The Earth Online

38 Preparations for the Next World Part 8

“What the actual f**k was that?” Haya asked while frantically looking around his surroundings. He had goosebumps all over his body, both from the cold hand that touched him and his, seemingly, missing friend.

“Ygritte, where the f**k are you?” The tan man asked. Although he already activated his berserker skill, the effects of the fear seem to be quelling in the blood lust.

As he kept looking around the hallway, he finally found Ygritte. She was currently in the teacher’s lounge and was crouching on the ground.

Haya felt this foreboding feeling, as the chills kept telling him to run away, but Ygritte’s crying voice — almost similar to the ones they heard earlier — pushed him to go inside the room.

“Ah, f**k, I don’t usually mess with this s**t, but god damn.” Haya regretfully muttered under his breath, as he tightly clutched unto his dagger.

Once he was a coupe of feet away from Ygritte’s supposedly crying figure, the young druid suddenly looked up, almost making Haya pass out.

Instead of the sweet slanted eyes that he was used to, Ygritte’s face suddenly turned into a skull. Freezing from the shock, an arrow suddenly flew from behind him and hit the fake Ygritte crouched down the floor.

“Haya! Get out of that room.” The real Ygritte shouted from the hallway.  Before Haya could even stand up, he was suddenly surrounded by five undead bodies.

The man was left with no choice but to bring out his sword and further reactivated his bloodlust.

Seeing that the berserker was in trouble, Ygritte quickly tried entering the room, but was stopped by an invisible barrier. She decided to take her chances and activated her Summon the Undead skill.

It was taking her a longer time, since she was almost depleted of her mana from their last adventure. The druid was still mastering mana collection.

One of the undead broke the stare down by immediately lunging for Haya, the tan man, who was feeling the full effects of the blood lust, quickly slashed through the zombie’s neck.

This attack swiftly decapitated the creature, but Haya was shocked to see its body still moving.

“Ah f**k!” The berserker voiced out, he suddenly remember reading James’ description about this cockroach-like creatures. He knew that the only way to really kill them off is to kill their master—which was the bandit leader.

Regardless of the relentless attacks of the undead bodies, Haya kept slashing and stabbing against them over and over again, until he almost ran out of stamina.

“Haya, run away from them, I’ll try controlling the two undead.” Ygritte shouted from the other side of the barrier. The druid immediately got to work and aimed her undead again towards the nearest zombies.

Haya quickly moved out of the way and saw the teal light passing through the barrier and hitting the undead bodies.

This attack made them pause for a bit, as they redirected where they were heading and immediately tried attacking the other zombies.

The berserker helped Ygritte’s two undead bodies by decapitating the two other bodies—although not effective in killing them off entirely, it did drastically weaken them.

Haya used one of the zombie’s passed out bodies and made a run straight to the door.

Ygritte tried warning him to not continue because he might just get hurt, but amazingly enough, Haya passed right through the threshold.

“How is that possible?” The druid asked with shock evident on her face.

“Oh, James mentioned that the undead can pass through their master’s implanted barriers to make sure that the undead can guard the location properly.

The young woman just smiled in amazement and laid down her plan to destroy the small group of bandits.

Upon hearing the whole plot, Haya let out a grin and quickly nodded his head.

“Ready?” Ygritte asked, and they immediately made their way to the second floor, stealthily crouching their way towards the principal’s office.

As soon as they saw four or five people talking around a large map laid down the table, the pair quickly put their heads down—fearing that they can be seen through the window.

“Alright, mates. This is what we’re going to do. We’ve already ransacked Iverville and La Tuna Villa. We’re currently terrorizing Minceville and now we need to plan taking over La Ventura Villa.” An old odd-looking man gruffly explained, while eyeing each of his members.

“And for f**k sake’s, stop taking things without giving it to the group, we need to divide them accordingly.” The gruff man chastised the group, to which most of them responded with sly smiles.

“Don’t worry about it, old man. Usually, it’s just small things, anyways. No need to get so angry.” One of the female members said, as she jumped off from one the filing cabinets she was sitting on.

