"Save me! I beg of you, please save me!" A woman reached towards Aiden with her hand as blood run out from a wound in her stomach.
She was lying in the middle of hundreds of dead bodies in the middle of burning houses. Her horns had been pulled out of her head by force and demon blood was running down her head.
"You are already dead. I can't save you."
And standing alone in the middle of the sea of dead bodies was Aiden. His face was expressionless as he stared at the dying woman.
Like a jolt of electricity had hit her, the woman suddenly stopped begging and laid on the ground. It looked as though she had accepted her reality and was now waiting to die.
"This entire place had been massacred brutally," Aiden muttered while closing his eyes.
If the him from a few years ago had seen this scene, he would have puked and cried. But those innocent times were gone.
He could no longer act like that.
'System, today I will receive the shadow god's final blessing, right?' Aiden silently asked without opening his eyes.
< Yes, host, you will turn 15 years old at midnight. >
Aiden didn't reply as he opened his eyes and looked at the woman. She wasn't moving one bit and someone could have thought that she was sleeping.
In a way she was sleeping, just to never wake up again.
She was dead.
"Rest in peace."
Aiden then walked away as the fire from the houses engulfed the dead bodies on the ground. And in a matter of seconds, everything vanished in the burning fire.
***
"What did you find out?" Will asked with alert eyes as though he was expecting to be attacked at any moment.
He had grown well in the past few years. Will had his lightning purple hair cut short which brought out the color of his eyes. His muscles had also buffed a little alongside his mentality.
As for his power, he had grown as strong as Aiden had thought.
"Village completely burned. All the people were massacred and left there to rot. This is the seventh village we have found in total this week."
"No, it's the eighth one. I found one too."
Will and Aiden then remained silent as they waited for their other two partners to come back to the meeting point.
A month after Aiden's 14th birthday, reports about villages being burnt and the people in them being massacred started to come to the royal capital.
The numbers were around two villages a month. Drake had then sent a special team to investigate and they had come back with three humans in tow.
And what they had told the entire council had been shocking.
**
"You asked why we did it? It's because of all the damage you demons caused to our realm! We are just returning the favor." The human said with a grin as Drake's expression hardened.
"What do you mean by realm?" He asked in a neutral voice as the three humans started to laugh like maniacs.
"Don't be oblivious demon king. We can never forget how many cities in the human realm had been destroyed by you demons. I wonder how many are being destroyed currently. You can't blame us for doing this."
The man replied and in the middle of the council, the three humans started to glow.
"Someone with the dark element had put explosion curses put on them," Drake muttered with narrowed eyes as he waved his hand and the humans turned to dust.
But what worried him were the thoughts of the future.
**
After the three humans had delivered their message, multiple villages started to get hit one after the other.
The population of the Sephiroth continent exceeded hundreds of millions and many towns and villages were situated all over the continent.
But all of a sudden, many of these villages started to send out distress signals. The numbers were so large that Drake had to send all the available guards to investigate.
But when that still wasn't enough, he had no choice but to turn to the younger demons who had been trained by the academy.
Drake himself had then gone to talk with the rulers of the three other continents and had left Aysel in charge in his absence.
Now both of his parents and the rest of the demon hierarchy were expecting a war to happen anytime soon.
"Both villages were burned." Aiden and Will were suddenly pulled out of their thoughts when they heard the voice of their third companion.
"They have been growing in numbers," Alex muttered as he sat down beside Will.
Alexander Wulfric. He was a graduate from the imperial class of the academy and was a very scary-looking person.
With a bald head and ripping muscles, he was like a kung fu monk from Earth.
His black eyes were calm all the time but both Will and Aiden knew that Alexander was fully alert. He was an earth element user and many would have said that his element wasn't really unique.
But those people would have eaten the dirt of their grave if they had seen Alex fight.
"Now only Zoe is left," Aiden muttered as the trio then waited for Zoe, their fourth and last companion.
"Hey Aiden, remember the time when we used to hate her?" Will suddenly asked without looking at Aiden.
The other boy also didn't look back as he was keeping watch of his surroundings.
"Those were old times Will. Zoe has now changed and we have too." Aiden replied as he heard the other boy sigh.
"Those times would never come back again."
And that was something which both of them knew.
Ten minutes had passed since Alex had returned and there were still no sighs of Zoe.
"I think we should go look for her." Alex suddenly said as he stood up from the ground.
Being the oldest in the group, he had been named as the leader. Since all three members of his squad were much younger than him, Alex had taken it upon himself to make sure that they remained safe.
And now that Zoe hadn't returned, he was getting worried.
"For all we know, Zoe is just investigating. She is an expert at that after all." Will replied even though he knew that Zoe was taking too long.
Even though the girl was an expert at finding clues from just a paper clip, she never took this long to do anything.
After all, this was the third time the group was out together.
"If you are that worried, we can go and check the place where she went. You have the location of the place right?" Aiden asked as Alex nodded.
"You like her, don't you?" Will suddenly asked with a grin as Alex cocked an eyebrow in response.
"What makes you think that Will?" He didn't skip a beat while asking the question and neither did he look baffled.
"You just act that way around her."
"I am supposed to take care of all of you. So does that mean that I am bi and like all three of you?"
"Whatever you say, sir."
The two boys remained quiet for a few seconds before grinning at each other. Aiden on the other hand couldn't help but smile a little.
"Enough guys, let's go and see her. For all we know, she could be in trouble." He stood up alongside Will as the three boys went out of the hiding place.
"She is supposed to be in a village north of here," Alex muttered while holding a map as the three of them set out.
Will used his lightning element to silently dash through the ground while Aiden used his shadow walk.
Alex on the other hand grounded his feet into the ground and moved inside it. He then started moving forward in this manner.
They reached the village after five minutes and saw a repeat telecast of what all of them had seen.
Hundreds of dead bodies lying around and the houses burning on fire.
"That is fresh blood." Will suddenly said in a sharp tone as the three boys glanced down.
A few feet away from where they were standing, a few drops of blood were gleaming on the ground. The blood continued to stretch for some time.
And it was black demon blood.
[ Zoe's blood ]
"Fuck..." Aiden muttered as he analyzed the blood. And unfortunately, it was Zoe's blood.
"What happened?" Will asked as he looked at Aiden's serious face.
"That is Zoe's blood." He replied in a grim voice.
"Are you sure?" Alex narrowed his eyes but during his time with the group, he knew that they weren't liars.
"We better find her soon or..." Aiden didn't need to finish his sentence as all three of them knew what this meant.
There was a chance that the people doing the massacres were nearby.
And Zoe, along with the group, was in danger.