?The Monarch who was speaking froze, unable to process the sudden appearance.

*Rumble!*

Another flash of lightning rapidly following the one before lit the mask from one side, the sound coming almost at the same time because of how close the lightning struck.

This caused the Monarch to shudder and his pupils dilated while jolting to take a distance, the next instance receiving a palm into his chest before his Protective Qi could be enhanced there as the more powerful layer growing from the center of his back already covered almost everywhere else and was spreading to that spot from all directions.

“Khu~!!!”

*Krrch~*

A sound of crushed bones reached the ears of the others which were still adapting from the loud thunder just prior, as they turned to look at their colleague who flew back nearly folded in two from the impact.

His mouth was half-open with blood flowing from within as his veins on visible parts of skin were becoming inflated and his complexion was rapidly becoming pale, a line of crimson red was stretching from his caved in chest to a palm clad in white glove, as a small sphere of blood was growing in front of it.

From the palm, their gazes traveled to its owner, finally capturing the image of the figure with another flash of lightning further in the distance.

It was a tall man clad in black and white clothes with a yellow accent and golden accessories, which were flapping in the winds of the storm, his mask behind a talisman slowly turning to the four remaining Monarchs. *

“C-corpse Puppet?!?!”

The four shuddered as they heard of this technique of the Corpse Dao only as general knowledge, but the common feature was the talisman over a covered face, sometimes surgically, so that the face cover is not accidentally removed.

*Rumble!*

The thunder of the previous lightning reached their ears just as the surroundings were drowned in darkness once more.

The figure, only the outline of the silhouette glowing with the light of the distant volcano, moved to the next Monarch who took out a curved blade.

“Six Slashes of-…”

As he slashed toward the ‘corpse puppet’, its free of the still growing blood orb left hand stretched forward and forming a ‘blade’ with all five fingers, tore through the six Spiritual Qi slashes as well as shattered the actual blade of the Monarch, piercing toward his neck as the shards of glowing Spiritual Qi of his attack and metal pieces of the broken weapon glinting with fiery glow fell around the two.

A flash of lightning in the distance behind made the two appear as only dark silhouettes to the other three, the head of one detaching from the body and flying away as the hand leading to his neck made a swiping motion, while the limp body of the first slain Monarch was still visible as a third silhouette in the distance, not yet having time to fall.

A hand appearing in the flash of light, with a blood orb not far from it, moved along with the turning body of the ‘puppet’, the already completely pale body of the first Monarch flying toward another one, seemingly pulled by the thin line of blood still connected to his chest as if by a rope.

“Tch!”

The Monarch slashed through the corpse of his colleague in the darkness rumbling with thunder to see a white mask appearing in another flash of light from somewhere behind himself, becoming visible in the growing gap between two halves of the body he cut while his sword was down from the motion.

“Hiieeek~!!!”

His eyes revealed shock and horror, as he shrieked jolting to raise his sword in a stabbing motion forward but a hand clad in a white glove gripped his face faster, the force of the grip then crushing it along with a first terrified and anguished “Aaarh-…!!!” and then a nauseating gurgling sound of blood and air that followed the equally sickening sound of his face and front part of the head being crushed.

“Thch! Too tough…!!!”

“Shit! What the-…”

The two others were cutting into red blades that flowed around the ‘puppet’ from both sides, their weapons glowing with the light of techniques, but not able to cut through the multiple layers of the liquid blades.

“..! No-!”

With another flash of light, one of them saw two abyss-like dark openings contrasting with the plain white mask turn to him, widening his eyes as he saw that the ‘puppet’ was holding his former colleague by the half-crushed head, the body limply hanging like a sack of meat.

“F-**!!”

He pushed away from the red blade he was attacking with his, and flew in the opposite direction, his whole body shuddering from the all-consuming dread, goosebumps and raised hair covering his skin, the corners of his eyes becoming teary.

‘Shit! **! **! **! **! **! No! Please! I don’t wanna die like that! P-please, please **! Heavens **! Pleeeease!’

He inwardly shouted in abject horror and cursed the fate that brought him to this cold and windy sea on the edge of the world no one cared about.

The sweat that instantly covered him and his tears forming a long path of droplets as he sped as fast as he possibly could.

“W-what Carnage of the Northern Sea?! What glorious first battle!!! The ones receiving the one-sided bloody slaughter were we!!!”

He screamed out into the storm, the rain which was building up finally starting to pour down around as he tore through its curtain. The name he himself came up with for the coming battle seeming like a bad joke of fate.

“Haa~, haa~… d-did I… did I manage to g-get away?”

He turned over his shoulder, breathing loudly as he still did not stop, only gaining enough courage to at least look behind him.

He seemed to hear loud curses of the other remaining alive Monarch the moment he started flying away, leaving him with the hope that the ‘corpse puppet’ was at least a bit delayed by the most senior one of them who remained there.

And as he turned to the front again, relieved to see nothing behind him, a flash of light revealed a figure floating up ahead, the two abyss-like dark openings staring into his soul.

“Hiiieeek! D-diiiiieeee!”

He shrieked with high-pitched voice, in a moment of complete panic and frenzy raising his blade with both hands, but the butt of the blade handle was abruptly stopped by a hand in a white glove while another, already bloody one tore through his Protective Qi and straight inside his chest.

“Khuiik~~! Ha~a~… ha~a~…”

The Monarch’s eyes became completely round along with a distorted scream, as he tremblingly breathed out with a struggled breath, seemingly unable to make even a noise as he felt fingers wrap around his heart. The heavy rain was pouring down his face while he shivered from cold.

“Hmm, I see…”

A muffled voice came from behind the mask as there appeared a crimson red glow within the arm of the ‘corpse puppet’, which appeared to be flowing, the brightest spots seeming like veins. The same crimson glow appeared in two eyes within the dark abyss he saw earlier.

‘Eh?… it’s not… a cor-… se… pu-ppe…? … ‘

The last thoughts of the man started to fade together with the light of life in his eyes, while the two glowing with crimson light eyes within the dark abyss of the mask revealed some kind of realization.

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