The scream echoed in the battlefield as if a wraith had come to life making everyone that heard the scream feel as if thin needles pierced their ears.

For a few seconds the entire battlefield froze, no one spoke, no one moved, stunned by the sudden scream.

Some thought that Mack had gone insane, others that he was finally hurt, but the majority of people… 

They felt fear.

Because they knew deep in their hearts, deep in their skulls, that the recent scream was not one made by a normal human, it was not a scream for help nor it was a scream of someone in their last drop of hope.

It was Inhuman, and their brain told them to run, run for their lives.

But their bodies didn’t respond.

Until, someone finally screamed “Ruuuuuuuuun!”

And they could not be more right…..

Another one from the side, came to his senses, and screamed while already running “Ahead for the hills!” and run not caring about his friends left behind him.

They could try and leave the trial if they run to the the beach, but they still had hope, they hoped that they could avoid the rest of the battle and still pass the trial when everyone killed each other.

Someone once said that when running from a beast, they did not need to run faster than the beast itself to survive, they only needed to run faster than the person by his side.

And this could not be more true in this situation. 

Because once Mack opened his eyes, and lowered his gaze to look at the horizon, he was not himself anymore.

He was a beast, cornered, full of pain, not regarding his own life anymore.

His eyes twitched and his mouth subtly creaked open and close with the noise of his teeth raging at each other as the pain made his senses sharper and the excruciating feeling radiated to his mind.

The protruding veins on his hands twitched as if draining the remaining blood from his body, as the grip on the swords intensified.

But Mack was no ignorant to all that, his senses were sharper than ever, it was if pain was the only thing that mattered in his life, once gone, he would be done for.

An addicting and excruciating feeling that made him live for another heartbeat, that kept him alive.

Mack took a step forward, and as if the Essence could feel his pain the earth where his right foot stood creaked and let a raging sound as it opened for his king to go forward, as Mack vanished from the spot.

“Watch out!” someone screamed, but was his head that now rolled on the bloody ground.

Mack slashed the man neck and twisting his body he threw the same sword to a man behind his own back, the man half doing a cleave with a machete was stopped in his act as the force of the sword hit his chest, Mack didn’t wait nor turned to see if his sword hit the target, and grabbing the decapitated man body in front of him he jumped to the front, using the man in front of him as meat shield, he avoided a rain of white bullets that came from a group of three peoples, one of the bullets grazed his shoulder and left a hole without blood, intensifying the pain that Mack felt, but his body didn’t stopped moving and once close to the group of people with something akin to guns from Earth he jumped to the right guy and threw his remaining sword at the man in the left.

Mack had no more daggers nor swords with him know, he grabbed the man from the right by the neck, and with the momentum of his jump the man body came with him rolling on the ground. But his left arm moved too fast, and by the time the man could realize what was happening, Mack had already twisted his neck on the muddy ground and grabbed his pistol shooting the remaining man in the middle of the group. Those three could now shoot devils together once again, in the afterlife.

Barely two minutes passed since Mack came from the smog but the battle was already lost.

They could not believe someone to be this strong, someone able to put so many people running for their lives as they run to the hills, but they knew deep down in their skull, if they stayed, they would not see the sunrise again.

But the thing they didn’t knew, was that Mack was not someone to leave behind potential threats, nor he was the kind of guy to gave his face to someone who raised a hand against him.

Be a trial, or a game, a tower or a simple duel, once Mack stepped foot on this journey to become strong and to avenge his father, he would not leave stones unturned, he would have no more regrets.

~slash~

A sword pierced the right eye of a woman in red dress and the tip of the same sword appeared behind her long red hair, as her left eye kept the stunned and terrified gaze and her mouth twitched without being able to say a word, Mack kicked the woman in the chest to remove his sword and another man behind her was send stumbling hit by the woman body that now stood atop of him.

Barely the man regained his senses to know what happened, when he noticed his chest became hot and wet, looking up, he saw Mack resting his arm over his sword that now was half buried in the woman body atop him. He tried to move, but only then he realized the same sword was piercing his body too as a mouthful of blood came to his throat.

Mack didn’t pay attention to the man struggle for life, and looked around, searching for his new target. The ones that stood to fight and didn’t run were all killed now…

But he still had a lot of people to kill today.