All of them were gripped by terror as they stared at the reaper before them, the man who had claimed countless gifted lives, the one who was dispatched when someone needed to die.
The first one to wake up from his stupor was Quinn, who wasted no time to draw his bow and unleash an arrow on their reaper who grabbed the arrow without any trouble yet again.
On the sidelines, Thorn was the second to react, this time giving it her all. She launched almost a hundred invisible strings shooting out towards the hunter, entangling him with their sharp, razor-like edges.
Despite her bleeding abdomen, Thorn poured all her strength into the effort, her strings attempting to entangle the hunter even more tightly. However, his skin suffered no damage from the onslaught of strings.
Adam Grayson only stared at thorn with a blank expression, not showing any emotion, nor getting troubled by the strings that only began to grow in number around his body.
From the side, Rokara unleashed her own gift, pushing herself way beyond her limits by effortlessly hoisting a dead tree from the ground as if it were nothing more than picking up grass with her invisible force.
Using it as a weapon, she hurled it at the hunter with every ounce of her strength.
But just before the trunk could strike him, the cracks all over his body began to grow in size. With a barely audible grunt leaving his mouth, his brass knuckles began to transform.
The spikes on the knuckles grew to ten times their previous size, one gleaming in a blinding white light while the other emanated an ominous black aura, with black thunderbolts crackling around his body.
With a simple movement of his hand, everything around him gotten torn to pieces, the strings around him gotten cut to thousands pieces, and as a backlash for thorn, she began to puke blood, her vision fading into nothing as she collapsed on the ground.
Meanwhile, Rokara stared at the trunk that had been shattered to pieces, revealing the man standing unbothered behind it.
Quinn began to shoot out his arrows rapidly, but every single one of them was dodged by the hunter with simple and graceful movements.
The hunter calmly walked towards Rokara, his claws reaching the ground and destroying parts of it the moment they made contact.
Then suddenly, the whole battlefield was enshrouded by a red fog. Talon rushed at the hunter with a speed that seemed impossible for someone at the green rate.
The boy unleashed a fiery strike with his spear, aimed at the hunter's left side from where Talon leaped at him.
But with a light movement of the hunter's hand, his claws blocked the fiery spear aimed at his side, creating sparks upon impact.
From the impact, Talon's wrist began to ache, while the hunter just looked at him with the same emotionless stare he had shown everyone else. With a simple flick of his wrist, he sent Talon flying, along with his spear, back into the red fog, obscuring him from sight.
'You got to be kidding me… how can he be so strong?!' Panicked Talon, his mind was racing, searching rapidly for an answer.
In a panic, Orion rose from the ground, clutching his stomach in pain with his left hand while his right gripped his longsword, too heavy to wield with just one hand.
A brilliant light enveloped his body as he staggered toward the hunter, his consciousness fading with each step. Despite his weakened state, his aura pierced through the thick red fog, almost revealing Talon lurking within it, poised to strike.
Without a care in the world, Grayson readied himself to finish the job, his claws ready to tear the boy apart.
But before he could kill Orion, Talon jumped out of the red fog again, stabbing towards the hunter, just to end up the same way, brushed away like a fly, sent away, crashing into a tree.
'No, no, no… we are all going to die here!' Panic began to sink in for Talon, his mind succumbing to despair.
Then, as if using the fog like Talon, Aria jumped at the hunter with her mace, and for the first time, an attack connected with the reaper.
But it was just like striking iron, even thought his skin seemed flail from the cracks, it was solid like steel, this left Aria open, unable to defend herself against what's about to happen next.
With a stabbing motion, the claws burrowed deeply into Aria, the blades of the claw leaving her body from the other side.
Everyone stared at the sight in shock, and as the blood began to drip from Aria's stomach, the gravity of the situation finally began to sink in.
Orion was the first one to brake out of his shock, his conciseness returned just to be overrun by a heavy feeling of rage, his longsword enveloped by an otherworldly blind light, heading straight at the hunter.
But with a swift reaction, captain Grayson used his claws and stabbed orion from the side of his face, the blades burrowing deeply into the side of his cheek, leaving on the other side, piercing both of his cheeks.
Before pulling them out in an aggressive manner, chipping flash away from his face and kicking the boy away with a powerful kick at his stomach, Orion consciousness instantly faded to nothing.
Enraged, Quinn began to shout with his eyes shining in an otherworldly red light, "Stop!"
But to his terror, the body of the captain stopped, but only for a single second, not achieving anything as the the captain regained the control over his own body in a second.
His black claw began to move this time, black thunder dancing around it as claw managed to cause a shock wave, sending black blades in the air, slicing Quinn's bow in his hand before cutting deeply into his body as he began to flail to his side before falling to down to the ground.
The last thing he saw was the body of his brother, blood gushing from his face before Quinn joined the others in the void where their conciseness faded to.
Talon stared blankly at the scene before him, this time, his mind was blank before a whisper reached his mind.
"Boy… bring him to us." Said the voice.
For a small moment, Talon couldn't quite understand what did the voice want from him, before it all clicked inside of his mind.
'Church of the other side.'
'But I never managed to pull someone into it while they were awake… Doesn't matter, I need to pull it of or the others bleed out and we both die…'
"Rokara, can you buy me some time? If I'm correct, maybe, just maybe we have a chance to survive." Said Talon to Rokara beside him, now only the two of them were left as Grayson stared directly at them.
"Not like we have any other choice... right?" Her joking question was rhetorical, as she fell silent, cutting out the world as she pressed her hand against her face. Only her left eye peeked through her fingers.
"So you finally decided to ask for help?' Asked the voice inside of her mind with a mocking tone.
"Yes, no matter what, just stop the man before us. He's just like a worm to you like everyone else, so you shouldn't have a problem, right?" asked Rokara from the mocking voice, but to her surprise, this time, it's answer wasn't it's usual, instead of it's usual mockery, it sounded… impressed.
'This one is far from a worm, this one is strong…' Said the voice, and before Rokara could answer, her conciseness faded to nothing as the voice took control of her body.
The single eye that had been fixed on the hunter began to turn pitch black. Without uttering a word, the invisible force struck the hunter from every side, causing him to collapse to the ground under its power.
Just then, with a loud crack and another small yelp of pain from Captain Grayson, the invisible force abruptly dissipated as the Reaper rose from the ground and fixed his gaze on Rokara.
"Another Fallen." Murmured the captain, his voice was almost apologetic but mostly monotone.
Then, as if in agreement, the two began to rush at each other.
The first one to strike was Rokara, her hatchets were nowhere to be found as she did not need to use weapons from this point.
The paunch from Rokara had the invisible force behind it that collided with the hunter's captain, pushing him back before a sudden surge of black lighting struck Rokara, stopping her from fueling her gift.
And before she could regain her focus, Grayson began to drag his claws on the ground, building momentum with them, and with a powerful swipe, invisible blades in the air struck Rokara, the slashes made her bleed profusely.
And still, she did not stop, as if she did not feel pain.
With a wide and disturbing grin on her face, she pressed her hands into the ground. As her fingers dug into the earth, a tremor rippled through the ground, signaling the onset of something that could only be described as one thing.
Ultimate Destruction.