Chapter 19: *****

"Fucking HCF faggots." A voice spat out with an intense amount of hatred.

"How strong do they look?"

"As if I have a fucking clue? You know the skinny ones can crush skulls too."

"Well," the man with a cigarette in his mouth said, "we gonna try?". His appearance was the definition of shifty, sunglasses, a hat, and a face mask.

"Fuck yeah we are," a young tattooed youth said. He was muscular and lean. The most notable feature was that on both of their hands was a Mark, one without stars.

Meanwhile, Hunter and Feng Biao had decided to call it a night. They would need to "sneak" past the guards before they rotated shifts.

"Hunter, I really do want to become stronger."

"Then train, train, train, and hope you get lucky along the way."

Walking through the slums Feng Biao stopped suddenly.

"Hunter, are you sure this is the way?"

"I have an incredible sense of direction, yes, this is totally the way."

Walking for another 10 minutes Feng Biao stopped again.

"Ok this is definitely not the way, can you check which way we need to walk to get to the HCF boot camp?"

"Fine," Hunter said with a shrug, using [The Hooves of Sleipnir] to ascend. As he ascended quickly up and up Feng Biao could clearly see he was above the buildings surrounding them, but he wasn't stopping. Instead, Hunter's pace only increased.

Then Hunter returned, with a worried expression.

"I can't climb past them," Hunter said pointing up towards the surrounding buildings. Which Feng Biao now noticed were now identical.

"What do you mean you can't climb past them?" an eerie feeling building within Feng Biao.

"I mean I can't climb past them, no matter how high I run up they just grow. I'm guessing you didn't see anything?"

"I saw you run up past them."

"That's bad, seems like it's a Divine Ability that affects the mind, at least our perception."

"Can you just try running up and running past them?"

"Good idea, let's go with that," Hunter said as he ran up past where the building was supposed to stop and ran directly backward. Then he ran forward, then backward, and it continued on and on until a clearly frustrated Hunter descended.

"No matter how hard I willed myself to run forwards I just couldn't run in the direction of the buildings."

"That means it's affecting more than our perception."

"Yeah, that's affecting my mind directly, I think I get the gist of this Divine Ability," Hunter said with a hand now on his chin, "we're stuck here in this space and we're not allowed to see beyond it, and we can't leave it either."

"Biao have you tried opening up any of the doors around us?"

"Nope."

"I doubt it will let us escape but let's try anyway."

"Don't even bother, it won't," a condescending voice interjected.

"Who said that?" Hunter said while looking around.

"I did," the voice now said incredibly close to the two of them.

In a split second Hunter decided to run into the air. Feng Biao meanwhile jumped as far as he could away from the voice.

Emerging from Hunter's shadow was a young man wearing a graphic t-shirt with an egg and a red beanie.

"Fucking jumpy guy isn't he?" the man questioned Feng Biao who was now standing close enough Feng Biao could see his tattoos.

"My name is Mike, I've been stuck here for a day," the man said extending a hand towards Feng Biao.

Feng Biao immediately punched him in the face using his full power, including as much Divinity as he could muster. Even willing [Indra's Tricks] in the process.

The man was blown back from the strike, his nose obviously broken, and for a second he stood there dazed. Then he snapped back.

"FUCKING BITCH!"

Pulling out a knife he lunged for Feng Biao who had already run away in the meanwhile. Running above them Hunter who had seen the whole scene was confused.

"Why'd you punch Mike?"

Rather than answer Hunter's question Feng Biao decided to ask a more important question.

"Can you use that kicking move you did earlier?"

"Not right now, but I do have Divinity."

"Then," Feng Biao said as he quickly scooped up a rock and launched it at the man chasing him, "handle him."

As the man dodged the rock Hunter released [The Hooves of Sleipnir] and fell on him. Directly smashing his head with a heavy strike, knocking him out.

Feng Biao grabbed the knife that had fallen on the floor as a result, and as he had thought, it had liquid dripping off it. Poison or a sedative?

"What was that all about?" Hunter said visibly confused.

"Something I've only heard about," Feng Biao said as he looked around to see the buildings had returned to their usual state of mismatched decay.

"Well mind explaining?"

"Sure, sometimes Marked come into the slums with a big head, sometimes they don't walk out."

"Wait slum people kill Marked?"

"No, criminals kill Marked," Feng Biao said he lifted the man's right hand revealing a symbol, an eye within a sun.

"No stars," Hunter commented.

"That means he isn't a Genuine Marked, right?"

"Yeah, but why'd he try and kill us? What beef could we have with any of the criminal organizations around here."

"Let's ask, is there any way to remove a Mark like this?"

"Not without crushing or cutting off his hand."

"Then never mind, actually staying here for too long would be a bad idea," Feng Biao said as he departed.

"Wait, Biao, we're leaving him? Aren't we gonna ask why he did it?"

"Not interested, probably something to do with money. Organ harvesting- oh wait actually, when our hands are chopped off does the Mark of Divinity remain?"

"Yeah," Hunter nodded.

"There you have it then, just another dumb get rich quick scheme in the slums that involves harming another person. Not our problem, let's go."

"But seriously Biao, how did you know he was gonna harm us?"

"He climbed out of your shadow."

"So?"

"So, that means he used a Divine Ability earlier to get there and said nothing before that. If he had wanted to talk to us earlier he could have done so without going into your shadow."

"One thing I'm confused about," Feng Biao said scratching his head, "why'd he even say anything?"

Hunter shrugged his shoulders as he climbed up above the buildings pointing to the direction they needed to be making their way towards.