52 Forest Will's Two Devils
A large rough looking man was standing in the dark, his eyes moving around from time to time to control the area. A couple hundred meters behind him there was a towering tower in flames and dozens of his tribesmen that were enjoying themselves. He, on the other hand, was there in the cold, looking around.
He couldn't understand the chieftain: who in his sane mind would attack their Fire Earth people the exact same day they completely obliterated the Black Elk tribe from the Yellow Lake Region?
Not even the Golden Bone Tribe had the audacity to do something like this, let alone the other two little tribes. There was no need for him to stay in the cold and darkness, instead of joining the festivities.
"Damn them to hell" Cursed the warrior giving a look to the far group of people that he could barely see under the large bonfire. He had worked as hard as them, fighting for their raiding group and the tribe and look now where that got him!
"I can't keep looking at that or I'm going to lose my head" he murmured with a deep voice the man, turning his head towards the darkness around him.
"Oh, I think that you'll lose your head regardless, my dear" said a melodious female voice, breaking the silence in the area with her vibrant tone. The warrior instinctively grasped his weapon ner his chest, as a defensive measure and then tried to locate the voice he just heard. All the fatigue and boredom he felt was washed away by a dose of adrenaline.
"Who's there?" he roared looking towards the deep darkness around him. It wasn't a sound that answered his question, but the appearance of two green light that emerged from the darkness, moving towards him.
Not too much far from that particular sentry, another Fire Earth warrior was sitting on a large piece of wood. He suddenly heard a strange muffled scream, attracting his attention towards the east.
'That's Horo's guardpost...' he thought.
He knew that the warrior placed in that zone from which he heard the screams was a very lousy one. Probably he was just lamenting the fact that he had been assigned to guard duty. He knew him well, as they had fought together for years in the same raider group.
In any case, he had nothing better to do, so he stood up and started to move towards the direction of the sound he heard. After walking a couple of dozen meters, he finally was able to see a large man, standing before a petite woman whit short green hair.
"What the hell is he doing?" murmured the guard his heart skipping a beat. The woman didn't look like a Fire Earth warrior! If the chieftain realized that a member of the scouts was playing with slaves instead of doing his job he would surely punish the entire guard!
"Horo! What the hell are you thinking?! If you want to be whipped why do you feel the need to bring us down with you?" he exclaimed with anger starting to approach more quickly.
Horo didn't respond, he didn't even move or make any sign that he was listening to his companion's words. The latter opened his mouth to insult some more the man that was evidently using his guard duty time to have fun with some slave, but before any word could exit from his mouth, the guard saw a violet light flashing before his eyes.
That was the last thing he saw, and his head flew from his shoulders and into the mushy ground. His body fell to the ground shortly after, and a black snake appeared between the two parts of the body. His whole long figure was now covered in blood.
The violet eyes on the snake's head had an indifferent expression, while he moved back towards the green-haired woman.
The young beauty was extracting information from the Fire Earth warrior. He was still alive, but it couldn't move at all and he was being tortured by a seal that the green haired witch had put into his body.
When she noted that the serpent had come back, the girl sniffed towards his direction and then looked at him with disgust in her face.
"Don't come near me, you're drenching in blood!" she lamented when the serpent tried to move next to her.
"Yes, it is called fighting... you should try it sometimes" he sarcastically answered to his companion, ignoring her request and stopping only when he was right next to her.
The lady didn't do anything to stop him, and didn't even bother to move away. She just gave him a nasty lock as the energy she used on the seal augmented.
"That's not fighting" she rebutted, while the poor Fire Earth warrior screamed even more. The Forest Will girl started playing in the air with her finger from which came out numerous silver chains that were embedded into the warrior before her. "That's playing with food! There is no need to decapitate everything that you want to kill." she added.
"It's an easy way to kill a human, your necks are fairly feeble." chuckled the serpent looking at the woman's slender neck and using his long bifurcate black tongue to lick some of the blood that he had around his face.
"Yeah, and showering in the blood it's also a way to rapidly kill enemies? You just like the feeling..." laughed Star Leaf. Then, giving a rapid look towards the serpent she noted what he was doing and she disgustingly called him to stop.
"Ew, stop licking that, that's disgusting!"
The chains that connected her to the man vibrated as she transmitted even more energy to his seal. The man started to tremble uncontrollably in pain, wailing under the muzzle made of chains of silver energy. His eyes bulged out his eye socket and his face was full of enlarged veins. Yet, no matter how much he tried to scream or move, he was bound into place.
"Old habits," said the snake, as he kept doing what he was doing. It was hard sometimes to separate his bestial side from the more refined and respectable figure that he had built in the span of the last year. Especially before, during or shortly after a fight.
"Can't you be more careful?" she asked continuing the torture, while moving her head towards the snake at her side. "If you keep doing this, people will only see you as an insane rabid dog" she said.
"Good, that means that they will be afraid." calmly responded the snake. The two companions kept arguing to each other, while the Fire Earth warrior was tortured by the Slave Mark Seal.
"Oh well, do as you want... it was only an advice after all..." said the green-haired girl after several minutes of back and forth with the serpent.
Finally, the green haired lady looked back at the Fire Earth warrior, and the chains that kept him from moving and speaking clearly were removed with a single thought.
She looked at him right in his eyes, and smiled innocently.
"I heard that they are two cultivators in your Outpost. Are they here tonight?" she asked with a radiant smile on her face. She didn't seem like a person that had just tortured for several minutes a man without blinking an eye.
The man dropped to his knees, puffing and moaning in pain. He seemed unable to answer any question at all. The green haired beauty laughed lightly, sending more energy to the seal on the warrior's body.
A wave of pain went through the red armored man's flesh. "I don't... know!" he moaned, in pain.
Star Leaf shook her pretty head, looking at the snake next to her and shrugging. "Well, I tried to be nice" she said with a voice full of regret.
The Fire Eart man coughed a large amount of blood when he heard that: she tried to be nice? She tortured him for minutes without even asking him a question beforehand! The woman patted a large rock nearby, cleaning it from dust and other remains and sitting on it.
"Now it's my turn." said coldly Darkscale. "And I'm not faint-hearted as her. You will lose blood, you will lose flesh and tendons. Speak and you will escape a miserable end." he added, while a very intense killing intent emerged from his body and pressed down on the human.
The warrior froze when he saw the black serpent speak. He had been captured by the green haired woman and when he heard her speak with someone else, he was covered by silver chains of energy that made it impossible for him to see the aspect of the person she was talking to.
The strange thing was that, after an initial shock lasted a dozen seconds, he didn't seem too much surprised by the presence of a talking snake. This was something that Darkscale found to be abnormally weird. Common people were always shocked the first time they saw him speak.
It was normal: a talking snake wasn't something that they experienced before. It wasn't something that was part of their world. Yet this one warrior reacted very differently to his presence.
'It is like...I'm not the first he saw'
