Seven Years

RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!

With the sudden movement of the doors, the platform began to shake, making the mercenaries have difficulty maintaining their balance 

At same time, the dozens of statues scattered among the treasures seemed to awaken from their sleep. As one by one, the humanoid statues began to rise up, opening the single eye in the middle of their faces. Looking at the intruders who dared to invade its sacred temple

At that moment, the eye of one of the closest statues began to glow with a strong white light, then without any prior warning it happened

STZSSSSSSSS!

A white laser beam was projected from statue's huge eye, the beam passed through the platform in an instant, hitting the man's body squarely

"NO... ARGHHHH—"

As soon as the white beam came into contact with the man's body, it underwent a rapid transformation. The poor man's skin began to dry up becoming brittle like glass, his flesh rotted and turned black, his organs exploded and began to leak through the open rotten flesh, finally his bones began to crack, causing the mercenary to lose his balance and fall into the ground

Thus, in less than ten breaths of time the mercenary went from a healthy warrior to a handful of rotting flesh, blood and pus, being completely corroded, leaving behind only a pile of clothes and equipment. Faced with such brutality, a shiver ran down the mercenaries' spines, demotivating all of them. Well, almost all 

"YOUR BASTARD!!!"

As if wanting to avenge his companion, Marco, now completely enveloped in his red blood aura, ran towards one of the statues, quickly closing the distance between them. He then jumped, trying to compensate for the height difference, while shouting

"Blood Burst!"

Immediately as if it had absorbed the blood aura around Marco, the battle mace on his hands began to glow as it doubled in size. Still in the air, the mercenary then held his gigantic mace with both hands and rotating his shoulders he sent an attack towards the statue's chest

BOOOOOOM!

The huge mace hit the statue squarely, causing all the accumulated aura to explode with a red shock wave, which threw the mercenary back, causing him to slide several meters along the ground. The explosion caused the huge temple hall to shake, causing a thin layer of dust from the ceiling to fall, covering the place

"That was for Steve, you damn statue"

Seeing their leader's demonstration of strength, the previously terrified mercenaries had their spirits rekindled

"As expected of the boss, even that thing couldn't resist a single attack from him!"

"Yes, that's Marco the Blood Orc, for you. The man is truly a monster"

"Monster? No, you're wrong, he's a wolf!"

"That's right... Dark Wolves"

"""Dark Wolves"""

As the mercenaries celebrated, Marco continued to kneel on the ground, having felt the brunt of the attack from earlier. This was Marco's strongest attack and whenever he found himself in a desperate situation, it was this attack that helped him turn the tables, his trump card that never failed... at least until now

"Hey, look out!", warned Charlotte 

Under the curtain of smoke, a familiar white light began to shine, and before Marco could react:

STZSSSSSSSS!

"Damn it--"

At that moment, sisters Charlotte and Claire, who had not let their guard down, reacted quickly. They quickly raised their hands, pointing at the mercenary, while shouting

"Firewall"

"Fireball"

Just before the laser beam could hit the mercenary, a huge wall of fire manifested in front of him, stopping the beam for a few moments. At the same time, a small ball of fire hit the mercenary's side, moving him away from the beam's trajectory

"Arghhh..."

No longer resisting the force behind the white beam, the wall of fire shattered, spreading into a bunch of smaller flames, before disappearing. Having lost its target, the white beam continued uninterruptedly to strike the ground, causing the platform to shake even more.

It was only then that the dust cloud finally settled, revealing the statue. To the mercenary's surprise, even after receiving his most powerful attack head on, the statue came out completely intact, not having received even a scratch

"T-That it's impossible..."

"This is no time to be stunned. We need to get out of this place now!" Claire shouted, waking everyone up from their shock

"Yes, she's right, everyone out!" 

Agreed Marco, ignoring the slight burns on his body, before leading his men running towards the exit of the temple. Faced with the frightening destructive power of the statues and his complete inability to damage them, he didn't think twice before turning his back and fleeing. Completely contradicting his previous inspirational speech about the Dark Wolves never backing down 

Despite this, none of those present had time to point out this error. After all, they were more concerned with running for their lives

"Shit, shit, shit, it wasn't supposed to be like this"

Seeing that things were taking a dangerous turn, Jake tried one last time to grab the black orb and take it with him. Yet, before he could, several of the statues turned their attention to him, causing his face to lose all color, becoming whiter than paper. He immediately abandoned any idea he had of taking the orb with him, quickly following the mercenaries' lead, running towards the closing doors

STZSSSSSSSS! STZSSSSSSSS! STZSSSSSSSS! STZSSSSSSSS!

The lightning zipping sounds echoed through the temple, as the other statues began to attack as well. Faithfully carrying out their duties as guardians, eliminating members of the expeditionary group one by one with their deadly beams

"NOOOOOO—"

Witnessing a mercenary who was standing just a few meters away from him become a handful of meat, Jake felt like his heart was about to jump out of his chest

'No, I can't die here, I have a bright future ahead of me. I will earn my father's respect, and then defeat Brandon become the family's patriarch. Finally, I will establish a harem full of beauties...' 

STZSSSSSSSS! STZSSSSSSSS! STZSSSSSSSS! STZSSSSSSSS!

'That's right, I'm destined for greatness, if anyone has to die here it's that cripple... wait, that's it'

An evil thought quickly formed in the young noble's head, and without stopping running, he quickly ripped off the necklace containing the command stone from his neck, injecting his energy into it

CRAAAAAAACK!

What followed was the sound of the crystal shattering, having reached its limit of uses. Still, without caring about it, Jake continued and shout his last command

"Slave, I command you…"

Before the young nobleman could even finish speaking, to his surprise, he saw Samir approaching, as if this one had already been waiting for this moment. The slave was running towards him at full speed, with his right hand reaching out as if he were trying to reach Jake's neck

'Huh?'

Time immediately seems to slow down in Jake's eyes. At the same time, a deep fear took over his body, when he noticed the look in the slave's face 

Samir had been in the possession of the Thorsten family for a little over seven years. Whenever he could, Jake abused his status as owner to humiliate and punish him for fun, treating him like a toy, a disposable item. Still, no matter what happened, or how badly he treated him, the slave never showed any expression other than a gentle smile, as if he was already broken

Always staring at those around him with his dead eyes. This was the case when Jake used the slave as a live target for his swordsmanship and fire skills. When Jake whipped him until he ripped all the flesh off his back for fun. Or even, when he used the command stone to force Samir to disfigure his own face, all out of jealousy of the attention the slave received from the women around him 

In all these situations, without exception, Samir continued to look at him with dead eyes and a smiling expression. This, added to the strangely rebellious attitude shown by the slave, made Jake feel curious about whether the slave was really incapable of performing another expression. At this moment, he had the answer… yes, he was capable of such

Looking directly at him was Samir with a face contorted with rage and murderous intent. The slave's eyes no longer looked lifeless like those of a dead fish, on the contrary they seemed to burn with fury, like those of a demon coming straight from hell

'I-I'm going to die?!'

Seeing the slave's hand slowly approach his neck, Jake was sure at that moment, that the indifference the slave had shown over the past seven years was just a facade

"DIEEE!"

Samir resolutely swung his hand towards Jake's neck, tearing it apart with his own hands. At a certain moment, the heartbeats of the slave and his owner seemed to synchronize, beating at the same accelerated frequency, one excited about his long-awaited revenge, while the other terrified about his imminent death

It was then, at the last moment, almost by reflex that Jake said

"... distract the statues until everyone has escaped safely!"