24. Imprisoned

Seeing the golden-haired man disappear into the sky, Orion noticed that the weight that had been holding him down had also vanished.

'A chance.'

Taking advantage of the moment, he unleashed all three of his swords, each gleaming with red light, towards the three men standing on the sides of Famir and Ryfin.

"Watch out, everyone!"

Liira shouted to warn them.

Despite the apparent unexpectedness of Orion's attack following Liira's warning, the three individuals targeted by his three swords reacted swiftly.

One of them drew a spear to defend against the gleaming red sword, but as soon as his spear made contact with Orion's sword, the figure holding the spear was blasted back.

Meanwhile, the other two gleaming red swords reached the remaining two individuals, resembling red arrows flying through the air.

One of them, a lady, clapped her hands, and a blue hexagonal shield materialized in front of her, casting a blue glow on her face, acting as a barrier against the incoming attack.

"Clang!"

Sparks crackled around the red sword and the blue shield before the shield too was blasted back slightly by the force of the impact.

Orion's last sword appeared behind a man, who simply punched the red, gleaming sword with his bare fist, seemingly unfazed by the attack.

"Clang!"

Surprisingly, the sound of metal colliding against metal reverberated, and dust flew from the ground before he too was thrashed away.

All of this occurred within a matter of seconds.

Observing the outcome, Orion turned to Ryfin.

"Ryfin, now."

Gritting his teeth upon Orion's words, Ryfin thought reluctantly, 'I don't want to do this, but…'

He cast one last glance at Orion before teleporting himself to Famir, touching him, and then teleporting both of them out of there. In the blink of an eye, they disappeared from the scene.

Only Orion remained.

At this time, the other three individuals came beside him with their weapons placed an inch away from his neck.

"Hahaha. You guys are too slow."

Orion laughed wildly, mocking them without a hint of worry about being killed. He was certain they wouldn't go that far, especially considering their earlier attempt to lure him here.

'Thank god, I have already made a plan for this situation.'

He thought quitely.

Now, the question remained: what did they want from their team?

On the other hand, Liira frowned deeply, her mood souring further as she realized that the other two had managed to escape under her watch, especially when she remembered that Runo had entrusted them with the task of looking after them.

'Runo won't be happy about this.'

She felt a headache coming on at the thought of Runo's inevitable reaction to their failure.

At that moment, a hand appeared on her shoulder.

"Don't worry, at least he is in our grasp."

It belonged to the only woman among the six individuals who had earlier materialized a shield to block Orion's sword.

Liira held her hand tightly.

"I know Rina. I am not worried about that. I am thinking of my sister. If anything were to happen because of my mishap just now, then I don't know what I will do."

Rina smiled at her as she gave her head a fist bump.

"Don't worry. I am here, so nothing will go wrong from now on."

The woman comforted Liira, then shifted her attention to Orion. She clapped her hands, and a moment later, a blue spherical force field materialized out of thin air, enveloping Orion within its embrace.

Orion didn't struggle; he knew it would be almost impossible to escape from them right now. Instead, he decided to wait and see what their plans were.

He grew increasingly curious about their intentions. Listening to what the golden-haired man had said, it seemed they had been gathering others as well.

At that time, Liira looked at Orion and turned to Rina.

"Give him to Derek, but before that, take all his swords from him. After that, we will go for a thorough round of checking where I previously found them to look for the ones that just escaped."

Rina nodded as she enveloped all the swords, which appeared to be floating in the air around Orion, in a separate spherical force field.

"Wait here. I will be back."

With that, Rina led Orion deeper into the area where the throne of bones and the portal lay.

After a while, she came to a stop. Orion noticed that they had arrived in front of a massive tree.

'It's so big.'

He hadn't imagined that such a colossal tree could ever exist. It appeared to be as large as the long, broken walls beside the skull throne, and its thickness was impossible to gauge from his vantage point inside the spherical force field.

At this moment, the sun appeared to be just above them, but due to the massive canopy of the tree, it seemed as though night had already approached.

'Anything is possible in this world, I guess.'

He observed as the blue-haired girl turned and began to walk around the sides of the enormous tree, the chirps of leaves being stepped on, sounding with each of her steps.

'Probably looking for the entrance.'

Orion's suspicions were confirmed when they reached a large hole at the base of the tree. If he hadn't already seen the massive tree from a distance, he might have mistaken it for a cave in a mountain or something similar.

As she walked inside the cave-like entrance, Orion was greeted with something that reignited the darkest fear he felt upon arriving in this world.

It was a skeleton—not just one, but a whole bunch of them, roaming around the spacious interior of the tree trunk.

'So they really are the ones who attacked the cave that night.'

Recalling that fateful night and remembering the fear that had gripped him so tightly, an overwhelming and monstrous anger consumed Orion. He hadn't forgotten that feeling—the sensation of death looming so closely over him.

'He was basically toying with our lives.'

He forcefully calmed himself down, knowing very well that he couldn't let his emotions run wild, especially in enemy territory.

The blue-haired lady walked past all the skeletons, seemingly unnoticed by them, or perhaps they had been commanded not to harm their own kind.

At the other end of the spacious area, there appeared to be a man-made staircase.

Rina climbed up and entered what seemed to be a prison, where about four more kids around Orion's age sat with their heads down in silence.