Cato Emberson's Perspective:
With my body engulfed in electricity, I leaped from tree branch to bridge to branch again as I ran away from my enemies.
I could sense them on my tail, the one I had fought with previously—and, I'm pretty sure, the one whose gaze I felt when I was ascending the canopy—was a strong fighter.
I had quite a few scrapes and injuries that I was currently healing as I fled.
The red-eyed girl, however, will have the scratches I inflicted when I decide to fight.
I thought to myself as leaves blurred through my vision, 'I need to pick them apart. I could maybe face Thatcher and the red-eyed girl, or the woman and the red-eyed girl, but all three of them are not an option.'
I continued to run as I felt another icy gaze fall onto my back; she was close.
I stopped abruptly on an upcoming tree branch and spun to face my attackers.
The red-eyed woman was in front, Thatcher close behind, and the woman I had met with Thatcher, holding up the rear.
The red-eyed woman didn't slow down enough to stop. However, she launched a root-driven attack straight at my center mass as she flew by.
Using the quickdraw skill I had honed, I quickly deflected the roots away and brought my sword to face the oncoming Thatcher.
His eyes showed great determination, and deep inside me, I felt somewhat satisfied with the look on Thatcher's face, but I wanted more.
Thatcher charged me with a conical sword made of intertwined roots. He jabbed it towards my heart as he hurtled towards me.
I dodged his attack by pushing his blade up and away to my left side with the flat part of my blade.
Thatcher followed the red-eyed girl as he, too, continued past me.
The two of them were quick to reorientate themselves in the air and start charging back towards me.
However, they were too late. Once Thatcher had blown by me, I chose a yellow dot on a branch closest to the woman whose name I did not know.
I disappeared from the branch I had stopped on as my vision blurred. I believed I had timed my jump right. I just needed to jump again once I landed on the branch.
Landing on the branch, the muscles in my legs screaming, I jumped again.
Soaring into the air, I held my sword directly in front of me as I collided with the black-haired God Source.
My blade plunged into her right lung, coming out of her back as my handle hit her front.
The two of us plummeted to the jungle floor.
Planting my feet on her stomach and facing her back to the ground, I used her body as a springboard and yanked my sword out as I jumped towards a nearby tree trunk.
Her body continued to fall before the crunching of bone—a sound I was all too familiar with—resounded through the jungle.
I was hanging by my handle as I saw the blood splatter on the ground out in a circle.
'Four down, two to go.'
I ignited the electricity through my legs as I jumped, bringing my sword to a nearby branch of a different tree.
The tree I had positioned on had a clean-cut right where I had been hanging.
The air that cut it had so much force behind that the top half of the tree, not connected to anything, didn't fall over.
I almost didn't believe the air had cut through the tree before I saw the bark on the exit side.
It had been ripped clean off with the blast of wind that exited the tree. Nearby trees also had their bark stripped from the windblast.
I looked up just in time to dodge another blast of wind before I plummeted to the ground.
Reinforcing my legs, I landed and rolled about three meters before standing and turning around.
I turned to look up at the last two God Sources currently residing in the Nature Tribe.
I raised my sword towards the tops of the trees and thought to myself.
A grin appeared on my face as I started to concentrate, 'Let's do this.'
~~~
Thatcher of House Leaf's Perspective:
I looked across the opening towards Red-Eye.
She was staring directly at the boy on the jungle floor who had killed four of the six wielders on Home Village duty.
She had a look in her eyes that I had never seen before.
I shuddered as she turned her gaze towards me and nodded.
I nodded back before we both leaped off the branches we were on, sending leaves cascading down to the ground.
The two of us, accelerated by air, charged towards Cato.
Red-Eye had taught Green and Blue-Eye to use their True Powers, which meant that her techniques were similar to Green and Blue's.
Her fists were enveloped in roots, then encased in wind to accelerate them further and cut her opponents with each strike.
Red-Eye was also able to keep up a constant wind barrier around her body to deter physical attacks. However, her barrier technique wasn't as complete as the monster's that taught it to her.
We dashed through the trees downward, directed at the boy who hadn't moved a centimeter since landing on the jungle floor.
I held my sword, now with hooks and sharp points sticking out of it, a technique that Lady Rose had inherited, but I had seen used many times.
I encased my sword in intense wind energy to accelerate it as Red-Eye had done with her fists. However, I wasn't nearly at the level to incase my body with wind energy to halt physical attacks.
The two of us landed about a meter and a half in front of Cato.
For the first time since he landed, he brought his gaze to reach ours. His pupils were an insane yellow tint as he stared at us both.
The pressure this boy seemed to emit wasn't as intense as Red-Eye's when she tried but more potent than both Clark and Lady Rose.
Red-Eye and I darted forwards, closing the distance between Cato in an instant.
I drove my sword directly towards his abdomen while Red-Eye launched a fist at shoulder level to Cato's left side.
Cato brought his flat end to my sword, and my momentum carried my blade past his body, missing my target.
