Bad omen

Kai, wondering why everyone was tensed, looked up to the sky. Unexpectedly he broke into a smile, then a frown and then became tensed like everyone else.

He smelled his brother's scent on the crane, it reached him silently, making the people cast doubtful gazes at him. He opened it.

Sia moved closer to take a better look. She knew that Kai only smiled like that when it was something related to his brother. Then she saw him frown and read the paper contents.

'Be careful'

It was written in neat black ink, and beautiful calligraphy, but it made Kai frown. It was like a bad omen. As she thought this, the earth trembled.

Just once.

But nothing happened.

But Kai knew that it wasn't that simple. Except ofcourse if it was just a normal earthquake. He refused to believe that though. He glanced at Sia. She was fine, although a worried expression was on her face. He moved closer to her.

The cohort saw this and and became tensed too. They were on their guards.

Lucian looked below her feet, the grass seemed weird, but before she could figure out what was wrong with it it suddenly moved.

The grasses were growing longer. The soil had cracks running underneath. Around the whole venue, vines where sprouting from the ground and taking people below the earth with them.

"Argghhhh!!!!" A chubby man screamed as a crack opened under his feet, he fell into it, or rather was swallowed by the ground... Alive.

"Get off me... Please... Get off... Argh... Ahhh" Another young girl was being pulled by a vine into the earth. Terror was written on her face as she tried to remove it but all her efforts appeared futile as the earth swallowed her too.

Then there was shifting sand enveloping another who couldn't scream because of the damp soil and grass in her mouth.

And another man was being flattened by a nearby rock.

It was total chaos.

Lucifer looked at his descendants as they were being devoured by the earth, he was angry. He couldn't even imagine the loss he will suffer. A dark green vine twirled on his leg, but before it could exact pressure, it turned to dust.

The air suddenly became dry, like the wind when rain is about to fall in a desert.

Lucian glanced at him. Her grandfather was mad, his expression was like that of the devil himself as he looked at the earth in a darkened expression.

The skies couldn't attack them, so... The earth will. But they forgot that it was home to a number of scary people. Her grandfather was one of them.

The man moved his feet as everything a meter from him turned into blackened dust. The people around him were spared from this fearsome power as the pasture and soil transformed into combust dust.

Kai stood near his wife as he observed the phenomenon. He didn't expect Lucifer to have such a power. Even he could only shrivel the plants as he removed the water from their body with his powers. As for the sand, they didn't dear near him. The presence of the burly men made the soil to lose its ability as it died and turned to barren soil.

He turned to his brother. They were fine. They were tackling earth the old fashion way, cutting the vines that got close. Kim activated her protective shield. It protected them from the devouring properties of the earth.

As Kai watch this unfold he couldn't help but feel unsettled. His brother won't warn him like this if it was just a few vines they would tackle. In fact, the gods never paid them much mind, so how come even the earth was attacking them? He glanced at the rings, then at Sia and then understood.

He had gained an ally.

A powerful one at that. That was why the gods weren't holding back like they used to. They were trying to scare Sia's family so they would not approve of him.

They failed to consider one thing though. Mortals were very prideful beings, if they experienced a loss they will give back that loss to the cause tenfold.

So their plot had the opposite effect.