…
Staring down unto his boots again, Ognist rethinks of what might happen if the boy was actually just an ordinary boy and not a hideous being. He shivers as he thought about it. If it was true, he would never forgive himself.
Ognist shakes his head and dumps his previous thoughts. Suddenly, series of cracking sounded right in front of him. Seconds later sounded distorted, yet now more like multiple cords of steel snapped altogether.
"What in the blue blazes was that sound? Could it be?!" Ognist thought. His eyes instantly searched for visible personnel from the village. Within seconds, he noticed several humans fallen on the ground within the village.
Seeing the phenomenon, Ognist uses Contact spell and calls Taizun and Zeugen to the scene.
The boy has retreated into the darkness, yet many villagers fell to the ground and some retained consciousness though suffering from heavy concussion. That alone solidifies the fact that the boy is the mind controller they've been hunting of.
Many messy thoughts run through fire dragonian's mind. He must assure that every single inhabitants of the village is safe while in the same time he must slay the mind controller. Bombarded by such thoughts, he picked his final decision.
"If that mind controller lives, this trouble shall never end. I must go to the village, and warn Marco and his fellow human allies!"
…
..
.
Marco and his friends are shocked to hear the distorted cracking and snapping noises that came out of nowhere. One after another, then scrambled into tens of points, and then faded into the unknowing night sky.
"…What… was that?" Nina asked.
"-----….!!!" Pio's face rose into highly surprised. "MISS NINA!" she yelled.
"Pio…! Pio can feel! Pio can sense! Pio can sense no emptiness in their thoughts!" she spouted hastily.
"What?" Nina and Aily replied in the same time.
Marco, who was lately checking corners, notices some people collapsing to the ground.
"Look ahead, Scias!" he called his best buddy in a jiffy. The tall guy emerges from behind him and joins his watch. Seeing everybody oddly fallen to the ground makes them wondering. But shortly, they noticed some fellas caressing their head tightly as if they suffer the worst headache. They retained their consciousness, yet suffering both physically and mentally in the same time.
"Everyone…" Scias muttered quietly, audible only to Marco's ears. His eyes which were already highly cautious become more vicious and alerted by the situation around him. He grips on his katana handle as his instinct of danger rises.
"Can it be?" Marco wondered endlessly. Series of weird sounds emerged a few minutes ago, disturbing those whoever heard them. Not long afterwards, many people fell, some retained consciousness but suffers as a result. It tickled both Marco and Scias feelings. Both of them shared the same idea of what caused those strange phenomena, but is yet to tell each other.
Shortly, Nina, Aily, and Pio approached them both. Nina then tells them that she and the rest also heard the disturbing noises and saw many villagers fell unconscious.
"Then… it must be that…"
Their attention suddenly caught by a boy running with a face full of gnawing pain. The party's main attention turned towards the boy's arms. The boy lost both of his limbs, as if ripped off from his body. In the next second, Marco recognized the boy.
"Mister…!" the small boy cried.
"Oh my! Toma! What the hell happened to you?" Marco yelled as he rushed towards him. Scias tightens his eyes, focused like an eagle. He then joins Marco and the boy.
"Ahhh— it hurts… it hurts…" the boy bawled in pain endlessly. "There's… a monster," the boy stated gaspingly, trying to ward off the pain.
"Monster?" Marco asked.
"Yes… urrgh…! The monster got my arms, it's too powerful," the boy explained the deathly situation he faced earlier.
Much to everyone's surprise, Scias suddenly asks in a cold voice, "What were you doing out there, boy? You know children should not be venturing outside during night time."
"That matters not, mister! My arms… they still bleed! Please, is there any potion you have?" the kid asked.
Hearing the kid's answer, Scias backed off one step, but his grip on his sword tightens even harder. Marco, on the other hand, notices something was definitely off. His unsettling feel peaks when Scias asked coldly towards Toma.
"Mister… please, hurry… I can't hold on much longer. It hurts so bad…"
Marco doesn't want to believe what he thought of just now. He really doesn't. It pierces his heart if he does so. His heart is racing. His body is sweating. It feels greatly unpleasant for him.
However, relinquishing spines in his mind, Marco decides to act along and see what the boy had to offer. "H-Hang on, let me fetch one for you," he said while falsely digging his waist bag for potion.
