening white ball of fire was aimed directly at Eyeless. The heat was so strong that Eyeless' coat started catching fire even though he was several meters away.

Eyeless breathed in and circulated his own mana to where his eyes were supposed to be. Two glowing red eyes created with magic started forming on his face.

Eyeless quickly looked up towards the statue.

"ARGHHHH!" Screaming, Eyeless channeled all of his mana towards the red eyes, causing them to turn incredibly bright before exploding in a flash of red.

A split second later, the statue fired the scorching ball of flame.

BOOM!