Haya and Ygritte looked at each other and nodded their heads. Ygritte quietly sang her old lullaby, causing everyone in the room to shift into this trance-like state.

The berserker opened the door in an excruciatingly slow pace, wanting to avoid waking up the group. Right at this moment, where his whole berserker self was taking over, he no longer felt any remorse.

He quickly stabbed one of the members that was on his back, causing the man to fall on his back and puke out some blood. This seemed to have trigger something in the office, because suddenly there were five more undead bodies.

The whole team quickly woke up from their trance-like states as soon as they heard the cling-clang of the undead’s bones.

“f**k, what the f**k did you do to Hans?” The old man angrily asked, as he quickly unsheathed the machete from his left side. This triggered all the four members to also bring out their weapons.

Since Haya was surrounded by about ten people, Ygritte immediately brought out her summoned undead bodies and ordered them to cover Haya’s sides.

Since she knew that she was mostly out of mana, the young druid quickly joined in the fight using her bow and arrow.

She accurately hit most of the undead, and when she finally lucked on finding their mana centers, she tried hitting all of them.

While Ygritte was busy attacking using her strategy, Haya activated his Killing Intent skill. This skill increased his attack points, blood lust, and magic absorption.

Since some of the assassins used magical blades, their attacks were immediately rendered useless.

In a split second, the berserker’s eyes shifted to full-on white, making the whole crew slightly shake in fear.

“Don’t let him get to you, proceed with your attacks!” The old man shouted as he was already heading swinging his machete down Haya’s shoulder.

The berserker quickly caught the machete and bent it into half. When the band of thieves saw his evil smile, they tried their best running away.

It was an absolute m******e.

Haya was going through them like thin slices of cheese. Ygritte decided to spare herself from the gruesome affair and quickly ran out of the room.

After beheading, gutting, and skinning every single person—alive or dead—the bloodlust in Haya’s system finally calmed down.

Upon gaining full consciousness and being aware of his actions, Haya couldn’t stop himself from tearing up—seeing how he was bathed in their blood.

Within a split second of hearing the man’s hiccups, Ygritte immediately went by his side and comforted him.

“It had to happen, Haya. It’s not your fault. This was our plan.” The druid quietly whispered, as she did her best comforting him.

“But that fact doesn’t make me less of a murderer.” Ygritte understood and nodded her head, as her eyes also sparkled from tears that were threatening to stream down.

~ ~ ~

“f**k off, Devon. We don’t know nothing about that shit.” Kedrick provokingly muttered, while trying to keep this nonchalant look on his face.

After the old man kicked up a fuss by the store’s door, they decided to act like they didn’t care and still continued buying their chips and candies.

If they know one thing about Devon Villafuerte is that he absolutely hates getting ignored, among other things.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. My men, Marcus and Michael, told me all about it. Either you let me f*****g cut off each of your arms right now or I kill you. Easy choice.” The old man menacingly threatened, as suddenly, there was a large crowd of men dressed in black behind him.

“We don’t do cheap fights like this. We want the real thing. Bring us to the Death Arena.” Thaleos fought back in a harsh tone.

Here’s one of the ‘among other things’ that Devon hated: being called “cheap.”

The old man’s face reddened from the anger but refrained from speaking back and just whispered something to one of his subordinates.

As soon as the large man nodded his head in understanding, the big-time gang leader quickly walked away from the scene and zoomed away using his black Mercedes.

The old man’s subordinate gave them glares and fixed his black glasses,

“Follow us and we’ll bring you straight to the Death Arena.”

They were forcibly shoved on the way out of the shop and some of them even took their candy bags and thew it on the floor.

This made Kedrick’s jaw clenched, but the beast tamer signaled him to refrain from fighting back. Throughout all the sly remarks and mocking laughter in the car ride to the location, they remained silent.

One thing about Devon Villafuerte is that he was a stickler for rules and never went against his word. If he agreed to fight in the Death Arena, then you will fight with him in the Death Arena.

Upon arriving at the large coliseum-like structure, they immediately heard thousands of cheers from the crowd. But instead of seeing alive human beings, it was filled with screaming ghosts.

