INICIAR SESIÓNBut just then, another sharp whistle of air cut through the space from the side, without warning.The fleeing tree-thing seemed to sense something, and the moment it raised its head, it spotted, with pure terror, a tall, imposing figure that had somehow appeared directly in its path, out of thin air.The man wore a vintage double-breasted black police uniform, a gold badge on his chest catching the faint light of the graveyard with an icy gleam. His face was hard as iron, his deep gray eyes utterly still, like a statue carved without a single trace of emotion.It was the Mist Town's highest law enforcer: Sheriff Leon.The tree-thing's face fell in shock, but pure survival instinct made it raise its spear-like branch, taking a desperate last stand, trying to run Sheriff Leon through the chest.But to Leon, the motion looked slow, sluggish, like a rusted wind-up toy.Leon moved. No wasted motion, just a simple sidestep, dodging the tree-thing's strike with almost casual ease, closi
With the tree-demon Raymond's death, the vines that had been thrashing in midair, binding the short-haired woman and the Rullo brothers, seemed to lose all their strength at once. They withered rapidly, turning gray, going from hard as iron to brittle, rotten wood.Three heavy thuds rang out. The short-haired woman and the two Rullo brothers dropped, in a graceless heap, to the ground."Cough, cough..."The woman dropped to one knee, her fitted combat suit now caked with dust and green sap. She didn't bother wiping it off, lifting her head first, her once-sharp eyes now filled with something like awe, fixed unblinking on the man standing at the edge of the settling dust.He was casually dusting off his hands, the gesture easy and unhurried, as if he'd just thrown out a bag of trash rather than a 130mm high-explosive shell capable of leveling half a city block."What kind of monstrous power is that..." The woman felt her throat go dry.She'd considered herself an elite player in h
"Heard you were looking for me?" Jake said.Raymond stared at the man who'd appeared out of nowhere, and instinctively felt a flicker of fear.But hatred quickly overpowered it.It let out a roar. "You're finally here! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to..."But the words caught hard in its throat.Because it had just noticed what Jake was holding in his hand.Something dark, round, made of metal. About the size of a regulation soccer ball, with rings of red markings etched across its surface.It was a 130mm artillery shell.The kind normally loaded into a naval gun or a tank's main cannon, weighing well over a hundred pounds.And yet Jake held it casually in one hand, like it was nothing more than a soccer ball."That's..."Raymond's ghostly flames trembled violently.It wasn't the only one struck dumb. The short-haired woman and the Rullo brothers, still bound in the air, had gone completely rigid too.*What... what is he planning to do? Throw a shell at it?*That was a
Raymond remembered him. That Hemaysian man, the one who'd looked at him with that flat, dismissive stare, like he was staring down an insect.If not for that man, it would never have ended up like this. It wanted revenge. It wanted to tear his limbs off, one by one, and feed on them."Ptooey!"Sam spat out a mouthful of blood, his eyes burning with hatred. "You're some half-breed freak between man and tree, and you think you're worthy of Jake?!""Is that so?" Raymond's ghostly fire flared violently. Countless vines lifted slowly, tips aimed at the short-haired woman and her men suspended in the air, and at Gavin and Sam on the ground."Then I'll just kill you all first... and force him out here."Looking at the dense forest of sharpened vine-tips, despair settled over everyone's faces. The short-haired woman closed her eyes. Larke and Parker wore expressions thick with frustration.Gavin, hands trembling, pulled out the last cigarette he had left and lit it with shaking fingers.
Her core ability was Mysticism: Assassin (Tier 2), granting not just invisibility, but a massive boost to speed and burst power. She moved like a reaper gliding through shadow, closing in on the towering tree-demon without a sound: Raymond.Raymond's twin flames of ghostly fire didn't so much as flicker, as if her disappearance meant nothing to it at all.Just as the short-haired woman crept to its left side, her dagger poised to strike, Raymond's wooden maw split open, letting out a bone-chilling shriek."Found you."The ground beneath it exploded outward, and a mass of thick vines burst up like striking serpents, sealing off the entire space to her left in an instant."What?!"The short-haired woman's expression twisted in shock, her invisibility broken as she was forced back into view. Her reflexes saved her, though, her dagger flashing in a blur, slicing through the incoming vines.Green sap sprayed from the severed vines, but more of them surged in from every direction at
But just then, a faint, razor-thin whistle of displaced air cut through the graveyard.The pain Gavin had braced for never came.He opened his eyes on instinct.The once-unstoppable tree-thing had frozen mid-motion. Its raised arm hung suspended in the air, and a thin green line appeared across its neck.A second later, the tree-thing's leaf-covered head rolled to the ground like an overripe melon. No blood sprayed from the wound, only dark green sap seeping from the severed neck.The massive, headless body swayed once, then crashed to the ground."What..."Sam and Gavin were both utterly stunned.It was dead?That terrifying monster had been taken down in a single stroke, just like that?As the two men stared in shock, the air beside the tree-thing's body rippled faintly, and a tall, slender figure emerged.It was a young woman with sharply cropped hair, dressed in a black combat suit, gripping a tactical dagger reverse-handed, still dripping green sap.Her eyes were cold







