Ritual

After Zane came out of Mr. Rodger's house, he headed towards his own house again. As he had come to Mr. Rodger's house in a rush, he forgot to take his hunting knife with him. After he reached his house, he quickly collected his hunting knife and his rope. 'I should visit the blacksmith and warn him.' Zane quickly headed towards the blacksmith.

*Knock Knock*

After knocking the door for a while, the blacksmith opened it. "What are you doing here at this late hour? *Cough*"

Zane told about what he saw and asked the blacksmith to escape. "You need to go quickly. Head towards Mr. Rodgers house. He will take you someplace safe."

"Hmm.. and what about you?"

"I'm going to stall them for some time until Val's back with the knights. But I don't know if I'll succeed."

"Okay, be careful Zane. I don't have anything that might be of help to you. *Cough*"

"You've already helped me enough. Then I'll get going, be sure to escape right away."

"Okay okay."

Zane promptly left after warning the blacksmith. The blacksmith headed inside and observed his smithy for a long time. "I guess this is where I say my goodbyes."

Zane quickly headed towards the north exit of the town. As he neared the exit, he saw a cultist right outside. He stealthily approached the exit and took a peek at what the cultist was doing. The cultist had a shovel and it looked like he had just finished patching up a hole on the ground. "Phew, now I can finally rest. I'll head towards the ritual site now and after the signal, I'll ring my bell too." Saying that the cultist started to move.

Just as the cultist started moving, Zane came up from behind, put his hand on his mouth and stabbed at the side of his neck with the hunting knife. The cultist gargled a mouthful of blood and died. 'Haha what a clown. Now let's see what we have here.'

Zane searched the cultist's body and found a bell. After examining the bell, he found out that the bell had a mouth but it didn't have a clapper. He felt eerie looking at it. 'What type of bell is this? Looking at it makes me lightheaded.' He put the bell inside his pocket after finishing examining it. Then he looked at the ground and found the spot that the cultist had just patched up. 'Let's see what he hid here.'

He began digging the ground for a bit and found something. It was the clapper of the bell he just found from the cultist. 'Hmm... The clapper of the bell. What does it do? Why did he separate the clapper and the bell?' Zane scratched his head, 'Haah... This is not important right now. For now let's just go stop the leader.' He put the clapper in his pocket and headed towards the Beast-Scourge forest.

As he was walking towards the forest, he felt a slight jolt in his head. 'Not now!' Then he started hearing sounds. It wasn't as extreme as last time, but it was still bad. He grabbed his head and clenched his teeth to endure the pain.

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After enduring for a while, Zane finally started feeling better. He slowly got up and looked towards the forest. 'I don't have time for this. I need to go quickly!' Then he started running towards the forest.

Finally reaching the ritual site, he could see from afar, there was a small altar and a ritual circle on the ground. The leader was sitting in the middle of the circle and mumbling something with his eyes closed. Zane approached the leader slowly. Just as Zane got close, the leader opened his eyes and looked at Zane. "Kill him." The leader said calmly.

After he said that, four cultist appeared and surrounded Zane. "Come on.." Zane said with a defeated look on his face. A cultist laughed at this scene and approached Zane. "Hahaha so you already know your fate. You made a mistake coming her-" When he got close to Zane, he felt something in his chest. Looking down, he could see a hunting knife going inside his chest and at the end of the knife, Zane smiling at him.

The other cultists came running at Zane and he quickly took out the knife and dodged an attack from one of the cultists. He then rolled to the side and looked at them. One of the cultist whipped Zane right after he rolled. Zane grabbed the whip with his hand and pulled on it with all his might. The cultist jerked forward towards Zane and couldn't control his body. Using this opportunity, Zane stabbed the knife inside his forehead and pushed away the body.

Immediately after, another cultist shot towards Zane. He was holding a short-sword. He consecutively slashed towards Zane, but he narrowly dodged all his attacks. The final cultist also joined the battle by attacking Zane from behind with dual daggers. Zane tried to dodge the attack by rolling but the daggers scratched his legs.

Zane rolled quite a bit from the cultists and fell down. The cultists approached Zane slowly. "Just stay down there and die, trash!" The dagger wielding cultist spat. As the cultist came within an inch of Zane, he quickly moved his arm and threw something towards the cultist. It was the hunting knife tied to his rope. The cultist tried to dodge but was a bit slow as he was caught in a surprise. The hunting knife sliced the side of his neck and he fell down. Throwing the daggers, he put his hands on his neck to stop the intense bleeding.

The short-sword wielding cultist dashed towards Zane using this opportunity. Backing away while retrieving his rope knife, Zane dodge a slash from the short-sword. He then quickly threw the rope towards the cultist. The cultist blocked the incoming knife with his short-sword and pushed it to the side. But Zane was already behind the knife. He dashed forward the moment he threw the rope. Zane tackled the cultist who fell down from the impact. Zane sat on top of the cultist and punched his face. Then he quickly moved his hands and strangled the cultist. After some time, the cultist was no longer breathing. Zane looked back and saw the dagger wielding cultist still applying pressure to his neck.

He stood up and retrieved his rope knife. Then he moved towards the remaining cultist. He picked up the daggers and stabbed the cultist on his skull. Then, he glanced at the leader. He was still in the middle of the circle mumbling to himself. Zane slowly walked towards the leader, his trouser already red from the blood from his leg's wound.

He stood in front of the leader inside the circle. The leader looked at Zane, nerves visible on his forehead, but he didn't stop mumbling. On the contrary, he sped up. Zane readied both his daggers to stab the skull of the leader. Just as he was about to stab the leader, he heard an explosion from the direction of the town. Distracted, Zane turned his head and looked towards the town. "What?!" Just as Zane said that, the leader stopped mumbling and smiled. Then he put his hand up which was grabbing a bell with an eye on it. He shook the bell and a wave came out from the bell, heading towards the town.

Zane widened his eyes and looked back at the leader. "No!!" he screamed. He quickly crossed his daggers, which was met by a punch from the leader. Blocking the punch from the leader, Zane was pushed back by ten steps. He raised his head and looked at the leader.

"You stupid kid." The leader looked at Zane and smirked.