Chapter 39 "Thorn"

Chapter 39
Thorn

“Uh-oh,” Raven says as she stops just several hundreds of yards away from the river of the dead.

The Dark Team, except Logy, can clearly hear moaning, grunting and growling coming from the river. They can also barely see a few souls trying to reach their hands out of the dead green water and trying to grab the edge of the land.

”What’s wrong?” Knapp asks.

“I forgot that there are guards for the river.” Raven snickers. “They’re there to stop anyone from stepping into the river and dying. It’s too bad, right? You wouldn’t want them to alarm Death King, right?”

That’s when they notice a few demon guards standing close to the river of the dead. They are wearing simple silver knight armors, except one of them who is wearing a simple pink soccer jersey with a pair of red cleats.

“Well, then… If you’re leaving this planet, can I go with you?” Raven asks with obvious hope in her orange snake-like eyes.

”Not yet,” Knapp says as he pats his hand on Logy’s back, making the demon cross her arms and pouting. “Are you up for the warm up?”

“What, you’re already starting off with him?” Johnny asks tiredly in surprise. “Don’t you normally save him for the last because you want to save his strength for reading other people’s minds?”

Logy begins to stretch one of his arms as he says with his voice, “It used to. Now it barely uses a fraction of my mind energy.”

“Halt!” A demon guard yells when he spots six people and one demon approaching closer. If it wasn’t for him yelling at them, they wouldn’t have noticed that he was constantly bouncing his soccer ball on each of his limbs.  “You’re way too close to the river of the dead. If you fall in, not only you but also your soul will be gone forever. Do you have a death wish?”

“Wait, wait! Is that you, Thorn?” Raven asks in surprise.

Thorn grins widely, bearing his shark-like teeth as he runs his hand through his sweaty black hair. His soccer ball lands on his lifted knee, bouncing without any issue. “Raven! What are you doing here? With uh…” He briefly glances up at the tall humans with his suspicious narrow yellow eyes. He remembers to continue his question, “Um, big freaks like them?”

“They are…” Raven briefly turns to the Dark Team. “My new friends! They fed me pretty well!” She pats her stomach but not without chortling. “Mind if you let us cross the river?”

“Of course…” Thorn bounces his soccer ball in the air, pulling back his leg. As he kicks it hard at Raven, he laughs out loud. “Yes, I do mind! Death King warned me that he would kick my ass if I let you get your way! Even expel me from the kingdom!”

Before it can hit her in the face, Logy suddenly appears just in time to kick the ball back. 

“Wahh!” Raven cries as she falls back to the rocky floor.

Thorn’s grin widens even larger as he easily catches the ball with his own foot. “You play soccer too?”

Logy returns a grin of his own. He recalls a few times when he played simple and fun soccer games with Ketsu and Katja several years ago. “Want to play?”

“First time someone ever asked me. Well, then… Why not?” Thorn moves his foot around with the ball until he stops it on the floor. His foot starts to glow in purple energy, which is being distributed into the soccer ball. “Can you handle it this time?”

He starts running towards Logy and dribbling the soccer ball at the same time. Just as he looks up from the ball only to get startled by his opponent’s sudden appearance.

Logy is about to hit the ball with his foot but Thorn quickly rolls back the ball and then kicks it hard upward with the back of his foot. The deaf warrior easily hits it back with a round kick, especially with a long leg of his own.

The ball finally lands hard on the floor with a loud thud just like you drop a bowling ball. It is now sitting in a new small hole.

“You changed its mass?” Logy asks, completely impressed. It must be like a half ton.

Thorn’s thoughts had told him nothing about changing the mass of the soccer ball before then. Logy asks, “Do you have weight energy? Have you been dribbling with that heavy weight this entire time?” 

He didn’t break his foot when he kicked that ball? Thorn chuckles lightly as he glances back at the deaf warrior.

“Are they even fighting?” Gules asks in amusement. 

“Maybe. Logy seems to be having fun,” Knapp says. “That soccer ball, though…”

Thorn places his foot on the soccer ball, changing its weight once again. “I hope you play longer than the opponents I’ve ever played with in the past. The longest I’ve ever played was only two minutes.”

“Well, then… play with me as long as you like!” Logy says cheerfully.

