88 Chapter 88. The scepter?
Garrick and his crew are at the ruby camp-300 words
Halfway across no man's land, the scouting team met up as Mars gave them their last message, "Okay. This is where we split up. I hope to see you all again back at the Lapis camp."
All mercenaries nodded as they all dispersed into the night, dashing towards the Ruby frontlines.
Seeing everyone go their own ways, Mars smiled as he got serious as he looked at Garrick and smiled, "Garrick, let's go and make our way now."
Garrick nodded as the both of them dashed towards the left side of the Ruby camps.
As they arrived, the noise level on the camps were unusually quiet as the tents were all quiet as they quickly passed through the first layer of the camp.
"This is unusual," Mars whispered as he felt something wrong about the situation.
"You go to the right, I'll go to the left," Garrick spoke quietly as he hurried off into the camp, not wanting to stay here for any unnecessary time period.
At the second layer, there seemed to be sounds of life but they were still not enough. Garrick immediately began coming up with reasons why this could be happening. Maybe they are having a party like us?
Nevertheless, the mission came first for now, Garrick quickly made his way to the left side.
Suddenly, "Hahahaha!" a loud clatter of laughter sounded as Garrick saw some activity in the far distance in front of him.
Two soldier who were at refinement stage one realm walked out of a tent, happily conversing.
"Haha! Say, why didn't you go the party they are having outside the back lines?" one of them asked.
"I wanted to go but I was forced by my unit general to safe guard this place," the other replied as they walked out of the place, patrolling the area.
'So it was a party,' Garrick nodded understandingly as he complimented himself for figuring it out.
'Now's my chance,' seeing an opening, Garrick immediately dashed past the two guards unnoticed and entered into the tent.
Inside the tent was a large table that Garrick could only presume to be the commander's table. And he found nothing of vital importance after fully searching the table except a single word on the table that was written with an extremely eye-catching glowing black ink, "retreat."
"What is this?" Garrick spoke to himself as he took out the note and opened it. Immediately, as he touched it, the ink on the note dimmed down as it stopped glowing and Garrick began to read:
"The Lapis soldiers have strengthened a lot. Their reinforcements seem to be extremely strong and are causing morale to lower in the troops. We have to retreats as soon as possible, I'm afraid that this war will be hard to win. We must retreat and wait for reinforcements to arrive."
Shock appeared on Garrick's face as he could not believe what he was reading. How could this happen? Was the situation in the Ruby army a lot worse than they had anticipated?
Now confused by his thoughts, Garrick began searching around the room for any other clues, trying to cause as much disruption as possible.
As he was searching, he found that the table was unusual. Normally, when at war, armies would often use tables with legs but this table did not have legs and it had a solid lump of wood instead. Again confused by this, Garrick immediately bent down to investigate but just as he was about to.
Clap! Clap! Clap!
A series of claps sounded from behind him at the entrance of the tent alarming Garrick. A brown-haired man about the same age as him walked into the tent with a playful look.
"I'm impressed that you were able to sneak past the guards," the man mocked as he picked up a chair on the side of the table and sat down.
"How did you find me?" Garrick asked cautiously, not daring to switch his attention to something else.
"Relax. I'm just here to congratulate you," the man replied as he sat down and swung his legs onto the table.
"About what?"
"You will be surviving the longest," the man replied with a smile as he suddenly stood up and punched Garrick.
Immediately, Garrick attempted to dodge but was hit square in the chest as he was sent flying crashing out of the tent onto the ground outside.
"Haha! I'm impressed, we had thought that you all would come as a unit but you all actually decided to split up. Lucky for you, you actually landed in the jackpot," the man laughed maniacally.
"Ugh!" Garrick stood up weakly as he stared at the man with shock, "You are an origin realm!"
"Oh. Forgive me for not introducing myself," the man apologized as he began to introduce himself, "I am Xander, the Black Fire General of the Ruby army."
Hearing that the man who just punched him was a general, Garrick cursed his luck as he felt completely hopeless.
"I can't afford to be silent when my life is at risk," Garrick spoke as he brought out his axe.