Nina shortly notices.
She finds it odd to see the boy were unaffected after the blast of disturbing sounds in the air not so long ago. Everyone felled victim for them, yet the boy looked unaffected, despite his decapitated arms. She was watching closely towards the blood from Toma's arms.
As a healer mage that helped so many people, she is not a stranger to medical problems. Nina notices how the blood oozing out of the boy's arms was completely abnormal. The way it drenches slightly, then suddenly flows hardly, and then stops for a moment makes her think that the boy was no normal being.
A few seconds later, steps of metal boots is heard, rushing towards Marco's position.
Shortly, a loud shout was heard from a distance.
"MAAARCOOO! Get away from him!"
That shout was loud enough to be heard from the entire section of the village. One that was powerful enough and impossible to be neglected. Marco and the others instantly looked at the source of the voice, noticing three personnel rushing hastily. One of them is Ognist with his blade armed.
For the last time, Ognist shouts again.
"He is the MIND CONTROLLER! HE IS A DEMON!"
Toma turned his head the opposite direction while having instantly changed his expression into extreme surprised. His eyes reappear into a wild looking one, staring viciously towards the dragonians.
Unexpectedly, without the boy noticing, Scias deploys sword technique and lands a strike.
"Sword Art – Shining Blade!"
*SRRASH!*
The slash seemed instantaneous, tearing apart the back of his body, letting out blue-like fluids that are no doubt his blood. Toma screeches deafeningly in pain, wildly convulses to ward off the pain that streaks within his body. But it didn't end there!
Right after Scias ends his strike Pio jumps into one of the building walls, deploying a good stance and ricochets from wall to wall in an instant and assaults Toma by stabbing two knives to his left shoulder and his back. Pio bounces off by kicking him wildly and landing on Aily's catch.
Toma expresses an excruciatingly painful experience that runs within him. He fell to the ground after receiving successful strikes from Scias and Pio. Not long afterwards, the dragonians arrived on scene.
"Good shot, you people," Ognist complimented.
"Ayeesh! So it was true zat zis boy is ze culprit, ha?" Zeugen stated.
"That was one of the fastest respond I've ever seen, for a human level, that is," Taizun added.
Marco froze himself after seeing Toma getting injured further. His worst expectation has come to reality. He didn't want to believe it. He refused to believe, but here the boy he met the first time he reached the village was the one behind the mind controlling.
"Why…?" he thought deeply.
Toma screeches in pain once more, but this time, his voice now sounded much like a demon: distorted, and monstrously high pitched.
"Gyaaarrgh! Aaururrrrgh….! So my intuition was correct after all… y-you… Dragonians… are the giant spine in my way…!"
In an inhuman way, the boy stands back up despite the deadly injury he received. Wiggly, convulsing as he stood back up, so inhuman that it may scare someone that never saw any misfit in their lives.
"A giant spine, huh?" Ognist arrogantly replied. "How ironic, we thought of you as a gigantic obstacle in our mission, as well."
"You're surrounded now, everyone's your enemy now," Taizun stated to the boy.
Toma, however, chuckles, expands his grin all the way further past his cheek. His teeth distort and flash in dark, then reemerge into all around sharp fangs. Not long afterwards, the guise of the boy desecrates itself in blackness, blowing out all torches in the area. Ognist and Scias reflectively activate a small fire magic to light up their surroundings.
In front of them, a piling thread of darkness spins in a fast rate, from it generates three dots of yellow dim lights. From beneath them, emerge those of extremely sharp fangs. The flesh disintegrates, leaving nothing but a shadowy figure. Even the brightest source of light cannot see what lies behind that blackness.
Everyone could not react to the human boy's transformation. Scias is eager to draw a slash, but he was stopped by Nina. Seeing the change within the human boy, Nina realizes him as a demon now. And she states, "While a demon is transforming, they are virtually invulnerable."
As the transformation accomplished, Toma unveils himself. He no longer has the color of human. He has red glowing demonic pointy eyes with a body completely made out of shadow. Visible series of white fangs emerges from beneath them. Waves of spike rolls on his head, which seemingly the hair that also share the same as the body: all but shadow.
With a different voice, Toma speaks creepily.
"This may be of late, but allow me to reintroduce myself.
I am Toma Zil. I am but one of the demon generals."