With an ultimatum delivered, then the Mammoth Club had to reconsider their decisions one last time. Unfortunately for the members of the club, the leaders did not stop to reconsider. Instead, they were infuriated by the attitude of this lone person in front of them. Did one fellow in a black cloak think they could stand up against the hundreds of members of the Mammoth Club and their Eight Hooved Green Mammoths?

The leader yelled a reply that was only one step off from a full on roar, “Who gave you the guts to stand up to the Mammoth Club!? Just who do you think you are? Die!”

The burly man as well as a dozen similar, though slightly smaller, men on the adjacent Mammoths drew their weapons. Large barrels with barbed spears poking out of them appeared behind each of these men and their subordinates bent down beside them. Then they slapped the barrels, “Ready!”

Once each of the men heard the call from their subordinate, they pulled out one of the large spears and threw it with force towards the black cloaked figure. Once they were in the air, it became apparent that these were not just spears. Ropes trailed from each of these projectiles, indicating they were actually harpoons. Worse yet, a sharp green energy field surrounded the heads of the harpoons and even the scout that was watching these events from afar could sense how terribly sharp they were.

The figure in black didn’t bother evading. Instead, a purple aura sprang to life around their body and coalesced into the form of armor. The energy seemed to become almost solid, even displacing the cloak that the person wore. A sort of helmet formed around their head, but the cloak hid any distinguishing features of this helmet just like it had hidden the person’s face. When the first harpoon shot towards them, the black cloaked figure’s hand shot out and snatched the weapon out of the air. The weapon had been moving so fast it caused a loud sound as it broke the air, a sound that was instantly silenced when the harpoon was plucked from mid-air. Then the black cloaked figure spun the harpoon and used the trailing rope to knock down the incoming harpoon, then swung the shaft of the weapon to bat aside a third.

Even as hard and fast as they threw their harpoons, the figure in black was dealing with them like an adult facing off against children. At least for a while. Eventually, the number of harpoons that were flying became immense and the black cloaked figure had to start moving to evade them. They ducked their shoulder and stepped back to avoid three harpoons, then somersaulted to the side to avoid a dozen more. More and more of them were landing all around the black cloaked figure and then the burly leader laughed loudly.

“Heh Heh Heh! Fool! It’s over for you now.”

As he spoke, the mammoths took a few steps forward and the black cloaked figure found themselves completely encircled. They had been moving haphazardly before, but now with just a few steps they completed a full perimeter. Fully forty of the huge beasts formed a circle without any gaps between them, presenting a wall of tusks, trunks, and armored foreheads. Then on the backs of each of those mammoths it seemed that four or five people came out of the buildings and walked up to the harpoon barrels. They reached down and picked up ropes from the ground. The burly leader raised his hand and gave a shout, “Pull!”

The dozens of harpoons stabbed into the ground all around the black cloaked figure let out a twanging sound. The ropes attached to each of them were suddenly pulled taught and turned into a prison of cables, capturing the figure inside. Each of the ropes was now glowing with power, maintained by the many members of the Mammoth Club holding the lines. The flurry of attacks that had been so easily dealt with had actually ended up being placed to create this large trap, trapping their enemy into a ball of twine.

“Time for you to die. In the afterlife, make sure to tell everyone that’s going to reincarnate to fear the might of the Mammoth Club!”

This is the part that the burly leader loved the most. When his foe became overwhelmed with regret and started to beg for their lives. It had started out as just a hobby, but then a few of the people he held at the edge of death told him of hidden treasures and secrets he could use to earn money. That led to him developing this mammoth trapping formation which he used to torture and capture many of his foes. The Mammoth Club had doubled in size and prosperity since then. Robbing was so much more lucrative than just mercenary work on its own.

Contrary to what he expected, the trapped enemy didn’t say a word. The leader was wondering if he should start describing the many tortures that would be performed upon this enemy. Elaborating on the pain that was coming for them always did the trick in the past. Just as he opened his mouth he noticed something and he gave a sudden order, “Retreat!”

The flurry of harpoons and moving mammoth’s earlier had blown away all the purple miasma. Or at least that’s what they all thought. The leader had noticed a glimmer of purple on the ground when he’d habitually checked the surroundings for signs of danger. While he might seem like a musclebound idiot, he was also the leader of the Mammoth Club, and to maintain his position he was always on guard. It was just too bad for him that he’d noticed too late.

That vicious looking purple miasma rose up from the ground, covering the whole of the Mammoth Gang in mere moments. Cries of pain broke out among the people as they turned their mammoths, urging them to escape the area quickly. The fact that the leader’s orders aligned with this desire to escape was not something they considered at this point. The mammoths that had been turned inwards to form an encirclement were in the worst shape. Each of them had four or five taut ropes coming from them and they were packed together tightly. Unlike them, there were some mammoths that were near the outside of the group and so they were the closest to the edge of the purple miasma. They urged their beasts to stomp forward, building up some speed before getting them to turn to the side.

Streaks of light appeared, tracing lines from those escaping mammoths out into the distance. A moment after the light flashed, blood spurted into the air. The lights touched the mammoth’s knees again and again until the beast let out a pained wail and toppled to the ground. The building on its back crashed down upon itself, and a scream of misery was heard. More streaks of light flew out and similarly disabled another mammoth and then returned to the first. A few cultivators pulled themselves out of the wreckage and started to run only to be cut down by those flashing lights.

As more and more of them started to escape, more cloaked figures appeared. They were also covered with purple energy armor and walked through the purple miasma without harm. Just like the flashes of light they didn’t target those in the miasma only those on the verge of escape. Their fists struck rapidly, knocking the giant mammoths back into the miasma to rot away from the inside out.