Enemy attack!
The Saints all stiffened inside.
Right—when do both engines on a plane blow at once?
This was clearly man-made.
Clang!
The cockpit door ahead swung open. A blast of frigid wind poured into the cabin, the temperature plunging as a gale roared through.
The temporary middle-aged captain waved goodbye to the Saints, then leapt out of the plane, tossing back, "Saints, you will be sacrifices to my Lord!"
My Lord?
Sacrifices?
Marin didn't delay and barked, "What's our current altitude? Speak up!"
No one answered. The flight attendants were terrified, clutching their heads and sobbing.
The Silver Saints were getting anxious too.
At this rate, the plane was about to crash.
"Come to the cockpit with me to assess the situation."
Marin and a few others glided away.
The plane had already rolled some forty-five degrees and was sliding down. Everyone's body leaned with it; they could barely stand.
Marin and the others reached the cockpit and found the copilot's corpse. He bore several bloody claw marks—nothing a human could make.
Moses of the White Whale said darkly, "I've seen wounds like these. One of those freaks did it."
Freaks?
Marin examined the marks and shook her head slightly. She'd never seen such wounds—no human could do this. It looked more like a beast's work.
"Everyone—we've been attacked."
Back in the cabin, Marin's gaze sharpened. Clearing her throat, she said to the others, "We're Saints. Even if the plane goes down, we'll be fine. But the civilians here will be in trouble."
She turned to Moses and the rest. "Each of us takes one civilian and gets them out."
Moses: "No problem."
Misty: "As we should."
Marin continued, "Those so-called freaks are strong. If you encounter them, don't hold back—but don't underestimate them either. Once we split up, keep in contact."
She produced a handful of signal flares—five in all—and handed them out, with one left over.
After a moment's thought, she prepared to toss it to Seiya.
"Seiya, you take one too. Everyone knows how to use them. These five are special—once a flare goes up, we converge to support."
"Tonight won't be quiet."
Marin called out to the Saints.
Rumble, rumble, rumble…
Another series of thunderous booms shook the plane. The wing was like a powder magazine. The whole aircraft plunged straight for the ground.
They barely kept their feet, faces cool.
A few Saints had already jumped with flight attendants in their arms. The rest hurried to don their Cloths and sprinted for the windows.
A crash spelled doom for ordinary people; for Saints, it wasn't much of a danger. With superhuman constitutions—especially in Cloth—they wouldn't die in a fall.
Marin deliberately lagged half a step, seemingly to wait for Damian.
Damian hung back—he had an arm around two flight attendants' waists.
The two were among the plane's loveliest; now they clung to Damian, trembling nonstop.
"Don't be afraid. With me here, you won't get so much as a scratch."
Damian soothed them gently, feeling quite good about it.
Muscle did project a sense of safety. The two attendants had latched onto him on their own and wouldn't let go.
"Two at once—you've got quite the appetite."
Marin's chilly voice sounded. "Better let me take them down."
"Much obliged."
Damian looked back with a dry laugh and let them go.
Whoosh!
Just as he released them, a fragrant wind swept from behind and a powerful leg shot in.
Off balance, Damian took a neat kick to the rear from Marin's dainty foot and was booted clean out of the cabin.
Anyone else likely wouldn't have landed the kick, but Sister Marin went for a surprise strike.
"Ah!"
The two flight attendants gaped.
"Don't worry. He won't die."
Marin reassured them.
A rush of cold wind and a lift of his stomach hit. Damian felt weightless, wind howling at his ears as his body plummeted.
Damn!
Marin, so ruthless—was this attempted murder?
Nothing's harder to manage than women and petty men.
Open spear before; hidden arrow now.
All because I looked at your pretty face?
"Damn… he doesn't have a Cloth!"
Seiya looked stricken and moved to help, but Misty—right behind—blocked him firmly.
The other Saints had no intention of rescuing him either.
Marin's voice was cool and even: "This Damian trains only the body. His physical hardness already surpasses many Silver Saints. Even without a Cloth, he won't die—at worst, he'll be crippled. Besides, His Holiness ordered me to toughen him up."
"Toughen him up?"
Seiya glanced at the others' grim faces, at a loss.
Why did these senior Silver Saints' faces turn so dark when Damian was mentioned—like they were different people?
Boom!
In free-fall, Damian thudded solidly into the ground, his feet punching out a pit. He was none the worse for wear.
The other Saints landed with attendants in their arms, all looking relaxed.
