Chapter 18: Complete Destruction

Tao was wrestling two of them at the same time, while Dominic was setting the people in his close vicinity on fire. Stephanno didn’t use any of his powers, well he can’t exactly water bend here, not inside the fire sect where the only close water source was the lake in the woods. Drawing from such a far away place would only cause him to loose his own energy. But he seemed to be doing fine without his powers. He was like a god on a mission. To see him swiftly side steps the attacks and parrying them, was divine. Stehanno fought them like he was dancing. I was too preoccupied marveling Stephanno that I didn’t see the lycan creep up behind me.
A pair of claws found my shoulder and within seconds I was laying on the floor, blood pouring from my shoulders. I winced sharply at the pain.Ugh….damn lycans..
I quickly got up on my feet and Stella and me started circling the lycan. I can only help her without being too obvious. My fear of lycans had long evaporated, and was replaced with wrath and fury.
Neither my knifes nor Stella’s arrows are going to do any damage, that much I was sure.
But I can still use my hellfire, everyone in our sects thinks I can fire bend anyway. So I can use my hellfire, I just have to tone it down.
“Stella, you are out of your arrows. Do you have any other weapon with you?”
She shook her head at me and I sighed.
I took out my knifes and counted them, I had six of these bad boys. I put my hands over the blade of the knifes, and immediately the blades were ablaze with fire. Stella raised her eyebrows, then grinned crookedly at me.
The wolf pranced and I shot at the exact same time. This time, even though the knife didn’t go that deep into his skin, he howled in pain. I could see that there was smoke coming from his skin were my knife had hit him. The fur surrounding the spot I had hit was starting to shed, the skin under it melting.

I aimed my knifes which were now armed with a little fire at him, in quick succession so that he won’t get enough time to block them or sidestep them. He winced as each of my knifes hit its mark and finally went down howling.
“Stella, go back!”
“What…no! we are doing fine” she replied rolling her eyes.
“You have run out of arrows. Its dangerous for you to stay here. Please go and sit in the car.”
She looked like she wanted to argue, but the deathly glare I gave her silenced her and I saw her making her way towards where the cars where parked, resignedly.
I looked around and found that Stephanno was always near me. No matter which direction I move towards, he was always right beside me without being too obvious about it.
Okay! I have to pretend like a weakling.
When the blonde guy came to me with his sword, I pretended to be scared and started to shiver with pain. I looked at Stephanno for help, widening my eyes a little bit so he would think I was terrified.
He frowned at my reaction and narrowed his eyes at me. Ugh! What’s with that reaction? Was I not convincing enough? In one swift motion,he was right before me, blocking and parrying with the blonde guy. And I was right behind him,checking him out during the fight. His butt looked delicious from here.
Ugh! Focus Jessica, you are in the middle of a battle here. The blonde guy went down faster than he could say, “Yikes”.
Stephanno finished him off and then looked at me, still narrowing his eyes suspiciously.
“Hhmm, thanks?”
He nodded at me, then immediately busied himself with other opponents, while I busied myself by acting really pathetic and scared. Seriously! I should get an Oscar for this performance.

Dominic was battling with two of the lycans and Christopher was parrying his sword against the big muscular dude, who was brandishing his gigantic hammer at him.
I had to pretend to be overly scared and petrified as no one from the blood sect really approached me. I was basically walking around the battlefield unarmed and unhurt, except for the cut the lycan had given me on the shoulder, which I suspect will fully heal in no time at all.

Suddenly the woman that had given me the dagger earlier appeared again. Hhmm, thought she had left for good. But by the way the men looked at her, I could guess she was a leader figure, then where did she leave in the middle of the fight?
She rose up to the air and immediately everyone stopped fighting and the men from the blood sect started backing away from us. That isn’t right? Why were they backing away when they were clearly winning this fight? She stood in the air, her ponytail swishing in the wind. That red and black outfit worked wonders for her, elevating her curves. She let out the maniacal laugh I had heard earlier then shouted out loud, “Forgive me my sweets, I did promise a good fight to you. But I am getting a little bored. Soooo…”

She raised her arms to her head in a circular motion. I saw black smoke coming from her hands that were soon covering the entire borders. I saw people yelp in pain as the black smoke touch them. It was like they were being burned alive. Their eyeballs dropped out of their heads, their skin shrunk to their bones and they soon perished into the dust. It was a gruesome scene. I felt sick to me stomach, seeing people being burned alive like that.

Dominic and Stephanno went for her from different directions in the field, but she just snapped her fingers and vanished which lead to Dominic and Stephanno colliding with each other. She appeared again at the top of the fence near the flag pole where Tristin was hung. She took out a blade and cut the rope, and Tristin fell head first into the ground. She then took out a blood red flag from her outfit, and perched it on the flag. She was announcing that the blood sect had gained control over this land.

I looked at Dominic panicked. He got up from the ground, pulled up Stephanno and immediately headed towards me.
“This fight has gone too far. Let me at her. I can call my zombie legion thing remember?” I hissed at him
“No! Jess, don’t”
“But your….our sect is being destroyed” I glared daggers at him
“ You are what’s more important to me” he said softly, in an urge to calm me down.
“How can you just bear to stand and watch when the blood sect is taking your land? You are the head….and I am the Mistress, let me do my duty” I pleaded with him.
“Jess, even you don’t know the full magnitude of your powers. You might end up causing more harm than her. “
Ouch, that hurt…a lot. But I remembered Daniel’s prophecy which stated that I would be the cause of the great war, a fact I hadn’t yet shared with anyone.
I nodded at him , resigned.
“But our people”
“Look around you Jess, only ten of us remains standing, the villagers had already fled….and Stella?”
Huh? Stella? Nooooo!
I looked around and found Justin kneeling beside Stella, who was laying on the ground. I quickly ran toward her.
“What happened to her? Why are you here? Didn’t I tell you to leave?” I yelled at her, panicking
“Please tell me she is still alive”I turned towards Justin.
“She is alive, but not really” Justin replied, wincing.
“ That woman can induce fear. She messed with Stella’s head and she just fell to the floor dazed.”
“But she is okay right?” I asked him again, blinking back tears.
“She went into a fear induced coma”
I froze….no ! why couldn’t she stay in the damn car like I told her to?

Dominic looked equally guilty, then quickly snapped himself out of it and turned towards Justin and said, “ we are not surrendering. We are going to make a run for it.”
“No! we are not leaving her here” I yelled at him defiantly.
“But Jess, she is almost as good as gone” he replied calmly which made me all the more furious.
“Justin, you take her!” I ordered him.
He nodded at me and immediately carried Stella in his arms.

“Okay! We will split up so that they can’t come after all of us. Jess and me, Dominic and Christopher, Justin and Stella, Tao and Julian..Take whatever way you want, but loose them and head towards the water sect.” Stephanno, who had crept up behind my back replied.

Dominic looked like he wanted to argue about the teams, but held his tongue apparently thinking that it would be just a waste of time to argue with Stephanno. And I didn’t want to be anywhere near Dominic now, not after how he treated Stella just now. He wanted to throw her aside like a rag doll.

I was still furious at the thought when I felt a hand nudging me…..Stephanno..
The red people were approaching us, but that woman still hadn’t noticed us ganging up. She was having too much fun burning people up.
I looked back at Stella wistfully.
“Go, Jess. I promise we will make it to the water sect.” Justin vowed.
I nodded gratefully at him, then followed Stephanno. I saw Dominic and Christopher run towards the main road, probably towards the car. I ran after Stephanno and gulped when I found out where we were headed towards….the woods….