Sock and Sho watched, their eyes glued to Berisa' crumbling form. She had been disintegrated entirely.
Sho suddenly remembered something. He'd seen something similar to this. The memory was hazy but he definitely remembered a creature just like this, a chaos beast.
Juge had never stopped running though. He ran away from the chaos beast, trying to go straight towards the sect.
"S-she..she walked straight towards it." Sock stuttered out.
Berisa had, indeed walked straight towards the chaos beast. It was as if she was backing away from them and towards it. The strangest part was the sudden shock on her face once she reached the chaos beast. Sho looked at Juge, his eyes narrowing.
'He definitely did something.' Sho thought.
However, he didn't remain still. He chased after Juge, not to avenge Berisa but because he knew Juge was probably taking the shortest route he knew, to the sect.
The chaos beast finally raised its swirling red head before beginning to walk to its right. Sho's alarm bells lit up. This wasn't because he felt he was in danger but rather because none of them were on the chaos beasts' right. Both Sho and Juge had ran to its left, and Sock was in the center.
Sho began to back away, now certain that Juge was using his ability. His Path could change how they perceived things. Sho had no idea if he was even backing towards the chaos beast or not.
However, once the chaos beast had taken a couple more steps towards its right, Juge suddenly popped out of thin air, his expression tense.
He had intended to trick them with a fake clone of his while he snuck towards the sect.
This wasn't simply for the purpose of doing it.
If he could prove to the sect that a mission had been much more dangerous than advertised, he would receive a sizable amount of sect points for any losses. If everyone but him died or never returned, he'd be able to get all the sect points from their stones as well as sect points from the sect.
However, this chaos beast could see through his illusions.
One of the most dangerous things about these beasts is that conventional attacks did not work on them. They could disintegrate physical and spiritual attacks and to defeat a chaos beast with those types of attacks, one would need to use a method of brute force, simply pouring energy in.
Juge didn't have that energy and his Path simply crumbled when he got close enough to the chaos beast. At this point, he needed to forget about those two or he'd end up dead.
Juge immediately picked up the pace, running at full speed towards the sect. The beast suddenly sped up as well, its hand stretching and whipping towards him.
Juge's eyes contracted as he saw the speed at which the lethal hand zipped towards him. He weaved around trying his best to avoid it but he knew it would eventually catch and kill him. He was getting ready to accept his demise when the hand stopped.
A scream of pain hit his ears. However, he didn't turn around to acknowledge it and kept running.
Sock had attempted to punch the chaos beast. Now, you may call him stupid, but to be entirely fair to him, he had never really seen a chaos beast. He hadn't known their disintegration was a passive ability, simply thinking that it had used some sort of attack on Berisa. In addition, he hadn't awakened his Path yet. The most important reason for this attack, though, was because he trusted Juge. Though Berisa's words had created doubts in his mind, there wasn't really much he could do. He wasn't fast enough to escape the chaos beast on his own so it's better that he help Juge in the hopes that Juge would come back with support.
Unfortunately, nothing went as hoped. His fist, upon hitting the chaos beast, felt an immense heat. It disintegrated entirely. Sock retreated, crying out in pain, as he clutched his handless arm.
The hellish creature used its other hand and grasped at his head.
Sho, seeing this, decided to make his escape as well. At this point, he'd die if he simply stood there. Running at full speed, he zipped between trees.
He felt another sense of deja vu. However, this time, he could, at least, remember what memory prompted this.
After several seconds of sprinting, he felt a sense of danger. Despite his incredible speed, he knew the chaos beast's hand was catching up to him.
Desperation overtook him as he began to feel a sort of heat touching his back.
Suddenly, clarity struck. Sho jumped, his powerful legs propelling him. As he flew through the air, he turned, looking at the chaos beast's hand.
He had felt this feeling of desperation before. When those sect members had surrounded him and were going to kill him, he'd felt something. Was this his Path?
His eyes turned gray and the world shifted. Everything in his field of vision blackened, as Sho's eyes dilated to the extreme. He was taking in everything all at once. He could see each of the cells that made up the trees but even beyond that, he could see each of the molecules that made up the cells. Farther beyond that, he could see layers and layers of infinitesimal points forming upon each other to make up, well everything.
Before he could fully comprehend everything he was seeing, the beast's hand grabbed his head.
Where the trees had seemingly infinite points all ordered in their own ways, the chaos beast had none. It was solely energy. And he could feel this energy disrupting all the points it was touching.
Despite this, he didn't feel the threat of death. While it felt as though his head was being pulled apart by tiny hands, it wasn't painful enough to suggest that he would die.
Or maybe he just didn't feel pain because his nerves were being torn up.
After a second though, he knew that the chaos beast really couldn't hurt him. The hands that could vaporize everything were pointless in front of him.
Realizing this, Sho did the only thing he really thought he could do. He grabbed the chaos beast's hand. He could feel his fingers tear through the hand as if it was water. Unlike water though, the chaos beast's hand didn't reform.
Sho's eyes were free again to see the staggering multiplex points that were reality. He jumped at the chaos beast that had walked to a few meters away from him, grabbing at it. The beast merely tried to grab Sho again but at this point, it was defenseless. Sho, after pouncing, annihilated it.
After this, though, his consciousness slipped away from him, as he fell to the ground.
—
—
—
Juge could see the sect town's gates. By now, he was sweating and his robes were almost entirely torn apart. By the time the outer disciple guards saw him, he began walking with a limp.
"Get an elder", he shouted, his voice hoarse.
The two guards looked at each other before one ran into the town to get an elder. The other immediately began applying first aid. However, he couldn't really find any major injuries on Juge, merely cuts or scrapes. Even the limp seemed to merely be a sprained ankle.
A couple of minutes later, the other outer disciple came back, a fat man behind him.
"Greeting Inner Elder Bachi." Juge managed to say, his voice still hoarse.
Bachi nodded before looking closely at Juge, as if waiting for something. Juge took the message and began explaining.
"I invited a couple of friends to help me with a mission to harvest some river cobalt from a cave when a chaos beast came out of nowhere. It killed everyone. I only escaped because one of my friends had… they distracted it."
Bachi tried to stare into Juge's eyes but he only saw truth within them.
He sighed. "Alright, how long ago was this?"
"At least a couple of hours."
Again, Bachi only saw truth.
To be honest, Bachi was entirely aware of who Juge was. He knew that Juge could create illusions but Juge was simply too weak to fool him. If he found this was some sort of ploy to get more points, he could kill Juge. He despised the man. He didn't put it past him to kill, though he wasn't aware if Juge had every done it before.
Bachi sighed again. "Take me to the area you saw the beast after you get some rest. If what you're saying is true, we'll compensate you."
Juge nodded and began to walk away, his ankle now healed.
Bachi remembered something. "Ah wait, who went with you?"
Juge turned back. "Outer Disciple Berisa, Outer Disciple Sock, and Outer Disciple Sho."
Bachi suddenly froze at the last name.
"Outer Disciple Sho?"
—
—
—
Deep in the forest, Sho woke up.