Round Two

"Haah…haah, I think... hah, we lost them," a man said in between breaths.

The person whom the man was speaking to seemed to agree as he looked around and noticed the two were indeed the only ones in their immediate vicinity.

In the middle of a far more densely populated forest stood two men, and their appearances couldn't be more different.

One was a muscular man who wore torn clothing and had visible scars traveling all across his body. He held a spear in his right hand and even though he was so battered and beaten, it seemed as though he was looking forward to the next battle.

On the other hand, there was a man keeled over gasping for breath. This man was the complete opposite of the other as he was quite frail and looked as though he would fall over at any moment.

"C'mon mage, do your fancy wizard sh*t and find the bastard."

The mage in question, who had heard what the man said, cringed at the other's statement but begrudgingly did as he was told and performed his mage art.

"Mana Pulse."

After about half a minute, the mage opened his eyes and looked to the burly man.

"I found him."

To this, the burly man smirked and slapped the mage across the back.

"Good job Kevin... erm I mean Kasey," the burly man said with a wide grin spread across his face.

"It's Casey. I've told you this over a thousand times already."

"Yea, yea, whatever ya' say Kameron. Just lead the way."

The mage, whose name was Casey, was the frightened detection mage that had been saved earlier by the two martial artist, and because this was the case, the muscular looking man with the spear was obviously Tom.

The two were hot on Marcus's trail and were following in the direction the detection mage had pointed out, and after about three minutes or so of running through the forest, the two finally made it to where Casey had pointed out.

Casey, who was once again panting for breath, pointed at a tree that was about thirty meters away from them.

"He should be up there in that tree. I'm gonna stay here and catch my breath. You go on ahead. Ha."

Tom didn't bother trying to convince the poorly out of shape man otherwise as he headed to the tree Casey had pointed out. He didn't bother hiding his presence as he approached with his spear in hand and eyes staring directly into the tree above.

Tom scanned the perimeter of the tree and didn't see any sign of the omen so he looked upwards again to see if the little rat was hiding in a tree again.

Although, what he saw made him frown.

Perched atop the tree on a branch, was a black bird. The dark creature was the only thing on the tree that Tom could see, and this made him narrow his eyes.

As he stared at the bird, Tom started to feel an unsettling feeling whilst looking into its ominous black eyes, so he got ready to thrust forward with his spear in an attempt to kill the creepy looking crow.

However, just as he was about to do this, the crow took flight and headed deeper into the darkness of the forest.

Tom didn't really understand what he'd just seen and became annoyed by this, so he went back to the mage to find out what had happened.

"Oi! What the hell was that?!"

Casey, who had just recovered, looked up to see the image of a pissed off spearman heading directly towards him.

Tom quickly thrust out his spear that stopped only an inch away from Casey's forehead.

"What the hell man?!"

Casey was clearly confused about the turn of events as he held his hands up whilst a spear was pointed directly at his head.

"You f*cking with me mage? Cuz I ain't see no omen when I went ta' the tree ya' pointed out."

"Huh?! What the heck are you-"

Before the flustered mage could ask what it was Tom was referring to, he was picked up by the scruff of his tunic and hanging from the spearman's meaty hands.

"Listen here ya little coward. I ain't abandon Jerry just so ya' could lead me on some wild goose chase, so ya better start talking," Tom spoke as he pressed the tip of his spear into the mage's forehead and caused a small trickle of blood to flow down the man's forehead.

"W-wait! Hold on! I can explain."

Tom held the spear up to the mages head for another ten seconds before finally letting go and dropping the poor man.

"Hurry up and find him, and this time he better be there."

Casey quickly scrambled to his feet as he cursed his luck in serving another crazy bastard. He would have already given up on finding the omen had he not been forced to accompany the spearman before him.

He wasn't a fighter and his spells were purely utility focused so why was it that he was constantly being thrust into danger. The poor detection mage could only sigh at his pitiable situation.

Dismissing his useless thoughts, Casey used up as much mana as he had to summon a wider mana pulse range to guarantee he found the little bastard that was ruining his life. After doing this, his eyes opened as wide as saucers.

"There's more than one!"

Tom, who had his arms crossed throughout the entire process, looked at the mage with narrowed eyes. What had he meant that there were two? Two of what?

Just as the spearman was about to question Casey, he heard a low pitch growl from behind him.

Tom immediately became alerted and was about to turn to the mage to protect him but he was too late.

A bright orange blur had already pounced on the detection mage and the scene that followed was a scene of pure blood and agonizing screams.

A vandal sat atop the now-dead detection mage with its canines still sunk firmly into the corpse's poorly disfigured face.

Tom backed away a few paces as he raised his spear to ready himself.

When the creature heard the shing of the spear, it looked up with blood marred all across its muzzle and bared its fangs at its prey that had escaped it once already.

It didn't seem like the vandals would allow Tom to escape a second time as he was quickly surrounded by bright orange lights.

"Well sh*t."