As he parried my strike, he shot his left arm out to meet Red-Eye.
'Well,' I briefly thought as I rolled past Cato, 'at least he doesn't know how strong Red-Eye is.'
I popped out of my roll back into a defensive position as I now faced Cato's back.
Cato extended his left arm out, and his fist had reached Red-Eye's fist.
As they connected, Cato's arm flew back from the force as he stumbled towards me, but Red-Eye's right arm hung limply by her side.
I slashed my sword diagonally across Cato's back. I successfully felt my blade pierce his skin as a hook ripped open the tunic he was wearing and cut open his back from his shoulder blade to his hip.
He quickly turned around as my blade exited his back and brought down a fiercely bright edge.
I brought my sword up to block the attack, but his blade lodged into the roots I had made.
I held the end of my blade with one hand as Cato pressed me into the ground, slowly making his way through my roots.
I summoned more roots to cover his blade, but right as I did, my roots seemed to disappear faster.
He sliced through my final root as my blade split apart, and he lodged his sword into my right shoulder, almost cutting off my arm and shattering my collarbone.
My right arm, like Red-Eye's, now dropped limply to my side as I stayed on my knees, clutching my wound with my left arm.
Red-Eye had attempted to strike before Cato could react, but he had already dislodged his sword from my shoulder and was facing Red-Eye.
I stared at Cato's back, where the wound I had sacrificed my life for should have been.
But instead of a blood-soaked tunic, Cato only had a ripped one, with a little bit of blood running down his back. The cut had already scarred.
I sat in disbelief as I watched Cato and Red-Eye fight in a flurry of strikes.
I couldn't tell who was immediately winning as I saw cuts appear on both parties.
However, as the fight waned on, Cato seemingly had fewer scrapes, and Red-Eye's bleeding continued heavily.
Until, suddenly, a large windblast from Red-Eye sent Cato rolling backward until he finally stopped moving on one knee. But, this opening was all that Red-Eye needed. By the time Cato had stopped moving, Red-Eye was on top of him, pushing him onto his back.
She brought down a barrage of brutal, bone-crunching punches onto Cato's face as it turned bloody.
Red-Eye was screaming as she let out blow after blow.
'I've never seen Red-Eye this serious.' I thought, still clutching my bleeding wound.
Right as Red-Eye stopped punching, her right arm was most definitely immobile after she forced it to attack the motionless Cato.
However, as she stopped hitting—sitting on top of the boy we had used our everything to fight—his face in a bloody mess, it was suddenly engulfed in white flames.
His entire face, covered in white flames.
Both Red-Eye and I sat in silence as we heard even more blood-curdling sounds.
'It sounds like the fire is eating his face.' I thought to myself as I stared at the boy on the ground.
A deep, blood-thirsty voice sounded from the fire, "You fucking people." It spat.
It didn't sound like Cato, but it came from his body.
Immediately, before Red-Eye or I could react, a yellow tint covered the boy's body as his arm flashed out from under Red-Eye's knee.
It blurred and appeared above his head, right at Red-Eye's chest level, as she stared blankly at it.
Before either of us could do anything, his fist moved in a blur again and reappeared punctured through Red-Eye's chest.
Red-Eye turned her gaze towards her chest as she slumped backward. Falling off of the fist jutted through her center.
She fell onto her back, coughing up and then subsequentially choking on her blood.
As she lay on the ground, dying. I sat, unable to move.
Cato slowly stood as the fire covering his face moved to his forehead and chin, revealing most of his facial features, including his yellow eyes.
I stared up at the boy as he picked up his sword and sheathed it before walking over to me.
He knelt in front of me and gently smiled towards me.
"Who the fuck are you?" I asked, dumbfounded at how he had beat six wielders by himself.
"Would you care to find out?" He responded.
Clutching my shoulder, an injury that was indeed fatal, I looked at the boy, "Please tell me."
He reached forward, grabbing my left arm away from my wound and placing it on his heart.
Suddenly, I was wrenched from the jungle and dumped into an open space.
I couldn't see very far. There was a dark blue haze that surrounded everything. Until, suddenly, I was in a line.
I was maybe, third in line, surrounded by ashy gray silhouettes that were all lined up like I was.
I couldn't move; my body was stuck in place.
I craned my neck to look down the line and noticed I couldn't see the end. The lines surrounding me all stretched out into the horizon. I turned to my right and saw five figures that I immediately recognized.
All in the same row as me, just in different columns, were the other five wielders that Cato had killed.
I chuckled to myself as I looked forward, where the line started.
There was an enormous energy pool, an energy pool I hadn't even thought possible to see.
Inside it were tendrils of electricity dancing through the liquid, like schools of fish.
Surrounding the pool were lines upon lines of silhouettes, all reaching out to the horizon.
I looked towards the center of the pool and suddenly noticed a small flame in the middle. It was white, bright white, and dancing in the windless illusion I was experiencing.
