[In the camp]
"Grrr, are you sure of this information?" Zorath murmured, his expression turning serious.
"No." Braham shook his head. "But we have no other choice. We can send both Drago and Nameless to check it silently."
"Are you trying to send my student to a potential trap?" Master Kai hissed with a visible threat.
"You want Drago to go alone on this dangerous mission? So he can die but not your student?" Ruby suddenly growled angrily.
"It's okay." I said, trying to lighten the mood. "We are the only 2 with darkness affinity after all, and it will take only one day, not a big deal."
Master Kai opened his mouth for a moment before finally giving up and letting us go.
"Drago, if you come back without him, I will kill you myself."
"But… you didn't even ask about my opinion." Drago muttered under his breath, but we heard it clearly.
"Cough, anyway, prepare yourself, you are going to see the mansion tomorrow if the information is right." Braham stated before shifting his gaze towards Ruby.
"And you, take Cecil and Aurelia with you to gather some resources. We will need to prepare for the last fight and what's beyond it."
Just like that, the meeting was over.
I went to prepare my potions and scrolls with Drago while recalling what happened this morning.
Drax and Marcus from team 8 and 4 suddenly came to us saying that team 1 found the mansion, but before we could be happy, they hit us with the bad news.
They found team 2 there, but their state was unnatural, saying that they looked… dead.
But before they could confirm what's wrong — they suddenly got attacked by them, forcing them to retreat.
So they now wanted us — the only 2 darkness users — to gather any information about them to be safe.
After gathering the information, we will unite again to end this challenge.
"So… the end is near now." Drago suddenly said, cutting my thoughts off.
"Yeah…" I hesitated for a moment before saying: "What if the second challenge made us… fight each other."
Drago casually wore his belt and started putting some scrolls and potions on them before saying: "Then you can simply kill each other and kill me in your way — I won't kill the people I fought with…"
He stopped for a moment before muttering: "Not again."
I opened my mouth, wanting to say something, but no words came out.
I decided to not say anything. His past wasn't something I should ask about — after all, who didn't have some trauma from their past?
I had my own with my life in slums. When I had to eat the daily free food bars that barely left me alive.
Master Kai lost his wife and son because of the Dark Order. He then joined a team in the government that its only job was finding and burning the Dark Order's bases.
Braham was a nameless orphan like me who didn't even have the courage to run from monsters, turning into a bully victim.
Zorath saw his father and brothers dying fighting demons, making his life goal is killing the demon king himself.
Everyone had his own struggles, hardships, and sorrows — yet, here we are fighting each other.
The Eldorians were fighting each other 200 years ago.
Now we were fighting the Knulls who appeared suddenly.
And even in our current situation where we don't know what would happen in the future, we still fought team 2 that is formed from both Eldorians and Knulls.
"Nameless, take that." Drago suddenly said while throwing a black cloak at me.
"I got it as a gift earlier. It will help with merging with darkness."
"Oh, thanks." I wore the cloak instantly then asked: "What about you?"
"I'm more experienced with darkness. I don't need it." He said, staring at me blankly. "I'm rather surprised that you can already merge with the darkness even for a minute. You are actually more talented in it than fire."
I scratched the side of my head. "Yeah, I noticed this."
"Just remember." His expression turned serious suddenly. "Never, and never embrace the darkness. Your path is either embracing the darkness and becoming a lunatic monster, or becoming the darkness and losing some of your emotional reaction like me."
I nodded in understanding and went with him to the gate.
While moving, my gaze shifted to an elf woman trembling inside a small cage that Paul got as a gift.
She was the one that we captured from team 2.
'I wonder what her fate will be.'
Shaking my head, I opened a green potion and poured it on myself to remove my scent.
Then, I enhanced my body with darkness and followed Drago into the forest.
* * * * *
*Roaaar!*
We were surrounded by 6 huge mantises. Moving closer to us with each second.
"We can't run from them. I will take 4 of them." Drago said before disappearing and appearing behind one of them.
I looked at the two in front of me and unsheathed my Katana. Instantly, I rushed towards one of them.
*Clank!*
Instantly, my dark katana met with the mantis' blade, and though it was pushing me backward, its blade was decaying slowly.
Once I felt it was decayed enough, I turned into fire and destroyed its blade before it could hit me with its second arm.
I got closer Instantly and made a blast under my legs to jump higher, then I raised my katana above my head.
Falling down, I slashed vertically — cutting the mantis in half until I reached the ground.
[You got x5 bananas]
For a moment, I had the urge to mutilate its corpse, but I endured it.
Before I could catch my breath, another blade came towards me, but I dodged it at the last moment.
'Shit! I almost lost my head!'
A second blade came towards me, but I melted in the darkness instantly and appeared in its back.
I turned my katana into fire again and cut the mantis' head. The next moment, its body fell on the ground with a loud thud.
[You got x2 water bottles]
"Haa… haa." I stopped my enhancement instantly, stopping the dark thoughts from corrupting me.
I shifted my gaze to the other 4. 3 of them were already dead while the fourth was getting pierced by Drago's daggers.
*Thud!*
The next moment, Drago finished him and we started gathering the aura cores from them.
We rested for some minutes to recover then continued moving.
For the next few hours, we kept jumping from tree to tree, running from all types of monsters and fighting only when it's necessary.
Eventually, we reached the place we were told about.
Far away, a huge mansion stood at the end of the forest, it was made of trees as the camp that Aurelia always made and looked too old as if it would crash any moment.
But what got our attention were the 6 figures in front of it.
My eyes widened in terror — even the silent Drago looked affected.
I endured the urge to puke and kept examining them.
They… didn't look humanoid at all.