“Raven, are you alright?” Wolfton asked, supporting him by the shoulder.

  “A little,” Raven replied. “Was this your doing? I didn’t know you could heal.”

  “It’s my passive ability, it allows me to slightly heal my allies and remove debuffs.”

  The two walked slowly toward the crater where Rhodes lay. Tiana and Helga were already there.

  Rhodes began to shrink from her gigantic form. Her dog-like appearance and tattoos started to morph until she was no larger than a house cat, her new body was feline in shape, covered in deep blue fur.

  With teary eyes, Tiana ran over to her, desperately checking her body.

  “Rhodes! Please speak to me! I’m here, you’re not alone anymore, please!”

  Rhodes’ body glowed faintly orange, a sign that she was still alive, just unconscious.

  “I guess this is a mission well done,” Helga said. “Don’t worry, Tiana. Rhodes is fine. When we return to the city, the healers can take care of her.”

  They climbed out of the crater together. Sara was standing close to Jake who, though wounded and battered, stood gallantly as if nothing was wrong.

  “You guys made it,” Jake said, glancing at the beast in Tiana’s arms.

  “That mystic beast… was what you were searching for?”

  Raven’s body tensed. Was Jake going to attack them for revenge? It would be understandable, Rhodes had killed one of his party members.

  Still, if Jake wanted to fight, Raven wasn’t going to back down, though he wasn’t sure he could handle Jake in his current condition.

  Jake walked up to Tiana and gently rubbed her head. He smiled warmly.

  “She’s cute, just like you. Take care of her, hmm? And wipe away your tears; they’ll make me sad too.”

  Raven stared at him, shocked and perplexed. Jake had forgiven Rhodes, even after knowing what she had done to his people. Raven didn’t know how to describe what he was feeling toward Jake.

  But he had a theory as to why Jake had let it go so easily, Jake must have realized it wasn’t Rhodes’ fault. She went berserk because those weird elves pushed her to it.

  Jake looked at Rhodes, not with anger, but pity, as if he understood what it meant to lose control, he is an hulk, he had lost control a lot of time in the past.

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  “So… what are we going to do about them?” Wolfton asked, pointing to Gerald, who stood opposite them. Beside him was Lii-Chen, her clothes torn and bloodied, and on her shoulder was the unconscious Illyana.

  “You guys aren’t planning to keep fighting us, right? We just barely survived a nuke to the face!” Gerald protested.

  “She wouldn’t have gone berserk if you hadn’t invaded her territory!” Wolfton yelled back.

  That’s when they realized they couldn’t understand each other, their words were just noise to the other side.

  “Tch. How can we even make peace if we don’t understand each other?” Gerald muttered.

  Lii-Chen began gesturing with her hands, trying to communicate. The others only stared in confusion.

  “Who understands what she’s trying to say?” Helga asked dryly.

  “Who cares? They’re the ones responsible for all the damage here, they’ll pay!” Jake’s eyes radiated fury as he launched forward explosively.

  He raised his arm to punch Gerald’s startled face

  A loud bang echoed. Gerald fell backward, his breath trembling.

  Jake froze, eyes wide, and so did everyone else.

  Holding Jake’s fist effortlessly was a gray-colored stickman with a vertical scar running across his right eye, and feather-like wings spread behind his back.

  “Quite fiery, aren’t we, Hulk?” the gray stickman said calmly.

  ...

  At the Rodriguez Residence

  Tiana and Rhodes were safely returned home. At first, there was heartfelt joy and gratitude from the family — but it soon turned into a stern, ear-numbing scolding.

  Raven and the others could only imagine what the counselor and his wife went through during Tiana’s disappearance.

  Soon after, they gathered with Counselor Rodriguez and met Dunn Smith, the gray stickman, in a secluded room. He was actually a captain in the Stickman Army. Together with Jake and Sara, they explained everything that had happened in the forest. From the deaths of countless monsters to their encounter with the weird elves, and finally, to Rhodes’ rampage that led to the forest’s near destruction.

  “They truly are ‘weird elves.’ I’ve never seen anyone like them,” Captain Dunn said grimly. “The army will take them into custody.”

  He looked at his notes. “But from your report, these ‘weird elves’ were five in number, three males, two females.”

  “Yes,” Jake confirmed.

  “We only found four,” Dunn continued. “The fifth might be buried under the debris. I didn’t sense anyone else besides those four and you five…”

  Raven’s heart skipped a beat.

  He never told anyone about the cloaked man, but he had a theory, the missing person Dunn mentioned had to be his doing.

  ...

  Elsewhere, In a Dark Room

  “Gasp!”

  Aone, the load bearer of the humans, suddenly jerked awake as if from a nightmare. His breathing was shallow and fast; beads of sweat ran down his face.

  “Where… am I?” he muttered. The room was pitch black until a harsh light shone from above, forcing him to squint.

  “You’re awake, hehe,” a voice echoed from the shadows.

  A figure stepped into the light.

  “Who are you? Where am I?” Aone demanded.

  “Who am I, and where are you?” the man replied mockingly.

  “Call me Iode and from now on, you’ll worship me… for I raised you from the dead.”

  Aone jolted. “I… died?!”

  “Of course you did. You took a nuke half the size of the Hiroshima bomb to the face,” Iode said with biting sarcasm.

  Aone frowned. “Then why’d you revive me?”

  “Because,” Iode said, lowering his hand over Aone’s trembling face, “from now on… you’re my pawn.”