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Evan stilled. A wave of dread washed over him anew. Because that word had not come from his lips this time.

In the dark, Xen’s silhouette shifted, thrumming with barely restrained killing intent. A red glare of demonic energy enveloped his silhouette as two glowing scarlet eyes turned to Evan.

He growled, “Run!”

18. The Fox And The Sheep

Before the word left Xen’s lips completely, Evan’s body broke out into a run, under the command of their blood bond.

“No! Wait, wait, wait—” His slender body squeezed easily through the gap between the golden spear embedded into the ground and the earth wall, his feet carrying him back the way they’d come. As he ran, he cried to himself. “Stop, dammit!”

But his feet defiantly carried him away.

In the moonlight seeping in from the cracked earth ceiling, there appeared a black smoke silhouette where Xen was, red sparks crackling around his body. A sinister energy burst forth from its depth with a growl.

Evan kept running blindly, stumbling and tripping several times. The earth rumbled above him, as if something was chasing after him, quite accurately placing his steps underground.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!

Now he ran wildly, putting in his own strength along with the force of the blood bond Xen had imposed on him. If the earth collapsed, he wouldn’t survive. If a fork from above skewered his body like barbecue, he still wouldn’t survive. Spiritual power or not, he was still a human.

But he didn’t make it far before the earth ceiling ahead of him crumbled.

Evan barely managed to stop in time, as a huge rock fist punched through the ceiling. Five rock fingers splayedout, reaching inside the burrows, searching for something. Or someone.

Of course there was another Hellguard. It wouldn’t be a surprise if a whole army of rock soldiers was waiting on the ground above.

With an annoyed groan, Evan cried, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, give me a break!”

A glowing shard conjured between his palms, thrumming violently as his anger combined with the overwhelming flow of spiritual energy through his body. If fear could elevate the presence of his spiritual light, fury could double its force, turning his attack nearly lethal.

As the hand rushed towards him, Evan reared back and jammed the shard straight into the palm. And even though it was solid rock, the shard pierced through clean like meat.

A roar rumbled from above as the Hellguard jerked his injured hand out of the hole. It was not a giant wound, similar to a nail piercing a human palm. Though not deadly, it certainly would hurt like a bitch.

With a satisfied grunt, Evan made to run again, but as he passed the hole punched by the fist, a second rock hand rushed in and grabbed him, wrenching him out of the ground.

Evan yelped as the fist tightened around his body, pinning his arms to his side, almost blocking off blood circulation. He couldn’t conjure a weapon anymore. Once he was raised too high in the air, he couldn’t even turn his palm and send an energy blast, because then he’d plummet several meters to the ground. And that won’t be pretty.

The Hellguard hurled Evan back to the place where the golden spear was still embedded in the ground. He struggled in the rock grip, spitting curses. But as soon as his eyes shifted to the flickering lights amidst the forest clearing and witnessed the scene playing out below, his struggle died down.

Zeev hadn’t lied when he said they were just afew metersaway. Because their destination was right there.

The four pillars holding up a tomb, a complicated ancient array on the floor drawn in blood, and a channel of Heavenly Spring Water glimmering in the moonlight as it circled it.

The Tomb of Ascension.

It was bigger than Evan had imagined, at least five meters in height and seven meters in diameter. Burning torches were erected all around the clearing, shedding light over the cloaked members of the Covenant of the Nightshade, who huddled in circles around the Tomb, chanting in an ancient language. There were at least two hundred of them.

On the far end of the clearing, a golden bident was struck high up into a thick tree trunk. It was the same fork that had penetrated the ground and yanked Zeev away.

Evan squinted from his place high up in the air, and surely, the bident wasn’t just embedded into the tree.

It had nailed Zeev to the trunk.

His mask lay cracked near the tree, his head hanging low between his bloody shoulders. His demonic energy was way too low, and the bident was wrapped in spell-cast thread and sacred river water. So even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to release himself without help.

Not far from there, a few men were tied together in a group, the end of the binding rope wound around a nearby tree. They seemed to be in their twenties, all shirtless and bearing a bloody symbol on their foreheads. Other than their ragged appearance and blindfolds around their eyes, it didn’t seem like they’d been beaten or abused.