“Hmph! You overestimate your capabilities,” Galbot snorted as he leered at Kiefer. “You are trapped here unable to even move a single muscle. Don’t think we don’t know about your female companion who is hiding in the woods. We already know you asked her to tail you in secret. And you think you have the upper hand? Simply ridiculous!”

Kiefer kept silent, no longer displaying a contorted painful face. Even as jolts of electricity ran up the golden vines towards his body, he seemed completely unperturbed. His skin tight suit made of mithril and moonstone threads absorbed every last bit of electrical mana discharged by the golden worm, leaving him unharmed and unaffected.

“It’s good that everyone is gathered here. I can wipe out all of you in a single sweep,” Kiefer commented as his cold gaze swept across the forest clearing. Surrounding him were the morphlings, General Galbot, his reptilian mount as well as fifty demon apes. Underground was the golden worm which had ‘restricted’ his movements.

“Whatever. You can keep talking, but I’ll be taking that head of yours,” Galbot sneered as his arm began gathering soil and rocks from the ground, eventually forming a scythe that was almost a metre long. The scythe extended from his wrist, as if it was part of his body. Putting his full strength behind a single swing, the scythe sliced through the air aiming directly for Kiefer’s thin child neck.

* K-Tink!*

A loud clash resounded as Galbot’s scythe was deflected mere millimetres from Kiefer’s skin. Kiefer smirked, while Galbot clearly had a stunned face.

“No wonder you had such confidence. You were hiding your strength it would seem. No matter. Even if you had the toughest of defences, it is still worth nothing if you can’t defeat me. I’ll just bring you back to the demon god and have him convert you into one of us.” Galbot uttered, still not taking Kiefer seriously. “Let’s go Gary, we’ll return for the woman later, let’s bring this elf to the demon god for now.”

Galbot turned around to mount his reptilian bipedal mount in preparation to leave. The morphlings all bowed to him as he began making his way in the direction away from Mayheir City. However, he had taken no more than five steps before stopping and turning around to see Kiefer still trapped in the same location, sneering at him.

“Gary! What are you doing? Let’s go now!” Galbot ordered firmly.

“By Gary, do you mean this worm that has me entangled?” Kiefer asked nonchalantly. The ground began to shake as tremors spread throughout the forest floor. Soon, something began emerging from underground, as if burrowing its way out. Galbot and the morphlings knew too well the size of the worm and quickly cleared the area. Then, their faces looked in confusion as a silvery worm the size of a subway train emerge from the ground, not head first but body first as if it was being picked up by a gigantic hook.

There were so many things that did not make sense to them. First of all, Gary was supposed to be gold in colour, not silver. Next, why did it seem like Gary was moving so unnaturally? Moreover, his tentacles which used to be as thick as vines were now thin silver threads. Lastly, why did the elf look so calm all of a sudden?

Within a mere span of a few breaths, the train sized worm was floating above the ground, supported by a sea of silver threads which covered its entire body. The moment the reality of the situation hit Galbot, he quickly focused his sight on Kiefer, leaping off his mount towards Kiefer in an attempt to end things there and then. He knew he had been careless. He knew he’d given his hostage the chance to act. But what he did not know was he had been dancing in Kiefer’s palms the entire time, and everything had been the result of a cascade of mistakes made by his Morphling underlings.

Galbot shot through the air, revealing a hidden shortsword as he aimed to stab Kiefer’s throat. This time, his face remained expressionless, no longer carrying the original arrogant and confident air from earlier. No more mistakes could be afforded and he knew this would be last chance to get rid of a key variable. However, the closer the tip of his sword got to Kiefer’s throat, the more worried he became.

*THUD!*

Mere centimetres before he had accomplished his goal, General Galbot crashed into the ground with a heavy thud, unable to get up. The pressure he felt on his body was immense, as if he was pressed down by an entire mountain. He could not turn his head to access the situation behind him, but he knew that the elf was not affected by this pressure since he could still see the feet firmly planted in front of his face.

Had he turned around, he would be able to tell that every single one of his entourage was affected in a similar way by the sudden increase in gravity. With the exception of Gary the worm which was suspended in midair, every demonic ape, morphling, broodling and even Galbot’s mount were firmly plastered to the ground, unable to do anything.

“Since I have no more use for the rest of you,” Kiefer announced, pausing briefly before continuing with a domineering voice. “DIE.”

Silver threads instantly enveloped Galbot, restricting him of any movements while keeping him plastered face down on the ground. A single black dot appeared spontaneously next to the floating giant worm. The black dot was no bigger than a centimetre in diameter, looking like a pitch black marble. However, the moment it appeared, chaos reigned supreme in this little forest clearing as everything began to be devoured by the singularity.

The Worm which was the closest to the blackhole was sheared apart from the mere difference in gravitational pull it experienced on its body. The demon apes held no chance as the previous pressure pinning them to the ground disappeared and instead, they quickly floated towards the blackhole. Similarly, the morphlings were too sucked up into the blackhole, never to appear again. Within just a few seconds that the blackhole existed, the forest clearing had enlarged as a huge crater remained below where it originally was, the soil having been devoured by the blackhole too.

In under a minute since Kiefer made his move, everything settled down into an eerie silence. Galbot’s exasperated breathing could be heard clearly as Kiefer walked towards him while drowning him in an immense pressure.