Suddenly, as I noticed the flame, it grew to staggering proportions. I could barely see the top of the enormous white flame as it towered as tall as some jungle trees.
I began searching through the flame. I was unsure what I was looking for, but something inside me told me to scan it.
As I continued to search, I suddenly noticed a silver-haired boy sitting in a cultivation pose inside the flame.
He was towering above the thousands, if not millions of silhouettes before him.
Realizing the boy inside the flame was Cato, I let out a small chuckle and thought to myself.
'Wow. So this is his destiny.'
The Nature Tribe council was very intrigued by cultivation hallucinations, claiming they showed the future of said cultivator. However, I had never believed it until now.
'This boy is on a journey of death. I might as well have fought Death himself.'
As I stared up at the boy sitting in the flame, I suddenly realized everything: the white flame, the electricity, saying he had no contract.
I spoke out loud this time, "So Cato, you're Fire Tribe. Although, I guess I should have figured it out sooner."
I was dragged out of the illusion and spat back out onto the floor of the jungle.
I fell onto my back and laid on the ground, staring up at the sun breaking through the leaves.
"I am indeed Fire Tribe," Cato stated calmly.
"Well, it makes sense in the end, I guess."
"You think so?"
I thought for a moment, on the brink of death, a lot of answers arrive.
"Cato, I'm on my deathbed over here, and truthfully, I enjoyed spending time with you in the Tree of Blood. However, when I witnessed you kill Clark," I coughed, breaking up my sentence.
"This white rage blinded me; I mean, you killed one of my friends."
I could see Cato's head as he sat next to me; he nodded genuinely.
"But, right here, right now, seeing your destiny. I can only assume that white rage consumed you once, but you made it out."
I continued, "It only makes sense to me that you would be out for revenge. Hell, Cato, if a bunch of Tribes came in and murdered all my friends and family, you bet your ass I'd have something to say about it."
A small smile crept onto my face, "There isn't anything I can do to stop you, Cato,"
I took another breath as my vision started to fade, "Good luck out there..."
~~~
Cato Emberson's Perspective:
I watched as the smile that Thatcher had shown me stayed on his face, and he took his final breath.
Grief quickly overcame me as I stood alone on the jungle floor.
I had brought them far enough away from the main village so that we wouldn't cause any trouble and I could finish my attack plan.
But the silence that filled the jungle as I stared at the three corpses I had trapped and killed filled me with sadness.
I was also somehow filled with emptiness, almost a sense of regret at Thatcher's last words.
I attempted to acknowledge the emotions that emerged after Thatcher's death and final words, but as a lump rose in my throat, I pushed the feelings into the void inside myself.
Igniting electricity throughout my body, I cast flames onto the corpses surrounding me, turning them into ash.
Once they had finished burning, I started towards the surveillance bay I had been staying at, where the other God Sources' corpses lay.
As I arrived, there was a crowd around the bodies. I swiftly retrieved the red cloak I had left inside my carriage before joining the group.
I slipped into the middle, looking around at the people silently staring at the three God Source corpses.
As I entered the middle, the surveillance bay manager grabbed me by my shoulder.
"This was your carriage. Did you do this?" He spat on my shoes as he finished his question.
I stared down at the wet spots on my shoes before returning his gaze with my yellow eyes.
"Yes, and?" I replied.
"You motherfu—"
I cut him off before he could finish by blasting the group with a wave of flames. Almost all of them caught on fire immediately, but the ones who didn't, I quickly dispatched with my blade.
I continued through the surveillance bay, lighting anything that would catch on fire.
As I exited the burning lot, I arrived at the main street to the village.
'Well, let's begin.'
~~~
I had positioned my carriage near the edge of the Nature Tribe after I cleared the surveillance bay and was now heading back to it.
I was nearing the exit of the main village as I turned back around at what I had done emotionlessly, without remorse.
The trees were burning, the bridges snapping and transferring the flames to other trees.
People on wooden platforms were stuck as the fire crept up the trunks of the trees, arriving and burning the homes and platforms they were cowering in.
Flaming corpses fell to the ground as the entire forest continued to burn.
For the first time in a while, the voice returned in my head, 'See? Great fucking kindling.'
I let out a scoff as I turned away from the blood-stained floor that I seemed to bring with me wherever I went.
The Nature Tribe's home village was now destroyed. I had located what looked like a communication crystal and swiftly demolished it with the Goddess' instructions.
The Nature Goddess would not perish until we killed every Nature Tribe member, but breaking the communication crystal was a necessary step to deity destruction.
I inspected my energy pool once before leaving the Nature Tribe as I got onto the driver's bench.
Surrounding my energy pool was probably now near a thousand silhouettes.
However, there was one figure that wasn't a silhouette.
Standing, face forward, with the same smile he had died with, was Thatcher.
He was third in line in one column and was the only silhouette with a face.
The voice I had pushed away so fervently appeared again, 'I guess even the Reaper can have relationships.'
Ignoring the voice, I flicked the reins and headed towards Conterra.