"My my. I didn't think a spy would use such a large axe," Xander commented as his battle spirit was ignited at the sight of the axe. But before he could attack, a sword suddenly flew out from the darkness towards him. Xander immediately retreated to the side as the sword landed right beside Garrick and Mars suddenly appeared next to the sword.
"That was not a very nice thing to do," Xander spoke with a mocking smile on his face as he turned to the duo.
"You ok?" Mars asked Garrick with a tone of concern.
"I'm fine," Garrick answered as he took a step forward and prepared to face the man.
But he was stopped by Mars who told him, "We need to escape. I think they already know about us."
Hearing this, Garrick suddenly nodded and they both turned around to run but just as they turned around, they were greeted by a black-haired man walking out towards them, "So you guys are the ones who came to this side of the camp."
Immediately, Mars and Garrick cautiously went into a battle stance as they went on alert.
"Do you want to know what happened to the rest of your friends?" the man asked as he brought out his hand and clapped.
Immediately, two other men, a blonde and a redhead, walked out carrying the bodies of all the others members of the scouting team. They add had grievous injuries and they all seemed to be dead as they were not breathing and they had countless stab wounds on their body.
Seeing the bodies, Garrick and Mars's faces went livid as they now realized how bad their situation was.
"I guess we have no choice but to fight for our lives," Garrick commented as he held his axe tightly.
"You three take them out nice and quick," the black-haired man spoke as he instructed Xander, the blonde and the redheaded man to attack them.
Immediately, the men began to charge forward as they exchanged blows and fights.
"Behind you," Xander spoke as he suddenly appeared behind Garrick.
"Destruction fist!"
Boom! A large black flaming punch was sent to Garrick who did not have time to brace himself and block the attack as he was propelled forward.
As he was propelled forward, the redheaded man appeared in front of him with a smile, "Winter's fire punch!"
Boom! A cold blue flame appeared on the man's fist as he sent an upper cut at Garrick's jaw, sending him flying up into the air.
The blonde man then appeared on the sky right in front of Mars, "Yellow Blacksmith's Hammer!"
The man grasped both hands into a fist and held them together and slammed them onto Garrick's stomach.
Boom!
Ack!
Garrick immediately spat out a mouthful of blood as he was sent crashing down into the field as a loud rumble sounded as many tents were uprooted and countless cracks appeared on the ground.
"Garrick!" shouted Mars as he ran straight towards the place where Garrick landed.
Garrick was laying on the floor badly injured with countless broken bones. He coughed up multiple mouthfuls of blood. As he slowly opened his eyes and forced himself up he saw that there was a change happening on his axe. The body of the axe suddenly became bright and sparkly as a new series of engravement appeared to have been added to the axe.
Spark!
Suddenly, the axe came to life as it glowed and Garrick's body became full of a weird energy, causing a large change in him.
As the dust cleared, Garrick appeared again holding a black bladed axe that had glowing purple engravements on it. And Garrick's body suddenly seemed to change as black streaks of veins appeared on his arms and whole body as he emitted a dangerous dark energy.
Shock appeared on Mars' face as he stared at what was in front of him. Was this really Garrick? When did this happen?
"Mars," Garrick's voice emotionlessly sounded calling him.
Mars immediately walked to him and stared at Garrick.
"Take this note and give that to the Lapis commander. Tell them that the scepter was nowhere to be found and that this was found instead," Garrick instructed as he pulled out a note from his pocket and handed to Mars.
"What are you thinking?" Mars asked questioning as he realized that Garrick had a hidden intention behind this.
"Tell Leo that I will be waiting here," Garrick smiled as he grabbed Mars' hand and made him firmly grip the axe.
"Stop him!" the commander spoke as the general immediately rushed towards them.
"AHHHHH!" Garrick then furiously swung the axe in a circle before letting go and sending Mars' off towards the Lapis frontlines.
Seeing Mars get sent away via an axe, the general and the commander immediately turned and began to chase him but they were stopped by Garrick who threw a sword that he found on the dead bodies towards Xander.
Boom!
A sonic boom occurred as the sword dashed towards Xander at an extremely high speed, shocking him.
"Who said you could leave?" Garrick spoke as he began to fight them.
