By this point, Jerome's face was just as Marcus imagined. It was no longer resembling that of the man before, and now only a charred skull remained in its place, with some sort of black clay like mixture around its sides that must have been the man's skin that had melted off.
The sight was truly daunting and both detection mages, that had front row seats to the carnage, started to feel sick to the stomach due to the smell of burning meat that hung in the air.
While Callum continued his laughter and the other two mages watched in horror, Marcus had started doing something.
'If I do this, then maybe I can imitate what they did earlier.'
Currently, the [Earth Cage] and armor that Marcus was sealed in had crumbled apart. The boy still sat down recovering, but now he had started doing something with his hands.
Marcus had his hands clasped and was rubbing them together as if to make something.
Meanwhile, the detection mage that had come with Jerome had started to back away from Callum in horror.
'I need to get out of here before this madman kills me. I can't die yet.'
As he was thinking these thoughts, the mage accidentally tripped and fell over as he was backing away, and Callum's laughter instantly stopped. Callum looked over to the mage that had fallen over and that was now staring at him in utter horror.
The fire mage's appearance became demonic with fire starting to reignite around the man's palm and with him standing over Jerome's corpse. He stared directly at the shivering man who was still slowly trying to inch further and further away from him.
'This wasn't how it was supposed to go! We weren't supposed to kill each other! We were supposed to kill the omen! So why is this happening?!'
While the mage was having these thoughts, Callum started to make his way over to the man and stepped over Jerome's charred skull in the process, instantly crushing it as he did so. When the frightened man heard the sound of Jerome's skull being crushed underneath the man's foot, he started to imagine himself in Jerome's position.
'He's going to kill me. No....no.. no no no!'
The frightened mage stopped trying to crawl away since it wouldn't matter anyway and instead opted to beg for his life.
"W-Wait, I-I can still be useful to you. Isn't that other mage you brought along too slow. Look at how long it took for him to catch up to you," Jerome's detection mage shouted while pointing at the other mage standing behind Callum.
Callum stopped for a moment and looked back at who the man was pointing to, and when his bright orange eyes met the other detection mage's that he'd hired, the latter froze.
What the other mage spoke earlier was true because he'd indeed slowed Callum down, but it was due to him constantly exerting himself to find the omen. He wasn't intentionally lazing about, and was actually quite tired and only managed to catch up due to Callum's confrontation with Jerome.
Seeing that the crazed maniac's attention was now on someone else he continued to assert his case of being more useful than the other.
"Y-Yea, I also won't ask for any of the loot either. All I want is to live. I don't have to see any of the gold from that bounty so you can keep it all to yourself. Win-win right?"
Callum stopped looking at his frightened detection mage and looked back over to the man who was now trying to barter for his life. At first, Callum was going to follow through and kill the mage he'd brought along, but after hearing the other detection mage speak about gold, his thoughts changed.
He recalled that he was now missing an arm and the absurd price that would come with trying to fix it. He didn't have that kind of coin and the coin from this bounty wasn't going to be nearly enough. He had lost far more than what this bounty was worth, and this infuriated Callum to no end. He looked back down behind him at Jerome's corpse, and the rage that had started to calm down earlier was bubbling forth once again.
Callum knew that Jerome was already dead and that he could no longer inflict any harm onto the dead body, so he only stood their while fuming and feeling phantom pain from his now missing right arm. The combination of rage and pain that he felt from not being able to do anything about his arm and the phantom pains it brought drove Callum even further over the edge.
He looked back over to the now-nervous mage who'd tried to negotiate for his life and decided he'd take it out on him.
'If it weren't for him being here none of this would have happened.
'If he wasn't here I'd have never run into that bastard earth mage.
'If he wasn't here I'd have already killed the omen!
'If he wasn't here I wouldn't have lost my arm!'
The thoughts Callum was now having were wholly irrational. He was blaming another person for what happened to him when everything that had happened so far was a direct result of his own actions.
Had he waited for his own detection mage to spot Marcus before foolishly trying to hit him without a clear line of sight, Marcus would be dead. Had Callum not left his detection mage behind to chase after Marcus on his own, he also wouldn't have just grazed Marcus and may have killed him once again. And had he not foolishly tried to attack Jerome and stick his hand through the cage, he'd still have his arm. These were the truths behind Callum's actions.
However, truths and reason had no place amongst a mad man.
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!"
The detection mage that had previously tried to barter for his life now had a pale expression on his face. He no longer tried to negotiate for his life as he turned and got on his hands and knees to get up to run. Sadly just like Jerome, he was too slow.
Callum instantly closed the distance between himself and the detection mage as he leaped onto the man's back.
"NOOO!!! PLEAASE!!!"
The man succeeded in elbowing Callum in the nose, which drew blood and infuriated Callum even more.
Realizing what had been done, the man tried even more desperately to escape, but this time Callum succeeded and got a firmer hold on the man below him.
A wicked grin spread across his face as blood flowed down from his nose to his mouth. The bloody expression on Callum's face was horrifying, but the man struggling for his life didn't notice this as he continued to try to crawl away, even if what he was now doing was completely and utterly futile.
"PLEASE! I have a wife and a kid back ho-," the man's tried to speak, but Callum covered his mouth with his palm.
The mad man didn't seem to care for whatever it was the man below him was about to say as he started to speak the same words he'd spoken earlier before lighting Jerome's face ablaze.
"BURN!"
Instantly after this, a familiar and nightmarish scene took place with Callum and the terrified detection mage. The struggling man's eyes went wide with horror when he heard what Callum said as he felt the palm covering his hand begin to grow hotter.
And right before the man was about to have his mouth burned off, time seemed to slow down for him as he began to regret his decision in coming here. He also started to think of his wife and daughter that he'd left back home.
'Nita, Mary, I'm sorry for being such a terrible husband and father. I should have taken better care of the both of you, and I should have never taken this dreadful job.'
Just then, a muffled scream of utter pain and despair was heard as the man's mouth was lit aflame.
"MMMHHHHH!!"
Smoke rose from where the man's mouth was and where Callum's palm was placed, and the struggling mage began to cry. It was unknown if the tears came from the smoke that was entering his eyes or the pain of having his mouth burned or maybe even a combination of both.
Regardless of what it was, the scene being depicted now was just as horrifying, if not more so than when Jerome's face had been burned off.
It could be argued that Jerome had it slightly better since Callum had used as much power as he could to kill Jerome due to the strength of his opponent. Callum knew that if he let up even a little bit that Jerome may have pushed him off and turned the tables on him, so when Callum placed his palm over the earth mage's face, he unleashed his full power into the [Burn].
However, the same could not be said for the detection mage below him. Callum knew that detection mages were all extremely weak, and the only ability they possessed was to detect other mages. Since the majority of them had no combat magic to speak of, Callum took his sweet time to burn away the frustration and pain he was feeling by using the mage below him as an outlet.
The detection mage struggled as much as he could to pull off Callum's hand from his mouth and his fingers from his own hand were burned while attempting to do so, but it didn't matter. He could feel the fire starting to enter his mouth as it burned his tongue and even his teeth to ash.
As the frightening scene occurred in front of Marcus and the other detection mage, there was nothing either could do. The detection mage that Callum had hired, stood completely frozen in place as he watched the scene play out before him and couldn't help but wonder if he would be next.
Meanwhile, Marcus, who had been seemingly forgotten, tuned out everything around him as he continued to work with whatever was in between his hands in hopes it would help him to escape.
It seemed that no one would come to the rescue of the soon to be dead father and husband.