Thud*

Thud*

Thud*

Galbot could not make out if that was his heartbeat, or Kiefer’s footsteps. Either way, he knew that he had arrived at the end of the road. Kiefer’s smile seemed more dreadful than ever. He watched as his body was lifted up, propping him up to his feet. The silver ropes slowly unwound as Kiefer finally came to a stop in front of him. Even then, he stood perfectly still, sorely afraid that any movement would result in a slow torturous death.

Kiefer continued smiling, not saying a word. Galbot was almost twice his height, but with him standing on a mana platform in the air, he met Galbot at eye level. Slowly and deliberately, Kiefer lifted his hands and placed them on Galbots shoulders, causing him to shut his eyes and flinch in recoil. However, the pain he expected did not arrive as Kiefer’s next words and actions stunned him.

“Go on then. You are free to go. Just do me a favour when you run back into your little rabbit hole. Tell your so called ‘god’ to prepare for a war, because Mayheir city is just about ready to take arms,” Kiefer instructed softly, his tone completely different from his previous demeanour. As he said it, he dusted the dirt off Galbot’s armour, helping to rearrange his looks to make it more presentable, all the while fiddling with his attire.

Then, Kiefer simply turned around and left, leaving Galbot standing in the middle of the crater in a silly daze. He still could not believe he had managed to escape unharmed. As his knees buckled, Galbot let out a startled and interrupted laugh, the tension from earlier that had been building up released all at once. It took a while before he put this close brush with death to the back of his mind, readjusted himself and left, headed back towards the deep forest to report the situation. Despite his failure this time, he knew he would not be punished too heavily because he had brought important information on the combat capabilities of this new player.

Back in the opposite direction from which Galbot ran towards, Kiefer met up with Isana who appeared from behind a large tree. She had been waiting and observing from not far away, simply enduring the urge to go forwards and remove the limbs of the man whose subordinate had hurt her daughter.

“So? How’d it go?” Isana asked casually as the 2 of them strolled back towards the city.

“You saw the whole thing, do you still need to ask?” Kiefer chided as he stepped over a large root. “Everything went according to plan. Now we just need to push forward the preparations for war and then we will be done with that. As much as I would have loved to take his soul flower, I decided it would be best if he didn’t know that I was after the flowers,” Kiefer replied, remembering the soul flower that was embedded within Galbot’s body that he had sensed.

“Do you think every one of the generals of the demon army will have a soul flower?” Isana asked, fantasizing about the time when they would harvest all those flowers in one shot.

“I don’t know enough about their army ranking systems and rewards to confirm anything, but it doesn’t hurt to hope right? Let’s hope that they will all have a flower each so that we don’t have to spend time looking for the flowers,” Kiefer continued, looking towards the sky for a clearing void of branches and leaves. He was looking for a place to leave the ground and resume flying. With that, the two titans took to the skies, headed back towards Mayheir city to prepare for what’s ahead of them.

[[Meanwhile somewhere in the southern jungles]]

Galbot was frantically running through a thicket of trees, occasionally stumbling over the tree roots. He did not care about his earlier lofty appearance, just wanting desperately to return to the headquarters. Every now and then, he would send a wave or two of sharp wind magic from his scythe towards his back, with the feeling of being followed and observed ever still lingering in his heart. Paranoia. It was a terrible thing that ate away at his mind. The fear from his previous experience had yet to vanish and his was sorely afraid that the elf might be pursuing him.

“Hey~” a childish voice not unlike that of the elf resounded from his back. Out of fear and reflex, Galbot threw out another wind blade towards the origin of the voice.

“Hey!” the originally teasing tone of the voice quickly changed into one of displeasure. “Watch who you are attacking!”

A young dark elf girl descended from the treetop, holding onto 2 daggers in her hand. The tree that she had descended from abruptly fell apart, having been sliced cleanly into two parts. Seeing her appearance, Galbot’s original dishevelled look quickly dissipated. He tidied himself before clearing his throat, trying to regain his posture. Even then, his previous frantic appearance had been clearly seen by this dark elf.

The dark elf was a little over half the height of Galbot, but her actions seemed to exude an air of precision and showcase the epitome of nimbleness. Even as she walked on the soft muddy forest floor, she left no footprints, not even when she had leapt down from the tree. She made a slow round around Galbot who stood there observing her. Inspecting his armour, she smirked, poking and prodding at the dents on his armour with the tip of her dagger.

“Looks to me like you got your ass handed to you,” she mocked, feeling a sense of superiority, as if not afraid that a demon twice her size would smash her in a fit of anger. “Just what you’d expect from a 3rd rate general of the intelligence section. Do you need me to show you how to do your job? I told Lord Fahlnir that you’d muck this up. He should have just left the recon and manipulation of the city to my intelligence division.”

“Whatever. For now we need to report the situation to Lord Fahlnir. A new variable has appeared and it needs immediate attention. You do what you want Luscienta, don’t hinder me when I’m doing my job,” Galbot huffed as he make a quick turn and sprinted off into the woods.

“Hmm?” Luscienta frowned as she squinted her eyes, focusing on Galbot’s disappearing shadow. “I could have sworn I saw a flash of red light. Maybe I’m just imagining things,” she muttered before heading off into the direction of Mayheir city.