Scepticus waited for Amelia to come downstairs. After a few minutes she came downstairs and she then realised that it was already getting late. She went outside to get a few ingredients and then went to the kitchen and started cooking dinner. After 30 minutes she was just finishing cooking dinner and it was already dark. Scepticus was still staring out of the window. He noticed what appeared to be a small flame in the distance, about 500 metres away. A small flame on a stick. This confused Scepticus. Was the person out there having some kind of ritual? Then he saw another flame light up. And then more and more of them showed up until there were hundreds of flames. Scepticus then asked Amelia, “Mother, are those flames outside our house normal?”. Amelia went up to the window and looked at the flames. She could see the people’s faces slightly.

“No they aren’t,” Amelia replied. “Then, who the hell are they?” Scepticus asked back. “Well as long as they aren’t doing anythi-”. Amelia was interrupted by the sound of her house’s window breaking. A flaming arrow. In their wooden house? “SCEPTICUS EXIT THE HOUSE,” Amelia said. Scepticus moved fast enough that he managed to grab his mother and exit the house. Just barely though. “What the hell is happening?” Scepticus said. As soon as he said those words, his house completely erupted into flames. A piece of flaming wood fell down crushing a girl who had just been walking there as it had all happened so suddenly. Her blood slowly evaporated causing the air to smell of iron with the mixed smell of smoke. It was a smell Scepticus was used to. But whoever said he had liked it?

Scepticus then jumped onto one of the houses’ roofs and started scanning the area. The fire wasn’t just in his house. There were a few other areas in town that were on fire. “A planned attack? What the hell could be going on?” Scepticus said. Then an arrow just missed Scepticus. He turned back and saw there was a fleet of people shooting fire arrows. Amelia then screamed to Scepticus “DEVLIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”. “I’m trying to fix a problem,” he said. “And I don’t wish to lose my undercover home,” Scepticus muttered under his breath. Scepticus jumped to the next house to try and get closer to the attackers. At one point an arrow hit him but due to his healing factor he was fine.

Finally he reached the area of the archers. Behind them was a ginormous man with long black hair. He was also very built. Scepticus then approached the man. The more his body had regenerated the more his healing factor would improve. At least that’s what he had observed. He took some arrows and then soon the giant man finally noticed him. “You sure have shitty vision for your size,” Scepticus told the giant man. He responded “You sure have a big mouth for your age,”. Scepticus charged into the archers taking even more arrows. But he just pulled them off and sooner rather than later he was regenerating from the arrow wounds as soon as he had taken them out. The archers tried shooting fire arrows. Scepticus took the arrows but the flames never hit him. Instead he used his wind magic to push the fire back into the archers to kill a couple of them.

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The giant man was getting more and more intrigued. “My name is Valrock, what’s yours? You clearly ain’t normal,”. “The name’s Scepticus,”. Valrock fumbled his hair. The name sounded familiar but he just couldn’t quite place a finger on why. Then Valrock said “Hey kid wanna spar?”. “If you get your ass out of here” Scepticus said. Valrock held up a hand and the archers stopped firing arrows at him. Valrock began cracking his knuckles and sparks started to be ignited. “A Phoenix Flame fist user?” Scepticus asked. “You look like you know your martial arts quite well,” Valrock complimented. Valrock charged towards Scepticus and Scepticus made a sword appear in his hand to block the attack. Scepticus blocked the attack but his sword was already heavily damaged. “Hey. Where’d ya get that sword from? Well let’s make things a little more fair shall we?” Valrock started charging towards Scepticus again and tried landing a blow.

Scepticus dodged this time as his sword breaking would put him at a disadvantage. “Sword style: Breath of the Wind,” Scepticus chanted. Scepticus disappeared with the wind and appeared behind Valrock making sure to plant a spark of Hell’s Pyre on him. Valrock noticed Scepticus’ presence and punched him without looking backwards causing Scepticus to fly through 7 trees and a rock. Scepticus was bleeding internally a lot. “Dang. That was one hell of a punch,” Scepticus said while coughing up blood. Valrock then came up to Scepticus and said “Is that all you got? You’re weak,”. The words echoed in his head as he remembered his demon lord ‘former friends’ who had said the same thing to him just before he had died. “Valrock… You’ve struck a chord… which you’d never want to strike,” Scepticus said before releasing his bloodlust. He then slowly circled Valrock who was stuck in place because of his bloodlust.

“WHAT? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” Valrock questioned. “This is my bloodlust. Your archers over there are probably throwing up or have already fainted. But you're still standing. That pisses me off. A lot…”. Scepticus then snapped his fingers and then Hell’s Pyre began rapidly spreading around Valrock’s body. “JUST WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!” Valrock managed to say before being fully enveloped in flames. “Me? You’re asking who I am? I already told you my name. Let’s keep it at that” While Scepticus was saying this Valrock had already fallen down and was rolling on the ground in pain. Then Valrock pulled out a rock. A glowing blue rock. He crushed it between his fingers. The Hell’s Pyre continued burning but instead of burning him it started healing him. Scepticus was looking at Valrock as he stood up in front of him. “What the literal hell. Why do you have a ‘Stone of Reversing’? Those things are bloody rare,” he said whilst looking at the shards of the crushed up stone beneath Valrock. “Well our leader has his ways,” Valrock said before charging towards Scepticus. This time Valrock’s punch was stronger and he managed to knock both of Scepticus’ arms off of him. Scepticus stood there confused. “The stone also reversed my bloodlust? IT CAN EFFECT ABSTRACT THINGS?” Scepticus said. “Oh yes they can,” Valrock replied.