Jack had a sudden feeling of freedom. The skin of his lips had ripped apart from his smile and began bleeding. He intently stared as Caden let out screams of pain. While watching, he slowly tilted his head to the side.
"He's all yours, Seedy!"
Seedy let out an excited roar before ripping Caden apart, cutting his screams off short. Soon both the flesh and the sliced off vines were nowhere to be seen, resting comfortably in Seedy's stomach.
Although Jack's potential for regeneration was quite strong, Seedy's was still far greater, assuming that he had the nutrition. Not only had all of its vines regrown, there were more than before.
While Seedy was having its fill, Jack had turned to look at Elena. She had a few bruises on her body here and there, but the elephant and the bear were both already one foot in the grave. Though there were only blunt injuries, flesh could be seen coming out from their bodies.
Although they were standing, it seemed like they couldn't do much more than that. Elena was breathing quite heavily, but her eyes were aflame with passion. Jack didn't think for much longer. He tossed the eyeball he had taken out earlier into his mouth. Then as he was chewing, he raised the glowing twigs and began moving them around.
He made both the elephant and bear back off. However, in turn, the raptor and gorilla next to him rushed over to Elena while he did the same with Seedy carrying him.
While it wasn't the most advantageous situation, she still stood her ground, ready to fight.
The gorilla was the first to reach her and landed a clean hit on her stomach. However, that was because Elena let it, and returned a far more terrifying swing to its chest.
With a crack, its ribcage fractured.
The gorilla took several steps back, still alive, but badly injured. Soon after, the raptor opened and closed its jaws in a frenzy, guessing the correct location due to its missing eyes. Taking advantage of that, Elena was able to evade the hit and wrap her arms around the raptors mouth, forcing it shut. From there, she did a quick spin and threw the raptor into a nearby tree with a slam.
Jack let out a hum of interest before walking towards her on his own. Seedy had let go of him, though not without a concerned whimper.
The smile on his face was still bleeding from how much it stretched out his lips, showing how excited he was. Yet, in contrast his steps forward were incomparably calm and steady, almost as though he were simply taking a stroll in the park.
Elena clenched her fists and held them out in front of her, ready to do anything she needed to.
On the other hand, Jack let out a somewhat sinister giggle before walking over to her.
"You're so excited because of how little time we have left to play! I know because I am too!"
Although the only thing Jack said were some words that didn't really matter, Elena's eyebrow furrowed. She seemed to have a bit of difficulty focusing for whatever reason. Jack continued to walk forward as he had been.
Yet, the moment he was right in front of her, Elena's fist suddenly shot up from below.
With a disturbing crunch, Elena's fist punctured directly through Jack's body, shattering spine and all. Unlike the others that were thrown away, Jack was caught on her arm, in part because her fingers had dug in to hold onto him.
And as though he were a puppet, his expression hadn't even budged, not in the slightest. His joker card did come out of his pocket and cover his face, however.
Instead of trying to escape, Jack instead used one hand to push his body down further, ensuring he was caught securely.
"Yes, yes! This is the way you like to play right? Then let's have lots of fun!"
In one swift motion, he used his other hand to unclasp his black deck before summoning the katana and thrusting it. As though imitating Elena, he swung upwards, slamming it into the bottom of her skull.
Then, he twisted it.
Elena gurgled in pain as her eyes widened. However, she strangely didn't do anything about it. Her other hand was completely free, but it lay limply by her side as though her head had gone empty.
She had a dumb expression on her face with absent-minded eyes.
On the other hand, Jack watched on with interest.
"I'm having a lot of fun too! But... there isn't too much time left and there are still other people to play with! So I will hurry up and make sure you have as much fun as possible quickly! But if you would rather not rush and have fun later, then just tell me!"
Elena didn't respond.
It was in part obvious, as a blade was currently inside of her mouth blocking her from speaking properly. However, she hadn't even put in the effort to say anything. Regardless of whether or not her mouth was blocked, her answer would've been the same.
Which was nothing.
Jack let out a laugh as his eyes narrowed slightly, reminiscent of how Emma would do sometimes.
"Then up we go!"
From there, he pushed the blade further up, ripping through the flesh and twisted it back and forth as though he were searching for something. For a moment, Elena was simply standing there with a slack expression.
In the next, she had suddenly crumpled down onto the ground, lifeless.
Jack pulled the arm out from his stomach before closing his eyes and tilting his head upwards. He sniffed the air a few times before turning in a direction.
"So you went that way... I like playing tag too!"
He had used his ability to smell 'blood' in order to locate Lily. Everyone that participated had at least a small amount of that smell, meaning murder was something each of them had taken part in one way or another. However, it was the strongest on Lily. Not significantly so, but that was still the case.
Seedy had immediately picked Jack up without being instructed and began rushing rather quickly in the direction he had pointed. It didn't bother eating Elena's body despite its excessive muscle content. Earlier on, it had given a lick of the blood before spitting it out vehemently.
Lily hadn't actually run all that far away. The setting they were located in was indeed a forest though there was a decent amount of space between trees. She had gotten onto one of the nearby ones that wasn't toppled over due to the damage and one that wasn't in high risk of being knocked down either.
She blended in with the leaves and swayed with them, making her practically indistinguishable to the naked eye. This was not her first time doing something like this. From what she had counted, there were only thirty seconds left before she would be transported out of here, after which none of this would matter.
Her confidence had allowed her to remain quite calm, keeping her breaths shallow despite her broken ribs. However, at the same time because of that confidence she didn't move even as Jack had approached her.
She figured that he was just going to go on by.
However, once Seedy began climbing up the tree she could no longer retain her initial composure.
"I thought we were playing tag, but hide-and-seek is fun too!"
While gritting her teeth, Lily put aside the matter of how she found out and leaped out of the tree, fully planning on running away as fast as she could. If it was only stalling for not even thirty seconds, then she was confident.
However, after running only a few steps, both a gorilla and raptor were up ahead. Unlike before, there was no nearby tree she could use to help her evade, other than the one that Seedy and Jack were currently on.
Regardless, her will remained steadfast as she ran in the general direction of the raptor, depending on the fact its eyes were shot out. Jack had waved his glowing twig, prompting the raptor to wildly attack, but nothing could've been done about the fact it couldn't see.
Although it wasn't easy, Lily was able to dodge its bites one after another.
And just when it seemed like she was going to escape, a katana had slammed into her thigh, prompting her to faceplant into the ground. Jack clapped several times.
"Wow, good throw Seedy!"
Lily's expression scrunched up pretty badly, but she still had the will to move through the pain, moving her uninjured leg and attempting to have the other follow suit. Yet, even if she did have the will to continue moving, it did not mean her severely injured muscle could even do so anymore.
Regardless, she began crawling with her functioning limbs.
Unfortunately, it didn't amount to much as Jack had appeared right in front of her.
But there were only ten seconds left.
It shouldn't be hard to stall for that long, right?