Kedrick shivered a little bit and brought out a cross. Thaleos gave him a weirded out-look and said,

“You brought a rosary? Thought you were worshipping multiple gods?” Kedrick responded with a smug smile and brought out some Buddhist beads and a miniature puja tray.

The beast tamer just shook his head at his friend’s antics.

They were pushed by Devon’s men straight into the arena’s stage, where they spotted the gang boss sitting on a throne-like structure.

“What is their obsession with thrones?” The priest while giving the old man a side glare.

Compared to the gang leader’s heated-up temperament earlier, he now let off a frosty aura. Compared to the Inu Arena, where there were hosts and a legitimate audience, the Death Arena skipped the introductions and head straight to the fight.

As the two men prepared their weapons, a loud siren suddenly blared around the location. The siren was so loud that it almost drowned out the ghost’s eerie shrills.

Before they could even reach the gang leader, they were suddenly surrounded by dozens of undead bodies. They formed a human barricade of sorts, completely blocking them off from fighting off Devon.

They merely heard the old man chuckle as some of the zombies started attacking them. From the number of beings that the old man summoned, he looked like he really had a high level or there was something else.

“Not so hot now, are you?” The rough-old man bellowed out while watching the two struggled with the human barricade.

Everyone could see that the beast tamer and priest were getting tired.

“f**k, let’s do this, instead.” Thaleos brought out one of his wolf-eagles and ordered it to carry them over where Devon was. But every time they tried getting closer, the undead just formed more barriers.

They were like ants, always connected to each other.

“This isn’t possible, Necromancers can’t do this kind of magic. He must be hiding something.” Thaleos hypothesized as he saw how organized the undead moved.

Kedrick agreed and asked the beast tamer, “What’s the weakness of necromancers?”

“Well, they usually lose against assassins, destruction magic, magic absorption, and life-based powers.” The beast tamer said the last words slowly and stared at the priest in realization.

“That’s it, Kedrick! We can beat him, we just need to hit him where it hurts.”

Kedrick spent the next couple of seconds thinking and suddenly shared in an excited tone, “I can use my Ward Off Evil Skill!” Thaleos gave Kedrick the chance to ready his skill as he jumped back into the crowd.

He tapped into his Heart of Tyranny core skill and hope that it can be activated within the next 15 minutes. For the meantime, the beast tamer bulldozed through the crowd of the undead with Attila the Hen.

They spent the next five minutes cutting and slashing everything that was in their path.

“It’s useless, just cut off your arms and give them to me.” Devon said in a bored tone, as he was basically about to fall asleep on the chair.

The old man was shocked to see through the crowd that the beast tamer was giving him a smirk.

Before he could even react, almost most of the undead bodies suddenly went slack and fell off from the formation – revealing 6 standing players who seem to be controlling the undead alongside Devon.

When they all looked up, Kedrick was emitting this strong light that seemed to cascade straight into the arena.

“Tough luck, lad.” The umber man mouthed. As the whole team was ready to fight back, Thaleos’ Heart of Tyranny skill was activated, and he was 20% faster and stronger.

He took advantage of this and went straight on to attack the six necromancers. When he was successful in killing one of them by stabbing their heart, Devon grew incredibly angry and they all called forth the ghosts.

It seems like Kedrick’s magic can only handle a certain type of creature, for now. Thaleos could also see the man slowly struggling, as his powers were slowly weakening.

The beast tamer quickly responded by activating his Mental Whipping ability and whipped one of the stronger necromancers.

The large man started having delusions, causing his platoon of ghosts going haywire and attacking the others instead. The beast tamer continued attacking them with the whip, until Devon was the only sane one left.

Thaleos didn’t even give him the benefit of the doubt and just whipped him straight on, causing his undead bodies to come back to life and eat him up alive instead.

The last thing he heard were the old man’s cries of pain and horror.

The bearded man stroke his beard in deep thought while waiting for Kedrick to come down to the arena. “Looks like we got seven extra blood souls.”

Thaleos muttered as he stared at the Death Arena littered with dead and undead bodies alike.