“The Stave Art of Divine Beasts.” the man wearing a suit and a pair of glasses pushed his glasses up again and asked: “This is an art practiced by the monks of the Temple of Meditating Vajra. But they don’t take in women as disciples, where did you learn this from?”

“Why don’t you take another guess?” Josephine Wong responded with a wide smile and took a peek at the man who ran the motel, who crawled up from the ground with one third of his face completely smashed in: “You know I am not gonna tell you.”

The man stayed silent for a while, then raised his scythe and buried the tip into his teammate’s right shoulder. The tall and muscular man with a barbed bat in his hand groaned in discomfort, but his face slowly grew back to what it was.

“Blood magic.” Jianmen nodded and said: “And wielding a scythe, not a common combination, nor is it something easy to master. I think we can figure out who you are if we look close enough. The question is why you are working for Lucias Vyn - as far as I know, she’s not known to possess any remarkable magical abilities.”

“And you would be wrong.” the man wielding a scythe and readied his battle pose once again: “And what is the deal with you two? Are you just a bystander and an observer, while she’s the warrior?”

“I don’t know, take a guess?” Jianmen also responded with a smile.

The muscular man with a barbed bat let out a hoarse and powerful roar, sharp and white spikes grew out from the bat, more blood of abnormally high temperature was pumped into his extremities, which made his muscles bulge even bigger and smoke coming out of his pores even thicker and smellier. Then he raised this bat up high and swung it down aiming at the ground in front of him.

“Boom!” a powerful shockwave exploded from the point of contact, a wall of dirt, rocks and thousands of sharp spikes inside appeared right in front of the man and crashed towards the direction of Josephine Wong and Jianmen like a tidal wave.

The man wielding a scythe immediately followed the wall of dirt closely and when the wall of dirt almost reached the position of Josephine Wong and Jianmen, he swung his scythe horizontally and released a fully charged purple energy blade.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The purple energy blade cut the wall of dirt from the middle and shot towards the rest of the town almost without any hindrance. But just when it was about to reach the outside area of Jimbo’s Pawn Shop, something struck it from below and caused it to change course - its trajectory got diverted upwards and shot towards the sky instead. Part of the roofings of one of the taller buildings on the side of Jimbo’s Pawn Shop got sliced off by the ascending purple energy blade.

Josephine Wong’s metal stave crashed through the wall of dirt, creating a large gap on it and swung down aiming right at the head of the man wielding a scythe.

“Bang!” the man was unprepared and had to raise his scythe to prevent himself from getting a debilitating blow, but the force and impact from the stave just pushed him down and brought him to his knees. Then the metal stave retreated, and Josephine Wong changed the direction of her stave and swung it from below using the other end. The tip of Josephine Wong’s metal stave struck true at the lower side of the scythes’ handle. This hit caused the man wielding the scythe to fly up and almost lost the scythe.

“Ahh! Die!” before Josephine Wong could follow up on her attack, the muscular man charged at her and started swinging his barbed bat frantically without any form, tact or strategy. Josephine Wong immediately backed away, and after a short moment of charging, she thrust her metal stave forward at the muscular man’s chest, her light blue energy concentrated at the tip forming into the shape of a spear tip.

“Crack!” the upper part of the muscular man’s barbed bat was completely shattered by the strike, the splinters and spikes from the bat just exploded towards his face, neck and chest. What also shot at the muscular man’s upper body was the escaped energy from Josephine Wong’s attack colliding with the barbed bat. The muscular man let out a painful cry as he flew backwards, one could almost see more than a few completely see-through holes on his chest and neck.

The man wielding a scythe had no time to adjust his glasses this time, as he pushed himself and conjured up much more power than he’d normally feel comfortable doing. His entire body started glowing in purple light, and the suit he was wearing slowly became more fitting and grew into the shape of a full body armor. On his chest, it was a symbol of a cracked and broken shield, and on the back of his gauntlets, there were the same symbols of scythes on them.

“My oh my. A Hellinger.” Josephine Wong twirled his metal stave and said.

“Need help?” Jianmen asked from the side.

“Maybe containing the collateral damage.” Josephine Wong’s eyes glowed in light blue, and as she waved her stave, a thin wall of light blue energy formed around her and Jianmen could even see the shadow of a dragon flying around her.

“Duly noted.” Jianmen looked around and saw that some normal civilians that were living in this town had started to go outside. He then rubbed his two hands together and conjured a grey energy ball between his palms. Then the next minute, he threw the grey energy ball into the sky, which then exploded and released a high pitched screech that was almost unbearable to normal human ears. The civilians on the streets then quickly went back to their own living places and hid inside.

Josephine Wong and the man wielding a scythe charged at each other, with their weapons held high.