Anaphol raced against the speeding Zanlo to reach his ride and Bulwark.
Zanlo with his radiating body was faster than Naph at his exhausted strength. He questioned within, 'Why am I exhausted!'
"No matter," Naph spoke, "Cata." His intent all driven to reach Bulwark as fast as he could.
He pushed his luck against his weird magical abilities to mold them to his will.
To push them to accept the destiny he wants.
A kaleidoscopic space welcomed him. He felt the vibrations of many places resonate through his body as he held his breath. And he was spit out right above his ride.
Zanlo's eyes widened.
"You could teleport at will?" Zanlo had read and interpreted the thought hidden deep inside Naph's mind.
Naph with a poker face spoke a word.
"Yes."
He did not understand what the term teleport meant. He only understood it meant something that he has just done. 'Maybe it means transporting from one place to another without having to go through the distance in between? Maybe, ah I should have joined a school.'
He fell atop his ride. The white tarp of the ride molded under his weight and Bulwark's severed neck was revealed.
Naph rolled out of his ride as his hand grabbed onto its handle. He twisted it to position it behind him. Simultaneously, he drew a dagger out of one of the open duffle bags.
His previous dagger he had dropped in the center of the crater he left in the crossroad just now. One made entirely of glass shards.
"Six down, few more to go." He announced to the audience.
Astref clapped back, "Uh," he raised a finger, "you are counting wrong I killed off three earlier."
Without spinning his head to retort to Astref, Naph quipped, "You can keep the change. I only deal with my kills, not the ruckus made by a pup."
Zanlo shook his head. He glanced at the Streno knights. None of the surviving knights were helping each other or giving any respect to their dead comrades.
Zanlo pointing to them said, "I don't think they are human. So your kills are still just one."
As if responding to Zanlo's words, the remaining Streno knights grabbed their chests and split them open.
Four more Streno knights stepped out of each open chest. And few of them went around opening the chests of the corpses of their comrades with their bare hands.
Blood seeped out from the corpses, draining into the sewage pipes running along the crossroad's outer boundary.
Naph's eyes widened at the horrific scene in front of him.
"Wha- Uh, -huh," he couldn't think of a sentence to say.
Zanlo just shrugged looking at his target. He had long stopped sprinting to Naph's ride.
Astref on the other hand came and stood next to his partner. "So, what do we do about the multiplying cats?"
"Nothing, that's what we will do." Zanlo said to Astref.
Naph's ears picked up on their conversation and chipped in, "Obviously, they are way out of your match. They will crush you to death."
He next felt the bloodlust envelop him before he knew whose it was. Naph wasn't attacked in that time. Yet, he saw Zanlo side-eyeing him.
Exhaling, Zanlo said, "Let's just clear up this place a bit." Astref smiled on hearing his partner's words.
The screams of the crowd of people ever loud was suddenly quieted down. Red mist spread all across the crossroad. As so did red liquid that was indistinguishable from blood seeped and spread all over it. Naph and his ride was exempt from being touched by the blood.
But the Streno knights? They were not.
Blood was already pasted on their clothes and faces since all of them climbed out of the chests of their dead comrades. However, more blood came coalesced around their feet.
At first, none of the knights reacted to the sudden silence nor to the red mist or the blood collecting at their feet. They were surrounded by such from the beginning.
But when Zanlo's hand shot up, the blood reacted and so did the Streno knights.
Each one jumped in directions away from each other spreading out in a circle.
The blood reacted as such tracing after them. Astref in the meantime was readying his sword by polishing it with his bare hands. It glowed under his constant rubbing.
'Shouldn't he use a cloth? Why am I not fazed by the massacre!' Naph's thoughts rattled within him.
Zanlo answered, "Don't worry kid, we will answer all your questions before we kill you."
He stretched out the last few words as his hands did a swirl in the air. Pools of blood resonated to the action and twisted around the fountain in the center.
First the speed was slow, then it climbed into the fountain and sped faster as the fountain's water was stained by the blood becoming red and dark.
It spun and spun. Until the speed was so overwhelming that the fountain's structure, the four headed bull was demolished and absorbed into the twister.
Tilting his head towards Anaphol, Zanlo said, "You said something about them being way out of our match." And he clapped his hands above him.
The twisting blood tornado flattened by smashing together. At that exact moment, a loud crash resounded in the air.
When Zanlo's hands separated, so did the flattened vertical plane of blood. And it split apart and went in each direction where a Streno knight stood. A blood spear with the force of a vast pool behind it. One that was shot out from a tornado of sorts.
Each blood tendril drilled through the knights leaving none with a viable chest except a hole the size of one.
"WHA-" Naph's mouth was left open as Astref closed in on him with his sword ready to cleave his head off his neck.
Before he could, a new crash, one much louder than the previous one boomed and smashed into Astref as he was pinned down on the ground. And Zanlo? He was resisting an invisible force pelting him to the ground with blood collecting all around him like a shield.