357: [Bonus chapter] New enemies?

[Bonus chapter] New enemies?

Not too far away from Juin and his group, there was a pyramid that was almost 200m tall and wide. Yet none of them realized until they were about 50 meters away from it.  1

"Where the heck did that come from?" Cyrus gasped. One moment, they saw only desert, but the next, a humongous pyramid appeared right in front of them, as if it were plucked from somewhere and dumped within one step. "I'm not getting silly from the heat, am I?" he asked as he wiped the beads of sweat off his face.

Even though Luca tried to help by using his wind power to cool everyone down, he couldn't completely get rid of the heatwave. In fact, at one point, he swore that his wind was actually getting hotter and hotter. 

"It would be nice to be possessed by a demon at this moment," Wolfe panted while looking at Juin and Caelian, who were both unperturbed by the heatwave. As a werewolf, even though he was in his human form, his body actually retained more heat than normal humans. That was why his family tended to move to colder countries during summer.

"It has to be a spell," Luca said as he took off his sweat-stained shirt. "Whoever cast this spell on the pyramid must have cast a heat spell as well, that explains why we didn't see the pyramid until now…" He lifted a hand slightly before continuing, "As well as why it's getting cooler now. We must have entered a safe range." 

Cyrus agreed. He felt immensely more comfortable now than a minute ago. However, his eyes suddenly narrowed as he took a sniff. 

"Blood…" Wolfe spoke out first. "There has been a bloodbath here, and it's recent." 

"Stay alert…" Luca murmured as he led them towards the pyramid. 

As they got closer and closer, the scent of blood got stronger and stronger, until even Juin, Luca, and Caelian could smell it. And it didn't take them long to see the origin of the scent. 

"Sh*t…" Juin murmured as he looked around the entrance of the pyramid. Scattered all around the desert were tens of dismembered bodies. The torsos were stacked on top of each other like Legos and placed on each side of the entrance, while the limbs were lined up in front of the two stacked-up torsos. At the end of the two lines of limbs were the heads. 

Juin turned around and nearly vomited. His teammates, even Luca, were clearly disturbed by the sight. 

"Who could be so cruel?" Cyrus asked with a frown as he looked at one of the heads. The head clearly belonged to a preteen, and the facial expression on it showed that the kid went through great pain before being dismembered. 

"Probably the same person who turned the natives into chimeras." Wolfe glanced around and cleared his throat. He had never seen such a situation before. When he looked at Luca, it was clear that Luca was extremely uncomfortable with the scene as well. Not only that, the Elementalist was angered by it. 

It wasn't shocking. After all, there were children among those dead bodies, not to mention that these were their fellow humans who came for the tests with them. 

"Do you know the Organization knows about this?" Juin asked while clenching his fists behind his back. 

"I'm not sure," Wolfe said solemnly. "We don't know what's in their mind. But…" 

He sniffed and said, "I can smell the Nakamuras…" 

After saying that, he looked at the heads lying near them and said, "None of the corpses here belongs to the Nakamuras."

"You think they did this?" Juin asked with a cold tone.

"I can't really say that. I can smell their scents. All I can say is that they were here, and they were here not too long ago," Wolfe answered. 

"JUIN!"

Someone suddenly called Juin before he could ask further. 

High on alert, they quickly turned around to face the group of people who were running towards them. The newcomers suddenly stopped in their tracks upon seeing the tense look on their faces. One of them had their hands on a woman's mouth.

"Mika?" Juin asked when he recognized the woman that was caught by the group. "What are you guys doing to her?"

He glanced at a young boy in a set of bloodied Nakamura uniforms, who was tied up by a piece of rope. Based on the dirt on both Mika and the boy's clothes, it seemed that they were in a fight before they got overpowered. 

"Who are you?" a teenage boy, who looked about 18 years old and had freckles all over his face, stepped out. "Are you associated with the Nakamuras?" 

"I'm Juin, from the Order of the Supernatural Code. They are my housemates," Juin said cautiously. "Who are you, and why are you holding Mika Nakamura hostage?"

"I'm Harry, from the European Supernatural Organization."

Juin nodded in acknowledgment. He had studied other supernatural organizations as well. The European Supernatural Organization was a small organization compared to the Order of the Supernatural Code. In fact, if he remembered it correctly, the European Supernatural Organization had been partially taken over by the Order of the Supernatural Code. They were to govern the supernatural beings in Europe and report back to the Order. 

"What have they done to you?" Juin asked.

"Are you friends of the Nakamura scums?" Harry asked back. 

"We are…" Juin looked at Mika, and he was unsure what he should say. 

Mika's face changed when she saw him being hesitant, and she was about to lose hope when Juin continued, "I'm not friends with the rest, but Mika Nakamura is my friend. I won't ask you again…" 

A flame arrow appeared in his hand as he said, "Why are you holding her captive?" 

Seeing that, the other three members of Harry's group all took out their weapons. 

"Harry, I remember him!" one of them, a teenage girl with a ponytail, whispered. "That's the Juin, the one that President Presley specially invited into the Order. Master said that we weren't to cross his path." 

"He's crossing our path!" Harry whispered back in annoyance. 

"Let Mika Nakamura and her friend go, and we won't take action on this," Juin said. When Harry refused, he added, "While you're thinking whether to flight or fight, let me introduce my teammates. That's Wind Elementalist Luca, the leader of our group. That black-haired guy over there is Wolfe, son of the Sterling Clan, and that's Caelian, the heir of the Elysium Group."

He then smirked and said, "And the one behind you guys…"

The moment he said that, all four of them turned around and saw Cyrus behind them. 

"How the-"

Harry's sentence got cut off when he felt an intense heat behind him, and he immediately turned around with his weapon raised and a spell formed in his mind, but it was too late.

A sword formed from fire was already at his throat, and hundreds of wind blades surrounded his teammates. 

"And that's Cyrus, my beloved pet," Juin said with his hands behind his back. Neither of them moved an inch from their original spots, but they didn't have to. Or at least, he didn't have to.

"Good job," Lucifer said. Juin never ceased to surprise him with his speed of learning. Lucifer couldn't tell if it was due to Ashton's hold on him being broken or if it was because of the weakening of Hades' shackles.

"Try to conjure a spell, and these wind blades will cut through you faster than a sharp knife cutting through tofu," Luca warned coldly the moment he saw the girl with the ponytail moving her fingers.

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