Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!-Chapter 677: A Nightmare - Part 3

Left alone out of his battalion, the sole survivor of the scouts got back up on his feet. Looking at Raven, his eyes shimmering with held-back tears, he knew what was to come, but how exactly would that happen? He had no idea, and that scared him more than anything.

"N-now what?" He asked, his voice trepidant.

The hero, on the other hand, only smiled and circled around the fire. Eyeing one of the blankets on the ground, he sat on it and urged the man to sit as well. Hesitant, he lowered himself and sat in the viscera of his companions. A rush of adrenaline with a heart skipping numerous beats, he scouted the hero and attempted to judge what he had in store for him next.

"Say, stretching his legs forward, Raven leaned back with his hands planted on the ground behind him, "How do you wanna die?"

A jolt of terror shot through the man’s spine. His whole body began to shake as his eyes met his end, sitting in front of him in the form of a man.

"Wait..." His breath reckless and his mind wandering for a way out, the man struggled within himself as if he were being choked by his own hands. "I’ll do anything, just let me leave!"

"Eat the rest of the corpses then," Raven ordered without any pause.

Gasping, the scout looked into the hero’s eyes. His mind, even more in shambles than before. Yet with a gulp, he found himself staring at the gore right by his feet. What had once been another member of his party would now be his meals. Whatever disgust he had for wolf meat was bound to be replaced briskly.

"Go ahead, start," Raven ordered again, leaning on his side and watching the campfire roasting the wolf still.

The man couldn’t bear to keep his eyes open as the first morsel of flesh hit his tongue. Fear had consumed him, but that’s when his misery ended as another sword of silver came flying from the forest and blew his head clean off his shoulders.

Before his blood could settle, Amedith finally appeared from the shadows and made his way to the leader of the group. Kneeling by his corpse, he grabbed hold of the bracelet in his hand and chucked it in Raven’s direction.

"You were really gonna make them do those disgusting things?" He asked, squinting with disgust.

"No..." Staring at the flames, Raven caught the bracelet and began feeling his way around its curves. "I wanted to see if these bastards were as cowardly as they seemed."

With a slow turn of his head, he glanced up at the magus.

"A man who’s willing to expose his mother’s body to get a chance at survival, I doubt you would wanna keep such a person alive either. Not to mention, this other moron who killed his own companion and was ready to eat him. What kind of cut throat assholes were these bastards, at least we know that now."

Not knowing how to respond, Amedith simply shrugged his shoulders and looked around him at the numerous corpses. Two of them were killed by him and his silver blades, one by Raven and the last by one of the enemies themselves.

"Whatever, we have the girl now, we should leave," swinging his hands in the air, he was ready to leave the dark sand beach and report to the others waiting for them at the mansion.

Plucking the white pearl from the bracelet, Raven got up from the ground, ready to leave the place. But as he tried to take out the other, much darker gem, it simply wouldn’t budge, and the pearl containing Shamisha wouldn’t turn her back to her original form even after being removed and slightly manipulated by Raven’s magic to let her out.

For a moment, it made him wonder if it was because of the anti-magic properties of the scouts or something on their bodies. With Amedith in range of their corpses, it wouldn’t have been a surprising revelation as before. He was able to use magic despite being up close to the enemies, thanks to the magus watching the fight from a distance through his eye. The magus had been the one casting the required spell, as he didn’t require to make use of magic.

An intimidation tactic to throw off the scout, and while it helped, now it left Raven slightly confused.

’If Amedith doesn’t require mana to cast magic and my eye requires it to see, then there’s no way their anti-magic work is still working. Then how?’ Staring at the pearl, he wondered for just a moment more, but then as something began to shudder right beneath him, the warlord finally felt that something was wrong.

"We need to leave!" He screamed, his hand outstretched to Amedith.

Feeling the same anxiety, the magus quickly grabbed his hand, but before Raven could teleport them, a burning hand the size of a giant erupted through the ground like a bursting volcano. Burning both of them and spraying their bodies with molten glass, the fiery hand snatched the bracelet out of Raven’s hand and reached so high that its flames rained like magma falling from the skies.

In what little time he had on his feet, Amedith struggled through the burns and lifted his shield to the falling inferno. It took Raven a moment longer to recover as it was him who was mainly attacked with his left leg now turned to char. Through gritted teeth, he clad himself in his improved fae form, and with it, he soared into the skies, chasing after the bracelet without wasting a single second more.

"Enough!" Declared a grumpy old voice. Its reverberation could be felt through the very marrow of the spine, but that didn’t stop Raven from slamming his body against the closed fist, and although it burned him yet again, with the bracelet in his sight, he kept clawing away with claws as large as the arm’s fingers.

’What the–?!’ However, the moment his hands made contact with the arm, he felt something staring at him from the back. Its presence ever lurking and ancient, Raven knew that this was no normal creature, but something... "Divine?"

As the realization hit him, the hand slapped him and sent him flying right onto Amedith’s shield. Hitting the magus with his body, the warlord laid on the ground when he knew exactly what kind of presence it was. But it wasn’t just him that felt it, but the entirety of Athenia–even the goddess herself.

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