As soon as Thorn stops running so he can hit the ball one more time, Logy quickly gets there first. Both of their feet hit the ball at the same time, causing a collision to toss it higher in the air.

“Fuck!” Thorn yells.

Logy jumps up higher until he hits the ball back with a powerful axe kick. Changing the weight reminds me of Jade’s gravity power. There’s not much difference at all, except I guess Thorn is using it on objects.

“Shit!” Thorn barely dodges from the soccer ball only to watch it bounce and then go into the river. Several see-through hands greedily grab onto the ball until they pull it into the green water completely. He says tearfully, “My ball…”

“Here you go, Captain!” One of the demon guards randomly comes up to Thorn and hands a new soccer ball to him.

Thorn glances at the mind reader with so much hate in his yellow eyes. White energy is being gathered around one of his feet.

Logy raises an eyebrow as soon as he catches Thorn’s thoughts: This time, he will have a hole in his chest!

As soon as Thorn drops the soccer ball, he kicks it hard. It is going at nearly the speed of the light, heading straight for Logy within a mere second.

A half smirk is being formed on Logy’s face just in time he leaps backward, evading the ball attack completely. As soon as the ball lands on the ground and bounces off towards him, Logy hits it back with another round kick.

“Wha--” Thorn doesn’t even finish a word when the ball slams him in the stomach, taking him across the red rocky floor.

“And, that’s the final whistle,” Logy says jokingly as soon as Thorn lands his back on the ground with a light thud.

“Whoa… I didn’t know that he was that strong!” Raven says. She briefly looks at the remaining Dark Team members. Half of them are not even paying attention to the battle. Johnny is yawning. Clear is working on her smart tablet. That explains why they are less worried about him.

“It was more of a one-on-one soccer game than a fight,” Jade says in amusement. This time, Raven is staring at him in disbelief.

“Right.” Gules laughs out loud. Raven stares at him in disbelief as well.

“Captain!” One of the demon guards cries in panic.

“Let’s see… one, two, three…” Jade starts counting the number of the demon guards who are freaking out over the unconscious Thorn. “Five of them. Is that enough, Gules?”

“More than enough.” Gules slams his fist on his other open palm, displaying a grin on his face. 

“I got it!” Clear yells as she jogs over to Knapp who is casually talking with Logy doing his stretches. “The location of the core! It’s on the top of the mountain.”

“So, Raven wasn’t lying after all,” Knapp says. “Either way Logy would’ve caught her if she was, right?”

“Of course, but after reading a few demons’ minds, their thoughts remind me of Nyx. Messy, chaotic, and disorganized thoughts,” Logy says, sneaking a few peeks at Gules and Jade kicking the demon guards’ butts.

“They’re a little bit unpredictable,” Kawaii says. “After all, Death King created them but obviously nobody is perfect.”

“If Death King created them… doesn’t that make him a god as well?” Logy asks.

“You can say that he’s pretty close to a god. He once fought against Light and Dark Gods a long time ago for a god position- even before Double God came into existence.”

“One more reason why we don’t want to alert Death King that we’re here.” Knapp jerks his head towards the enormous mountain. “Let’s go.”

“So, how do we cross the river?” Gules pulls his red gloves a little bit. Defeating the remaining demon guards is a piece of cake for him and Jade both.

“You’re still going?” Raven asks. “Didn’t you hear what I said before?”

“Takakai, Ezekiel,” Knapp commands as he slashes his sword through the air. An invisible power splits the river in the half in an instant. That makes Raven drop her jaw all the way down to the floor.

“Impressed?” Clear giggles as she uses her fingers to lift Raven’s jaw to close her mouth.

“I might have overdid it. I hope Death King didn’t detect my power. Let’s hurry.” Knapp jumps down in the empty part of the river, followed by his team. The souls inside the river are crying from the wall and thrusting their arms out of the river.

“H-hold on!”

Raven looks up to find Thorn already jumping down. She beams evilly at him. “Thorn, I thought you died.”

“Shut up.” Thorn snaps as he is bouncing his soccer ball on his head. “I’m curious what you plan to do with the core.”

“Should we let him?” Johnny asks tiredly only to get a shrug from Knapp. “I see you don’t care either…”