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Chapter 4 - The Sound of Steel and Screams

A red demon has emerged from the boiling water of the well. The Captain sees that his eyes have no pupils—only yellow and orange fire-like eyes. A bullock cart's yoke is impaled deep in his chest, from which thick and dark black blood is dripping, burning the ground as it mixes with the rainwater. Seeing that demon, Commander Seraphina drew her sword. She was not afraid, but her breath had quickened and she could feel her own heartbeat. She knew that this is no ordinary hunter; this is a walking, living death.

​She begins to rub her sword against her left-hand gauntlet. This was a signal for the Blind Crows hidden in the dense trees. Suddenly, fifty Blind Knights hidden in the darkness of the dense trees turned their necks in unison. They were blindfolded; they could not see, but they could hear everything. They were identifying where the raindrops were falling just by the sound. Upon receiving the signal, they pull the strings of their ballistas.

​Then the scene shifts and shows the demon, who lets out a scream such that silence falls over the entire forest. The demon lunges toward the commander and reaches near the commander, tearing the ground with his frog-like feet. Seraphina screams loudly. Ballista bolts tear through the air from behind the trees and sink into the demon. One arrow sinks into his shoulder, a second arrow rips through his thigh bone and comes out. Another arrow sinks into his wrist, and one arrow sinks into the elbow bone of his other arm.

​The General gives a signal and the knights start spinning the ballista chain reels like madmen. Then some knights come on their horses and throw thick and strong ropes around the demon's neck and begin to pull the ropes with full strength with the help of the horses. Then the General brings one of his axes and delivers a powerful blow to the demon's shoulder. But the demon's skin is so tough and thick that the axe bounces back. The General cannot give even a scratch to the demon with all his strength, and the demon is glaring at the General.

​Then the General looks into the eyes of the demon. He sees that the demon is crying. The General thinks—why is this demon crying after all? It is possible that because the ballista bolts are embedded in the body, tears have come because of that. And just then, the demon gets angry. He uproots a ballista from the ground with full strength and uses it like a chainball. He pulls the ropes around his neck so fast that the hands of some of the knights who were holding them are ripped off, some knights are ripped apart from the waist itself, and some knights are dragged along with those ropes.

​The demon swings those ropes so hard against the stones that the heads of the remaining knights are shattered into pieces and the entrails of some spill out. Then the Blind Crows sitting on the trees start firing their arrows, but there is no effect on his tough skin. He swings the chains of a ballista and throws them at the knights; some knights are turned into pulp. He does this a few more times and then the ballista chain breaks from his hand and that ballista is shattered into pieces.

​The surviving knights tie the remaining ballista ropes to the trees so that the demon does not pull these as well. The demon has nothing left to kill with, and once again ropes and chains are put around his neck and he is pulled again. Then the demon pulls out the yoke stuck in his chest. He pulls it with so much strength that the sound of his lungs bursting can be heard clearly. He uses that wooden yoke as a weapon and is about to strike the commander when the General comes in between with his strong iron shield.

​But the demon's strike is so dangerous that it divides the General's shield into two pieces and breaks the General's arm bone. That arm bone breaks with such a sound that it is heard by every knight standing there. The General falls right there in the mud and seeing this, the commander goes mad. She screams loudly, dodges the demon's attacks, climbs onto his back, and rips out one eye of the demon with her dagger.

​The commander rips the demon's eye out so hard that even the nerves of the eye break from inside and come out with the eye. The demon screams so loudly in pain that blood starts coming out of the noses and ears of the knights present there. And then the demon grabs Captain Seraphina and slams her against a thick tree so hard that the Captain becomes unconscious right there.

​Just then, both the ankles of the demon's feet are pierced by another ballista arrow and the demon falls right there on his knees. His hot, thick, dark blood turns the water into steam. His body becomes so hot that the raindrops evaporate as soon as they fall on his body. Then the King comes sitting on his black horse and stands near the demon's head. The demon lifts his head and looks toward the King, then the King cuts the demon's neck with his spear. The demon's head goes rolling away from his body and his torso falls on the parapet of that same well, and a fountain of blood erupts from his torso and falls into the well. As soon as his blood mixes with the water, there is nothing but smoke in the well!

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