CHAPTER 4
Beatrice gritted her teeth when she heard this. "Why're you always so calm when you do that!"
Jacob met her rhetorical question with a chuckle and a shrug of the shoulders. This caused her to calm down again and smile.
"So, how are we going to deal with these exploding corpses? Any suggestions?"
Jacob stepped forward when he saw old man henry's question met with silence. While he was doing so, Manther stood up and walked towards the group, his legs still shaking.
"Those things are still out there, and on their way right now?!"
He sounded panicked as he spoke, and rightly so. After all, he almost lost his life to one of those corpses.
Jacob looked around and said-
"It's simple, Ms Beatrice will freeze the all of them. Mr Simon will then close their entire space off using his wind shift. This will cause them all to explode next to each other, obliterating each other from close range."
Everyone stayed silent for a second, looking at Jacob before old man henry spoke again.
"What if they don't self-destruct? How would we get them to detonate then?"
Jacob smiled again. "The first corpse to detonate was the one that was the closest to a person."
"This means they sense it when they are being approached"
"I will get close to the group, triggering their senses. Once I sense their divinity levels spike again, I'll escape quickly again."
The old man seemed satisfied when he heard this, and so did the rest of them.
Beatrice however, wasn't. "No that's too risky, let…" before she could finish, old man henry tapped her shoulder and shook his head.
"It's an excellent plan. We will trust that you can pull it off so, we'll place bets on you. Everyone agree?"
Seeing no one contest to this, old man henry turned his head and nodded.
"Alright, those not involved, open up some distance between yourselves and us. It could be helpful to yourselves if you do"
In the next two minutes, the group of headless bodies arrived on the campsite. The moment they did, the ground froze solid in ice that had a crystal-like blueish white look to it.
The corpses quickly froze over when this happened, their entire bodies turning to ice sculptures.
Once this happened, Simon quickly used the wind to float on top of the ice floor while he waited. He stood in the air levitating, waiting for Jacob.
Jacob landed on the ice floor, physically touching and walking on it.
Doing so, put an expression of shock and dismay on both Beatrice and Drake's faces.
When Drake saw Jacob the first time they met. He landed soundlessly, after leaping from more than 20 meters up on a tree.
He assumed he was a wind-shifter. But seeing him stand on Beatrice's ice proved otherwise.
He's an ice-shifter? Or maybe he's both
Drake felt, more was hidden behind the blind boy he had just met today…
Jacob approached the group of frozen headless corpses, walking slowly and calmly before stopping right in the middle of the whole group.
From the centre, he could feel the divinity spike from all 10 corpses, his eyes widened when he did.
His body tensed up as he quickly turned towards Simon.
When Simon saw this, Simon took it as a sign and started gathering wind to surround the area of the corpses, leaving only a pocket for Jacob to escape.
Without delay, Jacob took the opportunity to leap out through the space and flew straight out in the direction of Simon.
When he flew past him, he grabbed Simon by the collar pulling him using the momentum he had gained from the speed and the distance.
This caught Simon by surprise but he stayed calm.
When he looked back at the corpses, Jacob saw it again…
Dammit
Some of the corpses' divinity had green mixed into them, some had blue, and some had brown.
Once the lumps were big enough on the corpses, two massive explosions went off at the same time.
A huge amount of water bursting out from the area and drowning the entire campsite they had set up.
Eight corpses leapt out from the water, then, three more exploded mid-air.
This time, large boulders the flew up, only fully materialising mid-air before boulders rained down on the vicinity.
As the group was occupied dodging the falling boulders, three more corpses sent a loud bang echoing through the whole area. It was the green colour of divinity this time.
"Shit!" Just as Tarth yelled this, Jacob shouted, shifting the wind to make the his shouting louder.
"Use the boulders!"
Everyone reacted fast when they heard this, immediately understanding what he meant when he said this.
Jacob, too landed behind a massive boulder alongside Simon.
Just as they stopped behind the boulders, wind scythes flew in all directions, cutting down everything they made contact with… trees, rocks, the ground, nothing was safe.
Fortunately, the boulders were thick enough to stand strong under the heavy assault of the wind.
When the divinity faded, the assault came to an end. Once it did they all regrouped where Jacob and Simon were since they all knew where these two were, thanks to Jacobs shouts.
