The sun had risen and everybody was already prepared to continue the journey.
We were near the edge of the enormous forest where my shack used to be in. Beyond the lush trees stood a huge chain of mountains, called the Cascades.
The chain of mountains contained hundreds of diverse mountains, some of which easily reached the clouds.
Before we resumed our journey, Kevin had us come together in a circle.
"Alright, as some of you may know, we will finally get out of this forest today. But what is the next terrain that we have to cross, you might ask? Well, according to my research, it will be the Cascades. The Cascades is a huge mountain range in the western part of America, and we will have to cross it to get to our destination."
Leo smirked with a carefree face.
"So we just have to go over some mountains and kill the enemies in our path. It's nothing that we can't do with our agility and strength."
Kevin responded by sighing and lightly shaking his head.
"If only it was actually that simple. The demons have a small advantage on mountainous terrain because of their ability to levitate with their wings, and ogres can cause huge landslides by just stomping on the ground a few times with all their force. Although we can just run away from them, the more enemies we let through the mountains, the more dangerous it gets for the civilians living on the other side of the mountains. The enemies might also ambush us, and it will be harder to get away on a mountain without the cover from trees."
"So we just have to be extra careful when traveling and resting." Tony said while stepping away from the circle. "We'll be fine as long as nothing ridiculous happens."
"Wait a second, there is still something that we have to do." Kevin pulled Tony back into the circle.
"This is something that will increase our chances of success..."
Kevin slowly and mysteriously put his hand down in the middle of the circle.
"Now everyone has to put one of their hands on my hand and we will all release them at the same time while chanting something!"
Tony frowned and looked at Kevin's hand.
"What the hell is this Kevin? This is absurd, and I don't see how this can help us in any way."
"Come on, it won't hurt us either. This will be a cool moment that we can look back to in the future."
Leo happily put his hand on Kevin's and the rest soon followed after.
"Alright. Three, two, one, Let's go team!"
"Let's go team!"
"Let's go."
Although Leo and I were the only ones that repeated after Kevin, he didn't seem to mind.
We started traveling again after doing the little ritual.
The first day went by peacefully. No enemies were spotted and nothing got in our way.
We started off the second day with the same routine and then began traveling through the mountains.
"Stop! There are enemies ahead!"
Kevin stopped everyone and pointed his hand towards a distant mountain. We spotted another group that was crossing the mountain.
There was an ogre leading the group, with a dozen demons following behind him.
"They still haven't seen us. We can sneak up on them and quickly kill a few of them before they notice us."
Leo frowned at the enemies while equipping his gauntlets.
"Let's just kill them all! We've practiced enough to not make a blunder in this situation, so we will be fine."
"Yeah Leo, it was already the plan to kill them, we just have to decide how to do it." Tony said in an exasperated tone, before looking my way. "Also Bryan, are you going to fight with us or not?"
"Nah, I'm fine with staying behind and watching you guys battle."
I stepped back and watched the others quietly approach the other group.
****
(Kevin Ernestyn)
The five of us silently ran towards the other group, quickly diminishing the distance between us.
When we got close enough, I flung a large rock towards the left of the enemy's group, while we went to their right side to stay in their blind spot.
~Thud~
"Hm, what was that?!" I heard the ogre utter to his minions.
While the demons and ogre were occupied by the heavy sound of the falling rock, we sprinted towards them until we were just a few meters away from the enemies.
The demons in the back might have noticed us already, but it didn't matter anymore.
Gripping the hilt of my sword firmly with both of my hands, I slashed towards the neck of the closest demon.
Shock and fear slowly formed on the demon's face as my blade swiftly made it to his neck. He tried to move his claws up to block the attack, but it was too late.
My sword easily went through the neck of the demon. Blood splattered all over my body as his head fell on the ground.
The others also killed one demon each, leaving only 7 demons and the ogre.
"Grrr, kill those humans!" The orge grunted and started resentfully swinging towards us, not differentiating between allies and enemies.
Me, Leo and Tony charged towards the ogre, while Alesha and Iris kept killing the demons.
We dodged the ogre's arms and Leo jumped towards the ogre in between his swings.
With sharp spikes protruding from his gauntlets, he punched the ogre's abdomen. Although his punch didn't pierce the ogre's skin, it did make the ogre lose his balance and stumble backwards.
Tony and I immediately went behind the ogre and we both slashed our swords at the backside of his knees. Although we barely damaged the ogre's skin, it made him lose his balance even more.
~Thud~
With a loud thud, the ogre finally fell down with his back to the ground.
The ogre tried to get up, but before he could, I slashed my sword towards his face. Specifically aiming for his eyes.
The ogre quickly shut his eyes, but my blade managed to pierce the thin skin of his eyelids. The blade went further and cut a part of his eyes, successfully blinding the ogre.
"Aaarrghh!"
The ogre began wildly swinging his arms in a chaotic fashion, but he didn't hit anything except the air around him.
The ogre stood up, but since his sight was gone, he was a lot less dangerous than before.
Tony went back to help kill the demons, so only me and Leo were standing before the ogre.
The ogre raised his foot slowly, like he was about to stomp the ground to cause a landslide.
"He's going to cause a landslide! Be ready to leave the area!" I quickly shouted to the rest of my team as I got ready to run away as soon as the ogre's foot hit the ground.
But unlike what I expected, the ogre carefully put his foot down on the ground without any excess force.
'What? Why did he just stop in the middle of his move? Don't tell me he doesn't want to hurt his minions?'
I stopped my train of thought since we were still fighting and focused on the ogre again.
The ogre began swinging his arms around, but it was way easier to dodge this time.
The other three were able to kill off the rest of the demons, and then they quickly joined me and Leo to kill the blind ogre.
****
(Bryan Gale)
I kept watching the battle between my group and the ogre's group from afar. When the last enemy finally died, I ran towards the rest of the group at the same speed as when we were traveling.
When I reached the area of the battle, I saw the others resting on the ground.
"Hey Bryan, you're finally here."
Kevin called out to me as he slowly stood up.
"Yes. I saw your battle from afar. Good job guys."
"Wow, if you say it that drily, then it just sounds sarcastic. At least put some emotion on it."
Leo commented on my voice with a wry smile.
"Yes. I'll think about it next time."
"Well... You'll learn it at some point. Anyways, let's eat lunch here, since we have to take a small break after that fight."
We unpacked some stuff from the huge bag that I was carrying and Alesha cooked some food.
After we were done eating, we started traveling through the mountains again.
However, Kevin soon stopped everyone again.
"What? Are there enemies again?" Leo asked Kevin in a surprised tone.
Kevin answered without looking back at Leo: "Yes, but that's not everything. I think you should just see for yourself."
We stepped forward and immediately noticed what Kevin saw.
A few hundred meters below us, on the lower side of the mountain, stood a huge entrance that dug into the side of the mountain. Dozens of demons walked into the mountain and several cars followed behind them.
"What the hell did we just find?"