The bawling flight attendants stared blankly, as if they were looking at gods.
The Boeing 747 speared almost straight into the hills ahead and exploded violently, flames roaring skyward.
"We should head toward the town ahead."
Marin squinted into the distance. Lights glowed in what looked like a town.
Among the Silver Saints, some moved to set off.
Damian narrowed his eyes and gave a slight shake of his head.
"What's that sound? I hear something weird."
Just landing, Seiya asked in puzzlement.
"Quiet!"
"Suit up."
Marin stretched a jade hand back and pulled open her Cloth casket. The Aquila Cloth snapped onto her body in an instant.
A cold gleam flashed in the eyes behind her mask.
"Come out!"
With a crisp command, Marin swung her arm. Fist‑force burst forth.
The blast hammered a patch of darkness in the trees, ringing off metal.
Roar!
A huge, deformed figure lunged out of the shadows. All around, countless distorted shapes flickered into view—eyes glittering everywhere.
They were surrounded.
"Holy crap—these things are ugly. Cassios is rough enough, and these guys are ten times worse."
Damian shook his head at the weird figures ahead.
They had human bodies horribly deformed—most with thick arms and hunched backs.
On those hunchbacks bulged huge tumors.
As they drew nearer, the tumors began to writhe.
What new species was this?
Wait—he'd seen these freaks in the memories of Jamian, the Crow Silver Saint.
Damian called out at once:
"Cover your ears!"
Cover our ears?
The Saints were puzzled.
Moses of the White Whale shouted too, "That's right—cover your ears!"
He'd been through a previous scout mission and knew what was coming.
The instant the Saints moved to clamp their ears, the tumors on those hunchbacks all split open—like gaping mouths—and let out shrieks.
The shrieks were uncanny, a jumble of chaotic noise, like countless whispers at the ear, interlaced, drilling into eardrums—and even the soul.
Heads exploded with pain. A few Saints who didn't cover their ears in time lost consciousness and went down; Seiya dropped to one knee.
W-What was that sound?
Before anyone could recover, the freaks ahead turned into streaks of black and rushed in.
They moved incredibly fast—at near-Bronze Saint sonic speed by the look of it.
In a blink, they were on the Saints.
With misshapen, burly arms they swung madly, attacking as they roared, while the gaping tumors on their backs kept screaming.
"Attack!"
Marin, Moses, and Misty, the least affected, launched the first counterblows.
Seiya and several Saints were still reeling with sound-borne headaches.
Bodies fortified by Cosmo, the Silver Saints were like supermen—their movements already beyond sonic speed.
The hunchbacks fell one by one—each freak blown apart by a single punch or kick.
The others, though rattled, quickly shook off the nausea and waded into the melee with iron fists.
It was a clearly planned ambush.
They'd been set up since boarding the plane.
"Mind their cries—don't let them scramble you!"
Marin didn't flinch in the encirclement. With a soft shout, her legs blurred into countless afterimages, loosing waves of razor force.
In an instant, the force turned into arcs of cyan light and shot in every direction.
Psh, psh, psh…
Seven or eight heads were lopped in a breath—headless corpses toppled to the ground and grotesque heads rolled after, the largest the size of a stone post.
The freaks were blue-faced and tusked, skin livid, arms thick—human, yet not. Tumors and distorted limbs marred their bodies, and the blossoming back tumors spewed strange noise, brimming with impossible distortion and evil.
Who knew what species they were.
At least what they faced moved no faster than sonic speed—no beyond-expectation burst.
"So that's Marin's strength—the killing power of those kicks is huge."
Watching her dashing figure, Damian admired the power in her legs, but kept to the sidelines.
This was Marin's true strength. With a Cloth on, her Cosmo and defense spiked; both offense and defense jumped tiers.
If she'd come to the graveyard in Cloth that day, it would've been hard to crush her without revealing his own power.
The scene was quickly cleaned up.
Marin simply called into the shadows among the trees, "You've watched long enough, haven't you?"
From behind a dark tree, a hulking figure—at least three meters tall—flickered into view. In a strange voice, he shouted, "Hahaha, Saints—you all came at once, more than I expected."
"Who are you?"
Marin couldn't help a hitch in her breath.
A dreadful, turbid aura rippled off him—so disgusting it turned her stomach—physically and mentally. Even her Cosmo felt tainted.
She noticed he had only one eye—a blood-red one.
Moses of the White Whale said tensely, "He's the one who grabbed Jamian of the Crow. His cry disrupts human minds."
"He's a giant!"