Catching their breaths, Tarth turned to Jacob, smiling from ear to ear.
"You're really, perceptive kid, if it were me there, I never would've realised they could use different elements."
When Tarth said this, Jacob's eyes were still narrow, his expression filled with heavy concern. His face looking look very tense.
"There's a problem."
When everyone saw his face and heard his words, they turned to him with concern.
"What's wrong."
Beatrice's question wasn't answered, instead Jacob turned to Drake, then looked at the boulder they all stood next to.
"Those corpses, they were obviously being controlled."
Whatever's controlling them used all four of the main elements." He paused and gritted his teeth.
"Then it was also able to control them using a power that was undetectable using divinity."
By the time he finished his sentence, everyone had complicated expressions plastered across their faces. He looked around then continued speaking.
This isn't a creature of divinity, It's most likely an actual Divine creature.
"Dammit, can we even survive such a monstrosity?"
Tarth laughed with a hopeless expression on his face.
"I've been stuck here for months, for what?" he laughed again as he said this.
"We need to find a place to rest, we'll discuss our next course of action once we're all properly rested."
Everyone agreed with the old man.
Just as Beatrice reached her hand out to hold Jacob's hand— he pivoted. This action surprised Beatrice and the rest of the group.
Jacob's action was quick and desperate, divinity gathering in Drake's hand as Jacob lowered his head, ducking Drake's fist.
BANG!
Drake's fisted fist collided with the chest of a headless corpse that had snuck up behind Jacob's back.
Red flames erupted from Drake's hand as he connected, sending the corpse flying.
"Run!" Jacob's orders jolted everyone out of the momentary daze bringing focus back into their eyes.
The corpse however had already had fully grown lumps on it's body.
they could only opened up a 50 meter distance between the explosion and them. Far from enough.
Usually that would be the case, considering the distance these explosions covered, however…
Beatrice swung her arm at the last second creating a thick ice wall behind them, which took the entirety of the blast's damage.
The wind blast blew past them strongly.
Just as their attention was drawn to the blast and the ice wall behind them, causing them to turn around and face the wall.
A wind scythe flew low and quick, without warning and without sound.
SHWING!
It connected with Manther's right leg, slicing it clean-off.
By the time Manther realised what was going on, he had already lost balance and fallen to the ground.
His pained scream caused everyone to tense up as they turned around to face Manther, beads of sweat rolling down all of their faces.
A headless corpse stood over Manther from behind facing the group. Golden lumps covering it's, entire body filled with dry blood stains all over.
From close-up it's, lumps had tiny holes in each of them, yellowish green pus flowing out and dripping out from the tiny holes.
A disgusting and horrifying sight that would send cold chills down anybody's spine stood there, faced in their direction.
Everyone froze at this sight. Not daring to move, afraid that even the slightest of movements would provoke this creature to explode.
"P-please, you have to help me." Tears rolled down Manther's face as he kept pleading for help, his hands trembling as he sat in a pool of his own blood.
"Why're y'all just standin' there. Grandpa, I need to get back home… You know Meemaw would be devastated if you came back without me."
His pleas fell on deaf ears, nobody even listen to him as they all stared at the corpse, waiting for it to make a move.
And that it did…
Covering it's right hand in a sharp drill like spiral of wind.The corpse lifted it's arm and thrust it into Manther's back.
When it made contact, the drilling wind caused Manther's body to vibrate, his eyes rolling back as blood sprayed from his back covering the headless corpse in red liquid.
Manther sat there, the group stood there. Everyone watching with wide eyes as the corpse drilled at Manther's flesh.
Manther clutched at the grass, tensed up his legs, pulled them closer, kicked about, shook his body. Nothing helped
Until the end, he screamed loudly.
His screaming voice gradually being replaced by the sad and painful sounds of him, choking on his own blood.
His tears dyed red with blood, his nose, his ears, his mouth. Blood filled his body in a gory scene of ruthless murder.
By the time the headless corpse stopped, Manther had already lost his life, sitting in a messy pool of his own blood.
His body dropped to the ground, his eyes still open and lifeless as he twitched and spasmed for a few more second.
Finally, Manther died. his lifeless body the only proof that Beatrice had that this was not a dream.